in there. You made me look like a … like a …’
‘Liar, by any chance?’
‘Look, I had a plan. I had it all under control. You were just supposed to sit there and observe, that’s what you said.’
‘I never said that.’
‘Somebody said that.’
‘No, you assumed.’
I silently fumed.
‘So tell me, what was the great plan? You were going to lie again and all of a sudden like the great genius you are, learn Spanish overnight?’
‘I have a great aptitude for learning, that’s what my French teacher said,’ I huffed.
‘And your civics teacher said “could do better”.’ He looked away. ‘I did the right thing.’
Silence. The smoker sniffed.
‘Okay, so I should have told the truth, but there has to be another way of doing this. You can’t just bulldoze your way into my life and try to fix every little lie that I’ve ever told. What are you going to do when you meet my parents? Come out with every little fib and give them a heart attack? Are you going to tell them that instead of a study group, I had a house party the night they went to my Aunt Julie’s fortieth and that their darling nephew Colin shagged a girl in their bed and Fiona streaked across the lawn for the last bit of hash and that no, I’m sorry, it wasn’t vegetable soup on the floor like I said it was, it was Melanie’s vomit and I shouldn’t have let the dog eat it? And by the way, Lucy can’t speak Spanish.’ I gasped for air.
He was taken aback. ‘Even your parents think you can speak Spanish?’
‘They paid for a summer there, what else was I meant to tell them?’ I snapped.
‘The truth? Does that ever occur to you?’
‘That I was a podium dancer in a night club instead of doing the job they set up for me at a hotel reception?’
‘Maybe not, then.’
‘I mean, where does the big reveal begin and end? One minute you’re buying light bulbs and the next minute you’re telling my father I think he needs to get off his high horse and stop being a pretentious little shit. You need to have a little sensitivity about this, you’re supposed to be helping me make things better, not putting me in the unemployment line and ending what little relationship I already have with my family. We need to have a plan.’
He was silent for a while, I could see he was mulling it over and I waited for one of his analogies but none came. Instead he said, ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’
I pretended to keel over the banister but he and the smoker pulled me back, thinking I was serious.
‘Thanks,’ I said to her, a little embarrassed, and she quite wisely found that an appropriate time to leave.
‘But I’m not sorry for what I did, just the way that I went about it. We’ll work on another strategy for the future.’
I respected his fairness, his ability to admit when he was wrong. So I took another drag of the cigarette and then put it out, as a mark of respect. But he wasn’t finished and I examined the crushed smouldering cigarette to see if I could pick it up again and continue smoking.
‘I couldn’t just sit there and listen to you lie again, Lucy, and I’m never going to be able to do that so whatever strategy we work out, it has to involve you not lying again. It gives me heartburn.’
‘My lying gives you heartburn?’
‘Right there.’ He rubbed the centre of his chest.
‘Oh. Well, I’m sorry about that.’
He winced and rubbed it again. ‘Your nose just grew, Pinocchio.’
I shoved him playfully. ‘Why don’t you just let me tell people the truth? In my own time, that is.’
‘I don’t think there’s enough time in the world to allow that to happen.’
‘Well, I’m not going to gather the troops and admit everything all at once but I’ll do it. I’ll do it when the time is right. How about we agree that I just won’t tell any more lies from now on, and you do your little accompanying, observing thing if you have to.’
‘How will you stop yourself from lying?’
‘I think I know how not to lie if I don’t want to,’ I said, insulted. ‘It’s not as if I have a problem.’
‘What is it about the wrong-number guy that makes you tell the truth?’
‘Who?’
‘You know who. See, you’ve just done it again,’ he said, amused. ‘Your first reaction is to deny any knowledge of anything.’
I ignored his insight. ‘I told him not to call me any more.’
‘Why? Did you call and he was engaged?’
Though he was pleased with his joke, I ignored it. ‘Nah. It was just too weird.’
‘That’s a pity.’
‘Yeah,’ I said vaguely, not sure if it was pitiful. I held out my hand. ‘So have we got a deal? I don’t lie, you observe?’
He thought about it. ‘I want to add to it.’
I dropped my hand. ‘Of course you do.’
‘Every time you lie, I reveal a truth.’ He held out his hand. ‘Deal?’
I thought about it; I didn’t like it. I couldn’t truthfully promise that I would never lie again, all I could do was try, and I couldn’t trust him to reveal any amount of truth in my life, but if I agreed to the deal then at least it put the ball in my court and he wouldn’t be charging around my life like a bull in a china shop. ‘Fine. It’s a deal.’ We shook on it.
It was tense when I got back to the office. The others couldn’t figure out whether to be angry with me or not, just as they couldn’t figure out whether to be angry with Steve or not so we just worked in silence, no doubt putting aside any issues that needed discussion with one another in the newly created when everything gets back to normal tray beside the inbox and the outbox. Life faced me from the opposite desk, which was acceptable because I bet there wasn’t a soul in the room, apart from Edna, who could remember the name of the guy who worked there. He’d been knocked out in round one early last year when I had nothing to do with him from where I sat in the corner right beneath the air-conditioning vent and my sole task every day was to try keep warm and do everything to stop Graham from staring at my nipples. Needless to say, Augusto Fernández’s quite earnest promise that he would do all in his power to give Steve his job back was nonsense, and so Steve’s desk stood empty. If Life had chosen to sit at that desk, however, that would have caused a stir. It would have been too raw, too painful. Life looked through his computer all day, tap-tap-tapping and making notes, watching me, observing how I spoke to the others which was at an all-time low seeing as nobody was willing to communicate.
Then I started to think about what he’d said. About the wrong number, about Don Lockwood, about why I didn’t lie to him. I don’t know why I didn’t lie to him but the most obvious answer was because I didn’t know him, he was a complete stranger to me and the truth didn’t matter with him.
The truth didn’t matter. Why did it with everybody else?
I picked up my phone and went through my photos; I stopped at the one of his eyes, studied them, zoomed in and out of them one by one like an obsessive stalker, saw the flecks of aqua, almost green, in the blue, then I set it as my screen saver. It looked pretty impressive when I placed my phone on the desk and they were staring up at me.
‘What are you smiling at?’ Life asked me, and his sudden