One of Us Is Back (ONE OF US IS LYING)

Nate

Sunday, July 19

“All in favor?” Sana asks.

My roommates and I barely lift our hands. We look like the most reluctant, depressed group of volunteers ever. Even Stan, who’s hanging out on an end table like the house mascot, doesn’t blink. “Okay, no one’s opposed, so the motion to hold off on renting Reggie’s room until September passes,” Sana says, rapping her knuckles on the coffee table. “Remember, everyone has to pay an extra hundred and fifty dollars in August.”

“We know,” Jiahao grunts. Nobody’s thrilled about that, but the alternative—having a bunch of murderino rubberneckers traipse through our house with no intention of actually renting the room—is ten times worse.

Jake Riordan is still missing, and all Bayview can talk about is where he’s gone and whether he had anything to do with what happened to Reggie. Opinions are split about whether Jake took off or something happened to him, but either way, there’s an all-out manhunt going on. So far, though, there’s no sign of him. Mr. Riordan was all over the local news yesterday, telling reporters that Jake was optimistic about his new trial and never would have tried to escape.

“Also, Reggie’s parents are coming to box up his stuff tomorrow, so be prepared for that,” Sana says grimly, getting to her feet. “They might be here for a while.”

“Any sign of his necklace?” I ask, holding my hand out to Stan so he can crawl up my arm. He starts toward me, but gives up after two steps. The older Stan gets, the less inclined he is to move unless you bribe him with food.

Sana shakes her head, gathering her flowy skirt in one hand as she steps into the hallway. “Not yet,” she says. “But it’s bound to turn up eventually.”

Sana, Crystal, Jiahao, and Deacon all take off, so I’m the only one around to respond when the doorbell rings. I brace myself for the possibility that Reggie’s parents decided to show up early, but when I open the door, all I see is my dad.

“Hey,” I say, stepping back to let him in. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Yeah, sorry, I would’ve called, but…” Dad trails off, glancing around the empty hallway. “You the only one home?”

“No, everyone’s here, just…around,” I say, waving a vague hand.

“Is there somewhere private we can talk?” Dad asks. “Your room, maybe?”

Oh Christ. Here it is. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I could tell that he and I were having some kind of calm before the storm. “Sure. Let me get Stan,” I say tersely. It’s fine, I tell myself as I pluck Stan off the end table and make my way upstairs with Dad trailing behind me. Whatever it is, I won’t be any worse off than I was two years ago.

Except what if I am? Dad’s wearing badly fitting clothes again, which is all he has because he’s lost so much weight. What if he’s sick? Maeve showed me pictures, once, of herself as a kid with leukemia, and I barely recognized her. It wasn’t only the lack of hair; it was that she was so thin and frail, she looked like a gust of wind would snap her in half. It’d be the shittiest thing ever if Dad finally kicked the booze only to get hit with something worse.

“So this is your room,” Dad says, gazing around us. I guess I could’ve given him a tour at some point, but it never occurred to me that he’d want to see it. The space is small and dark, filled with secondhand furniture and horror-movie posters. The only bright spots are things that Bronwyn’s given me, like the antique desk lamp with a green glass shade that she picked up when she first came home for the summer. “Looks good.”

“It’s all right,” I say, depositing Stan into his terrarium before I sit at the edge of my bed so Dad can take the desk chair. “What’s up?”

He lowers himself into it carefully, like he’s afraid it might break. “Well, I haven’t known how to tell you this—”

“Just say it.”

I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, but it comes out that way. Ten years of frustration and disappointment find their way into three little words, and I might as well have said, What have you done this time?

Dad flushes and ducks his head. “You always expect the worst,” he murmurs.

Do you blame me? I almost say but bite it back just in time. I can’t snap at a guy who might be about to deliver bad news. “Sorry,” I say instead.

“No. I’m sorry. This isn’t how I wanted to start.” He swallows hard, and I wish I could fast-forward through whatever he’s about to say. Anticipation is always the worst part. “The thing is…do you remember my uncle Pete? The one from Tacoma?”

“Huh?” I blink. Of all the possible openers, I didn’t expect this one. “Not really.” My dad’s parents are both dead, and the rest of his family stopped speaking to him years ago.

“Well, he got in touch when I got out of rehab,” Dad says, snapping the band on his wrist. “You know, Pete had his struggles with addiction, too, so he’s been a help to me over the past few months.”

Unlike me, probably. “That’s good,” I say. “Glad you have somebody.”

“Well, not anymore. Pete passed a few weeks ago.”

“Jesus, Dad!” I stare at him. I know we don’t talk much, and I never met my great-uncle, but…“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I meant to. But it’s complicated, because it turns out, Pete left me some land. Your mom’s been helping me sort through all the red tape, but the long and the short of it is that some developers want it and we’re gonna be able to sell it.” Dad takes hold of his rubber band again, but for once, he doesn’t snap it. “When everything’s said and done, it should clear a couple hundred thousand dollars.”

“Holy shit.” I stare at him, unable to process the last part of the sentence. The Macauley family has never come close to that kind of money; it wasn’t that long ago that I couldn’t pay a nine-hundred-dollar ambulance bill. “Are you serious?”

Dad huffs out a short laugh. “Believe me, I’m as shocked as you are. I had no idea Pete had any kind of property. He never talked about it. That’s why I waited a while to tell you—I wanted to make sure it was real. But it is, and Nate…” He rubs a hand over the graying scruff on his jaw. “Once everything is settled, I’m gonna give you half.”

“You…you want to give me a hundred thousand dollars?” The words sound ridiculous coming out of my mouth. A thousand dollars would have felt like impossible luck, but one hundred times that is unreal. Crap, of course it’s not real. This is a dream, and it’s going to suck when I wake up and still have to come up with an extra hundred and fifty dollars to cover Reggie’s rent next month. I twist the skin on my arm, hard, but Dad’s still sitting in my desk chair, his worn face lit up with a smile.

“Well, not all at once,” he says. “There are tax implications. Your mother’s a lot smarter about that stuff than I am, but we’re figuring it out. The thing is, Nate—you didn’t get to have a childhood because of me and your mom. We never gave you any shot at a future. You did all of this”—he waves an arm around my shitty room, like it’s some kind of accomplishment—“on your own. So if this family finally gets a piece of luck dropped in its lap, it should be yours.” He rubs his jaw again. “I wanted to give you the whole thing, but your mom convinced me you’d try to give it back, and she’s probably right. You worry about us too much. So I’ll set myself up, maybe get some job training or pay off the house, and you can enjoy your half, free and clear. And I want you to enjoy it, okay? I know you’ll be smart, but have some fun too.”

“Some fun,” I repeat numbly. Those aren’t the right words to say in a moment like this, but I can’t think of any others. I can’t even begin to grasp what my father is telling me.

“It’ll be a few months till everything’s settled, so don’t spend anything yet,” Dad says with a crooked smile. “But I promise, it’s coming. You can count on me for this, okay? I even made a will, in case anything happens between now and then.” I stare at him, wordless, and his smile dims a little. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

“I…” Jesus Christ, Macauley, say something. Anything.

“You need to let everything sink in,” Dad says, getting to his feet. “That’s to be expected. It’s a shocker, I know, so take some time—”

Then he can’t talk, because I’ve launched myself at him, hugging him so hard that I’ve squeezed the breath out of him. I’ve barely touched my dad in ten years, unless I was trying to haul him off the couch for some reason. I’m not hugging him because of the money, even though it probably seems that way. It’s more because, if he’s doing this—planning not only for my future, but his—then maybe he’s making real progress.

Some things do change, after all. I have, and so has my mother. Why can’t he?

Dad pats my back and then clutches my shirt until I finally let go. “Thanks,” I say, my voice thick. It’s not enough, but it’s all I can manage right now.

“You’re welcome,” he says. “I’m gonna head out, but…maybe we could catch a ball game, one of these nights? I know you’re not a big Padres fan, but—”

“No, yeah, sounds good.” Maybe I’ll even watch some of it.

Somehow I manage to follow him downstairs and keep some kind of conversation going, even with my brain buzzing a mile a minute. And then he’s saying, “Talk soon,” and shutting the door behind him, and I’m alone.

So that’s…that. He’s not relapsing and he’s not dying. He’s got a pile of money, which means he doesn’t have to live on a razor-thin edge of getting by anymore. And neither do I.

Holy shit, neither do I.

I could…finish up school at a four-year college. Move into a better apartment. Visit Bronwyn while she’s at Yale. Buy some kind of fixer-upper and flip it, maybe, thanks to everything I’ve learned from Mr. Myers. Or do none of that—well, except for visiting Bronwyn—but know that I could.

The sound of “MMMBop” comes out of my pocket then, and I almost don’t mind how fucking cheery that song is. For once, it fits my mood. I hope it’s Bronwyn calling, because she’s not going to believe this.

It’s not, though. The screen says Vanessa, and before I even have a chance to say hello, she says, “You better be home, because I’m almost at your house.”

“I—yeah, what’s up?” I say, rubbing my temple like that’ll clear my head.

“I’m coming from the Riordans’,” she says.

—

“You owe me, Macauley,” Vanessa says, flinging herself onto one of our couches. She looks completely out of place on the faded brown fabric in her pristine white sundress and silver sandals. “You owe me so hard.” Then her nose wrinkles as she gazes at whatever stain she sat next to. “Ew. What is that?”

“Impossible to say.” I sit beside her, my nerves still jangling from the conversation with my dad. A hundred thousand dollars. I could buy a new couch to replace this piece of crap we got for free off Craigslist. How much do couches even cost? No, forget it; I’m not wasting money on this house. I have a weird urge to tell Vanessa what happened, just to tell somebody, but there’s no way I can tell her before Bronwyn. Focus, Nate. “Why do I owe you?”

“Well,” Vanessa says, “I stopped by the Riordans’ house a couple of hours ago with a homemade galette—”

“What’s that?” I break in. Sounds like a weapon.

“It’s a type of French pastry. Sort of like a free-form tart. I make them with fruit from our yard,” Vanessa says, narrowing her eyes when I blink in surprise. “What? Like I can’t cook? Anyway, nobody answered the bell at first. So I kind of shouted my name from the doorstep, saying that I’d brought food and hoped everyone was doing okay, and then…Ms. Riordan opened the door. I gave her the galette and asked her how she and Mr. Riordan were doing. She said they’re hanging in there, and Mr. Riordan was at work, and I was like, He went to work on a Sunday? And she said that he always works weekends.”

“He does,” I say. I’ve heard that enough from Ms. Riordan at the country club.

“Whatever. What I really meant was Why the hell is your husband at work when your son’s missing?” Vanessa says. “But she answered that for me. She said they’re doing their best to stick to a normal routine, and I said, Wow, it must be hard on you to be here by yourself waiting for news. Then she invited me in.”

Well, damn. Vanessa Merriman for the win. “I’m impressed,” I admit.

“She was a wreck,” Vanessa says. “And already kind of drunk, so…I just sort of encouraged that, you know? Poured some more wine for both of us, although I didn’t drink any of mine. We talked about Jake, and I’m one hundred percent positive that Ms. Riordan has no idea where he is or what happened to him. She’s devastated. She went on and on about how she’s failed Jake, about how she and Mr. Riordan weren’t good role models for him, and then, after about three glasses of wine, she finally told me.”

Vanessa pauses, and I can tell there’s a part of her that’s enjoying the drama. A pretty big part. She’s earned it, though, so I take the cue. “Told you what?”

“That she did, in fact, have an affair with Alexander Alton,” Vanessa says, pushing her stack of bracelets up her arm. “It was a huge deal. She met him right after she graduated from college, when he was separated from his wife. He was, like, ten years older, and she totally worshipped him. They were a couple for almost a year, but he broke her heart when he decided to give his marriage another try. His kids were little, so he felt like he owed it to them.” Vanessa rolls her eyes. “I don’t know, maybe he could’ve thought about what he owed his wife, who’d given birth to those children, but whatever. Men are pigs.”

“Present company excepted, right?” I ask.

She snorts. “Let’s hope so, for Bronwyn’s sake. Anyway, it sounded like Mr. Riordan was a rebound from that, honestly. She married him super quick, and she didn’t see or speak to Alexander Alton for years, until they started working together at Conrad and Olsen when Jake was in middle school. You can guess what happened, right?” There’s another dramatic pause, as Vanessa bats her eyes for an imaginary camera. “They fell right back in love, and this time, Ms. Riordan says that Alexander was serious about ending his marriage. She was serious about ending hers too. But then, while she was in Mexico for work, he drowned.”

“Mysteriously,” I say.

“Yeah. She had a total breakdown after that.” Vanessa carefully shifts a few inches to the left, like she’s trying to avoid the stain on the cushion, but there’s not much point. She’s just going to end up on a different one. “I felt bad for her. I mean, cheating’s not great, but it sounds like she’s been carrying a torch for this guy for years. Even after he died. She kept saying, over and over, I loved him. I loved him so much. We were going to build a life together. He was supposed to be my ticket out.”

“Out of where?” I ask. “Bayview?”

“I asked the same thing,” Vanessa says. “And she said, My marriage.”