The Truth About White Lies Read online

  “You saw it happen?”

  “Cops weren’t interested,” he says, nodding. “I told ’em you gotta be a monster to kill an animal like that. No reason. No defense. What’s a cat going to do about a knife? I thought it came here to die.” His eyes are back on the blood at Shania’s feet. “But it ended up somewhere else.”

  “Oh,” Shania says. She wants to be on the bus, to be departing.

  “Watch yourself out here,” he says, and she thinks it sounds like he’s talking to himself now. “There’s monsters in Southtown. The light is always above them, so they don’t cast a shadow.”

  She steps off the bus in front of Bard Academy, and the morning air curls around her ankles like uncut grass. The Farmers’ Almanac, a slim bound book with dates and predictions for the year ahead, says it will be an early fall. Shania carries her own edition, a sad replacement for the one she’d grown up watching her grandmother leaf through. Gram’s copy was out of date—from 1999—but Gram always swore, without explanation, that it was the only year that mattered. It’s been almost seven months since her death, and where some people might get closer to the Bible, Shania has turned to the almanac. She and her mother had emptied Gram’s house after the funeral, Shania searching every inch for the 1999 copy. But like her grandmother, it was a ghost. Shania’s current version is an imitational comfort, and she peeks in her bag to ensure it’s there, tucked in with her book of Anne Stanton’s poetry. Gram had liked Anne Stanton, a woman who wrote about the earth and its creatures. So Shania carries them both: talismans.

  Shania climbs the steps, moving between classmates who ignore her. If she had dreams of leaving the role of swaying daisy behind, she has now become a different sort of Alice. The student body of Bard regards her like the talking flowers did on the girl’s first foray into Wonderland: Is she one of us? No, not quite. Her dress is like petals but there’s something that’s off. She must be a weed.

  She drops off her bag at her locker. Two girls brush past her, all spray-tanned legs and white, white teeth. They carry overpriced coffee from Rhino. Before she moved here, Shania had no idea people her age drank coffee. In Morrisville, if you were tired before class, you drank Red Bull. Bard is like a movie-set version of a school, and nothing about it feels like home. Except the greenhouse.

  It’s nestled in the heart of the building, a humid core of flowers and vines and rows of work planters where every semester the class raises a variety of plants, experimenting with soil toxicity, different pesticides, hydroponics. Shania’s careful little family of hollyhocks and spiderwort are the only relationships she’s been able to cultivate since school began; her tiny crop of green babies is a mere two feet long, but she looks forward to seeing it, like a dog at the end of a long day. Except this day is just beginning. Just sixty-two more until winter break.

  Michelle is already there, at the neighboring planter, the only person who might like the greenhouse more than Shania.

  “Hey,” Shania says. They usually say hey. Michelle doesn’t hear her today: She has earbuds in, and rap music drifts faintly to Shania’s ears, a small surprise. Michelle looks like a beauty queen, a Black girl with straight hair to her shoulders and a wide, warm smile that belongs at the door of a church. She doesn’t seem like the rap-music type, Shania thinks. When Michelle asked Shania’s name at the beginning of the year, she’d said, “Oh, like the singer?” and Shania had reserved some small hope that perhaps they had some secret common interests. But Michelle mostly keeps to herself, and Shania hasn’t quite mastered the trick of being a normal person in a world without Gram. It’s a little like relearning how to walk.

  She almost tries greeting Michelle again, but Adam and JP are blundering in, laughing. Michelle looks up, one hand plucking an earbud out. The music is gone.

  “Those are my garden gloves, bro,” JP says, snatching a pair from Adam’s grasp. “You’ve got little, tiny baby-hands. You can’t fit these.”

  “Better than your little, tiny baby—”

  “Oh, bro, shut the fuck up!”

  “What even is that?” JP grunts, pointing at Adam’s planter. “Did you plant poison ivy?”

  “No, but that would be an epic prank.”

  “Better if you planted some weed.”

  Catherine Tane sweeps in, her blonde dreadlocks tied into a thick bushel at her neck. She doesn’t wear the short shorts and sandals that the rest of the girls wear: She swishes around in a long white peasant skirt, three inches of golden belly showing above it before the rest of her is concealed in what appears to be a hand-knit halter top. She’s fond of calling herself a sexy hippie.

  “Who’s talking about weed?” Catherine says.

  “Michelle,” JP says, pointing.

  Michelle rolls her eyes. “Please.”

  “I bet you Ms. Hassoon is a total weedhead,” JP says.

  “Obviously.” Catherine nods.

  “Didn’t she move here from Cali? I’m going to ask her if she knows anybody who owns a dispensary. That’s what I’m going to do with this botany shit.”

  “You and a thousand other people,” says Catherine. “By the time you graduate, there’s going to be so many.”

  “It’s not even legal here yet! Maybe I’ll be the first fucking one.”

  “You need to sell munchies too,” Adam offers. “What are those chips your brother’s always eating, Catherine? The square ones.”

  “I don’t keep tabs on Prescott’s snack habits,” she says, staring at her phone. Shania’s heart flips a small, irrational somersault at the mention of Prescott Tane. Catherine’s brother is a Bard golden boy despite missing so much school that the teachers applaud when he actually shows up. He plays lacrosse and has Captain America hair and the same catalog smile as Catherine, though he uses it much less. Shania has never spoken to Prescott, but she sees him and has spent a lot of time thinking about what she would say to him if they did speak.

  “Well, whatever they are, I’m going to need them,” JP says. “If I’m going to corner the market, then I need all your support.”

  “Too much competition,” Catherine says, still looking at her phone.

  JP laughs. “All my competition is in jail,” he says.

  “This is the perfect time to become a weed expert,” Adam says with a nod. “You’re going to be rich!”

  Richer, Shania thinks, annoyance sprouting in her like a sapling. JP’s car keys are sitting on his work table—she can see the Jaguar emblem from where she sits. If the keys were hers, her tooth would already be in line.

  “It’s not really fair that they have to be in jail if it’s legal now,” Shania says. She surprises herself. But there’s no going back now.

  “What?” JP’s smirk is the expression one makes at an ant before it is squashed.

  “If they’re legalizing weed everywhere,” Shania says, making it up as she goes along, “then, I don’t know, they should let out all the people that are in jail for it from before.”

  If Shania’s mother were here, she’d stare at her daughter as if she had grown a second head. She’s worked in jails for the last twelve years, and Shania knows she would disagree with this speech. Shania doesn’t even know if she herself believes it, but the need to be contrary is like a sudden twitch of limbs. This is who Gram had been—tough as a walnut, mouthful of opinions. Shania steps into her shadow.

  Adam shrugs on behalf of JP.

  “I mean, they broke a law, though. It was illegal before. They need to do their time.”

  “That seems like—like bullshit,” Shania says, stammering a little now that it’s settled in that she’s actually talking to these people. “People are making tons of money doing the same thing other people used to get arrested for? That’s… I mean, that’s bullshit.”

  “Oh my God,” Catherine says, finally putting down her phone. “You are so fucking woke.”

  On her other side, Shania hears the slightest scoff from Michelle, sees the smallest twist of her mouth. Michelle’s eyes dart in Catherine’s direction, then she puts her earbuds back in.

  “You hear that?” Catherine says, curling her lip at the boys. “Woke Girl says your dispensary plans are nardshark.”

  “What does that even mean?” Shania says. This is part of the Bard lexicon. Nardshark. Quayloo. Tomrom. Nonsense words mostly invented by Catherine that the rest of the student body snaps up like piranhas.

  “It means JP is an idiot,” Catherine says happily.

  Ms. Hassoon glides in then, the hijab she wears a soft lavender. She’s paired it with a matching gardening apron.

  “I’m having a party later,” Catherine says, addressing JP and Adam. “Bring some of your future stock.”

  She winks, and then Shania is surprised when those shiny blue eyes are turned on her.

  “You should come too. It’ll be fun. I need somebody to tag team JP with when he gets drunk and starts talking about how great Game of Thrones is. Do you hate Game of Thrones? You have the look of someone who hates Game of Thrones.”

  “I do.” Shania nods, slipping on the lie like velvet gloves. She’s never seen the show.

  “Tomrom,” says Catherine. “I knew it.”

  “Pesticides,” Ms. Hassoon calls. “Who did the homework?”

  Beside Shania, Michelle strokes the leaves of her roses. Shania looks down at the strong green shoots weaving their way up the trellis of her own planter. She makes plans to read the Game of Thrones wiki. She’s already planning what she will wear. Growth, she thinks. Good.

  CHAPTER 2

  She shouldn’t have worn a dress.

  Shania had envisioned entering the party and the music slowing, the fabric of her dress a swinging red lantern that lights up the room. But home mirrors are traitors—she had thought she looked retro-movie-star pale, moonrock pale. Now, stepping off the bus that the BRTA app said would take her to Catherine Tane’s house, her skin looks splotchy, bluish. She’s on the sidewalk, hesitating, considering catching a bus home, when someone calls her name. She looks around, startled, and finds a Black girl standing near the corner, looking at her curiously. It takes Shania a moment to recognize her.

  “Michelle,” Shania says finally, surprised. Michelle waves, and Shania notices the person beside her, Willa Langford, a white girl from Bard who Shania had seen on Catherine Tane’s Instagram when she’d lurked her long-ago posts. Willa’s hair is different, Shania decides: dyed a deep red now instead of the blonde featured in Catherine’s feed.

  “What are you doing over here?” Michelle says. “Are you going to Catherine’s too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re about to cross the wrong way,” Willa says.

  They walk through the residential area that has emerged near the SoBR neighborhood. Shania follows Michelle and Willa, almost breathless from trying to keep up in her cursed wedges, but to ask them to slow down would be too close to acknowledging the ridiculousness of her chosen attire, so she just trudges along. She distracts herself by gaping at the outlandish houses. Most of them hug the street closely, ornate gates guarding their meticulously landscaped front yards.

  “None of this used to be here,” Michelle says. “I remember when this was all warehouses and shotgun homes. We would drive through on the way to my aunt’s church.”

  “No wonder these look so new,” Shania says.

  “My uncle lived over here when I was a kid,” Willa says, texting as she walks. “There used to be a lady who sold cookies on that corner every Sunday. Wish she still did. I’m hungry as shit.”

  “Catherine will have something,” Michelle says.

  “Of course she will,” Willa says, and Shania thinks she hears something in her voice, but by the time she gets a glimpse of Willa’s face, any trace of it is swallowed up.

  Michelle looks at Shania out of the corner of her eye, a subtle up and down.

  “First party?” she asks, a hint of a smile in her voice.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  Shania looks down at herself once more. Her legs don’t look as violently white now that she’s off the bus. She prays Catherine’s house is dim.

  “It’s a cute dress, though,” Michelle says, generous.

  Shania is about to reply when a man appears before them, hanging out the window of a green car, mouth wide open. He’s already passed by the time she catches the words he spews.

  “ONE HAS TITS, TWO HAVE ASS! I’LL TAKE ALL THREE!”

  The girls stare after him silently.

  “Who the fuck drives a green car,” Michelle says finally, and Shania bursts out laughing. Michelle smiles a grim smile and Willa chuckles. The crosswalk pings to WALK, and the three of them cross the street, making the rest of their way to Catherine’s in silence.

  Catherine Tane’s home is a three-story outrage on a hill, at the end of a winding driveway surrounded by a crush of leafy trees. The entire ground level is made of glass and metal, wood and crystal, and Willa opens the door without knocking. Music bursts out. She walks right in, Michelle on her heels. They seem to be on a mission. Shania hesitates and then follows them inside, where Bard kids sprawl on couches and plush rugs. There are no cardboard boxes crowding the edges of the room; the baseboards aren’t gray with several tenants’ worth of dust. The house and the people in it seem to shine.

  “Look who’s here,” Willa says next to her, nodding at a chestnut-haired boy coming out of what must be the kitchen. He has a slice of pizza on a plate and edges along the perimeter of the party with the look of someone who wants to go unnoticed.

  “Who’s that?” Shania says.

  “Benjamin Tane. Prescott and Catherine’s brother.”

  “Wait, there’s a third Tane? Does he go to Bard?”

  “There’s actually a fourth Tane too,” Willa says. “Older, though. Dad’s first marriage. But no, Ben opted for public school. Catherine and Prescott unofficially hate him. The redheaded sheep.”

  “He doesn’t have red hair,” Shania says, peering.

  “No, but like, you know, the ‘redheaded stepchild’ but with ‘black sheep.’ Like, he’s not actually a stepchild, but… ugh, never mind. You ruined my joke.”

  “Sorry,” Shania says, shrugging.

  “I haven’t seen him since last year,” Michelle says. “He got cute.”

  “He was always cute,” Willa counters.

  “Says the gay girl.”

  “Which makes my taste even more trustworthy. He’s cool too, though. Comes to the library sometimes. We’ve been talking more.”

  They drift off, and Shania is too shy to follow, which leaves her weaving her way through people whose faces she knows but who don’t know her. Parties, and especially this one, make her feel like an alien zipped into flesh. She drifts outside, trying to look human.

  “You came!” Catherine’s voice rises over the music and party chatter, and Shania turns to find Catherine beelining toward her through the crowd, drink in hand. Catherine pauses, assessing Shania’s dress. “You’re so… fancy.”

  “I, uh, I’m coming from a dinner,” Shania says.

  If Catherine hears the lie in Shania’s voice, she plows right past it, handing her a drink.

  “No bigs! Feel free to take your shoes off. They look like they hurt. I can’t wear heels anymore. I have bunions. My mom says I’ll need surgery at some point, but if I did it now, then I’d have to be in a cast or whatever, and I’d be out of field hockey. So quayloo. Fuck that. I’ll wait.”

  “I didn’t know you played field hockey,” Shania says. She did, in fact. But this was a conversational tool of her grandmother’s. Be polite. Be curious. Shania remembers Gram smiling in her garden. Then she was slumping on the ground.

  Shania shakes her head, returning to the conversation. But Catherine has already moved on from field hockey, leading Shania toward the table where the drinks are stacked.

  “There’s food in the kitchen too,” Catherine says, flapping her hand toward her beast of a home. “Pizza and shit.”

  “I saw your brother with some. Ben.”

  “Oh, Ben made an appearance? Shocking. Honestly, Shania, my family is the worst. I have two brothers considered hot by people not related to them, and both are different versions of annoying. Why couldn’t I have sisters? We could have been like the sexier version of the Bennets.”

  “Who?”

  “Pride and Prejudice, Shania. I’d be Elizabeth. If Elizabeth smoked weed.”

  Having Catherine talk directly to you, Shania realizes, is sort of like standing in the path of a grinning hurricane. Catherine passes her a drink.

  “Where’s that dress from?” Catherine says, changing gears.

  Shania tells her, and Catherine nods several times.

  “I always see that account on Instagram, but I don’t think my boobs are big enough to make anything they have look good. You don’t really have that problem, so that’s cool. Good for you. Good for your boobs.”

  “Thanks, I guess.” Shania laughs. She can feel her spine loosening. She slips her wedges off, bends down, and clutches them in her drinkless hand. I can be normal, she insists to herself. A new normal. Someone whose throat doesn’t close around a sob when she smells bread or sees a beagle. Someone who goes to parties and laughs. Morrisville is in the past. This is now.

  Someone cranks the music, and a pop song Shania vaguely recognizes booms out over the pool, jerking her back into the moment—she swears the water ripples. Catherine points at someone Shania can’t see near the house and yells yeahhhh in approval of the musical selection. Turning and shimmying her shoulders playfully, her blonde dreadlocks thwip left and right as she swings her head in time to the beat. Her smile is infectious, her tan convincing, and her teeth white as a puppy’s. She’s the right kind of friend, Shania thinks. The kind of friend who’s like confetti over your life. Shania lets her shoulders loosen and sways a little to the music, trying to look as carefree as Catherine Tane absolutely is.

  The song transitions into a bass-heavy rap song, and Catherine grabs a drink off the table, holding it aloft and wiggling her hips.