The Secret to Lying (2 page)

I rolled my eyes, refusing to lose it in front of Richard, call-me-Dickie, the roommate I’d met only five minutes before. We’d talked once on the phone over the summer, after the administration had sent me a sheet with his phone number on it and the suggestion that we coordinate furnishings. All I knew about Dickie was that he’d bring the minifridge.

Dickie stuffed socks into the dresser on his side of the room, pretending not to notice the growing tension.

“It’s his room,” my dad said. “Let him decorate how he likes.”

Moms turned to Dickie. “What do you think, Richard?” she asked, waving the poster around. “Do you want
this
hanging in your room?”

Dickie looked from Moms to me. “Don’t encourage her,” I said.

“Sure, Mrs. Turner,” Dickie replied. “I think it adds a certain reckless, down-and-out pastiche.”

Pastiche?

Moms smiled at Dickie. “So grunge is in?”

“Sid isn’t grunge,” I interrupted, embarrassed by her desperate attempt to sound cool. “He’s punk.”

“Whatever. He’s grungy-looking, isn’t he?” she asked, addressing Dickie again.

“Definitely grungy,” Dickie agreed. “But what can you do? Girls go crazy for that sort of thing.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah, Mrs. Turner. It’s all part of the bad-boy mystique.”

Moms smiled, charmed by my blond, blue-eyed roommate. “I see. Then I guess we’ll have to put it up.”

She tacked the poster to the wall and, with Dickie’s encouragement, arranged some of our other furnishings — stringing up the Christmas lights I’d brought and designing a study corner with a lava lamp. My roommate complimented her on her sophisticated sense of taste and style.

“You’re too sweet,” Moms said, basking in the praise.

Dickie winked at me. Even though his schmoozing annoyed me, I was still relieved to be rooming with him. Most of the other students I’d seen moving in had stunned me with their nerdliness — skinny arms, big glasses, buck teeth, stringy hair . . . the works.

My dad fiddled with the shades on the windows while Moms surveyed the room. “What else should we do?” she asked. “Curtains? Do you need curtains? I think there are some stores down the road.”

“I don’t need curtains,” I replied.

“What about making your bed?”

“I’m almost sixteen. I think I can handle it.”

“Hey, James,” Dad called. He snapped a picture as I turned. The flash stung my eyes. “Got you.” He slid the camera back into his shirt pocket and checked his watch. “Well, it’s getting late.”

“I’ll walk you out,” I offered.

Moms sighed, acting dramatic. “Fine. If you don’t want us here.”

“It was wonderful meeting you, Mr. and Mrs. Turner,” Dickie said.

She squeezed his hand and gave him one of her radiant fake smiles. “You take care of my boy, now,” she said to Dickie, as if she were giving me up for adoption.

I hurried them through the hall to keep Moms from talking with anyone else. Dad thumped the walls and remarked about the quality of the construction. “You’re lucky to have a bathroom in every room,” he said. “Most college dorms aren’t this nice.”

I nodded and kept walking. It was always the same with them — Moms needing to be the center of attention while Dad slouched around in his wrinkled work shirts, muttering about particleboard and car engines.

Outside, the parking lot swarmed with parents carrying grocery bags full of ramen and soda and other last-minute “necessities” snagged from the store. A few kids, standing with their parents beside a minivan or an SUV, seemed to be crying. Moms dabbed her eyes like she might cry, too, although I doubted she would. She just loved scenes.

“We could get you some snacks,” she said. “Don’t you need snacks?”

“I’m fine.”

“Maybe more granola bars?”

“I have plenty.”

Moms pouted. “I bet other kids would be happy to have their mom get them snacks.”

I stayed silent, trying not to argue with her.

Dad jingled the car keys. “Let’s go, Hannah.”

She sighed and hugged me good-bye. Then she got in the car and flipped down the mirror to fix her mascara.

Dad paused before opening the driver’s door. “James,” he called.

I met his tired, sagging eyes. We were exactly the same height, but with his round shoulders and slight belly, he looked shorter. He rubbed the stubble on his cheek. “James,” he repeated. “Listen. Always keep a spare roll of toilet paper in your closet. If the one in the bathroom runs out, it’s good to know where an extra can be found.”

“Sure,” I said, not certain how to respond to this gem of fatherly wisdom.

He nodded and shook my hand, then we hugged, awkwardly slapping each other’s backs.

I watched the car pull away. Moms waved, wiggling her fingers. Dad drove slowly out of the parking lot, signaled, and turned onto the main road. The drab gray back of the car receded, disappearing behind rows of corn.

And that was it — I was free. I imagined jumping into the air and shouting like at the end of some cheesy high-school flick where a graduate in a robe tosses his cap and the camera freezes on it and no one knows what happens afterward. Except I wasn’t graduating. Here I was, only a high-school sophomore, already on my own.

The possibilities seemed endless. I could go back to my room and unpack, or dump my clothes onto the floor and kick them under the bed. Swig a two-liter of Coke. Wrap myself in toilet paper. Get a tattoo. Change my name. . . . All the strings were cut. No one here knew me, so no one could hold me back.

My life had finally started.

IT STARTED WITH A LIE.

During the first four days, sophomores were required to do a variety of orientation activities. There were six dorms at ASMA — three girls’ dorms and three boys’. Each dorm had four wings, laid out in an
X
with a kitchen and computer lab in each wing and a commons in the center. All the dorms together looked like a line of chromosomes about to divide.

I lived in D wing, otherwise known as Dingo wing. This was written in Magic Marker above the door to our wing. Mike, our Resident Counselor — a thirtysomething bald guy with so much hair on his chest it puffed out his shirt — made us all attend a wing party after the parents left on Thursday so Dingo-wingers could “bond.” He gave us chips and soda, and interview forms we were supposed to fill out by questioning our roommates.

Dickie encouraged me to introduce him as the illegitimate child of Lord Scrotium, a famous British politician. Mike frowned while I elaborated on Dickie’s lifelong ambition to be recognized by his father and reclaim the Scrotium lands, tower, and title.

“Well done, old chap!” Dickie said in a fake British accent. Then he introduced me as a Sid Vicious fan with pyromaniac tendencies. Apparently, I’d accidentally burned down my previous school and the principal had fudged my entrance exams so I could be foisted off on ASMA. I nodded, coolly going along with the joke.

If Dickie had given a purely factual introduction, it would have gone something like this: James Turner grew up in a cornfield, but his parents weren’t farmers. His dad is a tractor parts salesman who fixes TVs in his spare time and pretty much lives in the basement. His mom, an ex–Homecoming Queen, calls herself an independent businesswoman, which means she sells lipstick for Avon.
James is an only child, or rather, an accidental child, since his parents married out of circumstance (to put it politely). He’s never traveled anyplace except Indiana and Wisconsin, both of which are more interesting than Illinois, but not by much. He once lit a whole matchbook on fire and singed his fingers. Other than that, he hasn’t won any contests, burned down any buildings, or done anything remotely noteworthy.

Dickie’s introduction was far more interesting. A few Dingo-wingers chuckled while stealing glances at me, as if they thought some of it might be real. I did my best to encourage this impression. Anything was better than the truth.

Following introductions, Chuck, the school counselor, dropped by our wing to talk with us. He was built like a linebacker, with wide, meaty shoulders and a scarred-up face — not the sort of guy you’d normally expect to lead a hug-in. Also, he was missing one eye and he didn’t wear a patch or anything. He let the lid hang limp. I wondered what I’d see if he suddenly opened it. A pink, empty socket? A flat, milky eyeball? A hole to his brain? The thought of it grossed me out, but I couldn’t stop staring.

Chuck gave this lecture about the pressures we’d encounter at ASMA, and the homesickness people might experience, and how we were each other’s family now, so we had to look out for each other. “No one has to go through anything alone,” he said. To illustrate this point, he had everyone do a trust-fall off a chair into the waiting arms of fellow Dingo-wingers. One kid was so floppy it was like catching a Muppet.

When it was my turn, I acted like the whole thing was too dumb to bother me. I fell back without flinching. It wasn’t that I trusted everyone so much. It was that I’d already begun to see myself as a different person.

I closed my eyes and fell away from the dull nobody I used to be.

Orientation activities continued for most of Friday and Saturday, ranging from tours of the campus to lectures on maintaining proper hygiene while living away from home. The upperclassmen called it “scorientation” and boasted about how easy sophomore girls were to hook up with. Since the school was only a three-year program, sophomores were the youngest. Essentially, we were the freshmen of the place. During breaks between sessions, I watched some of the junior and senior guys circling groups of sophs like hawks, trying to pick out the hotties.

Saturday night, we were required to attend a sophomore-only lock-in so our class could meet apart from the desperate upperclassmen. I walked with Dickie and his friend Heinous to the main complex. After signing in and stashing our pillows and toothbrushes in the auditorium, Dickie, Heinous, and I wandered the building looking for something to do. A few guys from our dorm were shooting hoops in the gym while some girls sat on the bleachers, talking. The guys tried to slam-dunk and do half-court shots, showing off, except none of them were very good.

“Here we have the rare, speckled pumpkin pusher,” Heinous whispered, imitating the narrator on a wildlife show. “This particular subspecies is of the geekish-jock grouping, commonly known as jeeks. Notice how cunningly they fondle the ball.”

Steve Lacone, a tall, well-built jeek who lived in Boomer wing, glared at us.

“Shh . . . we’ve been spotted,” Heinous said. He ducked behind an imaginary shrub. “They’re dangerous when females are present.”

“I say,” Dickie quipped in an exaggerated British accent, “no heckling the athletes.”

“Right-o.” Heinous popped out of the imaginary shrubs. “Carry on!” he shouted. “Pushy the pumpkin!”

Heinous and Dickie had known each other before ASMA. They both came from southern Illinois and had gone to school together, so they’d had years to polish their routines. In many ways, the two were polar opposites. Where Dickie was a pale-skinned smooth-talker, Heinous was a dark-complexioned, obnoxious spaz. I figured my place in the trio would be to play the quiet, brooding rebel.

Heinous continued his wildlife expedition as we left the gym to see what else was going on. “The yellow-bellied nerdling,” he said, when we approached a group of skinny gamers in the hall. “Stay back!” he hissed, throwing out his arms. “There’s a peculiar odor to this species.”

One of the gamers rolled some dice and shouted “Yes!” while pumping his fist.

“That’s part of their mating dance,” Heinous whispered. “Perhaps, if we’re lucky, they’ll attempt to mount.”

We wandered past the gamers to the art room, but a large number of “red-spotted mathletes” had gathered there for a
Star Wars
marathon. Then, in the photography room, Heinous spied a flock of “lesser poseur vampires,” a species with an affinity for black, known to play dead when frightened.

In the cafeteria, we found a group of “Barbie wannabes” gossiping around a table. At one end sat the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Students at ASMA weren’t exactly model material, but even at a normal school, she would have stood out. She looked like she’d stepped off a movie poster, with her waifish figure, wide smile, and blades of straight blond hair brushing her cheekbones.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

Dickie raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t you scan your facebook?”

“No,” I said. “I skipped that assignment.”

“Well, dear roomie, the supermodel is Ellie Frost.”

“The Ice Queen,” Heinous added.

“Definitely the Ice Queen,” Dickie agreed.

Ellie glanced at us, then looked away. She didn’t seem to be talking with anyone at the table. It was more like the other girls had gathered around her, as though simply being near her might make them popular.

“Whatever you’re thinking, forget it,” Dickie said. “It seems that the Ice Queen doesn’t date sophomores.”

“Really?”

“She’s already going out with Mark Watson.”

“Ah, yes,” Heinous mused as we left the cafeteria, “one of the golden-crested senior thugs.”