Love & Lies: Marisol's Story (25 page)

“Not my sparkling personality and dry wit?”

“That, too,” he said, smiling.

I pushed my mushy sandwich aside; there was no way I was eating food right now. “Gio, I’m so confused. I mean, I loved her. I really thought I loved her.”

He looked sympathetic. “I know.”

I smacked myself in the head. “God, Gio, did I make you feel like this? I’m so sorry if I did! Did you want to shoot poisoned darts at me?”

“Oh, I wish I’d thought of poisoned darts. Really, Marisol, I felt bad, but there’s a big difference here. It wasn’t your fault that I fell in love with you; you didn’t manipulate me with a bunch of lies. I talked myself into it. And then out of it.”

“Can you talk me out of it too?”

“I’ll do my best.” He cleared his throat. “You, Marisol Guzman, are superior to Olivia Frost in every way. You’re an actual writer, for God’s sake. She’s a big fake!”

I nodded. “Good. Keep going.”

“Um, without her makeup, she probably doesn’t look half as good.”

“Unfortunately, not true. Try a different tack.”

“Okay. You are
not
a liar.”

“Most of the time,” I amended.

“The first line you read today was terrific. I want to read that novel—and if Olivia doesn’t, it’s her loss.”

I sighed. “Ugh, my novel feels dead right now. Like it
got caught in the wreckage or something.”

“Are you really going to let her have that much power over you? How much have you written already?”

I shrugged. “Probably a hundred and twenty pages or so.”

“Are you kidding? You’re halfway there! And you’ve written a hundred and twenty pages more than Olivia Frost ever wrote!”

That made me smile. “Well, that’s probably true.”

“Yes, it is!”

“Of course, now I don’t have a writing class every week to keep me working.”

“I’m not going back there either,” Gio said; then his face lit up. “You know what we’ll do—we’ll have our own writing group on Saturday mornings. Just us two. We don’t need her. We can get inspirational quotes off the Internet by ourselves! Maybe Diana could come sometimes too. We can meet here or at a bookstore or . . .”

“Or at my apartment. I can make coffee,” I said. “Or even tea!”

“I’ll pick up some bagels before I get on the T. There’s that place near my dad’s apartment.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, feeling better than I had in days.

Gio smiled. “You’re going to get over her fast. She wasn’t worth your time.”

“I hope you’re right.” We sipped our lukewarm liquids and basked in our friendship, our excellent friendship. “You know who I’d really like to talk to?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I do. Why don’t you call her?”

“I don’t have her number in Indiana.”

“Her sister lives in Cambridge. She’d have it.”

“Yeah. But what if Lee’s still mad at me?”

“You won’t know unless you try.”

“Gio,” I began, then hesitated.

“What?”

“I kissed her. Lee. I kissed her in Provincetown. Before Olivia showed up.”

His eyes went wide. “You did?”

I nodded. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t plan it—it just happened. But that made it twice as bad when Olivia appeared.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

After thinking about it for a minute, Gio said, “Lee will forgive you.”

“You think so?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I hope she does. I really like Lee.”

“Yeah, me too.”

We sat there quietly for a few more minutes, sipping liquids. It was funny to see the Mug from this vantage point—I’d seldom sat in a booth since I’d started working there. Doug stuck the pile of bills into a brown envelope and took them behind the counter, then started getting the week’s laundry—aprons and towels—ready for pickup. Only two other tables were occupied, and those by single people. For a Saturday it was a poor crowd.

The place looked dingy. The linoleum floor was old and cracked, though it was never dirty. The wooden countertop was pocked with scars, the tabletop Formica was discolored
by spills, and the curtains in the window were so sunbleached, you couldn’t tell they’d ever had a pattern. Starbucks it was not.

But weren’t there still people who’d rather sit in an old booth by a drafty window, a booth where T. S. Eliot might once have had tea, instead of in that crowded chrome coffee palace down the street? Screw Wi-Fi. There was such a thing as authenticity, and the Mug had it. I felt proud to work at the grungiest place in Harvard Square, if only for a few more months.

*  *  *

We left Sue a more generous tip than she deserved, then walked out the door, but almost instantly Gio pulled me back inside the entranceway. “Wait,” he said as he stared down the street.

“What?” I said, then peeked out to see what he’d seen. Of course. Olivia Frost, laughing flirtatiously, tossing her locks, headed into Starbucks, her hand wound around the arm of Hamilton Hairdo.

H
I.
I
S THIS
L
INDSAY
O’B
RIEN
who has a sister named Lee?”

“Yes, it is.”

“I, um, met you once at the Arts Festival by the river. My name is Marisol Guzman and—”

“Marisol! I’m so glad you called.” I was taken aback by her excitement. Did she have me confused with somebody else?

“You’re glad
I
called?” I said.

“Yes! I’ve been trying to get in touch with you, but your number is unlisted.”

“Yeah, my mother makes me do that.”

“I’m sure Lee has it, but I didn’t want her to know I was getting in touch with you. The thing is I’ve been talking to Lee . . .”

“Is she coming back soon? I really want to see her and talk to her and . . . I miss her a lot.” I wasn’t thinking too much about what was issuing from my mouth, but at least I knew it wasn’t a lie. As helpful as Gio had been, Lee was the person I really wanted to be with right now, and whatever else that might mean, it certainly meant she was important to me.

“I miss her too,” Lindsay said. “I know she’d appreciate hearing from you.”

“That’s why I called you, to get the number.”

“Great, Marisol. That’s great. But I also wanted to talk to you about something else. Lee told me about what happened between the two of you, and about your relationship with a woman named Olivia who teaches a creative-writing class.”

“That’s over,” I said. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

“The thing is . . . I’m sorry if I sound nosy,” Lindsay said, “but I’m curious about something. Lee didn’t remember Olivia’s last name, and I’m wondering if it could be Frost.”

I was so shocked, I laughed. “What? How did you know that?”

Lindsay sighed. “Lee described her to me, her looks and her . . . well, the modus operandi fits her.”

“You
know
Olivia?”

“She was my freshman roommate at Harvard.”

That couldn’t be right. I did some quick calculations in my head. Lee had said her sister just graduated from Harvard last year—Olivia was older than that.

“I think you must have her confused with somebody else. This Olivia Frost is twenty-eight years old.”

This time Lindsay laughed. “Right. She always did like to add as many years onto her age as she thought she could get away with. She thinks it makes her seem more sophisticated. Believe me, she just turned twenty-three, like me.”

I shook my head, even though Lindsay couldn’t see me. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised—it’s not the only lie she told me. So, she graduated from Harvard with you?”

“Oh, no. Olivia didn’t graduate. She got kicked out our junior year for plagiarizing a paper. Lying was her college major.”

What?
“Oh, my God. What’s
wrong
with her? Is every word out of her mouth a lie? She told me she was writing a novel, but I don’t think that’s true either.”

Lindsay sighed. “Everyone who knows her has heard that one. I’m not saying she
couldn’t
write a novel—Olivia is very smart—but she never seems to put her energy into anything except her intricate embellishment of the truth.”

“Has she ever published
anything
?”

“Not that I know of.”

I smacked my hand against the bedroom woodwork so hard it stung. “God, how could I be so dumb?”

“Don’t blame yourself, Marisol. Olivia is very good at deception—she’s been practicing for years. And she always has an acolyte, someone to adore her, preferably younger, but being an innocent kid right off the farm worked too. I was the first at Harvard, but there were many after me. Men
and
women. And usually more than one at a time.”

“Is that what I was too? An acolyte? Somebody to worship her?”

“I don’t know, Marisol,” Lindsay said gently. “I really don’t know.”

I was stunned into silence.

“I lost track of her after her expulsion,” Lindsay went on. “I thought maybe it had taught her a lesson, but apparently it hasn’t. Anyway, when I heard you were dating an older woman named Olivia—and heard about the way she seemed
to be manipulating you—I was afraid it might be her. I thought you should know the whole story.”

Still, I couldn’t speak.

“Marisol, are you okay?” Lindsay asked.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, finally.

“What are you sorry for? You didn’t do anything.”

“I’m sorry that I . . . I didn’t see Lee. She was standing right in front of me, and all I could see was that beautiful liar.”

Lindsay spoke softly. “I know. Olivia’s light is blinding. It’s hard to look away.”

She gave me Lee’s number and apologized again for upsetting me. I assured her I was glad to know everything, but of course that wasn’t completely true either. Then we hung up.

I’m not sure why, but I still had that amber necklace around my neck—I guess it’s hard to give up on somebody you thought you loved. But the time had come. I took it off and put it into a sock that had lost its partner—which I thought was appropriate—then stuck the sock in the back corner of a drawer. I was pretty sure I’d never wear amber again.

After that I thought feeling sorry for myself might be an option to explore, at least for a little while, and I guess when Birdie and Damon came into the apartment they heard me wailing behind my bedroom door.

“Marisol! What’s wrong? Can I come in?” Birdie asked, then burst through the door before I could answer; Damon followed, holding a small white bag. They stood staring at me as I sat on my bed letting the tissues fall at my feet. Noodles and Peaches came in too, bumping against my legs and whining and purring. Thank God for strays.

“What happened? Are you sick? Are you hurt?” Birdie wanted to know as he plopped down on one side of me.

“I never saw you cry before,” Damon said, sitting gingerly on the other side. “I don’t like it. You’re the strong one!”

“Do I always have to be strong?” I said. “I’m having a terrible week, and I think I should be allowed to cry if I want to.”

“You cry your heart out, doll-face,” Birdie said, giving me a muscly hug. “We’re here for you.”

I looked at Damon, who was pulling tissues from the box and handing them to me, one by one, a miserable expression on his face.

“How do you two manage it?” I said, sniffling.

“Manage what?”

“Being a couple. You just met each other, and it worked, and that was that!”

“Marisol, you have amnesia! We argue all the time, remember?” Birdie said.

“I know, but you’re still together. If anybody had told me that you two would be my role models . . .”

“Hey, some days are good, some days are bad,” Birdie said. “This is about that snotty bitch Olivia, isn’t it? I can’t believe I ever thought she was worth your time. Get rid of her!”

“Too late. She already got rid of me.”

Birdie dropped his jaw and popped his eyeballs. “Who does she think she is? Just because she’s got a couple of good cheekbones and ten pounds of hair—”

“It’s not only Olivia. I feel awful about the way I treated Lee, too. I should have fallen for her instead of Olivia. What’s wrong with me?”

“My God, don’t tell me Marisol Guzman is an imperfect human being! Sweetie, you were blown
over
by that wench!”

After another few wet minutes, during which Damon rubbed my back and Birdie held my hand, I ran through the litany of the many lies of Olivia Frost.

When I finished, Damon held out the white bag. “Do you want a piece of saltwater taffy?” he asked. “I brought it back from Cape Cod.”

I unwrapped a wax-papered piece and stuck it in my mouth. Raspberry. It tasted like our weekend away, and it reminded me I could return to Provincetown another time, and Olivia could never drag me away again. Which was something to hold on to.

“Well, I have no use for that Olivia,” Birdie said. “I say good riddance to her. You know, Gio doesn’t care for her either.”

Damon nodded his head. “Gio says he wishes you could see that Lee is the person for you.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, speaking with some difficulty around the wad of taffy in my mouth. “The two of you discussed my love life with Gio? That is just plain weird.”

“In the car, after we dropped Lee at the airport. Your boyfriends have to look out for you, honey,” Birdie said, picking up the damp tissues from the floor with his fingertips and depositing them in the trash.

Finally, I had to laugh at the two of them sitting on either side of me, my fairy godfathers, dispensing tissues and advice, exchanging taffy for tears. Obviously, there
were
people I could count on, some of whom I was just getting to know.

Before Birdie and Damon left, they handed me the phone from the hall.

“Do it now, while you have the nerve,” Birdie said.

“And the emotion,” Damon added.

“We promise not to eavesdrop.”

“We’ll turn on the TV so we can’t hear.”

They tiptoed out, as if my room held a newborn child they didn’t want to disturb. I unfolded the piece of paper on which I’d written the number Lindsay O’Brien had given me and punched the numbers into the handset. The phone rang four times before someone picked up.