Where the Truth Lies (8 page)

“Let me stop you right there.” He closes the folder and slides it closer to his body, as though I’m going to leap across the room and grab it. “Whatever I do or do not know about Madeline is confidential, honey. You know that.”

“So you know what happened? You know where she went?”

“I didn’t say that. And you’re trying to change the subject. I brought you in here to tell you that I don’t want you seeing Del anymore.”

I tilt my head. I squint at my father. “I told you, we’re friends. What’s wrong with that?”

“From what I understand, it’s a pretty close friendship.” He gives me this heartbreaking look. “And it’s going to stop.”

The words come out before I even realize what I’m saying. “No, it’s not.”

“And why is that?” His tone becomes mildly sarcastic, just enough to irritate me. “Do you
love
him? This boy you know nothing about? You’ve known him for how long? Two months?”

“What makes you say I know nothing about him? You didn’t even know for sure I was seeing him until what—ten seconds ago? What is it, Dad? Is it his tattoo? Is it the fact that he was a foster child? Oh wait, let me guess. It’s that his father isn’t in Congress, or on the board of directors of one of the companies you’re a shareholder in, isn’t it?”

My dad is stunned. I’ve never spoken to him like this in my
life.
“No, Emily. That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?” Even I’m a little surprised by my attitude.

My father blinks a few times, like he’s trying to calm himself down. He opens the folder, stares at it, closes it, opens it again. “Emily,” he says quietly, “you do not know this boy the way you think you do.”

“Why don’t you tell me, then? Why did you let him in if he wasn’t
Stonybrook Material
?” My tone is beyond sarcastic.

“Del’s adoptive father, Doug Marshall, is a close friend of mine.”

“I’ve never heard you talk about him.”

“Would you listen to me? We were college roommates at Penn. The Marshalls are good people. They love their son.” He sighs. “What I’m about to tell you is confidential.”

“Oh, please. Tell me.”

“Del was taken from his mother’s home when he was just a toddler. He ran away from a number of foster homes before the Marshalls found him. He was abused, Emily. His sister was abused. Every time he ran away, the act was twofold: to find his sister, who he hasn’t had contact with in years, and to escape a terrible situation.”

I shake my head. “I already knew. Del
told me
about all of this.”

My dad studies me. “He didn’t tell you everything.”

“How do you know that?”

“Did he tell you what happened at his last boarding school?”

I only hesitate for a second. “Yes,” I lie.

“Oh, he did? He told you that the Marshalls pulled him out because, in the first week of school, his roommate—who also happened to be his best friend—almost beat another student to death with a baseball bat for allegedly raping a girl?”

I shake my head. “What?”

“Del’s roommate was his best friend,” my father says. “His name was … I don’t remember, Keith or Kevin or something like that. Kevin’s sister was on a date with another boy, and she accused him of raping her. So Kevin snuck into the boy’s room in the middle of the night with a metal bat and put the boy in a coma.”

Del has always been gentle. I swallow. “So? What does that prove? You don’t know if Del had anything to do with it.”

“Emily, they were seen leaving the dorm together that night, right after it happened. Who’s to say they didn’t both come up with the idea? Del was lucky not to get kicked out, or I couldn’t have done his father the favor of admitting him here.” My dad takes a deep breath. “Del is incredibly intelligent. He might be a nice boy, I don’t know. And I don’t know what the two of you have been up to with this
special
friendship of yours. But I am certain that he is not the boy for you. Emily, he is
damaged
. It might not be his fault, but it’s true.”

Before I can say a word, my dad continues, his voice growing louder with every syllable. “And another thing. Let’s talk about that broken window in your room.”

I give him my most innocent stare. I can’t believe the way I’m lying to my own father. “What about it? I told you, we woke up and found it that way.”

“I find that very interesting, Emily. Because I was having a conversation with Digger shortly after it happened, and I don’t think you’re telling me the whole truth.”

“Which Digger?” I bat my eyelashes.

“You know
damn
well which Digger. The same Digger who saw you outside your dorm that night with Del. What happened? Did he throw something at your window to wake you up? I am telling you, Emily, you’re done with him. Case closed.”

He sits back in his chair, taking a moment to let it all sink in. While we’re sitting there in silence, he takes the folder, places it back in the filing cabinet beside his desk, and locks the cabinet door with a tiny key on his keychain.

I know he expects me to be shocked, and I suppose I am. But I can tell that he also expects me to be disturbed by what he’s told me, upset with Del, and ready to turn my back on him like any good girl would.

But all I want to do right now is find Del. I want to tell him I don’t care what happened at his last school; I know that he couldn’t have been involved. All I care about is
now
.

“It’s almost dinnertime,” my dad says. “You should go get dressed. I want you to sit with your mother and me tonight.”

I nod. “Okay.”

“And I don’t want you seeing Del Sugar anymore. You understand?”

I clear my throat. For a few seconds, I don’t say anything.

“Emily? You understand, don’t you?”

It’s easier not to fight. “I guess so.”

“Good. Come here.”

I cross the room and sit in his lap, like I’ve done countless times before. He pulls me into a hug. “Emily,” he says, his arms wrapped around my waist, “if you knew how much I love you—”

“I
do
know.”

“No, you don’t.” He looks into my eyes. “Children never know. You won’t understand until you have babies of your own someday.”

“Dad, okay … I have to go.”

He holds on to me, studying my expression. “That seemed too easy.”

It sure did
. “Don’t think that,” I say. “I’ll tell Del I can’t see him anymore. It’s okay. I understand.”

My dad nods. I can tell he’s not buying it 100 percent. Maybe not at all. But I don’t care; all I want to do is get out of here.

I don’t even have to knock on Del’s window; he’s perched on the edge, leaning his head out to smoke.

“Hi,” I say.

He tosses the cigarette away when he sees me. “Hi, yourself. What took you so long?”

“I had to talk to my dad.”

Del shakes his head. “You are a daddy’s girl.”

I ignore the comment. “I couldn’t wait to see you.”

“Oh, you couldn’t?” He grins. “I’m flattered. Want to come in?”

“I can’t.” I really do have to get ready. “Just … look, I can’t talk much at dinner. My dad wants me to sit at his table. But I wanted to make sure you were coming by tonight.”

He studies my expression. “Emily? Is anything wrong?”

“Are you coming tonight?”

He nods. “Yes. Sure, I am.”

“Then everything’s fine.” I stand on my tiptoes, leaning forward to give him a kiss before I begin to back away. “Everything’s perfect.”

chapter seven

During Friday morning’s school announcements, we learn that Mr. Henry, the intern, has come down with double pneumonia. Our announcements are personal like that. My dad’s secretary, Paula, does them over the loudspeaker in her office. After she tells everyone about his pneumonia, she adds that it would be nice if we made him a card.

For some reason, Franny gets it in her head that we should make him soup. From
scratch
. She doesn’t actually ask the rest of the quad if we’re interested in helping; instead, she goes to the store on her own early Saturday morning and returns with three grocery bags full of food.

Stephanie, Grace, and I are sitting on my bedroom floor, studying vocab words for English class.

Stephanie doesn’t look up from her cards. “Whatcha gonna do with all that food, Franny? You sure as hell aren’t going to eat it yourself.”

When Franny tells us about the soup, we all stare at her for a few seconds. Then we start laughing.

“What?” Franny asks. “What the hell’s so funny?”

“Franny,” Grace says, “I’ve never even seen you boil water. Have you ever cooked
anything
?”

Her bottom lip trembles a smidge. “I thought it would be a nice thing to do for him. He has double pneumonia, you guys.”

“I know,” Stephanie says. “We made him a card in my Latin class.”

“You did?” I ask, frowning at her. “In Latin?”

“Yes,” she says. “It said Get Well Soon. In Latin.”

“He’s my study hall proctor,” Franny continues, raising her voice. “He’s always nice to me. I like him.”
Tugtugtug
.

“Franny,” I tell her, “we can’t make that in the kitchenette. There isn’t enough space.” It’s true; all we have downstairs is a tiny electric stove, a minifridge, and a microwave.

“I know that, Emily.”
Tug
. “We’re not using the kitchenette. We’re using your parents’ house.”

My mouth falls open. “How are we going to do that?”

Franny is pleased with herself. “I talked to your mom about it at breakfast.” She shifts her gaze to Stephanie. “And Latin is a dead language, you know. It’s completely useless.”

Steph flicks a vocab card at her. “Not if I’m going to be a doctor, it isn’t.”

“Ha!” Grace blurts. “There’s no way you’ll get into medical school. You’re going to be an aerobics instructor.”

Franny covers her mouth as she giggles.

“You’re awful. I can’t stand any of you,” Stephanie announces. She frowns. “I could be a doctor if I wanted to.”

“Sure you could,” Grace says. “And Emily could be an astronaut.”

I don’t even pretend to be offended.

Grace and Stephanie keep arguing all the way to my parents’ house. My mom is waiting for us.

“This is so sweet of you, girls,” she says. My mom isn’t wearing any makeup yet, but she still looks pretty.

She gave Franny a list at breakfast with everything we’d need to make chicken noodle soup. Before we begin, my mom makes us strawberry milk shakes. The four of us sit at the kitchen table, drinking through bendy straws, while my mom helps us get started.

First, she puts the chicken in a pot of water on the stove. Then she starts chopping vegetables in the food processor. We’re still watching.

“What are you girls doing this weekend?” she asks.

The four of us exchange a silent look. There’s a party at Amanda Stream’s beach house tonight, but we can’t tell my mom about that.

Before the pause becomes too long, Franny says, “Probably going to the mall.”

At exactly the same moment, Steph says, “We’re going to stay in and study.” They look at each other. Steph kicks Franny under the table.

My mom pretends to ignore them. To me, she says, “What about you, Emily? Any plans for this weekend?”

She says it innocently enough, but I can tell she’s feeling me out, trying to see if I’m hiding something from her, which I definitely am. There’s no doubt I’m going to spend a lot of my free time this weekend with Del.

I haven’t seen him since yesterday. He wasn’t at breakfast, and he wasn’t at his dorm afterward; he’s pulled another one of his disappearing acts. Every time I ask him where he goes, he either ignores me or changes the subject.

We hang out in my parents’ kitchen until the early afternoon. Once the soup is finished, I realize that my mom has done all of the work herself. She has been so kind, so genuine and helpful and wonderful. Even though I’m sharing her with my friends, I feel so grateful that she belongs to me.

My roommates seem oblivious to the fact that we are in no way responsible for the finished product; it’s like they think they can take credit because they were in the same room as the soup.

“Should we take it over to him now?” Stephanie asks.

“I should go running before the—I mean, before we go shopping,” Grace tells everyone. She fidgets as she leans against the counter. Grace gets anxious if she doesn’t run every single day.

“I can take the soup to Paul,” Franny says.

We all look at her.

“Did you just call him
Paul
?” I ask.

Tugtug
. Even my mom is staring at Franny, waiting for an answer.

“Um. Yes,” Franny tells us. “He told everyone in our study hall to call him Paul.”

Stephanie shakes her head. She makes a face. “That’s weird, Franny. He’s a teacher.”

“It’s not that weird. He’s only twenty-two.”

“Yeah. He’s twenty-two and we’re sixteen.” Grace is already stretching her hamstrings.

“Don’t call me weird, Stephanie.”

“Then don’t
act
weird.”

“Ladies. Calm down.” My mom is smiling. She winks at me. “Why don’t you all take it to him? I’m sure he’ll be flattered.”

But once we leave my parents’ house, Grace starts trotting away. “See you later,” she calls, waving at us over her shoulder. She’ll be gone most of the afternoon.

Franny, who is holding a big Tupperware container with the soup, looks at me and Stephanie. “Really, I’m fine,” she tells us. “You two go ahead. I’ll be back soon.” I can tell she’s dying to pull her hair out, except she doesn’t have a free hand to reach with.

When we get back to the dorm, Steph and I sit on my bedroom floor to try and do homework together, but we keep getting distracted.

“You’re going to the party tonight, right?” she asks.

“Yes.” I squint at my open precalc book, unable to comprehend much of anything that I’m looking at. I should have taken geometry instead.

Amanda Stream’s parents have a beach house about five miles away at Groton Long Point. The place is massive; it even has its own three-par golf course. Her parents spend about two weeks a year there; her mother is this prominent playwright who apparently—at least according to Renee, who heard it from Bruce—has major Emotional Issues, and her father is a psychiatrist who caters to the whole swanky New York set. (That’s Renee’s word, not mine—leave it to her to say “swanky” without it seeming the least bit cheesy.)

Anyway, apparently Amanda’s mother is so anxiety-ridden and almost constantly tortured by her Art that they barely ever leave the city, which actually turns out to be a great thing for all of us here at Stonybrook, because everyone knows the security code to the beach house (4-4-1-1) and Amanda doesn’t mind—at least not too much—if you come and go as you please, and she has parties there herself most weekends, and in general it’s one of those sad situations that ends up working out great for the kids in the short term, but which will undoubtedly leave poor Amanda damaged for life long-term. I can picture her on a shrink’s sofa someday, complaining about her absent parents and how retrospectively
miserable
her adolescence was.

But my point is, everybody goes to these parties. Even Renee. Even Ethan, who is usually such a complete Boy Scout. And even Del, who almost never socializes with anybody except me.

“Of course I’m going,” I say to Steph. “So what?”

Stephanie’s anger toward me has cooled over the past couple of weeks. She has other things to worry about: her parents are in the middle of a custody fight for her and Ethan, and her father doesn’t want to pay alimony. Her mom already has a new boyfriend. Steph has lost at least ten pounds since the beginning of the year. I don’t blame her for being so edgy; her family is in pieces.

“So, you should talk to Del, Emily. Someplace where there are plenty of people around.” She pauses. “Not in his room. Not in the woods.”

I stare at her. “How do you know about that?”

“Oh, come on.” She tosses her stack of vocab cards aside. I close my precalc book.

“Everybody knows what you’ve been doing, Emily. And everybody thinks it’s a bad idea. Your father doesn’t want you to see Del. Why not? He has to know something you don’t.”

For an instant, as Stephanie’s talking, I catch a glimpse of just how much she looks like Ethan when it comes to her subtle facial features: the curve of her small, perfect nose; the prominence of her cheekbones; the way her earlobes are small and attached, which she once informed me was a sign of superior breeding. “Even Renee doesn’t like him,” she says, “and you
know
it’s a bad idea if Renee doesn’t approve.”

I shake my head. “How do you know everyone thinks it’s a bad idea?”

“Because we’ve been talking about it. I know Del is all hot and mysterious and brilliant. But there’s something so
off
about him. Something isn’t right. What kind of person is involved in beating someone up with a baseball bat?” I’m not sure how, exactly, but by now everyone has heard one version or another of what happened at Del’s last school. I certainly haven’t been the one telling them. “Think about it, Emily,” she continues. “How well do you actually know him?”

“I know him better than anybody,” I insist. “He tells me everything.”

“Really?” she says coolly. “Where is he right now? Where does he go when he disappears?”

I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t say anything.

“That’s what I thought.” She stands up, crosses the room, and sits down at Franny’s desk. She begins to brush her long blond hair, examining it for split ends.

“Listen,” I say, “I don’t know where he goes, but I’m sure he’s not doing anything wrong. Maybe he wants to be alone.”

“He can’t be alone in his room?”

I ignore her. “My dad doesn’t even know for sure that Del was involved with what happened at his old school. Nobody knows for sure what happened.”

“Del knows,” she says.

“It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now.”

She scowls at me. “Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not being stupid. I trust him.”

“Well, if there’s one thing I can tell you,” she says bitterly, “it’s that you don’t know him the way you think you know him. He’s barely been here for three months. I thought I knew my father, and look what he did. You shouldn’t trust him, Emily. You’re being naive.”

I narrow my eyes at her. “I shouldn’t trust your father? Who are we talking about?”

“Shut up. You know I mean Del.” She tosses the brush onto Franny’s bed and stands up. “Just do me a favor. Do
all
of us a favor. Please?”

The space between us is awkward. I want her to leave. “What do you want?”

“Ask him about his old school. Find out more about him before you get into trouble.”

“Stephanie, he isn’t going to get me in any trouble.”

“Promise me you’ll talk to him.”

I nod. “Okay. I will.” I want to believe that Stephanie is actually concerned about me. In the back of my mind, though, I remember how all the girls reacted when Del first got here. Until he started paying attention to me and me alone,
everyone
wanted his attention. The more likely scenario, I think, is that Stephanie is jealous.

That night at Amanda’s house, it takes me forever to find Del. He’s alone in one of the bedrooms, lying on his back in bed, gazing at the ceiling.

We’re in Amanda’s older brother’s room. Her brother, Ty, is in college now—at Bard? Brown? Someplace like that. Anyway, the room is at the corner of the house. It has a balcony with a killer view of the ocean, a vaulted ceiling with four big skylights above the bed, and two telescopes positioned to check out both the sky and whatever’s going on down the shore. The room is far away from the rest of the house, far away from the party downstairs.