The Lies About Truth (9 page)

Some Emails to Max in El Salvador

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: October 27

Subject: Game

Max,

Would you like to play a game? Gray and I used to obsess over one called Tell Me Something You’ve Never Told Me. The rules are as simple as they sound. I’ll go first.

I’ve been skinny-dipping.

If you’d like to play, all you have to do is tell me something you’ve never told me.

Sadie

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: October 29

Subject: pirate confessions

Just last week, Fletcher said two of the most powerful words in the universe are “Me too.” I believe him. Ha. Ha. At least where skinny-dipping is concerned. I didn’t know you had a thing with Candace.

Next Tell Me Something You’ve Never Told Me:

The very first year of Pirates and Paintball, I’m the one who shot Trent. Do you remember that he was convinced it was Callahan?

Your turn!

Sadie

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 4

Subject: Callahan

Max,

Yeah, Trent and Callahan were pretty tight. Have you heard from him at all? We’ve texted a few times. Not that long ago he asked if I wanted to ride motorcycles, but I told him I wasn’t up for it yet.

Which leads me to
Something I’ve Never Told You
:

Trent and I used to borrow Callahan’s motorcycle and go riding in the country.

Next?

Sadie

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 5

Subject: Hilarious

Max,

That’s hilarious. Do you miss her?

Also, I’m pretty sure Callahan isn’t hitting on me. I’m not his type. I’m not really anyone’s type anymore. He knew Trent and I used to borrow the motorcycle and wanted to offer something I loved. Callahan’s a great guy. I really should text him.

Something I’ve Never Told You:

I tried to drive to the Fountain of Youth this week. And by tried, I mean I got in my parents’ car and put it in reverse. I rolled three feet.

Tell Me Something.

Sadie

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 12

Subject: best laid plans

Max,

I don’t know why the fountain is so important. Maybe because Trent and I wanted to go exploring when we were kids. Maybe because it was the last thing we made plans to do. Maybe because it represents a type of healing, and I could use some of that. I have to find a way to go.

What you said about me being someone’s type was generous.

With that in mind, here’s a serious Tell Me Something:

I’m afraid I’ll never feel desirable again. Afraid I’ll never kiss someone without them flinching. And then I’ll flinch and back away. Action. Reaction. I can predict it perfectly. My life seems like a constant backpedal.

Your turn. (It doesn’t have to be serious.)

Sadie

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 13

Subject: Lies

Max,

That can’t be your Tell Me Something.

Tell Me Somethings have to be true.

Plus, you sound like my mom. That inner-beauty thing is the first cousin of “You’re pretty on the inside.” I’m not saying that’s what you meant, I’m only saying no girl wants to be in the
pretty on the inside
camp.

My new Tell Me Something:

I need to tell Gina and Gray something, but I don’t know how. They’ve made some wrong assumptions, and I feel trapped between defending myself and telling the truth. Do you think there’s such a thing as a good lie?

Yours?

Sadie

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Date: November 20

Subject: RE: US?

Max,

Whoa, your Tell Me Something caught me off guard. Do you mean
us
as
a couple
?

If so, Max, you’re so sweet to try making me feel desirable, but you don’t have to do that. (Guess you do believe in good lies. ☺) You live there, and I live here.
Us
is a horrible idea.
Your emails are more than enough. More than I ever expected.

However, my Tell Me Something is:

If you weren’t there, and I weren’t here . . . If I weren’t me . . . but you were still you, I would be interested in letting you like-like me.

Next?

Sadie

The first half of the week dripped by like an old faucet. Gina reached out by email. Gray texted. Both wanted us all to attend Pirates and Paintball.

I ignored the communications, which only made them send more.

They weren’t the only ones who brought it up. Thursday morning, Max was on the back deck waiting for me. He walked me to the mailbox.

“Pretty sure the mail runs later in the day,” he said. “Like after the sun comes up.”

What did that mean?
I didn’t take the bait, if that’s what it was.

“I forgot to check it yesterday.”

“Expecting love letters?” he asked playfully.

If this was an open door, I played it halfway in, halfway out. “Are you writing me one?”

“Maybe.”

Then he elbowed me and winked. I tasted the orange juice I’d just downed in the kitchen, and swallowed hard.

“We’re past our letter-writing days,” I said suggestively.

“I’ll keep that in mind for the future. So, besides the mailbox, where is it you run off to in the mornings?” Max asked.

I shied away from telling him about Metal Pete’s. It was something I hadn’t exactly disclosed in my emails, and I worried he wouldn’t understand my obsession.

“Uh . . .”

His eyes rolled up and away. His jaw set and he asked, “Do you go sit with Gray?”

“No!” I said quickly. “I’ll show you, but no commentary. Okay?”

“I’d rather know than wonder.”

I retrieved two helmets from the garage, and we climbed on the Spree.

“Did you choose this instead of a car because of riding motorcycles with Trent?” he asked as we pulled into Jenni’s parking lot at the Donut Barista.

“No. Maybe. I never thought of that.”

“Any luck driving?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“You’ll get it,” he said as we walked up to the barista shack.

“Ooh, I’ve been waiting for an introduction,” Jenni said,
leaning out the window.

“Jenni, this is Max.”

“As in Maximilian,” she cooed, making Max blush.

“As in Maxwell, ma’am,” he said.

“Well, what does Maxwell love to drink?”

He let me choose for him. I ordered the usual plus a Pacho Nuevo black coffee blend and two crullers.

“Well done,” he said as Jenni left to prepare our food. “So . . . you talk about me to your barista?” His cheeks were as pink as the sunset.

“Yes. And I call you Maximilian.”

We left Jenni’s loaded down with sugar and caffeine. I wagered we’d need both for Max’s first Salvage Yard experience. Lord, I hated to break his smile.

When we rolled into Metal Pete’s, Max had questions he didn’t ask. I watched the way his eyes narrowed and he surveyed the rows of cars. Headlight trotted out to greet me, and I introduced them.

There is something about dogs. They understand. Better than most humans. Headlight nuzzled Max with the best of her affection. Pre-love for the trip to the Yaris.

We walked to the office. Metal Pete wasn’t there, so I left a note on the door and explained to Max that this old yard was my sanctuary.

“You come here every day?” Max asked, sipping the coffee.

“Most of them.”

“What do you do?”

“Well, I talk to Metal Pete, look for cars, and . . . I sit by the Yaris.”

“Trent’s Yaris.” His voice rose in surprise.

“Yeah.”

“Jesus.”

“I know it’s weird.”

“It’s . . . unexpected,” he said carefully.

“I look for courage here.”

Max’s eyes roamed over the lot around us. He took in the decaying metal field and said, “And you find it?”

“I find something.”

I thought he was disgusted with the idea, but he took a doughnut from the bag, held it firmly between his teeth, and said, “Show me,” as he chomped down.

Headlight walked between us as we made our way to the row where the Yaris lived.

“This place is like a cemetery.”

“No. In a cemetery everything is final. This place is like a huge spare-parts store.” I pointed to a totaled Camaro. “See. Those side mirrors, the tires, the steering wheel, maybe the bucket seats, plus who-knows-what under the hood: all of it’s salvageable.”

“Is there stuff missing from the Yaris?” Max asked.

“You’ll see.”

When we got to Trent’s car, Max walked around it several times. I didn’t disturb him. He needed this moment the same as I’d needed mine. Headlight trailed behind him, always
within petting distance. Max opened the door to what was once his seat. It creaked angrily, but he and Headlight crawled inside and sat on the floor, since the backseat was gone. It must have been ninety degrees in there, but he showed no signs of moving.

I slipped down the row so he could cry in peace. While I waited, I rewrote the list in the dust on the hood of an old Buick.

1.  Wear a tank top in public

2.  Walk the line at graduation

3.  Forgive Gina and Gray. And tell them the truth.

4.  Stop following. Start leading.

5.  Drive a car again

6.  Visit the Fountain of Youth

As I stared at those six lines, I realized something I hadn’t noticed on the beach. Seven was now six. I had kissed someone without flinching. The list, the impossible list, wasn’t impossible.

Someone else might laugh at my revelation. Let them laugh. Taking a real step forward in life was frickin’ hard.

For the first time in a year, I was proud of myself.

I stretched my arms wide into the crystal-blue sky that even this far from the ocean smelled like salt, and thanked God for vitamin D and possibilities. Then, I ripped off my long-sleeve shirt and danced around like an idiot while the courage lasted.

Three claps stopped me dancing.

I whipped around to see Max crawling out of the Yaris wearing a red face and a smile. Embarrassed that I was dancing in the salvage yard and that my boyfriend had caught me, I slipped my shirt back on, but I kept my grin in place.

He met me halfway, near the Buick.

“Hey, Sadie, that was a tank top.”

“Yeah, it was.”

Glancing over at the list, he ran his finger through number one.

“I’m not sure it counts since I didn’t know you were watching,” I said.

“It’s a beginning.”

“Did you have a new beginning?” I asked, indicating the Yaris.

“Nah, I had an end.”

I took his hand and stopped him from walking down the aisle. He lifted the fedora off my head and held it against my back as he hugged me. Our chests rose and fell until they were in harmony.

Our hearts faced each other.

We danced, standing still.

Finally, he said, “We lived.”

“Exactly.”

Max put his wet cheek next to mine. “That’s why you come here,” he said.

“That’s why I come here,” I repeated.

“I like the way you think, Kingston.”

“I like the way you understand, McCall.”

On our way to the Spree, I stopped in the office. Metal Pete was back. He thanked me for the coffee and doughnuts and apologized for being in the house when I got here.

“I’ve got a favor to ask you,” I said.

“Okay. Shoot.”

The words propelled out of me of their own accord. “Will you help me drive again?” I asked.

Metal Pete knocked his knuckles against the desk in triumph and said, “Ah, hell, kid, I’ll even throw in a car.”

“None of these cars run,” I teased.

“Well, beggars can’t be choosers.”

Hours later, the universe jumped on board my anti-pity party and shoved life at me in the form of my mother.

She met me at the door with another envelope.

The envelope went in my pocket—to be dealt with the moment I got out of the living room.

“So,” Mom began. “I’ve talked to the McCalls, the Adlers, and the Garrisons and . . .”

I anticipated what she was going to say: Pirates and Paintball.

“. . . and everyone agrees we should resume the tradition of attending Pirates and Paintball,” she continued.

Before the accident, the Pirates and Paintball game was an annual thing our four families attended together. Sonia’s former hospital sponsored the community game, and we’d been
participating for years. Who wouldn’t? Cosplayed pirate paintball was a win from every angle. (Unless you’d developed a sudden hatred for crowds.) Over time, we stretched the Saturday morning game into a full weekend. On the Friday before, the fourteen of us, or fifteen, if Gray’s sister, Maggie, was on leave, piled onto the McCalls’ boat with our gear and headed toward a campground near the little island where it was played. After we prevailed as paintball victors, we stuck around to shell and fish and camp, wasting away the weekend in proper beach-bum fashion.

“Mom.”

She held up her hand, not letting me speak. “We haven’t gone anywhere as a family in a long time.” She threw in some bait. “At least this would be with Max.”

I tossed back some truth. “And Gray and Gina.”

Mom nodded. “Maybe it would be an opportunity to patch some things up.”

“We’re not a quilt.”

She’d armed herself with more reasons, and she kept them coming like balls at the batting cage. “You love paintball. And camping. And Dad insists you get out more, and this will be so good to do together before—”

“Mom, I’m in.” I rode the wave of this morning’s success: “And, I’m going to kick everyone’s asses at paintball.”

Her high-five hand shot up. I tagged it hard, but not too hard.

“You do that,” Mom said, not even bothering to warn me about language.

I darted off to my room with the new envelope, before she started singing “Kumbaya.” Big’s huge eyes followed me from my bed to my dressing chair to the closet.

“What are
you
looking at, Big Mouth?” I asked the ostrich.

I opened the letter and braced myself for regurgitated words. This one was from my freshman year.

Gina and I convinced Trent, Gray, and Max to skip school and go to the water park. Best idea ever.

—From a friend who cares

Just last week, Sonia brought up this very occasion in the dressing room.

I leaned back onto my bed.

A friend who cares
?
Sonia would never call herself a friend; she was a parent.

But Gina would. And she’d surely heard Sonia’s reference.

The
friend
hadn’t shown up in the first note, but had in the second, and now he or she claimed to be a
caring
individual. Awesome. Someone had been poorly trained in the rules of affection. Regardless, the letters had a progression to them. The first one, skinny-dipping, was about Trent and me. The second one, bridge-jumping, was with Gray. This third one was about all five of us. The five of us hadn’t been together all that often.

Did that mean anything?

Also, Gina and I weren’t mentioned in a specific memory, except within this group one. Did that implicate her?

I thought back through that day and searched for clues.

I was the first to notice the sun was too perfect for school. The sidewalk beside Coast Memorial High School led to boredom and monotony on such a fabulous day.

“You guys, I can’t . . .”

“Can’t what?” Trent said.

“Be here. Look at this day. It’s practically a crime to be inside.”

Trent and Gina paused. We never skipped school, which meant we could. Our faithful obedience to the system meant we’d earned some flextime.

Gina scrunched her forehead, curious enough to listen. “What are you thinking, Sade?”

“It’s a perfect day to race down the waterslides at Cannon Balls.”

Gina looked at Trent, who was already nodding.

“Yes indeed, Sadie May. You have said a true thing, and we have an obligation to follow you.”

“What are you? Yoda?” Gray asked as he mocked Trent’s words.

Max was the only one still focused on school.

“If you skip, you still have to pick me up,” he told Trent.

Trent tapped the top of the Yaris, excited about a prison break. “You don’t want to come with?”

Max’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I’m invited?”

“What can I say? I’m feeling generous,” Trent boasted, sticking out his chest.

Max didn’t look comfortable going to Cannon Balls as a fifth wheel, so I threw an arm around his shoulder and coaxed him into going along with our stupid idea. “Come on. It’ll be fun to have you along,” I told him.

That was all it took. He climbed in the backseat while Gina and Gray—who always carpooled from their side of town—grabbed their always-ready beach bags and left his mom’s van in the parking lot. Five of us in the Yaris were a snug fit, but we couldn’t skip school in a mom-mobile.

“You got trunks on you, little bro?” Trent asked.

“I can roll,” Max said. “I’m calling it now: Mom will find out about this.”

Trent bent his arm into the backseat and patted Max’s knee. “She won’t find out unless you tell her.”

“Lips are zipped,” Max promised.

We arrived at Cannon Balls, and as usual, Max trailed along two steps behind the four of us. I caught his eye, and beckoned him forward. He sped up quickly then. The day shaped up even more perfectly when the five of us walked to the ticket booth to pay and a recent Coast Memorial alum, Winter Halson, waved us through without charge. Even the universe didn’t want us inside today.

Trent leaned through the window and punched Winter on the arm. “Thanks, man.”

“Anything for a brother,” Winter said.

Trent had a talent for making brothers.

“You’re ballsy, McCall,” Winter called after us.

“Sadie May gets the cred for this one,” Trent yelled back, and kissed Gina on the cheek.

An hour later, Max and I were at the top of the speed tubes. He gave me a “Race you” challenge, and I nodded, eyes blazing. So far, I’d beaten Trent, Gray, and Gina to the bottom. Four for four sounded good to me, but Max was in total beast mode.

Just before we hurled ourselves down the plastic chutes, his expression softened, and he said, “Thanks for inviting me today.”

I did what anyone in my position would have done. I pushed off from the top ahead of him and screamed, “No worries!” as I dropped and spun.

The words echoed around me. The water propelled me forward, faster, faster, faster into my perfect day. I was sure I would win.

Dammit if Max didn’t emerge two seconds ahead of me. Dammit squared. He shot so far out he crashed into a woman wading across the pool to the lazy-river entrance. A Cannon Balls employee blew her whistle.

“Sorry, ma’am,” Max said without looking, flipping his hair back and spewing droplets everywhere. Then he whipped around to me and smirked. “Creamed you, Kingston.”

Technically, he’d creamed Sonia McCall, his mother, since she was the lady he’d mowed down into the cement bottom of the pool.

Sonia came to her full senses well before Max realized his
mistake
.

“Maxwell Lincoln McCall, why aren’t you in school?”

Whoa. Full name.

“Because it—uh . . . I mean,” he stuttered. “It was practically a crime to be inside, Mom,” Max said very tentatively, and glanced at me for support.

I winked at Max again behind Sonia’s back.
Ballsy, McCall,
I heard Winter Halson’s voice in my head.

Sonia turned, her eyes boring into mine. The cobra hood of her inner snake swelled and stood on end as she prepared to strike. “Sa-die.”

I flipped up my hand in a wave. “It really is a perfect day for Cannon Balls,” I said.

Tara Kingston would have been proud of the look Sonia shot me. I shriveled appropriately, but something in me found this downright comical. Come on, what were the odds? I got the feeling Sonia agreed with me, but on the very principles of being a parent, plus a card-
carrying
adult, had to pretend otherwise. After all, she and Mr. McCall had jobs. We weren’t the only ones skipping obligations.

“Where’s your brother?” she growled at Max.

Max pointed at the huge clock above the cantina. “I’m guessing in language arts. Maybe psychology.”

Admirable. Trent would have thrown him to the wolves.

That answer wouldn’t have held even if Trent and Gina hadn’t shot out of the tubes at the same time, to more whistles of annoyance from the Cannon Balls staff. Sonia wiped the chlorine from her eyes again and waded out of the pool. We followed her like little ducks, partly because we had to, and partly so the whistle-blowing employee would chill the freak out.

Mr. McCall sat up from his chair—after an apparent nap—and
said, “Hey, Max,” before he registered Max was not where Max was supposed to be.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Where’s Gray?” Sonia’s head snapped back and forth. “You four, don’t even attempt to lie to me. Where one of you goes, the rest of you follow.”

Gray’s timing was impeccable. He arrived as if on cue, licking an orange Push-Up pop. He tucked it behind his back and donned his best smile. “Hey, Mrs. McCall.”

Sonia had us out of Cannon Balls and back in school within the hour. We spent a few weeks with our asses in slings—no car privileges, no dates—but no one could convince any of us it wasn’t the best morning of the year. Absolutely epic.

I mean, really, who else would that happen to?

That was the whole memory.

Which meant I was still clueless. Except for the increasing certainty that Max, Gray, or Gina must be my anonymous
friend who cares
. Had Max returned from the salvage yard and typed this note while I dropped a library book in the bin for Mom? He’d had time, and reason. After all, he’d read the list on the Buick, knew I was attempting to resurrect the old me. Totally possible. I examined the chronology again.

Between the arrival of the first two notes, Gray had told me he still loved me, Max had come back from El Salvador, and Gina had apologized again. Between the second two, I’d confronted Gray, melted down in the dressing room with Gina,
and amped things up with Max. Of everyone, Gina was the one acting the least suspicious.

Which meant . . . absolutely nothing.

Shit, what a mess. Was I supposed to do some big Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe game? Stake out my mailbox? Wait for someone to confess rather than accuse the wrong person?

It wouldn’t have bothered me so badly if someone hadn’t gone through Big to do this. Big wasn’t exactly my diary, but some of the things
were
personal. They were definitely things I should have the choice to share or withhold—like the Sharpie stuff.

These messages, regardless of their intent, were a tour of memories from a different life.

That part was almost nice.

Almost.