Sara Shepard - Two Truths and a Lie

Slowly, quietly, she pulled a lime-green tack from the wall and flipped the calendar pages back to August, which featured three tiny Boxer puppies. Laurel had written FAMILY VACAY in bold letters across the squares marking the first week of the month. Emma’s eyes immediately zoomed toward August thirty-first, the day Sutton vanished. Laurel had drawn a blue heart in the upper right-hand corner of the day. She’d colored the heart in with thick, scrabbling lines, the ink pressed hard into the page.

Emma stared at the heart for a moment, unsure what it meant. She flipped to September, staring at the dates marking Nisha Banerjee’s end-of-summer party, the first day of school, the first tennis invitational. Nothing was amiss. But then something on the back side of the August page caught her eye: Pressed into the paper, directly behind the box for the thirty-first, were the initials TV.

For Thayer Vega?

Emma’s heart picked up speed. Laurel had obviously written the initials first, then covered them up with the solid blue heart. But why?

I wish I knew.

“What are you doing in here?”

Emma let the calendar fall back to October and whipped around to see Laurel standing in the doorway. Her lips were pursed. Her hand was on her jutting hip. She shot across the room and pushed Emma away from her calendar.

Emma scrambled for an excuse. “The Haverford match,” she said quickly, pointing to a Friday two weeks in the future. “I just wanted to check the date.”

Laurel peered around her desk, as though to make sure nothing was missing or out of place. “With the door closed ?”

A tiny beat passed, then Emma stood up straighter. “Paranoid much?” she snapped, channeling her inner Sutton. “The air conditioning must have pushed it closed.”

Laurel looked like she was going to say something else, but then Mrs. Mercer’s voice sounded at the bottom of the stairs. “Girls? We have to leave now!”

“Coming!” Emma trilled, as though she’d done nothing wrong. She swept past Laurel, trying to remain poised, blameless, and aloof. But she could feel Laurel’s eyes searing into her back.

I could, too. It was obvious she hadn’t bought Emma’s lie.

Mrs. Mercer was standing at the bottom of the stairs, checking her BlackBerry. She smiled at the girls as they walked down the stairs. “You both look lovely,” she said in an eager voice. Probably too eager. Emma knew she was going to be disappointed by tonight’s outcome.

Mr. Mercer rounded the corner and jangled a set of keys in the air. He’d changed from hospital scrubs into a pair of wrinkle-free khakis and a salmon-colored button-down, but his eyes looked tired and his hair was mussed. “Ready?” he said a bit breathlessly.

“Ready,” Mrs. Mercer echoed. Laurel crossed her arms over her chest sulkily. Emma just shrugged.

They walked to Mr. Mercer’s SUV and climbed in. As Emma belted herself into the seat behind Sutton’s mother, Mr. Mercer caught her eye in the rearview mirror. She quickly looked down. Aside from a few run-ins in the hall, she’d hardly spoken to Sutton’s dad since Saturday morning—he’d been working around the clock at the hospital. Now he was staring at her like he knew she was hiding something.

As Mr. Mercer hit reverse and pulled into the street, Mrs. Mercer plucked a gold-tone compact from her purse and smoothed on a layer of mauve lipstick. “This weather is so odd for early October,” she chattered. “I can’t think of the last time we expected rain like this.”

No one responded.

Mrs. Mercer cleared her throat, trying again. “I got that great mariachi band you love for your party, honey,” she said, laying a hand on Mr. Mercer’s arm. “Remember how brilliant they were at the Desert Museum benefit?”

“Great,” Mr. Mercer answered in a tepid voice. It seemed like he didn’t really feel like doing family dinner either.

Mrs. Mercer fell quiet, looking defeated.

I watched them all settle into stony silence. Something about this situation seemed familiar to me. I wondered how many other times my parents had tried whatever means necessary to force Laurel and me to be friends. We’d been close, once—I had glimmers of us spying on our parents together during family vacations, playing a game I’d made up called Runway Model in the basement, and even me teaching Laurel how to hold a tennis racket and hit a decent backhand. But something had happened over the years—I’d begun to push Laurel away. Part of it might have been jealousy—Laurel was my parents’ real daughter, while I was their adopted child. I worried they loved her more. Maybe Laurel was just reacting to me. And things had just snowballed until we went through phases of barely speaking to each other.

Fifteen minutes and zero conversational topics later, Mr. Mercer eased the SUV over a speed bump and pulled into the resort parking lot. A little grotto with the name ARTURO’S etched in a boulder was lit up with Christmas lights. Outside the front entrance, a man in a business suit with a briefcase talked on his BlackBerry. A woman stood next to him, fussing with her blonde hair. Two waiters dressed in dark pants and crisp white button-downs took a smoke break next to a spindly cactus.

Emma followed Sutton’s family along stone steps that wove through a garden spotted with tiny yellow and violet flowers. Inside, thick, dark wood framed the windows in the adobe walls. Exposed beams hung overhead, and soft classical music floated from miniature speakers. The room was full of people, and waiters swirled with plates full of beautiful-looking racks of lamb, strip steaks, and lobster.

A maître d’ with a pencil mustache and a dark gray suit checked their reservation, and then led them to their table. As they walked through the room, Emma stood up a little straighter, feeling out of place.

“This is lovely,” Mrs. Mercer cooed as they sat, picking up a thick piece of cardboard and perusing the wines listed. “Isn’t it, girls?”

Emma murmured in assent. But Laurel’s gaze was on something—some one— across the room. “I think you’re going to have a visitor, Sutton,” she said nastily.

Emma looked up just in time to see a guy with an angular jaw and short blond hair advancing toward their table. Her stomach flipped uncomfortably. It was Garrett, Sutton’s ex. And he didn’t look happy.

“Hello, Garrett!” Mrs. Mercer said, her mouth wobbling, sending a worried glance at Emma. Emma shifted in her seat. She’d told Sutton’s dad that she and Garrett were no longer an item, and no doubt he’d told her mom. What they didn’t know was that he’d accosted her in the supply room at Homecoming on Friday. In fact, he’d been a little … violent.

“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Mercer.” Garrett nodded politely at Sutton’s parents. Then he turned to Emma. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” He slid his eyes toward a little hallway at the back of the restaurant. Clearly he meant alone.

“Um, I’m here with my family,” Emma said, scooting a little closer to Sutton’s mom. “We were about to order.”

“I just have a quick question,” Garrett said. His voice was pleasant enough, but his eyes were cold and calculating. All at once, Emma knew what this was about: He’d no doubt heard that Thayer had broken into Sutton’s bedroom. Garrett had been shocked that Emma had dumped him, and he was convinced that she had been cheating on him. No doubt he was going to accuse Emma of seeing Thayer behind his back—and maybe Sutton had been.

I took in Garrett’s Abercrombie button-down and khaki pants, feeling a vague flicker of the fun times we’d spent together hiking, going for long bike rides, and having picnics in the park. I was sure there had been some point where I’d been thrilled that he was my boyfriend. But what had happened that made me choose Thayer instead? I thought again about the memory that had come back to me, the push-and-pull of guilt I felt for cheating on Garrett and the thrill of kissing Thayer. Garrett was right about me: I was a cheater. He had every right to be mad.