The Girl Who Kissed a Lie

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Fighting with Ben, which I have never done before, makes me feel unhappy and unsettled. I mope around the house, pretending to be doing something useful like reading but really dwelling on everything. And I’m not dwelling on Ben—I refuse to dwell on Ben—but that leaves precious little else to dwell on: My inability to go to Salem Willows. The woman who knew my father.

On Wednesday, the second day of all my moping around, my aunts confront me. Well, confront might be too strong a word. They are busy knitting and I am, well, moping. Really, I am bunching and unbunching a discarded bit of yarn in my hand, planning to slip it into my pocket in case it might come in handy in the future, because you never know.

And my aunt Virtue says, abruptly, as if we had been talking about it just the moment before, “You can go to the park with your friends.”

I sit up, blinking at her in startled surprise. “What?”

“Your Aunt True and I have been discussing it,” she continues, eyes still riveted on her knitting, “and we know you’re getting older and you’ll want to…you’ll have to…be…out there…and you can go to the park with your friends.”

“You’ve been so sad about not being able to go,” Aunt True tells me, looking at me with soft, loving eyes. “We feel terrible about it. It’s just that we worry.”

“But it’s only one afternoon,” Aunt Virtue adds and looks up at me. “And you’ll be careful, won’t you?”

“Yes,” I say. “Yes, yes, yes.” I feel delighted at this because it’s an outing with friends, and not long ago I didn’t have any friends at all. “Thank you!” I exclaim.

And then, fast on the heels of the delight, comes dread. Is this a date with Brody Fletcher? I’ve never been on a date before. What if I make a mess of everything?

And what about Ben?

No. I’m not thinking about Ben.

I look at my aunts, still knitting their bright pink socks, swiftly approaching seven feet long; the socks curl up in bunches at their feet, miniature mountains of yarn. I look at the socks. Surely it is not normal to knit seven-foot-long socks. But what is normal? Do you meet the love of your life one day working at a summer job? If I give Brody a real chance, could it be that Brody might turn out to be the love of my life? I haven’t been impressed with him so far, but maybe I haven’t been fair to him? And if Brody is the love of my life, should I still be so upset over fighting with Ben?

I hear myself say, “How did my father really meet my mother?”

“You know this story, dear,” Aunt Virtue reminds me.

I know the story I’ve been told: that my father walked into his town house one day to find an unknown blond woman curled up asleep on his couch. Which is absurd. That’s a fairy-tale story told by a man who’s lost his mind. “Right. But how did it really happen?”

Both aunts stop knitting and look at me.

“That’s how it really happened,” Aunt True tells me, bewildered.

“But…” This seems astonishing to me, and my aunts don’t seem to think that it should be. “How did she get in? Did she…break in?”

“No one really knows,” Aunt True tells me.

I guess this is what my aunts mean when they call my mother flighty. “And it was love at first sight?”

“Something like that,” says Aunt True.

“Your father definitely lost his head,” snorts Aunt Virtue.

“Your father wanted a child. He wanted one desperately. And she gave us you.” Aunt True’s voice is soft and fond, and she reaches out and touches me, a loving caress. My aunts are not big on physical affection. I know that they love me, but it is seldom they show it so openly, and I admit that it makes me feel much younger than the sixteen years of age I am. It almost makes me feel like crying. “So how can we fault your father for foolish choices when it led to you?”