Page 28 of Under the Weatherman
“Look,” she said, obvious frustration giving way to a tone reserved for parents of unruly children. “I know it was immature, but I honestly thought you were clued in. You even asked if Kyan had put me up to it!”
“Immature? Try dishonest, irresponsible, cruel…” I could have gone on.
“Cruel?” Her tone softened. “I didn’t mean for it to be.”
“Why would you lie in the first place?”
“I explained that already. I don’t do well with people, so Chelsea…” She exhaled. “It was just a dare, and it wasn’t supposed to go that far.”
“A dare? Did you have no concern for the people you were targeting for your mind fuck?”
“Honestly, how did you confuse me with someone you actually knew?”
“Because youtoldme you were her.” How was that even a question?
“I mean, you must not have known her very well. I can’t imagine I coincidentally look exactly like someone you used to be best friends with.”
“Fair point.” I closed my eyes, trying to bring an image of my Lizzy to mind, and I wasn’t even sure that was accurate. The pictures I’d seen online, the ones I thought were some cousin, had probably been of her, but older, unrecognizable. “To be honest, at first, I wasn’t convinced youwereher, but then you convinced me. Bylyingto me. I haven’t even seen her in a decade. Can you tell me you look exactly the same as you did in high school?”
“Fair point,” she echoed.
“I’m combing my memory, here, Elizabeth, and don’t recall you ever saying the words, ‘I was lying.’ So exactly when did you tell me you were making it all up?”
“I used those exact words, Evan.”
“When?”
“The minute we left the bar.” For some reason,shesounded irritated withme. “I immediately apologized to you for lying to you. You asked me what I lied about, and I said,everything. When I told you we’d never been friends in high school, you said you wished we had been.”
I recalled the moment. “I thought you meant”—I shook my head at the insanity of this situation—“I assumed you meant because we’d stopped being friends by then.” Oh, God, how could this have happened? “You could’ve at least told me your real name.”
“Idid,” she snapped.
“You told me your name is Elizabeth, not Lizzy. Not much of a stretch.”
“I told you my name is Elizabeth, right?”
“Right.”
“Right. Oh. Jesus.” She paused. “Wright with a W. W-R-I-G-H-T. That’s my last name.”
Despite my anger, I choked a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She didn’t laugh. The silence hung heavy a beat, and then she said, “So what now?”
“I don’t know.” My head hurt. I couldn’t even begin to process this.
“Would you maybe want to get together when you’re in town?” She sounded so gentle, so quiet. “See if there’s any there there?”
“There there?”
“Sorry, it’s Derrida.”
Was that a foreign language? “What’s a Derrida?”
“Jacques Derrida. French literary critic and philosopher. Deconstructionism.” She said it flatly, like these nonsense words were all commonplace for her. “I don’t get out much.”
That caught me off guard, and I snorted. I was going to regret this, but the curiosity was killing me. “What do you even do?”
