Little Black Lies

by Tish Cohen

  “Eight months.”

  Sloane considers this. “That’s a long time. I bet he has extra nipples.”

  “Maybe he’s a virgin. Or a dieting Mormon who has no energy,” says Willa, grinning at Izz, “but really clean veins.”

  “Oh, that’s hilarious,” snaps Isabella.

  “Can we get back to me?” Carling says. “It’s not like Leo’s pure. Believe me, the guy’s no Mormon. It’s more like, I don’t know, he’s not into me or something.”

  I cross the room and drop my backpack, fully aware I should keep my mouth shut. “Not everyone’s right for each other,” I say. “Maybe Leo’s just being realistic. I mean, it’s not as if he’s going to marry some girl he started seeing when he was in eleventh grade, right? That would be right up there with dating your cousin.”

  “Maybe that’s where he got the extra nipples,” Sloane says from behind the sink. “His parents are first cousins.”

  “Supernumerary nipples are not a joke,” Isabella says hotly. “Lots of people have them. They usually occur along the abdominal part of the milk line, like with animals. Though sometimes they present as high as the neck or face. One woman even had one on the sole of her foot.”

  Carling bends over in disgust and groans. “Stop! Now when I do get him naked, I’m going to be thinking of nipple feet.”

  Sloane just stares at Izzy, shaking her head. “Just when I think you can’t possibly come up with anything more disgusting, you always manage to top yourself. That’s it, ladies. We cleanse our minds by playing Slush Snooker.” She starts setting out small paper cups. “You miss your shot, you drink.”

  “Drink what?” I ask.

  Carling leans over the table and lines up her shot. The ball bullets into a corner pocket. “Who knows?” she says. “Sloane’s slushie shots are one of life’s great unsolved mysteries.” An ice machine whirs.

  “Carling’s right,” says Isabella, placing a pool cue in my hand. “It could contain soy milk, yogurt, extract of pumpkin seed, chocolate sauce, whatever.”

  “Maybe we’ll do mashed Doritos today, in honor of Izzy’s film debut this week in math class,” says Sloane with a sly grin.

  “Don’t be cruel, Sloane,” says Isabella. “It’s unbecoming.”

  “Now, now, children,” says Carling. “I say we let Sloane spike her slushies with the contents of whatever liquid she doesn’t have to get up for.” She waves toward the huge mirrored bar, which is groaning with liquor bottles of every size, shape, and color.

  “Hmm,” Sloane says. “I just got back from yoga class, so I’m feeling a little Zen. We’ll only drink pure, uncolored spirits.” She points to various bottles. “White rum, vodka, gin, and, if you sink the white ball, anise.”

  “What’s anise?” I ask.

  “Liquid licorice,” says Willa, leaning closer to her screen and squinting. “But don’t get excited. By the time she mixes it with her health food, it’ll taste about as yummy as Isabella’s foot nipples.”

  Carling shrieks. “No more nipple talk.”

  Other than the odd sip from Mom’s wineglass, I’ve never had a real drink. To be honest, I hate the flavor and I hate the way it makes me feel all floaty and flu-ish. “I thought we were going to study.”

  “So bookish is our London.” Carling positions her cue in front of the white ball and takes her shot, sending the solid blue ball ricocheting around the table, eventually smacking back into the white ball, which narrowly misses the side pocket.

  Sloane does a little pouring and mixing, then sets a squishy cuplet on the edge of the table, where Carling picks it up and inspects it. “This isn’t white, it’s pus green.”

  Sloane holds up a narrow bottle. “Spirulina. The Russians say it cures radiation poisoning. You’ll thank me if you ever have to eat rice grown at the ruins of Chernobyl. Hey, that’s an Izzy-type fact.” She sticks out her tongue at Isabella.

  Carling downs it and grimaces. “Tastes like you scooped it out of a dirty fish tank.” She crumples the cup, tosses it behind the bar and looks at me. “Your turn, London. Pray like hell you’re a good shot.”

  I’ve never played snooker in my life. I set myself up behind the white ball and shoot, missing the striped ball and grazing the red felt of the tabletop instead. I lean over and inspect the damage. “I scratched it. Sorry.”

  The little cuplet of green icy slop is passed by Sloane to Isabella (who sniffs it and feigns gagging), then to Carling and finally to me. With no other choice, I tilt back my head and let the rancid slush slide down my throat, nearly retching it back up onto the table.

  After a few more rounds of Slush Snooker, Willa has gone back to her laptop, Carling and Isabella are giggling drunk, and I feel like I have the plague. My head hurts, I’m shaky and nauseated, and I want to go to bed. The last snooker shot is mine, and it surprises no one—least of all me—that I sink the white ball. So this time Sloane passes me the licorice-spirulina mixture. I sip, but the slop is so vile I choke, sputtering the terrible green slush all over the carpet.

  “No worries,” says Carling before I can speak. “It’s why we have a Molly.” She presses a button on the wall and calls into the speaker, “Molly, cleanup on aisle four.”

  Molly’s voice answers, “Coming, Miss Carling.”

  “Don’t bother her. I’ll clean it up.” I head behind the bar and find a rag and some seltzer water, then return to dab at the spot.

  Molly arrives with a cleaning basket full of supplies and looks shocked to find me on my hands and knees. “No, no,” she says, shooing me away.

  “It’s okay. I’m good at this.”

  Sloane peers over my shoulder. “Actually, she is.”

  Isabella laughs. “God, London. That’s impressive. Scrubbing the floor comes so naturally to you.”

  I drop my rag as if it’s burning my hand.

  Carling giggles, pulling me to my feet so Molly can get down on the floor and finish the job. “I wonder what the Genius Theory would say about our London’s future?”

  I allow myself to be led away, suddenly more nauseated than ever. I know exactly what the Genius Theory would say and it terrifies me. My mother’s a cook and my father’s a janitor. It’s well documented that I can’t cook. So guess what’s left?

  When Carling’s mother, Gracie, insisted I stay for dinner, my first instinct was to dig my bike out of the bushes and pedal home fast. The thought of sitting in a big edgy space between Carling and her parents filled me with dread. So I told Gracie no. Said it was my dad’s birthday and I had to get home. Which is true.

  Then Carling smiled at me and asked if my new yoga pants can go in the dryer. I turned to Gracie and told her I’d love to stay.

  Isabella, Sloane, and Willa were picked up a few minutes later by Isabella’s mother. It wasn’t until they were heading out the door that Isabella realized I was staying. She actually slithered back into the foyer and offered to stay a bit longer, but her mother wouldn’t allow it, complaining she’d given up enough writing time to carpool; she wasn’t leaving the house again. As Mrs. Latini headed down the darkened walkway, Isabella muttered, “Leave, bitch.” Whether she was talking to me or her mother, I can’t say.

  One thing is certain. Isabella’s usefulness to Carling is being shaken and she doesn’t like it one little bit.

  We sit at the see-through table surrounded by teetering books, Carling and I along the sides, Gracie at one end. With Barbra Streisand playing in the background, Gracie hums tunelessly to the music. “What did you say your last name was, Sara?”

  “Black.”

  She thinks for a moment, going through her mental Rolodex of families in her social circle. “The Back Bay Blacks? Or the Charleston Blacks?”

  “Mom, you’re sounding embarrassingly old lady,” says Carling.

  “Carling tells me you had the highest grade in your math class yesterday.”

  I smile. “I’m kind of math obsessed. Birth defect, I guess.”

  “Really? Carling’s older
brother is gifted in math and science. He’s at Harvard Medical School. Where Carling is meant to go.” She glances at her daughter. “If she can pull off grades like yours.”

  “I will, Mom,” says Carling. “London’s my new study partner.”

  Gracie smiles. Her eyebrows drift skyward and she sizes me up anew. “Well. I hope you have better luck with her than her last tutor did.”

  The room goes silent and I struggle to break the tension with a cute remark. All I come up with is, “That’s cool you’re going to be a doctor, Carling.”

  Carling mutters, “I don’t have a freaking choice, do I?” Then she raises her voice and winks at Gracie. “My mother didn’t get into med school, did you, Mom? Things didn’t go so well at Ant. So now every one of her offspring has to pay for it.”

  “Carling,” says Gracie with a frown. “We’ve had this discussion. Lawyers only bide their time until something better comes along. You become a doctor and you’re set up for life.”

  Molly comes in with a tall pitcher and fills our water glasses, and, at Gracie’s insistence, our wineglasses. Carling’s imposing father, with hair that rises toward the ceiling like angry black flames, at least six feet tall and as broad as the doorframe he passes through, walks in wearing nothing but a faded-to-pink Harvard sweatshirt and baggy paisley boxers.

  There’s something arresting about seeing an award-winning composer in his underwear, even if his career is teetering on the brink. It makes him seem far crazier and far more dangerous than the drunken vagrant that might flash you in the park. The guy in the park is underfed, weak, probably psychologically unsound. Right off the bat, he’s at a disadvantage. The composer with his bad reviews and hairy knees parked under the glass table is different. He’s well fed, pampered, and annoyed. His exposure is part of his power. Like a 450-pound Bengal tiger, he cannot be forced into a pair of corduroys or jeans in the name of social acceptance. Like the tiger, he’d like to see you try.

  Gracie sighs and drops her forehead into one hand, rubbing her temples. “Honestly, Brice, we have company. Put on a pair of pants.”

  “My house. My rules.” He narrows his eyes and looks at me. “Who are you?”

  “Sara.”

  “You drink, Sara?”

  Does he know about the Slush Snooker? My spill on the carpet? I have no idea what to say. He’s the scariest-looking man I’ve ever met. Under the table, Carling gives me a kick, which, of course, everyone can see. “Not really,” I say.

  He nods toward my glass. “That wine costs about seven hundred and fifty bucks a glass.”

  “Brice,” says Gracie.

  He looks surprised. “What? I’m just saying she should enjoy it, that’s all.”

  “We were saving that bottle. It was the last—”

  “There’ll be more bottles like it. Young girls should grow up enjoying the finer things in life. Wine and”—he waves toward his hairy legs—“absolute comfort.” He looks at Carling. “Right, Ladybug?”

  Carling picks at her bamboo placemat.

  “I hear from Griff Hogan’s father that you got your math tests back,” Brice says.

  Gracie sets her wineglass down too hard and, barely perceptibly, nods toward me. “Don’t start up, Brice. You and I have already discussed Carling’s mark.”

  “But I haven’t discussed it with her.” He stares at Carling. “Sweetheart, how did you do?”

  “Seventy-nine.”

  He’s silent for a moment, and from the way he sits back and half smiles, I can tell he’s enjoying this moment like the tiger enjoys watching a wounded deer bleed to death. “Seventy-nine … seventy-nine. Not quite up to Harvard standards now, is it?”

  “But London, I mean Sara, is my new study partner and she got the highest mark in the class. We’ll be so ready for the next test.”

  “Still means you’re going to do without your cell phone for a week.” He holds out his hand and waits while Carling blinks back tears of humiliation, then yanks it out of her pocket and slaps it into his palm.

  He sets it beside his plate and looks at me. “So Sara has a talent for math, does she?”

  “Yeah,” says Carling. A sly grin spreads across her face. “Sara’s dad is a neurosurgeon. So she must have grown up surrounded by the right sort of brilliance. And education.”

  The ultimate slur against a man whose claim to fame, I’ve heard in the halls, is that he learned to compose music by ear, with no formal training whatsoever. He graduated from a small Boston public school and scrabbled to songwriting success without the benefit of the prestigious musical training of his peers. Brice’s hair seems to blacken and smolder under his daughter’s implication, and the air around us grows pungent and charred. Hard to breathe. He raps his clenched fist against the table softly, saying nothing.

  Gracie comes to the rescue. “To Carling, our future pediatric surgeon. And to Sara, our future … what is it you want to do with your life, Sara?”

  My wineglass shakes in my hand. “Um, I’m not quite sure yet.”

  She grins. “And to Sara, who’d better decide soon.”

  Everybody drinks, so, despite the fact that my stomach feels like a rusty metal can, I drink too.

  Just then, Molly backs through the swinging door from the kitchen. In her hands is the roast beef whose existence she’d denied a few hours earlier. Gracie stands up to clear space on the table for the enormous silver platter.

  Brice inhales. “Your roast smells delicious, Gracie.”

  She blushes and spoons teensy roasted potatoes onto my plate. “Just something I threw together. Nothing special.” Just like that, Barbara and Ted’s generosity is squashed flat. I guess all the x’s and o’s in the world can’t buy a little gratitude.

  Carling rolls her eyes and picks a sprig of parsley from the tray, stuffing it into her mouth.

  Gracie looks at me. “Is your father at Massachusetts General, Sara?”

  Shit.

  I drop my fork. I’m the very worst daughter on earth. I forgot all about my father’s birthday. This, his thirty-fifth birthday, his first since she moved out. He’s home alone … sort of. Just Charlie and his obsessive-compulsive disorder watching TV side by side in the dark.

  chapter 16

  hungry man dinner

  Pedaling across the bustling city in the cool night air blows the suffocating Burnack-family atmosphere—like a noxious gas—out of my system.

  With no reflectors on my bike, I’m not willing to risk death by riding on the road, gliding in and out of the Saturday-evening traffic. Instead, I guide my bike through the unhurried pedestrians on the well-lit sidewalks, making my journey home twice as long as it should be but mathematically doubling my odds of survival.

  It’s ten thirty by the time I creep through the front door. Just as I thought, other than the flicker of the TV coming from the living room, the apartment is unlit. I follow the eerie glow to find Dad hunched over a TV dinner, watching the History Channel. No sign of his twisted partner. He looks up, smiles. “There you are. How was the studying?”

  I rush forward and wrap my arms around his neck, kiss his stubbly cheek. “I’m sorry I’m late. I wanted to make you a special birthday dinner.”

  He points down at his microwavable food tray and says, with his mouth full, “Don’t terrorize me while I’m swallowing.”

  Still has his sense of humor.

  I’m a terrible person. While my broken father’s been in here ingesting frozen turkey, I’ve been at Carling’s house sipping from a three-thousand-dollar bottle of wine. “What have you been doing all day? Anything fun?”

  “Had a superb day. Noah assisted me with the VW’s engine in the morning. The guy really knows what he’s doing. Then I did a bit of purging.”

  “You threw up?”

  “I cleaned out my sock drawer. Disposed of my unmatched socks.”

  “Oh. Cool. While you finish your Hungry Man special, I’m going to make you horrifically ugly brownies with lumpy icing. So prepare to be asto
nished by my culinary skill.”

  “I’m always astonished by your culinary dexterity, Sarie-bear. Mood-ring chicken, tumbled omelets …”

  I walk into the kitchen, pulling off my backpack and dumping it on the floor. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

  Reaching into the cupboards, I pull out a brownie mix, eggs, canola oil. There’s a swimming pool smell in the kitchen and it isn’t until I pull a 9” × 9” Pyrex pan from the drawer under the oven that I realize what it means.

  Dad’s been into the bleach.

  I peek into the cupboard and examine the mop Dad bought the day we moved in, exactly two weeks ago. The spongy mop head is worn down to almost nothing.

  About half an hour later, I emerge from the kitchen with a plate of brownies in hand. They aren’t quite cooked to perfection, being somewhat soggy in the center, but the twelve colored candles look great.

  Walking slowly, so as not to blow out the candles, I start to sing “Happy Birthday” and then stop.

  Dad is asleep, his unfinished dinner still on his lap. After setting the brownies on the table and blowing out the candles, I remove his tray and cover his legs and chest with a blanket. I watch him breathe for a minute, then notice his hands. They’re so dry and cracked they look like they’ve been slashed by razors. His day wasn’t spent doing a bit of straightening up. His day was spent scrubbing out the memory of my mother.

  Charlie’s problem is spreading too fast. It’s a problem way too complicated for a sixteen-year-old math brain to compute. No amount of joking, game playing, or home-cooked meals is going to help. With no one but a dead doctor to help me, I need to take the most drastic step yet. I need to call my mother and ask for help.

  Careful not to wake him, I creep into Dad’s room and close the door. His black address book is lying open on his desk, so I flip to the section marked T and find the last entry on the page. Tina Black. The phone number is weird and long and foreign.

  As soon as I pick up the phone and start to dial, a thick brown envelope slides off the desk and topples onto the seat of Dad’s chair. Holding the phone to my ear, I pick up the package and turn it over. It’s from, of all places, Mallory, Mallory, and Montauk—Sloane’s father’s law firm. With buttery fingers, I reach inside and pull out a neat stack of papers bound together with a rubber band. As I scan the top sheet, the real reason behind Dad’s knuckle-grazing, birthday-boy cleaning frenzy hits me in the stomach like a dripping mop.