Count My Lies

Chapter 22

22

Normally, I’m up before Harper, but this morning, the day of our trip, I purposefully didn’t set an alarm. Today is my first official day as Sloane, not Violet. I’m giving Violet to Sloane, stepping out of my life, letting her step in. If I know her, and I think by now I do, she’ll accept happily, slipping into it—into me—with pleasure. We’ll both get off the ferry as someone else, as each other. Only Sloane doesn’t know it yet.

I wake to the sound of Harper’s footsteps thudding down the hall from her room to ours. I pull myself into a sitting position as she leaps onto the bed, the mattress bouncing beneath her. I didn’t fall asleep until early this morning, going over the plan again and again until I drifted off as the sun rose. Now, I’m groggy, eyes burning.

“Daddy says it’s time to get up!” Harper says, pulling the covers off of me. “We’re going to the beach today, remember?”

“I remember, baby.” I smile at her, my eyes still closed, reaching out to ruffle her hair. I’d felt the same excitement when I was a kid, suitcases packed, headed for the airport. It was the best feeling in the world. “Are you all packed up? What about books? Do you want to bring your CD player?”

“Oh yeah!” Harper says. My parents bought her an old-school Discman before we moved, along with a dozen CDs of Disney music and kids’ audiobooks. Harper loves it, lies on her floor listening for hours, changing out the discs, carefully replacing them into their cases. It was one of the most thoughtful things they’d done as grandparents. She leaps off the bed, starts running back down the hallway to her room. “I’ll put it in my backpack!” she yells.

I pull myself out of bed and head into the bathroom. I skip my usual morning shower and instead tie my hair back into a messy bun. I brush my teeth but forgo makeup, then dress quickly in a pair of black yoga pants and a loose-fitting T-shirt, a pair of beat-up Converse that I found in a thrift store last week. Finally, I tie Sloane’s flannel around my waist, the one she traded me for my Carolina Herrera shirt.

When I’m done, I stand in front of the full-length mirror leaning against the wall. I smile. I look younger than I usually do, more nanny than mom, like Sloane did when we first met that day in the park. It’s not a drastic change—I’m still me—but it’s the beginning.

“Mom!” Harper is yelling from her room. “Mom, I can’t find my shoes!”

I glance back at my closet. I finished packing last night—almost. I have a few more things to zip into my suitcase, but I want to wait until right before we leave.

“Coming!” I call.

I’m still in Harper’s room, helping her comb through her closet, when the doorbell rings. Sloane’s here. I check my watch. Right on time.

“Can you get that?” I yell down to Jay. A moment later I hear the door open and shut, Sloane’s voice in the foyer.

“I’m going to go say hi to Caitlin,” I say to Harper. “Keep looking for your shoes, baby, okay?”

I clomp loudly down the stairs, but Sloane barely notices me. She’s leaning against the closed front door, gazing at Jay, her cheeks flushed as he makes a joke, something about how many suitcases are piled at the foot of the staircase. Sloane’s in a pair of my jeans, a light, high-waisted pair that makes her hips look tiny, and the ivory camisole I told her was Jay’s favorite, her hair glossy, eyes bright.

This is the first time Jay’s seen her since her haircut and new clothes. By the way he’s looking at her, his eyes lingering, it’s clear he appreciates the transformation. He’s probably imagining her ass up, bent over the edge of a bed—his favorite position.

“Morning, Caitlin!” I say loudly, stopping a few steps from the bottom. Both Jay and Sloane turn toward me abruptly.

Sloane blinks at me for a minute as if she doesn’t recognize me. Then she smiles. “Morning,” she says brightly. “Can I help with anything?”

I gesture around wildly. “All of it!” I say, giving a little laugh. “But mainly, can you help me find Harper’s shoes? I’ve looked everywhere .”

“I just saw them…” Jay looks around, then points to a pair of Harper’s shoes near the couch. “There they are.”

I peer over the banister, shaking my head when I spot her white lace-up sneakers. “No, not those, her red shoes. The jellies. She refuses to come out of her room until she has them.”

“I’m on it,” Sloane says, dropping her bags by the rest of the luggage.

I put my hands together, pantomiming a prayer. “Thank you. I just have a few more things to pack up. And could you make sure Harper pees before we go?”

She nods and I run back up the stairs.

“Fifteen minutes,” Jay calls after me. “The car will be here in fifteen minutes. We’ll miss the ferry if we don’t leave by nine thirty.”

“Mm-hm.” I make a noise to signal I’ve heard him. As if there would be anything that would keep me from getting on that boat.

I go back into my bedroom, locking the door behind me. There are a few things I need in the closet. First, the burner phone I’ve stashed in a shoebox, a cheap Nokia that I bought a few months ago from a dusty electronics store in midtown, paid for in cash, preloaded with minutes. And second, the gun. My mother, before we stopped speaking, insisted on giving it to me as I packed for New York. Despite her outwardly liberal art-loving persona, her closeted conservative values often peeked through the cracks, their rays shining brightly. She spouted crime statistics, citing surges in burglaries and home robberies throughout the city. I’d rolled my eyes—San Francisco had some of the fastest-rising crime rates in the country—but agreed to take it. We store it in a lockbox on a high shelf in our closet, the key hidden separately, on another shelf, out of reach of Harper. The gun is registered in both Jay’s and my name.

When I’ve packed the gun, I take the phone into the bathroom and lock the door. I turn on both faucets, sit down on the closed toilet seat lid, then click on the only number I have saved.

He picks up after the first ring. His voice is deep, cooling, like a balm. It always has been.

“Hi,” I say softly. I tell him that we’re packed, almost ready to go, that I can’t wait to see him again. “Soon,” I say, then ask if he’s ready. He says that he is and I smile, even though he can’t see me.

Ten minutes later, I open my bedroom door at the same time that Sloane and Harper are coming out of the bathroom, Harper in the red jellies I buried under a pile of stuffed animals so I’d have something for Sloane to do while I packed.

“You guys ready?” I ask.

They both nod. “You?” Sloane says, her voice slightly higher than its normal pitch. She doesn’t want to ask outright, but she can’t imagine I’m planning to leave the house like this, like I just rolled out of bed. So unlike the Violet she thinks she knows.

I hadn’t been lying when, on one of our first walks together, I told her how much time I spend on my appearance. It’s been a habit for as long as I can remember. I was a gawky kid, big-eared, big-toothed, big-nosed. Eventually, I grew into my features, but during those long, painfully awkward years, my mother would stand behind me in the mirror, a curling iron in one hand, a brow brush in the other. “It’s important,” she would say as she smoothed and styled, tugging at my hair until tears pricked my eyes, “the effort you put in.” The implication—if you don’t care how you look, no one will care about you—has been reinforced a million times over in the course of my life. Now, I hope that it’s true. Already, I feel lighter.

“Yup, ready!” I say. “Let’s go!”

Sloane does a good job of hiding her surprise, smiling pleasantly. The three of us traipse down the stairs, Sloane, then Harper, then me. The front door is open, everyone’s suitcases but mine already down on the sidewalk. I keep my hand tightly gripped around my bag’s handle.

Jay is standing next to a black town car, staring at his phone. “Come on,” he calls, opening the back door. “Everyone in!” Harper and Sloane start toward the car.

“Wait!” I call and everyone turns. “Let’s take a picture! Do you mind, sir?” I ask the driver.

“Now?” asks Jay. He looks at his watch, then back at me. “We really should get going.”

I nod. “It’ll be quick. Just in front of the stoop is fine. Go on, get together.” I motion for them to stand next to me.

Jay sighs but picks up Harper and carries her back to the stoop. Sloane doesn’t move, waiting by the car.

“What are you doing?” I say. “I meant you, too, silly! Get up here! Can we use your phone?”

Sloane hands her phone to the driver and hurries back up the stoop to stand next to me. “Cheese!” I say as the driver holds the phone up.

When the photo’s been taken, we all load into the car, packing in like sardines. Harper sits between me and Sloane, headphones plugged into an iPad. Her neck is bent, eyes focused on the cartoon show on the screen. Sloane and I grin at each other over her head. We’re both excited, but only one of us should be.

Four hours later, the car drops us at a sunny dock, swarming with other travelers. We unload the suitcases from the back of the trunk and begin lugging them toward the boat.

“Smile, you two!” I say to Sloane and Harper. I hold up my phone. Sloane squats to Harper’s level and puts her arm around her small shoulders. I want there to be as many pictures as possible of Harper with Sloane, Harper with Jay and Sloane. I want there to be evidence of them as a family.

The ferry ride is just under an hour. While Jay is inside the cabin, pretending to work, Sloane, Harper, and I spend the trip on the top deck, counting seagulls and looking for whales. It’s hot and cool at the same time, the sun pounding down on us, the wind blowing, skimming across the cold salty ocean surface. When a cloud passes overhead, we all shiver, huddling together for warmth.

I keep snapping pictures, mostly of Harper and Sloane, a few selfies of the three of us, waving Sloane off when she offers to take shots of just Harper and me. “I’m a mess,” I say, “I overslept,” covering my face with my hands, “seriously, don’t aim that camera at me!”

A short while later, the ferry docks and everyone pours off the ship, down the ramp. I stop at the bottom, breathing in the taffy-sweet, sea-spray air. My grandmother used to wait here for us, her arms open wide. I close my eyes, picturing her big smile, her hand on top of her big floppy hat so it wouldn’t fly away in the wind. It’s hot here, just as hot as in the city, but it feels different. There, the heat makes you want to crawl out of your skin, but on the island, it makes you want to take off your clothes, slowly unbuttoning your shirt, sliding your shorts down over your hips, panties on the floor. It’s a sultry heat, unwinding everyone, loosening everything.

We wait with the luggage while Jay goes for the rental car. When he pulls up, I insist Sloane rides next to him, up front. “So you have the best view of the island!” I tell her, climbing into the back seat of the car. Harper looks exhausted, her eyes glassy, drooping at the corners. I pull her close to me, letting her head rest against my body.

The car moves slowly down the gravel driveway, from the boatyard out onto a paved road, our windows down, the salty air warm and pungent. I’m home.

Soon, we reach the town’s main street, a bustling block of ice cream parlors, souvenir shops, restaurants with signs offering lobster rolls and fried clams. People are strolling on the sidewalks in sunglasses and sundresses, wide-brimmed hats, licking their melting cones, slurping cups of lemonade and crushed ice. It feels half real, half like you’ve walked onto a movie set. At the end of the block, I direct Jay to turn onto a one-lane road that runs next to the ocean. To our left is the water; to the right, beach cottages, all in a row, with wooden porches, wet swimsuits and towels slung over the railings to dry.

As we drive, the houses become farther apart, separated by stretches of bushy seagrass, tall stalks of feathered plants swaying in the wind. I glance down to see that Harper has fallen asleep, her head lolling forward, mouth slightly open, her body heavy. Sloane catches my eye in the rearview mirror and we smile at each other.

A few minutes later, we slow toward the end of a long block. I look down at the map on my phone. “It’s the next house,” I tell Jay. “The one with the shutters.”

Jay turns slowly into the gravel driveway then kills the engine. Carefully, I unbuckle Harper and lift her onto my hip, her head resting on my shoulder. She shifts, then snuggles her face into my neck.

Jay, Sloane, and I pause in the driveway, staring up at the house. It’s a two-story cottage with blue thatched siding, a bleached roof, and white shutters around the windows, not unlike my grandmother’s. There’s a covered porch with two Adirondack chairs facing toward each other. Across from it, a trail leading to a stretch of white sandy beach, the ocean.

We walk up the cobbled path to the porch in a single, quiet line. There’s a lockbox attached to the front door, just like Gina told me there would be. I tell Jay the code, and he lets us in.

Gina hasn’t disappointed. The inside of the house is as picturesque as the outside. It’s large and airy with whitewashed wood floors and shiplap siding, rattan furniture, cushions upholstered in pastel blues, nautical stripes. The décor is classic beach cottage: framed pictures of wooden lifeguard towers and old VW vans parked on sandy shores; a rusted anchor hanging on the wall next to the front door; conch shells and starfish in a glass bowl on the coffee table. On the bookshelves are classic vacation reads: summer romances, and detective novels, their covers sun-faded and worn. The kitchen, at the back of the house, is charmingly vintage with retro black-and-white-tiled floors, an old-school stove and matching refrigerator, teal-blue cabinets. It has a round table with four chairs and a back door that looks like it might lead out onto a deck. I almost expect my grandmother to walk in, a pitcher of iced tea in hand.

I tilt my head toward the stairs to let Jay and Sloane know that I’m going to take Harper up to her bedroom. I take each step carefully. Upstairs, there’s a beachfront bedroom to my left, a small bedroom across from it, and, to my right, at the end of the hall, another big bedroom. I take Harper into the small bedroom with a twin bed and lay her gently down on top of the covers. She rolls onto her stomach, sighs, and settles back to sleep.

I shut the door behind me and head back downstairs. I step back into the living room just as Jay and Sloane come through the front door, their hands full of suitcases.

“Upstairs?” Jay asks.

“Here is fine.” I motion to a corner of the living room. “We can take them up when Harper is awake. Poor thing is wiped .” I plop down on the living room couch. “So am I, actually. I was thinking about making a run to the store to stock up on a few things, but”—I look to Jay—“would you mind going instead?” I give him a hopeful smile.

Jay shrugs. “Sure.”

“Thanks.” I smile at him. “Maybe some hot dogs for dinner? Milk, eggs. Bread for toast tomorrow.”

“Anything else?”

I shake my head. “No, but hey! Why don’t you take Caitlin?” I say. “You could give her the full tour of the island! There should be cruisers in the garage. Take her by that little ice cream store! Oh, or that café next to the kayak rental!”

“Oh, it’s okay…” Sloane starts to protest. She looks nervously from me to Jay. “He doesn’t have to—”

“Jay doesn’t mind, do you, Jay?” I interject. And before he has a chance to respond, I continue, “The whole island is less than a two-hour bike loop. Then you can stop by the market on the way back. You can ride a bike, right, Cait?”

Sloane nods. “Then it’s settled!” I pronounce. “I’ll take Harper down to the beach when she wakes, and we can make dinner when you get back.”

“Are you sure?” Sloane asks. “Because I can stay with Harper if you want.”

“Completely,” I say. “Really, I’m exhausted. And it’ll give me some time to unpack. You guys have fun, enjoy the island!”

I pretend not to notice the look Jay gives me. He’s confused at my enthusiasm, doesn’t quite know what to make of it. But I keep my face blank and after a beat, he turns and smiles at Sloane. “All right, let’s do it,” he says, holding the front door open for her. She smiles back, blushing slightly. She’s besotted, poor thing.

When the door closes behind them, I smile. It’s important that they’re seen together from day one. Mr. and Mrs. Jay Lockhart.