Even When You Lie to Me

by Jessica Alcott

  “Been working at my dad’s office in the city. The money sucks, but I got to go to a lot of gigs for free.”

  “Oh yeah? Like who?”

  He reeled off a list of names I’d never heard of, but Lila nodded appreciatively. Jason hadn’t glanced at me once.

  Two other guys appeared behind him. I vaguely recognized them from school; they were a year behind us. One was bare-chested, with faintly outlined abs but enough pudginess at the edges that you could tell he would run to fat in a few years. The other was wearing a striped polo shirt, khaki shorts, and flip-flops; his body was as well maintained as an expensive racehorse’s. He surveyed the landscape like he was looking for flaws in it, with the kind of casual authority that suggested long summers at his family’s vacation house upstate. They both had on shell necklaces. Maybe they’d bought them together as a douchey alternative to friendship bracelets.

  I became aware of my heartbeat, pulsing into my fingertips. It wouldn’t be long before they noticed me; they were watching Lila, but they knew Jason had claimed her already. And sure enough, polo shirt was looking at me now, up and down, not in appreciation but with something that seemed like amusement. I felt naked despite my clothes. He was bored, clearly, but I was less boring than staring off into space.

  “Nice outfit,” he said. “You can’t afford a bathing suit?”

  A hot flush spread on my face like a stain. “Guess not,” I managed to say eventually.

  “Seriously? Are you poor or something?” He was interested now. He leaned forward slightly and smirked.

  “No, I’m not poor. I just don’t like swimming.”

  “You don’t like swimming? Who doesn’t like swimming?” His pudgy friend’s head swiveled in my direction. “Did you hear this, Mike? She doesn’t like swimming.” He laughed.

  My throat was so dry that the words stuck there until I coughed them up. “No, I don’t. What does it matter?”

  My defiance was a mistake; it only piqued his interest. He sat down on the edge of my lounger, his straight white teeth bared in a grin.

  “Why would you come here wearing that?” he said. He laughed again when I didn’t answer. “You got a boyfriend?”

  My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my teeth. I trained my eyes on my hands, hoping that if I didn’t look at him he’d disappear. My skin was almost blue, and I could see every line on my knuckles.

  “Guess that means no?” He tapped my leg with his sunglasses. “You know, Mike’s single. I’m not making any suggestions here, but maybe you two could help each other out.”

  I didn’t look up. He had to go away eventually. Had to. Had to.

  “Austin…,” Mike said. He glanced at me and then away again before he had to meet my eyes. He turned toward the pool and ran his hand through his hair.

  “Sorry if you’re gay or something. I mean, with Lila as a friend I wouldn’t blame you. But there’s not much substitute for, you know”—he lowered his voice—“for dick, is there?” I flinched. “Mike knows a little something about that, don’t you, Mike?”

  “Fuck off, Austin.” Mike raised one leg and kicked him awkwardly in the back.

  Austin grinned with all his big white teeth. “I think he’s into it.”

  “Come on, man,” Mike said.

  I couldn’t look up. They had to leave, didn’t they? What was Lila doing? I was sure everyone was watching us.

  “No?” Austin said. “The girl’s got a lot of pent-up feelings that I bet she’d be willing to express for you.” He leaned in so far I could see his shadow on my legs. “What do you say? I think he’d even buy you a bikini.”

  I was too terrified to feel the anger I knew would come later. The only way I’d learned to deal with guys like him was to play dead until they left.

  “Talk to you tomorrow, then, Lila?” Jason’s voice broke through the static like an orchestra coming into tune. “You ready, guys?”

  Austin rapped his knuckles on my shin. “Consider my proposal, okay? See you in school.”

  I didn’t breathe until they’d gone through the gate, huddled together and laughing.

  Lila settled back on her lounger. “Jason got hot. Shame he thinks Nickelback is the cutting edge of music.” She’d missed the entire thing. I was almost grateful.

  I looked at her. “Take me home. Now.”

  That night my mother knocked on my bedroom door, which I’d accidentally left ajar.

  She peered through the gap when I didn’t respond. “Can I come in?”

  “Mm,” I said. I turned back to the page I’d been staring at. I was lying facedown on my bed, my feet on the pillow, my face hidden behind my hair.

  “Got another new book?” she said. “Is it good?”

  I shrugged. The words had been swarming in front of me like a cloud of gnats.

  She stepped inside, still in her work suit. Even after a full day she was perfectly made up, her skirt freshly pressed, her hair lying flat in its neat curtain. She was forever moisturizing and touching up and reapplying, as if her skin were a mask that concealed some clawing deformity and only her constant vigilance kept it in place. When I was young I thought one day I’d want to learn her rituals myself, but I never did (what difference would it make?) and now I knew I was disappointing. She wanted a daughter whose hair she could braid while they lay entwined on the couch, who’d go shopping with her and clap at her new top, who’d trade hair straighteners and boyfriend anecdotes. The more she wanted me to be that girl, the more I felt the shadow of the daughter she wanted pressing up against me, crowding me out.

  She sat down on the edge of my bed, barely dimpling the sheets. We were silent for a few moments as she absentmindedly stroked my hair.

  “I wish you’d let me cut this,” she murmured, and I pulled away and said, “I like it like this.” She held her hands up and then sank them into her lap as if to stop them from wandering into more trouble.

  “So what did you get up to today?” she said finally. She glanced away as she asked, as if she was afraid I wouldn’t answer if she looked at me directly.

  I shrugged. I felt like any answer would expose me—I’d start crying and wouldn’t be able to stop. I hated the thought of her seeing me like that.

  “You went out with Lila, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  She paused and then tried again. “And how was that?”

  “Fine.”

  “Can you give me an answer longer than one word?”

  “Nope.”

  “I walked into that, didn’t I?” she said.

  I sighed and turned toward her a little. “Going out with Lila is just…”

  “Just what?”

  “It’s just…I don’t know. Anyway, she was happy. She found a new boy to pursue.”

  “Did she?” She shuffled her feet, which were still bound in panty hose. With her shoes off they looked like mannequin feet, the toes all fused together, the seam in the fabric the edge of her plastic mold. “And what about you? And boys?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

  “You know—” she started carefully.

  “No,” I said. “Please don’t.” Tears welled in my eyes.

  “Oh, sweetheart, what’s wrong? Did something happen today?”

  “No, I’m just…I just hate going back to school,” I said. I sat up to distract myself from crying, and as I did, I cracked my head on the shelf of books that hung on the wall above my bed.

  “Ouch,” my mother said, wincing as if she’d done it herself, and her hand went to my head again, and then I was crying, hard. I leaned into her lap and she smoothed my hair down as I sobbed.

  “It’s okay if you’re nervous,” she said after a minute. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  When I didn’t respond, she said, “I remember the day I took you to preschool for the first time. You were fine until I tried to leave, but I looked back just as I got to the door, and you were staring at me with this look of absolute betrayal.
You started sobbing and tried to run to me, but your teacher picked you up and waved me away. When I got to the car I sat there and cried for I don’t know how long. It felt like hours.”

  I couldn’t remember any of it. “What did I do when you picked me up?”

  “You begged me not to take you back there.”

  “Did you?”

  She hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  She shook her head. “I thought I had to.”

  We were silent again. I let her massage my scalp, and I relaxed slightly, though my eyelids were puffy with tears. I felt pleasantly hollowed out from crying.

  “Charlie,” she said finally, in such a way that I knew she was bracing herself for my reaction, “your dad and I want you to start an extracurricular activity this year.”

  “What? Like what?” I twisted around so I could see her better. Her nostrils looked sinister.

  “Well, I know not to hope for a sport”—her lips curved up slightly—“but what about the band? You liked the clarinet. Or an academic club?”

  I sat up; my head throbbed. “You know how I feel about marching bands.”

  “For one, high school marching bands do not look like Hitler Youth—”

  “Is this because of your job? You think I need to achieve more or something?”

  “No, of course not,” she said. She looked down at her nails. “I know you and your dad enjoy having your little club down there—”

  “Our little club? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She stopped, looked away, and started again. “Your dad has everything under control. The truth is I should be pushing you harder. I think it would help if I did.”

  “You mean for college? I thought we agreed I’m going to apply early to Oberlin, so it’s not going to make much difference now.”

  “I know. It’s not that.” She looked at me, almost defiantly. “Charlotte, I just think you’d benefit from having a few more friends.”

  “I have Lila,” I said.

  “Lila’s not exactly— Okay, but don’t you think you’d like to have more than one?”

  “Wow,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “No,” she said, “I didn’t mean to— You just depend on your dad so—”

  “I love how every time you say something you make me feel worse.”

  “It’s wonderful that you two are so close,” she said, “but if you’d just…”

  “Do you think I need a boyfriend or something?”

  “Of course not,” she said, but I was sure I could hear different in her voice.

  “Ah,” I said. Tears smudged my vision again and I bit my tongue, hard, to clamp them inside. “Did Dad actually have something to do with this? I’m going to talk to him.”

  I started to get up, but she held my arm.

  “Don’t,” she said. “I haven’t discussed it with him yet, but I know he’ll support it.”

  “You mean you thought I’d do it if you said he was behind it.”

  She smiled a little as if she knew she’d been caught, but she didn’t say anything.

  “You think you can force me to make friends?” I said.

  “I certainly can’t force anyone to like you.” Her eyes widened, as if she was surprised she’d said it. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “But…but I think it’s never a bad idea to meet new people and be in new situations.”

  “I already know everyone at my school,” I said. “There’s no one new to meet. New situations aren’t going to make us friends if we’re not friends already. Weren’t you just telling me you regretted making me go to preschool when I wasn’t ready?”

  She looked down again. “I did regret it at first. But after a week you were fine. Better, in fact, than you’d been when you were at home.”

  I sat back. “Well, I don’t remember that. And maybe things are a bit different now, since I’m not four years old anymore.”

  “Of course they are. But I think I need to push you when you don’t want to be pushed sometimes.”

  My head was throbbing again, but not from the bruise. “You know what? I think you need to back off.”

  Her eyes took on the hard, glittering cast I dreaded. “You need to join an extracurricular activity this year,” she said. “You can have a week from tomorrow to decide which one.”

  “And what if I don’t?”

  “Then you’ll be grounded until you find one. And Lila can’t drive you to school. You’ll have to take the bus.”

  There was no point in arguing with her; she’d increase the punishment the more I fought her. Of course she wouldn’t understand how horrible school was. She’d been popular and pretty; I’d seen her yearbook picture, all straight white teeth and high blond ponytail. We’d have hated each other. Or at least, she would have hated me.

  She stood up. “Good night, Charlie. I’m sorry it had to happen this way. I think you’ll come to thank me in the end.”

  “I’m sure,” I muttered. She pretended not to hear as she closed the door behind her.

  “It’s BS, I agree,” Lila said the next morning as I rested my throbbing head against my chair. There was a knot where I’d banged it the night before. “Just freak her out and join the cheerleading squad.”

  “Are you kidding? She’d be delighted.” I clutched my backpack to my chest. “What will take the least amount of effort and social interaction?”

  “You could work in the school library but I think they’re just as afraid of you as the one in town is,” Lila said. “I’m not saying you should be proud, but…”

  “They are not af— Just because you’re illiterate, you don’t have to mock people who can read.”

  “Cosmo comes out once a month; that is more than enough reading material for me,” she said. “But listen, we have to concentrate on my goals for the year. I need something other than worrying about college. And do not tell me that Chatham Valley is always looking for fresh blood.” Chatham Valley was the local community college, a place her parents’ money ensured she’d never go, even if her grades hadn’t been as good as they were. She played down her academic achievements, but she was one of the top students in our class.

  “Number one is not getting me killed when you’re searching for a hairbrush while going seventy on the interstate.”

  “Realistic goals.” She was tapping in letters now, her fingernails clicking against the glass.

  “Who are you texting?” I asked, glancing at the wall clock. Two minutes till the morning bell. I pressed my hand against the bump on my head as if I were trying to stop it from spreading.

  “What?” Lila said, looking up. “Oh, just some dudebro I gave my number to at ShopRite.”

  This always happened to Lila. We didn’t talk about the fact that it didn’t happen to me.

  “Classy. What’s he saying?”

  “Ugh, some come-on involving numbers and abbreviations. I’m just blowing him off.” The bell sounded. Lila fell back in her chair and groaned. “Calculus first period. Stanford is not going to be pleased with my grade. Which will be a D.”

  “I’ve got Math for Stupids with Gorgon. She already hates me from study hall with someone who wouldn’t shut up half the time.”

  Lila narrowed her eyes at me. “We’ll discuss my awful influence on you in English, okay? I have things to cosine.”

  I got up, steeling myself for the long walk to my classroom. The first day back was risky—I might see people I recognized, or ones I could quickly smile at, but I might also run into people who’d mutter things I couldn’t quite hear or nudge their friends and laugh. I wasn’t one of the worst outcasts—the ones who wore sweatpants to class, the ones who were glazed with religious fervor, the ones who grasped your arm and wouldn’t let go when they talked to you. It was mostly because I had Lila. But there was always a threat bubbling underneath my time at school, that someone might say something cruel and collapse the ordinary day I’d been having. Sometimes I wished I lived in a place where
no one would know who I was or care, and I could walk without my head dipped low, always glancing behind me.

  Lila opened the door into a burst of noise; she waved and grimaced and then she was gone. Someone bumped me from behind and made a halfhearted gesture of apology. People stopped suddenly and yelled to each other and glanced at me, then looked away again. A couple stuck to some lockers like tree roots twined together. A boy shoved past me and turned, and when he saw me, his eyes lit up. “Hey, Porter,” he said, and I wondered where I knew him from. His smile looked genuine, but his eyes glittered in a way that worried me. My heart sped up and the knot on my head throbbed with it.

  Finally I made it up the stairs and into my classroom. I was the third person to arrive; Will van der Hoff was at the front, reading a paperback, and Eric Bastian was off to the side, texting someone. I knew Mrs. Morgan didn’t assign seating, so I had my pick. I chose a desk at the edge of the room with the word Boobies etched into the surface next to a peace sign.

  A few kids shuffled in as I drew aimlessly in my notebook. I avoided eye contact with most of them; the majority were juniors, so I didn’t know how many would end up being a problem. Mrs. Morgan still hadn’t arrived, which was unusual. I’d had her for Algebra II the year before, and before class she’d always been behind her desk, sitting ruler straight, her milky eyes focused on the distance, her hair pinned into a bun the color of a weathered seashell.

  The bell rang and the last stragglers leapt to their seats. A small, slight bird of a woman with bad skin and short black hair came through the door and ignored us as she walked toward the desk. The class quieted briefly, but when she continued to pay us no attention, everyone quickly resumed talking. She shuffled some papers, grabbed a binder, and then stepped out in front of us again.

  “Can you all please settle down?” she said in a high, tentative voice. She looked young, and like she was already out of her depth. The noise dipped again, but a girl I didn’t know was still on the phone with someone, and a boy, Stephen Williams, was facing backward, slapping his hands on his chair and laughing. The woman paused, then said again, “Settle down, please, class.”