All the Beautiful Lies(36)

“Do I? No, keep going.” But Harry had been having trouble believing her. Her story sounded rehearsed, and as she told it, her eyes shifted back and forth, never settling on any one point. She was lying.

“That’s it. That’s my story.”

“Why did you leave New York?”

“Why do you think?”

“Boy troubles?”

“Ha. That’s one way to put it, but yes, that is why I left New York.”

The bartender asked Harry if he wanted another drink. He hadn’t eaten since the chicken sandwich at lunch, and the two bourbon and ginger ales had felt pretty strong. He ordered a beer instead, the same kind that Grace was drinking. After serving it with an orange slice on the rim of the pint glass, the bartender pointed a remote and turned on the flat-screen television built into the bar. Red Sox players were running onto the field at Fenway.

“You a baseball fan?” Grace asked, clearly hoping to change the subject.

“Fair-weather, I guess. When the Red Sox make the playoffs I start to pay attention. My dad was a huge fan.” And suddenly Harry realized that his father would never see another Red Sox game again, never read another box score, or complain about a pitcher. “How about you?”

“Not really. I’m a football fan. Soccer fan, I mean. I follow Man United.”

“How did that happen?” Harry asked.

He listened to her talk about soccer, how she’d played her whole life, and how she’d started watching the Premier League games when they’d begun airing them on American television ten years earlier. She talked about players as though Harry had heard of them. Now that she wasn’t hiding anything, she was making eye contact, and her voice had altered slightly. She’d relaxed and Harry could see her at fifteen, a feisty, freckled soccer player with long dark hair on some playing field in the Midwest.

Harry finished his beer and ate the orange slice.

“You hungry?” Grace asked.

“I am. I should go home, probably, because I’m sure that Alice has cooked a three-course meal. It’s what she’s been doing since my father died.”

“I should eat something, too.”

“I’d invite you, but—”

“No, no. Please. I have food at home. I should get going as well.”

Outside, it was still light, but the sun was hidden behind a bank of dark clouds coming in from the west. There was a distant roll of thunder. “I’ll walk you home,” Harry said.

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s sort of on my way.”

They walked up the hill from the village, stopping outside the large redbrick Victorian where Grace had rented the room. There was an old Mazda RX-7 in the driveway and Harry wondered if it was hers.

“Let’s do this again,” Grace said, as a few fat drops of rain started to hit the sidewalk.

“I’d like that,” Harry said.

He turned and began to walk toward home, wondering if he’d get there before it really began to rain hard, when he heard Grace’s footsteps following him. “Wait up,” she said, and he turned.

For one brief moment, Harry thought she was going to keep coming and kiss him, but she stopped, a little breathless, and said: “I did know your father, a little bit, from down in New York. From Ackerson’s.”

“Oh,” Harry said.

“I felt bad lying to you about it.”

“Why did you?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t want you to think . . . We didn’t know each other well.”

“That’s okay.”

“Good night again,” she said, walking backward, smiling, nodding her head slowly, a gesture that seemed to say that she felt better now that she’d told the truth. But she hadn’t told the truth, at least not the whole truth. Harry was sure of that.





Chapter 15





Then



They sat on the beach together, up near the wall, each on one of the flat stones that clustered along the high-tide mark. It was high tide now, an occasional wave lapping at their feet.

Gina had wanted to come inside the condominium, but Alice had stepped out through the door, pulling it shut behind her, and said that they should go talk on the beach. It was clear that Gina was either drunk or seriously messed up on some kind of drug. Her eyes were red rimmed and unfocused, and her words sounded gluey in her mouth. Alice held her arm as they walked toward the water.

“I’m sorry, Al,” Gina said, “but I had to say something, because if I hadn’t then I’d keep thinking it, but now it’s ruined us and you’re my only friend in Kennewick, only real friend, and now you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Alice said.

“You don’t know what it’s like in New York. I, like, don’t trust anyone. Anyone. Everyone tells me I’m beautiful, and everyone tells me how I’m this big star, but I’m not, Al. Margery, you know Margery?”

Alice didn’t, but nodded anyway. They were near the beach, the ocean’s pulsing roar muffling Gina’s words. Alice let her talk. She told a long, rambling story about her manager, Margery, and how she’d thought Margery was the only one she could trust, but how it turned out that she couldn’t trust anyone. While she spoke, Alice looked at Gina’s hand where she had bitten her. It had been swaddled in a white bandage, and even in the dim moonlight, Alice could see dark spots where the blood was seeping through. I did that, she thought. She remembered what it felt like, her teeth sinking into Gina’s flesh.