Once A Liar

“How have you been doing? It’s only been a week since your mom passed.” Claire doesn’t look at him, busy shoving herbs and lemon peels into the cavity of a chicken.

I hear Jamie take a deep, ragged breath before responding. “It’s weird. I mean I knew it was coming, you know? She was sick, but—I guess it still hasn’t really hit me. I feel like I’m on vacation staying here. It doesn’t feel like this is my house.”

“Well, you just got here, sweetie. It’s going to take a little while before you feel comfortable. Sometimes even I feel like I’m vacationing here.” She peeks out from behind the carcass and grins warmly at Jamie.

I step into the doorway to make myself known before they can delve further into their irritating discomforts.

“Hello,” I say, walking into the kitchen as if I hadn’t been listening to them.

“Hi,” they both respond at the same time. Claire’s face flushes, and she busies herself with lunch instead of admitting to me that she’s uncomfortable in my house. Jamie looks at me with the expectant eyes of a teenager. What could he possibly want from me?

“Jamie, welcome. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help you get settled yesterday. Big case I’ve been working on, I hope you understand.”

He shrugs like he didn’t even notice my disappearance.

“Good. I’m sure Claire took great care of you.” I glare at her, silently letting her know her lecture was unwarranted.

“I’m making a feast for lunch here, Peter. Jamie didn’t eat anything last night, and I don’t want him to starve to death,” she says lightly, obviously trying to change the subject.

“Fine,” I say, using an authoritative voice I hardly recognize. “I’ve got some work to do, so I’ll be in the parlor. Let me know when it’s ready.” I step through the threshold and sit down in front of the fireplace in the parlor. I pull some papers from my briefcase and open my laptop, but instead of working, I’m straining to hear what’s happening in the kitchen.

Claire leaves the chicken to roast while Jamie tells her about his classes and friends at school. The details are boring, and I’m not hearing my name, so I tune out and focus my attention back on the computer.

After nearly an hour of mundane chatting, I hear the sounds of cupboards opening and closing and the clatter of plates and silverware. I focus back in on them to hear what they’re saying.

“Do you like going to the movies?” Jamie asks her.

“I like watching movies at home—I haven’t been to a movie theater in a long time. Ever since the bedbugs thing in New York, I got really grossed out by those places. There’s a huge screen down in the basement with big leather chairs. It’s really fun to watch down there. It’s like being in a clean movie theater.”

That’s what I like to hear, something positive. At least I’ve provided a good place for movie watching.

“What kinds of movies do you like?” Jamie asks, classic teenage attempt to find common ground with a grown-up.

“I like everything. Action, comedies, romantic stuff that you probably hate. I like sports movies, too. My favorite is definitely Field of Dreams.”

“I love that movie. Been watching a lot of the superhero stuff these days. Lots of Batman movies.” Jamie’s jovial tone turns pensive and my ears perk up. “I feel like Batman sometimes.”

“You feel like a superhero?” I can hear the hopefulness in Claire’s voice.

“No... I feel like an orphan.”

“Oh, Jamie. I’m so sorry. You must miss your mom so much.”

Now I’m getting agitated, and I don’t know if I want to listen anymore. I don’t need to hear about Jamie’s feelings of being orphaned. It’s not my fault his mother is dead.

“Yeah, and I wish I knew my dad. It’s like he doesn’t really exist, you know? My friends tell stories about their dads coming to lacrosse games and taking them on vacations, and I can only tell them stories that my mom told me. And I know she made them up.”

I stand and lean against the doorframe in the parlor to hear them, careful not to step on a creaking floorboard.

“What did your mom tell you?” Claire asks, and I hear the clattering of the oven door close.

“What a nice guy he is, and that person we saw on TV during big trials was just his professional persona. She said that he really loved me and wanted to stay with our family but that he didn’t know how to. She told me about when they first met, and he would take her out on these fancy dates and plan these special surprises. She told me this one story about a scavenger hunt that he set up for her across New York City. She said he made her feel special. But I never saw him like that. He always ignored me.”

I feel a twinge of defense brewing in my stomach as I listen to Jamie list my perceived shortcomings.

“One time he called me Charlie,” Jamie adds. “Couldn’t even remember my name.”

Did I? I chalk it up to a Freudian slip.

“He’s a good man, your dad.” Claire begins her well-versed defense. “Just sometimes it gets lost under his...his armor. He doesn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“Is he nice to you?” Jamie asks delicately.

I strain to hear how Claire responds. I know I’m not nice to her. At least not lately.

“Well, no, not all the time. But he can be. And when he is, it makes all the other times worth it. When he’s good, he’s perfect, but when he’s bad...”

Now I’ve had enough. I won’t allow this conversation to continue. I loudly slap the laptop closed and make a point to rustle the papers as I shove them back into my briefcase.

“Does he even know how much he hurts people?” Jamie lays out a final question.

Before Claire can compose an excuse for my behavior, I walk through the parlor doors to join them in the kitchen. I can just see Claire quickly bring a finger to her lips and extend her pinky across the table. Jamie takes it in his pinkie and mimics her finger to his lips. I walk into the kitchen to see my newfound family sharing what they think are secrets behind my back. I don’t tell them that I heard every word.

THEN (#u6589a2b9-2b55-5642-ba4f-7e0824597b39)

I left the club that night before Marcus did, sick to my stomach by his behavior with the dancer. Marcus’s cruelty was deeply etched in his treatment of others, and as I walked home that night, I feared that Juliette’s words were truer than I had given them credit for. I walked downtown, the air cool and fresh, my head filled with contradiction.

I had come to New York to become the next Marcus Rhodes. My ambitions were materializing before me, and I couldn’t allow myself to be held back professionally because I took personal issue that my mentor turned out to be cruel and inhumane. I always knew I’d have to temper my soft side to succeed in this business, but I wouldn’t allow myself to become like Marcus. He was just teaching me a lesson with the dancer, I told myself. A lesson I would be sure to learn sooner rather than later.

It took every ounce of my energy to dig up the dirt on the Bogovian accuser. On the surface, she seemed picture-perfect. I asked around at her high school and her university down in North Carolina. I called everyone who might be willing to throw an old friend under the bus. A college roommate proved to be just the person I was looking for.

The case was making headlines well before we went to trial. Bogovian was portrayed horrifyingly, if accurately, in the press, and my job became harder as I was forced not only to deliver a case that would produce sufficient doubt, but also surmount the image the media had disseminated. Jury selection was a nightmare; everyone in New York had heard of Stu Bogovian and everyone had an opinion. Finding peers without preconceived notions proved incredibly difficult. I was meticulous in my preparations, acutely aware of Marcus’s expectations of me.

The trial itself didn’t take more than a couple of weeks. The alleged victim had a roommate in college who was willing to testify that she was into kinky sex. The roommate had told me a story about the girl being left tied to the bedpost in an encounter gone wrong, and she simply lay there, naked and spread-eagled, waiting for the roommate to find scissors to remove the binding. It started to seem plausible to me that this woman was nothing but a money-grubbing slut, like Marcus said she was, looking to extort a wealthy man. She had probably asked to be tied up, I told myself.

I brutalized the girl’s reputation in court. I brought up every name, every story, every sexual encounter I could verify. After closing arguments, there was nothing to do but wait while the jury deliberated.

Marcus stood by me, reminding me to temper my sense of remorse for publicly destroying the intern’s credibility. But mostly it felt like he was just trying to relieve me of human decency.

It took the jury four days of deliberation to come back with a verdict. When the jurors filed back into the courtroom and we all stood to listen to their decision, my confidence was so high, I had my celebratory cigar unwrapped and clipped in my jacket pocket. I had discredited the accuser. I had poked holes in the prosecution’s timeline and evidence. Although I struggled with the moral depravity, I’d had to do what I’d done to get the win. I knew we would come out on top.

The foreman walked the paper to the judge, and as he read the verdict to himself, he looked directly at me. I could see the traces of a smile upturning the corners of his mouth. My confidence grew even more.

I stood up and pulled Stu’s chair out for him. “Here we go,” I whispered. Stu smiled and shook my hand.

The foreman returned to the bench, looked at the victim’s lawyer as he spoke and refused to make eye contact with me or with Stu. “We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant Stuart Bogovian guilty of assault in the first degree.” They went on to find him guilty of first-degree attempted rape.

The room suddenly felt warm and claustrophobic. I turned to look at Stu, who fell back into his seat and grasped his greasy hair with his sweaty palms. He tugged the bottom of my suit jacket and pleaded with me to do something. “What the fuck, Caine? I thought you said we had this in the bag?”