Lying About

I hate those novels – don’t you? – where only one character gets to express his point of view – there’s no other side to the story. Four people have just gone to a restaurant together. Even if they don’t call someone to tell all about it, they’re still full of the smell and the feel of the event – thoughts are filling up their heads – they’d like to unload.

I’m going to let them unload on you.

We know what sort of time Jason thought he had, though that was quickly reforming as he realized through his stupor, what a time his wife had had. But what about his date? And I don’t mean Brenda.

Nina was used to being used. She knew Mitch considered her useless, so she went along with the parts he gave her to play. She’d been told to keep Jason happy, and she had. What she hadn’t counted on was how happy he would make her.

She woke into a luxurious stretch, and didn’t get up for yoga until she’d lain in bed for an hour replaying and replaying the astonishing good time she’d had. She liked Jason Shapiro. He was fun. He made her feel like fun. She hadn’t laughed so much at her own stories for years. And his were pretty good, too.

But most important, he seemed young and innocent, like she felt. She was sure he had no idea what her husband had in store for him – the lonely days and nights while Brenda campaigned, the strangers clinging to what he thought was his, ignoring him – who was he but the husband – the double burden of housework and childcare that would devolve to him. She’d seen other people run for office, though Mitch never had. He was strictly a party man. In a way, that was worse. He didn’t have to put on an act; all he dealt with was the scoundrels, not the public.

She had barely spoken to the candidate herself, but she knew her as one of Mitch’s treasures – a woman who could not only teach, but who could manage a classroom. Often the teachers who knew their subjects didn’t have a clue about kids. Maybe Brenda Shapiro knew people too, and would be able to keep a hold on her life while they flung her around from place to place, put words in her mouth, and washed it out with soap when she said the wrong thing.

But why should she care? Let them keep her busy. She would comfort Jason, who had such enormous possibilities. Oh, wait. Don’t get the wrong idea. She wasn’t interested in sex. Not with him or anyone else. She’d gone far beyond that, to a land of the mind, where pleasure was pure and relatively constant. Maybe she could take him there.

She turned over in bed and was confronted with the big body of her husband, sound asleep after his good work. He’d snagged the brass ring and was mentally clutching it in his fist.

From downstairs came the sounds of her son getting his own breakfast. What a bad mother she was. But she had made him independent, hadn’t she? He didn’t need a mommy-slave to do everything for him. He got his own breakfast – he could even make eggs. He was the only child she knew who cleaned his own room. Kept it neat as a pin, in fact. Lately he’d been doing his own laundry, to preserve the color in his shirts and to make sure his jeans faded. He was a perfectionist. Everything had to be just right.

Of course, he lied like hell about everything. Absolutely everything. If she asked him what he had for breakfast, something she could check on, he’d say eggs if he had oatmeal, and oatmeal if he had eggs. She could smell the eggs, so he would probably tell her oatmeal.

She’d confronted him; she was a good mother – wouldn’t let things ride until they became dangerous – and he’d given her an answer: never did he want anyone to know his exact whereabouts, his plans for the future, or his actions of the past. That, he said, would pin him down in a reality not of his own making, but created by all the people who knew all about him. He wanted to live life according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that stated you could never know the exact location of an electron. One of his could suddenly jump to the moon. He wanted his whole body to be like that. He wanted to be any place at any time, to have been any place at any previous time, and ditto for the future.

Hard on his parents, his friends, his teachers, once even the police, but after a while, she noticed, she stopped asking, and so did the others. He was allowed to lead his own life and answer (truthfully) to no one. As long as he kept out of trouble, which he had, except for that one time.

It was all her fault, really. Maybe if she hadn’t named him Phoenix. But her generation had gone crazy in the name department. All of them had real names. Names that were names of people. Take last night. Mitchell, Brenda, Justin, Jason…and what were their kids named? Phoenix, and what had he said … Bathsheba and … could it be? Ezekial? How can these people grow up into normal human beings? When Phoenix was in kindergarten, six out of the eight girls in his class were named Brittany.

A little aside here. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking there’s too much about names in the patter. Well, here’s something you might not have realized. A novel is somebody’s representation, no matter how many do-dads by way of characters or ideas are strung upon it. Don’t let any author tell you otherwise. Pro or con, like or dislike, original or borrowed, it comes to you from one body. Don’t be surprised when you bump into connective tissue.

Nina is right; his name has something to do with it. And so does the color of his hair, a dark blood red. Which he wore long, even though nobody did anymore. Or because nobody did. His hair scared people. They’d never seen anything like it, and neither have you, even though you’re picturing someone you know. It’s almost like that, but darker red.

Even if she has to say so herself, Phoenix has a near-perfect build. Very slightly taller than medium height, slim hips, long torso, and a swivelly way of walking. But he’s a long way from perfect; there’s that lying.

She didn’t call downstairs with any well-meaning questions or advice. There was no point. He had won. He had made it ridiculous to try to control him. Good thing he was a good kid. Except for that one time.

She rolled back over, facing away for privacy, called up the snapshot of her last night’s dinner partner that she’d created, and employed it in a therapeutic method of release to relax and send her back to sleep.