Split (12 page)

“What do you think?” I ask. “Do you like it?”

“No.”

“You don’t like it?”

“No.”

“Well, don’t sugarcoat it on my account.”

“I believe in unadulterated honesty,” she says.

“Does that make you a lot of friends?”

She laughs and then says yes, it does. And I think about the lie I just told her.

chapter 18

“g
in,” Christian says
, and lays out his cards.

He’s like a freaking gin rummy genius. I’ve been trying to convince him to play chess, since Tom and I have had a couple of games now. I even bought a five-dollar chessboard that Tom found at a garage sale. But Christian isn’t up for that right now. He seems to be up for winning. I have a full fan of cards in my hands because I hoard my cards. I hate giving up a possible three of a kind or a sequence. I frown.

“Want a turkey sandwich?” I ask. “Sure, okay,” he says. “Want to play again?”

“Deal.”

I walk into the kitchen and get out our multigrain bread and the leftovers from the turkey that Mirriam and I made yesterday. She has never made a turkey dinner before so we decided to practice. Our second attempt is defrosting on the counter. While I’m making our sandwiches, I call to the other room.

“Hey, are you really good at gin, or do I just suck at it?”

“Is there a polite way to answer that question?”

“Yes.”

I plate the sandwiches and am bringing them out to him. He watches me.

“Your hair looks pretty good,” he says.

It has been startling me whenever I look in the mirror, but it’s better than the alternative.

He is taking a bite when the phone rings. He gets up and answers while I look at the cards he has dealt me.

“Hello?”

I start sorting my cards. Ace, four of hearts, two of diamonds, jack of clubs … a crappy hand.

“What? Who are you looking for?”

His voice gets hard, and his decibels finally go up to a regular level. He turns toward me, his lips pinch together, and he tilts his head. Somehow, I’m about to get it.

He continues, “You have the wrong number. There is no Witherspoon here.”

The blood drains from my face. Could Edward or Lauren have gotten the number? No, that’s too much to hope for. This is blowback from the phone call I made to my parents’ house the day I got here.

When Christian turns, I hear my dad’s voice leaking from the cell phone. I jump to my feet.

“Who is this?” says my dad.

Christian clicks off the phone and places it very slowly on the coffee table. He grips the edge of his desk and squeezes his eyes shut.

“You son of a bitch.”

“I didn’t know.”

His eyes spring open, and his grip tightens. “You what? You’re going to claim now that—”

“I called before you asked me not to.”

He deliberately releases his grip on the desk. His jaw is clenched so tight that his mouth barely opens when he says, “Sit.”

He points at the couch.

Like the dog I am, I obey. This is just the excuse he needs to throw me out on my ass.

“Explain.” This time, I don’t think his teeth separated.

“I just wanted to tell Mom I got here, but the machine picked up.”

“That’s not what I meant.” His voice is escalating. He stops, and when he speaks again, his voice is back in its normal register. “Why didn’t you tell me when you found out that I didn’t want you to call? If you had told me, I could have changed the phone number.”

“It’s not like he has the address.”

“Jace, it’s called reverse directory. He can get it.”

“But he won’t. I mean, he thinks he had the wrong number. And it’s … Isn’t it listed as Marshall?”

“I’m sure he recognized my voice. I have a life now. I have a career, I have a girlfriend. I can’t just pick up and … Where is Mom going to go now?”

I freeze. I’ve cut off her escape route.

He closes his eyes again and pushes his hair back, and I watch his chest expand, hold and release. I wonder if he’s counting to ten. When he opens his eyes again, he doesn’t look murderous. “Let’s talk about this later, okay?” he says. “I’m going out for a run.”

He walks into his bedroom and closes the door gently. I can’t believe that I’ve screwed this up, too. How many people can I wreck?

The phone rings again. The door pops open, and he rushes out.

“Just let me,” I say.

“Are you kidding?”

Ring
.

“He’ll think it was me before.” Dakota said that our voices sound alike; that was how she recognized Christian as my brother. “Trust me.”

“You
are
kidding.”

He reaches for the phone to get it before the voicemail reveals everything, but I grab it first.

“Dad?” I say.

Christian’s eyes widen in alarm. I cover the mouthpiece with my hand and whisper, “We sound alike.”

“Jace?” His high voice comes through the receiver. “I thought it was you. You goddamn liar. What the hell, ‘there is no Witherspoon here’?”

“I panicked. I’m sorry.”

“You panicked. Why would you panic? It’s just me.”

Gee, I wonder
.

“It’s a long story,” I say, urging my brain to work faster.

“Start talking. And this time, the truth. No more lies out of your little mouth, you got it?” He has that “or else” sound to his voice, but “or else” what? He’s gonna reach over thirteen hundred miles and whop me one?

“I thought … There’s a warrant out for my arrest,” I say, and watch Christian’s eyebrows come together while he shakes his head.

“I’ll start packing,” Christian whispers.

I wave him away and turn my back to him, praying that he can’t hear our father the way I did. I have no idea how I’m going to explain the warrant to Christian now. Christian only backs up a couple of feet.

“Oh, yes,” my dad says. He has an Oh-yeah,-and-I-meant-to-yell-at-you-about-that tone going. “A sheriff brought that to my attention, thank God, not in open court. It was humiliating, Jace. Humiliating.”

“I’m sorry, Dad. I wasn’t thinking about your reputation at the time. You know how it is.” Why not go for the dig?

“You can’t go around doing that, Jace. She isn’t your wife.”

“Marriage vows make it okay?”

“Don’t mouth off at me. Try saying ‘thank you’ instead.”

“What for?”

I’m about to say
For all your valuable lessons?
But Christian takes a step toward me, and I remember what kind of game I’m playing. I wave him back again, walk into the corner between the desk and the couch, and stick my finger in my ear.

“For getting rid of the warrant,” he says, his voice smug.

“What? How did you do that?”

“I talked to Lauren.”

I can’t tell what’s worse: the cold lightning that has just shot down my spine or that I’m so nauseated that I turn, push Christian out of the way, and walk to the bathroom, preparing to puke in the toilet.

“What did you say to her?” I try to keep my voice calm, but it’s shaking.

“I reminded her how serious a battery charge is. I reminded her that this could affect you forever, keep you out of college, ruin your future. I used to be a lawyer, remember? I can be very persuasive,” he says.

Oh God. Oh my God
.

“We talked about love and second chances.”

I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at the ceiling. Bile slides back down my esophagus, burning as it goes. Christian hovers in the doorway, and I hear my father saying, “Hello? Jace?”

It’s okay
, I mouth to Christian. Full voice, I say into the phone, “I’m here, Dad. Why’d you do that?”

“For you.”

And you’ve got a bridge to sell me, too, right?

“I shouldn’t have, probably,” he says, “but it’s easier to make the charges go away than to answer to them in open court.”

Oh, right. His reputation. Gotta protect that
.

“If you want a thank-you, come out here and beat it out of me,” I say.

“Jace!” Christian whisper-screams.

My dad breaks into a bunch of screaming, and all I catch is “ungrateful little shit.”

I imagine Lauren opening the door and seeing this older version of me in a black robe.
She invites him in, and they sit at her kitchen table, and he reminds her of all her mistakes
.

Christian touches my arm. “Stop it. Get off the phone.”

“Are you listening to me?” I hear my dad shout.

“Of course I am. I’m sorry. You’re right.” I swallow and try to force the two words he wants me to say out of my mouth, but the best I can do is walk a verbal line. “You’re right. I should say thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” There’s a pause. “I don’t recognize this area code on my caller ID. Where are you?”

“What?” I stall for time while I shift my brain back into lying gear.

“Where are you?”

“I’m in Taos, New Mexico.” I test to see if he knows I’m lying. If he does, he’ll call me on it and then ream me out.

“What are you doing there?”

I breathe; he doesn’t have the address yet.

I nod at Christian. Christian’s shoulders lower a notch.

“I ran out of money. I was trying for California.”

Another notch. Christian signals the “hang-up” motion.

“Why’d you call last month?” he asks. “Did you talk to your mother?”

“No, I haven’t spoken to her. No one was home. Why are you calling me now?”

“Do you have money?”

What’s this? Concern?
“I’m bussing tables.”

“Who are you staying with?”

“I’m sharing a room with a waiter.”

“C. Marshall?”

I hold my breath. He has figured us out. He’s playing me. “Who?”

“On the caller ID, it came up as C. Marshall.”

“Oh, right. No, that’s just because the phone is in his mom’s name. Charlotte Marshall. She’s a pediatrician.”

Christian slices through the air at his neck, and I stop talking about Dr. Charlotte Marshall. “Why’d you call, Dad?”

“Well …,” he says, and I hear him searching for a legitimate reason. My dad is not schooled in the spontaneous save-your-ass kind of lying; he prepares in advance. “Because your mother is sick with worry.”

“She’s what?”

“Well … she just wanted to make sure you were all right. I’ll tell her,” he says, and hangs up.

I stare at the phone in my hand. That was so weird.

“Did he believe you?” Christian says.

“Yeah,” I reply, thinking about why he would lie to me. He didn’t call about the warrant; it had nothing to do with that.

“Jace, it’s not just about me, you know. I’m worried about you and Mom, too.”

About Mom, too
echoes in my ears while my brain puts two and two together.

Why did he lie about my mom? I just got an e-mail from her this morning. Things were fine; they had gone out last night for a movie. So she was okay, then. She couldn’t have run. Not yet.

Oh God.

I bolt to the computer. I call up the e-mail.

Mom,
He is suspicious. Get out, now!
Jace

I flush hot, and my stomach flips again. He’ll kill her. Asking her to come out here, I’ve killed her.

Christian is reading over my shoulder. He catches my hand before I hit Send.

“He doesn’t know. He’s just policing her contacts. It’s all right. He used to do that at the end of every month—go through the caller ID for numbers he didn’t recognize. That’s all it is.”

I stare at him, trying to process what he’s saying.

“Calm down, Jace, and think. If he knew, he wouldn’t be calling here, and she’d be dead. See, it’s November third, okay? Beginning of the month.”

“But she can’t come out here now,” I say.

“He believed you about Taos, right?”

I nod absently, thinking about where she can go now. He takes me by the shoulders and shakes me gently so that I’m back in the apartment with him.

“Jace, are you sure?”

“You think he’d tolerate a lie?”

“I’ll make us untraceable now, all right?”

He takes over the computer while I walk into the bathroom, feeling my stomach turning over and over.

I lean over the toilet. I could have gotten my mother killed. All it would have taken was for me not to have answered the phone the second time. That’s it. He would have demanded to know who was calling her from New Mexico. Was she seeing someone else? Was she making plans to leave? We all know what would happen if she tried to leave.

I kneel over the toilet as my stomach again threatens to empty. I watch sweat drip from my forehead into the toilet water, making a ripple. The tile feels so cool on my knees that, when the nausea recedes, I lie down and press my face against it, trying to find a pattern in the black-and-white hexagon tiles. “Jace,” Christian calls.

“You all right?”

No, I’m screwed up beyond belief
. I say, “Yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“We’re all set, okay?” he says. “We have a new number. It’s not listed, and no address is attached to it on the Internet or via Information.”

“How did you do that so fast?”

“I told them the truth.”

“You what?”

“I’ve been known to do that occasionally,” he says.

I laugh, and my face bounces lightly against the floor. I just want to stay here for another minute, but I know he’s already worried, so I get up and flush the toilet for good measure.

When I come out, he’s waiting for me.

“That was some quick thinking. What was all that stuff about a warrant?”

“Um … I … It’s nothing … Just a bunch of unpaid moving violations, speeding tickets or something,” I say lamely, and then use his lie-distraction technique. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the phone call. I should have fessed up.”

His features tighten up all over again. “Don’t do that again. I have the right to know.”

For about half a second I consider telling him about Lauren. But there is no way he’d stand for that.

“Okay,” I say.

He runs his hand through his hair again, and his face is wiped clean of the tight jaw and the narrow eyes.

“How do you do that?” I ask.

“Do what?”

“That, that—calm thing?”

“You think I’m calm?”

“I can’t do that. When I get mad, I explode.”

“I don’t know, Jace. Probably all the practice you’ve given me over the years. A blessing of being the oldest.” He grins.

How can he smile now? I try to imitate it and feel my muscles twitching.

“Are you all right?” he asks.