Love & Lies: Marisol's Story (23 page)

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by M. T. Anderson was a book I’d picked up by chance at a used-book store, and as soon as I opened it, I remembered that I’d actually bought it because the first line was so great. “We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.” I laughed out loud in the bookstore and immediately read on. I had to know who this smartass kid was and what future he lived in where a trip to the moon was so commonplace he’d describe it as “sucking”—like a bad high-school dance. It was a hilarious line, and the rest of the book hadn’t let me down either. So, that was number one on the list.

I was surprised to find that some of my favorite books did not start out with a bang, so I guess you don’t necessarily
have
to hook your audience with the first line. But then again, when I did find a book with a dynamite first line, the rest of it was usually excellent too. So maybe if the first line is perfect, it sets the right tone for the author, too—I could see how that might work.

Anyway, these were the others I ended up with:

2. “It was the last day of our old lives, and we didn’t even know it.” Richard Peck wrote that in
Fair Weather
. I love a sentence like that; it’s sad and exciting at the same time. You know there’s going to be some nostalgia involved and somebody might even die before the book is over, but you also know there’s a good story coming.

3. “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.” This is from
Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston. I might like this one a little better if it said “every man
and woman’s
wish,” or maybe just “everyone’s wish,” because that would keep the rhythm of the line intact. Still, it’s a beautiful thought, and sad at the same time because the ships are “at a distance.” But it’s also funny, because if the ships came to shore, “every man” might actually have to get
on
one and not just wistfully wish for what he can’t have. In other words, it’s safe to wish you were out there sailing away, as long as you know it’s not really possible.

4. “It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York.” That, of course, is Sylvia Plath from
The Bell Jar
. Yeah, she had a dark sensibility, but you have to love the way “sultry” puts the electricity in the air and
then
she brings in the Rosenbergs. You know right away New York is not going to be a hospitable climate for old Sylvia.

5. “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” Dodie Smith, a British author, wrote that in a novel called
I Capture the Castle
. My mother gave me this book for my birthday last year, and I was skeptical because the cover looked very
old-fashioned and not like my kind of book at all. But again, that first sentence pulled me in. For one thing the narrator is writing, which is something I always appreciate in a character. But she’s also sitting in a sink, and you want to know why. The author paints a picture of this weird, old, falling-down castle populated by a family of eccentrics; within a few pages you know that sitting in the sink is the least of their peculiarities.

Finding five good first lines was easier than I thought it would be. In fact I found a sixth one too, from one of my favorite childhood books,
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
, which is part of the Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. The line is: “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” Really makes you want to meet that kid, doesn’t it?

I already had the first line of my novel written:
Christina had always believed she was born lucky—smart, funny, and just good-looking enough to get pretty much everything she wanted, except, of course, the thing she longed for most: love.
I sighed. Was I really going to make poor Christina follow in my own pathetic footsteps? Apparently, I was.

It was after seven o’clock by then, and I started wondering why Birdie and Damon weren’t home yet. As I washed the dishes we’d left in the sink the morning before, I imagined them in the car, Lee up front with Gio, the other two in back. I knew Lee was angry with me for not telling her about Olivia, and I was hoping Gio would talk to her about it. If anybody knew what a jerk I could be sometimes, it was Gio. And he’d forgiven me, finally. So maybe Lee would too.
Hey,
nobody’s perfect, right?
Even, as I’d just realized, Olivia.

When the phone rang, I hoped it might be Olivia calling from the restaurant to say she wasn’t really angry anymore. To make plans for later in the week. But no.

“Hey, it’s Gio.” He sounded weird, and I got a little scared for a minute.

“Hey, yourself. Where are you guys? You didn’t have an accident or something, did you?”

“No. We’re at the airport.”

“The airport? Why?”

He sighed heavily. “We’re here with Lee. She’s really upset, Marisol. I thought you should know—she’s determined to get a flight back to Indiana tonight. All she’s got with her is the stuff she took to the Cape and her sister’s credit card.”

“What? You can’t let her do that!”

“Don’t make this
my
fault. After you left, she tried to be okay with it, but she’s crazy about you, Marisol. I
told
you that. Birdie said there was a scene with Olivia this morning that Diana and I missed. It was downhill after that, and by the time we started driving back this afternoon, she admitted she was miserable. She said she needed to be someplace that felt like home, and that wasn’t Cambridge or any place near you. As soon as we got to Boston, she begged me to take her right to the airport. What was I supposed to do?”

“Well, let me talk to her, then.”

“She won’t talk to you, Marisol. She doesn’t even know I’m calling you. She’s in the ticket line with Birdie and Damon. I said I was going to the bathroom so she wouldn’t get suspicious.”

“Shit.” I banged my hand on the kitchen counter. “I guess I didn’t handle this very well. It’s my fault.”

Gio didn’t dispute me.

“Did she say how long she wants to stay in Indiana? She’s planning to come back, isn’t she?”

“I really don’t know,” Gio said. “I don’t think
she
knows at the moment. She just wants to get away. You should understand that, Marisol. You’re the great escape artist.”

He didn’t say it nastily, but I felt the sting anyway. “I didn’t mean to hurt her, Gio. I like Lee. I like her a lot.”

“You never
mean
to hurt anybody,” Gio said. “They get hurt anyway.” And, of course, he knew.

W
HEN
B
IRDIE AND
D
AMON GOT BACK
, I was sitting in the living room waiting for them.

Birdie dropped his duffel bag just inside the front door. Damon picked it up and took it and his own bag into their room.

“Well, the weekend started out pretty good, but you missed the really fun part,” Birdie said, dripping sarcasm.

“Just tell me, did she get a flight? Did she really leave?”

“What time is it?”

“Nine fifteen.”

“Should have taken off about ten minutes ago. Mumsy and Pops will be picking her up around ten thirty p.m., allowing for the time change. You really did it this time, Marisol.”

I let my mouth drop open. “Why is everybody blaming this on me? She knew I had another girlfriend.” I couldn’t tell them about the kiss—I could barely admit to myself that I’d given Lee a reason to hope and then thrown Olivia right in her face.

“Oh, is Olivia your girlfriend? I thought she was your keeper. What I want to know is why she had to follow you to
the Cape. Lee felt totally humiliated by the whole thing, especially that stupid lie you told this morning about her being Gio’s girlfriend.”

“I didn’t—I don’t—” I stuttered, then gave up the defense. “I don’t know why I do anything anymore. I like Lee; I never meant to hurt her feelings. And I didn’t think she’d just
leave
.”

“You knew what she was going through—she said you were the only person she could talk to about it. It’s been a tough couple of months for her; she depended on you. And she totally fell for you, which you
knew
.”

“Did she tell you that?”

Birdie nodded.

Damon came back into the room and sat on the couch. “It’s a hard position to be in, Birdie. If someone is crazy about you and you don’t feel the same way. What was Marisol supposed to do?”

Birdie thought about it before he answered. “If the person who’s crushing on you is totally wrong for you, that’s one thing—you just have to make them understand it right away and move on. But that wasn’t the case here, was it? You liked Lee. She said you told her that if it hadn’t been for Olivia, something might have happened between you.”

“True, but Olivia
did
happen.”

“But it could have happened with Lee,” he persisted.

“Yes, I suppose so. I mean, at first I thought of Lee as kind of young and innocent and not terribly interesting. But as I got to know her better, I realized there was a lot more to her that you didn’t see immediately.”

“Yeah, with some people, it takes a while to see how great they are. Not everybody has that drop-dead thing going for them, like Olivia, where everybody on earth falls in love with them for at least five minutes.”

“That’s not how it is with me. I really love Olivia.”
Most of the time.

“Yeah, whatever,” Birdie said, brushing off love like dandruff. “I’m saying, Olivia is not going to last.”

“Oh, and how do you know that?”

Birdie stared at me hard, but it was Damon who put it into words. “Because she’s Olivia,” he said quietly.

“Whereas,” Birdie continued, “Lee, if you’d given her half a chance, might not have been a crazy, whirlwind lovefest, but she would have lasted.”

“And what makes you suddenly the big expert on love?” I asked, my throat tightening a bit.

Birdie looked at Damon, who smiled. “He took half a chance on me,” Damon said. “And that worked out.”

“Sweetheart, I don’t do anything by halves,” Birdie said, kissing Damon on the cheek. “Believe me, I threw my whole self, plus a couple of personalities I didn’t even know I had, into capturing you. ’Cause you are my prince!”

Okay, gag me. Enough is enough.

I stood up. “I’m going to bed. I’ll take your advice to the lovelorn under consideration, although I don’t know what I can do about it now anyway. Lee’s gone.”

“Airplanes fly across the country both ways, hon,” Birdie said.

*  *  *

Work that week was a huge suckage. The new part-timer Doug had hired to take some of Sophie’s hours was a skinny middle-aged woman who slapped the sandwiches together any old way so she could save up enough seconds to stand in the back doorway letting in cold air and puffing on cigs every five minutes. She didn’t talk much, which made Pete crabby, because he liked to gab. Every time I walked into the kitchen I missed Sophie, and I knew I wasn’t the only one.

The pies from the wholesaler had a shiny look when you peeled the plastic wrap off them, like they’d been dipped in nail-polish remover. One after the other, people complained.

“This doesn’t taste like the apple pie you usually have here.”

“This blueberry pie has no flavor.”

“Is your cook using margarine in the crust these days? It used to be so flaky.”

I explained that our baker had taken a new job and that these weren’t the same old pies that had sprung from beneath Sophie’s rolling pin. People were very disappointed, but I told them where they could locate Sophie, so I imagine that bakery in Arlington will get some new customers out of it.

Even I didn’t like the pies, and I’ll eat just about anything. I made the mistake of mentioning it to Doug one afternoon.

“God, this crust tastes like cardboard,” I said.

“Well, don’t eat it, then!” he growled. “I’m not paying you to wolf down everything in sight, you know.”

“You’re in a super mood.”

He didn’t say anything until I’d made the rounds of the tables with the coffeepot. I perched on the stool behind the
register, and he leaned on the counter next to me. “I’m not mad at you, kiddo. It’s just I can see the writing on the wall here, and I never liked endings.”

“Gus isn’t sick again, is he?” I asked.

He shrugged. “He’s not sick, but he’s not good, either. And losing Sophie, well, I can see it’s the beginning of the end. I think we’ll stay open through the end of the year, say good-bye to the customers, have one more Christmas season, and that’s it.”

“Really?”

He nodded.

“Wow. I can’t believe it. I miss the place already,” I said, looking around at the steamy windows and the carved-up booths.

“Me too. Me too.”

And at four o’clock every afternoon, when Lee didn’t walk through the front door, I had to fight to keep melancholy from turning into despair. What was going on out there in Indiana, and was Lee ever going to come back here? I missed seeing her sitting in the window, reading her book, sipping tea, waiting for me to finish up. When I walked across the Square past the Brattle Theatre, I saw that the Tennessee Williams festival was over and they were doing a series of Charlie Chaplin movies now. Why hadn’t I gone to see
The Glass Menagerie
with Lee? It would have meant a lot to her.

Damn. Everything was falling apart at the same time. Lee had run away from me, the Mug was closing, and Olivia seemed to be nursing her anger too.

She hadn’t called me all week, and I hadn’t called her,
either. Calling Olivia first seemed like begging, like admitting that I was wrong, which I didn’t really think I was. At least, no more wrong than she was. Besides, I was confused. What was I supposed to think about those writing quotations she’d stolen from Mark Twain and T. S. Eliot and all the rest? It was so bizarre—and she hadn’t really seemed to feel bad about doing it. She’d said it didn’t make any difference to lie to the class because we were all “bozos” anyway. Something like that. Thanks a lot.