Little Black Lies (9 page)

The zipper got caught and I wiggled it free before stepping into the dress and sliding it over my hips. I wished my mother would lower her voice. I saw a couple of girls from school on the other side of the store.

“Sara, did you hear me? Don't you think it's something Jennifer Aniston would wear?”

The price tag said $99.99. I kind of doubted it.

“Hon?”

“Sure.”

I shuffled out of the changing room, tripping over the long hem.

The saleslady, Ruth, pulled off her glasses and set them on a ledge, then she took my hand and led me to a wide step at the trio of angled full-length mirrors. “Don't worry, we'll take up the hem and nip in the waist,” she assured me. I stepped onto the platform and spun around, and I don't know who went more crazy, my mother or Ruth.

“Oh, Sara,” said Mom, moving closer and tugging the dress out from under my heels. “You look beautiful.”

Ruth nodded. “Just like Miss Aniston.”

I stared in the mirror. Mom was right, green did match my eyes. I never would have picked this dress off the rack, but I had to admit, it looked pretty decent on me. Made me look older, at least twenty, I thought. I pulled my hair off my shoulders and held it up in a sexy kind of half-up/ half-down bun.

Holding my shoulders from behind, Mom stared at my reflection. “Have I mentioned how proud I am of my girl? You're growing into such a lady.” She laughed and wiped a tear from her cheek. “Look at me. Getting all weepy in the Lundon Olde Towne Mall.”

I reached up to touch her hand. I didn't mind her getting weepy over me. Not one bit.

Ruth folded up the fabric at the hem, then looked up at me. “How high will your heels be?”

I looked at my mom. “I guess I'll wear my black flats? The ones I wore to Grandpa's funeral?”

“No flats,” said Ruth, glowering as if I'd insulted her. “Go with black patent. They have gorgeous slingbacks in the shoe store next door, with a three-inch heel. Just in from Europe.”

Sounded expensive. Sounded like something Rebecca Morgan's mom would buy her, not like something I would dare hope for. “That's okay. My flats are fine.”

“Absolutely not,” said Mom. “If my daughter needs patent slingbacks for her first prom, she's going to have them. We'll stop at the shoe store on our way out. What do you say to chicken fingers and shakes at the Foggy Dog—just you and me, since Dad wants to work on the van? He can drop us off and we'll take the bus home.”

I nodded, scarcely able to believe it. “Sounds great!”

Tori Nathan, my science teacher's daughter, walked into the changing area carrying an armload of dresses, followed by her mother in her wheelchair. Mrs. Nathan was the school guidance counselor, adored by everyone for what kids called her Friday Night Bitch sessions—a weekly gathering where any student was welcome to drop by and discuss problems they were having at home. She even let one girl stay for an entire weekend when her parents split. And after Mrs. Nathan's parasailing accident … well, the students of Finmory only loved her more.

“Hi,” said Tori. “You look great in that dress.” She reluctantly pulled a green dress from her arms and hung it on a hook. “Guess I'm not trying
that
one on.”

Mrs. Nathan rolled closer, taking my hand and beaming. “Oh, Sara. You do look glamorous. This dress was made for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Hello, Tina,” Mrs. Nathan said to my mother.

Mom, usually so friendly and talkative, friend of all people who interrupt her mother-daughter time, shot Mrs. Nathan a quick smile and took a step backward. Her voice was frosty. “Gloria. You're looking well.”

I just thought Mom was guarding our mother-daughter moment. That she wasn't going to allow even the greeting of an acquaintance to break up our fun. Her rudeness gave me a private thrill.

I wouldn't find out the truth for another seven days.

Mom's cell phone rang. As she moved away to talk, Mrs. Nathan and her daughter disappeared into the corner changing room, and Ruth pulled pins from a puffy, heart-shaped cushion and began taking in the side of my dress. The velvet of the heart was blood-red in the creases but had otherwise faded to a sick, fleshy pink. About a hundred pins pierced the little pillow's surface. It was eerie. Like the heart of a floppy doll had been torn out and stabbed with tiny daggers.

The day was turning out to be better than I'd imagined. The perfect dress. New shoes. The Foggy Dog. My glorious mother all to myself.

When my mother returned from her phone call, her expression had changed. She seemed exhilarated, and I hoped it had something to do with finding me a bag to match my new gown.

It didn't.

“Slight problem, sweetie. Turns out I
do
have to go into work. So we'll come back for the shoes one night after school. We have two and a half weeks until prom; we're not in a big rush. Does that sound okay?”

I flinched from the prick of one of Ruth's daggers. “Are we still going to go for lunch?”

“Oh, I don't think so. Not today. Let's make it a dinner the night we get the shoes. It's not a big deal.” She didn't look me in the eye, just bent over to gather up our purses.

It's impossible to focus in pre-law with the Petting Pool looming less than an hour away. I'm equally torn between excitement and dread. But mostly I'm still reeling from Carling Burnack's sudden interest in me.

Mr. Kazinski stands at the front of the class, his sneer so prominent it nearly cripples his entire left side—from his bent leg and cocked hip all the way up to his sunken shoulder and hooked mouth. He dabs at his nose with a balled-up tissue as Carling, from where she sits in the front row with Sloane, looks on. “Today we'll be discussing an area of law I happen to be very familiar with—divorce. You've probably heard by now that more than half of marriages end in divorce; I'm sure more than half of you are living it. Each case is different, but many follow this timeworn pattern. Boy meets Girl. There's so much lust in the air no one can think straight. Girl convinces Boy what he's inhaling is actually love, and Boy pops the question he will ultimately live to regret.”

Bored, I flip open my notebook, pull out a pencil, and start scrawling my name in long, sausagelike letters. If there's one subject that will ruin me, it's this one. We had a quiz last week and I might have gotten the lowest mark in the class, B-minus. When the girl who sits beside me caught sight of my test, she inched her desk farther away from me as if mediocrity were a disease and she was determined to stay clear of the aura of contagion.

“Wedding plans and square footage of starter homes keep everyone nicely preoccupied for a few years and then the babies arrive—and let me tell you, the babies arrive squalling and bawling like nothing you've ever heard. What is shocking is how much you love them in spite of it. A few years pass, then a few more, and one day you notice the air has grown too thin. Both love and lust are gone for Boy and Girl. So is most of Boy's lush head of hair, but that's another lawsuit for another day.” The class laughs as Mr. Kazinski rubs his shiny head.

Carling, seated way up front, puts up her hand. “Did either Boy or Girl sign a prenup? Because as long as both parties had independent legal advice, the divorce should be fairly straightforward.”

The teacher grins, pointing at her. “Ahh, at least one of you is going into this life prepared. Miss Burnack, you scored higher than anyone in the class on our quiz last week.”

It's as if she's climbed into another body and zipped herself in, the way she blushes, sits up tall, and squeezes her mouth into a confident smile. This class is good for her. Not only are there no escalator handrails to tempt her, but her intellect actually shines here and it's pretty clear she is proud of herself.

“Tell us,” says Mr. Kazinski, “do you see yourself choosing law as a profession?”

The sweetness drains from her face and she slides down in her seat. “No.”

If Mr. Kazinski is surprised, he doesn't show it. He folds his arms and leans against the dusty chalkboard. “So now our pair is ready to divorce. Boy and Girl are both teachers. Prenup or no prenup, they started broke and will end broke. What we're going to discuss here is something not help up in prenuptial agreements—custody of the wailing wee ones. And this is where the law gets good and discriminatory. The mother, in this case, Girl, usually gets more rights when it comes to the children. What the courts call ‘shared custody' really means Boy sees his babies Tuesday and Thursday evenings and every other weekend.”

I look away from him. Divorce and custody are not things I want to think about today or any other day. I was born in the wrong era. The nineteenth century must have rocked. Most people parked themselves in a marriage and stayed there, no matter what. I stare at the clouds piling up outside the window and wonder if it's too late to transfer to European history.

Mr. Kazinski continues, “In other words, no matter how God-fearing, law-abiding, carpool-committed, or willing to battle nightly bogeymen the father may be, the mother gets dibs when it comes to the kids. The courts never really consider the umbilical cord to be fully severed, and, as such, are extremely reluctant to separate a mother from her child. It is the belief of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that a child needs her mother, and so, mother and child should rarely be apart.”

My pen clatters to the floor and I make no move to pick it up. I can't. This information has thumped me so hard in the stomach I can barely catch my breath. A child needing a mother is so basic, so natural, so crucial there are state-manufactured laws to ensure it. Lawyers and judges and government workers and teachers—and now even students in this class—know it. Why doesn't my own mother?

“I assume you've all read your required chapters,” he says, walking to the blackboard to pick up a piece of chalk. “Miss Black, can you tell the class how long Boy and Girl have to be separated before the state will grant them their divorce?”

I open my mouth and answer with absolutely no idea what I'm saying.

I'm not in the best frame of mind after pre-law. My legs have that same bendy-straw feeling they had the day after my mom left, and there's a greenish-blackish stink wrapped around my shoulders that snaps and growls to let people know they should keep their distance. If my own mother can't be near me, why should anyone else?

I think about skipping this Petting Pool thing at lunch. My mood could be damaging to my social life. But once I get caught in the flow of bodies pushing toward the stairwell, it seems to be easier to lose myself in the current than dream up the right hiding place where I can eat my lunch. Besides, I really don't have much to lose right now.

In the few times I've passed by the second-floor landing between classes, I've never witnessed anything unusual. Then again, the landings in this stairway are enormous, more like long observation areas or sunrooms, and all four landings are identical. Huge leaded glass windows on three sides, a seriously ancient tufted-leather sofa, and a small forest of tropical plants in tarnished brass urns. Maybe a student or two squatting down to reorganize a binder or tie a shoe, but nothing pool-like. And other than a girl smoothing her hair in a tiny mirror, no petting.

As I make my way up the first flight of stairs, I'm relieved to see clusters of kids squatting on the steps eating lunch. It means that no matter what Carling and Company are up to on the couch, at least there will be plenty of witnesses.

I pass through several layers of social stratum. To actually reach the leather sofa, I first pass the anime girls with their pigtails and platform Mary Janes; the Benadryl kids, whose complexions look all at once rashy and translucent, painful and allergic; and a slew of boys wearing
ANTON MATHATHON
caps and buttons in support of this afternoon's Numerical Analysis showdown in the gym. Sad but true—Anton mathletes actually have groupies.

Pushing on—could approaching the Petting Pool really be any worse than sitting with one of these other groups?—I move through the echelons, certain the air is getting thinner as I rise. Like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. By the time I spy the summit—a gap on the couch between Carling and Sloane—I'm light-headed.

Everyone at the Petting Pool oozes a quiet sort of comfort. Like they've known each other forever and have never, not once, felt a hairy ball of yarn in their stomachs on the Sunday night before another long week at school. I've never had a Sunday night without it, not even in the summer. That ratted ball of wool is programmed to prickle and chafe, my weekly reminder that people like me should probably not make ourselves too comfortable. Anywhere.

So far, things look reasonably tame in terms of roving body parts. Seven or eight kids sitting on a sofa eating lunch. All hands and feet in plain view. Other than Carling, Sloane, and Isabella, I recognize a few faces. Willa, Little Man Griff. Leo Reiser, which does not help my nerves. He seems relaxed, lounging between Carling and Willa. Carling looks up as I approach, smiles, and pats the empty spot between her and Sloane. “There you are. Everybody, this is London. London, this is everybody.”

Hating that my cheeks are probably searing red, I squeeze in next to her. “Hey, everybody.”

A few people mumble hello, clearly surprised. They look from Leo to Carling to me, as if poison darts are about to shoot from someone's eyes. Isabella leans forward and squints at me. “I've wondered for weeks now, London. Where's your British accent?”

I've been preparing for this question ever since Leo picked me up off the sidewalk. “I was born here. It didn't seem cool to go all Madonna and adopt the accent later in life.”

She doesn't look convinced. “But how long did you live there?”

“I don't know. Since about third grade.”

“That's a long time. You'd think living there”—she pauses to calculate—“eight years would give you
some
sort of accent.”

I'm about to reply, say something idiotic about my parents correcting it, when Carling swats Isabella in the arm. “What are you, the accent police? Shut up and give me something out of your lunch bag. I forgot mine at home.”

Isabella frowns and digs through her paper sack.

Carling nudges me. “Leo, you've met London, haven't you?” Her voice stretches into a piece of wire at the end, pulled so tight tiny threads of metal snap and fray and crackle. A fresh crop of kids have arrived. Some perch on the sofa arms, others stretch out along the back of the sofa behind our heads or on the rug by our feet. Another three spread themselves across our laps, creating a second layer of humanity. I have a set of male ankles on my lunch bag. At the far end of the couch, someone starts giggling. My stomach starts flipping again.

Leo barely looks up from his pasta. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I say back to Leo. The moment I pull a milk carton out of my rumpled lunch bag, a guy on the floor leans back against Carling and me and stretches his arms across our laps, crushing the rest of my lunch.

Carling leans close. “You're just in time to make first layer. It can get a bit intense at the bottom, but your body parts are much safer if you're underneath the others.”

I think I know the answer, but I ask anyway. “Safe from what?”

Sloane opens a bottle of sparkling water. “Wandering hands. Someone undid my bra the first day of school—I barely felt it happen.”

“Don't scare London, Sloaney,” says Carling. “And anyway, it's only the girls who can undo your bra without you knowing. The guys are way less nimble.”

“A girl undid your bra?” I ask. “Why?”

Sloane shrugs. “It's pretty relaxed up here. Some kids are straight. Some aren't. Some bend both ways. Some are multi—doesn't matter. No one cares.”

A small anteater-shaped robot lurches past my feet, sucking french fries off the floor like a vacuum while making clickety chewing sounds. It's chased by two sophomore boys who snatch it up just before it tumbles, metallic snout over tail, down the stairs.

“Enough sex talk, it's so boring,” whines Isabella.

“Sloaney just started a game,” explains Carling. “We're all going to spill a junior-year secret. What will you be doing this year that you don't want anyone to know about? Willa, you go first.”

Willa Patel lifts long, elegant fingers to her cheeks in mock embarrassment, though I can't imagine what a girl like this could possibly fear. Even with her bare face and her hair pulled back into her trademark ponytail, she could easily grace the cover of
Vogue
. If I pulled my hair back like that, with my colorless lashes and total lack of bone structure, I'd look like an egg.

“Okay,” says Willa. “Thanksgiving weekend I'm flying straight to Dr. Raj in Beverly Hills for a
procedure
.”

“What kind?” says Carling. She glances to her right to make sure Leo is looking in Willa's direction, then shifts her weight to allow some guy's hand to wander down behind her back.

Willa leans forward to show her flawless profile. “Isn't it obvious?”

“Willa's like a computer. Her flaws aren't detectable by the naked eye,” says Sloane with a yawn.

A few laughs. Willa reddens. “Hey, none of you was born to my motherboard. Until you've passed through her rock-hard loins and had your peripherals examined for flaws before anyone's had a chance to check your breathing, don't mock my quest for highly integrated perfection.”

Griff Hogan, with a mouthful of animal crackers, snorts, “Willa, have I not been begging to get between your motherboard's loins?”

“Shut up, Griff,” says Willa with a sigh.
“Tu es un petit cochon.”

Carling says, “Isabella, how about you? Junior-year secret?”

“My cousin's family is coming to stay next week,” she says, raising her eyebrows as if everyone will get the inference. “For two nights in our teeny-tiny apartment …”

“Ah,” says Sloane. “Is this Utterly Beddable Benjamin?”

“I see where this is going and I, for one, am going to puke,” says Leo.

“I've seen Cousin Benjamin,” says Carling. “Illegal union or not, the boy is utterly beddable. Besides”—she winks—“the British royalty did it all the time, didn't they, London?”

Someone's limb is snaking around behind my left hip. I tuck my skirt under my thighs and press my legs together. “What … incest?”

“I prefer to think of it as promoting from within,” Carling says, “but, yes, incest.”

“Might explain why my grandfather makes me call him Mumsy,” I say. “The mind's the first to go with inbreeding.”

A few kids look amused and, for a moment, the shaggy yarn ball in my stomach disappears. I try not to smile too wide and blow it by looking as though I actually tried to be funny. Better to appear inadvertently witty.

Leo's eyes are on me and hot flames lick my neck. When I finally risk a quick peek, I find him grinning. Either he approves, or he thinks incest explains a few things about me.

“Okay,” says Carling, “Willa's going to get even more perfect, Isabella's going to do her cousin—”

“Not
do
him!” Isabella giggles. “But I might do a hell of a lot of spying and fantasizing.”

Willa looks around. “Nice one, Isabella. Next? Sloane?”

“I'm going to drop out,” Sloane says.

The air grows quiet. “Seriously?” says Willa.

“Nah.” Sloane slumps lower on the sofa. “My parents threaten to split all the time as it is. Me quitting Ant would drive them to murder. But a girl can dream.”

“You're the one person who doesn't need to be here,” says Carling. “You can go to any law school you want and you'll still go work in your dad's firm.”

“My point exactly,” says Sloane, staring up at the ceiling. “So why work this hard? Anyway, being a lawyer will be a stepping-stone for me.”

“Our little Sloaney wants to be barefoot and preggers,” Carling says. “So quaint.”

“I do. When I come back to our ten-year reunion, I swear I'll have four kids.”

“Better get on it then.”

“You should take my place at my dad's firm, Carling,” Sloane says. “You're the one who rocks at law.”

Carling says nothing, just roots through Isabella's lunch again, pulls out some grapes, and starts eating.

Leo leans back and stretches. “I don't have any schoolyear secrets. I'll be studying. Eating. Trying to fix the clicking sound in the Aston's engine.”

With her mouth full, Carling says to me, “Leo has a big thing for European convertibles that don't run. He looks hotter than hell driving around in them, but he spends an awful lot of time on the side of the road waving down blondes.”

“Relax.” Leo grins lazily. “That girl was old enough to be my mother.”

After flicking her grape stems to the floor, Carling snuggles into Leo's chest and tugs his shirt out of his pants, which he doesn't seem to mind one bit. Sliding her hand onto his stomach, she says, “As long as she knows that
you
”—she pauses and pushes his shirt farther up—“belong to
me
.”

Leo's relaxed demeanor vanishes. His face darkens and in one sweeping motion, he knocks her hand from his chest and pulls down his shirt. “What the hell? Cut it out!” He lifts his hips and pushes the wrinkled white cotton back into his pants.

A hush falls over the couch. No one moves. No one speaks. Carling, red-faced now, turns away from him and folds her arms across her chest. “Jesus. You don't have to freak on my ass.”

It's like witnessing a wineglass-hitting-the-wall fight between your parents. The unspoken friction is terrifying. Even the Benadryl girls stop talking.

The scars. His anger. It all makes sense. Leo Reiser doesn't hate me. He hates what I've seen. And from his reaction today, I'd be willing to bet even the great Carling Burnack has no idea her boyfriend's chest and shoulders are covered in the painful mystery of his past.

Sloane breaks the prickly stillness. “Your turn, Sara. Junior-year secret?”

All eyes fall on me and the yarn ball springs to life in my abdomen like it's being swatted by an angry kitten. Let's see. I've stolen a pair of pants. I walk around every day in other students' lost clothing. I've set my room on fire. Twice. “I'm not very exciting. My dad'll probably make me clean the grout on the bathroom floor every weekend with that industrial foam cleanser they use in the locker-room showers. You know, the pink stuff that stinks of gasoline? Does that count?”

People eye each other with confusion and I realize my mistake. Regular kids aren't familiar with janitorial elixirs. Griff speaks first, with a yawn. “Call us if you need some help. I'd show up just for the fumes.”

“My dad's just a clean freak,” I say, hoping to muddy up the conversation. The urn-burying incident pops into my mind—Charlie out in the rain, knee-deep in sludge and murdered flowers and slain shrubbery, completely unaware of the people around him—and I regret using the word
freak
. Now I feel disloyal and filthy. The anonymous hand moves around to my waist and I jam my elbow against my side to block it.

“What do your parents do?” asks Isabella with a nervous edge to her voice. “We have a little theory about that kind of thing, don't we, Carling?”

Carling shrugs and bites into a cookie.

“My mother is a chef,” I say. “In Paris.” I don't mention she's there on a two-year work–learn program and is living for free in a friend's flat.

Sloane brightens up. “Tell her to send Izz something fattening.”

“Shut up, Montauk,” Isabella snaps. “For your information, fasting makes you live longer. It cuts the risk of clogged arteries by forty percent.”

“Not this again.” Carling lets her head drop backward as if she's unspeakably tired. “Tell them who was in the study, Izz.”