Strange Lies Read online

  Great, Virginia thought. She felt a flood of disappointment, but it quickly dissolved. What had she expected? It was Benny.

  The parlor bathroom, 9:30 p.m.

  Yasmin was hiding from the party and reading Wikipedia articles on her phone. The seat on the toilet was covered in a pink satin cushion, like it was a prissy throne instead of a big shit bowl. It was one of those bathrooms where nothing was functional. Lacy linens hung from the towel rack, which you obviously weren’t supposed to touch or they would get wrinkled. The gold soap dish was full of shell-shaped soaps that you obviously weren’t supposed to touch either or they would lose their delicate shape. Yasmin felt claustrophobic and oppressed. She wanted to go home. She’d already texted her dad and asked him to come pick her up.

  The only reason she’d come to this ludicrous fundraiser at all was because it would look too suspicious if she didn’t. She was being more or less investigated for attempted murder by that smarmy, butt-chinned detective, plus she was the de facto student body president now, which meant she had to show her face at school-related events. But she didn’t feel like a president. She felt like an ugly nanny who’d been banished while the kids had fun.

  If Yasmin were honest, the truth was that she’d banished herself. No one at the party had made fun of her or made her feel particularly unwelcome. In fact, everyone had cheered her name as she arrived. But she hadn’t let any of the guys near her with that Polaroid camera, and as soon as the girls were herded upstairs, she’d shut herself in the bathroom. The entire scene was sexist and degrading. As if she’d ever let some slobbering guy fish tequila out of her navel with his tongue.

  All of a sudden the bathroom door swung open. Brittany Montague sprang inside like a blond bouncy ball.

  “Oh, sorry!” she said, realizing Yasmin was there. “Do you mind if I pee?”

  Yasmin stood up. “Sure, sorry—”

  Before Yasmin had time to even get out the door, Brittany had plopped down on the toilet and was peeing away. Then she started talking.

  “Hey, you’re super smart,” she said. “Can I ask you a question?”

  Yasmin stopped. She wasn’t sure where to look. The floor? The ceiling? Was she supposed to make eye contact? She’d never had a conversation with someone while they were peeing before. It seemed like something only close friends or siblings did, of which Yasmin had neither.

  “Um, okay,” she said.

  “I’m just sort of confused. Do guys like it better if you wait for marriage to have sex or if you go all the way? It’s confusing because it seems like they want both. It’s like, they really want you to have sex with them, but if you do, they’ll blame you for being dirty and not love you anymore. But if you don’t have sex with them, they won’t love you either! So what do you do?”

  “I’m not that variety of smart,” Yasmin said. “I don’t know anything about boys.”

  “Oh, really?” Brittany seemed sincerely surprised. “But you’re so pretty.”

  Yasmin gawked at her. Was Brittany making fun of her? That didn’t seem likely. The Montague twins were famously nice, and of the two of them, Brittany was the even nicer one. People didn’t see them as individuals, but it was obvious to Yasmin that they were different. Brittany was a little dumber, but also more genuine and incapable of lying. Brittany Montague thinks I’m pretty? And on top of that, Brittany thought that being pretty meant you had all the answers about boys? If that were true, Brittany could just look in the mirror and ask herself.

  “I’m not pretty,” Yasmin said, dumbfounded.

  Brittany laughed like Yasmin was crazy. “Yes you are! And you’re so lucky to be exotic.”

  “You can’t call people exotic,” Yasmin said. “It’s racist.”

  Brittany frowned. “Oh. I’m sorry! You’re just so interesting-looking. And your hair is so shiny.”

  Brittany took a strand of Yasmin’s black hair between her fingers. Then, with no warning, she buried her whole face in Yasmin’s neck.

  “Mmmmm! And you smell so good! Like spices!”

  Yasmin froze. Her entire being felt jolted, like the high-voltage electric arc from the science expo was moving through her body. Brittany was inhaling deeply and sort of hugging her. Obviously she was drunk; that was her excuse. But what was Yasmin’s?

  Then Yasmin’s phone buzzed, and Brittany jumped away. “Make room for Jesus!” she chirped, and then laughed at her own random joke.

  “My dad’s here . . . ,” Yasmin said, now wishing she hadn’t texted him. The bathroom didn’t feel stuffy and suffocating anymore. Brittany made all those stupid little soaps and towels seem suddenly cute and pretty.

  What is happening to my brain? Yasmin thought.

  “Oh, that’s too bad. We could have hung out. I’m so scared of all those boys. Don’t tell anyone I said that, okay?”

  “I won’t,” Yasmin swore. Who did she even have to tell?

  “See you Monday!” Brittany said, giving Yasmin a little boop on the nose. Yasmin was so baffled she barely managed to say “See ya” back to her. Brittany bounced away, and Yasmin wondered if she should text her dad to come back in an hour. But that would be too weird. Besides, she needed to do her extra-credit lab for AP Physics and finish reading volume six of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

  She walked through the parlor on her way to leave. She scanned the room for Brittany and saw her talking to her sister and some other girls. She tried to make eye contact, but the girls were giggling about something and Brittany didn’t see her.

  Why do I care? she thought. A feeling had come on very suddenly, and Yasmin didn’t know what to make of it. She’d thought she was immune to wanting popular girls to like her. But it wasn’t about being popular. It was something else. Something weird.

  Whatever, she thought. She slipped downstairs past the rowdy boys in the dining room—to whom she was invisible—and out the front door. To her dad’s Lexus, to her books, to her life, a world that suddenly seemed much smaller but which at least made sense.

  The master bathroom, 9:40 p.m.

  Winn knew he was being pathetic. He was sitting in the bathtub drinking an entire bottle of Woodford Reserve, hiding from Corny. He’d thought getting drunk might make it better, but actually it was making it worse.

  What have I done?

  “Sugarplum?” Corny’s little voice called from the other side of the door. Ever since they’d fucked on the football field Thursday night, she’d been calling him that. It was what he’d called her when he’d realized he was in love with her. But once the drug had worn off, he’d felt differently. It was weird. He could replay everything in his mind—Corny’s warmth, her extraordinary hotness, her lovingness, her perfection, how he’d wanted to worship her forever. But while he could remember the feelings, he couldn’t quite . . . feel them. They’d left his system the same time the drug did. He was back to his old self. He wished Scooby-Doo would find out who that creepy drug dealer at the science expo was, so he could get some more of whatever he’d given him.

  Corny tapped on the door. It was unlocked, but she would never barge in on him. She always tried to obey Winn’s desires, a quality he appreciated and found irritating at the same time.

  “Come in,” Winn said weakly.

  The door squeaked open and Corny came inside. When she saw Winn in the tub, she squealed, “Oh my god! Let’s take a bath!” and immediately began shedding her clothes. That was another weird thing—ever since the football field, Corny had turned into a sex maniac. All she seemed to want to do was give Winn blow jobs and tell him how much she loved him. She was so cute and sweet and gave pretty much the best head known to man. Surely he loved her. He’d be a crazy idiot not to love her. And yet . . .

  She was taking off his clothes. Winn let her. He’d been trying to come up with a way to tell her that there was no way they could actually have a baby, that the idea had been an insane and drug-induced fantasy. He knew it was going to crush her. Corny had been talking nonstop about how
excited she was to get pregnant and have his child. She’d even named it already—Winn Roofus Jughead or something.

  They were completely naked now, and Corny was filling up the tub with steaming hot water. She looked so cute when she was naked, with her huge breasts popping out of her little girlish body.

  “Are you ready to be the happiest man in the world?” Corny was asking in a dramatic, hushed tone. She leaned over the side of the tub and pulled a small white stick out of her purse. Winn knew instantly what it was. His stomach sank.

  Fuck. It’s too late.

  The whole world kind of stopped for a moment. Winn felt dizzy. He wasn’t sure if it was from drinking, or from realizing that his life was over. Maybe he could hide in the forest for ten years, and Corny would forget about him. But when he looked at her bright, adoring face, Winn knew she never would. She’d search for him forever, accompanied by cartoon birds like a Disney princess.

  He just needed to stay calm till Scooby-Doo found the drug dealer. Then he could feel those feelings again—feel love again—and everything would be fine. He took a swig of bourbon and tried to relax so he could get an erection. Corny deserved more than his pathetic half-boner. He sank into the warm water, wondering what it would feel like to have no thoughts. Probably nice, like being a dog or the ocean. Corny was kissing him.

  I love her, he thought, commanding it to be true.

  The study, 9:45 p.m.

  “Do you have the password?” the voice repeated. Someone was sitting in a high-backed, thronelike chair that had been turned to face the wall. In the darkness, Benny couldn’t discern any hint of who it was.

  “No.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not the password.”

  Between the hysteria of DeAndre’s impalement and the mysterious nocturnal activities of the golf team, Benny had sort of forgotten about the drug dealer with the password. Not forgotten, but given it a low priority. Now here it was, right in front of him. Feet away. All Benny had to do was get up and walk across the room, and he’d know who he was. But for some reason he was frozen. Whoever it was, it was like he possessed a force field that prevented anyone from coming near him.

  “I’ll give you one hint,” the voice whispered, and the whisper was somehow far more creepy than the growl. And Benny wasn’t so sure it was a guy anymore. “The hint is: Who are you?”

  Who are you. “I am someone . . . who wants to know who you are.”

  There was a long, silent moment. “That’s not the password. The password is . . .”

  Benny tensed. Was it going to be this easy?

  “BENNYFLAX!”

  A yellow head popped up and the entire chair tipped over. A girl spilled out onto the floor, cackling with laughter. Benny sighed. It was Virginia.

  “Oh my god, your face!”

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Virginia rolled onto her back on the Oriental rug. “Nothing. I was upstairs and I saw you looking in different rooms, and I thought I could beat you here.” She started cracking up again. The stiff fabric of her gold skirt had flopped up, revealing the entirety of her legs. Benny tried to focus on her face, but that felt weird too.

  “Are you smoking?” He nodded at the cigarette in the ashtray.

  “No, not me. Someone left it in here.”

  “Someone who?”

  Virginia shrugged. “I don’t know, someone. Everyone smokes at parties. Not every single thing is a mystery, Benny. . . .”

  Virginia had propped herself up on her elbows and was looking at him. Benny’s cheeks heated up, knowing she was assessing him. Had she wanted him to wear the outfit? He’d been certain he’d be able to tell when he saw her face, but now he couldn’t. Her expression was totally blank and unreadable. Maybe she’d forgotten about it already. Virginia’s mind was kind of unpredictable, Benny had learned. He sat there self-consciously, pretending to be interested in the deer heads on the wall, until Virginia said, “I have a present for you.”

  She pulled something out of her bag. It was Trevor’s phone. She extended her arm, not getting up from the floor. “Look in the deleted pics file. I found it.”

  “Found what?”

  “You’ll know when you see it.”

  Benny swiped the phone open and hurriedly scrolled through the deleted files in the camera app. He didn’t like Virginia knowing something he didn’t. He wanted to catch up with her as quickly as possible.

  What he saw made a chill run down his neck. It was a photo of the golf course. It was grainy and dark. About eight boys were piled into a golf cart, hanging out the sides. A man was lying facedown in the grass, tied to the cart. They were dragging him across the green. It was the caddie.

  Benny’s mouth fell open. “Jesus . . .”

  There had been . . . incidents at Winship before. A weird strain of identity confusion existed among the richest boys at their school, who seemed to compensate for the froufrou-ness of their wealth by pretending to be hicks. This resulted in such redneck affectations as eating sunflower seeds, an obsession with hunting and NASCAR, off-roading their pricey Jeep Wranglers, and displays of Dixie pride that verged uncomfortably into white supremacy territory. Graffiti of Confederate flags was rampant on desks and textbooks; Trevor had famously stuck a stem of cotton into a black freshman’s backpack once. These incidents went largely ignored by an administration unwilling (or unable) to exert authority over the spoiled sons of the Board of Trustees—Trevor, Craig, Connor Tate, Big Gabe, even Winn Davis to a certain extent. . . . It was a character they played: the good ol’ boy, the hayseed in the mansion.

  But this wasn’t a cotton stem or a doodle of a flag. This was . . . heinous. This was a grown black man being dragged by drunk teenagers across a golf course. Benny felt stunned. Meanwhile, Virginia was on the floor grinning at him like an excited kid.

  “Isn’t it, like, the jackpot of clues?”

  The jackpot. Yes, it was a “jackpot” of a find. But first and foremost, it was terrifying. It felt like a mile stretched between him and Virginia, all of a sudden. Their lives were not the same. Yellow-haired Virginia could see a photo like that without wondering if next time it would be her being dragged behind a golf cart. It did something to your psyche, going through life knowing your people were hated—something untranslatable to anyone who hadn’t experienced it.

  Benny zoomed in the photo, hoping to get a better look at the caddie. Was he dead? It was impossible to tell. The man’s pants were smeared with dark stains. The boys in the golf cart were more visible: Trevor Cheek was one, plus a senior whose name Benny didn’t know, and two guys whose faces were blurry. Maybe one of them was Craig? They looked bigger than him, though.

  “Calvin isn’t one of them,” Virginia said, as if Benny had asked.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure. He must have left or something.”

  Benny squinted at the photo. “I don’t think Craig is in this photo either,” he said.

  “He’s probably taking the picture.”

  “I don’t understand why Craig is getting the brunt of the punishment. No one could prove he was the photographer, and he’s not in the photo. . . . He’s not in any of the photos. I’m starting to doubt that Craig was even there that night.”

  “Really?” Virginia sat up.

  “He’s not in a single picture. . . . Maybe they beat up the caddie and Craig paid him off? Or maybe . . .” Benny trailed off. He couldn’t think of anything else. And how was this connected to DeAndre? Normally it wasn’t Benny’s modus operandi to force a narrative, but this was getting frustrating. The two scenarios contained so many parallels: both involved a black male, and an assault relating to Southern recreational activities (DeAndre: hunting; the caddie: golf). Both involved Trevor. Both occurred in darkness. They had to be connected.

  On the floor, Virginia was lying on her back with her limbs stretched out like a starfish. She was starting to get bored of this party. She hadn’t predicted how disappointing the return of normal Be
nny would feel. It was like having the possibility that their relationship could actually be exciting dangled in front of her like a cat toy, then yanked away. Maybe she’d imagined the twinkle in his eye. She certainly couldn’t see it anymore.

  “Do you know what a red pill is?” she asked Benny.

  “A red pill? What do you mean?”

  “It’s something I heard Trevor say to Craig. It was like, ‘If you don’t leave me alone, I’m gonna take a red pill and kill you.’ ”

  Benny chewed his thumbnail, which he always did when he was thinking. “Well, my mind immediately goes to The Matrix.”

  “Oh, I haven’t seen that.”

  “You haven’t? It’s really good. I named my dog after one of the characters. . . .”

  His voice trailed off, but Virginia’s ears had already pricked up at the mention of Benny’s mystery dog. She made a mental note to definitely see The Matrix. It was the first time Benny had ever recommended something that wasn’t, like, a newspaper or the writings of an obscure Zen master.

  “Anyway, in The Matrix, you get a choice between a red pill and a blue pill,” Benny explained. “And the red pill allows you to transcend the simulation and understand true reality. It doesn’t really have anything to do with murder, though.”

  “Maybe Trevor’s true reality is that he’s a violent animal who likes to kill people.”

  Suddenly the door slammed open with a bang.

  “VIRGINIA!” high-pitched voices shouted. The sound of cheering spilled in from the other room. Big Gabe and another football player appeared in the doorway, and a pair of girls rushed into the room with no shirts on. It was the Montague twins, wearing identical pink bras and their hair in identical pink pigtails with ribbons. They looked like little girls that some pervert had Photoshopped pairs of perfect jiggling breasts onto.

  “Omigod!” Virginia yelled, startled.

  The twins ran at her, screaming. For a second Virginia thought they were attacking her. They were attacking her. But they were shrieking with laughter. Before she knew what was happening, the twins had grabbed her shirt and were yanking it over her head.