The Good Lie (14 page)

“It’s not much for someone my age,”
Angela told me, “but for you, it could mean instant independence.  You could
send yourself to college, for one.”

“I could do that with a fraction,”
I said.

“But this way you know you’re taken
care of.  You don’t have to go to daddy for anything.  A lot of my clients like
that—the realization they don’t have to suck up anymore.  You’ve already broken
through, Lizzie.  Now let’s get you just a little more freedom.”

“A lot more,” I pointed out.  “Two
hundred fifty thousand!”  Forget Mrs. Sherbern, I could send both Posie and me
to college if I wanted.

I could send Mikey.

Now that was a sweet thought.  I
could take care of him for a long time.  He wouldn’t have to depend on either
of my parents.  I could afford an apartment—maybe share it with Posie—and Mikey
could come live with us.  This salvation was working better than I had hoped. 
My heart felt lighter than it had in weeks, since I first starting telling my
lies.

“I want to wait until your mother’s
custody hearing is decided.  Molests are much easier to prove in domestic
cases.  Assuming she wins—”

“She will.”

“Assuming she does, we’ll send out
a demand right afterward, okay?  We’ll get him right after they’ve softened him
up.  Call Georgia when you’re ready and we’ll get you in.  Sorry I’ve been so busy
lately—there’s a lot of human garbage out there.”

Father Gunderson was one of them.

Job

[1]

For once I had beaten Posie to the
morning paper.  It was her turn to watch me read and shake my head.

“What?” Posie asked.

“Nothing.”  I shoved the paper under
my thigh and insisted she eat a good breakfast and think pleasant thoughts for
once.  “We’re going off to school happy today.”

“Give it to me.”

“No.  You can read it this
afternoon.  Don’t you agree?” I asked Mrs. Sherbern.

“Whole-heartedly.”

Posie glared at us both, but she
knew we were right.  Lately mornings had been hell.  Angela had a bunch of new
cases, and the paper was reporting on them daily.  Posie was getting a
pronounced hash mark between her eyebrows from frowning so much every time she
read about them.

Posie sighed.  “Okay, I’ll wait. 
Just this once.”

Which was good, because when she
finally did get around to reading it after school I thought her brains were
going to explode right out of her head.

“Can you believe this?” she cried. 
“I mean can you
believe
this?”

Even Mrs. Sherbern was willing to
admit the Church had gone too far protecting this one.

Angela Peligro was quoted
throughout the article, and as usual she came across in print much more sedate
and clean-mouthed than she was in person.

“Father Gunderson is just one of
many priests in this country who has used the children in his care to satisfy
his own deviant desires.”

To say the least.  His activities
first came to light when a five-year-old boy told his mother “Gunny burned my
butt.”

“He what?” the mother asked.

“He burned my butt.”

It took a while for the mother to
realize that “burn” was the only word her son knew of to explain the kind of
pain Father Gunderson had caused.

It’s the ripping I always think of—this
enormous peg in such a small hole, girl’s or boy’s, front or back.  But why a
child so young?  It’s no better when it’s a fourteen-year-old, but there’s
something so much more agonizing about imagining a tiny little body having to
contain all that filth.

Too many details for Posie’s
taste.  She kept closing the paper and opening it again and forcing herself to
keep reading.  “I have to call Angela.”

“And say what?” I asked.

“I have to tell her she’s doing the
right thing.”

“She already knows that.”  But
Posie was already dialing.

“Hi, Georgia, it’s Posie Sherbern. 
Is Angela available?”  Just like they were colleagues.

Angela took the call.  I could
picture her, leaning back in her fake leather chair, a fresh cigarette burning
between her fingers.  Her gruff, “Hello?”

“Hello, Angela, it’s Posie.  I just
read today’s paper.  I just have to tell you, BRAV-O.  I’m so glad you’re doing
this. 
So
glad.”

Posie listened for a moment, then, “I
know.  That’s exactly what I thought.  How many kids were there really?” 
Pause.  “Oh, my God.”  Posie dropped her head  into her palm.  “That many...”

Angela’s turn again.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh . . .”  Posie kept
nodding.  I wondered if Posie knew she was being filmed at that moment, because
she certainly wasn’t herself.  She was larger somehow, and older, and wiser. 
She wasn’t my seventeen-year-old friend at all.  She was someone huge in this
world, with a spark inside her that needed only the right excuse to combust.

“I’d love to,” Posie said, her
smile wide.  “I’d really love to.  How about if I start in June?”

She hung up the phone and
practically hugged herself.  “Well!”

“Well what?” Mrs. Sherbern asked.

“I’m going to work for Angela.  We’re
going to get those bastards together.”

[2]

Why does God allow there to be evil
in the world?  Don’t we all wonder about that?  It’s a curious thing, this
relationship between God and the devil.

If you read
Paradise Lost
by
John Milton you get this great sense of the sadness and loss Satan felt being
thrown out of the kingdom of Heaven.  You actually pity him for blowing it so
badly.  But there’s still a relationship there.  Even as Satan is building
cannons and blasting the angels to pieces, and the archangels are retaliating
by picking up mountains and heaving them at Satan’s army, you know Satan still
bleeds in his heart for those days when he stood beside God’s throne,
whispering in his ear.  You keep thinking if only Satan would bow down and beg
for forgiveness, God would take him back in.  But Satan is too filled with
Pride ever to do that.  It was the cause of his downfall in the first place,
Pride, and he clings to it like a man devoted to the anchor sucking him beneath
the sea.

Paradise Lost
is fiction, of
course, but then you read Job, and you have to wonder if John Milton wasn’t
that far off.

Job starts out with a scene from
Heaven.  God is holding court, catching up on the news of his kingdom, and all
his angels present themselves, including the Dark Angel himself.

I can’t get over that.  What was
Satan doing there?  Did God invite him, or did Satan crash the party?  God
doesn’t seem upset to see him there, and in fact chats with Satan as if they’re
old friends.

“Where have you been lately?” God
asks Satan amiably.

“Oh, here and there.  I’ve been
roaming to and fro throughout the earth, walking
 up and down in it.”

“Have you seen my servant Job?” God
brags.  “Have you ever seen anyone like him?  So upright, so pure of heart, so
earnestly devoted to me.”

“No kidding,” Satan snorts.  “Of
course Job is devoted to you—why shouldn’t he be?  You’ve given him everything
a man could ever want—wealth, power, possessions, sons—I’ve never seen a man
with a life so easy.  But I’ll bet you if you took away all of those things,
Job would curse you to your face.”

God scratches his chin.  “Hmm.  An
interesting wager.  All right, Satan my old friend, I’ll tell you what.  Put
forth your hand and do to him what you will, only be sure to spare his life.  I
still have faith in Job.  He will never curse me, no matter what you do.”

And we know the rest.  Satan smites
him with everything he’s got—kills Job’s children, destroys his property, robs
him of wealth and position, and finally strikes him with the most hideous
diseases that make his skin itch and puss up and peel away in great sheets. 
Then to squirt lemon juice in his eye, his friends show up and criticize him
for bringing all this misery on his own head.

“You must have done something to
deserve this,” they berate him.

“Gee, guys, thanks for stopping by.”

The point is, even when Satan robs
him of everything, Job stays true to his beliefs.  He might not be happy with
God at that moment as he’s scratching his bleeding feet with a broken pot
shard, but he still refuses to curse God.  In the end, Job is rewarded tenfold—even
a hundredfold—for his resilience.  And that is the lesson everyone tells us we’re
supposed to take to heart:  No matter how bad things get, if you keep loving
God He will reward you one day.

But what if the lesson is also
this:  What if the lesson is that God needs there to be evil in the world?  He
needs to unleash Satan every now and then to test us and fortify us and see
where we stand.  When things go so horribly wrong—bombings and death and
destruction, and children tortured and innocents slaughtered—all those things
we look at and shake our heads in despair at—is our impulse to pray to or
denounce our God?  Do we
 run toward him or away from him?  Exactly what
is each of us made of?

I think Posie is made of stronger
stuff than any of us.  When I hear her talk sometimes, I can’t believe she’s
real.  I’m her friend, so I can say this:  She does have her faults.  But if
you struck her with leprosy, and took away her mother and her house and you
starved her and locked her in prison, she’d still find a way to keep living and
fighting.  There’s a flame in the core of Posie that I don’t have, and I think
she was born with it.  But I believe you can get that fire for yourself if you
want it bad enough and work hard to find it.  You can make yourself stronger
than you are.  That’s my theory, at least.  I’m still struggling to see if it’s
true.

But as for Posie, she already had
all the strength she needed.  And she was about to prove it.

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

My mother tried one more time.

Dinner at Charles’s, six o’clock
sharp, wear your least bitchy face.

Well, she didn’t exactly say that,
but I know that’s what she meant.

She had done up the whole place in
hearts and red and white balloons—barf.  To celebrate Their Love.

“Lizzie, Mikey,” my mother said,
beaming up at her boyfriend, “Charles has something to ask you.”

“Children—”

Oo.  Bad start.

“—I’m asking for your blessing.  I
want to marry your mother.”

“Geez!” I shouted.  “She’s not even
divorced!”

“Lizzie!”

Charles patted his hand in the air
to calm us.  Like we were dogs waiting for his signal.  “I know it’s soon, but
I wanted you kids to know—”

“Mikey’s a kid,” I shot back.  “I’m
not.  I’m the lady of the house, remember?  Ever since my mother left me that
job.”

Charles cleared his throat.  “I
thought you should know what my intentions are.”

“I don’t give a shit,” I snarled.  “Thanks
for ruining my life.”

What a great exit line, right?  I
had no choice but to storm out.

My mother forgot that her role was
to follow me out.  I waited for a while, but she didn’t.

She couldn’t do anything right.

So I trudged off in the cold to the
Circle K, eight blocks away, and called Posie from the pay phone.  One thing
that sucks about your parents hating you is that you don’t have a cell phone
anymore.

“Can you come get me?”

“Uh . . . now?”

“Yes.  Please?”  Since when did I
have to beg?  Posie was always ready to help.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“The Circle K on Broadway and Ninth. 
It’s freezing out here.”

“Okay, but . . . Brett is here.  He’ll
probably come, too.”

“Fine, whatever,” I said, even
though my real answer was no.

“We’ll be right there.”

“We’ll be right there,” I repeated
in falsetto after I hung up the phone.  Everyone was hooking up but me.  My 
mother, Posie . . . well, two people at least.  Soon Posie would be too busy
with her boyfriend for these random rescues.  I needed to learn how to drive.

They pulled up in Brett’s black
SUV.  He turned halfway around to say, “Hey,” to me in the back seat before
screeching out of the parking lot.

“What happened?” Posie asked.

“I’ll tell you later.”

“Was it bad?”

“I’ll tell you later.”  Brett might
be her paramour and confidante, but he wasn’t mine.

Posie smelled good—a new perfume
combination, I noticed.  She wore her hair up in a massive pile on top, with a
few brown curly tendrils spilling down along her cheeks.  It took me until then
to realize they were both dressed up.

“Going out?” I asked more
sarcastically than I meant to.

“Brett surprised me with roses.  He’s
taking me to Michaelson’s for dinner.”

“How nice for you.”  I folded my
arms over my chest and sank into sullenness.

“Want a beer?” Brett asked, handing
one over the seat.

I glared at Posie, but she couldn’t
see it.  What was she doing driving around with a guy who was drinking?  What
was up with her?

“No, I don’t drink.  Neither does
Posie.”

Brett grinned at her.  “She doesn’t
know you very well, does she?”

Posie shushed him.  She turned
around in an obvious effort to distract me with some light conversation.  Fat
chance.  I cut her off before she could begin.

“So when did you start drinking?” I
asked.

“I don’t, really,” Posie answered.

“Brett said you did.”

“I had a sip.”

Brett snorted.

“A few sips,” Posie corrected.

“That’s just great,” I said.  “You
smoking pot, too?”

“No.”  Posie turned back to face
the front.  She was tired of my foul mood.

I charged ahead.  “How about you,
Brett, you a toker?”

“Naw.”

“Just beer?”

He held up his can.  “I like my
brew—won’t deny it.”

“How do you get it?  Fake i.d.?”

“Okay, Lizzie, drop it,” Posie
said.

“I just thought we should know a
little more about this guy you’re going out with.”

“I know plenty, thanks.”

We rode in fuming silence the rest
of the way.  Brett pulled into Posie’s driveway and left the motor running.

“Tell my mom I’ll be home late,”
Posie said.  “You’re welcome for the ride.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling a little
guilty.  It wasn’t her fault I’d had such an awful evening.  “I’ll talk to you
later.”

She didn’t look at me.  “Yeah.  Can
you close the door?”

I did and Brett roared out of the
driveway.  I turned my glum little self up the steps to her door and let myself
in with a key.

“Posie?” Mrs. Sherbern called.

“No, it’s me.”

“Oh, Lizzie.”  She sounded a little
disappointed—just what I needed.

Mrs. Sherbern was making herself a
smoothie from vanilla yogurt and blueberries.  “Want one?” she offered.

“No, thanks.”  I perched on the
stool across the counter from her.  “I had a terrible night.”

“You did?” she said pleasantly.  “I
thought you were seeing your mom.”

“We had a fight.”

“That’s too bad.”  No follow up
questions to encourage me to spill.

“Well, guess I’ll go to bed,” I
said, even though it was way too early.

“Okay, sugar.  Sweet dreams.”

The words of a mother with none of
the heart, I thought.  Or maybe I was being too hard on everyone.

It must have been two-thirty or
three in the morning when I heard Posie come in.  She crept into the bedroom
and tried not to make any noise.

“Have fun?” I asked.

No answer.  Grumpy to be awakened
and then ignored, I flicked on the light and prepared to lecture her.

There was blood on her shirt.  Her
buttons had been popped off and her bra torn at the top.

“Posie, what—”

“Sshh!” she whispered frantically. 
“Don’t say anything!”  She gingerly removed her top.  There were red marks on
her back and chest, and blood down her arm.

“Posie!” I whispered in alarm.  “What
happened?”

Tears streamed down her face.  “I
can’t tell you.  Please, just go back to sleep.”

“You’re insane.  Tell me right now
or I’m going to go get your mom.”

“He tried to . . .”

“Brett?  What?  He tried to what?”

“I think I really hurt him,” Posie
said.  “Bad.”