A Fabrication of the Truth (3 page)

The next day at school, Dalton gave me a half-crooked smile. I flashed him one back and continued to look forward down the hall. I couldn’t completely ignore him. He wanted to know how I was doing, so then if I smiled, he’d see I was doing okay. I didn’t have to strike up a friendship with him; we were both moving on, living our lives, and that seemed enough. But then, was I? I lived a life I’d forged since after my mom left – one that got even more elaborate after one moment, in particular, from my first-grade days. My dad took me by the shoulders and looked me in the eye, saying, “Don’t tell people what I do for work.” We stood in the middle of the living room, and just past my dad, some guy who worked for him tucked a gun into the back of his pants. I wasn’t fazed by the fact that he had a gun. I wondered why he couldn’t just put it in his pocket.

“What do you do for work?” I asked.

“I move goods,” he said.

“Uh,” I said, not having the slightest idea what that meant. I realized years later that meant drugs.

“If anybody asks, just make something up.” And that’s what I had done ever since.

It was like he gave me permission to fabricate everything. What a feeling.

***

“You sure you can’t come to the party tomorrow?” Luiz asked me at the end of the school day. She was one of Caroline and mine’s friends. She also knew I was full of shit – she just didn’t know how full.

I sighed and looked at Luiz. She was the tallest of the three of us, but that wasn’t saying much because neither Caroline nor I were what you’d call Amazonian women. Luiz was also much bustier, and she made sure to emphasize it, constantly getting in trouble at school for wearing shirts that were too revealing. She started keeping a cardigan in her locker for when teachers told her to cover up or go home. I didn’t know what the school was afraid of – they were just boobs. Half the world’s population has them.

“Let me guess: an invitation to the embassy to have tea with some prince,” Luiz said with a smirk on her face. She tugged at one of her long, dark-brown curls, the curl bouncing right back into place as she released it.

I showed Luiz my middle finger. At first, I thought my rudeness delighted her because a smile crept across her face, but then I realized somebody stood right behind me. I didn’t turn around – I knew who it was. He took a step closer and I could feel his warmth. Over my shoulder, he softly said into my ear, “You should go to the party.”

I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes. When I opened them, Dalton was gone.

“Jesus Christ, that was hot,” Luiz said. “Man, I want to jump the new kid’s bones, but he has eyes for you.”

“It’s not like that.”

“He intimately whispered in your ear,” Caroline said.

“He doesn’t respect personal space.”

“I think it’s just your personal space. He seems to want all up in it,” Caroline said, smiling and throwing her arm around my shoulder.

“So does that mean you’re coming to the party?” Luiz asked.

“Fine, I’ll be there – but not because of Dalton Reyes.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Caroline said, squeezing me a bit tighter in her grip.

I thought about Dalton’s lips, his eyes – all of him – for the rest of the day, and then wondered why. Yes, I usually thought of him, but not to that extent. Even as I got out my supplies to create a brand new Enzo fashion that night, I thought about those eyes.

When I created my new fashions, I really didn’t need my grandma’s help much anymore. She used to do the bulk of the sewing, but now, she offered sewing guidance only on occasion. I had become Enzo. I might have been more unbalanced than I thought.

I knew a lot of my uniqueness stemmed from that day – that one particular day Dalton Reyes visited his lola and lolo. That one day where he finally gathered the courage and came next door, to my house.

I invited him in, and for hours, we played a dancing revolution game on my Mbox. It was the best and worst day of my life. We decided to sit down and drink some pop because we were both getting pretty sweaty, and he was worried he started to smell. The front door to the house burst open. We never finished drinking our pop. We never finished playing our game. That was the day we were both involved in a botched drug raid.

***

“Grandma!” I yelled when I emerged from my room mid-afternoon on Saturday.

“Kitchen!” she yelled back.

I walked into the kitchen, threw my latest dress on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. I put my chin in my hands and said, “Grandma, I’m going out tonight.” That was normal for a sixteen-year-old to say on a Saturday night, but not for me. I was usually too busy meeting dignitaries from other countries or attending soirées at some mansion – none of which ever made me step out my front door. You know, a day in the life. I always had an excuse handy when someone at school asked what I would be doing for the evening.

So my grandma answered with a surprised, “Really?”

“Yep.”

“You don’t look too enthused.”

“I am, really, look at the smile on my face,” I said, forcing a frightful smile, bugging my eyes and stretching my lips wide.

My grandma laughed. “Make sure you eat something before you go.”

“Will do.”

I headed up to my room to decide what to wear. It was a party, so people generally dressed a bit nicer, right? But then I didn’t want to look like I tried to dress up too much just because Dalton said I should go. I didn’t want anybody to get the wrong impression.

I stood in my room thinking about my clothing choices. My room was small and cramped, but I liked it. It oozed my essence in the form of fabric and old clothing pieces strewn everywhere. My sketchbook and colored pencils sprawled out in a mess on the floor because I always tried to draw my fashion creations beforehand. I stress
tried
because I usually started with one intention and ended up somewhere totally different. My closet had no doors – my grandma and I took them off long ago so I could cram more in there. Clothes haphazardly stuck out in odd directions from hangers jammed on the rod. Under my window sat my sewing machine, piles of clothes stacked high upon my shelves: made, to be remade, and ones that didn’t turn out so well. I flopped onto my bed debating what to wear – something that shouldn’t have been so hard. Maybe I just needed to close my eyes, stick my arm in my closet, and pull something out. Hours passed before I finally got dressed.

I ended up wearing a shirt composed of two different t-shirts – each with their own pattern – and a loose crocheted sweater over that. I put my hair in a pile on my head with a couple of pencils stuck in it. I looked nice but not too fancy. Caroline picked me up – she was fortunate and had a car. I had a bus pass.

The party was in the cramped, hot basement of an old house. I could already tell I was not going to have a good time. Why did I even go? Deep down, I knew I went because of Dalton.

“Luiz said they’re having an actual live band playing,” Caroline said, leaning in close so I could hear her. Caroline had her hair swept back and wore just the simplest amount of makeup. She had such a natural beauty—she didn’t even need the light touches of makeup.

“Ooo, wow, so awesome.” The live band was pretty obvious because you could hear them warming up or whatever – tuning their instruments, playing with the amps, that kind of stuff. It would be so loud in there when they started – I was
not
looking forward to it.

“Shut up. No, she said her brother said they’re actually really good.”

“Yeah, we’ll just see about that. I think I’m going to suffocate in here.” I pulled on my shirt collar and stuck out my tongue. I wasn’t normally such a Debbie Downer; I was just in a mood. A mood that started the day before, highly affected by Dalton Reyes. Why did he have to whisper in my ear in front of Caroline and Luiz?

“Um, hi. We’re Macaulay and we’re going to play some songs,” we heard.

“Let’s get closer,” Caroline said, grabbing my hand as the band started to play a fast song, like punk mixed with indie rock. Was that a thing? I wasn’t well versed in musical genres. The lead singer’s voice wafted through the air, lingering in my brain—it was so familiar. When Caroline and I popped out near the front of the crowd, I saw why. Dalton Reyes sang into the mic, playing guitar and looking hotter than all get out. Caroline grabbed my sleeve. “It’s him,” she said, pointing to the band.

“Of course it is,” I said.

Luiz appeared at our side, wearing a dress that might have actually been a child’s t-shirt. I didn’t even know where you would go to buy a dress that small. “He just got one hundred times sexier,” she yelled over the music. There was no argument there.

It looked like Dalton was the music itself – it just flowed from him so naturally. He caught my eye at the end of the song, looking from me over to Luiz and then to Caroline, and smirked. He leaned in close to the microphone, looked up through his long lashes, and pointed at me.

“Prince Tomas sends his regards,” he said.

He then started playing a bouncy little riff and sang.

“She had a written correspondence love affair

With a prince.

She couldn’t say which –

It was a secret.”

He nodded at the two other members of the band – a bassist and a drummer – who both joined in as everybody in the crowd started to jump along. I had to say, it was really catchy.

“She had a written correspondence love affair

With a prince.

She couldn’t say which –

It was a secret.”

He sang it a few more times and then laughed and pointed at me again. He needed to laugh more. He looked so good laughing. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.

They started into their next song, and Luiz turned toward me. “I always thought you were shitting me. It’s true?” she asked as somebody bumped into her. “Hey,” Luiz said over her shoulder. The guy who bumped her continued with his flailing, which I think he thought was dancing. “It’s true?” Luiz asked again.

I shrugged and smiled. Dalton Reyes was trying to get on my good side. I wanted to be mad, but I was thankful.

Now at least the prince I had tea with when I was twelve had a name, Prince Tomas. I guess I courted him, too. I figured that was when we got a bit older, though. But the story I told was that over summer vacation, The Prince invited me to high tea at the Dutch embassy. A courier in a limousine delivered a beautiful invitation to my front door. Tea at an embassy was a big deal, so I had to look my best – The Prince sent an assistant to take me shopping. We only went to the most expensive and exquisite shops, where I found a perfect silk gown for a Sunday afternoon with royalty. The Prince complimented me. He spoke of how my eyes looked a most beautiful brown, accentuated by my dress. The Prince was charming, of course, and even at twelve, always the gentleman.

I brought a small silver teaspoon to school so everyone could see what The Prince gave me as a token of appreciation. At the time, it was my most grandiose lie. In third grade, when I told everybody about the zombie in my basement, they didn’t need any evidence – but seventh graders are much smarter than third, so I had to bring in proof to support my claim. It was really a spoon my grandma bought on vacation which sat with the rest of the cutlery in the silverware drawer.

I reigned supreme in summer vacation stories. I couldn’t tell my classmates that I had really rejected my dad’s request to see him; or that I sat in a church basement playing bingo; or that I couldn’t sleep because every time I closed my eyes, I saw Dalton lying on the floor bleeding – it took over a year for those nightmares to go away. The Prince treated me much nicer than my reality.

***

After Dalton and his band played a few more songs, I shrunk back in the crowd and watched from afar.

“Lexie!” Caroline called in octave not often heard amongst humans. She came up from behind and shook my shoulder. She had snuck off to get something to drink, and I had a sneaking suspicion it started with a B, had a couple of Es, and ended in an R. Caroline was normally an upbeat person, but she seemed almost too ecstatic to have found me standing there while I pretended not to pay attention to the band.

“Hey, Caroline.”

“So you, like, hooking up with him after they’re done playing?”

“Who?”

“Uh, hello, Dalton.”

“Are boys and sex the only things ever on your mind?”

“Since Dalton longs for you, I’ll take the drummer. He’s pretty cute. He’s got a scruffy-sexy thing going. Introduce me?”

“Caroline, for Pete’s sake, I don’t know them. Just Dalton, kind of, from when we were little. Haven’t seen him since I was eleven, so how would I know the band?”

“But Prince Tomas sends his regards,” Caroline said.

“Ugh.” I pulled on my hair and rolled my eyes.

“Is Dalton really like royalty? Maybe he’s Prince Tomas, and that’s why you can’t talk.”

“Caroline, he is not royalty. Sorry to break it to you, but there is no Prince Tomas.”

“But with Luiz…”

“I’m just stringing her along. Okay? Like I do every single day with everybody else.”

“I just thought maybe for once something you said was real.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but no.”

“I could never be disappointed in you. Now let’s go get more drinks, or get a drink in your case because your hands seem to be empty.” Caroline took my hand and dragged me through the crowd, bumping me into everyone, making some slosh their drinks, and almost pulling my arm off when I got stuck between two people who grinded their parts together.

I ended up with a pop. I don’t like to drink, and besides, I was only sixteen. I was sure that went against some teenage code, but most of what I did probably went against some sort of moral code anyway, so by not partaking in underage drinking I could balance out my penchant for lying.

***

I lost Caroline to a dancing, preppy-looking guy, and my shoulder and I made friends with the wall. I was perfecting my lean. I didn’t even realize the band stopped playing, but they must have because all of a sudden Dalton stood right in front of me with his hands in his pockets.

I didn’t say anything at first.

He looked at me with a smirk.

Gosh darnit, I couldn’t just ignore him. “I assumed you couldn’t come to parties.”

“Why would you assume that?”

“I heard that you were sent here because you got into trouble, so I well, yeah,” I said, scratching behind my ear and then crossing my arms over my chest, only to uncross them and cross them again.

“Where did you hear that?”

“I have my sources.”

“So you asked around about me?” Dalton asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I was just curious.” I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant while my stomach did all sorts of flip-flops.

“I asked around about you, at school.”

My face fell. Oh dear lord. I said nothing.

“You lead quite the life. Some say descendant of royalty. Some say uptight rich girl. Some say, ‘Oh that girl, she’s kind of weird.’”

I closed my eyes.

“No, I get it,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he understood what there was to get.

“Dalton, let’s not talk about this here.” I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and let out a deep breath.

“I won’t tell anybody,” he said, stepping in close.

“Dalton…”

“Then where? Where can we talk about it?”

“We’re not going to.”

“I can’t just sit there in my room knowing you’re only feet away, yet we can’t talk. It’s not fair. It’s not fair to me.”

“It’s just…”

“It’ll be our secret. Nobody at school has to know. Okay?”

I nodded.

“Good.”

With him so close, I couldn’t say no. I just had to separate myself from the Dalton there with me and the one from that day after the door burst open. After all those men dressed in black rushed in, holding guns and shouting. Someone threw something, and there was smoke everywhere. The people who busted in ran toward the ones who got up from their seats at the dining room table with my dad and ran to get out of the house. Someone shouted, “Don’t move!” Some listened, some did not. Glass shattered as one guy broke a window with a chair and jumped. Nobody seemed to notice the two kids sitting there until it was too late. A guy came out from the back of the house shouting words most kids shouldn’t hear, toting a very large gun. Dalton stood up and reached out his hand for me to hold, and that’s when loud noises rang out. I covered my ears as the pops got louder, and then they stopped and somebody grabbed me around the waist. Dalton was on the ground, lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, his whole shirt covered in blood. It seeped out of the corner of his mouth. I reached out and screamed, “Dalton! Dalton!” He didn’t respond. Somebody carried me outside. I was eleven, and it was the first and only time I ever saw somebody get shot. That was how I remembered Dalton. But then there he was in the school hallway, trying to talk to me. And then there he was, alive and well with me at the party.

***

Dalton Reyes was at my window. Holy shit, Dalton Reyes was at my window! We never made plans for talking, but yet a few hours later, there he was. I opened the window and a cool night breeze blew in, sending shivers down my spine.

“This isn’t what I was expecting,” I said.

“It’s the perfect time. Nobody will know anything.” It was past midnight already. I mean hours past midnight.

“Why do you want to talk to me so badly?”

“I don’t know. It’s like you’re the only one I can really talk to – like I’ve been waiting for five years to talk about the day I got shot.”

“Dalton…”

“You’re part of that day, part of my history, part of my life.”

I sighed. “Come on in.”

I opened the window, and he climbed through, dressed like he was going to explore the tundra in his pajamas. A sweatshirt over plaid, flannel pajama bottoms and a beanie, a scarf, and a pair of gloves to top it off – I knew it got cold at night during the late fall, but he was only coming from next door.

“Bundle much?”

“Don’t want to catch a cold,” he said, dropping down on the couch right under the window.

“I guess not. How did you know I was down here?”

“Saw the light, took a chance.”

“Okay,” I said, sitting down on the corner of the couch, pulling up my knees and hugging them. Actually, I slept in the basement most nights. I didn’t have a TV in my room – there wasn’t space – and I liked to fall asleep with a bit of background noise. Usually a couple of hours after I fell asleep, I’d wake up and turn off the TV. Plus, with all the paneling and low ceiling, it felt safe and cozy down there. “But why are you wandering around this time of night?

He shrugged and said, “So…,” totally ignoring my question.

“Yeah, so.”

Dalton didn’t say anything.

“Well, talk.”

“I don’t even know where to begin.”

“The beginning.”

“How about right afterward?” he asked.

“Okay.”

He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face, shook his head and then spoke. “I kept asking for you. If you were okay, if I could see you. But all they told me was that you were fine and I’d never see you again. That seemed so unfair to me. Granted, we didn’t really know each other, but yet we did, and I think that day sealed our fate somehow, like we’ll always be connected. In the hospital, at home, before I went back to school, my mind was forever on you.” Dalton looked up at me. My words stuck in my throat, so Dalton kept talking.

“For the longest time, when I closed my eyes, you’d think I saw the guy with the gun, then nothing – but no, I saw you. I reached my hand out to you, waiting for you to grab it, and it feels like I’m still doing that after five years.”

This boy would be my downfall, but how could I stay away? I scooted over and took his hand, interlacing our fingers.

He took in a breath and looked at me.

“I’ve thought about you every day since then,” I said.

“Then why can’t you talk to me now?”

“Because I’m a liar, a fraud, and you just don’t fit in.”

“You’re going to have to make room.”

“That’s what’s so scary about this.”

“It doesn’t have to be scary.”

“Nobody at school knows about my real life – that day, my dad, my mom, everything. Everything I say is a lie, and if people see us together…”

“Nobody at school knows about me. I’ve only been there a handful of days. Most people think my name is New Guy. They have no way of linking us.”

“But still, my whole life could fall apart.”

“Okay, how about at school, we pretend we don’t know each other; but here, at home, we have this,” he said, holding up our hands.

“What is this?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Dalton…listen, we just need to be friends, okay?”

“Okay,” he said with a head nod, like my suggestion was the simplest of things. “I better go before somebody finds me missing and freaks.”

“See you tomorrow, from a distance?”

“It’s a plan.” He let go of my hand, stood on the couch, and hoisted himself out of the basement window.

It took me a while to fall asleep after Dalton left. Every last detail of that day played on a loop in my head. To be exact, I was eleven years, two months, and thirteen days old when Dalton Reyes knocked on my front door. I was watching that one court show where the judge tells everybody they’re stupid and yells at them – man, that show used to crack me up. I was all nestled up on the couch because it was Saturday, and if I didn’t want to do anything on the weekend, my dad didn’t make me. Besides, he was busy conducting business with a few associates at the dining room table. I was supposed to pretend they weren’t there.

My dad sat at the head of the table, his bald head gleaming and his black t-shirt tight over his chest and biceps. Kids at school used to say my dad looked like he belonged in an action movie. Maybe he did, but only as the villain. A couple of his associates – that’s what he called them – sat with him, arguing under their breath. One of the guys, Mike, was dressed similarly to my dad with a tight black shirt and jeans, but Mike actually had a little bit of hair and big muscles, which is why my dad called him
the muscle
. “We call in Mike when we need the muscle,” he would say. Mike got things done. What exactly I didn’t know at that time, but I knew it was nothing good. The other guy was named Clay. He always looked unwashed and disheveled, with ripped and dirty clothes, continually red eyes, and always in need of a shave. Other guys wandered throughout the house, and I was totally used to it.

But that day felt special because Dalton was there. He was so cute and nervous. I said hi, and he looked at the ground with his hands in his back pockets, then up at me through those long dark lashes and said, “Hi, I’m Dalton.” I told him my name, then we stood there for a moment staring at each other and my dad told me to shut the door. Well, he actually said, “Jesus Lexie, you know we keep the goddamn front door closed.” So I asked Dalton in. He nodded and said sure – I was so excited to have him so close to me. I took his hand and led him into the front room where we stood holding hands. It felt so wonderful and meant to be. It was the first time I ever thought that I might have a boyfriend. It was like we already knew each other.