Lies You Never Told Me(26)

I move softly, trying to ease over the creaking floorboards without waking her. But at the door I pause, biting my lip. The temperature in the apartment is icy, and we can’t afford to turn up the thermostat. Sighing, I take a green-and-yellow afghan off the back of the couch and spread it over her.

Mom stirs, her eyelids fluttering with the effort it takes to open them. “That’s a new outfit. Where you going?”

“To a play,” I say, tucking the edges of the afghan under her shoulders a little snugger than necessary. “Did you eat anything today?”

But she’s already nodded off again.

I hesitate for a moment, trying to gauge how far gone she is this time. Brynn’s waiting, though. I quickly grab the cigarette lighter off the table and slip it into my purse—at least I can keep her from accidentally setting the couch on fire—and head out the door.

Brynn does a double take when I hop into the passenger seat.

“Wow” is all she says.

I flip down the visor mirror, check my makeup and my hair. It hasn’t gotten messed up in the ninety seconds since I left my bedroom. I keep fighting the certainty that the mascara is smeared, the lipstick on my teeth. “Is it okay?”

“Uh, yeah, you look amazing.” She gives a sideways grin. “Your legs look about twenty feet long in that dress.”

She’s wearing a lime-green pencil dress, her hair in thick, 1940s-style victory rolls around her face. “You’ve got to teach me how to do that to my hair sometime,” I say.

She gives me another long look, then shakes her head. “It doesn’t look like I need to teach you anything,” she says, putting the car into gear.



* * *



? ? ?

The theater’s in a hip little row of cafés and shops in a neighborhood lined with Victorian houses. We park and join the others just outside the ticket office. I don’t see Mr. Hunter; he must be running late.

Kendall gives me an up-and-down glance. “Jesus, Elyse, it’s just a matinee. What’d you do, rob a Saks?”

I feel my cheeks get warm. I open my mouth to snap back, but before I can, I see Mr. Hunter, and all other thoughts disappear from my mind.

He gives a half-distracted, half-wry grin when he sees us from down the street. Somehow he’s both sophisticated and sheepish—stylish in slim-cut jeans and a blazer, his hair mussed from running. He looks like how I’ve always imagined a writer or a professor: like someone who sits in the big picture window at Powell’s drinking black coffee, watching people pass on the sidewalk outside and taking notes in a Moleskine.

“Sorry I’m late!” He steps up to the box office and gives the cashier a dazzling smile. “We should be on the list.”

He doesn’t even look my way. I realize I’m standing on my toes, leaning toward him, a plant craning for light. I force myself to relax.

It’s not like he’s going to ogle me or tell me I look hot. Not in front of everyone. But I can’t help it. I can feel myself shrinking, my shoulders drawing up against my body. I feel suddenly ridiculous. Everyone’s looking at me, and even though that was the point, it doesn’t feel as fun as I’d hoped. The heels, the lipstick—it’s all too much, it’s two P.M. on a Saturday. I feel wildly overdressed, even standing next to Brynn in her vintage clothes and pin-up-girl hair.

I hug my purse under my arm and follow everyone into the theater. It’s small, a cramped, claustrophobic space perfect for Sartre. Mr. Hunter leads the way, handing the usher our tickets and herding us into a row near the back. Brynn sits next to Trajan. I watch as she leans over and says something that makes him laugh. I sit on the other side of her, tucking my purse under the chair and looking down at my lap. The low susurrus of conversation weaves around me in the dim house lights.

I feel someone settle in next to me. I look up, expecting to see Frankie or Nessa or Laura, one of my other friends, but when I see Mr. Hunter my pulse swells like a tide. He doesn’t look my way, and I barely have enough time to register him when the lights go down and everything disappears from view.

The seats are close together. In that brief moment of darkness I feel the heat of his body radiating toward me. I feel his breath, rising and falling. I don’t let myself lean toward him. But I don’t shy away from the contact. My elbow touches his across the armrest, and even with his sleeve between us, it makes me breathless.

The first two actors step out on stage. “So here we are?” says Garcin.

“Yes, Mr. Garcin,” says the valet.

“And this is what it looks like?”

I barely register their voices. I can’t track what’s happening on the stage. I stare blindly forward as the other characters join them, one by one, filling up the nightmarish little room. Out of the corner of my eye I watch Mr. Hunter’s profile, his aquiline nose, his dark, thick eyebrows. The stage lights shift and change color, sending wild shadows across his face.

My mind wheels around wildly, soaring over the theater. I know that I’m supposed to forget that kiss. He said it was a mistake, and he was right. But being so near him now, in the dark . . . I touch my lips, remembering.

I know it can’t happen again. But I want proof. Proof that it wasn’t all in my head—a dream, a fantasy.

Proof that, for just a moment, he wanted to touch me.

I shift my weight toward him, just a little. It’s barely noticeable. I could deny it if I had to. I slide my arm onto the armrest, as if I didn’t notice his elbow there on the edge. I breathe in his smell, cedar and citrus and something else, a dark musky note.