The Secret to Lying (6 page)

I STAYED IN BED
the next morning, not wanting to sleep anymore and not wanting to get up. The dream had felt so real that I kept checking my arm for cuts. After lying awake awhile, hunger finally got the better of me. I hurried out to snag breakfast before the cafeteria closed.

Campus appeared eerily empty. Most students who lived within a few hours of ASMA had probably gone home for the weekend. Even Dickie had left, dragging a sack of dirty laundry out early that morning.

I ran into Sage on my way into the main building. “James!” she called. “Are you going to be here tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

Sage seemed so happy she could barely contain herself. “My dad’s coming to visit!” she said. “It’s his weekend to see me, and he wants to have a picnic. Will you come?”

“To the picnic?”

“He wants to meet my friends. You’ll like him.”

“I don’t know,” I teased, thinking of the IM I’d gotten from ghost44. Was this what she meant by seeing me again? “Tomorrow is Tater Tot casserole day. I’d hate to miss those crispy, golden Tater Tots, dripping in creamy sauce with mushy carrots and gray peas.”

She smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Sunday turned out to be a beautiful, blue-sky day. Sage’s dad burst into her dorm around one, bearing a large wicker picnic basket and a smile that crinkled his eyes. I’d seen him once before, on the day all the parents had helped their kids move in. He was older than most parents, but he didn’t act old. He looked like how I imagined Socrates would have — tan skin, a wild nest of white hair, scruffy face, and round belly — except instead of a toga, he wore faded blue jeans and a button-down shirt, open at the top.

He dropped the basket as soon as he entered and gave Sage a hug, swinging her off her feet. I looked away, but neither Sage nor her dad seemed to care. Afterward, Sage introduced me. Her dad clamped my hand in both of his and studied my face. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Sage has told me about you.”

I wanted to ask what she’d said, but Mr. Fisher had already moved on. “Who’s hungry?” he asked in a loud voice.

A few students watching TV or doing homework in the commons glanced up, perplexed.

“I brought plenty of food,” Mr. Fisher announced, raising the wicker basket. “Enough lunch for everyone.”

He took Sage by the hand and headed for the door. Several students hung back, wondering if the invitation applied to them. “Come on,” he called to the stragglers. “It’s too beautiful to stay inside.”

Mr. Fisher led us behind the dorms to the far side of the pond, stopping at a spot we called the cleavage since it lay between two small hills. He spread a blanket on the grass and gestured for everyone to sit.

Sage sat next to her dad, practically glowing. The rest of the kids were an odd mix of Sage’s friends and students who’d happened to be in the commons when Mr. Fisher had announced his promise of free food. Donald Smails, the chess master, came, along with Muppet, Tracy Lang, Katy Cameron, and the Ice Queen.

Lately, pretending that Ellie didn’t exist had gotten to be more difficult. For the last week, all anyone talked about was how Mark Watson and her had split up. According to reports, Mark had been expelled for running across campus, swimming the pond, and punching out some guy simply because he was walking with Ellie. The incident had made Ellie a bit of a legend. Senior class officers even started taking orders for T-shirts commemorating the “Mark Watson Run, Swim, and Box for Ellie Triathlon.” Everyone wanted one.

I’d learned to handle being in physics class with Ellie, but sitting next to her at a picnic made me nervous in an entirely new way. I kept worrying that my stomach might rumble or I’d sneeze or do something dumb. I couldn’t even figure out how to sit. After fidgeting for a few minutes, I tried crossing my legs, but I bumped Ellie’s knee.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

Ellie didn’t say anything. Fortunately, Mr. Fisher filled the silence. He pulled things out of the picnic basket like a magician conjuring objects from a hat.

“Beaujolais Nouveau,” he said, lifting a large bottle of wine from the basket. “And Dixie cups.”

“Uh, Mr. Fisher,” Muppet squeaked, “isn’t that against ASMA policy?”

“Call me Liam,” he replied while opening the bottle. He filled the Dixie cups and passed them around. “What’s bread and cheese without a little wine?”

Next Liam pulled food out of the baskets. “French bread!” he announced, holding up two halves of a baguette. He smelled the bread, then handed it to Sage. She tore off a hunk and passed it on, smiling at me.

“Brie!” Liam said, holding up a wheel of cheese. He passed the cheese around with his pocketknife. Everyone cut off a sliver. I ate the cheese and some bread. The rich, buttery flavor blended well with the wine. “Camembert!” he said, holding up another wheel of cheese once everyone had finished the Brie. Then, “Chèvre!” which tasted delicious.

After the cheeses, Liam pulled out a single nectarine and cut it into slices. “Food of the gods,” he said, raising his bushy white eyebrows.

We all took a slice. It was the sweetest, most perfectly ripened nectarine I’d ever tasted. Juice dribbled down my chin. I wiped my face with my sleeve, hoping the Ice Queen hadn’t seen.

Then came mango and pear. Grapes. Gouda. Swiss cheese. Cucumber slices. Prosciutto. Melon. Orange slices. Oregon cherries. Zucchini bread. Liam named each item before passing it around.

I watched Ellie take tiny, delicate bites of things, chewing slowly and leaving perfectly arranged uneaten remains on her napkin. Compared to how she ate, I was an ogre. I tried to focus on savoring each bite like she did, but she must have noticed me looking at her. She glanced at me, then folded up her napkin and hid it away.

Between rounds, Liam filled our Dixie cups and told us stories.

“You know what Inuit children eat in the fall?” he said, tearing off a hunk of French bread. Crumbs sprinkled his belly. “In the fall, the arctic ptarmigan feeds almost exclusively on blueberries. It’s a very well-camouflaged bird, and its instinct is to freeze when a predator approaches. So if the children spot a bird, they grab it and snap its neck.” Liam made a motion with his hands, as if opening a bottle. “Then they cut out the bird’s stomach, which is packed with blueberries, roast it over a fire, and eat it like a blueberry tart.”

He told other stories about the Arctic, too. Sage had mentioned that her dad was a geologist, and I guess he traveled to some remote places. In one story, he talked about a starving polar bear that lumbered into his camp. “At first I thought the bear might eat our dog,” he said. “Until I noticed the dog’s tail wagging. For hours, the two of them played like old friends, before the bear lumbered off.” He looked around the circle, eyeing us. “Loneliness,” he said, “is worse than hunger.”

After we finished the food, Liam rummaged around his basket again. “Dessert,” he said, pulling out three large strawberries.

He held each strawberry in the waning sunlight and studied them carefully. Finally, he selected one, took a small bite, and passed it on. We each took a tiny bite. None of us spoke as the strawberries were passed. Perhaps it was the wine. Normally, I never would have shared a strawberry with Donald Smails or Muppet, but at the time the whole thing seemed perfectly natural.

The first strawberry tasted tangy and sharp, the second swelled with sweetness, and the third looked like a deep red heart with golden stars speckling the skin. I watched the Ice Queen take a bite. When she passed the strawberry to me, I bit in the same place she had, tasting the half-moon left by her teeth.

Liam placed his hands on his knees and surveyed the campus. “This is a good place,” he said.

I nodded. In that moment, I felt like all was right with the world.

Most students returned to campus later that evening. People filtered back to their normal groups, as if the picnic had never happened. Sage giggled with the drama girls, Muppet huddled with the gamer geeks, and Ellie was probably off holding court with the Barbie wannabes. All the usual social barriers were back in place.

I wandered away from the square and thought about some of the things that Liam had said. He’d talked about fish who changed gender when they reached a certain age and an island in the tropics where a percentage of the populace didn’t become male or female until their late teens. “Of course, we’re all part man and part woman,” he’d said. According to Liam, we all had a missing half somewhere — a person who was us but not us, and if only we found them, we’d be whole. Maybe he was full of crap, but the way Liam talked made me yearn to find my missing half. Except it couldn’t be that easy. There must have been something messing it up and keeping people apart, because I’d never known anyone who wasn’t still searching for something.

When I got to the far end of campus, I saw Ellie sitting on a bench outside her dorm. I thought of how my lips had touched the strawberry where hers had been. In a way, she seemed lonely like me. I imagined saying hello, and her smiling and laughing as we fell into a deep, witty conversation. After all, if polar bears and dogs could play together and fish could change gender, why not this?

“Hey,” I said, strolling up to the bench where she sat.

Ellie gave me a surprised, wary look.

“That was weird, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“What was?”

“The picnic today.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I liked it. I didn’t think it was weird at all.”

I shrugged, afraid that I was blowing my chance. “I’m James, by the way — the roommate slayer. You know, from the cafeteria thing.”

“I know.” Ellie looked away. “I wasn’t impressed.”

Before I could say anything else, Amber Lane came out of the dorm behind us. “Ellie!” she called. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you. There’s free pizza in the boys’ dorm.”

Ellie smiled at Amber with something close to relief.

“
Everyone’s
over there,” Amber said, taking Ellie’s hand. “We have to go.”

“Sure,” Ellie replied. She gave me a sidelong glance as she left. “See you later.”

I wanted to kick myself for thinking that she’d ever want to talk to me.