Friends and Other Liars

by Kaela Coble

  I haven’t mentioned the message to anyone from the crew, but didn’t Ally say something to me that day at brunch—something about getting a second note from Danny? So much happened that day that I didn’t even remember it until now. And neither of the times I’ve talked to her since she was in New York had seemed like the right time to ask. The first time was the day after she left New York. I called to apologize again for not claiming the secret earlier. To be fair, I wasn’t sure what had happened until Ally told me in earnest the secret wasn’t hers. I suspected what had happened, and I suppose the reason I never opened my envelope is so I didn’t have to know for sure. That, and I didn’t want to see Danny’s last angry thought about me.

  I insisted on getting on the phone with Aaron to tell him as much. It was the least I could do. To Aaron’s credit, he accepted my apology graciously. I could hear a hint of curiosity, but he did not, as Ally had, demand details like when exactly it happened and how could I not have told anyone and who was the father, anyway? I remained vague. I told her it was a really difficult time for me, right before I left for college. I told her the father of the child was not someone I was proud of, and that he never even knew about it, so I didn’t feel right telling her either. All that was true. But just like with Danny, I didn’t tell Ally the whole story, and she drew her own conclusions.

  The only thing Aaron put me on the spot about was Ally’s real secret. She still insists Danny outed her pregnancy—her completely planned-for and very much wanted first pregnancy. I told him the same thing I told Ally: that I hadn’t read it. But based on the way she snatched the envelope out of my hand and inspected the seal for tampering, I’m guessing she’s hiding something a little darker. I did not voice this suspicion to Aaron. They’ve been through enough, and I’m not going to play any further part in straining their marriage than I already have.

  Just remember that all things done in the dark have a way of coming to light.

  The second time Ally and I have spoken since the bachelorette party was her call to invite me to her annual Christmas party. Could I come home a couple days early in order to make it? Just like when we were young, I was so happy she seemed to have forgiven me that I immediately agreed. I had already taken the days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve off for the pre-wedding festivities and, of course, the wedding itself. But I asked my boss if I could have a few extra days with my fingers crossed behind my back for him to refuse. The fact that he agreed to it is just my karma for allowing Ally to take the fall for me, because it means I will be spending Christmas with Nancy and my father.

  I’ve gotten out of coming home for every holiday season since college by scheduling a trip to see Coral or my London flatmate, Greta, wherever in the world they are living or working at the time, and then there were several years I spent with Jamie’s family. I cite limited vacation time to Nancy, but she’s not stupid. She knows I don’t want to come home. Just the thought of spending the holidays in the place I grew up brings on a flood of images—Nancy in a black period, too depressed to get out of bed and prepare the fancy Christmas Eve dinner she planned, a ham spoiling on the counter while Dad hid in his den. Nancy still drunk in the wee hours of Christmas morning while we opened presents and pretended not to listen to the veiled insults she and my father traded. My parents screaming at each other on New Year’s Eve after coming home from a party where she drank too much and he flirted with someone else’s wife.

  But I can’t blame my white knuckles completely on my family. Some of it lies with Danny, and some with me. Mostly, it’s the unknown. When I came home in September, I knew it would be awful—an overwhelming mess of grief, awkwardness, and nostalgia. Not great things, but I could anticipate them. This time, I have no idea what to expect. Ally assured me she wouldn’t tell anyone but Aaron the true owner of the secret from her envelope—after all, neither of them ever substantiated the rumors that Aaron was yelling the word abortion at her in the middle of Main Street. But how can I trust Ally not to cave at the slightest challenge—the girl who lives to gossip and who cares more about what people think than anyone I know?

  And then there was that missed call I got last week. It was from an 802 number, Vermont’s one and only area code. It could have been anyone, except for Ally, Emmett, Steph, my family, or even the dreaded Krystal, all of whose contact information I have stored in my phone. It could have been Murphy—maybe he got a message as well, although I doubt he even knows how to use email, or maybe (I hesitate to even think it) he missed me like I’ve been missing him. But I don’t think it was Murphy either. When the number flashed on the screen, my mind went instantly to AnonChat@yahoo.com, and I immediately hit Decline. Whoever it was, they didn’t leave a voicemail.

  Ever since I received that cryptic email, I’ve been looking over my shoulder, my body a constant, chilling, bubbling of nerves, making me feel like my blood is some mutant form of ice-cold lava. Every unexpected noise launches me out of my skin. Every night’s sleep is filled with images of Danny, sometimes memories resurfacing from the past, sometimes things that will never be, conversations I want to have with him that will never take place.

  When I’m awake, it’s like I feel him watching me. I know the message was warning me that he’ll make good on his promise. That somehow, the whole truth will come out. And when it does, despite Ally’s assurance she’ll always be my friend, I’m not sure if she, or anyone, will ever be able to forgive me. As angry as I am with Murphy for not telling me about whatever the hell it is that’s going on between him and Krystal, what I’m hiding from him is so much more unforgivable.

  Please don’t hate me.

  I’ve thought about canceling. Oh, believe me. I’ve had the phone in my hand a dozen times, poised to dial Emmett’s number and tell him I got pulled into a shitstorm of work to wrap up before the end of the year, and I’m not able to come home for the wedding after all. But then I picture his face. Emmett, my brother. The pain-in-the-ass boy who grew up to be a man with a heart that will kill him before his time. And Steph, sweet Steph, who has welcomed me into her family despite knowing nothing about me. I can’t disappoint them.

  And even if I could be that horrible, something tells me I’m in this now. That I have to see it through to the end. That it’s time.

  I pull up to the house, hesitating before I park this Sentra in the same spot I used to park Blue, and I sit for a few moments before I get out. Twinkling lights rim the roof and shine through the inches of snow covering the cedar bushes in front of the house. The two white columns that support the front porch roof are wrapped with red ribbon (one ruby red, one coral red, my mother used to say), giving them the appearance of candy canes. Through the sheer curtains of the living room, I see the artificial tree decorated with the same ornaments we’ve always had.

  We always begged for a real tree cut down from one of hundreds of Vermont tree farms, but my mother wouldn’t hear of the money wasted each year to kill a plant that would only end up on the curb at the end of the season. As much as we hated it, I realize now there’s a certain beauty in this pathetic little tree, which has overseen our Christmas proceedings for as long as I can remember. No matter what phase our family was in, the tree remained unchanged. There was comfort in that.

  I walk up the steps and through the back door that leads into the kitchen, inhaling the scent of baking bread, and I remember that not all the days of Christmas were so tense and melancholy. There were days when the lights first went up, when Mom would take our picture in front of the newly decorated house for the annual Christmas card. There was the party at my father’s company headquarters in New York, where all the employees’ children got an age-appropriate toy we then played with obsessively on the trip home.

  There were the Christmas hams Nancy did manage to serve, with all the trimmings, and the sugar cookies we helped her frost as we stood on stools and donned aprons our mother had hand-sewn, our tongues poked out in concentration as we tri
ed to copy her intricate frosting patterns. There were the Christmases when Mom would invite Danny in from our mocking spot in the tree and shove a mug of hot cocoa in his hands, and we would sit by a roaring fire and watch old Christmas specials on TV, forgetting that we were supposed to be too damaged to enjoy this.

  I feel suddenly sick with guilt and nostalgia. Nancy has been on her medication and off the hooch since I was seventeen years old, and yet every year I make an excuse to stay away from her on a holiday that is so centered around family. I wonder if this is the first time she’s even made the effort to put up the decorations since both her daughters left home. And in punishing her, we’re punishing ourselves, because we’ve missed out on ten years of the best of our mother.

  How much it must break her heart for me and Coral to withhold our love year after year, and still she stays sober. Still, she remains committed to treatment for her illness. It occurs to me that Nancy is not the only one I’ve shut out of my heart rather than forgive, and it’s about time I change that. The realization freezes me to the spot in the kitchen. I drop my bag, my body racked with violent sobs. Just like the evening in Murphy’s bed, it’s too much. Too many memories, too many old feelings. Too much regret.

  And then my mother is there, enveloping me in a hug. I fall in to her and cry, telling her how sorry I am, and she is shushing me and stroking my hair and telling me everything is going to be okay. She smells like vanilla without even a hint of wine. It’s going to be a sugar-cookies-and-ham kind of Christmas.

  But first. “Mom,” I say, using her proper title for the first time since I was sixteen, “I have to tell you something.”

  19

  RUBY

  BACK THEN—THE SUMMER BEFORE COLLEGE

  I sit with my knees hugged to my chest, a blanket wrapped around me, watching the bursts of light explode over the lake, miles and miles away. It’s chilly for the Fourth of July, even by Vermont’s standards, but I’m not sure that has anything to do with my shivering. Lately, I feel an almost constant chill.

  I think of the crew, arranged in a semicircle in their camp chairs down at the park. At least that was the plan Ally left on my answering machine, since no one’s been able to get ahold of me to see if we’re watching them from my roof, like we have every other year. I imagine all the details that she didn’t dare leave in her message—that they’ll be sipping from Burger King fountain soda cups that are secretly filled with liquor, surrounded by hundreds of Chatwickians doing the same. That for the first year, Taylor will be beside Murphy instead of me.

  It’s been another two weeks of deep hibernation, only leaving the house to do shifts here and there at the Exchange. I’ve been training Lacey, my replacement, a rising sophomore who is painfully chipper against my canvas of depression. Another person who’s shown me how easily replaced I am among the people I love. Shawna and Donna love Lacey, the crew has embraced Taylor since her return from “horse camp,” and I have been forgotten.

  I’m startled by the whoosh of a screen opening. Before his feet even appear through my parents’ bedroom window, I know it’s him. The tears that spring to my eyes dissipate the image of him and Taylor holding hands from adjacent nylon chairs. What is he doing here?

  “Jesus, Tuesday, it’s not that cold,” he says, craning his head to see me and nodding at my blanket.

  “Go away, Murphy.” I bat at my eyes with the back of my hand before he can see that his appearance has made tears appear at the edges.

  “No.” He navigates the slope of the roof carefully and joins me, mimicking my posture. We sit in silence for a moment, watching the fireworks.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He looks at me in surprise. “It’s the Fourth of July. Where else would I be?”

  “Down at the bay, with the rest of the crew?”

  He shrugs. “I was on my way. Saw you up here alone, thought I’d swing in.”

  I nod, but I know he’s being intentionally casual. My house is not “on the way” down to the bay from his house. Or from Taylor’s.

  “Where are your parents?” he asks next.

  “In Jamaica. Another ‘reunion’ trip.” He nods. Every time my parents fight now, they make up by going on a trip together rather than (metaphorically) traveling apart. Their therapist is very supportive.

  “How’s the crew?” I ask, the bitterness in my voice not entirely fair. I can blame Murphy all I want, but I’ve made the choice not to reach out to them, not to explain, not to answer their calls. I’d rather it be my choice to pull away than to watch it happening.

  “Good,” he says, either missing or choosing to ignore my tone. “Ally and Aaron are fighting all the damn time, and it’s annoying. Nicki comes around every once in a while to glare at Emmett. Emmett’s boning anyone and everyone like a kid in a whore store.”

  “Is Danny okay?” I ask, feeling like a divorced parent of a child I no longer have custody of. I still want to know how he’s doing, even though he picked the other one when the court asked him who he’d rather live with. I know that’s not a fair analogy though. Danny didn’t choose Murphy over me. He didn’t even know he had to.

  “He’s doing fine,” Murphy says. “I think. I should probably give him a call. I’ve been busy with…”

  “Your new girlfriend?” I ask. “How are things with Miss Teen Vermont, by the way?”

  “Don’t do that,” he says. “She’s actually—”

  “I don’t actually want to know, Murphy.”

  He sighs. “I miss you. I really miss you, Tuesday. I know I’m the bad guy here, but you’re not the only one whose heart is broken. And it fucking killed me to watch you walk away with Hardy that night. It fucking killed me.”

  I don’t even know how to express my inability to understand this. How can he be heartbroken and happy in a relationship at the same time? What kind of sociopath can compartmentalize his feelings so ruthlessly? The word that appears in my brain every morning when I wake up flashes like one of the fireworks I’m pretending to watch: Why? But I don’t ask it.

  “I’m sorry, Tues. I don’t like the way this all happened. I shouldn’t have—”

  “Lied to me?”

  Murphy looks stricken. “What did I lie about?”

  “You should have never told me you loved me. I’m your best friend, and you used the oldest trick in the book to get me back into bed.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “Of course that’s what I think, Murphy! How could you love someone and then just cut them loose without any explanation?”

  “I gave you an explanation!”

  “Yeah, I know, I remember. You didn’t want to have to miss me. Genius plan. Clearly it’s working wonders.”

  “It wasn’t just that.”

  Again, I don’t ask what else it was. I’m afraid any more weight on my shoulders will topple me right off this roof. But he tells me anyway.

  “Ruby, look at me.”

  It takes me a second to gather the strength, but I do. He’s the same old Murphy, but now that I know I love him, it feels like staring into the sun.

  “We would have the summer, then you would leave. For New York, where you’ve always dreamed of living. And you’ll change there. You’re supposed to. And I’ll be here, doing what makes me happy, and pretty soon the gap between who we are now and who we become will just be too big.”

  In his eyes is something I’ve never seen before. A maturity, but also a sorrow.

  I sniff, and my voice cracks with every word. “But we could have tried, Murph. I think with all that we mean to each other, we at least should have tried.”

  “And what would the best-case scenario have been for us as a couple? That you would miss me so much you would come home, live in Vermont forever? Then what?”

  “Then maybe we could have been happy.”

  He takes my hand.
“Maybe for a little while, but how could I do that to you? How could I hold you back from the life you’ve always wanted? How could I be happy knowing what you gave up to be with me?”

  I watch as the words come out of his mouth, but it sounds scripted, like something a boy would say to a girl in a Lifetime movie. Like something a boy would say to a girl because he thought that’s what she wanted to hear. And suddenly I’m angry again. “That’s a real pretty speech, Murphy. Tell Cecile she should have been a writer.”

  He looks as if I’d slapped him, and it feels good to see him hurt, to have some of my power back. So I look away, and just let my comment hang there.

  “Fine,” he says. “All right. You want to know why I didn’t go through with this? With us?”

  “I do, but I don’t think you’re really going to tell me.”

  “It’s this! This right here. You make everything so hard! You never let me get away with anything. You know every secret and everything I’m thinking and every feeling before I can even put a name to it.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “It’s fucking annoying! Maybe I want to have some secrets. Maybe I want to be with someone who doesn’t have debates with Emmett that make me feel stupid and small.”

  “I don’t make you—”

  “Someone who doesn’t tell me how I feel. Someone who wants a simpler life, like me, who isn’t going to spend her life being disappointed in me and resenting me for what she could have had. With Taylor, it’s…”

  “Easy,” I say.

  “What’s wrong with easy?”

  At first, I can’t think of an answer. What is wrong with easy? I don’t know. I’ve never known what easy feels like. And Murphy, aside from keeping Danny’s secret, has never known what hard feels like. He’s not built for it. He’s not strong enough. I look him in the eye, mustering all the fury and all the pain I’ve felt in the last few months.