Strange Lies Read online

  “Please let me visit him! We’re”—Virginia lowered her voice confidentially—“in love. We were supposed to go to the Homecoming dance this Friday. But now that’s down the drain. . . .” She tried to look thwarted and romantic.

  The nurse pursed her berry-colored lips, deciding. Then she motioned for Virginia to follow her.

  DeAndre’s room was on a different floor. It looked like the inside of a Hallmark store: poster-size “Get Well Soon” cards, flower arrangements shaped like footballs—all the crap that had been noticeably absent in Virginia’s room. DeAndre was lying in a bed hooked up to a variety of quietly beeping machines. Virginia paused in the doorway, suddenly regretting wanting to see him. It was too weird, witnessing this person who once burst with dynamism and sparkle, now weakly clinging to life.

  “You have a special visitor, DeAndre!” the nurse chirped.

  “Virginia?” his voice croaked. Virginia could barely see his face over the piles of gifts.

  “Yeah. Hi . . .”

  The nurse leaned close to her and whispered, “Do you know what soul mates are?”

  Virginia shrugged. “No?”

  The nurse nodded at her black cast, then at DeAndre on the bed. “It’s when life decides that two people belong together. And you don’t really have a choice in the matter.”

  She winked at Virginia, and Virginia winked back, even though the idea was actually kind of disturbing. What if life “decided” you belonged with a murderer or a saxophone player or something?

  The nurse left. Virginia waded between the bouquets of flowers and sat down on a metal chair by the window. DeAndre looked awful. His brown skin was ashen. There were black circles under his eyes. Virginia realized she’d never seen his face without his signature dazzling grin. Without it, he looked like a completely different person—tired and average. Virginia knew she probably looked just as bad. She was sitting under the same unflattering lights, wearing the same shapeless cotton hospital gown. She didn’t know what had happened to her gold skirt. Was it lying in a trash bag somewhere, covered in her own blood? The thought made her want to cry. First the sweater and now the skirt. Both ruined.

  “It’s so awesome to see you!” DeAndre’s voice was weak and unconvincing.

  Virginia rolled her eyes. Wow. He never let up on the Mr. Congeniality act, did he? Not even when he was lying on his back with half the life stabbed out of him by a pair of deer antlers.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Virginia lifted her broken arm. “The nurse thinks destiny brought us together.”

  “Am I dreaming right now? I’m on a looooot of drugs.”

  Virginia looked around the room. How did Benny do it? How did he zero in on clues without even knowing what he was looking for?

  She reached behind her head and grabbed a humongous “Get Well” card. She set it on her lap and scanned all the inane messages (“We miss you Big D!”; “Get well soon pretty please with a cherry on top!”). She saw Calvin Harker’s name. It made her self-conscious, as if Calvin could psychically tell that she was thinking about him. His message was short and written in neat handwriting:

  I’m sorry the universe demanded this sacrifice of you.

  “DeAndre?” A different nurse appeared in the doorway. “I’ve got some more visitors for you. A Mr. Cheek and son.” He noticed Virginia. “Miss? I think you better get back to your floor.”

  Virginia felt cold fingers on her hand. DeAndre had snapped out of his daze, eyes now wide. He whispered something barely audible. Virginia leaned toward him, glancing at the nurse in the doorway who was watching them.

  “What did you say?”

  “Don’t leave.”

  “Miss?” the nurse said loudly.

  “Just a minute!” She turned back to DeAndre and whispered, “Why not? DeAndre, why not?”

  A booming voice was coming down the hall: “Hail to the chief!”

  DeAndre gripped her hand. “Don’t leave me alone with them.”

  Benny’s house, 9:15 a.m.

  Control your dog, son.

  Benny was dreaming. He believed in the importance of dreams—the time when the conscious brain was no longer in charge of the flow of thoughts, allowing the mind to explore new realms and ideas. But sometimes the mind went to dark, forbidden places, and then you were helpless to escape until you woke up.

  BANG!

  Tank had always been a good dog. He was a six-year-old German shepherd mix, completely devoted to Benny’s father. But after the plane crash Tank began acting strangely. He growled at Mr. Flax all the time, as if he no longer recognized his owner. His behavior put extra stress on the family. It was hard enough to keep believing that Mr. Flax was the same man he’d been before and not a stranger, and Tank’s irrational aggression didn’t help. But at the same time, Benny felt oddly jealous of Tank. At least the dog got to express its natural confusion, while Benny had to hold all of his feelings inside.

  I hear you, Benny would say to Tank, scratching his ears and feeling like Tank was the only one in the world who heard him too. But soon even that small solace was taken away.

  In the initial months after the accident, the Flaxes would often pile into a wheelchair-accessible van and go on family walks around the park. One Saturday evening there were cops everywhere because of a mugging in the area. Tank was more agitated than usual—nipping at Mr. Flax’s ankles in addition to his incessant growling. Mr. Flax seemed to barely notice. Wherever he was in his brain, it seemed very far away.

  One of the officers approached them. “Control your dog, son,” he said to Benny. Benny would never forget the man’s face. His icy blue eyes and stony gaze. The face of a man with zero doubts concerning his own authority. The great, manly protector who never questioned what exactly he was protecting. Benny already unconsciously associated policemen with Nazis; maybe that association was unfair, but what happened next certainly didn’t correct it.

  “He’s just confused,” Benny said to the officer. He knew it looked weird, Tank acting so aggressive. But Tank wasn’t a bad dog, he just needed time to adjust to the new family dynamic. It was good that the police wanted to protect his dad, but they didn’t know the whole story.

  “Get your dog away from the elderly gentleman,” the officer said, indicating Mr. Flax. He didn’t seem to realize that Benny and his dog were part of the family.

  “It’s our dog,” Mrs. Flax tried to explain, but the officer wasn’t listening. Then Tank snarled and made a small feint at the officer’s feet. And before Benny even knew what was happening, there was a loud shot, and Tank was dead on the ground.

  Benny was so stunned he couldn’t speak. But in his mind he was screaming: Why did you do that? Why did you do that? Why did you do that?

  Benny had no memory of what happened next. He didn’t remember if his mother had cried, or how they’d dealt with Tank’s body. Only much later did it occur to Benny to file a charge against the officer for abuse of power. But when he tried, he found there was no legal recourse to do so. The entire system was rigged to allow police officers to run amok.

  So that was life. Benny had always been a sheltered kid, but that shelter contained huge gaping holes now. The people you loved could have an accident and be damaged beyond recognition. The people who were supposed to protect you could turn on you. If only that cop had paused to wonder if there was a reason Tank was acting that way. . . . Maybe the cop had a reason too. Maybe a German shepherd had eaten his mother. Which caused him to distrust dogs, which caused Benny to distrust cops—a poisoned gift that kept on giving.

  Control your dog, son.

  BANG!

  Benny woke up on the lumpy living room sofa. For a second he wondered what he was doing there. He felt covered in a residue of dread—Benny always woke up miserable whenever Tank showed up in his dreams. But this wasn’t a normal dread. It felt more urgent somehow. And then it all came flooding back: Trevor’s party. Virginia in her bra, kissing him. Jumping out the window. An in
credibly drunk Chrissie White weeping in his arms about her father’s “special plane.”

  No no no no no no.

  He sat up and pushed the quilt off him. He was still wearing his clothes from last night. His glasses were on the coffee table; he grabbed them and shoved them on his face. The room came into focus. Everyone was doing their Sunday morning routine as if nothing were out of the ordinary: his grandma making pancakes and chicken sausage in the kitchen; his mother reading the paper; Rodrigo with Mr. Flax in the dining room, helping him read a book about clouds written for six-year-olds.

  “Clouds . . . are too . . . high . . . to touch.”

  As soon as Benny’s mother and grandmother realized he was awake, they both started talking:

  “Benjamin, I want to make it clear that this is never, ever—”

  “Does your girlfriend eat carbs, honey?”

  Benny cut them off, “No one talk to me except Rodrigo.”

  He knew he was being rude, but there was no way he could deal with the women of his household right now. His grandmother was obviously hearing wedding bells, while his mother looked like she would probably set fire to Benny’s bed after this. He wasn’t sure which was more terrifying.

  “What do you need, Ben?” Rodrigo said, looking up from the cloud book.

  “Helloooo?” a small voice called from the hallway. Chrissie White tiptoed out of Benny’s room, looking completely bewildered. Her dress was the tiniest bit of fabric ever devised to cover a girl in the necessary places. Her face was streaked with makeup, and her long, sand-colored hair hung in tangled bunches. She’d slept in his bed. A girl had slept in his bed. A girl with the tiniest dress in the world had slept in his bed and was now on display before his entire family.

  Everyone stared at her. After a long, painful moment, his grandmother broke the silence: “Good morning, honey! Come have breakfast with us!”

  Benny glanced at his dad to see how he was reacting to the girlish presence in the house. But Mr. Flax just looked at Chrissie the same way he looked at everyone: like a random stranger.

  “Ummm . . .” Chrissie didn’t seem to know who to look at.

  Don’t look at my dad, don’t look at my dad.

  “I’m afraid Chrissie needs to get back to her dorm. Rodrigo can drive us.” Benny shot Rodrigo a pleading look.

  “Rodrigo is not your chauffeur,” Mrs. Flax said icily. “Rodrigo is a medical professional.”

  “I don’t mind at all, Mrs. Flax,” Rodrigo said, getting up from the table.

  Benny’s grandmother thrust an overflowing plate of pancakes into Chrissie’s hands. “You can eat this in the car, honey.”

  “Um, thank you.”

  “It was nice to meet you, Crystal,” Mrs. Flax said flatly. Benny glared at her. Crystal. It was her way of calling Chrissie trashy.

  But Chrissie didn’t seem to notice that she’d been insulted to her face. She just smiled and said in a tiny voice, “Nice to meet you, too!”

  Rodrigo’s car smelled like cigarettes. Was Rodrigo a smoker? For some reason it made Benny see him differently. Chrissie sat in the front seat looking tense, like she was trying to make her body as small as possible. The plate of pancakes sat untouched on her lap, a huge pat of butter melting into the syrup.

  “You should really eat that,” Rodrigo said to her. “Benny’s gran makes ’em the best.”

  Chrissie picked up her fork and took a dainty bite. She chewed and swallowed.

  “Mmm, good!” She turned to smile at Benny. Benny smiled back weakly. She had better manners than Virginia, who would have wolfed down the whole plate and talked with her mouth full the entire time.

  As they pulled up to the Boarders, the house looked empty and abandoned as usual. Benny prayed to God that someone would open the door this time. When they’d come last night, it had been locked, and Chrissie couldn’t find her keys. She’d been completely wasted, and as much as Benny wanted to—he’d really wanted to—he couldn’t just leave her on the porch like a heap of garbage. So he’d told his mom they had to bring her home.

  He hadn’t thought it was possible for his mother to be less hospitable toward a girl than she was toward Virginia Leeds. But he’d been wrong. It made him want to throttle her. So what if Chrissie wasn’t Jewish. So what if she dressed like a hooker. Deal with it! he wanted to scream. After what Chrissie had drunkenly told him last night about her father’s “special plane,” she was literally the last person on the entire planet that Benny wanted in his home. Near his family. Near his father. But he’d dealt with it and gotten her to a safe place, because that’s what decent human beings did.

  Don’t think about the plane, he told himself. He could think about it later.

  “I’ll just be five minutes,” Benny told Rodrigo. He shut the car door and walked Chrissie to the porch. But before he could knock, Chrissie touched his hand lightly.

  “Thank you for taking me home. No one’s ever done that for me before.” Her voice was small and kittenish, like she was trying to imitate Marilyn Monroe.

  One second later, there were lips on his lips. She was kissing him. After fifteen years of nothing, Benny had now been kissed twice in the last twelve hours. Chrissie’s lips were incredibly soft. She tasted like maple syrup, with a hint of vomit underneath. Benny recoiled reflexively.

  Chrissie stepped back, smiling at him in a fake, coquettish way. Her makeup-smeared face was confusing; she looked like a little girl and an exhausted, forty-five-year-old woman at the same time.

  “You’re welcome,” Benny said tersely, looking away from her eyes. He knocked on the door. After a long moment, Gottfried the German exchange student appeared.

  “Guten Tag, Benny Flax,” he said. He was holding a bowl full of Lucky Charms that appeared to be topped with Cheez Whiz.

  “See you later, Benny,” Chrissie purred. She winked at him and then sashayed inside the house.

  “You will have de breakfas wid me?” Gottfried offered, holding up his bowl of vile mixture to Benny.

  “No thank you. . . . Do you know if Virginia’s awake?”

  “Veerginia? She is not here.”

  “Oh.” Benny looked at his watch. It was 9:45 a.m. Where else would she be this early on a Sunday?

  “She never come back las night.”

  “What?”

  Gottfried grinned. “Crazy party.”

  “No no no,” Benny said. “Not ‘crazy party.’ Jesus Christ. Where is she? Has anyone . . . looked? Has anyone called Mrs. Morehouse?”

  Gottfried just scoffed and went back inside. Benny understood that the Boarders didn’t rat each other out; but they didn’t take care of each other either. Everyone was on their own in that desolate, half-empty house, for better or worse. Mostly for worse, it seemed to Benny.

  He went back to the car. He sat down in the front seat but didn’t buckle his seat belt or close the door.

  “You okay?” Rodrigo asked. He had lit a cigarette and was holding it out the open window.

  Benny didn’t answer. Where the hell was Virginia? Was she still at Trevor’s house? She was probably lying in a heap somewhere, just like Chrissie would have been if Benny hadn’t grabbed her. The thought made him feel physically ill. Why had he left her alone? Why had he jumped out the window like a crazy freak the second things got a tiny bit weird?

  “So . . . the party went well?” Rodrigo asked, taking a puff of his cigarette. “I assume you’re five hundred dollars richer this fine morning?”

  “That was a different girl,” Benny said with a sigh.

  “Oh.”

  “Scooby. Hey, Scooby!”

  Benny looked back toward the house. A curly-haired girl was leaning out the common room window. She was wearing satin pajamas and eating a blue Pop-Tart.

  “Are you looking for Virginia? She’s in the hospital. Piedmont Hospital, probably.” The girl said it casually, then took a huge bite of her Pop-Tart and closed the window.

  Benny knew he was tired. He knew he was stressed.
But his reaction still took him by surprise. A giant lump formed in his throat. His shoulders were shaking.

  Do not cry. Do not cry, he commanded himself. Why was he always such a pathetic baby?

  “We’ll find her right now,” Rodrigo said, turning on the ignition.

  Benny nodded. It was a relief not to have to ask. One tear escaped his eye. He wiped it away.

  “I hate this place,” he said, sniffing. He wasn’t exactly sure what place he meant—the Boarders, the entire school, the entire world.

  Get me out of here.

  Piedmont Hospital, 10:00 a.m.

  “It’s the fourth down. Fifteen seconds left. It’s a perfect snap—the pigskin is in your hands. But all your receivers are tied up! Looks like life handed you a shit sandwich, son. So what do you do? You eat it! Break free and get your ass to the end zone! Break free and . . . eat shit!”

  There was definitely something strange going on between DeAndre and the Cheeks. DeAndre was obviously scared—his skin was cold and clammy and he was digging his fingernails into Virginia’s hand. But weirdly, Mr. Cheek seemed just as scared of DeAndre. He was talking nonstop, stringing together incomprehensible football metaphors about overcoming adversity. He seemed unable to look at DeAndre for more than two seconds. His eyes bounced all over the room like a pair of racquetballs. Next to him, Trevor stood sullenly, staring at the floor. He looked like he was dying to get out of there. Virginia imagined he would have bolted already if his father weren’t there holding him in place by the shoulder.

  “You made it this far, son. You made it from Lakewood Heights to Winship Academy. Don’t drop the ball now. . . .”

  Seriously? Virginia thought. Had DeAndre really “dropped the ball” by getting stabbed in the chest by a deer?

  “Well, we had a pretty rip-roarin’ get-together last night, buddy,” Mr. Cheeks plowed on, his voice way too loud. “It was a real humdinger, wasn’t it, Trev?”

  “Uh-huh,” Trevor answered.

  Beep. Beep. Beep. It was one of the machines hooked up to DeAndre.

  “The girls got together, and they raised a sweet lil packet for ya.” Mr. Cheek fumbled in his jacket pocket for an envelope. He extended it toward DeAndre. DeAndre just stared at him stonily.