“Excuse me! Excuse me!”
His windows were up, though.
I flashed my lights briefly. His door swung open and he arrived at my car wearing his hat and authority.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m trying to get to the other side of you. I need to drop something off.”
“You need to drop something off?”
“Yes.”
“And it can’t wait?”
“No. A boy who comes to my afterschool program left his football. I want to return it tonight. It means a lot to him.”
The cop looked down at me like I was lying. Or was crazy. “Well, I highly recommend you put that trip off for another day. I’m here because of a report of gunshots in the area. You should probably turn around and head home and worry about the football on another day.”
City life had desensitized me. Gunshots were news fodder every day. It didn’t startle me that there had been gunshots, and something in my mind deluded me that they had nothing to do with me. Just as they had never had anything to do with me. I forgot that when gunshots had little to do with me it was because I lived in my gentrified neighborhood a few miles away where the drugs and violence lived but hid deeply inside, rarely spilling out into the street the way it did in more honest and transparent neighborhoods.
“But please. I don’t want to disappoint Isaiah.”
“Isaiah Morris?”
“Yes,” I was relieved. This cop knew him.
“Isaiah’s my nephew. Why don’t you give it to me? I’ll see that he gets it.”
“Oh.” I sunk. I didn’t want this cop to take the credit for returning it. I wanted to return it. I wanted to see Isaiah’s face when he knew what I had done. I wanted all the credit. In an instant it became about me and not Isaiah at all.
Jude reached under the seat for the football about to hand it over to the officer. “Great,” he replied.
I waved him down. “No, no. I can’t give it to you. Isaiah accidentally took another kid’s football. A white kid at the program. And the mom is sort of going ballistic. Apparently it was signed by some rookie or something and the kid wasn’t supposed to bring it at all. So I need to trade Isaiah for the ball and smooth this whole thing over. You understand, don’t you?”
I felt Jude staring and smirking from the front seat but I ignored him.
The hulking cop sighed. I knew it was the fact that it was a white kid in my story that would persuade him. He would want to help Isaiah avoid grief and racism that was between the lines of my made-up story.
“Ok, but listen. You gotta drop it off and get out of here. No one is supposed to be out. There’s sort of an unofficial curfew at this point. By 8 pm, I have to make sure everyone is off the streets who isn’t supposed to be out here. And no one is supposed to be out here. You got it?”
“Yes.” I put my window up and hurried around his roadblock of a car before he or I changed my mind.
“There’s no rookie-signed football, is there?” Jude asked sleepily from his seat. “No, but I’m not going to let that cop take all the credit for my good deed. I want Isaiah to see it come from me. Call me selfish.”
“You’re selfish,” Jude laughed. “But also beautiful.” He winked at me, which I caught out of the corner of my eye as I spotted Isaiah’s house up ahead and pulled to a stop in front of it. Jude stayed in the car and I went up to the front door to tap a loud buzzer that sounded more like a snore than a doorbell. I tapped a few times without response and then heard Jude behind me.
He’d rolled down the window, and I turned to look at him. “Hey babe, he’s not home. You’re going to have to read all these signs to mean this isn’t going to happen today. Either leave the football at the door, or bring it back to the car.”
I stood there stubbornly for an extra beat as I tried to decide what to do. I put a finger up to him to say I’d be back in a minute, and I ran around to the back of the house to see if there was a back door that someone would answer instead. Still no answer, and as I came back around to the front of the house, I heard a car backfire nearby.
I startled, and moved more quickly to the front of the house where I could see the car on the curb. I saw Jude slumped over onto the dashboard with a dark stain spreading beneath his head. It took a moment to realize it wasn’t a car backfire at all, but by then I had hopped back into the car, and was headed to the hospital on auto-drive. I had dropped the football in the yard, and I never did find out if Isaiah got it back.
There was no police roadblock as I sped away from Isaiah’s house. There was only the sound of more gunshots and police sirens, a cascade of forces that became a distant memory. Until now.
As I drove Jude to the emergency room that night, and prayed he’d be ok, I’d inhaled the almond scent in the air. It was lingering on the night, even piercing the metallic smell of blood in the car.
Her perfume. She had been there.
In the bloody mess of the night, I had forgotten, but now I remembered the scent of her.
Laila had been there.
Chapter 33
“Jude,” I sat on the edge of our bed and asked the question I hadn’t wanted to ask.
“It was Laila, wasn’t it? She shot you?”
Jude sat up and clicked on the nightlight by our bed. He looked mussed and sad. He rubbed his chest gently.
And then he nodded.
“Yes, but—”
“I saw her tonight. She didn’t admit the shooting, but she told me what Dominic Treese did to her. And what you refused to do.”
Jude looked up at the ceiling. “I thought I was helping her. She would have been ruined in this town. She wouldn’t have worked again. He would have ruined her. It would have been Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky all over again.”
“She told me Suzana had that same theory.”
Jude laughed wryly. “She conveniently forgets that I’m the one who told her that first. She thinks of Suzana as her savior, and I get it. Suzana has hit him where it counts. She’s a strong amazing woman. As is Laila, and I have been trying to encourage her to get the help she needs.”
“She tried to kill you?”
“No, she was crazed that night. She drank too much at the event, and then she must have followed us out to Anacostia. When you got out of the car, she showed up at my window with the gun and was threatening to kill herself. I was trying to talk her down; I was about to get out of the car, and then I don’t know what happened next.”
“We have to turn her in, Jude. We can’t let her get away with this.”
“With what? She hasn’t gotten away with anything. She’s sad and terrorized. She’s despondent. Huck and Finn have seen her a few times and said she’s drinking all the time, and spiraling out of control.”
I thought about the broken woman I’d seen at the empty campaign office. Jude read my thoughts.
“You saw her tonight. Did she look dangerous?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure, frankly. “She looks broken.”
“She is. Dominic Treese broke her a long time ago and she tried to hurt herself, and I got shot in the process. It’s tragic, but I’m not sure she should be punished for the rest of her life.” Jude took my hands. “Aby, you’re so strong. You might not understand that broken people can do crazy things. But they shouldn’t be punished forever for them.”
“Jude,” I gasped, as I stared at his forgiving face. “Do you mean that?”
“Of course I do.”
I’d been waiting for someone to tell me that my whole life.
The dam broke wide open, and I told Jude about every single lie I’d ever uttered.
And most importantly, I told him … why.
Epilogue
The Washington Truth, dated June 1, 2019
Op Ed piece, by Suzana Luric Treese.
Dear Readers, The Washington Truth has been kind enough to let me write under a pen name for several years now. You know me as Nate Essuzare. But in fact, I am Suzana Treese, using an anagram
of my name as my alias. Do not punish The Washington Truth, if you disagree with my use of an alias. It was at my insistence, and I always planned on revealing my identity to you. Thank you for your indulgence as I have written about the truths in this town and the lies. My work here was in large part a social experiment to see how much truth you as readers wanted. Just how much you were willing to overlook.
I think I now have my answer.
My soon to be ex-husband, Dominic Treese, has been a respected man in this town for some time. But there is much you don’t know about him. I think it’s time we shine a light on the truth here. Below you will find a letter, published in its entirety by a Ms. Laila Rogers. The letter and its raw contents reveal events that occurred on the evening of March 15, 2013. She has long kept these truths secret, fearing that no one would believe her, and worse, that no one would care even if they did.
I believe her.
I care.
Dear Readers, I hope you will, too.
It’s time.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As I sit down to write this—my fifth Acknowledgement section—I am overwhelmed by gratitude to Nancy Cleary of Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing. I am so honored to be on this journey with you. You have been an amazing champion of my work for five wonderful years now. I will never stop being grateful about the care you take with my words and stories. From the bottom of my heart—THANK YOU.
To my agent, Bob Diforio, for your zealous representation—thank you so much.
To my sisters and early reviewers, Megan and Katie, for the kind and honest feedback, and for always having my back, cheers to you both!
To Ann, Kelly, Katie, Katie Rose, and my Tall Poppy sisterhood, my amazing tribe. I have no idea where I’d be on this writing journey without all of you. I never want to know. Ditto for all you amazing readers in the BLOOM community (www.areyouinbloom.com) who have supported the Tall Poppy Writers, and me personally. Writing is such a raw and humbling experience, I can think of no greater reason to take the risk other than the reward of incredible connection. Through the connection with all of you, I have received that reward in big beautiful doses. Thank you for believing in the mission of the Tall Poppy Writers. Thank you for believing in US.
This story takes place in one of my favorite cities, Washington D.C.—the place where I started my legal career; so I have to thank my early legal mentors: my fabulous peers and professors at George Washington National Law Center, the smart and creative attorneys in the General Counsel’s office of The American Petroleum Institute, and my colleagues at the Special Masters Office in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, with a special debt of gratitude to Chief Special Master Gary Golkiewicz. The years I spent at the Court of Federal Claims were some of the most interesting, challenging, fun years of my legal career. The hours spent debating cases and policy with the Chief Special Master before setting pen to paper to write pioneering and pivotal legal decisions in cases pending all over the country, helped me understand that I was a litigator at heart—and would always be at home in any courtroom in any city.
Thank you to my dear friend, Stephanie Shipley, who introduced me to Talbot County, Maryland, and St. Michaels, a place that stole my heart from the very first moment.
To Paul for the all the good memories on the Hudson River, the Long Island Sound, and even the Atlantic Ocean, on our first boat, Kokomo, that inspired Aby and Jude’s escapes on Front Runner. I’m glad you convinced me to sink so much of my hard-earned cash into that beautiful Sea Ray Sundancer. We weathered a lot of storms on that boat.
To my dearest friends, especially Kelly Wasielevski and Paula Tziavragos, who support me in writing and life and motherhood the way few others do.
Thank you to Francis Ford Coppola and the team at Coppola Winery for supporting me in a special way through your Books & Bottles program. Thank you to all the book communities, bookgrammers, book bloggers, reviewers, Facebook and Goodreads groups that have featured my books. It is increasingly hard for authors to get their works noticed in the crowd these days, and I would never succeed in that mission alone, which is why I’m so thankful to Barbara Bos, Leslie Lindsay, Andrea Peskind Katz, the Ninja Reviewers, Tamara Welch, Jenny O’Regan, Holly’s Little Book Reviews, Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke, Novel Gossip, The Literary Connoisseur, Dee’s Rad Reads, Marisa Gothie, Readers’ Coffeehouse, Bookworms Anonymous, Kristy Bee, Susan Walters Peterson, Nalana Lillie, the group at WFWA, and the many, many more who have helped LIFT my books onto the top of so many readers’ To Be Read piles.
Which brings me to you, dear readers. Thank you for coming on this journey with me. For picking my book for your Book Clubs, for inviting me to your Book Clubs, for asking your libraries to order my books, for buying copies for your friends as gifts, for reaching out to say “Your book resonated with me. Here’s why.” I am grateful for every single one of you; I still pinch myself at being so very lucky to be writing my FIFTH acknowledgment section right now. To be heard through my writing has been one of the greatest gifts I’ve received in the last decade. (A special warm and exuberant hug to the readers who have been with me since my debut, Lemongrass Hope. Stay tuned for a special announcement regarding my next book—a love letter to you.)
And last, but not least, to my amazing, creative, interesting, hardworking, totally persistent, maybe just a little bit stubborn, children: Paul, Luke, and Grace. Each of you is honestly my favorite.
And you each know why.
BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION GUIDE
Dear Book Clubs,
If your Book Club is anything like the dozens of ClubsI’ve been invited to over the years, the book you choose is often just the backdrop for much bigger discussions about love and life (and yes, even politics). Here’s hoping the characters and twists and turns in Why We Lie provide the perfect jumping off point to some robust discussions from both sides of the aisle. I hope you’ll share your Book Club’s thoughts (and photos!) with me. Get in touch at [email protected].
Xo
Amy
P.S. I hope you won’t think I’m rude, but I’d love to invite myself to your Book Club, either live or via FaceTime. Use the subject line “My Book Club is reading Why We Lie” when you email me and I’ll be sure to get back to you ASAP!
“We’re just here to get the bad guys.” Officer Bruce of the Capitol Police delivers this line to Aby during a key point of the novel. By the end of the novel, can you list for certain the “bad guys” versus the good guys? Which column do these characters fall on your list: Monica Landsberry, Officer Bruce, Laila Rogers, Gary from The Watchdog Group, Philomena Treese, Dominic Treese, Suzana Treese, Aby Boyle, Jude Birch, Madelyn Boyle, Demi Poole, Rafe Wilson, the “Tom Sawyer twins”?
Is your list the same as the Book Club member sitting next to you?
Go back and count all the lies in this novel. Just kidding! Even I don’t know exactly how many there are – suffice to say, a lot. That the characters are lying and have lied is not a plot twist in this book, but the reasons why provide the real surprises. Aby refers to the lie she is “most ashamed of” before it is actually revealed. Did you pick up on which lie she’s referring to? Do you think she is right to be most ashamed of this lie?
In this novel, the timeline fluctuates a bit. Did you notice, however, that the excerpts of The Washington Truth are laid out end to end in chronological order from 2014 through 2019 as a device to ground the narrative’s chronology? What do you think of this device? Does it work to make the timeline more understandable?
Speaking of The Washington Truth, a big theme in this story is that of politics versus the media. The July 1, 2018 Op Ed piece reads: “Political correctness, they call it. And it’s advocated for. What an odd turn of events. Since when did politics become the barometer for what is true, for what is correct? Since when did the media become the enemy?”
Do you think this a fair reflection of the tension between politics and media in contemporary times?
If so, how did this tension evolve? Or, has
it always been this way? If not, why not?
Let’s talk about LessThan and Out The Bullies. Both are completely fictional companies/apps. Do you think these are realistic portrayals of companies that could exist (and indeed flourish) in this day and age? Could you imagine yourself (or someone you know) who would withdraw money from their kids’ 529 fund to finance a virtual status symbol? Or did I go too far? (By the way, is it hypocritical of Aby (who purchased red-soled Louboutin shoes to wear to Jude’s campaign announcement) or Jude (who purchased a $50,000 boat to use on weekends only) to judge parents who got swept up in the LessThan craze to help their kids get into college?)
Assuming they would be perfectly fine, except they couldn’t lie (as Aby believed about Jude in the beginning of the novel), who is the person in your life you might like to see wake up tomorrow and be unable to lie?
On the very last pages before the Epilogue—there is a (hopefully!) surprising reveal and a decision by Jude. Do you agree with his decision? Why or why not?
There is a very poignant and heartbreaking letter referred to in the Epilogue. Do you think it was a good idea or not for the author of that letter to agree to it being published? Why or why not?
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