Friends and Other Liars

by Kaela Coble

  “Yes,” she says, linking her arm with Emmett’s and exchanging the kind of smile that makes single girls feel all the more single. “Emmett has always said he thinks of you as a sister, and family is the most important thing in the world.”

  My eyes sting, and I take a second to swallow back my emotion before I say, “Yes, of course. I would love to be a part of your wedding.”

  And just like that, my graceful exit from Chatwick disappears, and I am a member of the crew again. Full-fledged.

  • • •

  We remain stubbornly at our table long after our plates are cleared and both sets of parents drift off. We stir the dregs of our coffee, order another round of mimosas, and toast to Emmett and Steph. We talk about where to have the events leading up to the wedding. Without thinking, I offer to host everyone in New York for the bachelorette party. After it comes out of my mouth, I worry it will sound like I don’t think Chatwick is suitable or that I don’t want to be bothered traveling back, but Steph squeals in delight, and even Krystal says something about a Sex and the City tour, and the deal is sealed.

  We toast to Danny. We reminisce about high school, the last time we were all together. They reminisce about other things that happened while I was in New York or London. I suddenly ache to be a part of those stories somehow, or at the very least for my absence to have been felt. It’s selfish, I know, given I was the one who left, and it would have been impossible, given what I was carrying around. But I even wish, just a little, that I had never left. That I had made different choices.

  It makes no sense. Growing up, all I ever wanted to do was get out of here, and now that I’m back and surrounded by my friends, I’m wondering what was so wrong with it in the first place. I knew this would happen when I came home, and perhaps, more than anything, this is why I’ve stayed away so long. This place, these people, these feelings. They’re intoxicating. I’m as much an addict for Chatwick and the pain and the drama as Danny was for anything that numbed him. I’ve relapsed after a ten-year run at abstinence from Chatwick.

  And now I’m nothing but a junkie.

  “Well, I really don’t want to steal you guys’ thunder, but there’s something I’d like to say before Ruby disappears again,” Ally says, looking pointedly at me before squeezing Aaron’s arm and smiling. Aaron’s eyes widen, and I’m surprised to find him shaking his head at her. She doesn’t see; she’s already turned back to the group. My eyes connect with Aaron’s, and I narrow mine in concentration. It’s no use. Aaron grew up in Chatwick Town and didn’t join our Chatwick City group until high school. The telepathy doesn’t extend to Townies.

  After a pause allowing for sufficient anticipation to build up, she says, “We’re pregnant!”

  Everyone stands, and another round of excited hugs is exchanged. The boys clap Aaron on the back, making lewd comments about sperm and masculinity, but Aaron remains grim. A feeling of panic courses through me, just as it had when Emmett made his announcement. Why isn’t he more excited? Why didn’t he want Ally to tell us? Did he just feel like it wasn’t the right time, or is there something wrong with the baby? I think back to Charlene’s house; it felt like Ally was lying when she said her secret was nothing bad. So is there impending doom accompanying this happy news?

  Ally reveals nothing as she is questioned about when the baby is due (in the middle of March) and if they are going to find out the sex of the baby (no). Every inch of her is a proud mama. She takes a sip from her glass, and I realize she’s been drinking water while everyone else has been sucking down breakfast cocktails. Thinking back to the night of Margie’s Pub, I remember Ally holding a clear fizzy drink with a lime and a straw. I had assumed it was a vodka soda, but it must have just been soda.

  “Wow, so, Ally, was that what Danny had on you? Was that your secret?” Steph asks.

  “Steph, please, let’s not bring all that up again,” Emmett says, more polite in his request than he had been the day of the reading at Danny’s house. He must have learned his lesson about what happens when you tell Steph to shut up.

  “Secret?” Krystal asks.

  “Oh, it was the strangest thing,” Steph says, turning toward Krystal. “Danny had an envelope for each of them with secrets he knew about them. He told them they had to reveal them to each other ‘or else,’” she says. I am disappointed in my new friend, the way her eyes glisten with the power of information. She is not above the Chat. None of us is.

  “Ooh, what a fun little game,” Krystal says. “Well, let’s hear ’em!” She looks at me as she says it. The feeling she has it out for me strengthens. Whether Murphy told her about our little rendezvous, or she’s just the type of person who is distrustful of new women, I don’t know. Either way, I don’t feel the need to deal with her attitude any longer.

  “I think the key words you missed are ‘reveal them to each other,’” I say, forcing a smile that matches Krystal’s in that it is completely fake. I want to say more, like “It’s none of your fucking business and keep your orange nose out of it,” but I don’t want to ruin the happy mood. Krystal and I remain smile-snarling at each other, neither of us looking away until Ally speaks.

  “Yes, to answer your question,” she says, breaking the dense air. “That was my secret. I ran into Danny at the pharmacy when I was picking up my prenatal vitamins, and he noticed. I was just too excited to lie, so I just blurted it out, and—”

  “That’s fucking bullshit,” Aaron cuts in, shaking off Ally’s hand. Despite the usual low tone of his voice, I can see people at the next table shoot inquisitive glances over at ours.

  “Aaron!” Ally starts, looking stricken by her husband’s sudden rebuff.

  “That’s not your secret, and you know it,” he growls.

  The disgust in his eyes scares me more than whatever Ally’s secret could be. I’ve never seen Aaron look at Ally like this. Ever since high school, even when the two of them had their stereotypical adolescent squabbles, his eyes always held nothing but patience and admiration when they were trained on her. It was something I was always jealous of, something I thought I saw in Murphy’s eyes, something I definitely saw in Jamie’s. I wonder for a second what Jamie would think of this little crew, and of me suddenly reclaiming my place in it, but the combination of the champagne and my two worlds mentally colliding makes my head hurt.

  “I read your secret,” he says. “You wouldn’t open it in front of me, and then you just told me it was about the baby and wouldn’t show it to me. I found it in that compartment in your purse you think I don’t know about, the one with the cigarettes in it.” He stops at this point and gives an aside to the group. “She hasn’t had any in there since we found out she was pregnant.”

  I’m relieved, not because Ally has finally given up her occasional secret smoke, but because despite Aaron’s fury, he is still clarifying his own anger in order to defend his wife. It’s a good sign.

  “Oh, Aaron, you don’t understand,” she says, visibly deflating.

  “I can’t believe you would do that,” he says. “I can’t believe you would have—”

  Ally gasps, and it seems to pull Aaron out of whatever rage trance he was in that made him start this scene in the middle of a Chatwick restaurant. He looks at her for another moment, her eyes pleading for understanding, his filled with disappointment and hurt. Then he tosses his napkin on the table and walks out of the restaurant without another word.

  “Aaron!” Ally calls again, knocking over her chair in her haste to chase after him. The rest of us remain frozen, stunned by the abrupt change in tone.

  After a few moments I say, “Um…should we… Should I?” I want to make sure Ally’s okay, but I don’t want to be intrusive.

  Emmett and Murphy shrug their shoulders. Like they have a clue. I look to Steph, the newbie, to tell me what to do.

  “I can go check on her, if you want,” Krystal says.

  I s
hake my head. I know she is trying to be helpful, but the thought of sending this girl in my place makes me feel sick. I wonder why? “I’ll go,” I say.

  Ally is easy to locate. As soon as I open the door to the restaurant, I hear her voice. I remain on the sidewalk, watching across the street where she stands at the window of Aaron’s truck, pleading with him to listen to her. The engine is running, and his hand is firmly on the steering wheel. “Aaron, I’m your wife. You can’t just leave me on the street! We have to talk about this,” she says.

  “You had an abortion and didn’t tell me about it, Ally. There’s nothing for us to talk about.” He all but peels out as he pulls away from the curb.

  I stand there, wishing I hadn’t heard what I just heard, my mind whirling. With the truck gone, there is nothing blocking Ally’s view of me. Our eyes connect, and then she sags, her hands covering her eyes. I cross the street to go to her.

  “You heard?” she asks when I reach her and wrap an arm around her.

  I think about lying to make her feel better, but she saw the look on my face when Aaron pulled away. “Yeah,” I say.

  She snaps her hands away from her face. “It’s not true! That’s why I hid it. I didn’t have an…” She puts one hand on her stomach, reassuring her fetus of its safety. “I don’t know why Danny wrote that.” Tears spill onto her cheeks, and I put one hand on her back, rubbing gently.

  “Come on, I’ll bring you home,” I say.

  “I left my purse in the restaurant,” she moans. “I can’t go back in there right now.”

  “No one heard anything,” I say. Although it’s unlikely that the patrons of the restaurant could make out what Aaron said (even from their positions pressed up against the picture window), it’s just as unlikely that not one soul took notice of Chatwick’s most darling couple hollering at each other on Main Street. I suspect the Chat will be abuzz tonight. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “That was so embarrassing. I look like such a liar.”

  I give her my car key and tell her to go wait in the car; I’ll get her purse for her. Once I’m inside the restaurant, they all look at me inquisitively. “She’s fine,” I say. “I mean, she will be. I’m going to give her a ride home.”

  I hug and say goodbye to Emmett and Steph. Murphy opens his arms to give me a hug, but I pull away. “See you at the wedding, buddy,” I say, instead giving him an aggressive slap on the back.

  He looks at me, hurt and confusion in his eyes.

  “See you both there,” I add, looking at Krystal. “Nice to meet you,” I say to her, and she says the same with a thin smile, looking back and forth between him and me, searching for signs of a threat.

  “Ruby,” he starts, but I’m already on my way out of the restaurant, the same kind of exit I made from his apartment two days ago. The same kind of exit we made from each other’s lives ten years ago. Unfinished. I wish with my whole body that Murphy would come after me to stop me from leaving. To tell me there is an explanation for the girl who can’t stop touching him. To tell me I mean more to him than she ever could. That he wasn’t just using me for sex. It seems I’ve been waiting for him to do that for a decade.

  Just like before, he doesn’t.

  13

  RUBY

  BACK THEN—SENIOR YEAR

  “So, Murphy, have you talked to Taylor since…?” Ally asks Murphy.

  My ears perk up in the middle of my conversation with Danny about how much he thinks he’ll make scalping his tickets to the Tragically Hip show in Burlington tomorrow night. It was less than twenty-four hours ago that I told Murphy I wished things could be different. He had hung up pretty quickly, and I had spent the night lying awake trying to interpret whether he was mad or just decisive about his next course of action.

  I shoot Murphy a look, but he stares straight ahead and keeps walking. We’re on our way to the gym for the stupid end-of-year assembly, the one where they hand out awards for things none of us have—perfect attendance, school spirit, best hair… (Well, Ally’s in the running for that last one, but rumor is it’s going to Gwyneth Grant and her white-girl dreadlocks.)

  “Hello? Murphy! Answer me!” Ally says, grabbing his elbow to slow him down.

  “No, I haven’t,” he says.

  “Well, is she doing okay?” Ally persists.

  “I don’t know, Al. I just said I haven’t talked to her,” he says through his teeth. “It was just last night. I don’t even know how you know already.”

  “What are you guys talking about?” I burst in. I don’t want to have this conversation here in the hallway outside the gym, with the entire student body milling around us, but I have to know. And more importantly, I need to know what Ally knows.

  Ally just looks at me, then looks at Murphy, her entire face a question mark. “Murphy broke up with Taylor. Last night.” She looks back and forth between us again, searching. “How did you not know this? Emmett told me this morning.”

  I feel my face turning bright red, and I know Ally is already starting to be suspicious, so I tell them I forgot something in my locker and make a break for it. It only takes about five seconds to get lost in the crowd. From time to time, I shoot a look over my shoulder to see if Murphy is following me. I hope he isn’t, because then Ally would definitely know something was up. But when I look back and don’t see him, I’m disappointed, because I want to pull him into a deserted classroom and talk. Or not talk.

  • • •

  For the second night in a row, I can’t sleep. Murphy is free. There’s nothing standing between us now. Well, there’s no one standing between us. Which means, of course, that I need to figure out what the hell to do. Murphy is still my best friend. I’m still feeling a little guilty Taylor got hurt. I’m still going to NYU, and Murphy is still staying here.

  But suddenly all these barriers don’t mean as much as they did before. Now, all I can think about is being with him. Laughing with him, kissing him, making love to him. My heart is racing. I am so happy just at the thought of being with him that I feel like I’m going to burst. I can’t contain it for one more second. I have to go to him. I have to tell him.

  I glance at the clock. It’s after midnight on a Thursday. I pick up the phone, but almost immediately put it back in its cradle. There’s no way I can call him. First of all, the last time Cecile slept through a ringing phone in her house was the night Roger died.

  Still, I can’t wait to talk to him. I can’t sleep, or stop thinking, or even breathe until I get the words out. I launch out of bed and dress as quietly as possible in sweatpants and a hoodie. Then I change my mind and put on jeans. I’m about to go tell Murphy Leblanc, my best friend since eighth grade, my buddy since kindergarten, that I love him. The moment calls for more than sweats. Although, we are talking about the guy who once held me down and farted on my head until I threatened to throw up on him. So I keep the hoodie.

  I creep past Coral’s room. She’s home for the summer only because her recent breakup left her without a place to stay. I’m more worried about her waking up than my mom. My dad is in New York this week, and my mom’s lithium makes her sleep like the dead. I know Coral won’t stop me, but seeing her will be my reality check. I don’t want to think about reality right now. I just want to be happy.

  I decide not to drive. I don’t want the sound of the engine starting to alarm Coral, and Blue rolling into the driveway would definitely wake Cecile. Plus, the walk will give me a chance to work out exactly what I’m going to say. Unfortunately, it also gives all the doubts I’ve been pondering for a week a chance to creep in. I stop in the middle of the road. I have an academic scholarship to NYU. Murphy’s not going to come to New York. But he could, right? Or, if he wants some time to think about it, we can do long distance for a while. It’s not like we don’t have plenty of experience talking on the phone. We live in the same town, see each other almost every day, and we still manage to fill up
hours every night with phone chatter. It could work. I mean, we love each other. What’s more important than that? I keep walking.

  I stop again. What if I wake up the Leblancs? Or what if they discover me trying to sneak into the house? What if I can’t wake Murphy? It’s a risk I have to take. I have to try to see him right now, before I chicken out. I keep walking.

  Right before I get to Murphy’s driveway, I stop again. What if I misunderstood? Prom night is kind of hazy, and maybe Murphy was just drunk and trying to get laid. I mean, he didn’t tell me he broke up with Taylor. Why wouldn’t he tell me that? But I remember the look in his eye when he danced with me at prom, when he whispered in my ear that I was beautiful out in the rain, when he picked me up outside the barbershop, when he put his hand over mine on the way to baseball practice. I keep walking, and this time I don’t stop until I get to Murphy’s house.

  I tiptoe down the gravel driveway, sending up a thank-you that his bedroom is on the ground floor of the big brick house. His window is slightly open, and I press my ear against the screen. It occurs to me, somewhat irrationally, that Taylor could be in there with him. Maybe she just had to see him in the middle of the night too, to try to get him back. Maybe it even worked. But I don’t hear anything except the fan Murphy needs to have on in order to sleep.

  “Murph,” I whisper, barely audible. I try again, a little louder. “Murphy.” Nothing. I wonder if I should throw stones or something, like Danny used to. Like he still does sometimes, when he has nightmares and can’t sleep. I think of Danny. What is he going to think of all this? Will he approve of his friends getting naked and falling in love? Or will he think it a disaster, like I did up until tonight?

  I decide against throwing stones, mostly because I would feel like an asshole throwing stones when Murphy’s window is within arm’s reach. I give a light knock on the sill and hear an immediate rustling of sheets. My heart is pounding so hard I temporarily can’t hear or speak as Murphy’s face appears in the window. On the way over, I imagined the conversation would go something like this: