The Secret to Lying (27 page)

I stood, wondering about all the things I didn’t know about Jess.

“What?”
she asked.

“I like it,” I said. “It’s pretty.”

Jess frowned. “I told you,
don’t be sweet.
”

“Right. Sorry.”

She glanced at her dorm again. “I better go.”

“Take care, Jess.”

“You, too. No more fighting windows.”

“Hey, I learned my lesson. I’m good now.”

“I doubt that,” she replied.

I gave her a puzzled look.

“Just watch out for yourself,” she said, and walked away.

I FOUND A DATE.
With Ariel. Okay, she had fins instead of feet, but she sure looked cute in her shells. The best part was I didn’t even need to buy tickets to the Fling or splurge for dinner. Ariel preferred sitting in the commons and singing songs with me, and boy could she sing.

Unfortunately, the chess club had reserved the dorm DVD for a Friday night sci-fi movie fest. The only guys attending were Jesus John and Roger Herkle. They were too wrapped up in debating the weapons capabilities of various starships to hear my impassioned arguments for watching
The Little Mermaid.
Not only had it been my favorite movie as a kid, but it was the only DVD available from our wing library that wasn’t scratched beyond viewing.

Ariel and I decided to move our shindig to the girls’ dorm. I even dressed up for the occasion — putting on my best sport coat and ripped jeans. I mussed my hair into a respectable purple tangle, grabbed my seven iron to use as a cane (my five iron was in the pond), and, with Ariel under my arm and a bag of microwave popcorn, headed off.

The girls’ dorm bustled with activity. A few guys, looking stiff in their tuxes, hung around the commons, waiting for their dates. Packs of girls darted from wing to wing, fixing each other’s hair, trading jewelry, doing makeup. Some looked so different dressed up that I didn’t recognize them, but not even the prettiest off-the-shoulder dress could compete with seashells. Another plus for Ariel, the wonder date.

Frank Wood saw me in my digs and asked who I was going with.

“Ariel,” I said.

His forehead wrinkled. I could see him scanning a mental list of all the girls in school.

“The flipper thing’s kind of a drag,” I added. “She can’t dance very well on land, but under the sea — look out!”

Frank noticed the movie. Then he got it. “Oh,” he said.

I explained how I liked flipper Ariel more than legged Ariel. “She was more daring and adventurous with flippers,” I told him. “With legs, she only cared about kissing Prince Eric. Now he’s a total trog. Once they split, I’m going to swoop in and Ariel will be mine.”

“Right,” Frank said, backing away. “That’s funny.”

I grinned, although I wasn’t entirely joking. The truth is, I’ve always been a little obsessed with cartoon women.

Frank’s date came down, and he struggled with pinning a corsage to her dress. It took him almost five minutes to get it to stay on. Then they headed out, leaving me alone with Ariel again.

I started to imagine what Chuck would say about my cartoon crushes. He’d probably call it “a manifestation of my desire for an unattainable ideal.”

“Why would I want someone who’s unattainable?” I thought, carrying on the conversation in my head.

“I don’t know,” imaginary Chuck replied. “Why
would
you want someone who’s unattainable?” (Half the time, all he did was repeat my questions back to me.)

“Because they’re safe.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Real people are unpredictable. They might get angry at you. They might ignore you. They might reject you when you ask them to a dance. . . .”

I shook my head, snapping out of the imagined conversation. This was the problem with being alone too much — I’d get lost in my own thoughts. I hoped no one had noticed me spacing out. Glancing around, I tried to see if any friends had entered the commons.

Kevin Heegan and a few seniors were standing by the vending machines. While most guys pretty much swam in their tuxes, Heegan, with his broad chest and big shoulders, fit his perfectly. His hair was gelled into neat spikes, and he carried a bouquet of red roses. Ice Queen and he would look so dashing together — two blond, blue-eyed models.

Heegan’s woodchuck laughter reverberated off the walls as he clowned around with his jeek buddies. I cranked up Ariel to drown him out.

Dickie and Heinous walked in a few minutes later. “Howdy, mates!” I called.

They strolled over. Heinous looked like an Elvis impersonator in his white tux.

“Going to Vegas?” I asked.

“Vegas?” Heinous said.

“Your tux, man. It’s like you’re going to get married.”

“It’s classic,” Dickie said, although he was sporting a more traditional black tux himself.

“Classic ’80s,” I quipped.

“Dude.” Heinous shook his head. “Real men wear white.”

“And cummerbunds,” Dickie added, pointing to Heinous’s waist. “He’s even wearing a cummerbund.”

“James Bond wears a cummerbund,” Heinous said. “Matadors wear cummerbunds.”

“Cummer what?”

“The
cummerbund,
” Heinous said, unbuttoning his jacket to show off the black sash around his waist. “Women love cummerbunds.”

I tried to keep joking about cummerbunds with Dickie and Heinous, but they got distracted by the door opening. Sunny and Vanessa entered, and the couples went all gaga, complimenting each other.

In truth, Sunny did look pretty stunning. She had on this peach flowy dress with sparkles in her hair and glitter on her chest that made her tan skin shimmer. “You sure do clean up nice,” I said.

“Thanks,” she replied, nodding to my ripped jeans. “So do you.”

They hung around the sofa, but I could tell they didn’t want to spend too long in my pity fest. Heinous kept glancing out the window for the limo.

“Put a limo up your butt,” I said.

His brow creased.

“Remember? That Eddie Murphy song . . .” I explained, but it was pointless — Heinous was too caught up in trying to impress Vanessa to sing a song about shoving things up one’s buttocks.

More girls poured into the commons, all spiffed up. Sage Fisher. Jen Hinky. Rachel Chang. And Ellie.

The stomach-go-flip feeling I always got when she was around nearly floored me. Ellie had on this simple red dress, but the way it hung off her waifish figure made the other girls look like they were only playing dress-up. It seemed impossible that she could be one of us and not some magazine picture come to life. For a moment, I was as intimidated by her as ever, then her eyes found mine and her composure faltered. I knew she hadn’t meant to look at me. She probably hadn’t expected me to be there.

The crack in her armor lasted only a fraction of a second before she regained her composure. Her high heels clicked against the tile floor as she walked toward me. I froze, trying to still my spinning insides. The notion that she might give me a second chance flitted through my head. I imagined her whispering something cheesy like, “I’ll save a dance for you,” then I’d go to the Fling and by the end of the night we’d be laughing about all the dumb things that had kept us apart.

Instead, she breezed past the couch as if I didn’t exist. Heegan stood behind me. Ellie thanked him for the flowers and complimented his tux.

I stared at the TV. Ariel was twirling in her secret cove, singing about how she wanted to be part of the human world.

When next I looked, Heegan and Ellie were gone. They must have slipped out the back of the commons. Then the limo arrived, and Heinous, Vanessa, and Dickie headed for the door. Sunny paused by my couch before leaving.

“You going to be okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’ve got popcorn and Ariel. What more could a guy want?”

She looked at me like she thought I might slit my wrists or jump off the roof.

“I’m fine,” I added. “Really. Have fun at the dance. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Sunny smiled. “That pretty much leaves it open, doesn’t it?”

“I’M FINE,” I TOLD CHUCK.
“I’ve got everything under control.”

“I see.” He folded his hands beneath his chin, giving me this attentive one-eyed look, like a compassionate pirate.

Chuck usually let me pick whatever I wanted to talk about, but this time I couldn’t come up with a thing. All week my mind had been totally blank.

I leaned forward and grabbed the paperweight from the table. It was one of those handblown glass balls with bright swirls and bubbles in the middle. Looking at it reminded me of the sparks trapped in jars that I’d seen in the core.

“You know,” I said, “I don’t think I need to come here anymore. I think I made up all my problems.”

“It doesn’t seem that way to me,” Chuck said.

“Whatever.” I hadn’t cut myself. I hadn’t dreamed of the city. I hadn’t done anything bad in weeks. “I think I’m cured. I’m fine now.” I pulled back my sleeves as proof. “Model citizen.”

“Do you feel fine?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s that feel like?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Like tasting water.”

Chuck stared, waiting for me to say something more.

I glanced around the room. The clock on the bookshelf had stopped. I wondered if Ellie was sitting outside the office yet, eager to start her session. We had this tacit system where I’d bolt out of the office and she’d pretend to be so involved in reading a magazine that she wouldn’t look at me. It was like running through a cold sprinkler, except after my last meeting she hadn’t been there.

“Did Ellie stop seeing you?” I asked, figuring Chuck wouldn’t answer. There was probably a rule against talking about other students.

“Why do you ask? Are you friends with her?”

“Sort of.” It seemed too complicated to explain that Ellie and I were only friends before I knew it was her. “We used to be very close.”

Chuck rubbed his hands together in thought. “Hold on a second. I need to make a phone call.”

He left me in his office for almost five minutes before he stuck his head back in. “Let’s do something different today,” he said, grabbing his coat. “How about a field trip?”

I shrugged. “Where to?”

“The hospital,” Chuck said.

“Why?”

“To see Ellie.”

Chuck signed me out. He drove this tiny compact car that creaked when he got in. His head almost touched the ceiling and his knees jammed around the steering wheel. The car was cluttered with trash and sunflower seeds. Chuck swiped a coffee cup off the seat and straightened this green towel where I was supposed to sit. Short white hairs covered every inch of the car.

“Sorry about the dog hair,” he said.

“No problem,” I told him, cramming into the seat.

We didn’t talk much on the way. I asked Chuck what Ellie was doing in the hospital, but the only answer he gave me was, “You should ask her that.”

Fortunately, the hospital wasn’t very far away. It was the same place the ambulance had taken me when I got hypothermia, only it looked different now in daylight and without snow.

Inside, the place appeared plenty familiar — harsh white lights, antiseptic smell, and bodies bustling in blue scrubs. Chuck talked with a nurse at the front desk, then he led me through the maze of hallways to Ellie’s room. A few of the doors we passed stood open. In one, a gray-skinned old man lay among a nest of IV tubes, beeping machines, and ventilator hoses. In another room, a middle-aged woman in a hospital robe sat upright in bed, eyes glued to a TV that hung from the ceiling. Wilting flowers and balloons surrounded her. I got nervous thinking about what the situation in Ellie’s room might be.

Chuck knocked twice on a door that was cracked open. “You decent?” he called.

No one responded.

“Go on,” he said to me. “She knows you’re coming.”

I looked at him, still not sure what I was supposed to do, but he didn’t give me any more instructions. Chuck was big on letting people figure things out for themselves. I took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

A dull yellow curtain surrounded the bed like a cocoon, through which I could see the muted glow of a reading lamp.

“I’ll be in the waiting room,” Chuck said. “I’ve got thirty minutes before I need to return to school. All right?”