Liar (5 page)

“What if you're already pale?” Tayshawn wants to know. The class laughs but I'm not sure he meant to be funny.

“Pale is a relative term, Tayshawn,” Yayeko says. “The lower parts of your body become darker than the upper parts.”

“What do you mean upper part, then?” he continues. “Like your head?”

“It depends on how the body is positioned. If it's lying supine—on its back—then the blood pools there. In the heels and calves and buttocks, the back, the back of the neck, the head. The face will be pale.”

Tayshawn nods to show he understands now. I wonder how they found Zach. Which parts of him were pale, which dark?

“Next, the cells cease aerobic respiration so they can't maintain normal muscle biochemistry. Which means what?”

Only two hands go up. Mine and Lucy O'Hara's.

“Lucy?”

“They stop making energy.”

“Out of what?”

“Glucose,” Lucy says. “Oxygen.”

“Yes.” Yayeko continues, “And when that stops, calcium ions leak into muscle cells, preventing muscle relaxation, which causes rigor mortis.”

“When the body goes all hard?” Tayshawn asks. There are more giggles, but he ignores them.

“Yes,” Yayeko says. “The cells begin to die and can't fight off the bacteria, which causes the body to decompose and the muscles to become soft again. As soon as the body dies, flies are attracted to it. They start to lay eggs in open wounds and orifices. The eggs turn into maggots—”

“No,” Sarah says, holding her hand over her mouth and running from the room. Two girls get up and follow her. I'm also imagining maggots eating Zach. Maggots in his eyes, maggots between his toes, maggots all over him. Wriggling, feeding, tearing into his body. I have to concentrate to keep from joining the other girls in the bathroom.

On the way out of class Brandon hisses at me. “You're not normal,” he says.

Tell me something I don't know.

AFTER

“I bet you killed him,” Brandon says on the way out of biology. “You probably got your dad to make him disappear.”

“I heard it was you,” I tell him. “That you read somewhere if you kill and eat the brains of people who are better than you then you get to be like them.”

“That makes
you
safe,” Brandon says. “And everyone else in this school.”

I laugh and almost tell him touché. He walks away. I follow. “How come you're always hissing at me on the way in and out of class?”

“Are you kidding? I can't have anyone see me voluntarily talking to a murdering freak like you. I wish you'd go back to wearing that mask. That way none of us has to see your freaky face.”

“Shut up, Brandon, or I'll have my dad take care of you.” Briefly I imagine what it would be like to have such a dad. Ready at a moment to kill all my enemies.

Brandon's eyes flick at me as if he's trying to assess whether what I said could be true, but doesn't want to contaminate his eyeballs by actually looking at me. “Like your dad took care of Zach?”

I want to hurt Brandon. Slap his face, kick his nuts, spit in his eyes. “You'll never be as good as him. No matter how hard you try.” It's true, but that doesn't make it sound any less lame.

Brandon laughs and moves away from me as quick as he can. He knows he's won.

HISTORY OF ME

Sometimes I am still for hours.

It's like I'm waiting. Watching. Biding my time. When I'm ready, I'll leap.

Sometimes my whole life feels like that.

I never said that to Zach but I think he would have understood.

There's a lot I didn't tell Zach that I should have.

Sometimes thinking about him stills me, shuts everything else down.

Other times I have trouble sitting still.

I pace.

Mom hates it. Dad looks at me nervously.

When I pace, the apartment is so small I don't understand how the four of us can fit in it.

Four?
you ask.

Yes.

Four.

Me, Mom, Dad, Jordan.

My brother. My younger brother. My ten-year-old brother, Jordan.

He has the opposite effect on me. He is the opposite of Zach.

BEFORE

My next big lie of freshman year, after passing first as a boy and then as a hermaphrodite, was getting them to believe that my father was an arms dealer.

I still can't believe anyone bought it.

It started when Dad came to pick me up in a long black limousine. Not just long, but ridiculously long. Almost as long as the block. He was reviewing a new luxury limousine company and had to test all their services, including the champagne and flowers and their promise to drive you wherever and whenever.

So he picked me up from school, wearing the tuxedo he was married in, looking like James Bond. The chauffeur was at once respectful and jokey with him. They “hey man'd” and “brother'd” each other. Discovered they were both named Isaiah and made jokes about their super-strict religious parents. (Parents Dad does not have. The Greats never go to church.)

“Who's that?” Chantal asked me as Dad waved. I could see Sarah and Zach looking at my dad and then back at me.

“My dad,” I said.

She looked at me sideways as if she could see the truth better from that angle. “No way,” she said.

I smiled.

“He's so cool. What's he do?”

“Stuff,” I said.

“What kind of stuff?” Chantal asked, watching Dad walk toward us.

“I gotta go,” I said, and walked up to Dad. He kissed my cheek.

“Hurry up,” he told me, sweeping me into the limo. I was relieved to see the brat wasn't already in there. I enjoyed Chantal and the others watching us.

“Who else are we picking up?”

“No one,” he said. “I thought we'd cruise for a bit.”

“And help the planet warm up some more. Climate change not quick enough for you, Dad?”

“I don't see you getting out and walking.”

“Can't,” I said. “They's watching.”

“
Are
watching,” he corrected. “This is Isaiah. Yes, same name as me. He had a shot at the world middleweight title. Back in the early nineties. Isn't that right, Isaiah?”

We both climbed up closer to Isaiah. Dad repeated the stuff about Isaiah and boxing.

“It is,” Isaiah said, nodding. “You must be Micah. Your dad says you're a handful. That right?”

“Nope,” I said. “It's my brother who's the bad one.”

“They're both bad seeds,” Dad said, patting my head 'cause he knows I hate it.

“Dad!” I protested.

“I am cursed,” he told Isaiah, who nodded back at him.

“Who'd have children? Other than the two of us,” Isaiah said, laughing. “Mine are more than a handful. But none of them in jail yet. That's the blessing I'm counting.”

Then they started talking boxing. Dad told Isaiah about his career as a lightweight. Lightweight was right, but only if you left out the boxing part. Dad liked to say that he was “averse to violence.” As far as I knew he'd never hit anyone. Not even me. Though, trust me, he'd wanted to.

“I got out before it was too late,” Isaiah said. “Wanted to keep a few of my original smarts.” He tapped his left temple to demonstrate there was still something in there. “I can add up and read and I know who the president is. That's a lot better than some of the brothers I went through with.”

Dad nodded wisely.

“Dad got out after his nose was smashed up,” I said, and Isaiah peered at Dad's nose in the rearview mirror. The crooked lump in the middle came courtesy of his oldest cousin, Cal, up on the farm. Or, at least, that was the story I'd heard most often.

Dad nodded again. “ 'Course,” he said, “I was never going to be a contender. Nose was broke in my fifth bout.”

“You did right,” Isaiah said. “Look at you now! Riding around in a limousine.”

Dad laughed. “Just reviewing it.”

“Good enough,” Isaiah said.

Next morning at school without saying anything directly I let it be known that my dad was a man to be reckoned with. By the end of the day it was Micah's dad, the arms dealer.

I neither confirmed nor denied.

AFTER

The police interview all the seniors. The art room becomes the inquisition room. I am one of the first they call. I wonder why. I am a Wilkins so it can't be alphabetical.

When the officer says my name I stand up and walk slowly out of English. Everyone looks at me. The teacher, too. I lift my chin a little higher, threading my way through the desks, trying to close my ears to the whispers, but my hearing is too good.

They talk about me and Zach. Disbelief echoes around the room and follows me out into the hall. How could he? With
her
?

I hate English. Even when no one is whispering about me.

The police officer smiles at me. “I'm Officer Lewis.”

“Micah,” I say, even though she already knows that since she asked for me by name. I wonder if she heard the whispers.

“The art room is this way,” she tells me, making it even. I told her something she knew, now she's telling me something I know.

She's shorter than me. She looks young. Like she could still be in high school. Her uniform is neat and she has a gun in a leather holster on her side. I wonder if she's ever fired it.

“Don't worry,” she says. “One of your teachers, Ms. Yayeko Shoji, will be there. We just want to ask a few questions. You might be able to help us find out what happened to Zachary.”

“Do you have any ideas at all?” I ask her. “Was he really murdered? Everyone's saying so.”

“I'm sorry, I can't answer that. The investigation is ongoing,” she says, still smiling. “Was he a good friend of yours? It's hard when someone you care about dies.”

“No,” I say, feeling weightless for a moment. I skid on a tile. The officer puts her arm out to steady me. “Slippery,” I say. “He wasn't a friend of mine. It's weird. You know . . . someone you've seen around.”