Two Truths and a Lie(106)

Around them came the festive, slightly mournful sounds of an evening at the end of summer: the tinkling of ice in glasses, bursts of uproarious laughter, a hint of seize-the-day mania. The bar stools faced the salt marshes, and the windows were open so that the smells of Plum Island came wafting in. Far, far in the distance, if you squinted and tilted your head just right, you could almost see the Pink House, which would be turning luminous and mysterious under the last rays of the setting sun.

“That’s what I figured,” said Sherri. “This is a really big problem for me, Alexa. Really big.”

“I know.” Alexa looked around the bar desperately, but nobody could save her from this conversation.

“You can’t ever, ever say anything that you know about us out loud, do you understand me?” Sherri’s voice was cold—Siberian.

“I know,” said Alexa. “I won’t. I never will. I swear. And I’m so sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry.” She opened her hands and then closed them into fists. She didn’t know what else she could say.

“The diary is gone,” Sherri said. “I destroyed it, and then I talked to Katie about never writing anything like that down again. Ever. She simply can’t.”

“No,” agreed Alexa. “She can’t.”

“I trusted you,” said Sherri. “In my home, and with my child. I trusted you, when we were new here, and when we were most vulnerable. And we were really vulnerable, Alexa. We still are. We’ll be vulnerable for the rest of our lives.”

“I know,” said Alexa.

“Now here’s what I have to ask you,” said Sherri. “And I need you to answer honestly. Does anyone else know? Did you tell anyone?”

Here Alexa found herself knee-deep in moral muck. She thought of Cam, the most trustworthy, most honest person she’d ever known, who’d wanted to un-know the truth about Katie and Sherri the second he learned it. He wouldn’t have told anyone. She knew that with absolute certainty. If there was anyone who would take a secret like that to the grave, it was Cam.

Alexa shook her head.

“I need to hear you say it out loud. If you told anyone, Katie and I are in too much danger to stay here. We’ll have to move away, we’ll have to start all over again. New names, new hair color, new everything. I don’t want to do that to Katie. She finally feels settled here.” Sherri’s voice tripped. “But I’ll do it if I have to. I’ll do anything to keep Katie safe. So I need to know right now, Alexa, if you told anyone else about what you read in that diary.”

Alexa thought of Dave Matthews and her heart wrenched once again: The wicked lies we tell to keep us safe from the pain.

There were lies that we tell to save ourselves, and then there were lies that we tell to save other people. In the past Alexa had been a master of the former. Now, she supposed, as the New and Improved Alexa, it was probably about time to learn the latter.

“Nobody else knows,” she said. “I swear to you, I haven’t told, nor will I ever tell, a soul.”

“Not your mother, or your sister, or anybody else,” said Sherri. “Swear.”

“I swear. I haven’t told my mother or my sister.” One truth. “I will never tell a living soul, Sherri, I promise.” Two truths. “I would never share something like that. With anyone.” One lie.

Sherri’s face relaxed, and Alexa felt that for once she had done the right thing.

Some years hence, when the celebrity Alexa Thornhill has a child of her own, a little boy named Max who has a cowlick and a freckle on his ear and the biggest brown eyes you could imagine, a boy who is growing up in the dazzling Southern California sun, she will look back on this conversation. One day Max will get in an altercation with a bully at a playground. Alexa Thornhill will feel an innate, unquenchable urge to lift the bully up by the straps of his overalls and throw him into next week.

She will never do that, of course. It wouldn’t read well on her social media feed, to her fans and followers, which number in the hundreds of thousands. But she will remember the intensity of Sherri Griffin’s eyes as she said, “I’ll do anything to keep Katie safe.” And she gets it. She totally gets it.

But that is in the future. In the raw, unpasteurized present, the New and Improved Alexa, the nice Alexa, asked Sherri Griffin, “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? Anything at all?”

Sherri thought for a minute. Alexa watched her eyes travel over the marshes of Plum Island, the piece of turnpike visible from the bar, the grasses dancing in the light wind.

“There is one thing,” Sherri said finally. She looked around the bar, because it was a small town, and you never knew who you might run into.

“Anything,” said Alexa eagerly. She polished off her seltzer and noticed that the bartenders had changed shifts.

She told Sherri, “Whatever you say, I’ll do.”

One truth, no lies.





90.





The Squad


Monica and her husband, who were celebrating their thirteenth wedding anniversary the night before school started, had a seven o’clock reservation at Mission Oak. You’ll never guess who was coming out as they were going in. Well, you might guess. It was Rebecca, Daniel Bennett, and . . . Morgan Coleman! Daniel was holding open the door for Rebecca and Morgan, and Morgan appeared to be giggling at something Daniel Bennett had said.