The Last Time I Lied(72)

“The four of us have a complicated history.” Becca stops to correct herself. “Had a complicated history. Even outside of this place. We all went to school together. Which wasn’t unusual. Sometimes it felt like half our class came here in the summer.”

“Camp Rich Bitch,” I say. “That’s what it was called at my school.”

“Mean,” Becca says. “But accurate. Because most of them were indeed bitches. Vivian especially. She was the ruler. The queen bee. People loved her. People hated her. Vivian didn’t care as long as she was the center of attention. But I got to see a different side of her.”

“So you were friends.”

“We were best friends. For a time, anyway. I like to think of Vivian as my rebellious phase. We were fourteen, pissed off at the world, sick of being girls and wanting so badly to be women. Viv especially. She was perfect at finding trouble. Rich boys who’d get her anything she wanted. Beer. Weed. Fake IDs she’d use to get us into all the clubs. Then it suddenly stopped.”

“Why?”

“The short answer? Because Vivian wanted it to.”

“And the long answer?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Becca says. “I think it was because she went through some fucked-up identity crisis after her sister died. She ever tell you about it?”

“Once,” I say. “I got the sense she didn’t like to talk about it.”

“Probably because it was such a stupid death.”

“She drowned, right?”

“She did.” Becca takes another swig from the bottle before pressing it into my hands. “One night in the dead of winter, Katherine—that was her name, in case Viv never told you—decided to get shit-faced and go to Central Park. The reservoir was frozen over. Katherine walked out onto it. The ice broke, she fell in, never came back up.”

I’m struck by the memory of Vivian pretending to be drowning. Her sister had to have crossed her mind as she flailed in the water and gurgled for help. All to get a boy’s attention. What kind of person does that?

“Katherine’s death absolutely crushed her,” Becca says. “I remember running to her apartment right after it happened. She was crazed, Emma. Wailing, pounding the walls, shaking uncontrollably. I couldn’t look away. It was ugly and beautiful at the same time. I wanted to take a picture of it, just so I’d never forget. Yeah, I know that’s weird.”

But it’s not. At least not as weird as making the same three girls continually vanish beneath layers of paint.

“That was the beginning of the end of us,” Becca continues. “I did the best-friend thing and went to the wake and the funeral and was by her side when she came back to school. But even then I knew she was pulling away from me and being drawn to them.”

“Them?”

“Allison and Natalie. They were Katherine’s best friends. All three were in the same class.”

“I always thought they were the same age as Vivian,” I say.

“She was a year younger. Although you couldn’t tell from the way she acted.”

Becca reaches over and takes the bottle from my lap. Choosing the particular poison she needs to get through the conversation. She takes a long gulp and swallows hard.

“They found comfort in one another. I assume that was the appeal. Honestly, before Katherine died, Viv wanted nothing to do with them. You should have heard the way she made fun of them whenever all five of us were at her apartment. We were like warring factions, even when playing something as innocuous as Truth or Dare.”

“Two Truths and a Lie,” I say. “That was Vivian’s game of choice.”

“Not when we were friends,” Becca says. “I think she joined in because Katherine liked to play it. She idolized her sister. And when she died, I think she transferred those same feelings to Natalie and Allison. I wasn’t surprised when I found out we’d all be bunking here together in the summer. I had already assumed it would happen. What I wasn’t ready for was how much I’d be left out. Around them, Vivian acted like she hardly knew me. Natalie and Allison had consumed her attention. By the time camp was over, we were barely speaking to each other. It was the same way back at school. She had them, so there was no need for me. When summer came around again, I knew I wasn’t going to be bunking with them. I’m sure Vivian saw to that. I was banished from Dogwood and shuffled to the cabin next door.”

It’s fully dark now. Night settles over us, as does a prolonged silence in which Becca and I simply pass the bottle back and forth. The whiskey’s starting to hit me hard. When I look up at the stars, they’re brighter than they should be. I hear the sound of girls coming back from the campfire. Footsteps, voices, a few peals of laughter echoing off the cabin walls.

“Why didn’t you tell me all this the other morning?” I say. “Why lie?”

“Because I didn’t want to go into it. And I was surprised you did. I mean, Vivian treated you the same way, right?”

I don’t answer, choosing instead to take another gulp of whiskey.

“It wasn’t that hard of a question,” Becca says.

Oh, but it is. It doesn’t take into account the way I had treated Vivian.

“No,” I say. “It wasn’t the same.”