Strange Lies Read online

  She decided to go. Calvin could take care of himself. Could he? She didn’t really know him at all. But she liked people who could take care of themselves, and she wanted Calvin to be one. And anyway, he’d told her to go. So what else was she supposed to do? She slipped back into the darkness, away from the house’s alluring glow.

  Saturday

  The Beau Ideal Driving Club, 11:30 a.m.

  “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “What? You look . . . good.”

  Benny ignored her. His grandma had said the same thing (“handsome” was her word), but he didn’t take the compliments seriously. They only showed how conforming to the dominant paradigm created an illusion of attractiveness in people’s eyes. He’d blow-dried his hair, mimicking the shiny, Beatles-esque mop that was popular at Winship. He’d put in contacts, which he only owned in the event of his glasses needing to be repaired. And finally, perhaps most importantly, he’d donned the consummate item of preppy attire: a pink Polo shirt.

  His mother had not appreciated the transformation. She hadn’t said anything, but he knew what she was thinking. That he had violated the unspoken condition of his attendance at Winship: thrive, but do not assimilate. In a childish way, it pleased Benny to annoy her. Let her think he was being coopted by the preppy hive-mind. It served her right, making him go to this school full of trad, pink-Polo-wearing lemmings.

  To get them to the city, he’d employed his usual tactic: a made-up meeting for the Model UN at the public library. Once Mrs. Flax’s car had disappeared down Peachtree Street, he and Virginia had crossed the park to the hill where the sprawling white buildings of the club lorded over Midtown. It was getting easier and easier to lie to his mother, which reduced Benny’s stress level but was also slightly alarming. How many lies did it take before you were officially “a liar”?

  “So, do we just walk in?” Virginia asked him. They were standing in front of the club entrance, a massive rotunda where a line of sleek-looking cars were being met by energetic valets. Evidently it was not common to approach the club by foot.

  Benny smoothed his hair self-consciously. Be confident, he told himself. He looked fine, and Virginia looked fine too, though her yellow-and-green dress was too small. Benny had noticed that about a lot of her clothes. It wasn’t like Zaire’s gold skirt, which was designed to be skimpy. This was more like, someone needed to buy Virginia new clothes, because she’d outgrown everything in her wardrobe. The fabric stretched tight across her shoulders and her chest. Benny averted his eyes. Don’t stare at her breasts.

  He took a breath. “We just walk in.”

  As Benny predicted, no one tried to stop them from entering. He perceived a few looks from the valets, which he interpreted not as suspicious but just wondering where their parents were.

  The inside wasn’t what Benny expected. It was grand but not like a palace or anything. It was just a large room with nice furniture, elegant but muted.

  “This way,” he said to Virginia. He’d studied the floor plan of the club ahead of time so they wouldn’t have to ask directions. The next room was similar to the first but contained a quiet bar. Benny gestured toward a cluster of leather armchairs overlooking the golf course. “Let’s sit for a minute. I have to talk to you about something.”

  “Am I in trouble?” Virginia flopped into one of the chairs. “Mm, comfy.” Benny sat down across from her. He crossed his legs one way and then another, trying to fit the role of country-club teen.

  “Not like a girl,” Virginia told him. “Put your ankle on your knee.”

  Benny shot her a look but then did it. Instantly he looked completely cool and composed, like he spent every Saturday relaxing in the bar at Atlanta’s most exclusive club. Virginia had forgotten he had this weird ability. She’d seen him do this once before, at the Sapphire Lounge, where he’d managed to fit in among the creepy lounge lizards and boozy jazz fiends just by standing in a certain way. It was sort of annoying. It proved that Benny chose to be an outsider, which made his victim-y glasses and out-of-style turtlenecks suddenly seem less dweeby and more self-righteous.

  She couldn’t stop looking at him. He looked hot. Except not really. It was just that the pink shirt brought out a different tone in his normally sallow skin, and without his glasses, he actually seemed smarter for some reason. Maybe because she could see his eyes better, see him thinking. She arranged herself vampishly in the chair, hoping she looked as cool as he did. She suspected she didn’t, though. These flowery Lilly Pulitzer getups weren’t designed to make girls look cool, they were designed to make them look like pea-brained dolls.

  “I know what’s going on,” Benny was saying, his fingers tented like a Bond villain. “It was Calvin Harker.”

  “Do you have any money?” Virginia asked. “I want a ginger ale.”

  “They don’t use money here. All the members have accounts. Did you hear what I said? It was Calvin Harker.”

  “What was Calvin Harker?”

  “The person who tried to kill DeAndre Bell.”

  Virginia snorted. “What?”

  “He was probably the drug dealer in the bathroom. You said the guy had ironed pants? Calvin’s clothes are always perfect. I think he gets them dry-cleaned.”

  “That’s not super unusual,” Virginia said, even though it kind of was. The guys at Winship were famous for being unkempt; their uniforms tended to be handed down from older brothers or cousins, full of holes and barely cared for.

  “Did you see his project at the science expo?”

  Virginia shook her head.

  Benny lowered his voice. “It was strange. It was like, a compilation of random deaths. How life is pointless because at any moment you could be hit by a bus, or a possum could fall from the sky.”

  “A possum?”

  “Whatever, not a possum. His point was that every day, people die in random and unpredictable ways.”

  “So?”

  “So he designed this insane death scenario for DeAndre to prove his thesis! To win the science expo! But it backfired, because in the chaos the judges never declared a winner.”

  Virginia gawked at him. Was he serious? “You think Calvin Harker orchestrated murder. To win a science expo. Don’t you think that’s a little juvenile?”

  Benny waved his hand impatiently. “Well, fine, maybe it’s not about winning. But it is about proving his philosophy.”

  Virginia was trying to be open-minded, but the idea was too stupid. Though “stupid” wasn’t a word that Benny would react well to. “That’s kind of . . . absurd,” she said. “Also, it doesn’t make sense. If his thing is about death being random, why would he concoct a murder scheme? That’s not random. That’s on purpose.”

  “The victim was random. I don’t think Calvin cared who got killed. In fact, that was the whole point.”

  Benny’s face was triumphant. It was a good look on him. Stop thinking about his dumb hot glasses-less face! Virginia yelled at herself.

  “So . . . what are you saying? That Calvin planted the banana Trevor slipped on?”

  Benny stared out the window at the golf course. “I know it sounds crazy. It is crazy. That’s the whole point. Maybe Calvin drops banana peels wherever he goes, on the off chance that someone will slip and die. Virginia, I’m serious! Think about it. The banana peel is the perfect instrument of murder—silly and cartoonish but ruinous. For Calvin, it probably symbolizes lack of dignity in death. . . . He was in the hospital for a year in eighth grade—remember that? After a year in a hospital, you’re not gonna be romanticizing death anymore.”

  Virginia tried to think. She didn’t feel convinced. She thought of Calvin’s tearstained face last night. He’d seemed so . . . sad. But in an endearing way, not a banana-peel-dropping murderer way.

  “Okay, well,” she started awkwardly, “I went to his house last night—”

  “You went to his house?” Benny interrupted. “Why?”

  “We were supposed to have dinner.”

 
“Why?”

  “Because I asked him.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh my god, stop saying why. I’m allowed to hang out with people other than you.”

  Benny bristled. “I didn’t—I never—”

  “Okay, whatever,” Virginia cut him off. “It wasn’t a big deal and it didn’t even happen. Because when I got to his house, I was standing outside and I saw his dad, like, strangling him.”

  “Headmaster Harker? Strangling him?”

  “Sort of. It was like . . . Here, stand up, I’ll show you.”

  Benny stood up and looked around to make sure no one was watching them. The bartender was wiping down wineglasses and didn’t seem interested in the two teenagers hanging out at the other end of the room. Benny’s mind was whirring. Virginia and Calvin having dinner? What the hell was that about? Was it a date?

  Stop it, Benny told himself. He didn’t support the predominant societal expectation that a guy and a girl couldn’t hang out without it being some romantic thing. Girls and guys could be friends. And Virginia could have dinner with whomever she wanted. Except not a murderer, please.

  “So I’m the dad, and you’re Calvin,” Virginia was saying. She positioned herself across from him, seeming taller than usual. Benny glanced down; she was wearing heels. She extended her hand and touched Benny’s neck, just below the jaw—tentatively at first, and then firmly once she sensed he wasn’t going to swat her away. Her hand felt cool and warm at the same time. She squeezed his throat and looked directly in his eyes.

  Benny felt a jolt. He wished he had his glasses on. He felt vulnerable without those little walls standing between him and the world. Virginia’s eyes—mere inches from his own—contained chaotic specks of green and brown and gold. He almost expected the colors to move, like stardust swirling in space.

  “And then he leaned in like this. . . .”

  Benny barely breathed. He felt an urge to hug her, or wishing she would hug him, which was weird. When someone was gripping you by the throat, the normal reaction was to push them away, not pull them closer.

  How long is this going to last?

  “Then his dad saw me, and I hid behind a tree.” Virginia dropped her hand unceremoniously and flopped back down in her chair. Unconsciously Benny touched where her fingers had been.

  “Sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  “Hm? No, it’s fine.” Benny sat back down. The temperature of his neck slowly returned to normal. “So wait, what happened after that?”

  “After that, they were both gone. And I left.”

  Benny looked out the window. He didn’t see how this new information contradicted his theory. Headmaster Harker being abusive and Calvin being a killer were by no means mutually exclusive.

  “I’d like to hit pause on this conversation,” Benny declared, standing up again. “Let’s focus on the golf team for now, and why Craig Beaver was really expelled. If we can track down the caddie they used—the black guy in the background of Trevor’s photos—we can find out what happened that night.”

  “Okay,” Virginia said simply. It’s one of the things Benny liked about her. She didn’t dwell on things. If you wanted to move on, she moved on too. He glanced at the bartender, who was now eyeing them suspiciously.

  “Let’s not do anything else weird,” Benny said quietly, touching his neck again. The feeling of her fingers was gone now. He looked out the window again. The sky was filled with puffy white clouds, and the grass of the golf course was an unnatural, uniform shade of green. Of all the recreational activities of man, golf had to be the stupidest. The massive effort to beat nature into submission—daily mowing, watering, and dousing of chemicals—so a man could pay ninety thousand dollars to push a ball into a hole. It was like they’d deliberately dreamed up the most expensive and ecologically damaging way to enjoy a day in the sun.

  “Hey, look,” Virginia said. She was pointing to a spot far out on the green. Benny squinted. His contacts weren’t great for long distance. But he could make out a lean figure hunched over a golf club. His too-long arms were bent oddly to maintain the proper golfing stance.

  “Is it Calvin?” Benny asked excitedly. “You see? It’s not a coincidence that he keeps popping up. It’s just like Zaire Bollo. You have a bunch of odd occurrences spinning in the chaos of space. Then you realize it’s not chaos—it’s a galaxy, and at the center of the galaxy is a black hole. A person who’s set everything in motion.”

  Virginia patted his shoulder patronizingly. “It’s his dad. Nice analogy, though.”

  “Metaphor,” Benny corrected. “An analogy would be, ‘Clues are to a galaxy as what Calvin is to a black hole.’ ”

  “. . . Cool to know.”

  Benny’s jaw tightened. It didn’t matter which Harker was golfing. It didn’t matter if Virginia was skeptical. Calvin was still the black hole. Benny knew it, the same way he’d known it was Zaire Bollo last time. It was a gift he had, like how dogs could supposedly smell fear; Benny could smell truth. He didn’t know what it was exactly, but he could sense that it was there. . . .

  “Benny? Hello? You’re spacing out.”

  “Just give me a minute.”

  He was thinking about the deer. Its maimed, blood-splattered head loomed in his mind, at odds with the perfectly manicured and civilized scene in front of him. But suddenly the golf course didn’t seem so civilized—it seemed repulsive. A piece of raped land where men gathered to roll balls around and consolidate power. It wasn’t something Benny would ever say out loud—the stereotype about Jews being Socialists made him self-conscious. But he didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want to be wearing this stupid pink shirt and these sucky contacts, or to be complicit in their endless golf course of a world.

  Get a grip, he ordered himself. Just because he’d blow-dried his hair and put on a Polo didn’t make him one of these people. In fact, that was the whole point of them: “born, not made.” They even had bumper stickers. There was no power in declaring that you didn’t want to be one of them. They’d cut you back down to size with a single look:

  We didn’t want you anyway.

  The women’s steam room, 12:10 p.m.

  Hello baby in my heart!

  In the land of the free may you start

  To grow in the light of Jesus

  And to delight and please us.

  Sorry I did not wait for marriage,

  But please God fill my baby carriage!

  Corny solemnly recited the poem, which she’d written herself. The paper was damp from the thick steam, and a few of the puppy and angel stickers had fallen off and dropped onto the wet tile floor. She took a sip of pink strawberry-kiwi Gatorade in case it was a girl, then one of blue “Glacier Freeze” Gatorade in case it was a boy. She and the Montague twins had created an elaborate conception ritual inspired by witchcraft they’d found on the Internet, taking all the sacrilegious parts and replacing them with Jesus and patriotic references, and substituting the gross potions with pink and blue Gatorade.

  “Wait!” Angie Montague gasped as Corny took alternating sips from the pink and blue bottles. “What if they mix in your stomach and turn purple, and then you have a gay one!”

  She and her twin sister, Brittany, burst into giggles.

  “Omigod!” Corny shrieked. She laughed along but was mostly humoring them. The twins were just girls, whereas she was a woman now—a mother. At least hopefully she was! The thought made her so excited she wanted to scream. But she needed to remain calm and complete the ritual. She and the twins sat in a triangle in their Kate Spade string bikinis, their knees touching each other. Corny had chosen the club’s steam room for the ceremony because it was warm and steamy and safe, just like a womb. She wanted the baby to feel as welcome as possible in this world.

  “Okay, now hold Sarah-Ann-Elizabeth-Jane over my head and do the chant.”

  Sarah-Ann-Elizabeth-Jane was Corny’s baby doll from childhood, a peach-colored hunk of plastic dirtied from a decade of love, with a smear of
purple marker on its bald head. The twins lifted the doll in the air like Simba from The Lion King. Then they shouted together:

  “BRING CORNY A CUPID BABY!”

  “Five more times,” Corny instructed, and the twins obeyed. But by the fourth recitation, they were so tongue-twisted the chant ended up sounding like, “Beep Corby a poop cupid.”

  All three of them collapsed into giggles, even Corny. She couldn’t help it! She shrieked, “Y’ALL! I don’t want a poop cupid!”

  Angie dropped the baby doll. It landed smack on its face and then rolled away, making them laugh even harder. Corny took a few deep breaths, trying to stop laughing.

  “Okay, do it right this time,” she ordered. But the twins completely broke down in hysterics and ended up shouting what sounded like, “Bring Corbin a stupid boopid!”

  “And not a gay one!” Angie screamed between laughs.

  Corny giggled and swatted her. It was okay. It didn’t matter if they’d accidentally asked for a stupid boopid or a poop cupid or a gay one. Jesus knew what they really meant: a perfect angel from heaven who looked just like Winn, and had deep philosophical thoughts like Winn, and played football like Winn—unless it was a girl, and then she could be a Gap Kids model like Corny!

  Corny hit “play” on the playlist she’d created of all the Justin Bieber songs containing the word “baby” in the lyrics.

  “You should name it Rory like in Gilmore Girls,” Brittany suggested. “And then you can be best friends!”

  “I already have the names picked out.” Corny reached under her towel and pulled out an Anne Geddes journal she’d bought especially for baby-related thoughts. The cover had the cutest baby wearing a cabbage on its head and the words Water daily—with LOVE! written in pink flowery letters. “Judd Winn Rufus if it’s a boy, and Blue Hydrangea if it’s a girl.”

  “Omigod, those are so cute!” Brittany squealed.

  “Will you have to drop out of cheerleading?” Angie asked, frowning like a sad puppy.

  “Just for basketball season, when I’m all fat,” Corny said.

  “Oh good,” the twins said in unison, sighing. Basketball cheerleading was a joke and didn’t matter, especially now that DeAndre Bell wouldn’t be able to play.