Strange Lies Read online

  “Your boobs are going to be gigantic,” Brittany said.

  “I am soooooo jealous,” Angie whined. “I wish Big Gabe wanted to have a baby with me!”

  “Dad would kill you! Aren’t your parents going to be mad, Corny?”

  Corny shrugged. “If they’re mad, then me and Winn will just run away to Sea Island and have it be a beach baby!”

  “Awwwww! I want a beach baby!”

  Corny turned up the volume of the playlist. She lay back on her towel, her body wet and gleaming from the steam. She wished Winn were there to touch her all over and have sex with her and tell her she was the most beautiful girl in the world. Thinking about it made her so horny it was confusing. It didn’t seem very maternal or appropriate to be dreaming of a penis when there was a baby inside her! But she couldn’t stop thinking about him—how passionate and magical he’d been the other night, how his love had felt almost painful. She’d had sex with Winn before, but not like that. She’d tried to describe it to the twins, but they didn’t get it. Brittany was a virgin, and Angie basically was too, except for that one time at church camp that didn’t count because the guy had jizzed himself before getting it in.

  Poor Angie! Corny thought, feeling grateful she had such a wonderful stud like Winn to have sex with. She wanted to have sex with Winn one hundred million times and have one hundred million babies, each little angel a unique memento of the power of his penis!

  Brittany was fishing around in her pink Vera Bradley bag. “I got four different kinds of pregnancy tests. Are you ready?”

  I love you. I love you. She heard the words over and over in her mind. He’d finally admitted it. After years of waiting, she’d finally gotten to hear those three exquisite words. He’d said it over and over, as if making up for lost time. And now time was infinite, because they would be together forever. Corny closed her eyes and inhaled the thick, steamy air, giddily aware that every breath was one she shared with the teeny tiny microscopic angel baby inside her.

  I love you. I love you. I love you.

  The pro shop, 12:20 p.m.

  Virginia picked up a plain green visor and looked at the price tag: $88.

  “Oh my god. Benny, look at this. Want a visor for eighty-eight dollars?”

  “Virginia—” Benny turned to tell her to shut up, but stopped short. She’d put the visor on her head, and it looked so cute on her that Benny felt disarmed. She looked like a little kid tennis champ, grinning at him like she’d won the big match and expected a cookie. Then she grabbed a pink visor and shoved it on Benny’s head.

  “I’ll give you five hundred dollars if you wear that to school on Monday.”

  He removed the visor and returned it to the display. “That would be a tremendous waste of money.”

  “No it wouldn’t,” Virginia said. “I’d be getting valuable information.”

  He rolled his eyes. “What information?”

  “That your dignity is for sale.”

  Whoa. He looked at her. Where had that come from? It was one of the most incisive things he’d ever heard her say. But if Virginia realized she’d just said something really smart, she didn’t show it. She was posing vapidly in front of a mirror with a sweater around her shoulders like she’d stepped into a Brooks Brothers catalog.

  “Come on,” he said to her. He led the way to the front desk, where a very tan man in a Beau Ideal uniform grinned at them eagerly. His name tag said “Curly” even though his hair was straight. From across the room he’d seemed young, but up close his face was lined and hallow. It made Benny feel vaguely superior. He did not intend to become a forty-year-old man whose entire job was sucking up to rich men while they played the most boring sport ever invented. But Benny’s snobbishness quickly melted into self-reproach. It’s not like he actually had a better plan. He hated thinking about the future. What do you want to be when you grow up? People assumed he had an answer to this question, because he studied and got good grades and seemed forward-thinking in many respects. But when Benny thought about the end of high school, it felt like an edge of a cliff facing an infinity of empty space.

  “Can I help you?” Curly practically shouted at them.

  “Um, I, um . . .” Christ, be confident, Benny commanded himself. “I’d like to arrange a golf match. Golf game. And I was hoping to employ a caddie I used before. But I can’t remember his name. Do you have a directory?”

  “We sure do!” Curly grinned, showcasing a set of unnaturally white teeth. “But if you give me your account number, I can just look up who you’ve used in the past.”

  “Well, it was a friend’s account. I’d like to use their caddie.”

  “Name?”

  “Um . . . Cheek? The Cheeks?”

  He typed into a computer. “Uh-huh. Looks like Cody MacPhearson is your man! Do you want to check his availability?”

  Benny and Virginia exchanged a look. Cody MacPhearson? The name sounded very . . . white. “Um, I think it might have been someone else. I’d recognize him if I saw his face. Can I look through the directory?”

  “Sure, son.” The man reached behind the desk and pulled out a binder. He flipped to a section in the middle and pushed it across the desk.

  Benny scanned the names and faces, looking for a thin black man. But the directory was one sandy-haired, sun-tanned guy after another, with names like Cody and Bradley and Brett. He flipped through twice to make sure he hadn’t missed anyone. There was not a single black caddie employed at Beau Ideal. So who was that man in the pictures?

  Virginia pushed Benny to the side and looked for herself, still wearing the green visor on her head.

  “This is all of them?” she asked.

  Curly nodded. “Yep.” His sparkling grin had dimmed. Virginia could tell he was starting to lose patience with them. He turned back to Benny. “Who did you say your dad was, son?”

  Benny seemed startled. “Hm?”

  “Your father. Who is your father? I need to know the name on your account.”

  Virginia gave Benny a kick. She knew there was some weird situation with Benny’s father, like he’d been in an accident and was a paraplegic or something. But she hadn’t known Benny was sensitive about it.

  “You don’t recognize him?” Virginia jumped in, pointing at Benny. “That’s Benjamin Maximilian Coca-Cola the Third!” The words were barely out of her mouth before she’d cracked herself up. She felt a yank on her arm, and she let Benny lead her out of the pro shop. He plucked the green visor from her head and set it on a rack of Polo shirts.

  Outside, Virginia stopped laughing and braced herself for a lecture from Benny about goofing off during an investigation. But he just sat down in one of the wicker lawn chairs and pulled out his phone. Virginia sat down too, choosing a spot under a large beige umbrella. The air smelled like mowed grass. She waited a minute, and when Benny still hadn’t looked up from his phone, she said, “Um, hello?”

  “Hang on. I need to check my Google alerts.”

  Virginia stretched out her legs and scanned the golf course for Headmaster Harker. It was creepy, knowing that all around you, men who just looked like boring, upstanding, golf-loving citizens could be secretly strangling their own sons at night. She wondered if Calvin was okay. Maybe he was dead. He’s not dead, she assured herself. She’d seen bruises on his neck in the library the other day; that meant this was probably something his dad did to him often. Which was still disturbing, but at least suggested that the headmaster wasn’t trying to kill his son, just . . . hurt him. Benny would probably be impressed by her deduction if he weren’t so busy obsessing over his Google alerts.

  As she waited for Benny to be done, her mind wandered. She thought about Calvin’s face and how he’d looked when he was crying. Some people looked ugly and babyish when they cried, but Calvin hadn’t. He’d looked . . . beautiful. Like a slightly distorted angel mourning Christ in a medieval painting. She wished she could have seen him even closer. His eyes already resembled emeralds, and she imagined that tear
s would make their color gleam even brighter. She tried to picture Calvin evilly dropping banana peels around for people to slip and die on. She could sort of see it, but not really. Was Calvin the devilish type? She guessed she didn’t really know.

  “Do you know if Chrissie White is related to Garland White? The political lobbyist?” Benny asked suddenly.

  “Um, I dunno, possibly,” Virginia said, wishing she had a pair of sunglasses. The sun was bright, and she felt like a dork squinting and shielding her eyes with her hand. “I know she’s from Washington, DC. Her family only lives here part of the year, which is why they dumped her at Winship. Her dad has this gorgeous mansion in Brookhaven, but it just sits there empty. Meanwhile, she has to live in the Boarders. Isn’t that totally depressing?”

  Benny put his phone into his pocket and sat at the edge of the wicker chair. He looked serious. Benny always looked serious, but was managing to look even more so than usual. Virginia sat up in her chair.

  “Okay, listen. We need to change our approach here. I’m giving you lead on this case.”

  “Huh? What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re in charge. On a probational basis,” he stressed. “You’ve been ahead of me on this from the beginning. Just keep going. Find the caddie. And focus on Calvin. Find out everything about his medical condition. Marfan syndrome, I think it’s called?”

  “Wait, whoa, hold on. You want me to do this by myself?”

  “Not by yourself. I’m here for whatever you need. But I have some stuff I need to attend to.”

  “Stuff like what?” Virginia asked incredulously.

  “It’s . . . a personal thing.”

  Virginia balked at him. Personal? She felt the familiar itch to wrangle the goods from him immediately. In the past, moments like these had been her reason for living. She loved getting juicy stuff out of people. She’d even created an entire website devoted to reporting and discussing Winship goings-on. But at a certain point she’d gotten tired of everyone’s business, and tired of herself for being obsessed with it. She’d looked at her life and realized she’d inadvertently developed a reputation as a brainless gossip-mongerer. That’s not who she was anymore. Except actually maybe it was. Because right now she wanted to know what Benny’s “personal thing” was so badly she thought she might implode.

  Benny was rambling on, “Try to get a copy of Calvin’s science expo presentation. You’ll need to study it. But be careful! If he senses that you’re onto him, there could be another ‘crazy accident.’ Are you paying attention? Do you need to write this down?”

  “You seriously think Calvin planted that banana,” Virginia said.

  “I think it’s a strong possibility. He’s already demonstrated an ambiguous sense of ethics. He didn’t hesitate to lead you to the evidence on Trevor’s phone despite being legally bound to secrecy. He’s playing a game.”

  “No he’s not. He just wanted to help me because—because he likes me.” She hadn’t really intended to tell Benny that part. But he was annoying her, so it served him right. She watched his reaction. He froze for a second, barely perceptively. Then he said, “Well—well, good. Keep him liking you. It’ll make it easier to investigate him. In fact”—his voice cracked slightly—“if he really likes you, maybe he’ll violate his nondisclosure. Just get him to tell you what happened that night with Craig.”

  “Shouldn’t we figure it out ourselves?” Virginia said.

  “This is figuring it out ourselves. We use what we can use. Calvin likes you? Use it.”

  Virginia shook her head. “I don’t want to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not running to Calvin just because we hit a snag. He’ll think I’m an idiot.”

  Benny shifted uncomfortably. “Okay, well, the goal is to solve the mystery, not to impress Calvin Harker. . . .”

  Neither of them looked at each other. The silence between them stretched out awkwardly. Laughter echoed from a distant corner of the club.

  “Are you going to the fundraiser tonight?” Virginia finally asked, changing the subject.

  “What fundraiser?”

  “The one at Trevor’s house. It’s a silent auction, and all the money goes to help DeAndre with his medical bills. Everyone’s gonna be there.”

  As usual, it seemed Benny was the last to know. He never understood how Virginia magically absorbed this information about where “everyone” was going to be on a given Saturday night.

  “Craig Beaver might be there,” she was saying, “since it’s not on school grounds.”

  “Do you think Chrissie will be there?”

  Virginia snorted.

  “I just need to know for my thing,” he said defensively.

  “Uh-huh . . .” Virginia narrowed her eyes at him. Why wouldn’t he tell her what his thing was? Was he trying to lose his virginity or something? Chrissie was kind of famous for being a huge slut. Maybe Benny had seen her boobs on Trevor’s phone and decided it was time to become a man. Maybe he’d programmed his Google alert for sex tips.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Virginia couldn’t stop laughing. “Oh, Benny!” she said, sighing. Then she casually reached out her hand. “Give me your phone and I’ll call Chrissie and ask if she’s coming tonight.”

  Benny hesitated. He hated other people touching his phone. “Just give me the number,” he said. Virginia gave him a second to realize it was a terrible idea to call Chrissie White out of nowhere like a fifth grader with a crush. Sure enough, after a moment he passed her the phone.

  Virginia knew she had approximately two seconds to do what she needed to do without Benny getting suspicious. And two seconds was already pushing it since she wasn’t 100 percent adept with phones. She quickly located his “alerts” app and pressed. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. This was so not the new and improved Virginia. But whatever, she was doing it. It was driving her insane that Benny wouldn’t tell her what his “thing” was. She was vice president of Mystery Club! She was entitled to know! At least that was what she told herself as she quickly scanned the alerts while pretending to dial the number for Chrissie’s room.

  “It’s ringing,” she lied. Her heart pounded. The alerts all seemed to be news items involving the governor and some e-mail scandal. Yawn! It definitely wasn’t worth breaking a six-month streak of minding her own business if the goods were going to be this boring. But what did she expect, really? It was Benny.

  Virginia closed the app and handed the phone back to Benny. “She didn’t pick up.” She made a point of maintaining eye contact with him as he slid the phone back into his pocket. Benny had told her once that people avoided eye contact when they were lying or being devious.

  Why was a bunch of political news such a big secret? Virginia felt offended that he didn’t think she deserved to know. Though probably not as offended as Benny would be if he ever found out she’d just deliberately invaded his privacy. The idea made her stomach twist with anxiety.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, she thought. Oh well, whatever. There was no point feeling guilty unless she got caught. And she’d been smooth; Benny was gazing at the golf course, being his normal, deep-in-thought self. Virginia still couldn’t decide if the gambit had been worth it, though. The alerts weren’t about sex or Chrissie or anything remotely juicy. Maybe she’d missed something? She wished she could have his phone back. That was the thing about snooping on people—once you started, it was hard to stop.

  “You’ll be there tonight? At Trevor’s?” Benny asked her.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there. I’ll get a ride with someone. You gonna wear that outfit?”

  “If you give me five hundred dollars.”

  Virginia looked at him. Was he serious? Benny was always serious. But there was the tiniest little grin on his face. He was joking. It was such a shock that Virginia almost didn’t know how to respond.

  “Well, okay!” she said finally. She felt a rush, calling his bluff. “You�
�re on.”

  Benny scoffed.

  “I’m serious! I’ll give you five hundred dollars if you wear that tonight. Including the contacts.”

  Benny narrowed his eyes. “You don’t have five hundred dollars.”

  “You have no idea what I have.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Virginia was so impressed with herself she wanted to scream. It was probably the sexiest thing she’d ever said in her life. She wanted this weird conversation to go on forever.

  Benny’s phone buzzed and he fished it out of his pocket. He read the screen. “We have to go meet my mom in ten minutes.”

  Wow. No sentence in the English language felt more like a bucket of ice water than “We have to go meet my mom in ten minutes.” Before leaving the sunny patio, Virginia took a moment to cement the image in her memory—Benny smiling—in case it never happened again.

  The Harkers’ house, 5:30 p.m.

  All he wanted to do was to look at something beautiful. But he was trapped in a locked, windowless room with only a calculus textbook, a laptop with no Internet, and a copy of Moby Dick.

  It wouldn’t be so bad if he could escape using his imagination—close his eyes and ascend to some fantasy world like Narnia or the Land of Oz. But Calvin didn’t have the greatest imagination. It was something he’d been forced to accept about himself. He envied artists and their power to summon fantastic, alien landscapes to their mind’s eye. Calvin had a hard time seeing things that he hadn’t actually seen. How did they do it? If only he knew their secret.

  Calvin had been grounded before, but not to this extreme. At first it had been a normal grounding: no leaving the house, in bed by ten thirty. But when his dad had realized he was just getting stoned and gazing out the window instead of doing homework, he’d locked him in the basement with only his computer and his textbooks. Calvin had happily watched Enya music videos on YouTube for a while—all waterfalls and falling leaves and otherworldly harmonies—until his dad had cut the Internet connection, leaving him with nothing.