Page 5 of Count My Lies

I was embarrassed, too. Mostly because I’d gotten caught. If I had the chance to go back, I would have done it again. It was worth it for the way everyone looked at me those two days.

I was too young for detention, so the principal made me write an apology letter to my classmates and Miss Newberry. My mother took away my television privileges for a month. But neither punishment taught me not to lie. It taught me to be a better liar. I didn’t make the same mistakes at my next school.

We moved again at the end of the year. In sixth grade, I told one ofmy classmates that I rode horses on the weekends, after I finished readingBlack Beauty. She did, too, she exclaimed happily, then invited me to her riding club the following weekend. I made up excuse after excuse about why I could never go. Trips to my fictional aunt and uncle’s house in the mountains, dance classes, sleepovers with friends from my old school. All of which meant I had to stay home, alone in the apartment, while my mother worked, instead of with the friends I’d made because of the stories I’d told. I’d stop by the library on Friday afternoons to stock up on the books I spent the weekends reading. Books that kept the loneliness at bay, whose details wove themselves into the web of lies I spun.

I lied through middle school and high school, then through community college and beyond. Small lies, usually, but lies, nonetheless. I should have stopped by now—I’m an adult, for god’s sake—but I haven’t. I can’t. I just want so badly to say the right thing, be the right kind of person, that when I open my mouth, out comes what I think someone wants to hear, whether it’s true or not.

It’s not that there haven’t been any consequences—aside from visits to the principal’s office. I’ve lost friends here and there, job opportunities when my references were checked a little too thoroughly. I’m a good liar, but I’ll have slip ups, or someone else will refute my story, and I’ll be exposed.

Sometimes, there are stretches of time that I lie less. Usually after I’ve been caught. I try to change, try to be honest, but after a few weeks, I hear myself saying something that isn’t true, something I hadn’t even planned on lying about, and I slip right back into my old ways like I would into my favorite shirt. It fits, just right. Snug, comfortable, well-worn. Other times, when things are going well, like when I had the job before this one, I don’t feel the need as often. I still do it, unable to help myself, but the urge isn’t as strong.

But here’s the part that makes me an even bigger freak. Sometimes I believe my own lies. They feel real. I get swept up in the fantasy, the telling of it, the retelling, lying in bed at night adding to the story, drifting off and dreaming about it. I think it’s because I’ve always felt like there had to be more to my life than what it was. I couldn’t just be this poor kid with no dad. He had to be out there. He had to bespecial, which meant I had to be special, too. Doesn’t everyone want to feel special?

“So, a good day,” my mom says. Both a question and a statement. Right, the hundred-dollar tip.

“Mm-hm,” I answer. It was a good day. A very good day. I consider telling her about Jay and Harper, but I don’t. I’m not quite sure why. She’s the one person I don’t lie to, the only person who thinks I’m interesting, just as I am.

Even so, I want to keep them to myself, for now. And leaving something out isn’t the same as lying, not quite. It’s what I tell myself, anyway.

My mom hands me the remote. “You pick the movie,” she says. “I picked the last one.”

I give it back. “No, you choose. I’ll get dessert. We still have that pint of Rocky Road.”

“I’ll take two scoops.” My mom settles back into her armchair as she starts scrolling through the list of trending titles on Netflix. We watched a thriller last night, one about a woman whose husband isn’t as perfect as he seems. Few husbands are, at least in Hollywood, apparently.

In the kitchen, I load our dishes into the dishwasher and dole out what’s left of the carton into two bowls, tossing the empty container into the almost-full recycle bin. I make a mental note to take it out beforethe collectors come on Monday. I dim the lights on my way back to the couch, handing my mom her bowl before taking a seat. The title sequence of a movie—another thriller—begins to play, cheesy music rising, and I take a bite of my ice cream, turning the cold spoon over in my mouth.

Almost immediately, I tune out, the screen blurring, sounds fading. All I can think about is Jay and Harper. But mostly Jay. His smile. I wonder if I’ll see him again.

Before I go to bed, I take my paperback copy ofAnd Then There Were Noneoff my bookshelf and put it in my bag. Just in case.

3

I get to work late on Monday morning. I snoozed my alarm three too many times, then ran out the door as I struggled with the zipper on my hoodie. Luckily, no one cares what time I show up at the spa, as long as I’m there by my first appointment, which, today, happens to be at ten thirty.

Mondays are typically our quietest days, and this Monday is no different. The spa is practically empty. Chloe, one of our three rotating receptionists, is behind the desk. Out of the group, I like her the most. She’s a nineteen-year-old sophomore at Brooklyn College, cooler than I’ll ever be. Her jet-black hair is bleached platinum—her Korean parents almost disowned her when they saw it, she told me gleefully—cut into a sleek bob, short bangs. She wears oversized plastic tortoiseshell glasses, wide-legged jeans, and crop tops. If it’s slow, I’ll do her nails, usually a neon color, bright yellow or orange, like a highlighter.

Behind Chloe, a lone woman is getting a pedicure in one of the four spa chairs that line the left wall. Only one of the six small treatment rooms is occupied, its door shut, sign flipped toIn Session. It will pick up a bit in the afternoon, but not by much. Lena takes Mondaymornings off, so a lot of the girls stroll in closer to ten than nine, when the shift officially starts, with the exception of the opener, who arrives at eight in case of a walk-in.

A thick bloom of eucalyptus and lemongrass wafts over me as I walk through the spa. Under it, the acidic smell of polish and acetone. It used to bother me when I first started, the heady fumes making my eyes water, but I’ve acclimated. I hardly notice it anymore, except for the days I work a double, when it seeps into my clothes, clings to the fibers of my scrubs, my hair, my skin, the chemicals following me home, into my bed, into my dreams.

I deposit my purse and coat into the break room in the back and make myself a cup of coffee before my first client arrives. Last year, Lena purchased a Keurig for employee use as a Christmas present. She keeps the cupboard stocked with espresso pods and French vanilla–flavored creamer. She beams when she sees someone using it, still impressed by the ingenuity of her own gift-giving.

I take a sip of coffee and peek my head out into the nail bay. It’s empty, the woman in the pedicure chair now at reception, handing Chloe her credit card. Even though the tips are less on these slow Mondays, I prefer this pace to the end-of-week rush, the manic, caffeine-fueled women staring impatiently at the clock as we churn through client after client. It gives me a chance to catch up with the other nail techs, gossip between appointments.

As if on cue, Natasha, my co–nail tech, walks into the break room. She smiles when she sees me.

Natasha is a few years younger than me, a half-Vietnamese Jersey girl—her mom from Ho Chi Minh City, her dad a second-generation Sicilian from East Hanover—with pink-streaked black hair that she pulls into a high ponytail at the crown of her head. She wears herscrubs skintight over a push-up bra, always a pair of gold hoop earrings the size of a bangle bracelet. It’s a pain-in-the-ass commute from Jersey City, but she makes three times the money here as she would across the river; the Hoboken housewives are a tad less generous with their wallets.

“Morning, Slo,” she says, popping a coffee pod into the machine. Her acrylics clack against the plastic buttons. “Have a good weekend?”

I nod. “It was great.” I offer her a creamer from the glass canister. “I met someone,” I say, smiling, thinking about Jay. “At the park on Friday. And he took me to dinner last night.”

In reality, I spent the afternoon making Alton Brown’s root vegetable panzanella for my mom, and we both fell asleep in front of the TV watchingSeinfeld. Jay, I’m sure, was with his wife and Harper, the three of them cuddled together in Harper’s bed, Harper in the middle, reading bedtime stories. Later that night, when I moved from the couch to my bed, I googled him in the dark, under my covers, his LinkedIn profile the first hit. I studied his list of jobs, then searched for his socials, disappointed to find they were all set to private.

“Oh yeah?” Natasha says. Her microbladed brows shoot up with interest. Then, “Tell meeverything.”

I grin. “Well, for starters, he’s super handsome. And great in bed. Like, really, really great,” I add for emphasis.

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