Love built on lies

Anna Whitfield was late, and she had decided not to be sorry about it. The campus was nearly empty on Saturday afternoons. She took her time crossing the library courtyard, coffee in one hand, phone buzzing in the other. Her mother’s name lit up the screen for the third time. Anna let it ring out and dropped the phone into her bag. Dinner at seven, her mother had said that morning, in the tone that meant or else. The Hartleys were coming. They always came. Her father and Mr. Hartley had been best friends since college, and every few weeks the two families met around the Whitfields’ long dining table to eat too much and pretend that nothing in their lives was ever complicated. Anna had spent the whole afternoon in a study room, not studying. She’d been working up the energy to go home and smile for three hours. She was cutting through the side entrance of the library when someone said her name. “Anna? Anna Whitfield?” A tall guy stood by the vending machines with a textbook under one arm. His hair was a mess and his sleeves were shoved to the elbows, as if he’d been fighting with a chapter for hours. For a second she couldn’t place him. Then he smiled, a little crookedly, and she could. “Chaz?” She raised an eyebrow. “Chaz Hartley? Okay, wow. You got tall.” “It’s been two years,” he said, laughing. “I figured you’d forgotten me.” “Please. You were the quiet kid at the end of the table who never touched the asparagus.” She grinned. “I remember everything.” “I hate asparagus.” “I know. Your mother kept putting it on your plate. I almost felt sorry for you.” “Almost,” Chaz said. “That’s generous.” She walked over, and up close she noticed that he looked tired. It wasn’t the kind of tired you get from a late night. It was heavier than that, as if he’d been carrying something for so long that he’d stopped noticing the weight. She didn’t say so. She nodded at his book instead. “Business law? On a Saturday?” “My dad wants me to switch my major to business management. I’m getting a head start.” “And what do you want to study?” He opened his mouth and closed it again. “It doesn’t really matter.” “It matters to me. I asked.” Chaz looked at her as if she’d said something in another language. People didn’t usually ask him that. He shifted the book to his other arm. There was a smear of graphite along the side of his hand, she noticed, the kind you only get from drawing. “Architecture,” he said quietly. “I used to draw buildings all the time. Houses, bridges, whatever I could see from the bus. My dad called it a phase.” “Is it?” “No.” He almost smiled. “I just stopped telling people.” Anna studied him. Something in the way he said it, careful and a little ashamed, made her want to argue with a man who wasn’t even there. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Nobody gets to decide that for you.” “Easy for you to say. You’ve never let anyone decide anything for you.” “True,” Anna admitted. “My mom says it’s my worst quality.” “I think it sounds like your best.” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. She could tell by the way he cleared his throat and examined the floor. Anna felt something small and unfamiliar flutter under her ribs, and she told herself firmly to ignore it. “Well.” She lifted her coffee. “You’re coming tonight, right? Dinner at my place?” “Dad said it’s mandatory.” “Mine too. We can suffer together.” “I’d like that,” Chaz said, and then went red. “The, um, suffering together part. Not the suffering.” Anna laughed, a real laugh, and some of the stiffness went out of his shoulders. “Relax, Hartley. I don’t bite.” She started walking backward toward the doors. “Not on the first day, anyway. See you at seven.” “You’re late for something, aren’t you?” he called after her. “Always,” she called back. The Whitfields lived in a white house in Buckhead with a circular drive, a fountain nobody ever turned off, and a mother who ran dinner parties like military campaigns. “You’re late,” Mrs. Whitfield said from the top of the stairs. “It’s six-fifteen. Dinner’s at seven.” “Guests arrive at six-thirty. You have library dust on your sleeve and your hair looks as if you slept in it.” Her mother came down two steps and surveyed her like an inspector. “Wear the blue dress. And don’t wear the boots.” “I like the boots.” “I’m aware. That’s why I’m mentioning it.” She turned back up the stairs, then paused. “You’re sitting across from the Hartleys’ son. I’d appreciate it if you’d remember that your father and Henry have been friends for thirty years, and not do anything to embarrass either of them.” “What would I do to embarrass anyone?” “You’d think of something.” The faintest, driest smile. “You always do.” Anna stood in the hall with her coat still on and a funny, fluttering feeling that she wanted to name and didn’t. Across from the Hartleys’ son. Of all the seating charts in the world, her mother’s had to be the one to put him exactly where she could see his face. She took the boots off. She wore the blue dress. And she told herself, climbing the stairs, that it was only to keep the peace. The Whitfield dining room looked the way it always did: white linen, good crystal, candles that her mother insisted on lighting even though nobody ever looked at them. Anna slid into her chair just as the first course arrived. Her mother’s eyes followed her all the way down. “You’re late,” Mrs. Whitfield said quietly. “I’m here, aren’t I?” “Anna.” “Mom.” Anna smiled sweetly and shook out her napkin. “I look nice, though. That has to count for something.” Across the table, Chaz bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. His mother noticed, and gave him a small look. He straightened like a boy being called to attention. “Anna was always so independent,” Mrs. Hartley said, in the polite voice people use for things that aren’t quite compliments. “It’s admirable.” “It’s exhausting,” said Mrs. Whitfield, and the two women laughed in a way that wasn’t really laughing. Her father, at the head of the table, caught Anna’s eye and winked. He did that sometimes when her mother was in a mood. It was the closest he ever came to taking her side. The talk drifted from golf to the hospital gala to the price of everything. Anna pushed her food around the plate. Every so often her eyes wandered across the table and found Chaz already looking, and every time, he glanced away first. When the main course came, she noticed the green beans on his plate and the fact that he hadn’t touched them. She waited until her mother turned to talk to Mrs. Hartley, then leaned forward. “No asparagus tonight,” she whispered. “You’re welcome.” Chaz coughed into his napkin so hard that his father frowned at him. “Everything all right, Chaz?” Mr. Hartley asked. “Yes, sir. Went down the wrong way.” Anna took a long sip of water to hide her grin. After dinner the adults moved into the living room, where the voices dropped and the coffee came out. Anna slipped past them and went out the back door. She found Chaz on the terrace, alone, looking at the garden lights. “Hiding?” she asked. “Breathing. There’s a difference.” “Is there?” “Barely.” She leaned on the railing beside him, near enough that their arms almost touched. The night was warm and a cricket was keeping time somewhere in the hedges. “Family dinners are like hostage negotiations,” Anna said. “Everybody smiling, nobody saying anything real.” Chaz huffed out a laugh. “At least you talk back. I just nod and pass the potatoes.” “Why?” “It’s easier.” He paused. “Or it used to be. I’ve been doing it so long I forgot how to do anything else.” “That’s an honest answer.” “It’s the only kind I’ve got tonight.” She turned to look at him. In the half-dark he seemed younger than nineteen and older at the same time. She had a sudden, ridiculous urge to take his hand, which she didn’t, because she hardly knew him. Or maybe she knew him better than she’d realized. Maybe she’d been watching the quiet boy at the end of the table for years without ever really seeing him. “You don’t have to be fine all the time,” she said. “Not with me.” Chaz turned his head. Neither of them spoke for a long moment. “Why are you being nice to me?” “Because you’re easy to be nice to.” She shrugged, aiming for casual and not quite getting there. “And because somebody should.” He laughed softly, but his eyes were bright. “Anna Whitfield, secret softie.” “Tell anyone and I’ll deny it.” “Your secret’s safe with me.” The words hung in the air a beat longer than either of them expected. “Anna!” Her mother’s voice carried out through the open door. “Come say goodnight to the Hartleys!” Anna sighed. “And the evening ends.” “Thank you,” Chaz said suddenly. “For tonight. For asking about the drawing. All of it.” “Draw something for me sometime. A building. Anything.” “Maybe I will.” “Don’t maybe. Promise.” He held her gaze. “I promise.” She held out her hand, and after a second he understood and put his phone in it. She typed her number in, handed it back, and said, “So you can’t forget.” At the door she looked back once. He lifted a hand, shy, barely a wave. Anna smiled, caught herself, and wiped the expression off her face before she stepped inside. Her mother was waiting, and her mother noticed everything. Mrs. Whitfield said nothing while the Hartleys’ car backed down the driveway. She only studied Anna’s face a second longer than usual, then went upstairs without a word. That bothered Anna more than any lecture would have. In her room she kicked off her shoes and dropped onto the bed, replaying the terrace, the promise, the way he’d said safe with me. She was still smiling at the ceiling when her phone buzzed on the nightstand. An unsaved number. She knew exactly whose. Chaz: I can’t stop thinking about what you said. That I don’t have to be fine all the time. Anna sat up. Her thumbs hovered, then moved. Anna: Good. Then be honest. What’s going on with you? The three dots appeared and vanished and appeared again. Chaz: Not over text. Library tomorrow, 10 a.m. Come alone. Anna: That sounds dramatic, Hartley. Chaz: It is. And Anna? Don’t tell your parents. Please. Especially not your mom. She stared at the screen. Before she could answer, three slow knocks sounded on her bedroom door. “Anna.” Her mother’s voice, calm and cold. “Open the door. We need to talk about Chaz Hartley.” The phone lit up once more in her hand. Chaz: Whatever happens tomorrow, promise me you’ll remember tonight. On the other side of the door, the handle began to turn.