Tell Me Lies (18 page)

“Meet Phoebe,” C.L. said.

Treva started to laugh.

Maddie leaned against the wall. “Phoebe?”

“Em just named her,” C.L. said. “I was thinking Hilda. Doesn’t she look like a Hilda?”

“Oh, yeah,” Treva said, and went off into laughter again.

Em was in ecstasy. “Isn’t she perfect?”

“She’s perfect!” Mel echoed.

Perfect, Phoebe wasn’t. She looked vaguely off, a fun-house puppy whose proportions weren’t quite kosher. She was too long to be a beagle and too short to be a dachshund and too fat to be either, and then there were those spots: Phoebe’s back had regular big brown beagle spots, but her sides and legs were spattered with little black dalmatian spots.

“She’s a stretch beagle,” Treva said.

“She’s a guard dog,” C.L. said. “She’s here to protect you.”

The guard dog wobbled over and flopped down next to Em and put its little head in her lap.

C.L. shrugged. “Well, she’s vicious if you’re attacked.”

“She looks like she weighs about five pounds,” Maddie said. “If we get attacked by anything larger than a squirrel, we’re going to be in real trouble.”

“Yes, but she’s going to get a lot bigger.”

“What?”

“She’s just a pup.”

Maddie pictured her already rocky future with the addition of a huge mutant beagle in the house. It was more than she could take. “C.L., it’s very nice for you to arrange to
loan
us this dog, but—”

C.L. grinned at her. “Oh, it’s not a loan. It’s forever.”

“I
love
you!” Em shrieked at C.L., and hugged the puppy, and Treva sat down on the steps because she was laughing too hard to stand.

Maddie gave up. “How much bigger?”

“Lots. She’s part beagle and part dachshund and part setter and part dalmatian.” C.L. looked down at the puppy. “And a few other things, I think. She’s a very American dog.”

“And how big do these American parts get?”

C.L. shrugged. “Don’t know. Never seen one before.”

Maddie sat down on the stairs beside Treva. At least the new disaster didn’t involve money, adultery, blackmail, kidnapping, or divorce. This was just what she needed: G-rated trauma. “What was this anyway? Some kind of genetic engineering at the pound?”

“No. A friend of Henry’s had a beagle mix that met this incredibly aggressive dachshund mix. Sort of like us last night.”

Treva sputtered with laughter again, and Maddie ignored her. “Very funny.”

C.L. looked her straight in the eye, and this time he was serious. “You need this dog, Mad.” He moved his head infinitesimally toward Em, and Maddie really looked at her daughter for the first time since she’d come downstairs. Em’s face was relaxed and happy, shining happy.

“You’re right,” she said. “I need this dog.”

“I didn’t forget you, either, cookie,” C.L. said. “There’s a microwave in the trunk. We’ll go get you a rental car later. Full service, that’s me.”

“That’s what I heard,” Treva said, and Maddie said, “Shut up, Treva,” but C.L. just laughed.

“Come on, Mel.” Treva stood up in spite of her daughter’s protests. “We’ll come back later. These people have company.”

“I am not company,” C.L. said, but they left anyway, and Em took Phoebe out to the back porch, ecstatic over her every wobble while C.L. brought the new microwave in.

Maddie watched Em through the kitchen window. “This is great,” Maddie said, not taking her eyes off Em. “But you didn’t have to—”

“Yes, I did.” C.L. craned his neck to see where Em was, and then he bent and kissed her, the same soft, mind-melting kiss he always gave her, and she let herself relax against him for a minute.

“You do that well,” she murmured.

“I do other things well, too,” he said. “I have an idea.”

“I bet you do, but my kid’s in the backyard, so forget it.” Maddie turned back to the window. She wanted to call Em to come in, but she didn’t want her to think anything was wrong.
Come inside, honey. Daddy might kidnap you.

C.L. tried to look dignified and failed. “It wasn’t that idea, although that’s a good one, too. I think you and Em should come out to the farm for a while.”

Maddie blinked. “To Anna?”

“You’ve had a rough time,” C.L. said. “I looked all over for Brent and couldn’t find him, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be home tonight.” He moved closer. “I hate having you alone here where I can’t take care of you. Come stay with us where you’ll be safe.”

Safe. If she took Em out to the farm, Brent would never find her. And even if he did, he’d have to go through Henry and C.L. to get her. It was the perfect solution.

Except that everybody in Frog Point would be talking about it by church tomorrow morning.

She had a choice: she could stay home so people wouldn’t talk, or she could keep her daughter safe.

“I know you’re worrying about what people will think,” C.L. was saying, “but—”

“We’d love to come,” Maddie said. “I’ll pack. You go talk to Em. Go out there and keep an eye on her.”

“She’s fine,” C.L. said.

“Humor me,” Maddie said, and he looked confused but he went.

“You okay, kid?” he asked her, scratching behind Phoebe’s ears.

“Of course she’s okay,” Em told him. “She’s
wonderful
.”

“No, I mean you.”

His voice sounded serious, although it was hard to tell since she didn’t know him at all. Em looked up at him sideways. He had a nice face, the kind of face that looked like it grinned a lot even though it wasn’t grinning now, and if the world hadn’t been in such a mess, Em might have liked him, especially since he’d given her Phoebe. And now she had to grill him. “I love her,” she told him. “Thank you so much.”

Phoebe’s squirming got more violent, so Em let her go and watched while she trotted across the yard and peed on the sidewalk.

“Okay, so we have some work to do,” C.L. said, and Em laughed in spite of herself at the way he said it, sort of cheery like her first grade teacher, but making fun, too. “The grass is too high,” he went on. “It tickles her tummy, and it’s hard to pee with something tickling, right?”

“Right.” Em had her eyes back on Phoebe, who was investigating the edge of the driveway. “Come here, Phoebe!” she called, terrified that the puppy would disappear down the street, that there would be the same screech of brakes that she’d heard two days before, that Phoebe would be squashed and dead in the middle of the street—

Phoebe came bounding back and wriggled in between them on the steps, and Em clutched the puppy to her side, holding on to all her warmth and life.

“We need to fence in the rest of the yard.” C.L. scooted over a little to give Phoebe more room. “Just that open space between the driveway and the house. We’ll put in a gate so you can still get to the car. And I’ll cut the grass so the tickle thing won’t be a problem.”

Em felt cold all of a sudden. “My daddy cuts the grass.” She looked up at him sideways again. She wanted to like him, but she wasn’t sure what he was doing in her life, so maybe he shouldn’t be there. And then there was the blackmailer. If she didn’t grill him, Mel would kill her. Em set her jaw.
Are you in love with my mom?
didn’t seem to be a good start. Maybe something almost like that, but not quite. “Do you know my daddy?”

She saw him draw back a little and thought,
He’s going to lie,
and then he said, “I knew your mom and dad back in high school. I haven’t been in town much since then because I moved away, so I haven’t talked to your dad in a long time.”

Em considered his answer. He had good eyes, they looked right at her, so he probably wasn’t lying. And he talked to her the same way he talked to her mother, like an adult, except that he sounded more serious with her than he did with her mom. “That’s the truth, isn’t it?” she asked him, still suspicious, letting Phoebe slip squirming through her fingers again.

“Of course it’s the truth.”

He sounded sort of mad, so she said, “Sorry. Sometimes people say stuff to make me feel better.”

“Well, I’m not going to lie, even if it makes you feel lousy,” C.L. said. “All lying does is get you in trouble anyway. You forget what you said in the lie, and then somebody catches you, and then there’s hell to pay. Might as well tell the truth and get it over with.”

He sounded sort of grouchy, like he was talking about something that had happened to him, and Em grinned, her troubles and the grilling forgotten for a minute. “Somebody caught you, huh?”

C.L. grinned back. “My uncle. I swear, he can read minds.”

“I wouldn’t like that.” Em thought back over some of the things she had to hide, like the fact that she didn’t believe her mother.

“I didn’t, either,” C.L. said. “But I learned to live with it. Hey, Phoebe, get your butt back here.” As the puppy trotted back to them again, he added, “You know, we could use a chain to keep Phoebe in the yard.”

Em nodded. “And a bowl and some food and a collar and a leash.” She stood up. “I’ll go get some paper for a list.”

“I brought puppy chow,” C.L. told her. “And you don’t need paper for the rest. Sit down, I’ll teach you a trick.”

Em sat down. Tricks sounded good.

“It’s called a memory picture,” he told her as Phoebe burrowed between them and up onto her lap again. “My uncle taught me this. Okay, how many things do we have to remember?”

Em counted them in her mind. “Four. No, five, we need puppy biscuits, too.”

“Okay, close your eyes,” C.L. said, and she did. “Now, picture Phoebe wearing her collar, with the leash attached, and—What else was there?”

“A chain,” Em said with her eyes still closed, “attached to the leash.”

“You’ve got it, kid,” C.L. said. “Smart. What’s next?”

“She’s eating puppy biscuits out of the bowl,” Em said, putting the picture together.

“Look at it hard.” C.L.‘s voice was nice beside her, not pushy or loud, just sort of laid-back. “Got it?”

In Em’s mind, Phoebe ate brown biscuits from a red dish, a blue collar around her neck and a bright green leash attached to that, and attached to that, a huge, heavy silver chain—

“The chain’s too big,” she told C.L., and then felt stupid because she was the one who’d made it up, hadn’t she?

“Then make it smaller,” he told her, and there wasn’t anything in his voice that sounded like he thought she was dumb. “You imagined it big because you don’t like the idea of Phoebe chained up. But we’ll finish the fence soon and then we won’t use it anymore. It’s just to keep Phoebe safe until we get the rest of the fence up.”

The chain shrank to a reasonable size, and Em knew she should ask why he thought he was going to be finishing the fence and not her daddy, but Phoebe’s nose was cold and wet against her hand, and she had a memory picture of all the things she needed, a new trick to show Mel, not to mention all the information she’d already gotten from one good question. She didn’t need to ask any more. Grilling wasn’t her thing even if she was pretty good at it.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ve got it. And maybe a ball and a Frisbee.”

“Where are they?”

“The white Frisbee’s under the dish, and the purple ball’s on Phoebe’s head.” Em giggled at the picture. “That’s seven things, right?”

“Right,” C.L. said. “And I bet you don’t forget one of them.”

I don’t forget anything,
Em wanted to say, but she patted Phoebe instead and memorized the picture again. It was something to think about besides her mom’s face and the blackmailer and why C.L. was talking about finishing the fence instead of her dad.

“How about we take Phoebe out to my uncle’s farm?” C.L. said, and Em tensed again because he sounded fake relaxed for the first time. “Okay,” he said, in his normal voice. “Here’s the story. I think your mom needs somebody to take care of her for a while, and my aunt Anna takes care of people better than anybody I know. And the farm will be a good place for Phoebe to play. Maybe you and I can go fishing. Just take some time off. What do you think?”

I think you and Mom already decided we’re going,
Em thought,
so what do you care what I think?
But all she said was, “All right.”

About halfway there, near the deserted Drake farm, Em spoke for the first time. “How far is it?”

“About fifteen miles,” C.L. told her. “Your street to Route 31. Then right on Porch Road, and right again on Hickory. Thirty-one people on the Porch eating Hickory nuts.”

Maddie said, “What?” but Em grinned, and Maddie didn’t care that she wasn’t in on the joke as long as Em was happy. And safe.

C.L. finished his answer. “It’s about twenty-five minutes if you drive carefully.”

Far away from Brent. Maddie relaxed for the first time since she’d found Em’s passport. “Which means with you driving, we’ll be there in ten,” she told C.L.

“Hey, I’ve changed,” C.L. called back to her. “I’m a responsible citizen with a future in this place. I never speed anymore.”

She laughed, and he shoved in a cassette and called back, “Remember this?” Bruce Springsteen howled out “Born to Run.”
This is so
not
my song,
Maddie thought. Too bad Bruce never recorded anything like “Born to Be Cautious and Good.” She could have used a theme to explain her life.

“I like country,” she called to him. “Got any Patsy Cline?” “Crazy” would also explain her life.

C.L. shook his head. Ten minutes later he turned down the lane, and Maddie saw Henry’s little white farmhouse and the lawn behind it running for about a hundred yards right down to the river. There were trees down there, and a dilapidated dock, just as C.L. had promised. She hadn’t been here in years, but it looked like yesterday.

C.L.‘s aunt Anna came out on the porch as they got out of the car. “Hello, Maddie, honey,” she said, doing a fairly good job of not staring at the bruising on Maddie’s face.

“Hello, Anna.” Maddie walked toward the porch, holding Em’s hand. “Thank you for having us.”

“Stay here, Em.” C.L. started for the garage. “I’ll get the fishing poles.”

“Our pleasure.” Anna smiled at Em. “This must be Emily. Haven’t seen her since she was a toddler.”

“How do you do,” Em said politely, her little face solemn as she bent to pat the puppy that waddled beside her. “This is Phoebe. C.L. gave her to me.”

Anna’s eyes widened a little in surprise. “That was thoughtful of C.L.” She glanced at Maddie, and Maddie smiled.

“Very thoughtful,” she said, and Anna looked relieved.

“Fishing poles, Em,” C.L. said, coming around the house. “We’ll have fish for dinner.”

“That’s as may be,” Anna said, “but I’m making pot roast just in case.”

“Good,” said C.L. “That’ll take the pressure off.” He jerked his head toward the river, and Em went to stand beside him, Phoebe tumbling behind her.

“Don’t you let that child fall in the river now,” Anna warned him.

C.L. rolled his eyes. “Come on, Em, they’re cramping our style.”

Anna and Maddie watched them walk off to the dock, C.L. going slowly so as not to lose Em, both followed by a meandering Phoebe.

“That’s a lovely child, Maddie.” Anna held the screen door open for her.

“I like her.” Maddie followed Anna inside the house. “And now you’re going to spoil her with real food. Are we having mashed potatoes?”

An hour later, the potatoes were peeled, and Maddie and Anna had swapped all the gossip they knew, although Maddie had kept any of her own news out of the conversation since, by some miracle, it wasn’t gossip yet.

“Gloria Meyer.” Anna shook her head. “Well, she should have known that wouldn’t last.”

“Sometimes you don’t know,” Maddie said, trying to be fair. “Sometimes it’s all right in the beginning, and then things just go wrong.”

Anna took the bowl to the sink and ran water over the naked potatoes.

“I’m getting a divorce,” Maddie blurted, and felt like a fool. She braced herself for a lecture.

Anna dried her hands on a dish towel and put the potatoes on to boil. “Sometimes you have to. No shame in it. That child’s going to get a sunburn out there.” She went out the screen door and called from the porch, “Emily, come in and we’ll make some cookies now. And, C.L., that grass needs to be mowed before your uncle gets home.”

When she came back in, Maddie said, “I don’t know why I told you that,” and Anna said, “Eases my mind some. Thank you.”

Maddie felt a little dizzy from trying to cope with everything that wasn’t being said. “You’re welcome,” she said, and then spent the next hour watching Anna bend over Em as she dropped cookie dough on the sheets, while Phoebe slept exhausted in the corner.

Anna wants grandkids,
Maddie thought, and since C.L. was being slow in that department, Anna was more than happy to take Em. Maddie wanted to say,
Listen, don’t get ideas about C.L. and us,
but it would be cruel and unnecessary to say anything right now. Let Anna have her time with Em.

She turned to look out the window. C.L. had taken his shirt off and was pushing an old hand mower up and down the riverbank. He looked hot and sweaty and broad and strong and really good. She could use some time with C.L.
Don’t think about it.
Anna was standing right there, for heaven’s sake. Maddie turned away from the window and went to help finish dinner.

Henry came home half an hour later. “Glad you’re here,” he told her gruffly, and took Em out on the porch to teach her to play checkers. A little while later, C.L. broke off his mowing for dinner, and the five of them sat around Anna’s big round table and passed platters of stringy tender beef, and bowls of potatoes whipped in cream, and gravy the color of mahogany, and tiny new peas, and biscuits that bled with butter. Em ate with great concentration while Maddie watched her, smiling in spite of the mess her life was in. Em had never had food like this. This food would clog her arteries and she’d have a heart attack at nine. But she’d go having tasted paradise.

Toward the end of dinner when the serious eating slowed, Henry and C.L. had a heated and technical discussion about gas-powered mowers, and Anna and Emily discussed future cookies.

Henry pointed his fork at C.L. “That push mower is as good as the day I bought it.”

Beside him, Anna bent near Em. “You just roll some dough into a ball and then roll it in the cinnamon.”

C.L. shook his head. “Hell, Henry, I lost ten pounds today just doing the back half of the lawn. You’ll have a heart attack someday.”

“With my fingers?” Em asked.

“City living,” Henry said darkly.

Anna nodded. “Yep, with your fingers. Then you squash it down on the cookie sheet.”

C.L. shrugged off the implied insult. “I can finish the lawn after dinner. I would have finished it before, but I didn’t want to miss dinner. And Emily’s cookies.”

“We’ll make cinnamon cookies the next time I come back,” Em whispered to him.

“I can’t wait,” C.L. said.

Henry harrumphed to get C.L.‘s attention back. “You never complained about that mower when you were a kid.”

Anna stood up. “Anybody want some of Emily’s chocolate chip cookies?”

C.L. tried to look superior. “That’s because I was a good kid.”

Both Anna and Henry looked at him in silence.

“I want some of Emily’s cookies,” C.L. said to change the subject.

“I’ll get them.” Em slid from her chair.

“What are you looking at me like that for?” C.L. said to his aunt and uncle. “I wasn’t a delinquent.”

“You were a pain in the ass,” Henry said.

“I think I’ll go out and finish the mowing.” C.L. took some cookies off the plate Em had grabbed from the counter. “Thank you, Em.”

“Was he a handful?” Maddie asked Anna as they washed the dishes while Em and Henry went out on the porch for one last game of checkers.

“Lord, yes,” Anna said. “That’s why we raised him. My sister Susan wanted him put in a home for delinquents, but we took him out here instead. I thought for a while he was going to be the death of Henry, but it worked out. He’s a good boy,” Anna said, rinsing the roast platter. “He just needed somebody to love him. And to tan his hide when he did wrong. He just needed to learn.”

This was a side of C.L. Maddie had never thought about, C.L. as a kid. Like Em. “What did he do?”

“Fighting mostly. He was a terrible fighter. Really tried to hurt people.” Anna stopped and stared into the distance, a puzzled look on her face. “I never did understand that, ‘cause he was always so sweet with me. And gentle with animals? You should have seen him with animals. We thought for a while he might be a vet, he was that good with them. And with little kids. And then he’d go out and break somebody’s jaw.” Anna shook her head. “He always had a reason. Always said somebody was pickin’ on somebody else or had done something evil, and everything would go red and he’d just hit.”

Maddie swallowed. “But you said it worked out.”

“Well, it did seem as if it took him longer than it would have other boys.” Anna pulled the plug out of the sink drain and stared out the window as the water glugged down the drain. “I remember one time, Henry sent him into town to get us a couple of those galvanized trash cans.” Anna wrung out her dishrag and draped it over the faucet. “He took them right out there,” she said, pointing out the kitchen window, “but they were stacked, and they wouldn’t come apart. I stood here and watched him get madder and madder, and then he stomped off to his car and got his baseball bat and came back and just beat those cans to pieces till there was nothing left but scrap.”

“What did you do?” Maddie asked, suddenly cold. Could C.L. have gone after Brent? She tried to remember everything about C.L. since she’d seen Brent. He’d been happy when he’d come back to see her, until he saw her face, and then he’d gone off to find Brent. He said he hadn’t, but—

Anna was answering her. “I just watched. Then he got back in the car and went off to town and came back with two more cans that he’d paid for with his own money. Not stacked. And that was the end of it.”

“Dear Lord.”

Anna turned to her and smiled reassuringly. “He eventually mellowed out some. And you know him now. Just as sweet as he can be. But I do think sometimes part of the old C.L. is still there. You know, he always was stubborn as a boy, and he still is. If he wants something bad enough, he gets it. Did then, does now.”

Maybe not
, Maddie thought.

Em came into the kitchen from the porch, looking over her shoulder to watch Phoebe waddle in behind. The mower had been silent for several minutes, and it was growing dark outside. Anna handed Maddie a couple of beers. “Take this out to C.L. Em and I’ll watch television till bedtime.” She smiled at Em. “You’re going to sleep in C.L.‘s old room.”

“Phoebe, too?” Em said, her voice suddenly tense.

“Phoebe, too,” Anna said, and Em went docilely off to watch TV with a glass of milk, a plate of cookies, and her very own dog.

“She’s never going to want to go home,” Maddie said.

“Fine by me,” Anna said, and went in to watch “The Simpsons” for the first time in her life while Maddie went out to meet C.L.