A Field Guide to Deception (14 page)

“Keep her vulnerable,” she said again. Drank the tepid coffee and wished it were scalding, that it could burn her tongue and the roof of her mouth and bring tears. Liv walked over, hooked her arm around Claire's waist, and tipped her head to Claire's.

“What comes next?” Claire asked.

“We go back in there,” Liv said, “and eat until we're sick.” She kissed Claire, and then let her go.

Another road, then. Another road, and Claire, no longer in the water, near-drowning forgotten, followed obediently behind, with a torte and a mousse.

Sixteen

Errand girl

Her second trip to Home Depot in as many hours, Liv threw the tailgate closed like a dirty punch. Sweaty enough to be in an equatorial jungle, she slid into the truck, its windows already opened, and turned the engine over.

“Where you headed, stranger?” The girl was blond, in a white t-shirt and jeans, filthy and lank as a runaway.

Liv started to reverse. The girl reached her arm out, and said, “Liv.”

The truck idled and the girl leaned through the window. “You don't remember me?” She sounded injured.

“I remember. I have to be someplace.”

“You can't give me a ride?” She smiled, reached her hand into the truck, and slid a finger along Liv's breastbone.

“I have to be someplace.”

“I already heard that part. Let me in, will ya? You can't leave me stranded in a parking lot.”

Liv took her foot off the clutch, swung the stick shift back and forth, told the girl to climb in.

Seventeen

Bailey investigates, part two

“You hated the dinner party,” Bailey told Claire. They sat in the recliners on the deck, drinking iced tea, watching Simon whack a plum tree with a stick.

“No.”

“You did. It's OK to be honest. I'm just sorry you were disappointed or unhappy or whatever. I really meant for you to be, you know, honored. You've finished a book and it's an incredible achievement, and I wanted to honor your work, and you. I meant to honor you.”

Bailey's red sleeveless blouse looked fine on her. Since they'd met, she'd grown thinner and more sculpted, softened somehow, her lines more fluid and lissome. Claire herself felt years older, washed out.

“Bailey, can we agree to let the whole thing go? I didn't behave very well, and I'm sorry. I appreciate everything you did. It was too much and perfect and I'm grateful. No, don't say another word about it. Not one.”

Bailey lit a cigarette, pouted her lips between drags. “Fine, let's talk about something else. How long have you been fucking the help?”

Claire reached over and slapped Bailey, hard, on her bare thigh.

“Ow, Jesus. Don't be so sensitive. I didn't read you as the chivalrous type. How long have you been making love to the help?”

Claire laughed, and hit Bailey again, harder this time.

“That's enough,” Simon hollered at them from the plum tree. “No more.”

“Busted,” Bailey breathed. “Sorry, Simon, honey.” Bailey waved to him, then muttered at Claire, “You vicious thing. You made me drop my cigarette.” She lit another. “So how long?”

“I haven't kept strict account.”

Bailey blew smoke through her nose. “You know what you're doing.”

It wasn't a question, but she was asking. Claire understood that. She understood because her answer was Of course, and Never, and they were both true, and both false. Liv was unbridled, audacious, and Claire knew herself to be beyond recall: the trough to Liv's crest, and both in motion.

“Where is she anyway?” Bailey asked, craning her head as though Liv might be hiding nearby.

“Supply run.”

Bailey drew her long legs up to her chest, rocked forward and back like an egg. She'd been quiet so long that Claire thought maybe that was all she had to say, when Bailey asked: “What happens at the end of the summer, or the end of the project, whichever comes first? Liv seems hard, she wants everyone to believe that she's hard, but she isn't. And you know that, as well as I do. If you injure her, it'll be intentional, because you know she's vulnerable. So any wound you give her will be deep, and on purpose.”

Claire had felt stabbed at the word “vulnerable”—a sharp prick to the heart. She resented Bailey's speech, its mode as well as its intention. Sipping her iced tea, calm and introspective, Claire wouldn't engage. Not with Bailey or anyone, what happened with Liv would happen, and talking never changed a fucking thing.

They had quinoa salad, chilled and improbably filling, for dinner. Liv didn't make it home until almost seven, and Simon, having eaten, sat on her lap, rested against her chest, while she devoured her salad and edamame.

“You're filthy,” Bailey remarked, while Claire fetched ice cream from the kitchen.

“Well spotted.”

“And fun, Liv. You're fun too.”

“Do you live here now?”

“I hear your camper's empty; looking to sublease?”

Liv set her fork down, and emptied her glass. Claire had made sundaes with cherries and whipped cream and hot fudge. She brought bowls for each of them, and rubbed her hand through Simon's hair as he murmured delightedly.

“What?” Claire asked Liv, as she sat down to her own bowl. She turned to Bailey, “What happened?”

Bailey shrugged, and twirled her spoon.

“Has she been telling you,” Claire asked Liv, “that you're soft?” Bailey stood up then and told them she had to go. “Have a swell night, ladies. Don't be too thoughtful. You might develop bad habits.”

“Bye, Bailey,” Simon called, ruining her exit line, whipped cream on his nose.

“Bye, Simon,” she said, and was gone.

Liv set her bowl on the table, the sundae spoiled: the ice cream tasted bitter. “I need to shower,” she said, and went indoors.

“Let's go for a walk, Simon.” They'd finished their ice cream, and the evening had cooled enough that they'd stopped sweating. He held her hand as they picked up a trail, and walked toward the road. The air smelled of fire, distant and to the north.

Eighteen

Dismantling the kitchen

At the Imax, they watched a movie about sharks, and then took Simon to ride the carousel. He disliked the horses, but loved the giraffe and the goat and the tiger. Afterward, they let him slide down the giant Radio Flyer Wagon and all three of them went to the bookstore.

Browsing along the tables, Liv contemplated her irritation. She'd snapped at Claire repeatedly several days running. Since the girl at Home Depot, there had been three others. Something brutal inside her kept grasping at her throat and she wanted to lash out, to kick something, to throttle her own throat until whatever it was submerged again inside her. And what was all this for exactly? Liv hadn't even enjoyed it: the girls pushy brats who came in a rush and whined for more. Tired. Liv was tired of sex. Tired of their bodies and the begging. Tired of all their transient expectations. Tired of her inability to keep away. Liv was tired of herself. And Claire. She was tired of Claire and her perfect life. Her glowing child, and her money, and her beautiful, secluded house, and her goodness, her tedious, reliable goodness.

“Do you need help?” the clerk asked. She was young, and small, and had pale, piercing eyes. “A recommendation?”

“Sure. Hit me.”

“Fiction?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you read
Jesus' Son
?” The girl handed Liv the book, and went on around the table, to pick up another book. “
Motherless Brooklyn
. Inventive and unpredictable, this book is hypnotic. Trust me.”

“Sure,” Liv said. “I trust you.”

The girl smiled. “You've read them, haven't you?”

“Yeah.”

“I'll bet you haven't read Ali Smith?”

“I've never even heard of her.”

“Then you're in for a treat.” The girl led Liv down the fiction aisles, and pulled
The Accidental
from the shelf. “Her voice is unreal. She won the Whitbread for this one.” She handed the book to Liv reverently as though it were a sacred text.

“Thanks,” Liv said, and grinned at her.

“Anytime.”

“Found something you like?” Claire asked behind them. Simon, with a Thomas picture book and a small Curious George doll, held her hand.

“Yeah,” Liv said, and maneuvered herself around Claire and Simon, to herd everyone toward the cashier.

Whatever had clasped at her throat had released its hold, and she felt buoyant, elated even. She paid for their purchases, and lifted Simon to her shoulders, walking ahead of Claire to the car. “We should go to the Japanese Gardens, yeah, Simon? Want to see the fish?”

He did, of course. He asked about them as they drove up the hill, and turned into the gravel parking lot. From the slats in the bridge, he watched the tremendous koi, sleek and sinuous, propel through the water. And Liv strolled through the trails and waterfalls where light broke and shimmered. She hadn't waited for Claire, and now when she looked for her, couldn't see Claire anywhere, couldn't even recollect what she had worn. Liv checked the bridge for Simon, but didn't find him there. In a panic, she imagined a kidnapping, and moved quickly through the grounds searching, then out to the parking lot and found them, Simon crouched beside his mother, playing with two black Labrador puppies.

Liv slowed instantly, not liking this tug-of-war with Claire, this lesson about running off disguised as an impromptu play date with puppies, this silent lecture about the effects of neglect. Stalled against a tree, she lit a cigarette and imagined the next girl. Free, free of
Claire's attitudes and postures, free of Bailey's insistent interference, and free of her own inevitable withdrawals. These girls did, in the end, have meaning. They meant Liv wasn't Claire: housebound with a child and money and property; entitled and presumptuous and needy.

Simon looked up. “Puppies!” he cried. “Liv. Come see. Puppies. Come see them.”

As Liv crossed to them, she saw hurt, as clear as a sunburn, on Claire's face. Need would be their undoing, Liv thought. Need and disappointment. She crouched beside Simon and admired the puppies—biting, thrashing little creatures. They kept climbing into Simon's lap, nearly knocking him over.

“Well, if you can make it, I'd love to see you there.” The man standing on the other side of the puppies said this to Claire. Liv hadn't noticed him until he spoke. Tall and brown and well dressed, with a diver's watch and purposely chaotic hair.

“I don't know where Zola is.”

“Just down on Main, by the yoga studio and Rocket Bakery.”

“Right,” Claire said.

“Fantastic jazz, and great food.”

“Friday night at Zola.”

“Friday at 9.”

Claire nodded, and rested her hand on Simon's back. “We'll see. Thanks for stopping. It's been a long time.”

“I'm sorry about Denise.”

Claire nodded again.

“I hope to see you around,” he said. “Bye, Simon.”

“Bye, puppies,” Simon said quietly.

Liv stalked to the car.

Unaffected by the swollen hostility, Simon fell asleep in the car on the drive home.

“Do you want me to drop you somewhere?” Claire asked.

“Yeah, downtown.”

“How does it work if you don't have your truck, or do you just go to her place? No, wait, I know, the bathroom door locks.”

“Fuck off.”

“These are your errands, right, these girls? All week you bite my head off because you're out screwing at random, and somehow that's my fault. You fucking child.”