Love & Lies: Marisol's Story (10 page)

“What are you guys doing tonight?” I asked.

They looked at each other. “Maybe a movie?” Gio said.

“Sure. Do we have to eat dinner with your father first?”

Gio shook his head. “Nope. He’s otherwise engaged. As usual.”

“Not that I
mind
,” Diana said.

“Of course you mind. Anyone would mind.
I
mind,” Gio said.

And that was what they were talking about when Olivia Frost returned. She didn’t immediately recognize Gio from the class, but he recognized her.

I introduced Diana, reminded Olivia how she knew Gio, and then let them all just stare at each other for a minute trying to figure out the connections. Gio seemed to think he’d get an explanation by boring a hole through my brain with his eyes.

Diana was one of those very sensitive types who always pick up on any tension between others, and I guess she thought she’d defuse whatever was going on by chattering to Olivia.

“Here I am standing with three soon-to-be novelists. I’m so impressed that you’re really doing it. I write too, but I could never sustain anything as long as a novel. I don’t see how anybody can. I mean, when you start out, how do you know you’ll ever reach the end of it? It’s terrifying.”

Olivia bestowed a smile on Diana.
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

“Oh, I love that!” Diana said. “Do you mind if I write that down?” She started plowing through her bag looking for something to write on.

Even Gio nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. I like that idea.”

I liked it too. I liked almost everything about Olivia Frost.

Diana and Gio left soon after that, and Olivia slid in close to me on the bench. She took out her new grape earrings and slipped them into her ears, then shook her head so they sparkled. I was appreciating the way they looked with her hair when suddenly she took something else out of her purse and pressed it into my hand.

“Don’t say anything,” Olivia demanded. “I have the money, and this necklace was made for you.”

The amber pendant sparkled on my palm. “But . . . but . . . you shouldn’t . . . I can’t . . .”

“No, I won’t listen to any objections. It’s yours.” She smiled wholeheartedly. “I would accept a hug, though, if you felt inclined to give me one.”

After Olivia slipped the necklace over my head, I gave her an awkward hug, fearing that full body contact might make me melt. Besides, what was the protocol for hugging your teacher right out in public, anyway? I hoped Gio and Diana were no longer in our vicinity.

To make up for my anemic embrace I thanked Olivia effusively, but I had the feeling I’d disappointed her. After a minute she looked at her watch, frowned, declared she had somewhere to be, and disappeared into the crowd.

I
FELT LIKE KICKING MYSELF.
The most gorgeous, brilliant woman had just bought me lunch and followed that up with jewelry—which must mean
something
—and I was afraid to give her a decent hug! It was too confusing—was Olivia Frost really interested in
me
? What was going on here?

I started to wander through the crowd in a sleepwalking daze, headed nowhere.

“Marisol!” somebody called. “Marisol! Over here!”

Now what? I forced my eyes to focus on Lee, headed toward me with an ice cream cone dripping down over her fist like a little kid. It was a relief to see her—somebody completely unconnected to my current discombobulation or the screwups of last spring.

“Hey,” I said. “You could use a napkin.”

“Always the helpful waitress,” she said, licking some of the drips. “Are you here alone?”

“Not really. I mean, my friend was with me, but she had to leave.”

“I’m here with my sister. She’s over there looking at some photographs. Do you want to meet her?”

“Sure.”

When we located her, Lindsay had three black and white portraits lined up and was trying to decide between them. “Nice to meet you, Marisol. Lee told me about hanging out at the Mug with you. I’m glad she’s made a friend.”

Lee rolled her eyes at her sister’s comment, and I knew it embarrassed her. As if being Lee’s friend were a good deed for which I should be thanked.

Nobody would ever pick Lindsay as Lee’s sister. They were both fairly tall, but that was about it for resemblance. Lindsay had reddish-blond hair pulled into a heavy braid that fell down her back, and she was larger than Lee, although most of the weight was in her hips and boobs. And she certainly didn’t dress in that kind of uniform invisibility that Lee preferred: Lindsay had on a long, bright pink skirt and a black tank top cut low enough to elicit stares from a good portion of the males in the vicinity. She was pretty, but not in a knockout kind of way—in more of an I-know-I’m-pretty-but-let’s-not-make-a-big-deal-out-of-it kind of way. No makeup, no fancy shoes, no glamour.

“Which of these do you guys like?” she asked.

“Why do you want a picture of somebody you don’t even know?” Lee said. “Won’t everybody ask you who it is?”

“I like the idea of having a picture of somebody I don’t know—it’s mysterious. Besides, it’s the lighting that’s really magical about these. What do you think, Marisol?”

I had to admit that the photos were dramatic. “I like how that one has the girl standing in deep shadow so you notice her outline more than her face.”

“Oh, I’m glad you like that one—I think that’s my
favorite too. I feel like she has a secret, don’t you? I think I could look at this picture forever and wonder who she is and what’s going on in her head.”

“So I guess I’ll have to look at it forever too,” Lee said, but it seemed more like a sibling habit of kvetching rather than real annoyance.

“Only until you leave for college,” Lindsay said. “Assuming you apply to college.”

“Assuming I graduate from high school,” Lee shot back.

They glared at each other for a minute, and then Lindsay turned to me. “Lee says you’re going to Stanford next year. How come so far away?”

“My parents live here, in Cambridge. I wanted to put some distance between us. Not that we don’t get along—we do. It just seemed like farther would be better. You know, to get a fresh start.”

Lindsay nodded. “I guess. Although once you’re away from home, you’re away. It doesn’t really matter how far you go. Everything changes. And when you go back, it’s all different. You’re still a family, but not in the same way. You’re a split-up family—you can never go back to being a kid in that house again. It’s a little bit sad.”

I couldn’t imagine that would be true for me. Surely, I would be Mama Guzman’s beloved orphan child until we were both white-haired and senile. Still, if it was true for Lindsay, maybe it was true for Lee, too.

Lee turned abruptly back to the photographs, cutting off her sister’s train of thought. “If you’re going to buy one, buy the one Marisol likes. It could be anybody. It could be me.”

Lindsay looked at the photograph again. “You’re right, Lee—it does look sort of like you. I’m getting that one!” She picked it up and took it to the cashier to pay.

Lee kept her face turned away from me until the tightness in her jaw relaxed and she’d swallowed back the threatening tears. She hadn’t, I thought, really made a choice to leave home; the decision had been foisted upon her by the rest of her family. But surely she’d wanted to leave Indiana. I thought of Olivia longing to get out of her midwestern hometown and come east. Maybe Lee didn’t realize yet how lucky she was. She might not have chosen Cambridge, but it was a great place to be, especially with her parents half a continent away.

I was fingering my new necklace when she turned back.

“That’s pretty. Did you just get it?”

“Um, yeah. My . . . friend got it for me.”

Lee nodded and thought that over. “So, your friend is a . . . girlfriend?”

“Not exactly. I mean, I’m not sure. I guess she might be.” Just saying that much out loud made me a little dizzy. I had no idea what I was to Olivia Frost, besides her “star” student. But I certainly wanted to be something more than that, and I wanted Lee to think I was something more too.

Lee nodded and forced a grin. “I’d like to meet her sometime.” Well, that was obviously a lie, but it was the one kind of lie I could easily forgive, the kind with which you try to save yourself a little pain.

It was becoming obvious that Lee had a crush on me, and I felt like kind of a jerk for not responding to her. I knew she was lonely and just out of that passé closet; she probably didn’t
even know any other lesbians. Hell, I didn’t know that many either, unless you counted the New York zine people. There had been a few lesbians in my prep school’s gay-straight alliance, but they’d all gone off to college. Probably not a bad idea for me to ferret out some more local lesbians—if nothing else it would show Lee that I wasn’t the only available choice.

That’s when it occurred to me that a road trip might be in order. And I knew just the place.

*  *  *

“Oh, can I come along too?” Birdie begged. “I’ve never even been to Provincetown, which is so unfair. There’s a boat you can take over from Boston on the weekends!”

I sighed. “The boat is expensive, Birdie. By the time we pay for a place to stay, and food . . . and besides, you’ll want to bring Damon along, whereas I would really love to have a vacation
from
Damon, not
with
him.”

“You don’t even try to get to know him. You don’t give him a chance, Marisol. He’s a sweet potato!”

“Well, you say potato, I say brussels sprout.”

Suddenly a rapturous look came over Birdie’s face, and he sucked in a lungful of excitement. “You know what? My mother has these clients, these guys who own a place in P’town that her real estate office rents out for them when they aren’t there. I’ve seen pictures of this place, and it’s gorgeous, right on the bay downtown! They spend the month of August there, but they’re never around in September.”

“So? It must rent for a fortune if it’s that good. Just because your mother pays your rent doesn’t mean she’d pay for an expensive vacation house.”

He shook his head madly. “No, no, they told her she could have it free sometime when they weren’t there. They love my mother—they make a bundle off the rentals she sets up. You know my mother; she’s such a fag hag.”

“Why doesn’t she go herself?”

“Too busy. Workaholic and all. And I think she’s afraid if she spent any time in P’town, she’d never want to come back.”

“And why would these clients let a bunch of teenagers have their place for a weekend?”

“Well, sweetheart, you never know unless you ask!”

And so the plan began to take shape. Birdie’s mother called her clients, explained the situation, told them how shy and well-behaved her son and all his friends were, and the deal was brokered. Birdie printed out photos from a website of the luxurious living room, the deck over the beach, the hot tub with a view of the stars.

Before I’d even called Lee to ask her about it, Damon was shrieking gleefully in the living room. “Oh, my God! This is going to be the highlight of my year!” Which is how my quiet little road trip morphed into an all-out cavalcade of homosexual delight. Now all we had to do was come up with a weekend when all four of us could go before the weather got too cold to enjoy it.

Lee was stunned at the suggestion. “I thought you had a girlfriend?”

“It’s not like that. I mean, yeah, I might be starting something up with this woman, but I’m not going to be spending every minute with her. She’s older; she’s busy. And besides, this would just be friends taking a weekend trip. You really
have to see Provincetown, Lee. There’s no place like it—it’s a gay paradise. It’ll make you glad you live on the East Coast.”

“That’s a goal to shoot for,” she said. “You’re not just trying to find me a girlfriend, are you?”

“No!” I said. “I mean, you never know who you’ll meet there. You could meet somebody you like.”

She frowned. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Come on, Lee. We’ll have a good time; I promise. I have the weekend of the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh off work, so that would be the best for me. The boys can do that one too. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, Marisol.”

“The water on the Cape is warmer in September than any other time of the year.”

“Don’t you have your writing class on Saturday mornings?”

“I’ll just have to miss one,” I said, wondering what I’d tell Olivia about skipping her class. “Think of it as a field trip!”

“Maybe it would be fun. And God knows I have nothing to do
any
weekend. Let me clear it with my sister.”

“Great! If the boat isn’t too expensive, that would be a cool way to go. Otherwise we’ll have to take the bus.”

“I don’t mind the bus. That’s how I got out here.”

Now I was surprised. “You came all the way from Indiana on a bus?”

“Yup. Took two days and I switched buses five times.”

“That’s horrible!”

“No, it was actually fun. You meet all kinds of people. Sometimes they get on in the middle of the night, in the
middle of nowhere, and disappear by dawn. Sometimes they tell you their life stories and then fall asleep on your shoulder.”

“Oh, my God—do they drool on you?”

Lee laughed. “You’re a snob, you know that, Marisol? You need a nice long bus trip. It’ll make you glad there’s more to the United States than just the East Coast.”

I
’D BEEN SITTING AT MY DESK
for an hour already without putting a word on the page. One problem was that my fingers kept straying from the keyboard to play with my necklace, to feel its weight and to pull it away from my shirt so I could admire it. Without the hard evidence of that amber stone I knew I would begin to doubt the facts of my unlikely afternoon with Olivia Frost.

And then, suddenly, I knew what would happen to Christina, my protagonist, the dental receptionist who was lucky in everything but love. She would meet somebody a little older, somebody she couldn’t manipulate or even understand the way she did her younger friends. And this woman—yes, it had to be a woman—would be brilliant and beautiful.