The Girl Who Kissed a Lie (4 page)

I don’t bring it up to my aunts. Not at first. At first it seems like too enormous a thing to say.
Today
I
met
a
woman
who
knew
Dad.
I know that I don’t really have a father in the sense that other people have fathers, but my father, all that he is, has always been
mine
. There are no other people that my father knows. Other people’s fathers have old school friends and work colleagues; my father has
me
. And I guess that has always been what I could wrap around the sadness as comfort. Somehow, Matilda whatever-her-last-name-might-be knowing Dad has jolted me out of that, like the comfort has been torn away, and all that’s left is just being sad.

So, instead, I focus on the Salem Willows trip. We’ve worked out the details, so I feel prepared to bring it up with my aunts.

“Kelsey wanted to know if I could go up to Salem with her and some other people from school,” I say. I delicately leave out the fact that the other people are boys. I don’t know what my aunts would think about that. Homeschooling, and my preoccupation with Ben, has mostly saved us from awkward birds-and-bees conversations.

“Who is Kelsey?” Aunt True asks vaguely, knitting her sock in the enormous pair of bright pink socks that my aunts have been knitting together for as long as I can remember. These socks are at least as long as I am tall. I have no idea what my aunts intend to do with them. Maybe they think they know giants as well as gnomes.

“My friend,” I remind her patiently. “Who I work with.”

“Salem.” Aunt Virtue frowns a bit. “The town with the witches.”

“Well, yeah, but we’re going to this little park-type thing outside of town.”

Aunt Virtue and Aunt True exchange looks. “Do you really think that sounds like the best idea?” Aunt True asks me.

I knew they would be like this. I knew they would be hesitant over any sort of excursion. “It’s not a big deal; it’s just a quick little afternoon.”

“But I don’t know.” Aunt True manages to give the impression of wringing her hands while continuing on with her knitting. “It just seems like there’s so much
potential
for so much to go wrong.” She looks over at Aunt Virtue. “What do you think?”

“It’s a bad idea,” Aunt Virtue says without looking up from her knitting. “No.”

“But it’s only for a few hours,” I beg.

“Will you be taking the subway?” asks Aunt True.

“No,” I say. I almost say,
Andy’s driving
and then amend it to, “My friend is driving.”

Aunt True looks at Aunt Virtue. “At least there won’t be goblins.”

“You think the goblins are only on the subway?” says Aunt Virtue. “And, anyway, it’s not just goblins, is it? It’s
everything
.”

“That’s not fair!” I protest, and I am abruptly angry enough to really shout. I have never in my life asked to go anywhere, not a single outing, and it’s not
fair
. It’s not
normal
. “I never get to go
anywhere
.”

“Because most places aren’t safe,” Aunt Virtue says severely.

“There aren’t any goblins! There aren’t any gnomes! You’re making up things to be scared of in your heads!” I accuse. “You go to see Dad, and other than that you haven’t ventured past Beacon Hill in so long that you’ve forgotten that everyone out there is
normal
! They’re not like us! I’ll be fine!”

My aunts both stare at me. They look worse than angry. They look hurt.

I swallow and try to think of what to say.

But Aunt Virtue is the one who speaks. She says, with finality, “You are not going.”

***

The following day suits my mood in that it is gray and rainy.

Kelsey, huddled in a sweatshirt against the chill that has crept in with the rain, is already at Bourne’s when I get there. Boston weather can change on a dime, and our hot, humid summer has disappeared as if it never existed in the first place.

“I hope we get better weather than this for our trip to Salem Willows,” she greets me cheerfully.

I don’t want to tell Kelsey that my aunts said I can’t go. This seems humiliating, pathetic. What good does it do me to lie about it? I wonder. Am I planning on going anyway? Sneaking out? Maybe. Could I even do that? I’ve never tried before, but I could probably manage it. Or maybe I could just change their minds? This doesn’t seem likely. But I still manage to smile wanly at Kelsey and say, “Looking forward to it” in a voice that doesn’t at all sound like I’m looking forward to it.

Kelsey looks at me oddly, which I deserve. Then she says, “What happened with Mrs. Bourne?”

That
lady
knew
my
dad.
I don’t want to get into it. Cheerful, confident Kelsey with her golden life doesn’t want to hear my sob story.

I say, “I went into the back room.”

Kelsey’s eyes widened. “You did? What’s it like back there? Are they counterfeiting money? Oh, wait, don’t tell me. It was all frog spleens and stuff, and she really is a witch like you said.”

“Frog spleens?” I echo, momentarily distracted.

“I think witches use frog spleens.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know, for spells or whatever. Look, I don’t really know any witches.”

“Do you believe in witches?” I’m curious now. It feels like, if Kelsey believes in witches, then maybe I can start to tell her about things like gnome infestations and my aunts not letting me go places because they’re worried about goblins. And if I can tell her about things like that, maybe I can tell her about all of it—every crazy, abnormal thing in my life.

“No,” replies Kelsey immediately, as if I’ve just asked her if the sky is purple. But here’s the thing: lots of times, in different lights, the sky
is
purple. Or at least something other than blue. And people who don’t think of that are probably never going to believe in gnomes and goblins. And somehow that makes everything else in my life too unbelievable to be brought into a regular conversation.

I am momentarily disappointed, which is stupid, because it’s not like
I
really believe in gnomes. I know that gnomes and witches and goblins don’t exist. Or most of the time I know that. I’d like to meet someone who, like me, has those moments of doubt. I’d like to meet someone like me, someone a little less than normal.

“You believe in witches, don’t you?” Kelsey concludes. She has been watching me closely, and it’s probably pretty easy to read my thoughts.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Sometimes… I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” says Kelsey, pulling herself up to sit on the counter, and I’m surprised by how readily she agrees to this. “But I’d rather believe in other things if I’m going to believe in that stuff.”

“Like what?” I ask, curious, wondering if she’s going to say
gnomes
.

Kelsey shrugs. “I don’t know. Elves?” she suggests. “Faeries?”

We are both silent for a moment, considering.

Then Kelsey says, “So what
was
in the back room? Not frog spleens, I’m assuming.”

“Sewing,” I answer truthfully. “Lots and lots of…sewing.”

***

Ben is on the Common on Monday.

There are only two things my brain is mainly occupied with at this moment—Salem Willows and the woman who knew my father—and I don’t want to get into how I can’t go to Salem Willows, because, of course, I want nothing more than to go to Salem Willows, so I bring up the latter instead. Well, in a roundabout way.

“So it’s not money laundering,” I tell him.

Ben lifts one dark eyebrow over his beautiful, unusual eyes—they are pale silver or bright, clear blue or no color at all or every color at once. “What’s not?”

“What Mrs. Bourne is doing in the back room. And she’s not a witch either,” I tell him, as if that had been a viable possibility. “Instead, she
sews
.”

And Ben sits up. Most of the time Ben is laid-back and easygoing, but every once in a while he snaps to attention and I think that I would not want to get between Ben and something he wants. “She sews?” he echoes, his voice both sharp and flat.

I eye him in bewilderment. This was supposed to be the
safe
topic of conversation. “Yes?” I confirm hesitantly.

His eyes narrow at me. He seems to be inordinately interested in this. “What does Mrs. Bourne sew?”

“I don’t know,” I say, confused at his reaction. “Fabric, I guess? Lace?” I mean, it all seems harmless enough to me.

“You have to quit,” he announces immediately, with assured authority, as if whatever he says must become law.

And I bristle in reaction. “I have to
quit
?”

“Yes. Definitely. Immediately.”

“Why?”

“Sewers can be tricky,” Ben insists stubbornly, like this makes any sort of sense at all.

“How?” I demand belligerently.

“It depends on what they sew.”

“She’s sewing
lace
,” I point out to him. “It’s just
lace
.”

“That’s what it
looks
like. But you have no idea what she could really be up to.”

“When I thought she might be in the mob, you couldn’t have cared less. And now you’re all freaked out because she
sews
lace
?”

“Maybe you should just trust me on this,” Ben snaps at me.

“
Trust
you?” It feels like exactly the wrong thing for him to have said. I do trust Ben, an incredible amount considering I know nothing about him and he has never really given me a reason to do so. “Why should I trust you?”

“Because I am older and I am wiser and I know more than you.”

I am almost too stunned by that to react. But then I do, by standing up and brushing grass off me vigorously. “Well,” I drawl sarcastically. “In
that
case.”

“Selkie,” says Ben, but I am already walking away from him.

He startles me by catching my hand to prevent me from fleeing. He has stood up as well, to follow my retreat.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he begins.

“You didn’t mean that you are older and wiser and know more?”

Ben hesitates. “I didn’t mean it
like
that
,” he repeats.

I frown at him thunderously,
furious
at him. So what if he
is
older? How dare he order me around, tell me to quit a perfectly good job because someone
sews
? That is utter lunacy. He’s acting like he’s lost his mind. “Go to hell,” I snap at him, and shake my hand out of his and march away.

“Selkie, listen to me—”

“No,” I retort, but then I turn around and keep shouting at him, even though I’d fully intended to walk away from him in all manner of dignity. “Who do you think you are?” I demand.

Ben hesitates, as if he can’t even answer that question.

“I know nothing about you!” I remind him and realize that this has been eating away at me for longer than I have cared to acknowledge. “
Nothing
. I don’t know where you come from, if you go to school. I don’t even know your last name. And now you want me to trust you that I should quit my job
just
because
you
say
so
? Why should I trust you,
ever
?”

“All right,” says Ben slowly, as if he is processing that I am angry and needs time to determine how to live in this strange, new world where I get mad at him. And then he says the most ridiculous thing. He doesn’t say his last name or where he’s from or any of the million little details he could give me that would help me feel better. He says, “I was wrong to tell you to trust me.”

As if
that’s
the problem. As if we should stay friends, or whatever, who know nothing about each other. As if that’s
preferable
.

“This isn’t
normal
!” I cry, and I mean it, passionately. I think of Brody, who wants to date me in this very normal way, wants to take me places and spend time with me. And maybe we haven’t spent much time talking, but we’re
going
to, and I’ll find out more about him, and it will all be
normal
. “I’m going to Salem Willows!” I fling out at him, as if that’ll teach Ben a lesson of some sort.

Ben looks blank, and if I were less furious at him, I wouldn’t blame him. “Salem Willows?” he echoes.

“Yes! Because it’s a
completely
normal
thing for someone to do!”

Ben continues to look blank. “I don’t know why you want to be
normal
,” he says, sounding honestly perplexed. “You couldn’t ever be normal. You’re
you
. That’s so much better than being ‘normal.’”

And then Ben goes and says something like that, and I feel like I should just forgive him for everything. That’s the trick of him. He can be charming and sweet, and I’ve known him so long that I can’t even remember
meeting
him. It just seems like he’s always been there.

And I don’t even know his last name.

I slam the door when I get back to my house, but Ben is too far away to appreciate it.

Fighting with Ben, which I have never done before, makes me feel unhappy and unsettled. I mope around the house, pretending to be doing something useful like reading but really dwelling on everything. And I’m not dwelling on Ben—I refuse to dwell on Ben—but that leaves precious little else to dwell on: My inability to go to Salem Willows. The woman who knew my father.

On Wednesday, the second day of all my moping around, my aunts confront me. Well,
confront
might be too strong a word. They are busy knitting and I am, well, moping. Really, I am bunching and unbunching a discarded bit of yarn in my hand, planning to slip it into my pocket in case it might come in handy in the future, because
you
never
know
.

And my aunt Virtue says, abruptly, as if we had been talking about it just the moment before, “You can go to the park with your friends.”

I sit up, blinking at her in startled surprise. “What?”

“Your Aunt True and I have been discussing it,” she continues, eyes still riveted on her knitting, “and we know you’re getting older and you’ll want to…you’ll have to…be…out there…and you can go to the park with your friends.”

“You’ve been so sad about not being able to go,” Aunt True tells me, looking at me with soft, loving eyes. “We feel terrible about it. It’s just that we
worry
.”

“But it’s only one afternoon,” Aunt Virtue adds and looks up at me. “And you’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, yes, yes.” I feel delighted at this because it’s an
outing
with
friends
, and not long ago I didn’t have any friends at all. “Thank you!” I exclaim.

And then, fast on the heels of the delight, comes dread. Is this a date with Brody Fletcher? I’ve never been on a date before. What if I make a mess of everything?

And what about Ben?

No. I’m not thinking about Ben.

I look at my aunts, still knitting their bright pink socks, swiftly approaching seven feet long; the socks curl up in bunches at their feet, miniature mountains of yarn. I look at the socks. Surely it is not normal to knit seven-foot-long socks. But what
is
normal? Do you meet the love of your life one day working at a summer job? If I give Brody a real chance, could it be that Brody might turn out to be the love of my life? I haven’t been impressed with him so far, but maybe I haven’t been fair to him? And if Brody is the love of my life, should I still be so upset over fighting with Ben?

I hear myself say, “How did my father really meet my mother?”

“You know this story, dear,” Aunt Virtue reminds me.

I know the story I’ve been told: that my father walked into his town house one day to find an unknown blond woman curled up asleep on his couch. Which is absurd. That’s a fairy-tale story told by a man who’s lost his mind. “Right. But how did it
really
happen?”

Both aunts stop knitting and look at me.

“That’s how it really happened,” Aunt True tells me, bewildered.

“But…” This seems astonishing to me, and my aunts don’t seem to think that it should be. “How did she get in? Did she…break in?”

“No one really knows,” Aunt True tells me.

I guess this is what my aunts mean when they call my mother
flighty
. “And it was love at first sight?”

“Something like that,” says Aunt True.

“Your father definitely lost his head,” snorts Aunt Virtue.

“Your father wanted a child. He wanted one desperately. And she gave us you.” Aunt True’s voice is soft and fond, and she reaches out and touches me, a loving caress. My aunts are not big on physical affection. I know that they love me, but it is seldom they show it so openly, and I admit that it makes me feel much younger than the sixteen years of age I am. It almost makes me feel like crying. “So how can we fault your father for foolish choices when it led to you?”

And then I
am
crying, which is so silly and stupid. I wipe the tears off my cheeks impatiently, determined to focus. My aunts are seldom so straightforward in answering questions, and now I want to know
more, I don’t want to waste time crying
. “What was he like?” I ask. “Dad? Before?”

My aunts exchange a look, a smile of shared remembrances. They look younger than I’ve ever seen them, girlish even.

“He was a lovely man,” Aunt True says.

“Adventurous,” Aunt Virtue tells me. “Always up for everything. He never shied away from anything, that man. He was the most stubborn creature I’ve ever known.”

“You are a lot like him,” Aunt True adds.

“Am I?” Because I worry that I am more like the mother I never knew, the mother I resemble so strongly.

“Yes,” she says firmly. “I see him in you more every day.”

“There was a woman,” I hear myself say without knowing that I intended to divulge this secret. “At Bourne’s. Who knew Dad. Matilda something.”

“The Stewarts have lived on Beacon Hill forever,” says Aunt Virtue. “So have the Bournes. Of course people at Bourne’s would know your father.”

And she says it so simply, like it makes total sense. My father grew up on Beacon Hill. Surely there would still be people who would know him. It’s just that I’ve never met any of them before. Maybe it’s not so strange that I’ve met someone now; maybe the strange part is not having met someone before.

***

I don’t mean to ask Mrs. Bourne again about the woman who knew my father. It seems to just happen. Kelsey has to leave early for a dentist appointment, and so I am alone in the store with Mrs. Bourne, which happens so very rarely. Even rarer is that Mrs. Bourne bustles out of the back room into the store itself, fussing over something on a shelf in the corner, and there are no customers in the store, and it seems like the perfect opportunity. Plus, it is practically time for me to leave myself, so that gives me an opening.

“Mrs. Bourne,” I venture hesitantly, trying to be confident and self-assured instead of nervous.

“Yes?” she answers distractedly.

“It’s, uh, time for me to go,” I say lamely, which was not at all what I meant to say.

“All right,” she agrees, still not paying much attention to me.

I actually turn to go, and then I berate myself for being a coward and turn back. “Mrs. Bourne?”

She looks at me then, just briefly, over the top of the glasses she’s wearing. She seems curious about the fact that I keep standing there trying to talk to her about nothing. “Yes?”

“That woman, Matilda, who knew my father…”

Mrs. Bourne lifts her eyebrows. She continues to look as if she thinks that I am an idiot. “Yes?” she prompts.

And what am I going to say?
I
never
met
anyone
who
knew
my
father
before.
I
do
sound like an idiot. “I…” I find myself asking, “Did you know my father too?”

Mrs. Bourne doesn’t seem surprised by the question at all. “Of course,” she answers, as if this is no momentous revelation. “He is a Stewart of Beacon Hill. I have always known all of the Stewarts of Beacon Hill.”

She didn’t know me until just recently, I think. “Except me,” I say. “I mean, until recently.”

“Ah,” she says. “Well. Yes. But you’re not really a Stewart of Beacon Hill, are you?”

And it’s true, of course. My father is a Stewart of Beacon Hill, but my mother is not. And the fact that my mother is not seems to be more important than the fact that my father is. I have always known that I am not fully a Stewart—it is, of course, obvious, because no one is fully one thing or the other—but it hurts to hear it said so bluntly. I look nothing like my father and aunts, with their dark coloring. There is nothing about me that
belongs
to the Stewarts of Beacon Hill. At least, that’s how I feel whenever I look in the mirror. And it’s not easy to be reminded that you are not entirely a part of the only family you have ever known, that there is a very large piece of you that is outside of it, that is beyond it, and that seems relentlessly unknowable, and that seems to be important, even though you have no idea what it is.

I open my mouth, and I don’t know what I intend to say. Do I agree with her or disagree? I don’t know, and I never find out, because that is the moment when Ben interjects pleasantly, “Mrs. Bourne.”

Mrs. Bourne jumps as if he’d pinched her, looking at him in surprise.

I look at him in surprise too. I didn’t even hear the bell tinkle when he came in the door. I blink at him, thinking,
What
is
he
doing
here?
He is standing beside me, his hands tucked in the pockets of the crimson windbreaker he’s wearing. He is smiling at Mrs. Bourne, and then he turns the smile to me.

“Hello,” he says to me, like we aren’t in the middle of a fight.

I frown at him thunderously, to remind him that we are in the middle of a fight.

“Were you heading home?” Ben continues innocently, ignoring my murderous look.

“Yes, I believe she was,” Mrs. Bourne answers for me.

My frown deepens. I direct it at the overstocked shelf so as not to offend Mrs. Bourne.

“It’s getting dark,” says Ben. “I’ll walk you.” Ben turns to Mrs. Bourne, still smiling in a friendly way. “We’ll be off, then. Nice to meet you.”

I don’t want to walk home with Ben, but I also don’t want to start a scene in front of Mrs. Bourne, so I just follow him out of the store.

As soon as we get out into the street, I demand, “What are you doing here?”

“Thought I’d check out this sewing in person.”

Again with the sewing! And nothing about the disagreement we had actually had! I am so exasperated by him. “That’s not your job, you know,” I tell him hotly.

“What’s not?”

“Following me around creepily, like a stalker.”

Ben stops walking, turning to me, his hands still in his pockets. I stop walking too, because this feels like an argument best had face-to-face. “I’m not stalking you. You told me where you worked, so I went to see you at work.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

“You’ve been avoiding the Common. How else was I supposed to talk to you?”

“You
weren’t
. I’ve been avoiding
you
. You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I just wanted to make sure it was safe.” Ben sounds bewildered by my anger.

“That’s not your job!” I shout at him again.

“You’re upset because I want you to be safe?” he asks incredulously.

“
Yes!
” And I realize suddenly, in that moment, that
is
what I’m upset about. I’m so tired of being worried about, fretted over, of being on my guard against invisible threats. I’m tired of being wrapped up in so much protection. I want to go out and live my life and not
worry
, and instead, all the worry in my household is infectious, hanging over me like a cloud. I worry about
everything
. I worry about people knowing my parents. I worry about the little old lady I work for. I worry about going to Salem Willows with friends. I worry and worry and worry and I’m sick of it. And I know it all comes from the people around me, the people who love me, being so constantly
worried
about me. I feel if I don’t get out from under it, I’m going to scream.

“I am upset about that! I can take care of myself! I promise! I can even go out and get a job and walk to and from it every day without a babysitter showing up! It’s amazing and remarkable, but
I
can
do
it
!”

Ben stares at me, looking absolutely floored. “But—”

“I can even go on a date! Yes! Alone and unsupervised! I can even survive
that
! Like a
normal
person
!”

Ben’s eyes narrow, and in other times I would have been pleased that he sounds miffed when he says, “What date?”

But I am too far gone in anger to care overly much how Ben feels right now. I turn on my heel to stalk away.

“Wait a second,” says Ben sounding confused, and lunges forward to grab at my arm before I can walk away. “A date with who?”

I glare daggers at him. I hope. “Why do you care who it’s with? Do you think you have any say in that at all? Do you think you have the right to order me around about that too? It isn’t a date with
you
, because you’ve never asked me, have you?”

Ben blinks. He looks a little bit dazed, and I wish I wasn’t so angry that I couldn’t enjoy that look on his face. “Selkie,” he begins.

“I am going home,” I tell him swiftly. “It’s only a few blocks. I bet I’ll make it there safe and sound. I bet even
I
could manage that. Don’t follow me.”

I turn on my heel and I stalk off, and I want to feel triumphant when Ben doesn’t follow me, because that was what I wanted. But instead I wish that I’d let him finish what he wanted to say, instead of making sure I got the last word.