Tell Me No Lies

by Adele Griffin

  It didn’t even sound like her.

  I couldn’t find Claire in any of the poufy hair and spangle dress photographs from Strickland’s winter and spring formals, but there was an artistic shot of her in the “Students at Large” section, curled up in an armchair reading a copy of The Sound and the Fury. Behind her, past-bloom tulips drooped over their vase.

  No Jay no Jay no Jay.

  I checked and rechecked, running through pages, and then I slid the yearbook off my bed, letting it drop with a thud to the floor. My body was hot with confusion. I lay sprawled there for a while, and knew when I clicked back that I’d been gone from myself, stuck in an absence.

  I shook myself out and reset my thoughts.

  Jay had to be somewhere in that yearbook. I’d read those letters myself. Beyond a doubt, he was a Strickland kid. He talked about the dorms, the kitchen, the campus. It didn’t make any sense. There was something that I wasn’t seeing, something that was right in front of my eyes.

  After a few minutes, I leaned over the bed, hauled up the book, and began all over again, scrutinizing every page, every section, all the way to the endpaper “Campus Candids” jammed with current events and newsworthy highlights of the past year. Back filler, we called it. And that’s where I found the photo.

  It was of a Halloween party, and Claire wasn’t in it. That was why I’d missed it at first. It was eerily out of focus, a group of kids in thrown-together costumes; a witch hat, a zombie, a cowboy, a girl in an outlaw mustache, and him.

  I could still see her eyes shining as she’d told me about the costume store, the day she and Jay had spent together in Philadelphia.

  The Strickland Bash—It Was a Graveyard Smash! l-r Allison Weiss, Kimmy Patterson, Jorge San Fleban, Doug Isaacs, Emily Hotchkiss, Laura Lin, Jazpaul Singh, (and Mr. Moser).

  Mr. Moser, the one in the yeti mask—that was Jay.

  I tore back to the faculty section. I found him in “Administration.”

  James Harrington Moser, Assistant Head of the Upper School.

  Moser: I recognized that name, too.

  James Harrington Moser also taught French literature.

  My eyes burned. James Harrington Moser was not a sweet puppy, the way I’d pictured. Of course, that was probably because he was ten years older than I’d originally assumed. But his wavy brown hair and angular face made him impressive, more handsome than cute. He also seemed like too much of a grown-up to be called hot. He was a man. Why hadn’t I known that, from his letters? He’d been so charming and unsure of himself. In his own words, he’d seemed so young.

  At Argyll, the only cute and youthful male on faculty was Mr. Stewart, a freshman chemistry teacher. To most of us, his looks were kind of a joke. “Alert, alert! Jonathan Stewart alert,” we’d whisper to each other whenever he walked past us, and then we’d laugh to watch him frown bashfully at his shoes. A few of the girls were slightly idiotic about Mr. Stewart, and blocked his initials on their tennis sneakers. I’d even seen his name inside a heart in a bathroom stall.

  James Harrington Moser looked older than Jonathan Stewart, and he didn’t appear to be at all shy, in his politician’s dark jacket and striped tie. But then who was Stephanie Moser, of Claire’s driving license fame? Was she his sister? A cousin? His wife?

  I searched Jay Moser’s face, and even after I’d closed the yearbook, five minutes later, I had to go back in and scrutinize him all over again.

  J. Moser was a teacher, a grown man. James Harrington Moser had written love letters to one of his students, and that student was Claire. When I thought about those letters now, they seemed different, like a magic trick, now you’re a student, thinking about parties and your finals and—Poof!—now you’re an adult, thinking about taxes and your mortgage.

  But he and Claire had been close, once, and when they stopped being close, she came here, with scars.

  The weight of all I didn’t know about them was infinite.

  What had he done to her?

  thirty-eight

  I’d picked a back corner behind the pottery kiln to pin up my collection of hands for AP portfolio midyear review. I’d started it Tuesday and now it was Thursday, and I was just about done. I was surprised to see all my work, all at once, and to look at how many pieces I’d completed.

  I knew that art was unimportant, in the scheme of things. And Mr. Custis-Brown wasn’t exhibiting the work—he just wanted us all to check in with everyone’s progress, like a peer review. So I didn’t know why I was sweating whether I wanted the ink drawing near my chalk study, or which piece should be in the center.

  “A-wimm-a-way, a-wimm-a-way,” Gage sang lightly as she walked past, shaking a box of ballpoint pens. “When you’re done, come see my wall.”

  Gage had chosen the prime space by the door.

  “I love it,” I told her honestly.

  She smiled, running her hands through her hair so it stuck out like the arms of a starfish. “Really?”

  “Yeah, of course.” My eyes roved her paintings, the rough ocean collage, the glinting oils of a frozen puddle, an acrylic brown-green pond in its thickest, earthiest state. All of them were excellent. “It’s so many cool ways to think about water.”

  We walked over to Mimi’s work by the back window. She’d made simple colorful pieces using patterns and grids. You could have framed any of them for a kitchen wall.

  “Solid effort,” Mimi judged herself.

  A few girls had started gathering around my wall of hands, so I crept off shyly, in search of Claire’s self-portraits. It turned out she was hiding her gallery on a wall of Mr. Custis-Brown’s office. Her back was to me as she finished fastening up her last few pieces.

  None of the pieces looked like Claire. The washed green face could have been any girl, and the vampy movie-star sketch she’d made that first day was still cartoonish and wrong. There was a pencil sketch she’d done of an older lady who looked more like her mom than Claire herself. It was as if Claire didn’t really know what she looked like, exactly. Every face was a vague approximation, and not one Claire reminded me of the boldly smiling girl in The Strickland Lamp.

  I was startled when Mr. Custis-Brown came away from his desk to stand next to Claire. They were close together. Too close? Everyone liked Mr. Custis-Brown okay—although he looked gentle, his mind was sharp, and he always had a joke or a clipped-out New Yorker cartoon to pass around.

  But did Claire like him in that way? Were teachers her type?

  I wished I could unthink it, but Claire’s secret wouldn’t let me alone. Whatever had happened last year at Strickland, it had been wrong from the start, and it was partly why—if not the whole reason—Claire had left.

  Maybe I’d solved the mystery of Claire’s Jay, but I wished I hadn’t, and now I couldn’t banish it any farther than this dark, cramped place inside my head. No matter what she thought of me, I’d never hurt her with information I’d gone so sneakily out of my way to unbury.

  Claire must have sensed my gaze on her. When she caught my eye through the partition, we both glanced away.

  Every night, I looked forward to my phone call with Matt, and as the weekend got closer, I started looking forward to that, too. The Glen Mills party would be a blast, he’d assured me the night before—even if Claire and Dave had made their own plans to hit some clubs on South Street.

  “What’s the deal? Are Claire and Dave together?” I asked.

  “I guess,” said Matt. “They’re close. Doesn’t matter. We’ll have fun anyway.”

  I hung up feeling a little worried. Did Matt want to hang out with Claire and Dave, instead of me? And I wished for the thousandth time that Claire and I were friends again.

  Friday afternoon after school, I went poking around my mom’s dresser. Mom was a couple of sizes up from me, and her clothes on my body always looked borrowed. But this time I hit the jackpot with her
lingerie drawer, where I found a peach-silk camisole.

  It was loose, but all I needed was that little edge of lace to show beneath my oversized oxford shirt, plus jeans and boots.

  I also gave myself a spritz from Mom’s Opium bottle. Perfume had never been my thing, but when Theo bought that ounce of Chanel No. 5 for Violetta, it struck me how Colors of Benetton was not exactly a sophisticated choice. If a camisole and expensive perfume worked for Violetta, they should work for me, too.

  When Jonesy and Kreo picked me up later on, I was out the door before my parents could try to reel in everyone for introductions. I leaped like a cat over the salted sidewalk, and slid into the back seat next to Matt.

  “Hey. You smell different,” said Matt.

  “You smell nice,” corrected Jonesy.

  “Thanks.” Score one for Opium, even if the wrong guy had complimented me.

  “We’re heading to Tommy’s instead of that party.” Matt’s voice was toneless. “His parents aren’t around, and he wants to hang in.”

  “Oh, okay.” Disappointment rippled through me. “Not even a stop-off at Glen Mills?”

  “Look, Tommy’s like our brother,” said Jonesy, “and if he’s not on for a big party tonight, then we support. He needs our friendship. He said his Christmas was a bitch.”

  “Tommy’s become such a stoner these days.” Kreo’s voice made it clear that she wasn’t wild to sit around at Tommy’s, either.

  In response, Jonesy turned up the radio.

  The family room at the Powerses’ was already hijacked by the smell of pot. A real bong—until then, I’d seen only Jeff Spicoli’s bong in Fast Times at Ridgemont High—was circulating. Tommy was beached on his favorite wicker saucer chair, dragging deep from a Marlboro. His red-rimmed eyes barely registered me. If Tommy Powers needed my friendship to get him through, he was keeping his gratitude deeply hidden.

  The movie on the VCR was a raunchy ski comedy. I took the edge of the couch as Matt sank beside me. We cracked a couple of Rolling Rocks from the twelve-pack on the table and settled in. But after a few minutes, Matt got up—to use the bathroom, I figured, but when time had passed and he didn’t return, I was glad to have an excuse to leave the room and find him. He seemed extra quiet tonight. I figured he’d be rummaging for snacks, or playing fetch with Furley, but no.

  He wasn’t in the kitchen or breakfast room, or anywhere downstairs, either.

  I knew Tommy’s parents weren’t home, and after a minute, I risked a tiptoe up the main staircase. I hadn’t been on the second floor of this house since that afternoon Walt had taken my picture, and now it felt like a darkly weighted space. I couldn’t shake a sense of Walt’s presence, thin as breath beneath the carpet runner, quiet as fog behind the walls. Faces in the framed wall photographs of the once-happy, once-complete Powers family seemed to watch me as I passed.

  I had a strange sense Matt would be there before I’d even opened the door to Walt’s bedroom, and sure enough, he was sitting on the edge of Walt’s bed, head bowed and hands clasped as if in prayer.

  When he looked up at me, I wasn’t expecting the silent gust of his sadness. It landed like a punch to my heart.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I’m interrupting. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s all right. You don’t have to go.”

  But I wanted to leave. Something was odd with the way Matt was looking at me, like I was an object he’d lost a while back, and now didn’t exactly recognize. I crept over and sat next to him, my arm just touching his. He breathed out, deep, as if trying to deflate whatever was trapped inside. In the sharp cold of the unheated room, I could smell the beer on his breath, the trace spice of Opium on my own skin, and the cling of cigarette smoke in our clothes.

  “You miss him,” I whispered.

  Matt gave a bare nod. “Walt was scared, was all.” His voice cracked just above his whisper. “He was just scared.” Then he asked, “You think God forgave him?”

  “Oh,” I said. “I guess . . . I don’t know.”

  “Do you think he’s going to hell? Like a real hell, for people who do that?”

  “Do what, kill themselves? No.” Then I repeated, more strongly as Matt’s words sank in, “No, Matt. No, of course not.”

  “Even if suicide is a mortal sin, Walt was way too screwed up in his head to know what he was doing.”

  I knew the Ashley family was deeply Catholic. They attended church every Sunday, they sometimes had their priest over for dinner, and I’d even spied a gold-framed portrait of Jesus hanging like some famous ancestor in their dining room. I’d never thought Matt was so Catholic that he genuinely worried about Walt’s standing with God. Did he really believe in a hell, with a devil and a pitchfork for all eternity?

  “Of course he’s forgiven,” I promised.

  “I came up here thinking I’d feel close to him. Stupid of me . . .”

  “I’m sure he’s in a better place,” I offered, though I didn’t really believe any of that, either. A better place was what you said when someone died who’d been sick or old. Walt had been young and healthy, both feet planted firmly on the planet. “Matt, why do you really think it happened?”

  “He said he was having these nightmares.”

  “Yeah, you’d told me that. But was he having nightmares for a specific reason?”

  “Sometimes it’s not the reason, it’s how you deal.”

  “But was there a reason?”

  “I dunno,” Matt answered dully. He was so enclosed in himself tonight that I couldn’t reach him. Through the shadows, his eyes wouldn’t let me in. “I’m glad you came looking for me, actually. I’ve been hoping for a right time for us to talk.”

  “Oh.” I sat up a little straighter.

  “Stripes, you know how bad I wanted everything to work for us. You get that, don’t you? Because in a lot of ways—the most important ways, maybe—you’re one of the best people that’s ever walked into my life.”

  Wanted. Past tense. I heard it and I didn’t hear it, like the dart before the poison. Was Matt breaking up with me? Right here, in Walt Powers’s bedroom? “Okay.” I took a breath. “I mean, what do you think is . . . not working?” My heart was racing so fast I thought I might be sick.

  “It’s not you,” he said. “And it’s not your fault. I’m just not sure I’m ready to have a girlfriend.”

  “What? Why not?” I didn’t even know how to frame the thousand questions in my head. “When did you decide this—what does this even mean?”

  “That’s the thing, I don’t know.”

  “What do you think is wrong with me and you?”

  “Nothing, really.” Matt was looking out Walt’s window like he couldn’t bear to tell it to my face. “The first night I met you, at that mixer, I had a feeling about you. I did. And the reason I didn’t call you then was because I knew that whenever it happened between us, it would be big. And it is.”

  “It feels big to me, too. Even just the way we talk on the phone, or how good it is whenever we hang out.” I thought about Valley Forge, and how Matt never said anything about that, how it maybe hadn’t felt like moving forward? “But I’m not the way you want a girlfriend to be. Is that it?”

  He shifted closer. “You are exactly the way I want you to be. Do you remember that morning on the train, when you said my eyes were the same color as the river? I can’t even explain how good that made me feel. Not in some lame, conceited way, but just to be noticed. And once on the phone you told me about how in soccer, I always try to make team plays and assist on the field, instead of going for the star shot—my own teammates don’t see that. Or how we both knew all the characters in Dune. How we both think the tango looks idiotic but we want to learn it.

  “And I see you, too, Stripes. You’re a real artist. There’s part of me that hopes we’ll know each other forever. But maybe—maybe
you are too young. Or maybe I’m not ready for a full-time girlfriend, but whatever it is, I’m tired of hurting whenever I feel this missing piece between us.”

  “I think we could find it!” I burst out. “This doesn’t make any sense.” But a part of me knew that it did, and that I’d felt defeated by it, too.

  “I wish we could be something better for each other,” said Matt.

  These were the truest things Matt had ever said to me. It was like he’d thrown open a wide window on our relationship, and we were both taking huge, gulping breaths of fresh air. And yet at the same time, I didn’t want to breathe it in at all, because there was nothing better than being Matt’s girlfriend, and losing Matt Ashley, whom I’d adored for so long, felt like the worst thing that could happen to me.

  Whatever I said next, however I left him, alone in Walt Powers’s haunted bedroom, however I got myself downstairs to sit out the rest of the movie, was pretty much a blur. I stared wide-eyed at the TV screen as a pattern of light and sound, my beer a warm, tasteless liquid to keep my throat from closing in. By the time Matt joined me maybe five or maybe twenty minutes later, I knew I’d glitched and returned from an absence seizure; maybe more than one.

  What did it matter? Nobody noticed. I barely noticed.

  On the ride home, together and yet apart in the back seat, Matt already felt like a separate planet, or a boat drifting out to sea. He wouldn’t call me anymore. We wouldn’t hang on the phone, laughing for hours. We wouldn’t make plans. No more linking fingers as we crossed the Argyll parking lot, no more make-out sessions in his car—strange and I guess imperfect as they were, they’d turned my body into something wild and alive and wonderfully unpredictable.