by Lisa Unger
“I know it. I’ve seen her school record. Her teachers here see a lot of potential, too. Mr. Vance speaks very highly of her, her advanced comprehension and her creative writing. I think we can all work together to keep her on track.”
Obviously Mr. Vance hadn’t ratted her out for being so inappropriate in class. For some reason that only made her feel worse about it.
“I’m glad you feel that way,” said Bethany. She seemed to relax a bit. “I think so, too.”
Sitting there looking out the window now at the kids heading to the field for that mundane misery they called physical education but which everyone knew was just school-sanctioned torture for anyone other than the naturally thin and athletic, Willow felt it. As she listened to her mother and Mr. Ivy talk about her behavior, her schoolwork, their expectations, Willow felt the now-familiar dark lash of anger. It turned to something cold and black inside her, and she let herself sink into it.
She’d felt it the first time she realized that her father was gone and that he wasn’t coming back. That he’d call when he should, make all the appropriate appearances, send money and gifts. But that he’d moved on in a way that fathers weren’t supposed to ever move on from their children. And then she finally understood what they’d told her, that he wasn’t her natural father, not her biological father. They’d carefully explained to her over the years that he was her stepfather but it was just the same, that he couldn’t love her any more if she had been his real daughter. But that just wasn’t true, was it? His love for Willow was intimately connected to his love for her mother. And when he stopped loving Bethany, he’d stopped loving Willow, too. He stopped wanting to be her father.
And on the day that this finally dawned on her, she felt this thing settle inside her-but it wasn’t a thing, really. It was this terrible, ugly absence, a hollow. And she didn’t fight it off, though something told her that she should, she should fight it back with all her strength. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. It was like drinking something that made you sick but liking the sickness somehow.
Willow had seen Jolie when they’d entered the school. Jolie was leaning against her locker, and she gave Willow that sly smile she had. The smile asked, Wanna get high, girl? And Willow did. She did want to get high, so high that her whole world was just a small black dot a million miles away. Willow loved that smile of Jolie’s. It made so many promises.
“Are you listening, Willow?”
“Yes. I’m listening.” But, startled, she’d said it with that sullen snap her mother hated. And Bethany’s face changed just like that. It went from open and hopeful to tired and disappointed in a millisecond. And probably nobody but Willow would even have noticed. She’d seen that look a lot. She didn’t think her mother herself was aware of the expression on her face. It wasn’t something she did on purpose, like her stern look or her trying-to-be-patient look. This was the expression that her face took on when all the other masks she wore failed her.
“No more cutting, Willow,” said Mr. Ivy. “If you’re struggling, having a hard day, having trouble with the other kids, teachers, whatever, come see me. I’ll always make time to talk it through.”
He meant it. She could see that in his eyes. He wasn’t a fake, like her stepfather, Richard, with all his expensive gifts and “heartfelt” apologies. Mr. Ivy didn’t want anything in return, didn’t have a guilty conscience to be massaged or a skittish ego to be stroked.
“Okay,” she said. “I promise I’ll do that, Mr. Ivy.”
She offered him a shy smile. Embarrassed-but-trying was the look she was going for. Mr. Ivy seemed to buy it, giving her a warm smile and an approving nod. He leaned back in his chair. Bethany released a breath beside Willow.
“Good. Great,” said Mr. Ivy.
“Well,” Bethany said, slapping her palms lightly on her thighs. “I feel like we’ve accomplished something.”
Lies, good lies, were about more than words. They were about tone, expression, and body language, too. The best lies contain a little bit of truth. Some details, but not too many. More than any of that, though, you had to believe the lie yourself. You had to be the lie.
Her first lie had been about a Britney Spears concert. Her father-and of course she’d always thought of him that way then, because she didn’t know anything else-was supposed to take her to the concert for her thirteenth birthday. Front-row seats, he’d said. He was trying to finagle a backstage pass from one of his clients, but no promises there.
She’d told everyone-and her friends were sick with jealousy, begging to come along. And truth be told, she would much rather have had one of them with her than her father. But he had only two tickets, and Willow’s going alone with a friend was out of the question. But her mom took her to Betsey Johnson and bought her a new top, to Lucky Brand for a new pair of jeans. She felt really grown up, and she rarely had time alone with her dad. So maybe it wasn’t that lame to be going with him.
The night of the concert, Willow and Bethany had pizza while they waited for her dad to come home. They rocked out to the new CD and danced around the kitchen, using spatulas for microphones. He was supposed to be home by seven, but by seven fifteen he still wasn’t there. Bethany called his office and then left a message on his cell phone.
“If you’re caught up at work, let us know. I’ll come get the tickets and take her myself,” she heard her mother say. But he didn’t call back and he didn’t come home. Anxiety gave way quickly to a bone-crushing disappointment.
As eight turned to eight thirty, and eight thirty turned to nine, Willow wept in her mother’s lap. It wasn’t the first time he hadn’t come home when he was supposed to. He had broken other dates and promises. But this was the first time he’d done it to Willow. Usually it was Bethany dressed up and waiting, falling asleep on the couch, the sitter sent home. They weren’t worried about him-that’s what Willow remembered-didn’t fear that something terrible had happened.
In her room she saw a slew of text messages on her phone from her friends. HOW IS IT??? OMG, I’M SO JEALOUS!!! SEND ME A PICTURE OF YOUR OUTFIT!! She could call any one of them and start to cry about her father. No one would judge her; not one of her friends was living with both her biological parents. They were all accustomed to the heartbreak and disappointment of divorce, ugly custody battles, blending families. But she didn’t call them. Something inside her couldn’t stand to lose face that way; she was the one with the perfect family-the famous mom, the successful plastic-surgeon father. She sent a group text: IT’S AWESOME!!! WISH YOU WERE HERE!! PIX TOMORROW!!
Just as she sent it, her mother was standing in the door.
“Willow. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, Mom.”
But she could tell by the look on her mother’s face that she was taking it on, the way she took on everything. And somehow this just made Willow feel worse. She remembered everything about that night. But most of all she remembered that terrible aching sadness as she lay in bed.
Around midnight she heard her father come home.
“Oh, Christ, Beth. I forgot. I got held up in surgery.”
“Bullshit, Richard. Were there even tickets?”
Willow buried her head beneath her pillow against the crescendo of their voices. Then it got quiet for a while. Just as she was drifting off to sleep, she heard the front door slam and her mother start to cry.
The next day Willow told all her friends about the concert-using details she’d gleaned from blogs and videos posted online. No, her dad couldn’t get those backstage passes. But she told them how she’d met this really cute guy when her dad went off to use the bathroom. She gave the boy her e-mail address, because she really didn’t want to give out her number. His name was Rainer; he believed her when she told him she was sixteen years old. She told her friends how her dad took her out for a burger and a shake afterward and she didn’t get home until past midnight. It was the best time ever.
And it was all true. She should have been there-she could imagi
ne every detail, hear the music, feel the excitement. She was there. Her lie told the truth, as it should have been. And there was not a flicker of doubt from anyone. Why would there be?
Somehow, in doing this, Willow felt a little less desperately sad, as though she’d taken back something that had been taken from her. The real truth was just so pathetic. In telling her lies that day, she felt a kind of rare power. She couldn’t control a thing about her life, her father’s persistent and growing absence, her parents’ disintegrating marriage. But she could control its telling.
And she didn’t feel bad about it at all, not about the envy she saw on her friends’ faces, not even about how she had to tell more lies now to sustain the illusion. The imaginary boy she’d met at the concert she’d never attended? The next day they were asking about him. Did he ever e-mail her? Of course he did.
She didn’t know, couldn’t have known, that that first little lie would grow and grow. She couldn’t have imagined the consequences.
“Willow? Are you listening?”
“Of course,” she said. “I am listening.”
They were both staring at her. She straightened up from the slump she’d unconsciously sunk into.
“I promise. I’m on board. I want to do better.”
Willow did want that. She really did. At least in that moment, she wanted to be someone they could both be proud of. She left Mr. Ivy’s office feeling good, optimistic. When she gave her mother a hug good-bye and headed off to advanced calculus, she was sure she’d meant every word she said.
But by the end of the day, she was sinking back into that funk. She’d been brutalized in gym class during a game of softball in which she’d tripped and screwed up a triple play for her team. At lunch she’d sat alone to read but had to endure the snickering, whispering stares of the designer bitches. She and Jolie used to have the same lunch period, but Jolie had apparently been switched after returning from suspension. Willow was pretty sure that Mr. Ivy had a hand in it, wanting to minimize Jolie’s influence. But when Jolie was there, Willow could handle the harpies better; they were almost funny when Jolie was around to point out their flaws: Lola had a big ass; Stacey was flat-chested; Emma was prone to breaking out. But not really. That was just Jolie trying to be funny. Without Jolie there to take the edge off, Willow was left to fixate on them. What was it? Genes? How did they get such silky hair, creamy skin, perfect bodies? And why did it make them so awful? So mean? Was it just because their beauty acted as a kind of armor? They could hurt others, but no one could hurt them. Whatever flaws they had were on the inside; no one could call those out and make them cry.
In the margin of her notebook, she’d doodled, Sticks and stones may break my bones. But words can break my heart.
She’d zoned out in science lab, hadn’t done the reading, anyway. The teacher put a zero in the book, and Willow would have to do extra credit to get it removed.
By the time she was at her locker, removing her things to go home, she was barely holding back a flood of angry, frustrated tears.
“Rough day?” The voice behind her was smoky and mischievous, full of invitation.
“No more than usual,” she lied. She turned to face Jolie with a smile.
“I saw you come in with your mom. You looked miserable. Still do. Don’t let them do it to you, girl. Don’t let them bring you down.”
Willow shrugged. Jolie chewed at her cuticle, looked at her with glittering green eyes through lashes caked with dark mascara. Willow noticed that Jolie’s black polish had chipped to tiny islands in the center of each nail.
“I like your coat,” said Willow. It was a vintage black wool A-line with enormous buttons.
“Salvation Army,” said Jolie. She did a little spin. “Twelve bucks. Cute, huh?”
It would have been cute if it weren’t scattered with stains and white pet hair. This could be said of Jolie, too. She had a kind of beauty, but she looked dirty. She had creamy white skin but a constellation of acne on her chin. Her raven hair always looked like it needed washing. Something about her made Willow itchy.
“Let’s take a walk,” Jolie said.
“I gotta get home. I promised my mom and Mr. Ivy that I’d work harder.”
“So call your mom and tell her you’re going to stay and study at the library. Take the late bus.”
There was that smile. Willow liked Jolie; Willow felt relaxed and easy when she was around, didn’t have that need to make things up to feel better about herself.
“Come on,” Jolie said. She gave Willow a gentle nudge with her shoulder. “You can study later. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
So Willow called her mom, who sounded skeptical but just tired enough to let it slide. Then Willow and Jolie hung out in the library awhile. They tried to look studious with their books open, passing notes back and forth, while they waited for Bethany to call and check up-which she did, predictably, fifteen minutes later.
“She’s here, Mrs. Graves,” Willow heard Mrs. Teaford, the school librarian, say. “Studying hard.”
Jolie buried her face in her arms so no one would see her laughing. Then, when Mrs. Teaford was occupied with a flood of students checking out books and asking questions (what a bunch of geeks!), Jolie and Willow slipped off. Running and laughing down the long gray hallway, then bursting through the side doors, the cold air greeting them in a rush, pushing their laughter up into the sky. Willow wasn’t even sure why she was laughing, except that she felt good for the first time all day. There was an hour and a half until the late bus; she had that long to be herself. Then she’d go home and try to be what everyone else wanted her to be.
chapter ten
At first glance Jones wouldn’t have said Paula Carr was beautiful. She wasn’t the type of woman who caused you to do a double take. She didn’t invite the three-point appraisal: face, breasts, ass-not necessarily in that order. She was a mom, with a stylish short cut to her brown hair but wearing very little makeup other than a light gloss on her lips. She had on faded jeans, a ribbed turtleneck, athletic shoes-nothing about any of it was sexy or hot. But after twenty minutes sitting with her, listening to her chat nervously, watching her spoon-feed her baby girl, wipe down the counter, hard-boil some eggs, then sit down with some tea for them both after depositing the little one in her crib, he found himself captivated by her-her wide pink mouth, her high cheekbones, the depths of her dark eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said when she’d finally settled. “You’re probably wondering why I called and asked you to come here.”
He was wondering about that. When he’d returned her call, she’d asked him to come by in the early afternoon the next day.
“I’ll pay you for your time, of course,” she’d said. “My baby will be taking her nap, and my two older boys won’t be home from school.” She’d spoken in a hushed tone, as though she didn’t want anyone to hear-or maybe so as not to wake the baby. He couldn’t be sure. He’d called to tell her that he didn’t really take care of any properties off his block, but there was something about her voice. By the end of the conversation, he found himself telling her yes, of course he’d come by.
Maggie said, “You never could resist a damsel in distress.”
“What makes you think she’s in distress? Maybe she just needs someone to water her plants while she jets off to the Caribbean.”
“She’d have asked you that over the phone.”
Jones shifted off his coat when Paula didn’t go on right away. In the sunny dining room, he was feeling overly warm. Paula stared down at her mug, started tracing the rim with one short fingernail. She had a nice big diamond on her left hand. Married, maybe not too happily. He wouldn’t have been able to say why he thought this, that she wasn’t happy. There was something odd about the house, too. He wasn’t able to put his finger on that, either.
“Over the summer my husband’s sixteen-year-old son by another marriage came to stay with us. It was supposed to be short-term.”
“Okay.”
“At first I was pretty anxious about it. I mean, Kevin goes to work all day. So I was supposed to hang out with the kid all summer? I have two other small ones, so I’m pretty much being run ragged all the time as it is. But what are you going to do? His mother was having a hard time; Cole needed his father. So yeah, of course he comes here.”
She looked up at the ceiling for a second, and he followed her eyes until he realized that this was something she did to keep herself from crying. When she looked back down, she wore an embarrassed smile but had managed to keep her tears at bay.
“I’m sorry.” It was maybe the fourth time she’d apologized for various little things since he’d arrived. She was sorry that it had taken her a minute to get to the door, that she was running behind with the baby’s schedule, that she hadn’t offered him tea right away. He didn’t think someone with so little to apologize for should be rushing to do it all the time.
“You’re fine,” he said. “Take your time.”
She took a sip of her tea. “Anyway, so Cole arrived. And guess what? He’s a total doll. All summer he helps around the house. He’s great with the kids. After a few weeks, I was leaving him with Cammy-that’s my oldest-while I ran to the store with the little one. Cole’s mother is a disaster, but she must have done something right, because the kid’s a gem.”
“That’s great,” he said. “It could have been a difficult situation.”
He still had no idea what the woman wanted. But if he had learned anything over his years as a cop and a husband, it was that women wanted to take a scenic route to the point. If you were smart, you kept your mouth shut.
“Cole was supposed to go back to New Jersey at the end of the summer. His mother was scheduled to pick him up on August fifteenth. But the day came and went; she never showed. The home phone was disconnected. The voice mail on her cell phone was full. The next weekend Cole and Kevin drove out to her place, only to learn that she’d been evicted. All their stuff was gone. And Robin, that’s Kevin’s ex, had stopped showing up to work a couple of weeks earlier.”