Page 21 of Count My Lies

I shudder. Any hour before seven feels inhumane. “Oh god, why bother?” Then, quickly I add, “BecauseIdon’t, obviously.” I give a little self-deprecating snort, motioning to my glasses, my baseball cap. “I mean to—Iwantto—but that snooze button… it calls to me. But if you don’t want to, why do it?”

Violet laughs. “I don’t know,” she says finally, slowly, considering. “Jay…” She starts, then pauses, stops, starts again. “Not just Jay, but everyone—well, take the other moms, at Harper’s school. They make me feel… oh, I don’t know, they’re just so…much,” she finishes, grasping.

She sees my face and laughs. “I’m not making any sense. You probably have no idea what I’m talking about.”

But my expression isn’t because I don’t know what she’s talking about. It’s because I do. All too well. Mockingbird, the school I taught at, was the same way—a private Montessori whose tuition ran close to fifty thousand a year. It’s why I recognize all the brand names, the designer bags and the jewelry. The parents—the mothers, specifically—looked like they’d stepped off a runway, polished and crisp, Chanel bags and four-inch Louboutin stilettos, Cartier bracelets and three-carat diamond rings, fresh blowouts, unwrinkled, Botoxed foreheads, syringe-filled lips, breezing in and out of the classroom on their way to the office.

They air-kissed their children, also dressed in Balenciaga, Dolce & Gabbana, each other, barely grazing the cheek as they waved goodbye over their shoulders, phones already pressed to their ears. They didn’t all work, of course. There were some, like Violet, whose husbands’ salaries were more than enough, or who had family money, generations of wealth filling their pockets, who didn’t work, at least not outside the home. Instead, they hosted charity events and late lunches at Clover Hill, managed social calendars and household staff, dressed their nannies in last season’s Burberry coats, in intentionally scuffed Golden Goose sneakers that looked like they cost sixty dollars instead of six hundred, handed down after only a handful of wears.

“It’s stupid, I know,” Violet says, “but they make me feel completely inadequate. This”—she motions to herself again—“is my attempt to fit in.”

I study her, glancing at her profile out of the corner of my eye. It’s funny that someone who looks like Violet, high-cheekboned and full-lipped, feels the same way as I do when I look in the mirror. It makes me wonder,How do people see me?

“I think you look great,” I say, because she does. Better than great.

“Thanks. I think I lookold. I’m turning thirty-two soon. In June,” Violet says, studying her fingernails. Her face is placid. I can’t tell how she feels about what she’s just said, excited or disappointed, or something in between.

“June? My birthday’s in June, too!” I say.

She turns to me, animated again. “Really? When?”

“June sixteenth.”

“Another Gemini!” she says. “I’m the eighteenth. Twins.”

A smile lights up my face. I don’t know if she means as in thezodiac symbol, or if she’s referring to us, because of how close our birthdays are, but I don’t care. It’s another thing that links us. Born only two days apart. And it’s not even a lie.

Maybe she’ll want to celebrate together.It was just going to be the three of us,I imagine her saying,just a small celebration, but now, now that I know it’s your birthday, too, we should do something special. A party at their house, a picnic in the park, or dinner at a fancy restaurant where, when we’re almost finished, they’ll bring two desserts, one for each of us, both topped with candles, flames dancing. Jay and Harper will sing, even though we tell them not to, as we smile at each other across the table.

I’ll go to the little shop where I found my necklace and buy another. I’ll say I had it made for her, because she liked mine so much.You shouldn’t have, she’ll say, as she opens the box excitedly, her cheeks flushed, but I’ll be able to tell that she’s happy I did. Then her face will light up when she sees what’s inside. She’ll grin and put it on, right there, proudly hooking it around her neck.How do I look?she’ll ask, turning to Jay and Harper. They’ll both tell her she looks beautiful, because, of course, she does.

I break from my reverie to find her looking at me expectantly. Did she ask me something? “Sorry, what?” I say.

“I just asked how old you were turning.”

“I’m turning thirty-two, too!” I’m not. Lie number five.

“Really?” She cocks her head, her eyes widening. “We should do something together!”

I nod enthusiastically. “I’d love that!”

She beams. Then, “Ready to turn around?”

I nod and we resume the walk, heading back the way we came. She tells me how, growing up, she hated having a birthday in the summerbecause she never got to celebrate it at school. She was jealous of all the other kids whose parents brought in cupcakes or goody bags, who sat in the middle of the class as the other students sang “Happy Birthday.”

“Anyway,” Violet says, waving a hand. “I’ve talked enough about myself. Tell me more about you. Where’d you go to college?”

That’s what she doesn’t get. I’m not bored of hearing her talk about herself. I don’t think I ever will be. But I indulge her, skipping over the two years I spent at community college before I transferred to Brooklyn College, a state university, mixing the truth with some lies. I tell her how my mother raised me on her own, about how we moved from town to town in the South, before settling in New York when my aunt got sick.

“And you said your dad is from Philly?” she asks when I finish.

I nod. “That’s what he told my mom.”

“I was born there,” Violet says. “It’s where both my parents were born and raised. They moved to Piedmont, just outside San Francisco, when I was six.”

I feel a jolt. A current of electricity lighting up every cell. “That’s funny,” I manage.

“Small world.” She smiles. “Like I said, Gemini twins.”

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