The Comfort of Lies (21 page)

Act positive, you’ll be positive.

And she’d find a way to visit Mrs. Graham at Suffolk County Jail. Richard kept saying no—he wanted to consult with their agency counsel first, but everything moved so slowly, she feared both Grahams would be dead before she could visit.

 • • • 

Richard and Katie were waiting for her when she walked into the office. Too bad. She’d wanted to surprise them by leaving the pastries on their desks.

She wasn’t even late. Why where they posed like that? They looked like cops, standing in front of her desk with their arms crossed.

“What’s up?” Tia held her purse tight to her chest. “Did Sam die?”

Shamefully, she prayed the old man would live, so she could escape with her hands a little cleaner, when in truth, death was his better option.

“Good morning.” Richard gave Tia a look that felt like a slap. “Question: anything slip your mind lately?”

Katie looked at her like she had mud smeared on her face. Had they found out about some reports she hadn’t filed?

“What are you talking about?” She inched toward her desk. Katie blocked her. Richard held a file folder.

“What’s going on?” Tia asked.

“We found out.” Katie jutted out her chin. “There’s no more hiding it.”

“Found out what?”

“Do you realize what this will cost us?” Richard smacked his folder against her desk.

Her desk looked wrong. Everything on top was messed up differently than it usually was. Odd piles lined up across the edge.

“How could you?” Katie shook her head, as though mourning Tia. “Our clients, they’re the ones who’ll suffer, you know.”

“I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”

If only that were true. The anxiety that Tia had been pushing away for weeks bloomed full in her belly.
Pop.
In an instant, she had a stomach full of acid.

The Walker grant.

Richard peered at her. “Ah, you remember. The fact that you may have put us out of business finally dawns.”

How late was she? Tia had been pushing the Walker grant out of her mind for so many weeks that the deadline had become too fuzzy to recall.

“How could you, Tia?” Katie’s eyes were red and swollen. “Do you know what you’ve done to us?”

The coffee began leaking; she felt wet heat in her hand, but with Katie and Richard blocking her desk, she couldn’t put it down. With the bag threatening to fall apart in her hands, she held it out to them. “I brought us coffee. Scones. A muffin for you, Richard.”

“This isn’t the time to joke around.” He massaged his forehead with the palm of his hand. “It’s serious.”

“I just thought you’d like a muffin.” Tia’s hands shook.

“We’ll be lucky if we have desks to eat at when this is through. The Walker money is sixty percent of our budget!” Richard’s voice rose. “
Sixty percent!
”

Tia bit her lip against asking him when he’d last supervised anything
in the agency. “I’m sure it will be okay. People are late with grants all the time, right?”

“Not two months late!” Katie said. “They called yesterday, before you got here, because they wanted to know if we were still in business. They’re reallocating our money and want to earmark it for another agency in JP.”

Daphne Morrow probably called. Daphne should have known better than to talk to someone other than Tia. Maybe Tia should call Daphne’s supervisor and spill her guts about what a pain it was to work with Daphne.

“You’re not getting it,” Richard said. “We may not be able to get those funds back.”

“The Walker Foundation is enraged.” Katie said. “You made us seem very disrespectful of them.”

“They said they repeatedly tried to get in touch. That you ignored their emails.” Richard leaned too close. “Did you think you deleted them? Don’t you know they’re still on your computer?”

They’d rummaged through her computer. Jesus. They’d been looking for a way to get rid of her. Richard couldn’t do it based on Mrs. Graham, not when he’d barely supervised her since he’d hired Tia.

The coffee bag was going to break. Finally, not knowing what else to do, feeling foolish, she grabbed a newspaper from the wastepaper basket, placed it on a file cabinet by the door, and rested the bag on the improvised mat.

“Just tell me what to do. I’m sorry, okay? This was a mistake. I mixed up the dates.”

“No you didn’t,” Katie said. “I saw it written in your desk calendar. You knew.”

“You looked through my stuff?”

“I told her to,” Richard said.

“You told her to snoop around my things?”

“They aren’t your things. They belong to the agency. I asked Katie. I needed the truth,” he said.

“You could have asked me.”

“Like I said.” He waited a beat. “I wanted the truth.”

“I found it all,” Katie said. “The reports you never did. The home visits. You didn’t fill out any forms. No wonder Mrs. Graham—”

Richard put out a hand to stop Katie. “This is all in the formal letter from the board.” He took an envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to Tia. “Sorry, Tia. You gave me no choice. You’re fired.”

CHAPTER 18

Juliette

Juliette thought she couldn’t imagine a life without Nathan, but these past two weeks had given her a taste of what it would be like. She and Nathan fell asleep as far apart as two people could while sleeping in the same bed. Then in their sleep they’d become one again. She’d wake to find herself leaning against him, the two of them making a pool of warmth, his back, his rump, comforting her. She’d rise up from the depth, and they’d turn as one, and he’d curve to her, and for a moment, they danced their usual night ballet. Then she’d remember, and she’d throw off his arm and move to the outer tundra of the mattress.

He swore he hadn’t known about the child, but he knew something. What? Judging in a vacuum of silence was impossible. He wouldn’t talk; she didn’t push. She retreated into a fog of pretence, giving him time and air, grasping for ways to hold on to the brittle illusion that things wouldn’t change.

Juliette was happy to be going to work this Saturday, a day she usually hated leaving the house. She flew through her last-minute chores. Loaded the dishwasher. Sorted the teetering pile of mail on her desk. Brushed on one more coat of lip stain.

She welcomed the chance to leave the house. To leave Nathan’s
brooding; his promises that he’d talk soon. Footsteps banged down the stairs as she hung up the pile of raincoats and sweatshirts that had been flung over the banister.

“Where are we going this summer?” Max carried a rolled-up comic book. Lucas came up behind his brother. Lately they followed her like nervous toddlers.

Before answering, Juliette stuffed one last thing into her already overloaded bag: the latest issue of
Allure
, which touted juliette&gwynne’s all-natural mascara as an editor’s choice. Of course, the issue would have been delivered to the shop, actually three of them, but they usually lost at least two to overentitled customers who ripped out pages or even stole entire issues. Juliette’s copy was pristine and suitable for framing.

The mention in
Allure
would bring an avalanche of orders. Juliette should be flying high.

“April is barely over, and you’re worrying about summer?” Juliette tugged at the bag’s zipper. Each season, she bought a bigger bag, and then it became too small.

“Look at it another way,” Lucas said. “Summer is only two months from now. Dad would call it an example of the theory of relativity.”

“So are we going to Rhinebeck?” Max’s pajamas were too short in the arms. Juliette put buying new ones on her mental list.

“Guys, can we talk about this later? Are we having some sort of summer planning emergency? We always go to Rhinebeck.”

She and Gwynne alternated Saturdays in the shop, except during bridal and holiday season, when they both went in. Maybe she’d take the next few Saturdays for Gwynne.

“Is Dad coming?” Lucas tried to sound casual, but she could hear the strain. Fear, even. Why not? Nathan and Juliette passed each other in the hall like frosty college roommates putting up with each other until school let out. How could the boys not notice the tension?

“Look, I promise that we’ll talk about summer tonight, about when we’ll go to Rhinebeck, summer jobs, camp, the whole thing, okay? But later. I have to open the shop before women line the street.”

“Sure,” Lucas said. “Better go, Mom. Wrinkle emergency!”

“Dry skin alert!” Max jumped up and waved his hands as if alerting rescue personnel. Lucas picked up the theme. “Pimple crisis in Wellesley—news at eleven.”

Their jokes sounded forced, as though her sons needed to prove that everything was okay: see, we can make fun of Mom, just like usual! Juliette’s throat thickened.

“I love you both. Make Dad take you for haircuts.”

Max wrapped her in an unexpected bear hug. “I love you, Mom.”

“Love you.” Lucas leaned in and gave her an awkward pat on the back.

Juliette hugged Max back too tight and then kissed Lucas on the cheek. “Haircuts.”

 • • • 

Juliette opened the shop, locked the door behind her until the rest of the staff arrived, and carried her coffee back to her office. Coming in early meant she could . . . she could what? She didn’t know what she needed to do. What did you do when your life unraveled?

She took everything off her desk and piled it on the long, low cabinet to the side. The furniture polish she sprayed on the now empty desk filled the air with orange-scented chemicals. She compounded her ecoterrorism by grabbing paper towels instead of a cloth and wiped the hell out of the desk. One towel for spreading the polish.
Fuck it
. Another for wiping down the desk.
Fuck Nathan
. And then another to dry it.
Fuck her
.

Juliette wiped down her phone and placed it on the desk, using yet another paper towel. She lined up her stapler, her tape dispenser, and her in-and-out box, fiddling with everything until she’d achieved perfect order. Last she took the silver picture frame she’d received as a gift from Nathan’s mother the day they opened the shop.

“Family first,” Gizi had warned Juliette. “Never let your work be obscuring that.”

Be obscuring that
. Nathan’s mother used sophisticated words in vaguely ungrammatical ways, but her English as a second language became a form of poetry.

Family first

Never let

Your work

Be

Obscuring

That.

The family picture was way out of date. Nathan held an infant Max as though he’d just won an Oscar. Nathan had been a wonderful father right from the start. In the beginning, when Juliette fretted about cutting Lucas’s infant fingernails, convinced she’d snip off a tip of his minute finger, Nathan did it without a word and continued quietly doing it until Juliette felt comfortable.

She scrolled through the list of good things about Nathan.

He was warm and kind. Most of the time.

He was smart.

He was interesting.

The physical side of their relationship had always been incredible, although that thought opened the door for unbearable questions.

He understood why her parents drove her crazy.

He knew how much she loved his parents.

He was Max’s and Lucas’s father.

She loved him.

She didn’t want to be without him.

Juliette replaced the frame and picked up her now sterilized phone. She looked over her orderly desk, calmed by the precision. The cleaner her workspace, the sharper her decisions—not always right, but fast. Bullet-paced decisions.

Juliette woke up her computer. She clicked into her address book and scrolled down the list until hitting
F
for Fitzgerald.

 • • • 

Juliette arrived first the following Saturday for her date with Caroline. The shabby appearance of the small Newton coffee shop calmed her. Stuffed chairs and old wood tables matched the dim lighting.

Despite the lunchtime hour, Juliette was too nervous to eat. On
the phone, she’d told Caroline only that she had something important to discuss about Savannah. Reassuring Caroline that she had good intentions, while holding off on the truth, had been a tightrope of conversation. Juliette danced on the head of a lie as she intimated that she had information from her friend who’d adopted children.

Now Juliette realized that while she’d succeeded in convincing Caroline to show up, she’d not done a good job of thinking out her plan for this meeting.

Caroline walked in, looking around with a blank expression. When Juliette signaled her over, Caroline raised her hand in a tentative wave.

“Hi. Nice to see you again.” Caroline put a newspaper on the table and then pointed to Juliette’s coffee cup. “I’m going to get myself a coffee. Would you like another?”

“I’m fine.”

Juliette watched as Caroline walked away. Caroline wore no makeup. Not even the brown mascara that Juliette had promised Caroline would make her sparkle all by itself.

Is this what was wrong with her? That she thought about mascara at a time when her life was falling apart? Had Nathan found Tia because he needed a woman who wasn’t so shallow?

Caroline returned with a barely lightened coffee. “I must admit I’m quite anxious to hear why you wanted to talk—you sound nervous.”

Juliette tried to order her thoughts. How did you tell a story like this? Finally, she simply dove in and began talking. Caroline listened, taut and still, without comment, as Juliette related the history of how they all fit together. When Juliette finished, Caroline remained silent for a long, agonizing time. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded thin and reedy.

“This is insane.”

“I know it must sound that way.”

“So that’s why you sent me that invitation.” Caroline clenched the twisted napkin she held. “I suppose I was quite gullible. You must have thought me quite a fool.”

Caroline went back to silence. Juliette tried to read the undertones of her words. At this moment, Juliette didn’t know if Caroline wanted to kill her, quench her curiosity, or simply walk away in disgust. In her shoes, Juliette could never remain calm.