We Were Liars (11 page)

“You’re making us crazy,” Carrie muttered.

“What was that? Don’t mumble.”

“We all love you, Dad,” said Carrie, loudly. “I know it’s been hard this year.”

“If you’re going crazy it’s your own damn choice,” said Granddad. “Pull yourself together. I can’t leave the estate to crazy people.”

LOOK AT THE
aunties now, summer seventeen. Here in the Japanese garden of New Clairmont, Mummy has her arm around Bess, who reaches out to slice Carrie a piece of raspberry tart.

It’s a beautiful night, and we are indeed a beautiful family.

I do not know what changed.

“TAFT HAS A
motto,” I tell Mirren. It is midnight. We Liars are playing Scrabble in the Cuddledown great room.

My knee is touching Gat’s thigh, though I am not sure he
notices. The board is nearly full. My brain is tired. I have bad letters.

Mirren rearranges her tiles distractedly. “Taft has what?”

“A motto,” I say. “You know, like Granddad has? No one likes a waffler?”

“Never take a seat in the back of the room,” intones Mirren.

“Never complain, never explain,” says Gat. “That’s from Disraeli, I think.”

“Oh, he loves that one,” says Mirren.

“And don’t take no for an answer,” I add.

“Good lord, Cady!” shouts Johnny. “Will you just build a word and let the rest of us get on with it?”

“Don’t yell at her, Johnny,” says Mirren.

“Sorry,” says Johnny. “Will you pretty please with brown sugar and cinnamon make a fucking Scrabble word?”

My knee is touching Gat’s thigh. I really can’t think. I make a short, lame word.

Johnny plays his tiles.

“Drugs are not your friend,” I announce. “That’s Taft’s motto.”

“Get out,” laughs Mirren. “Where did he come up with that?”

“Maybe he had drug education at school. Plus the twins snooped in my room and told him I had a dresser full of pills, so he wanted to make sure I’m not an addict.”

“God,” said Mirren. “Bonnie and Liberty are disasters. I think they’re kleptomaniacs now.”

“Really?”

“They took my mom’s sleeping pills and also her diamond hoops. I have no idea where they think they’ll wear those earrings
where she wouldn’t see them. Also, they are two people and it’s only one pair.”

“Did you call them on it?”

“I tried with Bonnie. But they’re beyond my help,” Mirren says. She rearranges her tiles again. “I
like
the idea of a motto,” she goes on. “I think an inspirational quote can get you through hard times.”

“Like what?” asks Gat.

Mirren pauses. Then she says: “Be a little kinder than you have to.”

We are all silenced by that. It seems impossible to argue with.

Then Johnny says, “Never eat anything bigger than your ass.”

“You ate something bigger than your ass?” I ask.

He nods, solemn.

“Okay, Gat,” says Mirren. “What’s yours?”

“Don’t have one.”

“Come on.”

“Okay, maybe.” Gat looks down at his fingernails. “Do not accept an evil you can change.”

“I agree with that,” I say. Because I do.

“I don’t,” says Mirren.

“Why not?”

“There’s very little you can change. You need to accept the world as it is.”

“Not true,” says Gat.

“Isn’t it better to be a relaxed, peaceful person?” Mirren asks.

“No.” Gat is decisive. “It is better to fight evil.”

“Don’t eat yellow snow,” says Johnny. “That’s another good motto.”

“Always do what you are afraid to do,” I say. “That’s mine.”

“Oh, please. Who the hell says that?” barks Mirren.

“Emerson,” I answer. “I think.” I reach for a pen and write it on the backs of my hands.

Left:
Always do what
. Right:
you are afraid to do
. The handwriting is skewed on the right.

“Emerson is so boring,” says Johnny. He grabs the pen from me and writes on his own left hand:
NO YELLOW SNOW
. “There,” he says, holding the result up for display. “That should help.”

“Cady, I’m serious. We should
not
always do what we are afraid to do,” says Mirren heatedly. “We never should.”

“Why not?”

“You could die. You could get hurt. If you are terrified, there’s probably a good reason. You should trust your impulses.”

“So what’s your philosophy, then?” Johnny asks her. “Be a giant chickenhead?”

“Yes,” says Mirren. “That and the kindness thing I said before.”

I FOLLOW GAT
when he goes upstairs. I chase after him down the long hall, grab his hand and pull his lips to mine.

It is what I am afraid to do, and I do it.

He kisses me back. His fingers twine in mine and I’m dizzy
and he’s holding me up and everything is clear and everything is grand, again. Our kiss turns the world to dust. There is only us and nothing else matters.

Then Gat pulls away. “I shouldn’t do this.”

“Why not?” His hand still holds mine.

“It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s—”

“I thought we started over. Isn’t this the starting over?”

“I’m a mess.” Gat steps back and leans against the wall. “This is such a cliché conversation. I don’t know what else to say.”

“Explain.”

A pause. And then: “You don’t know me.”

“Explain,” I say again.

Gat puts his head in his hands. We stand there, both leaning against the wall in the dark. “Okay. Here’s part of it,” he finally whispers. “You’ve never met my mom. You’ve never been to my apartment.”

That’s true. I’ve never seen Gat anywhere but Beechwood.

“You feel like you know me, Cady, but you only know the me who comes here,” he says. “It’s—it’s just not the whole picture. You don’t know my bedroom with the window onto the airshaft, my mom’s curry, the guys from school, the way we celebrate holidays. You only know the me on this island, where everyone’s rich except me and the staff. Where everyone’s white except me, Ginny, and Paulo.”

“Who are Ginny and Paulo?”

Gat hits his fist into his palm. “Ginny is the housekeeper. Paulo is the gardener. You don’t know their names and they’ve worked here summer after summer. That’s part of my point.”

My face heats with shame. “I’m sorry.”

“But do you even want to see the whole picture?” Gat asks. “Could you even understand it?”

“You won’t know unless you try me,” I say. “I haven’t heard from you in forever.”

“You know what I am to your grandfather? What I’ve always been?”

“What?”

“Heathcliff. In Wuthering Heights. Have you read it?”

I shake my head.

“Heathcliff is a gypsy boy taken in and raised by this pristine family, the Earnshaws. Heathcliff falls in love with the girl, Catherine. She loves him, too—but she also thinks he’s dirt, because of his background. And the rest of the family agrees.”

“That’s not how I feel.”

“There’s nothing Heathcliff can ever do to make these Earnshaws think he’s good enough. And he tries. He goes away, educates himself, becomes a gentleman. Still, they think he’s an animal.”

“And?”

“Then, because the book is a tragedy, Heathcliff becomes what they think of him, you know? He becomes a brute. The evil in him comes out.”

“I heard it was a romance.”

Gat shakes his head. “Those people are awful to each other.”

“You’re saying Granddad thinks you’re Heathcliff?”

“I promise you, he does,” says Gat. “A brute beneath a pleasant surface, betraying his kindness in letting me come to his sheltered island every year—I’ve betrayed him by seducing his Catherine, his Cadence. And my penance is to become the monster he always saw in me.”

I am silent.

Gat is silent.

I reach out and touch him. Just the feel of his forearm beneath
the thin cotton of his shirt makes me ache to kiss him again.

“You know what’s terrifying?” Gat says, not looking at me.

“What’s terrifying is he’s turned out to be right.”

“No, he hasn’t.”

“Oh, yes, he has.”

“Gat, wait.”

But he has gone into his room and shut the door.

I am alone in the dark hallway.

ONCE UPON A
time, there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. The girls grew up as lovely as the day was long. They made grand marriages, too, but the arrival of the first grandchild brought disappointment. The youngest princess produced a daughter so very, very tiny that her mother took to keeping her in a pocket, where the girl went unnoticed. Eventually, normal-sized grandchildren arrived, and the king and queen forgot the existence of the tiny princess almost completely
.

When the too-small princess grew older, she passed most of her days and nights hardly ever leaving her tiny bed. There was very little reason for her to get up, so solitary was she
.

One day, she ventured to the palace library and was delighted to find what good company books could be. She began going there often. One morning, as she read, a mouse appeared on the table. He stood upright and wore a small velvet jacket. His whiskers were clean and his fur was brown. “You read just
as I do,” he said, “walking back and forth across the pages.” He stepped forward and made a low bow
.

The mouse charmed the tiny princess with stories of his adventures. He told her of trolls who steal people’s feet and gods who abandon the poor. He asked questions about the universe and searched continually for answers. He thought wounds needed attention. In turn, the princess told the mouse fairy tales, drew him pixelated portraits, and made him little crayon drawings. She laughed and argued with him. She felt awake for the first time in her life
.

It was not long before they loved each other dearly
.

When she presented her suitor to her family, however, the princess met with difficulty. “He is only a mouse!” cried the king in disdain, while the queen screamed and ran from the throne room in fear. Indeed, the entire kingdom, from royalty to servants, viewed the mouse suitor with suspicion and discomfort. “He is unnatural,” people said of him. “An animal masquerading as a person.”

The tiny princess did not hesitate. She and the mouse left the palace and traveled far, far away. In a foreign land they were married, made a home for themselves, filled it with books and chocolate, and lived happily ever after
.

If you want to live where people are not afraid of mice, you must give up living in palaces
.

A GIANT WIELDS
a rusty saw. He gloats and hums as he works, slicing through my forehead and into the mind behind it.

I have less than four weeks to find out the truth.

Granddad calls me Mirren.

The twins are stealing sleeping pills and diamond earrings.

Mummy argued with the aunts over the Boston house.

Bess hates Cuddledown.

Carrie roams the island at night.

Will has bad dreams.

Gat is Heathcliff.

Gat thinks I do not know him.

And maybe he is right.

I take pills. Drink water. The room is dark.

Mummy stands in the doorway, watching me. I do not speak to her.

I am in bed for two days. Every now and then the sharp pain wanes to an ache. Then, if I am alone, I sit up and write on the cluster of notes above my bed. Questions more than answers.

The morning I feel better, Granddad comes over to Windemere early. He’s wearing white linen pants and a blue sport jacket. I am in shorts and a T-shirt, throwing balls for the dogs in the yard. Mummy is already up at New Clairmont.

“I’m heading to Edgartown,” Granddad says, scratching
Bosh’s ears. “You want to come? If you don’t mind an old man’s company.”

“I don’t know,” I joke. “I’m so busy with these spit-covered tennis balls. Could be all day.”

“I’ll take you to the bookstore, Cady. Buy you presents like I used to.”

“How about fudge?”

Granddad laughs. “Sure, fudge.”

“Did Mummy put you up to this?”

“No.” He scratches his tufty white hair. “But Bess doesn’t want me driving the motorboat alone. She says I could get disoriented.”

“I’m not allowed to drive the motorboat, either.”

“I know,” he says, holding up the keys. “But Bess and Penny aren’t boss here. I am.”

We decide to eat breakfast in town. We want to get the boat away from the Beechwood dock before the aunts catch us.

EDGARTOWN IS A
nautical, sweetie-pie village on Martha’s Vineyard. It takes twenty minutes to get there. It’s all white picket fences and white wooden homes with flowery yards. Shops sell tourist stuff, ice cream, pricey clothes, antique jewelry. Boats leave from the harbor for fishing trips and scenic cruises.

Granddad seems like his old self. He’s tossing money around. Treats me to espresso and croissants at a little bakery with stools by a window, then tries to buy me books at the Edgartown bookshop. When I refuse the gift, he shakes his head at my giveaway project but doesn’t lecture. Instead he asks for my help picking out presents for the littles and a floral design
book for Ginny, the housekeeper. We place a big order at Murdick’s Fudge: chocolate, chocolate walnut, peanut butter, and penuche.

Browsing in one of the art galleries, we run into Granddad’s lawyer, a narrow, graying fellow named Richard Thatcher. “So this is Cadence the first,” says Thatcher, shaking my hand. “I’ve heard a great deal about you.”

“He does the estate,” says Granddad, by way of explanation.

“First grandchild,” says Thatcher. “There’s never anything to match that feeling.”

“She’s got a great head on her shoulders, too,” Granddad says. “Sinclair blood through and through.”

This speaking in stock phrases, he has always done it. “Never complain, never explain.” “Don’t take no for an answer.” But it grates when he’s using them about me. A good head on my shoulders? My actual head is fucking broken in countless medically diagnosed ways—and half of me comes from the unfaithful Eastman side of the family. I am not going to college next year; I’ve given up all the sports I used to do and clubs I used to be part of; I’m high on Percocet half the time and I’m not even nice to my little cousins.