The Lie Spinners (The Deception Dance) (24 page)

“
I
think you better take that pill…
now
,”
Pom says.

“
Hello
men,” says a cheery and excruciatingly familiar voice. Even in
these circumstances, I can’t help but look over.

The
first time I saw him, I couldn’t get past the hideous scar that
splits Stephen’s face from chin to ear; it was this barrier,
keeping me from his fractured beauty. But now, I can’t help but
be stuck, entranced, sucked in, by that half smile that can only ever
be a half smile, but almost permanently beams from his kind features.

But
his smile drops as his clear blue eyes fix on mine; his eyelids widen
fractionally, and then narrow. He tilts his head, and then shakes it.

Then
I notice that he’s carrying an arm load of alcohol bottles. He
goes behind the bar and starts to unload them.

Pom
claps Stephen on the shoulder in a familiar way, “Ah,” he
says, “you must be Stephen.”

“
Am
I?” Stephen says. Then he looks at me, gives an exaggerated
gesture that clearly says that he’s remembering something, his
mouth going into a ‘oh’ shape and his eyebrows rising.
“Of course my name is Stephen! How could I forget?”

Pom
chuckles, and, clapping Stephen on the shoulder again, says, “Ai
wen.” He shakes his head still chuckling.

I
feel something cold and jump back squealing, “What the…?.”
I realize that short guy was pressing his knife closer to my throat.

“
She’s
not a cop,” Stephen says with his Swedish accent just a bit
off, as he puts bottles down under the bar, he shrugs as if he
doesn’t care that a guy has a knife to my throat and everything
that could mean. He leans over the bar and leers at me, “I can
vouch for that,” his eyes explore my body as if he can vouch
that every inch of me isn’t a cop. It’s so wrong, so not
Stephen like, I feel like punching him in the face, knocking Stephen
into his own body.

Pom
says something in Thai and the short guy pulls away the knife, hops
over the counter and leaves out the door he came from. Blink. Just
gone.

And
I just stand there. Stephen continues working, as if I’m not
just standing there.

“
I
need to talk to you,” I finally say.

“
I’m
working, beautiful American girl.” He looks up at me, “And
even if I wasn’t,” He exhales, “I do not do
two-night-stands.” He furrows his brow while examining my face.
“This is ridiculous. I
know
that I explained to you that I am not looking for anything serious…”

“
No,
I
need
to talk to you.”

“
Oh
no,” Pom says, chuckling even harder. “Baby Nathans…”

Nathan?

Stephen
looks at Pom, rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “I protect
myself from that,” he gestures with his head; obviously I’m
‘
that
’.
“We both know that if you have that problem, it’s not
mine.”

I
turn on my heel, ready to stomp out of there, but stop. I
need
to talk to him. Screw my pride. Life or death. “Sunbeam Hostel,
room B14,” I say.

As
I walk away I hear Pom say, “What do you do to these girls?”

“
What
can I say? Girls like scars.” Then I hear them both chuckling.

Day
Six

“
He
didn’t say anything else?” Linnie asks, for like the
hundredth time.

“
No.”

Linnie
hums with her eyes on the ceiling, and then bounces up and down on
the bed like she just figured something out. She asks, “Do you
think he’s possessed?”

“
I
seriously doubt it,” I say, leaning back against the wall at
the head of the bed.

As
I had expected, by the time I had returned to the hostel from my
Stephen (or Nathan?) encounter, Linnie had forgiven me; it’s
like she physically can’t hold onto a grudge (not that I’m
complaining). And the fact that I came back bearing extremely
gasp-worthy news definitely helped. It actually felt kind of good,
being able to confide in my sister something other than I barely
escaped a giant trying to murder me, or that I now have a
supernatural power that is demonic in origin.

That
is, it felt good until last night, when Stephen didn’t come
find us. I stayed up until way too late hoping that he’d come
so I could enact my ‘get Stephen to Madeline quick’ plan
first thing in the morning; when the sun rose, I gave up and
submitted to sleep.

I
close my eyes, hating this obstinate, completely ridiculous, feeling
of rejection.

Sighing
I respond to her theory, “I’m thinking it’s more
along the lines of: I blew his cover and he had to save face,”
I say. The same idea I’ve been kicking myself with for the last
twenty-four hours. “He was trying to dismiss my existence, I
think, so those people would write me off.”
Or
that’s what I keep telling myself
.
“But even though I’m pretty sure it was fake, I still
feel like he back-handed me and then laughed with his friend about
it.”

Why
do I care? Because I’m an idiot, that’s why.

“
Well,
fake or not, you did pretty much get a ‘ho, be gone.’ I’m
pretty sure it’s impossible to be ‘
ho,
be gone
’d
and not feel like yesterday’s toilet paper.”

“
Ho,
be…what?” I ask, feeling a reluctant smile pulling at my
lips.

Linnie
stands on the bed and levels an accusatory finger at me. “Ho!
Be gone!” She points to the door.

I
can’t help but laugh. “That is not a thing— how do
you know about
ho,
be gone
’s
anyway?”

“
Um,
did you forget that I was Chauncey’s best friend, like, for an
entire year?”

Not
for a moment. But the silence that follows doesn’t get a chance
to reach its awkwardness potential; the smell of cigarette smoke
wafts into our open window and Linnie gives me a look made up of wide
eyes and a wider smile, it tells me she has the exact same thought as
I.

Linnie
jumps down from the bed, running to throw open the front door of the
hostel room. I follow, slowly.

Linnie
basically bodily throws herself at Stephen, who sits on the steps of
the deck of our little raised bungalow. She’s shouting
something like, “Yay, yay, yay!” as she practically
clobbers him.

Stephen
tosses his lit cigarette into the sand and hugs Linnie, while sort of
guiding her beside him (rather than on him).

Leaning
against the open doorway, I fold my arms across my chest.

“
She
dragged you along, did she?” Stephen says as he throws an arm
around Linnie’s shoulders.

“
I
snuck in her suitcase,” Linnie says. She grabs Stephen’s
chin and says, “Now stop talking I need to check…”
She stares into his eyes, examining them with concentration.

Stephen
smiles, “Do I have something on my face?”

“
Shh…
I’m checking for Demons in there.” Linnie replies.

“
Don’t
you think you should have checked before you tackled him…?”
I grumble.

Stephen
turns, fixing me with a half-smile and mischievous glint in his eyes.
He uses his free hand to pat the steps on his other side. “Come
on,” he says.

I
seriously consider refusing; but if I did refuse, I very likely would
come across as sullen and resentful, and I’m not. There’s
no reason for me to care.

When
I sit next to him on the step, Stephen’s arm immediately goes
around me, and he squeezes me. “I’m sorry,” He
says.

A
breath of air I didn’t know I was holding gushes from me. “Do
you really, actually, treat girls like that?” I say, my words
coming out way more emotional than I intend.
Wounded
animal? Me?

“
Of
course not,” he says. “Well,” he squeezes me and
Linnie once while adding, “Not girls as beautiful as you two.
You surprised me yesterday, very much so. I am sorry that I
gave
you the wrong name when we met before, my true name is Nathan
.”

“
Okay,”
Linnie and I say, in turn.

He
lowers his voice to almost a whisper. “Please, believe me, I am
very happy to see you both; but this is the
last
place in the world I want either of you to be. How could this happen?
How did you end up here, alone? Be careful what you say. No names.”

We’re
all silent for a minute and I can’t help but notice that
Stephen’s hair still looks a little wet and he has a newly
cleaned smell, as if he just emerged from the shower. He’s
wearing a collared shirt and board shorts, which seem to fit him. He
never looked at home in formal wear; even though he grew up in a
castle.

“
That
story is complicated, and long,” I say, hesitantly, because I’d
rather not tell
that
story now, “But there’s something we need to tell you
first. We need to tell you that—” The words don’t
come. Literally. What I’m trying to say, what I’m
planning to say, is: your red headed ex called in my life debt. I
need to bring you to her by
three
days of three past midsummer, whenever that is, or I’ll
literally rot to death. But…The. Words. Won’t. Come.

I
put a hand over my mouth, terrified. Just to check that I still have
the ability to speak, I say, “I like the deck, the deck is
nice.” Yeah, okay. I try to say just the name, ‘Madeline,’
nothing.

“
Oh
my God, Linnie. You…you tell him why we’re here.”

Linnie
raises her eyebrows at me saying, “Okay…? We’re
here because—” Then she stops, mouth open. A wide eyed
look of surprise on her face; but the look quickly flattens into a
look of fury. “That…that—I can’t even say
it!”

She
doesn’t need to, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out
why we can’t tell Stephen the psycho witchy things Madeline did
so that we would bring him back to her. Basically, she totally
screwed us and this rescue mission because she doesn’t want her
baby-daddy
mad at her.

I
attempt a few variations of your cracked-in-the-head ex is going to
kill me if I can’t deliver you like a big pretty-boy birthday
present, all fail. I direct the comment at Linnie. Fail. I try to say
it in Pig-Latin. Fail. I finally manage, “We need you to come
back to Bangkok with us, it’s important.”

“
Really
important,” Linnie says.

I
chew on my lip, knowing how completely stupid we sound. We sound like
we’re planning his surprise party.

Stephen
lets go of my shoulder and stands. He pulls a crumpled box of
cigarettes from his pocket, pops one in his mouth and lights it with
a metal flip lighter, the expensive kind. He neglects his newly lit
cigarette, however, pressing his palm to his chin, obviously
thinking.

“
Please…it’s
really important,” I plead when he’s silent for a while.

“
I
know it is,” Stephen says, flicking the accumulating ash off
his cigarette. He takes a long drag then lowers his hand. I can
barely hear him when he continues probably more to himself, “And
obviously there’s something forcing you not to tell me…
Also, I can only guess what danger you ladies put yourself in to
track me down... Not to mention the rather impressive trick of
escaping the big guy we both know and attempt to tolerate.” He
lifts his free hand and rubs his face.