Lie to Me (an OddRocket title) (2 page)

"Do you knock?" I pulled the shirt on over my head, wiggling since it was a little tight.

"Aren't you late?" Addie said, followed by a slurp of her Popsicle.

I glanced at the alarm by my bed. It was five o’clock. I was supposed to be at work at five-thirty. "How did you get here? Why aren't you at camp?"

"You mean
baby
camp." Addie rolled her eyes. "I dunno? I walked home, I guess."

"You ran away from camp." I closed my closet door. "Unbelievable."

"I didn't run." Addie sounded indignant. "I walked."

"You can't just walk home from camp. Well, you can, but you shouldn't." I was not in the mood for Addie's dramatics. If I was late, I'd arrive at the same time as Nick and there would be small talk, awkward, horrible small talk where I'd pretend that I was cool being his friend and he'd stupidly believe me. "Does Mom even know you're home?"

"No." Addie looked down at the floor, dragging her toe through drips of purple Popsicle on the hardwood. "I hate camp," she whined. "All the kids are weird and it's not really camp. We don't get to light fires or sleep outside."

"I have to work." I grabbed a sweater, remembering the steel grey clouds I'd seen above the Sound. "You can't just do what you want all the time, Addie. You need to be more responsible, think about other people. Mom doesn't know you're here, so now I have to deal with you." I walked past Addie and down the hall. She followed close behind, slurping on her Popsicle.

"But Cassie, it's so horrible." Eyes wide, Addie described her suffering. "It's Bunker Blue's fault I left. They made me be his buddy on the ‘heels of fire’ walk and he picked his nose and ate it." She paused and crossed her arms across her chest, Popsicle dripping. "He picked it right in front of me." She slowed the last sentence down in case the severity of Bunker's crime was lost on me.

"And?" I walked downstairs. Addie followed.

"And I'm ten years old. I shouldn't have to see stuff like that. It's bad for my psyche. Traumatic and disturbing events in my youth could lead to all sorts of problems for me as an adult." Addie's the kind of child who should never be allowed on the Internet.

"Well, tell your psyche that you have a working mom, so you have to make peace with Bunker Blue and his boogers." I picked up my backpack and grabbed the keys to Mom's old station wagon. Brown with faux wood on the side, Mom stuck a bumper sticker on the back that read, "I believe in Whirled Peas." I think it was her way of guaranteeing I never, ever felt cool driving her car. "Get your shoes on. We're leaving."

"But I'm staying home." Addie looked confused.

"No way. I'm not leaving you alone. Mom will freak and I'm not getting in trouble because you can't follow the rules. Hurry up. I'm late."

"Wait, wait, wait..." Addie seemed to weigh her options. Since she didn't have any, this didn't take long. "Okay. One sec." Addie stuck her Popsicle stick on the entryway table and bolted up the stairs.

"Addie! Seriously?" I called. I was officially late, on a collision course with tall, dark and no longer mine.

Addie came running back clutching her turtle to her chest. "Walter is coming, too." Walter, the turtle, was named for my father who had died when I was six and when Mom was pregnant with Addie. My sister claimed she "won" the turtle on the last day of school, but I was pretty sure that Mrs. Bean, the fourth grade teacher, didn't want to take care of a turtle for the summer. Addie had been trying to trick Mom into getting her a pet for years. Mission accomplished.

"Whatever. I don't care what you do with Walter," I said, walking to the car. "Mom won’t let you keep him in the restaurant. It's against code or something."

“He’s a clean turtle,” Addie said. Following me she climbed into the front seat of the car setting Walter on the dash. I noticed that she'd pulled on her favorite puffy jacket even though it was still muggy outside. Lemon-yellow and lime-green with neon stripes on the arms and a thick red zipper, I felt pretty confident calling it the ugliest coat in the world.

"And watch him," I said. "I don't want any turtle pee in this car."

"It's not healthy to hold it."

"Addie." I raised an eyebrow.

"Fine," she whispered, petting Walter like a cat. "No pee."

As I drove along the winding road that hugged the edge of the water, I watched Addie kiss and snuggle her turtle, wondering how she ended up with the genetics that made her so free. She never cared what other people thought, her inner compass powered by her own beliefs, unaffected by other people's opinions. Bunker Blue grossed her out, so she ran away from day camp, something I never would have dared to do at her age or even now. The hard truth was my ten-year-old sister had more guts than me. She definitely didn't suffer from wardrobe paralysis. She wore anything she wanted, including a horrific coat that she said made her think of the island of Tonga, a place she's never been. She confidently carried a turtle on her lap certain the tragedy of her day would win Mom over.

I never did anything impulsive and Addie constantly bent and twisted the entire world to fit her agenda. Maybe it was the curse of the eldest daughter. I was destined to be responsible and Addie would end up having all the fun. I knew one thing for sure, that being nice and responsible hadn't helped me at all with Nick. Being nice had probably made me boring and easier to leave.

I pulled into the gravel parking lot of the Hideaway and parked by the dumpster. The restaurant sat high above us on a grassy hill overlooking the Marina and Puget Sound. A funky old bungalow so ancient that the Island of San Sebastian declared it an historical site, the city council even put up a shiny, metal plaque and ran an annual article about it in the local paper with a picture of my parents.

"Cassie. My seatbelt is stuck," Addie whined. "Take Walter. I don't want to squish him."

I reached out and held the turtle in my hands as Addie slid out from under her seatbelt, leaving it locked in place.

"Walter likes it when you scratch his neck." Addie giggled. "Don't you, Walter? Can you get him to poke his head out?"

I held Walter up and looked in his shell. The turtle had totally retreated. "Hey, Walter," I called, smiling. He really was kind of cute. "Anyone home in there? Hello?" I knocked on his shell.

"Not too hard." Addie ran around to my side of the car. "You'll scare him. And when he's scared..."

A warm liquid ran down my hands.

"…he pees," Addie said with a strained smile.

"Oh, my God!"
Pees
was an understatement. Walter let loose like he hadn't relieved himself in days and it smelled like rotting wet grass and was soaking into Priya's hip t-shirt and my jeans. I jumped out of the car, handing over the turtle.

"Hey, Cass," I heard a voice say. "You working?"

I knew that voice; I'd been hanging on his every word since first grade.

"Hey," I said, forcing a smile. Nick stood behind me in a sun break; it was literally like nature had cued his spotlight and bathed him in light. Tall with bronzed skin and longish brown hair that fell into his eyes, I tried not to stare at the way Nick's black t-shirt stretched across his chest and hugged his biceps. My face burned and I felt that breathlessness that came whenever I realized I had to talk to the boy that had broken my heart.

"If it isn’t my favorite turtle," Nick said, smiling as if nothing had ever happened between us. It was as if his brain lacked the ability to dwell on the past. He wasn't replaying every word of our goodbye; he was here in the present, expecting the world to always love him and, big surprise, the world did. Being smoking hot did not hurt his cause.

"Take Walter," I said before Addie took the bait and opened her mouth. I held my dripping hands behind my back trying to shake them out. "So, hey, I guess we're both working tonight? I didn't check the schedule." Another lie. I knew every shift, every hour we were both scheduled.

"Yeah. Me, either," Nick said.

Was it possible Nick didn't even notice when we shared a shift?

"But I'm so glad I ran into you. I wanted to ask, you mind covering for me if it's slow? I have this thing."

He wanted me to cover for him. I felt deflated, but kept my smile strong. "Yeah. I mean, no. That's totally okay."
What thing?
I wanted to ask. Something that wears tight jeans and knows how to do things I don't.

"Only if you're cool with it."

"I'm totally cool." I was so far from cool.

"Seriously?" He smiled, looking like a model on an outdoor catalog shoot.

"Yeah, seriously. It's no problem." My voice sounded too loud, my smile felt too big, but I couldn't stop myself. What was wrong with me? Did I need to announce to my ex-boyfriend that it was Friday night and I had no plans? I was furious with myself, but I couldn't bring myself to let Nick down, to say the word, "no." It was as if I suffered from a speech impediment that limited my vocabulary.

"That is so nice of you, Cass. You’re awesome," Nick said, smiling. "I wasn't sure how it would be, you know, after..."

"Really?" I feigned surprise, cutting him off. "It's no big deal. Just helping out a friend, right?"
Rise above, Cass
, I whispered to myself. This beautiful guy in front of you doesn't want to be with you, so wish him well and move on. He has plans and they don't include you.

"Awesome. You heading up?" He nodded up the hill, but the walkway from the parking lot to the restaurant is narrow and steep. It is an awfully long way to walk with your ex-boyfriend.

"I'll be up in a few."

"Cool." Nick smiled and walked away. He never looked back even once.

"Cover for me, Cass," I muttered, watching his tight backside as he walked. "You're so nice, Cassie." Addie stood beside me wide-eyed and petting Walter. "It's kind of rude of him to assume that I don't have anything better to do tonight than cover for him.”

"But you don't have plans," Addie said.

"Not the point."

I reached up and, without thinking, ran my sticky fingers through my hair. I cringed. Now I was depressed and disgusting. "Addie, will you please go inside and tell Mom I'm here. I need a sec to pull myself together."

For once, my sister didn't argue. Clutching Walter to her chest, she ran up the hill, almost catching up with Nick at the top.

I needed to wash my hands, rub baking soda in my hair and do some deep breathing before I spent the next two-plus hours pretending I actually was a mature, evolved girl who didn't mind covering for her ex-boyfriend on a Friday night.

I walked toward the dock. "Rise above. Rise above," I said, but I didn't feel like I was rising. In my defense, I think it's awfully difficult to feel empowered when there's turtle pee in your hair.

My parents bought the Hideaway before my dad died. Mom said it was their big dream to raise a family on San Sebastian and run a funky restaurant on route to the San Juan's. But Dad went sailing one stormy morning and he never came back. I think that's why my Mom says Addie and I can't sail. She's okay with the water, and even with boats, but I've wanted to take sailing lessons since I was a kid and every year Mom comes up with another reason why I can't.

They never figured out exactly what happened to Dad out there on the water, but the theory was the boom knocked him unconscious, so when his boat capsized, he couldn't do any of the things a person needs to do if they don't want to die. You'd think I'd be more afraid of the water since my dad drowned. But I'm not. Sometimes I imagine that he's still in the water. Not in a creepy way like his body is still out there. They did find him. He's buried in a small cemetery in the middle of the island near St. Claire Church, but sometimes when I'm swimming and I can hear the motion of life underwater, in that muted place, I wonder if Dad can hear me. If somehow a part of him remained in the waves when he died.

I knew the pass code to the marina gate by heart. Ignoring how the mist had taken a turn toward becoming real rain I walked past the sailboats. I looked up at the gathering clouds hanging in the wet and salty air. Why couldn't I have told Nick,
no
? It's a one-syllable word. Two-year-olds can say it, but the second I looked into his dark brown eyes and felt his crooked smile wash all over me, I'd wanted to smile back at him. I'd wanted to make sure he didn't feel awkward or uncomfortable. He'd broken my heart and I was more worried about his feelings than standing up for myself. Priya would have been so disappointed in me. She'd spent all day trying to build me up only to have me collapse like a deboned fish. "Lame, Cassie," I said, talking to myself above the chorus of halyards and creaking fenders.

Harbormaster Bill had a small office at the end of the dock. It's really a glorified shed, but it's big enough to keep a whiteboard where he tracks the slips and boats when he isn't sitting on a folding chair drinking light beer. I went into the office bathroom scrubbed my hands with some of that pink powdery soap and sniffed the ends of my hair. I couldn't tell whether I still smelled like turtle pee or not. I'd cut my hair into a pixie sophomore year in high school. Pixie, I soon realized, looked good on tiny girls; on a girl my size, pixie just made my face look big. I'd been growing my hair long for over a year and it finally reached just past my collarbone. I wished my hair were as long as Priya's. Nick's new girlfriend probably had beautiful, long hair that reached all the way to her back tattoo.

"Enough," I whispered, staring at my reflection. "You're going to walk out of this marina toilet, stand tall and quit being so pathetic."

I washed my hands and cleaned up the smudges of mascara under my eyes. Sunlight caught on the silver ring I wore on my right hand. The ring. When we first started dating, Nick had gotten a ring out of a gumball machine and given it to me. He'd pretended the ring was really expensive and I'd pretended it needed to be insured or stored in a safe at night. It was our little joke. The whole ring thing had kind of freaked my mother out a bit. I think she'd thought a ring, any ring at all, meant we were having sex, which we weren't. But we might have. I might have loved him enough to do that someday, but I hadn't decided yet, and he hadn't stuck around long enough for me to make up my mind.