Once A Liar

“Do you ever talk to him about it?” Jamie’s fork and knife clatter onto the plate.

“Not much anymore, but we used to. Peter compartmentalizes his life, and he keeps me separated from his business. I think it’s easier for him to manage that way. He has to keep his emotions separate from work. It’s just a by-product of the job. It doesn’t make him a bad guy.”

“And he keeps his emotions separate from me, too.” Jamie lowers his voice, and I can hardly hear him over the grinding of my teeth. “I’ve never stayed in this house before. I’ve never even been here before.”

Claire exhales heavily. “Give him a chance, Jamie. He can be a father to you, and I know under all this, he wants to. Please, try to give him some time to adjust.” The faucet turns on as Claire begins washing up, and I can no longer hear their conversation.

I bark into my cell phone to keep up the facade that I’ve been on a call. As I walk back into the kitchen, I see the expression on Jamie’s face, and for the first time, I realize how much we look alike.

THEN

The backlash from the loss came almost immediately. Harrison Doyle was eager to show the voters of New York that he had been the right choice for their district attorney and gloated to the media. I was at a café having breakfast, reading the paper days after the verdict was announced, and there were still stories about the trial because both Harrison and Stu Bogovian refused to let it die.

A Post headline read, “Invigorated DA Vows to Continue Success, Convict All of Manhattan’s Criminals.” Inside the article, Harrison was quoted as saying, “Ex-Congressman Bogovian was practically a career criminal, and until he was found guilty last week, he was getting away with countless heinous acts. His attorney, Peter Caine of Rhodes & Caine, LLP, had the reputation for being unbeatable, but clearly, he has met his match. In this new administration, we refuse to allow anyone to bully the courts, and justice will be done.”

I felt assailed from all angles. It seemed no matter where I looked, I was being reminded of my first loss. In a television interview, I watched Stu rewrite the history of the trial.

“If I had an attorney worth his salt, I wouldn’t be in this godforsaken place, wearing this hideous jumpsuit, trying to clear my good name.” He sat inside an interview room at Rikers Island, inviting as many journalists as he could to come publicize his side of the story. “Of course I’m going to appeal the court’s decision. And once the verdict is overturned, which it surely will be—” he nodded his fat, sweaty head “—then I will probably sue my former attorney, Peter Caine. He shouldn’t be in this business if he is unable to properly represent his clients.”

I spent those days and weeks learning what it felt like to seethe. I was enraged, livid, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I had partnered with a man who was practically a celebrity and the face we put on in public and all the actions we took were scrutinized and dissected. My hands were tied, and I had to sit back and take it.

“You’re breathing awfully heavily over there,” Marcus said to me when I got to the office.

“I’m trying to keep from killing anyone.”

He flashed a grin that filled his whole face and pointed to his bottom drawer. “Bottle of gin down there if you need it.”

“I hate gin, never drink the stuff.”

“It’s good that you’re feeling this way. You should feel this way. You’ve never lost before, and you’re never going to want to lose again now that you know it doesn’t suit you.”

“You should have let me plead him out, Marcus. I don’t need to go through this to know I don’t like losing.”

“No. I don’t plead out. I don’t settle,” he growled. “You win and sometimes you lose, but you don’t play it safe. You’ll never get to my level playing it safe. I asked you to join me because I knew you had what it took, and this is just part of the learning process. Don’t you dare make me regret bringing you on.” He spoke to me the way I feared he would if I lost a case. But he wasn’t angry at me for losing, I told myself; he was just teaching me a lesson.

Marcus told me he was going to limit the cases I worked on for a while after the media coverage died down. He wanted me to focus on other endeavors. “I’m going to keep you under the radar for a while. You’re going to need to keep working, because I don’t want you hiding under the covers like a scared little bunny rabbit, but I want you out of the media for a while,” he said. “Get your bachelor pad in order, buy some suits, spend some time with Juliette. Spend some money, for crying out loud. You’ve earned it. But don’t say a word to the press, and keep up appearances like you don’t even know who the fuck Harrison Doyle is, you hear me? If he gets under your skin and anyone knows it, you’re done. Show them all that nothing can get to you. Learn to wear the disguise, Peter.”

“I don’t want to step off the main stage and get lost in the background, Marcus. I didn’t build this firm to be your number two. We are partners—equals.”

He glared at me with his head cocked to the left and stood up from behind his desk. “We are partners, but we are not equals. Until you get into the headspace you need to get into, you’re going to be number two, understand?”

“No, I don’t understand, Marcus. You want me to be your partner, you put my name next to yours, you’re encouraging me to take your daughter out, but still you don’t seem to think I’m ready. I don’t understand.”

My frustration was overwhelming. Before I partnered with Marcus, I’d been undefeated in court at my old firm, I’d been swimming in money and living the high life. In law school, I’d been at the top of my class, everyone had looked up to me, and now I was being made to lose cases, suffer indignity and public humiliation, and I was being told I was number two? This was supposed to be my ascent, not my downfall.

“You haven’t seen success yet,” Marcus said. “You think it felt good to win before? Just wait and see how it feels once we’re ‘equals,’ as you say. Once you’re up at my level and you know how to work this system, you’ll be so high, nothing will ever bring you down. I know you’re pissed now, and I know you don’t want to have to go through this schooling, but if you want to get to the top, you’ll do exactly what I say.”

* * *

Once I acquiesced to temporarily stepping out of the spotlight at Rhodes & Caine, I found, with Marcus’s help, it was easier than I thought to focus on life outside of work. He brought me to tailors who crafted me the highest quality bespoke suits and sent me to John Lobb to have shoes made. He introduced me to owners, maître d’s and managers at all the important restaurants, and soon I became a regular, as well. I became more confident bringing Juliette out—I knew just where to take her and just how to behave. While a deep hate for Harrison Doyle and the feeling of humiliation still festered inside of me, I was able to distract myself with Juliette.

Juliette had just launched the Rhodes Foundation, a charitable organization she put together with the society and old-money connections she had through her parents and their friends. Juliette would personally research the plight of various unfortunate peoples, figure out their individual needs and throw massive fund-raisers benefiting the cause du jour. She was able to gracefully straddle the line between privileged child of high society and salt of the earth humanitarian.

I took her to Restaurant Daniel one night, excited to show off the new connections I had made. It didn’t occur to me that she would know the staff at the restaurant better than I did.

“Mademoiselle Rhodes,” the manager greeted her, “welcome back. How lovely to see you again.” He shook my hand with a sly smile on his face, and I was reminded that I was the new blood around here.

“Is that a new suit?” she asked me as I helped her into her chair.

“Yes.” I stood back so she could see it before taking my seat. “Your father took me to a tailor to have it made.”

“Looks very familiar. I think he has one just like it,” she said with disappointment coloring her tone. Before she allowed herself to recede into displeasure about her father, she changed gears and I spent the evening listening to her regale me with stories about her work with the foundation.

“I went to Florida after Hurricane Andrew hit,” she began. “I remember before I went, I had always felt like hurricanes were just intensely bad weather, and the devastation was exaggerated for the sake of television ratings.”

I smiled, having had the same thoughts myself.

“But my God. When I got there, I was completely overcome. Everything was flattened, and all the street signs and landmarks were destroyed, so there was no way to figure out where you were or where you were going. There was nothing recognizable, and everyone wandered like zombies, lost, desperate and terrified.”

“What took you down there?”

“I wanted to see firsthand what had happened, so when I presented to the board the idea of having a fund-raising gala, I would be able to speak from experience.”

“But why bother putting yourself through that? Couldn’t you have sent someone on your behalf?”

“If I sent someone else, I never would have known what it was really like.” She sipped her champagne and smiled at me. “I can’t begin to describe to you the landscape. Everything was rubble. It was like standing on top of a landfill, nothing but anonymous, unidentifiable rubble. And people were desperately trying to salvage pieces of themselves, pieces of their lives, but nothing was left.” She was becoming choked up at the memories.

What struck me was that she really cared. She would agonize over the well-being of struggling families she met during goodwill trips to places like Sarajevo after the war, sub-Saharan Africa during the AIDS epidemic or a gypsy camp in northern Greece. She told me about a time she doubled over in physical pain when she heard news that a beloved shelter dog had been euthanized.

“I’m going to stop before I bawl right here at the table,” she said, elegantly blotting the corners of her lips. “Tell me about you. How is it going with the law firm?”

“It’s going fantastically well,” I lied, remembering to always radiate an air of success. “Marcus hired a new attorney to join us, a Turkish guy called Sinan Khan. Great guy, real character. He’s been in the business a long time, recently left a big firm, looking for something a little more boutique. He’s got an impressive record, and he scares people, so Marcus snapped him up as quickly as he could.”

“Sounds just like my father.”

“Sinan’s been working some of the bigger cases for me. I decided to take on a little less work than I normally would.” I lied again to make it look like I was the one who made the decision to pull away. I didn’t want her worrying that her father was taking control of me.

“Oh? Are you busy with other things?”

“Well, I hope so, Juliette. I’d like to be busy with you.” I kissed her knuckles and hoped she would allow me to spend more time with her.

“Would you?” she teased as she leaned in to kiss me.

From that moment forward, we were inseparable. I went to the office most days of the week, but spent my time there planning dates and thinking of ways to impress Juliette. Professionally, I was becoming indifferent to the nature of my cases, the plight of my clients and their accusers, disengaged from the emotional aspects, but with Juliette, I was infatuated.

NOW

Claire has been living in my house for eight years, but I still can’t fully acclimate to cohabitating with another human being with her own will and own needs. The last person I lived with was Juliette, and I got used to my solitude in the interim. Claire didn’t need to move in with me. She had made plenty of money on her own, working for a prestigious interior design firm. She wanted to live with me. Yet I still stumble over her things, crash into her when she stands between me and my destination and I can never remember how she takes her coffee.

When we prepare and dress ourselves for an evening out, we holler between rooms; Claire in her boudoir between the master bedroom and the master bath, and me fixated on my own image in my dressing room mirror. Just as we are doing this evening.

“He’s never been to a benefit with his father,” I remind her, “and you’re constantly saying that I need to develop a relationship with him, so why not let him go in your place? It’s not like you enjoy these things.” I tie and untie my silk bow tie, never satisfied with its position.

Claire is already in a full face of makeup, hair held in place with clips and pins while she tools around with a curling iron. She wears a flesh-colored slimming leotard, intended to smooth out any undesirable bulges even though she has none, unless protruding hip bones and delineated vertebrae are no longer in style.

“It’s his first week with us—he hasn’t even unpacked yet. You think he wants to go to a formal affair?” Claire calls across the rooms.

“Why not? He’d love it, famous faces galore.”

“So, I got all dolled up for nothing?” Claire leans out the door to look at me, probes her hair and pouts.

“I didn’t ask you to put all that on.” I walk into her boudoir and position myself behind her as she leans over the vanity and puts on lipstick, teasing me with her ass in the air.

“You never ask me to put things on,” she coos, smiling at me in the mirror.

I hold her waist with my left hand and lean back to look for a way to remove her leotard. There are no clasps, no zippers or buttons for me to undo, so I slip a finger under the elastic on her hip and slide it between her legs. Bending her down farther with my other hand, I glide her legs apart with my knee and pull the crotch of her leotard to the side. I control her movements while I unzip my tuxedo pants.

I can feel Claire’s eyes on me, but I’m staring only at myself in the reflection. No matter with whom I’m having sex, my mind always slips back to that night Marcus and I went to the strip club. Every girl, every soft, slim body I enter, inevitably turns into the stripper at the club who Marcus defiled. If I don’t look at Claire’s eyes, I can pretend that I’m not completely indifferent, that she is special and loved, but in reality, Claire could have been anyone. She’s disposable. Expendable.

Every time we have sex, I feel as though I turn inhuman. I become a robot; not violent, not hurtful, but mechanical, disconnected. My hips thrust back and forth, and I can see myself in the mirror, but I feel nothing. The physical pleasure I’m supposed to experience is buried underneath the idea that I am controlling another human being. That’s where I get the gratification from; it’s not about connection or intimacy, because I don’t care. I can’t care.

Once I finish, I pull out of her and leave her standing there, red handprints rising on her ass. I tuck myself back into my pants, zip up and return my attention to my bow tie.

“I’ll tell Jamie to get ready,” I say, disregarding the intermission in our conversation. Claire readjusts the crotch of her leotard so she isn’t exposed, pulls a silk robe off its hook and wraps it around herself. I walk out of her boudoir to the bedroom and buzz the intercom in Jamie’s room.

“You busy tonight?” I pause and wait for Jamie’s response.

“Um, no?” He asks me more than tells me. “Just homework, I guess.”

“Good, take a quick shower and get a tux on. We’re going out.”

Claire stands in the doorway and looks on as Jamie tells me he’s grown out of his tuxedo.

“Don’t worry,” I respond, “you can borrow one of mine. We’re probably the same size.”

A peculiar look spreads across Claire’s face as she watches me slip my antique cuff links through my French-cuffed shirt. She’s not quite looking at me, more through me, and I tell Jamie I’ll be waiting for him downstairs in fifteen minutes.

“Claire will bring the tuxedo to your room,” I say before hanging up the phone.

Her inquisitive look turns dark. She pulls the tuxedo from my hand to bring to Jamie, and I can just hear her mutter, “Who am I living with?” under her breath as she leaves the room.

I reach into a drawer and pull out several masks to choose from. Claire and I have attended several masquerade balls and costume parties over the years, and we never seem to throw any of the masks away. I study each one, some feminine, silky and feathered, others simple and sleek. I pull out two and move to the mirror to try them on. I’ve worn one of them before, but the other, the white one, I’ve been saving for a special occasion. The smooth white mask covers the top half of my face, and at the forehead, above the small eyeholes, two large golden horns protrude.

I slip the mask over my head and it settles perfectly on my face. I’m reminded of a minotaur as I look myself over. Before I walk down the stairs to meet Jamie, I say loudly to my reflection, “Yes, Claire, who are you living with?”

THEN

It wasn’t a year from the day we met before we were married. Juliette and I flew down to the Turks and Caicos, just the two of us, knowing exactly what we were planning on doing but telling no one. She had hidden her engagement ring from public view before we got on the plane, but as we looked out over the turquoise water, she slipped it on her finger. We rented a house on the beach and spent a few days relaxing in the sun, completely wrapped up in one another.

I wanted to keep Juliette happy. I was already elated that she’d agreed to elope and I wasn’t forced to attend a wedding where I would inevitably have to discuss my upbringing, and why my family wasn’t in attendance. We lay on a daybed on our porch overlooking the sea, and as if she could read my mind, Juliette started in on a conversation about family.

“Do you think we should call my parents?” She looked up at me while I stroked her hair. “If your parents were alive, I’m sure they would want to be here, don’t you think?”

I was jolted with conflict—I had sold my story to Juliette. The story about my art dealer father, my philanthropist mother and their tragic and untimely deaths. I had told the story so many times since leaving Vermont that it had become true to me. It was only with Juliette that I felt like I was lying, and it gnawed at me. We were about to get married, and if I was planning on spending the rest of my life with her, I felt compelled to tell her the truth.

“Yes, I do think they would want to be here. But...” I paused, concerned that she would be hurt and upset that I had lied, but sure that if such a time existed that would be perfect for a confession, it was right then. “But we’ve gone our separate ways, and I can’t turn back now.” I started my revelation.

“Your separate ways?” she asked, confused but not yet suspicious. “You mean after the car accident?” She turned uneasy.

I sighed deeply, slowly responding, “There was never a car accident. As far as I know, my parents are probably still alive.”

“What?” She quickly sat up and turned to face me, pulling off her sunglasses. “You told me they died in that accident when you were still living in Europe. What do you mean they’re alive?”

“I know.” I hung my head, embarrassed and apprehensive. “I know what I told you. It’s the same thing I tell everyone. But it’s not really what happened.”

“What really happened, Peter?” The anger was rising in her voice.

“Nothing happened, darling.” I tried to hold her, but she leaned just out of reach. “We just went our separate ways.” I couldn’t fully bring myself to tell the truth. I felt terrified of being exposed, bringing my humiliating past to the surface and letting her know that I didn’t belong among her venerated peers.

She didn’t say a word, but her wide eyes and furrowed brow told me to keep talking.

“I didn’t grow up in Europe,” I confessed. “My father wasn’t an art dealer.” I threw my sunglasses on the daybed beside me and rubbed the ache out of my eyes. “I hate where I came from, and I never want to go back there. I started making up stories a long time ago, and I never told anyone the truth after I left.”

She softened slightly, a look of sympathy rising in her eyes. “Where did you grow up?”

My stomach burned with adrenaline. “Vermont. In Burlington. My father took off, and my mother gave up custody when I was an infant. I was raised by my uncle and his wife.” I felt light-headed as I continued, completely unaccustomed to saying these words aloud. “They were dead inside. No drive, no passion. They floated through life and I couldn’t stand it.” I couldn’t look at Juliette as I admitted the truth. I had buried the truth so deeply, bringing it back up made me feel like I was violently heaving. “I was a burden to them. They barely scraped by raising their own four kids—they certainly didn’t want to have to worry about me.”

“I don’t understand. You grew up in the States? Your parents are alive?”

“It’s hard to explain.” I shook my head, frustrated. “My mother... I didn’t know her. She came by once in a while, but she didn’t take responsibility for me. She dumped me with my uncle Tommy and his wife. They were dead, Juliette. I don’t know how to make it clear to you. They were nothing at all, just bodies with no souls, no vitality, no life inside them. They didn’t raise me or teach me or discipline me. I just existed alongside them. They gave me nothing. Not a chance, not an expectation, not a modicum of concern. Nothing.”

She examined my face, looking at me hard, as if she were trying to find a sign I was telling her the truth. “Are they still in Vermont?” she asked, the anger in her voice waning.

“I guess so. I don’t know. I left before college, and I haven’t spoken to them since.”

“And you never had any contact with them? They never tried to find you?”

“No. As far as I know, they were just as happy to be rid of me as I was to be rid of them. My cousins, Tommy’s kids, they always reminded me I wasn’t one of them, and I didn’t belong. I didn’t look like them, I didn’t act like them. I was smart, I wanted to succeed in life. When my eldest cousin, just two years older than me, finished high school, I took off that summer. I was seventeen years old, I had worked after school to earn some money, and when I could afford to get out of there, I got a one-way ticket to Chicago and never looked back.”

“Jesus.” She gently scooted up beside me and laid her hand on my lap. “No wonder you left.”

“Yes.” I sat up at attention, surprised she could understand me. “Yes, I had to get out. I needed life, I needed to be loved and respected and seen. I needed to be up in lights, on top of the world...” Just as suddenly as I felt understood, it flipped, and I felt like I was right back in Vermont. I felt vulnerable and desperate for the first time since leaving Burlington, and I hated it.

Juliette looked at me for what felt like years before speaking again. “It all makes sense,” she said. “No wonder you went looking for my father. He’s the opposite of what you grew up with.”

“Yes.” I glanced away, afraid of being exposed, of letting anyone see that I did in fact have vulnerabilities. “I will never allow that to happen to me. I will never be nothing the way they were. I can only accept the best, be the most successful, amass the highest achievements possible. Otherwise, I just won’t be a part of it. I learned to hate it, Juliette.”

“And it’s no wonder my father went looking for you.” She stared out toward the sea in front of us. The breeze blew her hair out of her face, and I could see a pained expression. “He wanted a son, an heir. Someone like-minded, who he could mold into his successor. Someone exactly like you, who thinks he’s the be-all and end-all. I feel like you two have been searching for each other.”