Lies Agreed Upon (6 page)

“Are you brave enough, or desperate enough, to find out?”

In the early evening, Tess drove to meet two other friends, Jen and Christina, at Jen’s apartment. The plan was to share pizza and supportive advice on her new prospects and planned trip.

Jen lived in a posh high-rise off Wilshire Boulevard, the kind of address that attracted Hollywood and corporate execs, and it did nothing to improve Tess’s wobbly self-image. She a
lways felt déclassé when she crossed the silent moat of gleaming glass and marble to the lobby reception desk, where a uniformed sentry guarded tall, forbidding elevator doors.

Almost as soon as Tess began to rap lightly on Jen’s door, it flew open, and Jen grabbed Tess’s arm and swung her into the apartment as energetically as a partner in a square dance.

“So you’re here at last. I’m famished, and this pizza’s getting cold,” declared Jen in her usual overloud, slightly nasal voice. “I have had a bitch of a day working on that sexual harassment suit against the BIG clothing manufacturer (who shall remain nameless, so don’t ask).”

Jennifer Brigham was a former roommate, an older UCLA law student whom Tess first met when she was an undergraduate. Jen had answered an ad to become a fourth tenant in a rented house that Tess shared with Katie and a classmate named Christ
ina Velasquez. Jen was a 5-foot-10-inch warship of femininity, well-endowed fore and aft and sporting the heavy artillery of both high IQ and wealthy family power. With more makeup and a less severe hairstyle, she could have enhanced her attractive features and fine-grained skin, but she found it more profitable to embrace a tough persona for her role in a corporate labor-law practice. She also dressed for work in a severe wardrobe made up entirely of sober skirted suits and pantsuits.

“So let’s talk about your crazy new opportunities,” said Jen as she shooed Tess imp
atiently toward the expansive living area with its enviable high-rise views. “Let’s talk about why you must hurry up and get to New Orleans because you should
not
trust a law firm with initials that spell GOD and with crazy old geezers as partners.” Jen put her arm bracingly around her friend’s slighter shoulders.

“What?” gasped Tess. “What’s this about God?”

“Didn’t you notice that the initials of Graham, Odom & Dreux spell G.O.D.? I suppose it would be even sillier as Dreux, Odom & Graham,” grinned Jen. “Of course, I don’t think the initials mean a damn thing. It’s just funny.”

Jen hefted a large slice of pepperoni pizza from an open box on the coffee table. The box was guarded by three cola-cup sentries sweating wet rings on the elegant mahogany. Unseeing or unconcerned about the possible damage to the
expensive wood, Jen picked up one of the cups, thrust it into Tess’s hand and gestured impatiently for Tess to sit in the leather club chair opposite.

Jen dropped heavily onto her
black raw-silk sofa and continued with her advice, her voice muffled by a mouthful of pizza. “I think it’s more important you don’t believe a large oil refinery that pretends $500,000 is a lot of money. I also think that they were trying to con you by sending doddering Colonel Sanders with an offer to ‘let us take this useless land off your hands.’ You should get the help of a local lawyer to fight for your interests.”

Jen was wearing an item from her limited selection of
“active wear”—a plum velour track suit. It did not flatter her complexion or her generous figure. As the right-hand couch cushions sighed and compressed under her purple hips, Christina Velasquez, curled in the left corner of the couch, grimaced and sent an expressive roll of her eyes toward Tess.

“You have got to get rid of that track suit, Jen. I can’t take anything you say seriously when you are dressed up like a big eggplant,” declared Christina. Jen shrugged and took another large bite of pizza.

Christina had started out studying English with Tess, switched to journalism, and finally ended up working in public relations for more money and better hours. If success was measured in credit card usage, she had succeeded admirably. The exact opposite of Jen in a fashion sense, she had at least 30 pairs of shoes nested in her chaotic closet, tossed helter-skelter under a barely contained wardrobe explosion of every color and fabric imaginable. Christina was a trend addict; she always knew which restaurant, which dress designer, and which YouTube videos were forcing a recalculation of the fashion equation.

Christina was not conventionally pretty. She had a Roman nose, small burnt-almond eyes, heavy thighs and slight breasts, but she knew how to dress and carried herself confidently, smiling often and warmly. She created a potent illusory attractiveness that kept h
er encircled by male attention. When she was enjoying herself, she threw her head back, tossed her thick curly hair and laughed freely, her full lips stretched wide to reveal strong white teeth. She was expert at trapping the unsuspecting in a will-sapping quicksand of hedonism.

“I know that outwitting the wicked petro power is not your forte, Christina. But I think Tess needs more than advice on where to dine in the Big Easy,” responded Jen.

“Oh, Pu-leeze, Jen,” groaned Christina. “Tess, you need to go to New Orleans ASAP, but do not take Jen’s advice about finding a lawyer,” she stated, with a defiant thrust of pink tongue at Jen, who blew a raspberry back at her. “You’ll waste a lot of precious time sweating in a musty law office—the kind with framed degrees from Tulane circa 1962—for some tiny increase, if any, in profit. Instead, you should stroll down Bourbon Street with a Hurricane cocktail in a ‘go cup’ and keep an eye out for a bronzed bayou hunk.”

“
But Tess could be swindled out of getting much more than the offer she’s being made,” argued Jen.

“If there was a great value to this property, wouldn’t her mother have cashed in on it? She was no dumb bunny,” Christina pointed out.

“She probably would have. She had received an offer from the same law firm, but she died before there was any deal,” remarked Tess.

“Well, maybe she didn’t accept it,” Jen
suggested. “You have only this old lawyer’s word that she was interested. She never told you about it, did she?”

“My mom didn’t tell me a lot of things. She was always secretive about money. Now I find out she was covering up a lot more,”
Tess answered, frowning.

“Jen, you
just think it would be more exciting to help Tess go to war with the big bad refinery,” laughed Christina, and the slight flush on Jen’s cheeks showed she’d hit home. “I think it would be more exciting to see Tess have a fling. Invite me along and I’ll show you the way, Tess.”

“Well, Katie gave me similar advice, Christina,
and also offered to come, despite being so busy with wedding plans,” Tess responded with a smile.

As she spoke, Tess realized that
, when she went to New Orleans, she really did not want any of her friends to accompany her. It would be more comfortable to have companionship, but she wanted this adventure on her own terms.
“So at last you want to be the heroine instead of the sidekick.”
Tess blinked and determinedly focused her attention on her friends’ conversation.

“I bet Katie told you to go investigate the mysteries of the past and find the love of your life, or some other romance-novel crap,” Christina
was objecting. “I’m saying, ‘Forget the past. Use the money to enjoy the present.’ If you wander around New Orleans as the lost heiress looking for her hero, you’re going to end up right back here with more disappointments. Please, please don’t waste a second on any Southern gothic rubbish. Your fate IS in your hand, and I don’t mean palmistry. You need to take hold of things and make your own future. Why bother with your grandfather’s doings?”

“Don’t you think the present is defined, at least in
part, by the past?” asked Tess, knitting her brows in concentration. “I thought I knew my family. I thought my mother was a tough corporate climber who could stare down a charging CEO and hit a budget target blindfolded. Now I wonder if she was afraid of something in her past, something she lied about her whole life. Maybe it even explains her death. I thought my grandmother was an unworldly, sweet lady who liked to bake me cookies. Now I know she witnessed my grandfather’s murder. I think the past definitely formed their characters, and they were the two most important influences in my life. So an unknown past has already affected me.”

“I understand,” said Jen with a sympathetic smile. “I’m not a ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ kind of person either. They’re a tripping hazard asleep and a possible bite in the butt if they wake up. But you need to be careful in interpreting what you find out,” she warned. “
It’s going to be hard to get documented facts beyond what you already know, and it will be even harder to find witnesses or even second-hand gossip. Most of your grandfather’s adult contemporaries are dead or elderly. You may not learn what actually happened but only what people believe happened or want to believe happened. People usually redefine the past to suit their own ends.”

“Everybody lies. So what? My point is that it doesn’t matter,” asserted Christina. “You are who you are, Tess.
You don’t change just because you learn about events that happened long before you were born.”

“My mother
might agree,” nodded Tess with a wry shake of her head. “Like you, present actions were all that counted. But I have to believe character matters. Motive matters. My mother and grandmother are dead, and their actions can’t change. But how I react can change if I understand the reasons for their behavior.”

“I doub
t you’ll solve your mysteries,” Christina sniffed. “If you think you’ll find some clue to your biggest mystery—I mean your mom’s suicide—you’re wasting your time.”

“Don’t be such a pessimist,” retorted Jen quickly, taking in Tess’s pained expression and shooting a warning look at Christina for her trespass into the taboo subject of suicide. “I’m sorry, Tess, if I implied researching your
family’s past isn’t worthwhile. It is something I think you need to do.”

“Time out, girls,”
responded Tess with a tired nod. “I think I’ll call it a night soon. I’m exhausted.”

“Hey, Tess, don’t let us bully you,” said Christina, placing a sympathetic, calming hand on Tess’s arm. It caused Tess to realize how tensely she gripped the armchair.

“Well, I got you a new crosswords book for the trip anyway,” added Jen. She hauled he
rself up with a grunt and bustled to her bedroom. She returned with an oversized paperback book tied in red satin ribbon. “Happy conundrums,” she smiled as she handed it to Tess.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Jen. Do you want her to hole up in a hotel room solving puzzles?” exclaimed Christina.

“I said it’s for the plane trip,” defended Jen.

“It’s like handing heroin to an addict,” Christina
volleyed back.

“Excuse me,” interrupted Tess, “I’m sitting right here, Christina. I don’t know what you think of me, but I’m planning to combine my trip with a vacat
ion, not a retreat from reality.”

“Well, you’ve been obsessed with those damn puzzle things for weeks,” sighed Christina. “It’s starting to get to me.”

“I don’t understand what you mean,” answered Tess, feeling strangely hurt, as if accused of a petty, embarrassing vice.

“Well, cro
sswords are so, oh, determinant—with only one right way to make it work. And they’re so passive. You need to
do
things,” insisted Christina.

“It’s a hobby. It helps me with stress,” insisted Tess.

“It’s a crutch,” sniffed Christina. “It lets you ignore the world outside your head.”

“Christina, you’ve got it ass-backwards,”
protested Jen. “Puzzle-solving is a symptom, not a cause. Tess has been through a lot, but she’s working it out, so to speak.”

“Well, I’m glad you two diagnosticians have decided my ‘puzzling’ disorder isn’t term
inal,” remarked Tess.

At Tess’s tart tone,
Jen and Christina looked at her in surprise and then chagrin.

“Sorry, Tess. We both care about you so much, we sometimes overstep, I guess,” mu
mbled Jen.

“I take back my concern over Jen’s gift,” added Christina. “I’m jealous that I didn’t think to give you a present. Of course, I would have made it something fun and sexy.
Just promise me you’ll paint the town red—or the appropriate Mardi Gras colors of green, gold and purple, Jen’s favorite,” she finished, with a sly wink at the purple track suit.

Tess laughed to smooth over the short lapse in camaraderie and then stood and stretched her heavy arms and tense neck. “It’s all from a place of love, I know,” she said with a yawn. “I’ll let you know when I finalize my plans and I’ll keep you updated on my adventures once I arrive. I’m only going for a
couple of weeks, not emigrating.”

Jen and Christina walked her to the door, and Tess departed amid hugs and well wishes.

Back at her own apartment, she sat restlessly punching the TV remote. She stared blindly as bits of news, drama and advertisement flitted across the screen. At last she did what she had been trying to resist all evening and called Mac on her cell phone.

“Mistake, mistake, mistake.”