Beautiful Lies (2 page)

“So? It’s only two dollars.” Nicholas—nobody
ever
calls him Nick—looks into his open wallet, thumbing through a bunch of ones. “You ought to try it, Alice. Win yourself a fish or something.”

Nicholas lives a few blocks away from us, in one of the biggest and nicest houses in our whole city. In addition to the Yellow Moon, his dad, Mr. Hahn, also owns Pratzi’s, which is a hoity-toity restaurant uptown. Nicholas’s dad drives around Greensburg all the time in a silver Mercedes with tinted windows, blaring classical music, a lit cigar between his lips. People say he has ties to the local mafia, but I’ve
always doubted it; I can’t imagine that our town even
has
a mafia connection. Anyway, I know that Mr. Hahn is a jerk. For one thing, he’s an awful boss; he’s always flirting with the waitresses, making sleazy comments about the way we look, his gaze raking over us like we belong to him. And supposedly his first wife—Nicholas’s mom—left because he used to beat her up all the time. He never got arrested for it or anything, but that’s what people say.

Despite his family drama, Nicholas is a nice enough guy, well liked by pretty much everyone, cute in a nerdy kind of way. I’m actually surprised he and Holly decided to come out with us tonight; lately they’ve been devoting most of their time to geocaching, which is kind of like an elaborate treasure hunt using GPS. I don’t know much about it beyond that, but Holly has told me it’s a ridiculous amount of fun.

“For two dollars,” my sister tells Nicholas, “I could go to the pet store and buy myself a goldfish.”

“But the fun’s in trying to win,” Holly says. I can see her breath suspended in midair as she exhales; that’s how chilly it is.

“I bet they’re scared,” I say, staring at the fish as they circle endlessly in their tiny bowls.

Nobody says anything. We all look at the game, its edges crowded with little kids, their parents standing behind them looking bored.

Finally, Kimber giggles. “Rachel, you’re so funny,” she says. “Fish don’t have feelings.”

My sister is chewing pink gum. She blows a bubble, snaps it loudly against her lips, and says, “So what you’re telling us is, if a fish needed CPR, you wouldn’t help it.”

Kimber seems confused. “Alice, fish don’t—you aren’t—” She frowns, looking from my sister to me in frustration. “I earned my Good Samaritan badge for that.”

“I know.” I try to smile warmly at her. Kimber responds by frowning again, bringing her fingers to her neck to grasp a tiny golden cross dangling from a thin chain.

Kimber is a good person—she deserves all the happiness she can get. Back in the first grade, before I ever knew her, her parents went through a messy divorce. One night while she and her mom were sleeping, her dad set their house on fire. He went to prison, and Kimber was in the hospital for months. I’ve seen her getting changed in gym class; she has horrible scars all over her back and shoulders. She never wears tank tops or goes swimming with the rest of us in the summer. She’s never even been on a date, though plenty of guys have asked—she’s too ashamed of the way she looks.

There is a noticeable unease among my friends, who are doing their best to be kind to my twin. Things used to be different among us, but in the last six months or so, she has broken away from our group, preferring to spend her time alone. She’s gotten a real taste for alcohol lately—pot too. As a result, her reputation has disintegrated to the point where some of our friends aren’t even supposed to be around her anymore. This fact pains me, because I know her better than
anyone. I know she’s not a bad person. She just wants some peace, the opportunity to quiet her mind, which always seems to be working against her. She wants to silence her thoughts, but she doesn’t have any idea how to do it aside from drinking or smoking until she can’t string together a sentence anymore.

Sometimes I understand exactly how she feels.

We are essentially the same, she and I. Her and me. My sister, myself. When she takes off her makeup and brushes out her hair—when we first wake up in the morning, or right before we go to bed in the evening—nobody in this world can tell us apart just from looking at us. Only we know who is who. Knowledge like that, shared with only one other person in the world, can feel exhilarating. It’s like we own a secret that nobody else will ever hold the key to, for as long as we both live.

Right now, my sister squeezes my hand to get my attention. “I’m hungry,” she says.

“Me, too,” Holly says. “I shouldn’t be. I just ate a few hours ago.” She opens her oversize purse—a designer knockoff that looks big enough to hold the contents of an entire minibar—and pulls out a prescription pill bottle. Holly is a skinny, nervous girl with light blond hair and pale skin. More often than not, she spends weekends at church retreats with her
youth group. It’s not like she has a choice, though; her family is so strict and conservative that Holly wasn’t even allowed to shave her legs or get her ears pierced until she turned fourteen, which is really funny, because she was the first girl I knew to go on birth control, back in the ninth grade. By then she’d been dating Nicholas for two years. To this day, her mom has no idea what her little girl is up to. In my experience, adults usually don’t.

“What are those, Holly?” Kimber asks, her tone suspicious. “Are those drugs?”

“They’re obviously drugs,” I say. I don’t let go of my sister’s hand. She seems restless, sort of like she doesn’t want to be out tonight. Her behavior is a little odd; it was her idea to come.

She tugs me toward the candy-apple stand a few yards away, a bright-red neon apple glowing in the window of the vending trailer. Our friends follow behind us.

“Would you relax, Kimber?” Holly opens the bottle, shakes two of the pills into her hand. “They’re for Evan’s asthma. They suppress your appetite, that’s all.”

Nicholas looks at his girlfriend, vaguely interested in the fact that she’s abusing her little brother’s prescription medication. “Doesn’t he need them? You know—to breathe?”

“Oh, he’ll be fine,” she says, swallowing both pills without anything to drink. “He has tons of them. These are, like, extras.” And she holds out the bottle, offering it to us. “Anybody want one? You won’t be hungry for the rest of the night.”
She pauses. “But there’s a very small risk of dizziness, blurred vision, and seizure.”

Behind us, in the park’s band shell, several musicians are setting up their equipment. The guitarist plays a chord. He’s hooked up to an amplifier. The noise slices through the crowd, momentarily creating an almost complete silence as everybody stops to listen. Just for a second.

“What are we doing?” I ask. “Does anybody want something to eat? Alice wants a candy apple.”

My sister’s gaze shifts past my face. I can tell she’s staring at the rides. “Actually, I want to go on the Ferris wheel.
Then
I want a candy apple.” She smiles at me like a little kid. “Can we, Rachel?”

I turn around. Faintly, I think I can hear the gears grinding on the rides. Among all the food smells, there’s a whiff of grease in the air.

“I don’t want to. It’s so high, Alice. These things fall apart sometimes; I’ve seen it on the news.”

“She’s right,” Nicholas says. “Some guy forgets to tighten a bolt in the wrong place, and people end up getting killed.”

“Come on.” Holly nudges him. “It’s the Ferris wheel.” To me, she says, “It’s for
kids
, Rachel. You’ll be fine.”

I glance at it again. Heights don’t usually bother me. Tonight, though, the thought of being up in the air makes me uneasy. I don’t know why. “Then come with us.”

“Okay. We will.” Holly looks from Nicholas to Kimber. “Right?”

Kimber nods. “Sure.”

Nicholas shrugs, indifferent. “Whatever. I don’t care.”

The five of us, led by my sister, hold on to one another’s hands and make a chain as we weave through the crowd together. Even though it’s chilly, the air is crisp and refreshing. Families and kids are out in droves. We pass a few more people we know from school. I see our biology teacher, Mr. Slater, standing alone beside a kettle-corn booth and smoking a cigarette; he doesn’t seem at all concerned that parents and students will see what he’s doing. He looks miserable too, but that’s nothing new for him. I see an elderly woman being pushed along in a wheelchair. She’s had her face painted tonight; her nose and cheeks are colored red and black, like a cat’s. We pass young couples with their hands in one another’s back pockets, and a slew of high-school football players in lettermen jackets who have clearly been boozing it up. Holly almost knocks over a man on stilts as he makes his way through the crowd, a good four feet taller than everyone else, dressed like Uncle Sam.

And we pass carnies. They’re everywhere, at least one at each booth, all wearing dirty clothes, most of them smoking cigarettes, their eyes gleaming as they call out to whoever’s passing by to come and play, try to win your girl a prize, or to go for a spin on one of the rides.

When we get to the Ferris wheel, the ride has just come to a stop. The operator is beginning to empty the seats, one swinging bench at a time. The line grows shorter as, two by two, people climb on.

“I’m so thirsty,” Holly complains. She makes a face like she’s tasted something bad. “Nicholas.” She pouts. “I’m so thirsty, baby.”

“You want something to drink?” he offers.

She nods. “Yes, please. Lemonade.”

My stomach flutters as we get closer to the ride. I stare up at the highest seat, imagining how it will feel to be stopped at the very top, swinging back and forth, helpless, and a twinge of panic ripples through me. I can smell the hot oil that greases the gears, the odor deeply unsettling for some reason. I’m not sure why I’m so afraid—the feeling has come from out of nowhere. All I know is that I don’t want to get on.

“You need me to buy you some lemonade right now?” Nicholas asks Holly.

“Yes. Hurry up and you’ll be back before we reach the front of the line.”

He ducks away, disappearing into the crowd. My friends and I take small steps, getting closer and closer. I feel dizzy with dread.
Get a grip
, I tell myself.
It’s a freaking Ferris wheel.

But I can’t calm down. I press a hand to my stomach. The air feels much colder all of a sudden. I can hear bits of conversation coming from all around me, but I can’t focus on any of them, not completely.

“Rachel.” It’s my sister. She’s beaming, cheeks flushed from the cold. “Come on!”

We’re at the head of the line. She tugs me toward the empty seat. I don’t know how Kimber can even think about riding
alone. I’m sweating in the chilly evening, unable to speak, arrested by anxiety. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

We sit down beside each other, and she rests her head on my shoulder. For the moment, sitting so close that I can hear the rhythm of our breath in sync, I feel a little bit better.

The ride’s operator approaches us, ready to lower the metal restraining bar across our laps. Nicholas appears behind him, holding an oversize Styrofoam cup.

“Yay!” Holly claps from her place in line. “Thank you!”

The operator turns around. “Nope,” he says, shaking his head. “You can’t cut in line, man.”

“Dude, I just stepped out for a second.” Nicholas’s tone is light, friendly. “Come on. I’m with my girlfriend.”

“Sorry, kid. Can’t do it. You’ll have to wait for the next one.”

And before I have a chance to realize what’s happening, my sister slides out of the seat we’re sharing. “You can ride with Holly, Rachel.” She begins to back away, waving with both hands. “I’ll catch up with you after. I want a candy apple!”

She turns on her heel and rushes away from us. It is such a typical Alice move—restless, impulsive—but I feel like she’s only acting this way because that’s the kind of behavior everyone expects from her. Almost immediately I lose sight of her in the thick crowd.

Holly climbs into the seat next to me. Nicholas is still standing beside the head of the line. He shrugs at us before stepping away, giving the finger to the ride operator’s back.

“I guess that worked out,” Holly says, clutching her purse against her chest. Without any warning, she raises her voice and screams “I love you!” at Nicholas.

The operator leans over us. With one hand, he pulls the metal bar downward, securing it tightly against our laps. “Enjoy your ride.” His voice is flat as his eyes stare into mine. His breath on my face is so sour, so sickening, that I have to look away before I gag.

Our seat rises into the air. Beneath us, previous riders climb out, replaced by Kimber.

I search the crowd for my sister, looking everywhere for a glimpse of her red hair, for a sign of the face I recognize so well.

The wheel turns slowly at first, then begins to speed up. Across the field, the band starts to play. I recognize the music. It’s “Sleep Walk” by Santo & Johnny. It was my parents’ wedding song.

“Holly.” My voice barely breaks a whisper. The music is too loud, the ride too fast.

“Whoo!” Holly kicks her feet with glee. Even though it’s fall, she’s wearing open-toed high-heeled sandals, her toenails painted a creamy shade of pink. She raises her arms, making spirit fingers in the air, and I get a whiff of her perfume. The smell turns my stomach again. I could almost throw up.