Jan Burke - Liar

“Again tragedy struck, and there are those who will tell you that this one disordered the old king’s mind. The king and the princess traveled to the east, so that the princess might see her family, and to show them the fair Gwendolyn. And while they were there, a plague struck, the worst in five hundred years.”

“The influenza epidemic?” I asked.

“Yes. Do you know about it?”

“Not much,” I admitted.

“Twenty-one million people died because of it-more than twice the number killed in World War I. So many died in Washington and Baltimore, they ran out of coffins.”

“Sounds as if you’ve studied about it,” I said.

He smiled. “My father told me about it. He lies about a great many things, of course, but I checked up on this.”

His use of the present tense was not lost on me, or on Rachel. We exchanged a look of dismay.

“Oh, I know a son shouldn’t speak ill of his father,” Travis said, misreading it, “but I know you’ll hardly blame me, Irene.”

“Forget about that,” Rachel said quickly. “I want to hear the rest of the story you were telling. They went back east and caught the flu.”

“Yes. All three of them. But despite his age, the king survived, and despite her youth, Gwendolyn did as well. But the poor princess did not. Heartbroken, the king left the east as quickly as he could, and came back to his castle. He loved Gwendolyn, but his protectiveness of this new little princess became extreme. He rarely allowed anyone else near her. A few governesses, a housekeeper or two.

“She grew into a woman, but since her grandfather believed all men to be fortune hunters, he did not allow her into their company. He forever saw her as much younger than she was. She did not mind this protection; she had known it all her life. She was extremely shy of other people, most especially men.

“But one day, when she was outside, sitting in her garden, she saw a big snake sleeping in the sun. Frightened, she cried out, awakening the snake. But a boy who was working nearby heard her, and hurried to help her. He removed the snake from the garden, then went back to see if she had been bitten or harmed in anyway. She told him she was not, but even though he was only twelve, he could see the princess-whom he thought quite silly-was shaken.

“The boy began to tell her a story, one that made the shy princess laugh, and when he had finished, the princess asked him to tell her another. He told her one, and then another, and so it went, until the boy’s brother-who was much older than the boy-called to him that it was time to go.

“She begged the boy to return to her, and he did. When the king died four years later, the princess was very lonely, and soon married the only male who had ever formed an attachment to her.”

He paused, then said, “There are those that would tell you that she was safer with the snake, and maybe they are right. But they do not think, perhaps, of the boy being only a young man of sixteen, and of her, however shy, being over forty. Perhaps it was the boy who would have been better off with the snake.

“What is certain, however, is that one should not ignore the advice of sparrows, for everything the king most feared came true.”

We had reached Las Piernas by then and he asked for directions. I made a decision. He didn’t like me much, and the easiest thing would have been to take him to Mary’s house, to leave everything on her shoulders.

“Take the next exit,” I said, ignoring Rachel’s look of surprise.

I was as much a Maguire as I was a Kelly. It was time to stop letting my father’s prejudices ruin any chance of getting closer to my cousin. I just hoped God found that funny enough to laugh himself into a good mood.

I was surprised when we were able to find a parking space in front of the house; it was the only one available on our block. We live near the beach, and at that time of year, as the weather was warming, the crowds were showing up.

I took Rachel aside and gave her the keys to the Volvo, asking her to give me some time alone with Travis. She hesitated, then relented. She told me to give her a call if I needed help. When he saw that she was leaving, Travis protested that he had promised to pay for a rental car, but she told him not to worry about it. “Just spend some time getting to know your cousin,” she said. “You might find out she’s not so bad.”

He made a face that looked like the warm-up for a sarcastic reply, then caught her disapproving glance. “Will we see you later?” he asked.

She promised she’d be back.

I stalled for a while, introducing him to our pets, showing him the house, feeding him lunch outside on the patio. The dogs took a liking to him and lay on the lawn, watching him. Cody reserved judgment, and busied himself rolling around in a patch of mint that Frank had planted for him.

I answered Travis’s questions about Frank, Pete and Rachel, none of which seemed to be designed to elicit more than small talk. He steered the topic of conversation away from himself, so I stopped asking questions, too anxious about coming up with a way to break the news about his parents to worry much over his reticence. I decided I would make a determined effort to discover more about him later. For the time being, I tried to learn what I could from what he chose to ask me. I suppose I learned more from what he didn’t ask.

He didn’t ask about me or Barbara. I told myself there was no reason to feel hurt over that, that he was a stranger. But he wasn’t.

And yet, what was there to bind him to us? I began to feel sure that as soon as I told him of his parents’ deaths, he would flee. It seemed to me that would be yet another loss, another unnecessary separation in our family saga of indifference. I wanted it to stop.

“I was wondering,” I said, “if you could stay a few days?”

He didn’t try to hide his surprise. “Here? With you?”

“Yes. In the guest bedroom.”

He stared at me a moment, and I half-expected one of his sarcastic replies. But he shook his head and said, “No, I’ve got my camper. It’s all I need-I prefer it, really.”

As if on cue, we were interrupted by a loud noise-a series of whoops and honking sounds-a car alarm. He was up on his feet and hurrying through the house. I followed him, but by the time we reached the front yard, there was no one near the pickup. He pressed a button on his key-chain and the noise subsided.

“Think someone tried to break into it?” I asked.

He glanced around and shrugged. “Hard to know. It isn’t one of those that goes off every time the wind blows, but I’ve had more than one false alarm from it.”

“There’s a stairway to the beach at the end of the street,” I said, “so a lot of beachgoers walk past the house. Maybe someone walking by was curious about ‘Cosmo the Storyteller.”“

He smiled, “Remarking on the paint job?”

“It is designed to grab attention, right?”

“Right.” He glanced between the camper and the house and said, “Mind if I move a couple of things into the house for safekeeping?”

“Not at all. But as I was saying, why don’t you stay?”

“No need to,” he said, walking to the back of the camper. “I have a place to sleep.”

“Well, then, stay here in your camper.”

“Why?” he asked suspiciously.

“Maybe we could get to know each other.”

He laughed as he opened the camper door. “Same question: why?”

I waited while he stepped into the camper and retrieved the rolling trunk. When I suggested he put it in the guest room, he seemed amused, but did as I asked.

We went back out on the patio.

“You asked why I wanted you to stay,” I said. “What happened-between our parents-it wasn’t right.”