Aimee Laine: Little White Lies

Lily didn’t respond. Instead, she disappeared, leaving Charley to deal with her teenage self on her own.

“Meanie.” She rose to her feet to face the wrath of the mirror. Would it tell her anything new? Face set, she leaned over the counter, prepared to do battle.

“Ahem.” James coughed as he took Lily’s spot at the door minutes later.

Charley shifted toward him, raising an eyebrow before she turned back to her activities.

“Ah, Lily told me to tell you to… to ah… get it in gear and move it.” He cringed as Charley shot him one of her well tested don’t-try-me looks.

Cael appeared from behind James’s shoulder. “Aw, Charley. C’mon. Don’t be like that.” He’d hidden himself well despite his height.

Unlike many of their previous nights, Cael seemed refreshed and relaxed, but he still hadn’t learned the one primary rule in life: don’t mess with Mother Nature or Charley with a pimple.

She skewered him with a stare. “We can all be many things, but girls, you cannot. Well… one of you anyway.” With one finger, she pointed to the door. Both slunk away in silence.

She’d said casual to Wyatt, but she herself dressed in a honey-colored silk infused with translucent raw threads. She’d been careful to select her attire for both her age and color. Over the weeks, she’d grown fond of the golden hair and milky skin and considered it a permanent addition to her virtual collection.

Nerves danced along her skin, causing the hairs to stand on end. Unable to keep her eye color solid, she pressed both hands against the cool granite countertop and breathed in the sweet, still humid air. She held it a few beats, let it seep between nearly closed lips. A second time. A third. She repeated until a firmer calm took hold. A check of her eye color revealed the blue she’d chosen, proving she had control again.

She froze when the bells chimed.

“Here goes nothin’.” Charley sauntered to the stair landing. With one hand on the banister and a foot in midair, she waited. Voices wafted up the stairs as the faces-to-names game played through-first with those he’d know from Mira’s stories as Jack and Carter and then Leena.

Wyatt smiled as Charley began her descent. When Stuart appeared, she stopped. Surprise warred with her role as hostess.

From behind them, Lily mouthed, “What do I do?” with a few frantic hand gestures. Charley opened her eyes wide but left Lily to find the answer-which she would, Charley had no doubt.

“This house rocks!” Wyatt said as she leveled with him.

Behind him, Stuart murmured his usual “Mmm, Mmm.”

Such the wordsmith . “Hi, Stuart!” She smiled, waving around Wyatt who stood between them.

“Hey.” Stuart’s tone came through as one of worry rather than interest.

James and Cael towered over Wyatt but met Stuart nearly eye to eye. Despite their relative ages, their transformations into teenagers had not been as well executed as they thought. Side by side with Wyatt and Stuart, she’d put James and Cael in their mid-twenties, not the eighteen and nineteen-year-old boys they sought to imitate.

Wyatt leaned to her ear. “Stu was kinda bummed ’bout us spending all our time together, so I invited him. I hope that’s okay.”

Stuart and Wyatt couldn’t have been more different. Shaggy hair hung below Stuart’s ears. His jeans hung low on skinny hips, though he took care not to let the hems drag. Wyatt must have insisted on the button-down shirt as Charley’d only seen Stuart in a T.

She offered a quick nod, taking Wyatt by the hand. “Stuart? Would you like a tour?” She’d include them both if it meant she’d have more time with ‘the boy’, as she’d referred to him at school.

She understood the value of friendship, of family, and knew enough about their history to recognize the need to be included.

Charley tugged Wyatt’s hand. He and Stuart followed her from room to room. They pointed to art, furniture, the floor and to Cael’s most fond possession-his flat screen. Charley knew Cael would be flattered when she revealed the outcome of their adventure.

They found James, Cael and Lily around the kitchen island, where a sixth stool waited for their unexpected guest.

“So, you guys are seniors at West?” James crunched on a carrot stick from a tray Lily laid before them.

“Yeah. Six weeks left,” Wyatt told him. “And I can’t wait.”

“It’s Stuart, right?” Lily drew herself into the conversation as she, too, munched upon the veggies. “There’s a stool over here if you want to sit.” She patted the seat.

Stuart nodded and slid a leg over the wrought iron while Charley and Wyatt took their places.

“So, Mira,” Stuart said. “Did Wyatt tell ya what Julie said fourth period?” Stuart bit into a carrot stick.

Waves of nerves ebbed through the group, some more evident than others.

Charley caught Wyatt’s disapproval as soon as Stuart began; his eyes reflected a pain he tried to conceal. She squeezed his hand under the cover of the countertop. “No, he didn’t say.” She stole a glance at Cael and James. Given what she’d learned about Julie, it couldn’t be a happy story.

Stuart pointed into the air. “Well, you know she’s about the ditziest blonde in school.” He scrunched up his nose as if in thought. “Through all the years, even, not just our class.”

Wyatt waved him forward.

“So, anyway.” Stuart twirled the slim orange stick between his fingers like a baton. “We’re in class bitchin’ like normal, and she announces to the entire class-” He spread his arms wide as if they could hold the thirty students from the room. “-that you’re livin’ with aliens. Talk about bubble-headed. We laughed it off.” Stuart inclined his head toward Wyatt. “Well, Wyatt didn’t.”

Charley kept Wyatt in her peripheral vision, prepared to turn Stuart’s conversations elsewhere if Wyatt continued to grimace and sigh or Cael and James’s temperatures ratcheted up any higher.

Stuart himself broke the undercurrent of anxiety. “How do you guys like living way up here?”

“It’s very peaceful,” Lily said.

“No neighbors?” Stuart picked up a Brie-encrusted apple slice, studied it a moment and popped it into his mouth.

“Nope. Not this high.” James grabbed a handful for himself. “About a mile down, though.”

The temperature in the room decreased a degree.

“You guys know Wyatt’s been here before? In this house?” Stuart started in again, oblivious to the change in James and Cael’s posture, the way their muscles tensed and the subtle shifts of their faces from interested to concerned.

Charley smiled, amused by Stuart’s verbal garbage dump. “Do tell.”

She leaned into the table, preparing to hear what she already knew. One hand in Wyatt’s, her head rested in the palm of the other, but the sizzle didn’t come from unaddressed sexual desire.

James and Cael shifted in their seats, subtle movements no one but she or Lily would register.

“Apparently, way, way before you guys moved in-” He pointed with the carrot again to Lily, James and Cael. “-his Mom stayed in this house for somethin’ like three or four weeks. She says it was like her most favorite vacation. The people here were uber-rich and gave her everything she needed. Doesn’t she still keep in touch or somethin’, Wyatt?”

Wyatt nodded, but the cringe and slight shift of his head tore at Charley’s heart. Wyatt slumped lower in his chair, but tension emanated in invisible waves from James and Cael.

She let the smile grow inside as memories of that month surfaced. She’d have to keep them tucked away or risk their cover.

“Shall we move to the dining room?” Lily’s chair squealed against the floor as she slid off.