Beautiful Lies (10 page)

“Robin … I did something wrong.”

His eyes are kind and concerned; there is not a trace of judgment in his gaze. “What did you do, Alice?”

I’m so ashamed that I can’t look at him. “I stole some money.”

“…”

“Robin, I stole a lot of money.”

He stays calm, absorbing the information without much expression. “How much are we talking about, exactly?”

I close my eyes. “Ten thousand dollars.”

I can tell he’s trying not to react too strongly, but his body stiffens beside mine. “Jesus, Alice,” he breathes, “why would you steal so much money? Where did you get it?”

“I found it.” I unzip my bookbag and take out the money to show him.

“Oh my God.” He shakes his head, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. “Shit, Alice, you know whoever that belongs to is gonna miss it, don’t you? Nobody just
loses
that kind of cash. Once they realize it’s gone—if they haven’t already—they’re gonna want it back.”

I nod. “I know. I tried to put it back, but I couldn’t.”

There is a hint of frustration in his voice. “How is that possible?”

“The door was locked.”

He stares at the money, the thick pile of crisp hundreds in my shaky hand. I can tell he wants to touch it. I know I did, the first time I saw it. I couldn’t help myself.

“Robin.” I rest my hand on his forearm. “I took it for you. I was going to give it to you.”

“For
me
? Alice, why the hell would you do that? I don’t need any money.”

“Of course you do! Robin, look around. This place is awful—it’s practically falling apart. Nobody should have to live this way. This money could help you, couldn’t it? You could buy a car, or get a new apartment, or … I don’t know, do
something
to make your life better.”

Robin shakes his head. “No. I don’t need a better life. What I have now—this place, and you—that’s the hand I’ve been dealt, you know? Nothing is going to change that, and even if it could, I don’t want it to change.”

My body slumps against the couch. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I know, but I just wanted to help you. I thought that maybe if things were easier, we could … I don’t know.” I stuff the money into my backpack. “Forget it. It was a stupid idea.”

“You thought the money would make it easier for us to be together, didn’t you?” He looks at the painting of me hanging above the couch. When I posed for it over the summer, I took off all my clothes as I stood right in front of him. His
gaze explored my entire body that day, but he never once tried to touch me. It has always been that way—it’s like there’s an invisible line between us that he won’t allow himself to cross, and I have no idea why.

“Alice,” he continues, “you have to listen to me. I don’t care if the door to wherever you found this money was locked. You need to figure out a way to give it back. Has it occurred to you that whoever you stole this from might know what you did? And if they mistook your sister for you, they might have—”

“Yes,” I say. I’m surprised by how flat my voice sounds. “I understand. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Whatever happens to Rachel is all my fault.”

“So make it right,” he urges. “Give the money back somehow.”

From my purse, my phone begins to ring again. Somehow it sounds more insistent this time.

“Don’t you want to get that?” Robin asks. “It might be Rachel.”

“It’s my uncle,” I say. “I left the house without telling anyone. It’s been a crazy morning.”

He stares at his hands. He makes a halfhearted effort to pick at the paint beneath his fingernails.

I reach across the sofa and take the beer from his hand. He lets go of it easily enough. As I take a long swig, it occurs to me it’s the first thing I’ve had to eat or drink since the sip I took from Holly’s lemonade last night; my throat is parched and my lips are dry. The beer tastes fantastic. I can feel it
moving down my throat, a rush of warmth spreading as it hits my stomach.

My phone rings again.

“Maybe you should answer that,” he says. “It’s the third time they’ve called.”

I shrug. “It’s just my uncle telling me to come home.”

He tilts his head in question. “Do your aunt and uncle know where you are right now?”

“No. I snuck off. I took my uncle’s car. They called the police right before I left. To report
Alice
missing.”

Robin shuts his eyes. “Oh, man,” he breathes. He stares at me, closing his hand over mine. “Alice, you should go home now. You need to talk to the police. I know it’s going to be hard, but I think you should be honest with them. About everything.”

“No!” I say. My voice rises as my words rush together. “Nobody can know who I really am, nobody except you. If I tell my aunt and uncle that I’m Alice and not Rachel, they’re going to tell the cops. And if the police find out, then it’s only a matter of time before other people learn the truth. Robin, please. If I tell anyone who I really am, then whoever took Rachel will come for me eventually.” I swallow. “And if I don’t figure out where she is, then whoever she’s with might hurt her even more.”

My phone rings again. I know that it’s not going to stop ringing until I either answer it or show up at home.

The room goes fuzzy again as I stand up. The terror and dread that have spread within me seem to be alive, flowing
through my veins, thriving on my worst fears. For so many years—since I was nine years old—I believed there was nothing in this world that could be worse than what I had already faced. Until now. “I’m leaving, okay?” I tell him.

Robin stands up and takes a step toward me. Carefully, like he’s afraid he’ll hurt me, he rests a hand on my shoulder. I am so overwhelmed with panic, so lost and alone, that I almost collapse beneath his grip. For a second, I’m afraid I’m going to throw up.

He brings his face so close to mine that I can feel the warmth from his breath. I lean closer, expecting him to kiss me, but at the last second he tilts his head away, his lips barely grazing my cheek before he whispers into my ear.

“Lang,” he says.

I pull away. “What?”

“Lang,” he repeats. “That’s my last name.”

“Oh.” I try to smile, but the effort is weak. “Okay. Now I know.”

There is a flash of something in his eyes—sadness, or maybe regret—as he takes a few steps backward, his hand slipping away from my shoulder. “Sure,” he agrees. “Now you know.”

I drive toward home in silence, the only noise the sound of raindrops pounding against the windshield as the Porsche
sloshes along the wet streets. I think of my sister and her words in my dream.
Don’t. Tell. Anyone.
Even in sleep, I trust her completely.

Rachel doesn’t know about the money I took. Aside from Robin, nobody knows. At least, I don’t think anyone does. The idea that someone might be punishing her for what I’ve done makes me feel so sick and panicked—so
guilty
—that I can barely stand to be in my own skin.

My sister has been the only constant in my life. If I lose her, I might as well lose everything.

The smell of turpentine clings to my clothing from Robin’s touch, and for a moment my thoughts drift to last summer, when we met. It was a Monday afternoon in the first week of June. I was taking a painting class at the local community college. My easel was set up next to a large window that looked out on a grassy courtyard complete with a fountain surrounded by park benches. Each day as I worked, I sometimes found my gaze wandering outside. I watched students as they quietly studied in the grass, unaware of my stare. I watched a falafel vendor sweating over his cart at lunchtime, serving up pitas topped with condiments that had been sitting in the sun all morning. I saw mothers who let their toddlers run around in the fountain, ducking underwater and coming up with fistfuls of pennies from other people’s wishes. And each afternoon, from sometime after one o’clock until my class ended at three, I saw Robin. He would stroll across the courtyard and sit down on a bench, spreading
out the contents of his bookbag so he was taking up the whole space for himself. He’d pull out a sketchbook and he’d sit there beneath the sun for the entire afternoon, gazing down at the paper as he drew. Every once in a while he would glance up and look around, but it never seemed to me like he was looking at anything in particular.

From my place beside the window in my classroom, I watched him as he worked, day after day. It was like I could sense the energy coming from his body; even as I stood before my easel beneath the unpleasant fluorescent lights in the classroom, his proximity made me feel like I was bathed in sunbeams. After he’d shown up four days in a row, I spent Thursday afternoon drawing him with light pencil strokes, pausing every few seconds to glance out the window. He was a perfect subject: so still and beautiful, completely focused on whatever he was drawing.

From so far away, I didn’t think he could possibly notice what I was doing. I’d seen him glance in my direction a few times, but I never got the impression that he was looking at me specifically. By late Friday afternoon, I had finished my sketch and wanted to begin painting over his faint likeness. I stayed late on campus to continue working as he remained on his bench, sketching away. Around four o’clock, immersed in the rhythm of my brushstrokes, I looked up and realized he was gone.

Thinking I could continue from memory—and wanting to continue so badly, to watch him as he became fully realized
on paper—I kept going. I don’t know how much time passed, or how long he stood in the doorway, watching me, before I noticed him.

We were alone in the room, maybe even alone in the building as far as I could tell. And here was this stranger who I’d essentially been spying on all week long, stepping into the room. Under any different circumstance, I might have been afraid. He could have reacted in so many ways. He could have been upset, even angry.

Instead, he seemed stunned. He looked from me to the painting, his gaze shifting back and forth, like he couldn’t believe his eyes. Finally he said, “That’s me.”

I nodded. I felt heat rising in my cheeks as I blushed. “I’m sorry. You’ve been outside all week, so I just—”

“I see,” he interrupted. He held his hand close to the paper, almost touching it. His hands were smeared with pencil lead. He’d been wearing the same clothing all week: a white cotton shirt, loose jeans, and paint-spattered Converse sneakers. He looked tired and disheveled—in other words, like a normal college student.

“I want to show you something,” he said.

I should have been scared. Maybe he was a pervert, and he was going to flash me. We were alone; it would have been easy for him to overpower me. He was taller than I was by a good six inches. His arms were thick and muscular, stretching the fabric of his T-shirt around his biceps. And who knew what he might be carrying in his bookbag?

Yet I didn’t feel the slightest bit afraid, even as he unzipped the main pocket and reached inside. Instead, I felt exhilarated.

He removed his sketchbook and flipped through the pages until he found what he was looking for. As he held it toward me, I stared down at the paper, blinking over and over again, convinced at first that I was seeing things.

It was a drawing of me, startling in its detail and accuracy. In it, I stood hunched at my easel, my hair tucked behind my ear to offer a clear view of my profile. He’d captured my likeness down to the last details: the splash of freckles across my nose; the slight wave to my hair; my big feather earrings that grazed my shoulders.

I reached out to touch the drawing, my fingertips barely brushing the paper, almost like I was afraid it would dissolve into thin air upon contact. “It’s amazing.” I paused. “How did you see all this from so far away?”

When he shrugged, I felt the air moving between us. I thought I could sense the warmth from his body. All week long I’d been drawing him … drawing me.

“I’ve always had a good eye for detail,” he said. His breath smelled like cigarettes, but it didn’t bother me. Instead, it was oddly pleasant and soothing, maybe because my parents had smoked when I was a kid—the smell sometimes made me think of that time in my life. I remember hearing from somewhere that smell is the most powerful trigger for memories.

I smiled at him. “I’m Alice Foster.”

“Alice,” he repeated. It was like he’d never heard the name before in his life.

“I like to paint,” I added, and felt immediately embarrassed.
Obviously
I liked to paint.

When he didn’t respond, I asked, “So are you a student here?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m just … hanging out.” He shifted his gaze past my painting of him, toward the window. “I paint too. Oils, mostly.”

“Oh yeah? Same here.” I recognized that he was older than I was—probably a good three or four years older, if not more—but I didn’t care a bit. At that moment, the only thing I cared about was making sure we kept talking for as long as possible.

“My parents were both artists,” I continued. “It sort of runs in my family. I got my first easel when I was four years old. My mom let me use all her stuff—paints, pastels, everything. I even dressed up like Frida Kahlo for Halloween in the first grade.”

He laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”