Family of Liars(30)

George: “Loser is the person who laughs. Or gives an answer that’s not sausage.”

Major: “All right. Yardley, you’re it. You have a new gentleman companion. Oh yay: he has an eight-inch…”

Yardley: “Sausage.”

George: “What comes out of a dog’s butt?”

Yardley: “Sausage.”

Me: “They used to build log cabins out of logs, but now they build them out of…”

Yardley: “Sausage.”

Pfeff: “Plop plop.” He jumps up and down in the water, ridiculously.

Yardley: (laughing) “Oh my god.”

Pfeff: “Ha! Got you.”

Yardley: “Why are you plopping? You were supposed to ask a question with the answer sausage.”

Pfeff: “I know. But if you laugh, you lose. Or if you say something that’s not sausage. Right?”

Yardley: “Plop plop. You’re terrible.”

George: “Accept defeat, Yardley!”

Yardley: “Okay, Carrie’s turn.”

I glance at Pfeff. I don’t want to glance at Pfeff. I don’t want to be thinking about him, and the way his neck felt under my hand when he kissed me, and the way his lips were surprisingly soft. I don’t want to think of it, but I’m nearly naked in the water and he’s only four feet away, and I can hardly think of anything else, even though he’s an inconsiderate dick and I’m not interested.

Me: “Sausage.”

Major: “I have one. You go swimming and it feels like there’s a ton of water in your ear. You shake your head, you know, like you do. And what comes out?”

Me: “Sausage.”

Yardley: “You shoot a wild boar and take it home. What do you do next?”

Me: “Sausage.”

Pfeff: “Beans!”

Yardley: “Pfeff, you are so random.”

Pfeff: “Toothpaste!”

George: “Okay, let’s see. You have a baby and you need to change its diaper…”

Yardley: “George. The baby one is the same as the dog one.”

George: “No, no. It’s totally different.”

Yardley: “You can’t do the same poop joke over and over.”

George: “If it makes Carrie laugh or break into speech, then it counts for the game. That’s the only measure.”

Yardley: “Disagree. Then we could just be having a Make Carrie Laugh contest.”

“Sausage,” I say, very seriously.

“You have to mix up the poop jokes with other things,” says Yardley. “Otherwise they lose their tang.”

“Artichokes!” yells Pfeff, as if he has just thought of the most brilliant thing.

I laugh.

Pfeff swims closer to me as the others continue the game. His hair is wet and there are water droplets on his cheekbones. He comes so close I could kiss him, easily.

“I made you laugh,” he whispers. “You have to admit it.”





32.


LATER, AS I’M heading to bed, I pass the open door to Penny’s room. She and Erin are passed out on Penny’s twin beds, an empty bottle of whiskey on the floor. I think about leaving them there, but I know Tipper will walk by the room on her way upstairs.

I shake them gently till they wake and make them clean their teeth and drink tall glasses of water. I give them each two Tylenol. They drink and swallow obediently, and when they try to flop back onto their beds in their clothes, I pull pajamas from Penny’s dresser and make them change. “I don’t even wear pajamas normally,” Penny argues, slurring her words. “I wear a tank top and my underwear. Mother’s going to know something’s up.”

“Be a credit to the family and wear the pajamas,” I tell her.

“I looked at Mother’s secret photograph,” she says.

“Shush, Penny.” I don’t want her talking about that in front of Erin.

“You wanted to know what I think! You wouldn’t have told me about it otherwise,” says Penny, slinging her arm around my shoulder.

“Be quiet.”

“I think it’s Daddy in the picture,” Penny goes on. “And I think she scrapes a little piece of his face off every time she’s mad at him, because he’s so bossy. So it’s like, she goes up there and gets it from the hiding place and goes scrape scrape scrape. It’s how she gets her fury out.”

“It’s not Harris,” I say. Though it might be.

“She has like a ritual for how she gets back at him, like when he doesn’t pay attention to her.”

“That’s not even the same as what you said before.”

“Think about it.” She yanks off her shirt and bra, buttoning the striped cotton PJ top over her naked body. “You happy?”

“Pajama pants, as well,” I say. “Be good.”

“Mother should see a psychiatrist,” says Penny, falling onto the bed once her pajama pants are on. “It’s not normal to scratch out your husband’s face.”

“You are unbalanced right now,” I say.

“Me?” she says. “I’m not the one high on pills all the time.”

I freeze.

I didn’t know she knew about the pills.