We Were Liars (22 page)

Authors: E. Lockhart

Mirren strips off her sundress and stands there in a bathing suit. “I can’t believe you put on a bikini for this,” says Gat, his arms still around me.

“Certifiable,” adds Johnny.

“I love this bikini,” says Mirren. “I got it in Edgartown, summer fifteen. Do you remember, Cady?”

And I find that I do.

We were desperately bored; the littles had rented bikes to go on this scenic ride to Oak Bluffs and we had no idea when they’d return. We had to wait and bring them back on the boat. So, whatever, we’d shopped for fudge, we’d looked at wind
socks, and finally we went into a tourist shop and tried on the tackiest bathing suits we could find.

“It says
The Vineyard Is for Lovers
on the butt,” I tell Johnny.

Mirren turns around, and indeed it does. “Blaze of glory and all that,” she says, not without bitterness.

She walks over, kisses me on the cheek, and says, “Be a little kinder than you have to, Cady, and things will be all right.”

“And never eat anything bigger than your ass!” yells Johnny. He gives me a quick hug and kicks off his shoes. The two of them wade into the sea.

I turn to Gat. “You going, too?”

He nods.

“I am so sorry, Gat,” I say. “I am so, so sorry, and I will never be able to make it up to you.”

He kisses me, and I can feel him shaking, and I wrap my arms around him like I could stop him from disappearing, like I could make this moment last, but his skin is cold and damp with tears and I know he is leaving.

It is good to be loved, even though it will not last.

It is good to know that once upon a time, there was Gat and me.

Then he takes off, and I cannot bear to be separate from him, and I think, this cannot be the end. It can’t be true we won’t ever be together again, not when our love is so real. The story is supposed to have a happy ending.

But no.

He is leaving me.

He is dead already, of course.

The story ended a long time ago.

Gat runs into the sea without looking back, plunging in, in all his clothes, diving underneath the small waves.

The Liars swim out, past the edge of the cove and into the open ocean. The sun is high in the sky and glints off the water, so bright, so bright. And then they dive—

or something—

and they are gone.

I am left, there on the southern tip of Beechwood Island. I am on the tiny beach, alone.

I SLEEP FOR
what might be days. I can’t get up.

I open my eyes, it’s light out.

I open my eyes, it’s dark.

Finally I stand. In the bathroom mirror, my hair is no longer black. It has faded to a rusty brown, with blond roots. My skin is freckled and my lips are sunburnt.

I am not sure who that girl in the mirror is.

Bosh, Grendel, and Poppy follow me out of the house, panting and wagging their tails. In the New Clairmont kitchen, the aunties are making sandwiches for a picnic lunch. Ginny is cleaning out the refrigerator. Ed is putting bottles of lemonade and ginger ale into a cooler.

Ed.

Hello, Ed.

He waves at me. Opens a bottle of ginger ale and gives it to Carrie. Rummages in the freezer for another bag of ice.

Bonnie is reading and Liberty is slicing tomatoes. Two
cakes, one marked
chocolate
and one
vanilla
, rest in bakery boxes on the counter. I tell the twins happy birthday.

Bonnie looks up from her
Collective Apparitions
book. “Are you feeling better?” she asks me.

“I am.”

“You don’t look much better.”

“Shut up.”

“Bonnie is a wench and there’s nothing to do about it,” says Liberty. “But we’re going tubing tomorrow morning if you want to come.”

“Okay,” I say.

“You can’t drive. We’re driving.”

“Yeah.”

Mummy gives me a hug, one of her long, concerned hugs, but I don’t speak to her about anything.

Not yet. Not for a while, maybe.

Anyway, she knows I remember.

She knew when she came to my door, I could tell.

I let her give me a scone she’s saved from breakfast and get myself some orange juice from the fridge.

I find a Sharpie and write on my hands.

Left:
Be a little
. Right:
Kinder
.

Outside, Taft and Will are goofing around in the Japanese garden. They are looking for unusual stones. I look with them. They tell me to search for glittery ones and also ones that could be arrowheads.

When Taft gives me a purple one he’s found, because he remembers I like purple rocks, I put it in my pocket.

GRANDDAD AND I
go to Edgartown that afternoon. Bess insists on driving us, but she goes off by herself while we go shopping. I find pretty fabric shoulder bags for the twins and Granddad insists on buying me a book of fairy tales at the Edgartown bookshop.

“I see Ed’s back,” I say as we wait at the register.

“Um-hm.”

“You don’t like him.”

“Not that much.”

“But he’s here.”

“Yes.”

“With Carrie.”

“Yes, he is.” Granddad wrinkles his brow. “Now stop bothering me. Let’s go to the fudge shop,” he says. And so we do. It is a good outing. He only calls me Mirren once.

THE BIRTHDAY IS
celebrated at suppertime with cake and presents. Taft gets hopped up on sugar and scrapes his knee falling off a big rock in the garden. I take him into the bathroom to find a Band-Aid. “Mirren used to always do my Band-Aids,” he tells me. “I mean, when I was little.”

I squeeze his arm. “Do you want me to do your Band-Aids now?”

“Shut up,” he says. “I’m ten already.”

* * *

THE NEXT DAY
I go to Cuddledown and look under the kitchen sink.

There are sponges there, and spray cleaner that smells like lemons. Paper towels. A jug of bleach.

I sweep away the crushed glass and tangled ribbons. I fill bags with empty bottles. I vacuum crushed potato chips. I scrub the sticky floor of the kitchen. Wash the quilts.

I wipe grime from windows and put the board games in the closet and clean the garbage from the bedrooms.

I leave the furniture as Mirren liked it.

On impulse, I take a pad of sketch paper and a ballpoint from Taft’s room and begin to draw. They are barely more than stick figures, but you can tell they are my Liars.

Gat, with his dramatic nose, sits cross-legged, reading a book.

Mirren wears a bikini and dances.

Johnny sports a snorkeling mask and holds a crab in one hand.

When it’s done, I stick the picture on the fridge next to the old crayon drawings of Dad, Gran, and the goldens.

ONCE UPON A
time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. These daughters grew to be women, and the women had children, beautiful children, so many, many children, only something bad happened
,

something stupid
,

criminal
,

terrible
,

something avoidable
,

something that never should have happened
,

and yet something that could, eventually, be forgiven
.

The children died in a fire—all except one
.

Only one was left, and she—

No, that’s not right
.

The children died in a fire, all except three girls and two boys
.

There were three girls and two boys left
.

Cadence, Liberty, Bonnie, Taft, and Will
.

And the three princesses, the mothers, they crumbled in rage and despair. They drank and shopped, starved and scrubbed and obsessed. They clung to one another in grief, forgave each other, and wept. The fathers raged, too, though they were far away; and the king, he descended into a delicate madness from which his old self only sometimes emerged
.

The children, they were crazy and sad. They were racked with guilt for being alive, racked with pain in their heads and fear of ghosts, racked with nightmares and strange compulsions, punishments for being alive when the others were dead
.

The princesses, the fathers, the king, and the children, they crumbled like eggshells, powdery and beautiful—for they were always beautiful. It seemed

as if

this tragedy marked the end of the family
.

And perhaps it did
.

But perhaps it did not
.

They made a beautiful family. Still
.

And they knew it. In fact, the mark of tragedy became, with time, a mark of glamour. A mark of mystery, and a source of fascination for those who viewed the family from afar
.

“The eldest children died in a fire,” they say, the villagers of Burlington, the neighbors in Cambridge, the private-school parents of lower Manhattan, and the senior citizens of Boston. “The island caught fire,” they say. “Remember some summers ago?”

The three beautiful daughters became more beautiful still in the eyes of their beholders
.

And this fact was not lost upon them. Nor upon their father, even in his decline
.

Yet the remaining children
,

Cadence, Liberty, Bonnie, Taft, and Will
,

they know that tragedy is not glamorous
.

They know it doesn’t play out in life as it does on a stage or between the pages of a book. It is neither a punishment meted out nor a lesson conferred. Its horrors are not attributable to one single person
.

Tragedy is ugly and tangled, stupid and confusing
.

That is what the children know
.

And they know that the stories

about their family

are both true and untrue
.

There are endless variations
.

And people will continue to tell them
.

MY FULL NAME
is Cadence Sinclair Eastman.

I live in Burlington, Vermont, with Mummy and three dogs.

I am nearly eighteen.

I own a well-used library card, an envelope full of dried beach roses, a book of fairy tales, and a handful of lovely purple rocks. Not much else.

I am

the perpetrator

of a foolish, deluded crime

that became

a tragedy.

Yes, it’s true that I fell in love with someone and that he died, along with the two other people I loved best in this world. That has been the main thing to know about me,

the only thing about me for a very long time,

although I did not know it myself.

But there must be more to know.

There will be more.

MY FULL NAME
is Cadence Sinclair Eastman.

I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools.

I like a twist of meaning.

I endure.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks most of all to Beverly Horowitz and Elizabeth Kaplan for their support of this novel in countless ways. To Sarah Mlynowski (twice), Justine Larbalestier, Lauren Myracle, Scott Westerfeld, and Robin Wasserman for commenting on early drafts—I have never shown a manuscript to so many people and been in such dire need of each person’s insights. Thanks to Sara Zarr, Ally Carter, and Len Jenkin as well.

Thanks to Libba Bray, Gayle Forman, Dan Poblacki, Sunita Apte, and Ayun Halliday, plus Robin, Sarah, and Bob for keeping me company and talking shop while I wrote this book. Gratitude to Donna Bray, Louisa Thompson, Eddie Gamarra, John Green, Melissa Sarver, and Arielle Datz. At Random House: Angela Carlino, Rebecca Gudelis, Lisa McClatchy, Colleen Fellingham, Alison Kolani, Rachel Feld, Adrienne Weintraub, Lisa Nadel, Judith Haut, Lauren Donovan, Dominique Cimina, and everyone who put so much creativity into helping this book find an audience.

Thanks especially to my family, who are nothing like the Sinclairs.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

E. LOCKHART
is the author of four books about Ruby Oliver:
The Boyfriend List
,
The Boy Book
,
The Treasure Map of Boys
, and
Real Live Boyfriends
. She also wrote
Fly on the Wall
,
Dramarama
, and
How to Be Bad
(the last with Sarah Mlynowski and Lauren Myracle). Her novel
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
was a Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book, a finalist for the National Book Award, and winner of a Cybils Award for Best Young Adult Novel. Visit E. online at
emilylockhart.com
and follow
@elockhart
on Twitter.