Beautiful Lies

by Jessica Warman

  Robin crinkles his forehead in surprise. “And it was still there? They didn’t paint over it?”

  “Oh, sure,” I say, “they repainted the whole room. It’s sort of a beige color now. It’s boring.”

  “Alice, you’re not making sense. If they painted over the mural, then how could you see it?”

  I close my eyes. I remember standing in the living room, shattered glass surrounding my feet, staring at the blank wall, trying to remember what the mural had looked like. And then it just … appeared. It seemed to emerge from beneath the new layers of paint, the lines bleeding through gradually at first, and then all of a sudden, until I could see every last detail. It was as clear as anything, every bit as real to me as Robin is right now, sitting beside me in the car.

  And then it was gone, just as quickly as it had appeared. It simply dissolved, the colors bleeding together until there was nothing left. But it was real. I’d seen it and touched it, and I knew that it would always be there, no matter how many new layers of paint were applied. As long as the house was standing, the new owners could do whatever they wanted to make it their own, but the mural would remain. To me, it was proof: we were here once. Nothing could change that.

  It’s almost four a.m. by the time we get back to my house. All the lights are out. Everybody is still asleep. Nobody will know I was ever gone.

  We stand together on the back porch. Robin wraps his arms around me, and I rest my face against his chest, trying to commit his smell to memory. “Please don’t go.” I’m crying, getting his shirt damp.

  “I have to, Alice. I’m sorry.”

  “I wish I’d never met you,” I say, even though it’s not true. “This isn’t fair.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I never meant for all this to happen. I just wanted to meet you, just once. I didn’t mean to—Never mind.”

  “You didn’t mean to what?” I pull back a little. “What didn’t you mean to do?”

  He kisses my forehead. I want him to kiss my mouth, the way a real boyfriend would, but I know he won’t do it. He’s leaving. It’s over.

  I can’t prolong the inevitable, not anymore. I’m tired. “Be careful,” I tell him, reaching for the doorknob.

  He smiles. “Don’t worry about me. Good-bye, Alice.”

  “Good-bye.” I want to get upstairs before I lose it, and spend the rest of the night sobbing into my pillow like a silly teenager with a bad crush. But just as I’m about to close the door, I turn around to look at him one last time.

  “Robin?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I loved you.”

  His shoulders slump a little bit. He looks small and sad as he backs away, one step at a time. “I loved you too, Alice.” He takes a few more steps, and his body fades into the darkness, until I can barely see him at all. “I loved you more.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I want to stay up for the rest of the night, wallowing in my heartache, but I’m too exhausted even to cry. Sleep comes over me almost immediately, yanking me into unconsciousness. There’s not a thing I can do to stop it.

  All night long, I dream of the girl with the gap-toothed smile. We jog along the trail together, sweating, our breath labored, but our legs don’t take us anywhere; we remain in the same place, unable to move forward.

  “He’s back there,” she says to me, smiling, nodding over her shoulder.

  “Who?” I ask, trying to run. The sense that I need to get away from something—that we both need to escape—is overwhelming, and makes me feel so helpless as my legs carry me nowhere.

  “You know him.” Her voice, which is sweet and high, becomes singsong. “He’s gonna get us …”

  I look behind me. There’s a figure in the distance, walking at a leisurely pace, catching up to us little by little. I recognize him immediately: it’s Homeless Harvey and his dog.

  “That’s just Harvey,” I say, relieved. “He won’t hurt us.”

  She continues to smile at me as we jog in place. “He’ll catch up eventually, Alice.”

  I frown. “How do you know my name? Who are you?”

  Her eyes flash beneath the bright sunlight. We are both sweating. She smells horrible, like rotting flesh. “You know who I am.”

  “No, I don’t,” I insist. “Tell me your name.”

  “What do you mean?” Her grin fades. “We’re sisters. It’s me, Alice. It’s Rachel.”

  I stop. I take a closer look at her. “You aren’t Rachel.”

  “Yes I am. I’m Rachel.” And her face starts to go fuzzy, blurring out of focus until I can’t recognize her at all. Behind us, Homeless Harvey gets closer, his dog strolling along by his side.

  “You aren’t Rachel,” I repeat.

  “I have lots of names. Jamie. Jennifer. Susan. Rebecca.” She pauses, so blurry now that I can hardly make out her face at all. “He’s coming,” she says again. “Do you want me to keep going? Amy. Shannon. Melissa. Rachel.” I can barely see her; it’s like she’s disintegrating right in front of me. “Alice,” she says.

  “What?” I ask, starting to feel panicked. “What do you want?”

  “My name is Alice,” she tells me. “Alice Foster. Rachel Foster.”

  “You’re lying.” Harvey is closer now, maybe fifty feet away. He raises his right arm in a friendly wave when I look back at him.

  She’s gone. I’m alone on the path. I try to run again, but I can’t. My legs pump, my chest aches with each deep breath, but I don’t move. He gets closer and closer. I remember what my uncle told me once: Homeless Harvey is harmless. It sounds almost like a nursery rhyme. I realize that I’m holding something in my left hand. I glance down, my body electric with fear and panic, and see the peach pit monkey clutched in my fist.

  “Wake up.” It’s her voice—the gap-toothed girl, even though I can’t see her.

  “Wake up,” she repeats. Harvey is maybe ten feet away. He’s grinning ear to ear as he approaches.

  “Wake up, Rachel.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and try to scream. A hand covers my mouth.

  “Rachel! Wake up!”

  But as hard as I try, I can’t seem to make any sound.

  The sky goes dark. Rain begins to pour. Before I know it, I’m soaked, and there is blackness all around me.

  “Rachel.”

  My whole body feels heavy. My eyes are still closed, but I’m awake; I’m sure of it. Someone is shaking me.

  My eyelids flutter open, and I see Kimber leaning over me, a concerned look on her pretty face. I sit up. “Kimber. What the hell are you doing in my room?” I’m out of breath, still shaking a little bit from the nightmare. “Oh God. I just had the weirdest dream.” It occurs to me that I’m freezing again, despite the fact that my body is beneath the covers.

  “Get up,” Kimber says. “Get dressed. I’m driving you to school.”

  Super-duper. I look at my alarm clock; it’s already 7:40. I’ve slept in, which doesn’t surprise me, considering last night’s substance abuse and subsequent joyride. I’m groggy, and the inside of my mouth feels like it’s covered in wet moss. I didn’t bother to brush my teeth or wash my face last night, but maybe this is a good thing; with any luck, there’s still enough makeup to hide my bruises. I’d pulled on a sweatshirt just before bed, so my wrists are hidden by the sleeves.

  Unlike me, Kimber appears to be feeling great; it’s like she spent her morning on a coffee IV drip. When I don’t crawl out of bed right away, she claps her hands twice and rises onto the balls of her feet in a little jump. Her glossy hair, which has been styled with a curling iron, bounces over her shoulders. She wears a pink polo shirt and white capri pants with a slim silver belt. There are no traces whatsoever of her awkward discomfort at my grandma’s house yesterday, or her persistent curiosity from our exchange at work last night.

  Tossing the covers aside, coughing a few times, I ask her, “What the hell are you so chipper for?” Immediately, I regret my snide tone. It’s so very “Alice” of me.

 
; But Kimber doesn’t seem to notice. She twirls a piece of hair around her finger, looking at the room, her gaze lingering on my drawings fastened to the walls. “I’m an early bird,” she says, staring at Robin’s portrait on the easel. “If I sleep past eight, I feel like I’ve wasted the day.”

  Her perkiness is irritating as hell; I could slap her. Instead, I get up and stroll toward the bathroom to start getting ready, shutting the door behind me without another word, leaving her to wait alone in my bedroom.

  I check my reflection and feel instant relief: my makeup is still pretty much in place. If Kimber looked close enough, she would definitely notice the bruising, but I don’t think she was paying attention. I wash my face and reapply my makeup, double checking it before I leave the bathroom.

  I can tell Kimber is impatient as I’m getting dressed. Once I’m ready, she whisks me downstairs. I barely have a chance to say good-bye to my aunt and Charlie before she tugs me out the door. I don’t realize until we’re driving away that the money I stole is in my sister’s bookbag, right here in the car with me. I’d put it there last night in my drug-and-alcohol haze, thinking I would give it back to Nicholas at school. Once I sobered up, I realized it was a terrible idea, but I forgot to replace it under my bed before we left this morning.

  High school. I’ve never particularly liked it, but I don’t hate it either. Before today, having Rachel around made things bearable. Even when the rest of our friends began to avoid me, and even after I’d gotten a reputation as a Bad Influence, I always had my sister. And when things got too tough to manage, I could be my sister: Popular. Kind. Smart. Slipping into her life used to give me such a sense of peace and normalcy in what otherwise felt like a constant state of internal chaos.

  But something feels different now, today, especially after yesterday’s confrontation with TJ. I can’t wrap my head around the possibility that Rachel has actually been seeing him behind my back. Why wouldn’t she tell me? She and I tell each other everything. We always have.

  Our lockers are in alphabetical order, so hers is next to mine, in the hallway on the second floor. For her morning classes, I’m going to need her texts for English, French, and calculus. She has study hall fourth period, which will be easy, but I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to make it through the morning prior to that. When we’ve switched in the past, we’ve always gone to great lengths to prepare each other: going over homework together, making sure we know exactly what’s going on in each other’s classes. But without Rachel’s prep, my confidence is growing shakier by the minute. I can probably get through English and French okay, as long as there aren’t any quizzes. Calculus, though, will be nearly impossible. I’m still in algebra II, and I’m barely getting by with a C.

  I spin the dial on her locker, trying to think. I could fake a headache and go to the nurse. I could skip class altogether and hide out in the library. Or I could ditch the whole day and do something else entirely. But what? I don’t have a car on campus, and it’s a long walk home; someone could easily recognize me in town.

  I lift the latch on Rachel’s locker. It doesn’t open. I jiggle it a little bit—these things tend to stick—but it still won’t budge. Weird.

  The hallway is starting to empty as students make their way to homeroom. I feel a small twinge of panic, and a thought crosses my mind for just a second before I push it away. Impossible. I try the combination again. No luck.

  We get to program our own combinations at the beginning of each year. Most people, including me and my sister, just keep the same numbers from one year to the next. The only way Rachel’s would have changed is if she’d reprogrammed it herself.

  But why would she do something like that? I’m the only other person who knows her combination. Why wouldn’t she want me to be able to open her locker?

  The three-minute warning bell rings.

  Mr. Slater—who is Rachel’s homeroom teacher, in addition to teaching bio and chem—comes strolling into the hallway. He’s usually in a foul mood, and today is no exception. As he approaches me, the reek of cigarette smoke on his body and clothing is so powerful that I have to breathe through my mouth to avoid feeling sick. His outfit, a button-down white shirt and khaki pants, appears wrinkled and disheveled, almost like he slept in his clothes the night before. There is a small square of toilet paper blotting a shaving cut on his blotchy neck. He’s balding and overweight, his soft belly hanging over his belt a little bit. His skin has a grayish, unhealthy color. And he looks … empty. He looks defeated, like life has beaten him down over the years. Despite the fact that he gave me a failing grade on my diorama of a molecule last year, which blew my strong C-minus average for the semester, I find myself feeling sorry for him.

  “Rachel,” he says, “you’re going to be late. What’s the problem?” He’s trying to be stern, but he sounds more indifferent than anything, like he can’t be bothered with anything beyond going through the motions.

  I shake my head, staring down at my sister’s locker, fumbling to try the combination. And once again, it doesn’t work.

  Could she have possibly … no. No, no, no. She would have told me if she’d changed her locker combination. She would have told me if she were seeing TJ. She would have told me all of it. She’s my best friend.

  “What’s the problem?” Mr. Slater repeats, taking a few steps closer to me, looking annoyed. There are half moons of papery skin beneath his eyes, which makes his face appear frail and droopy. And sad. He just looks so incredibly sad. I’ve never noticed it until now.

  “I can’t—It’s not—” My words falter. What am I supposed to tell him? That I’ve forgotten my own locker combination?

  “Rachel?” He tilts his head to one side. The square of toilet paper on his neck falls away and goes drifting to the floor, unnoticed by him. A small dot of bright-red blood bursts onto his skin.

  “Come on,” he says, beckoning with his hand, turning to walk toward his room, oblivious to my panic.

  I follow him. At least I have Rachel’s backpack; inside are a few spiral notebooks and her copy of Our Town, which we’re reading in English. Maybe nobody will notice that I don’t have the right books. Or that I’m totally unprepared. Or that I’m not Rachel.

  My sister and I have homeroom together, but none of our good friends—that is, none of Rachel’s good friends—are in here with us. This morning, it’s just me and three other students, none of whom I know well at all. The four of us sit at our desks, absently listening to the morning announcements. Tacos and enchiladas for lunch. No cross-country practice after school today. The cheerleaders are holding a car wash this weekend in the parking lot of Dunkin’ Donuts to raise money for new uniforms.

  Throughout the announcements, Mr. Slater shoots glances at the empty desk beside mine, the one I’d normally be sitting at if Rachel were here. Every few seconds, he shifts his gaze to me, then back to the desk. I notice him sweating a little bit at his hairline, at the sides of his face. When the bell rings for first period, everyone stands up at once and heads toward the door. For a second, I think he’s going to stop me as I’m leaving, but he doesn’t. When I glance over my shoulder, I see him continuing to sit at his desk, hands balled into fists in front of him, his body held still. He almost looks like he’s going to cry.

  English passes without incident; we have an in-class discussion on Our Town, which I haven’t read a word of, but I manage to avoid getting called on by nodding along with everyone else’s comments and pretending to listen attentively, even though my mind keeps drifting back to my inability to open Rachel’s locker. I remember Kimber’s comments yesterday, and my aunt’s one-sided phone conversation with my grandmother. My mentally unstable grandmother. My aunt and uncle are convinced that her abilities are not separate from her illness; they think they go hand in hand. That’s why I’ve never tried much to explain what I sense to my aunt and uncle; they’d only think I was crazy too.

  But Rachel has always known. And she’s always believed me. Is it possibl
e that she was starting to doubt our connection? My own twin sister. She must understand the way I am. She has to. If she doesn’t, then who will? Our grandma, I guess, but lately she’s been drifting away, like she did yesterday, her thoughts slipping into nonsense while she was talking to Kimber and me.

  There are worse things than death.

  No, there aren’t. Not as far as I know.

  French class is a breeze. We spend the entire period watching a foreign film without the subtitles. All I have to do before lunch is make it through calculus and study hall.

  I stop to use the second-floor bathroom before calc. I’ve just locked the door to my stall when someone else comes in behind me. I peek through the crack and see that it’s Kimber.

  Before I have a chance to make myself known, she goes into the handicapped stall. Instead of sitting on the toilet, though, she takes a seat on the floor and pulls her legs close to her body. Her breath is shallow and quick for a few seconds. Then she begins to cry.

  As I leave my stall, her cries turn into choked sobs; I can tell she’s struggling to be quiet but unable to control herself. I should leave and give her some privacy. She’d probably be mortified if I spoke up now.

  But as I stand there, deliberating about what to do, it’s like the pain she feels is seeping from her body and filling the room. I want to help her. She and I used to be good friends, before I started getting into trouble so much last summer, before Kimber’s mother decided she shouldn’t spend too much time around someone like me. Rachel and I used to have sleepovers at Kimber’s house on lots of weekends in elementary and middle school. She had this old record player in her bedroom, but she only had one record for it, a single of “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang. As little girls, we’d get all dolled up in her mom’s old dresses and high heels, and we’d pretend we were at a fancy party together, all three of us dancing like fools to “Celebration.”