Telling Lies Read online

  T E L L I N G

  L I E S

  Wendy Hornsby

  Chapter One

  AFTER the third firebomb smashed through the front windows of my parents’ Berkeley house, I was parked in a walled convent school sixty miles down the Peninsula. Other than swimming and nuns in black habits, there wasn’t much worth remembering about St. Catherine’s Academy for Young Ladies. At least, nothing in relation to what was happening at home. I was still doing time there on December 20, 1969.

  It was cold on December 20. That I recall clearly, though most of the details of the day have been either lost to me or distorted by the lies memory plays. Oddly, an anomaly of memory, a few of the ordinary events of the morning have attached themselves to my keener recollection of that evening, little shards of trivia that spill out whenever the horror comes to mind.

  If I’d had my cameras then, I might have been able to keep the pieces together more coherently. But I didn’t. The few photographs and bits of film footage I have managed to scrounge all came from sources alien to my point of view. I don’t trust them. Especially where Emily is concerned. And if there is connective tissue in this flawed history, it is Emily.

  This I remember about December 20. I was barely sixteen. It was the last day of the fall term and I had a swim meet. The bleachers were unusually full because a lot of families had come to St. Catherine’s to fetch their young home for the holidays. My own parents were still tied up with final exams and holiday preparations. Marc was still in Vietnam. I hadn’t seen my sister, Emily, in the flesh for months, so I hardly expected her to come to anything as unspectacular as a swim meet.

  I was swimming a medley, breaststroke and freestyle. The water seemed strangely dense that day and I lagged the field badly. Cold was only part of the problem. I had a lot on my mind: How do you survive at school when the Time editorial for that week is about your big sister and is assigned reading for the entire junior class? I felt isolated, abandoned among the academic virgins.

  I had given up halfway through the first lap of my first heat when I heard Emily yelling from the bleachers, “Do it, Maggot. Do it, Maggot. Do it.”

  Inciting to riot had certainly developed Emily’s pipes. Every time I raised my head for a breath, I could hear her over every-one else. I counted off my strokes, one, two, three, four, before I earned a breath. All I wanted was to hear her voice, so I stroked faster, harder, slicing through the water, counting to four to earn another earful: “Do it, Maggot.”

  I won the heat. Actually, I set a meet record. I don’t know how, exactly, because I wasn’t racing. I was only trying to hear Emily.

  When I came out of the water, I found Emily sitting in a clearing among the parents in the bleachers, with her two FBI shadows behind her. I’ve always been a natural showboat, so I should have been having more fun. But I was sixteen, remember. My sister, Emily, could cause me humiliation like no one on earth. And I loved her.

  I still loved her. So, there I was, on another December 20, exactly twenty-two years after that day, this time in Los Angeles, cold and wet again, and once more searching for Emily. Only now the crowd was an entire city, and no matter how hard I tried, I could not find her voice anywhere.

  It was rush hour and pouring rain. I was somewhere south of Santa Monica, driving Emily’s ancient Volvo station wagon. The gas gauge didn’t seem to function and the oil indicator light kept flashing at me. The last thing I needed was for the car to die on me. Avis at the airport had turned down my Visa and I didn’t have enough cash for a second taxi ride to Emily’s apartment in Chinatown.

  It’s not that I was destitute. The week before Christmas my charge cards are usually coaxed out. And so are airport cash machines: I had hit three in a row that were down. So, temporarily, my economic situation was tight. If I’d had a little more warning, I would have been better prepared. Emily’s summons to L.A. hadn’t even left me time to go home to pack a toothbrush and a raincoat.

  My destination at the moment was Grace House, a moveable soup kitchen run by a fellowship of nuns. It took getting lost three times before I finally found it in an abandoned bait shop a block south of Ozone Street. Short of cardboard shelters in the alleys, Grace House was unquestionably the most destitute of the places where I might find Emily.

  Grace House was also the last place I was going to look for her. I promised this to myself. We’d had a date for four o’clock, and she had missed it. This wasn’t unusual in my experiences with Emily. I had given her an hour, hanging out on the stoop of her building. But waiting is where I generally fail. She had called and said she needed to see me now. And now, one way or another, was what I was holding her to.

  Silver needles of rain streaked the dark sky and bedeviled a ragged column of homeless men and women struggling along the street headed toward the light coming from Grace House. Swathed in makeshift raingear, burdened with carts or bundles of possessions, they looked like peasant refugees fleeing from some catastrophe. As I drove past them, I couldn’t help but visualize the scene as it might be on film—an occupational hazard: silver lines against black, the rounded contours of the gray mass of people moving inside the frame. Seen from the perspective of a camera lens, they were no longer individuals. I could deal with them better that way.

  I found a place to park at the curb directly in front of Grace House. I got out and made a dash for the sidewalk, seeking shelter under the rotting remains of shop awnings.

  “Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am?” A clean-shaven man wearing a white apron over his jeans and T-shirt intercepted me. “You the caterer, ma’am?”

  I thought about the Glad Bag-garbed crowd surging around me and wondered how to respond to this question. Grace House was a seat-of-the-pants, nonprofit operation. True, this was L.A. But how many soup kitchens are catered?

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m not the caterer.”

  “Elks had a salad bar at their lunch today,” he said. “They said they’d send over the leftovers. They’d better hurry ‘cuz Sister says the soup’s ready.”

  “I’m sure you can depend on the Elks,” I said. “I’m looking for Emily Duchamps. Is she here?”

  “The doc? Ain’t seen her.”

  “Earlier today, maybe?”

  He shrugged. “I only got out this morning.”

  Out from where I didn’t want to know. I thanked him and pushed through the cluster of smokers finishing their butts be-side the no-smoking sign on the door.

  The small storefront was packed. Half-a-dozen women were setting out eating utensils and tending huge, shiny vats of soup. Among them, only one wore a traditional wimple and navy jumper. Civilian dress or not, there is something about nuns, and I couldn’t say what exactly, that tags them as brides of the church. I searched among them for the S.I.C.—Agnes Peter, the Sister in Charge.

  Most of the narrow room was taken up with rows of Abbey Rents tables and folding chairs. I spotted Sister Agnes Peter setting up chairs around a back table. She had a helper who was so filthy he could have been white or black—it was impossible to tell. The two of them were sharing a joke about something that I suspect was rather gamey because when I walked up, their laughter devolved into breathy chuckles.

  Agnes Peter smiled up at me. In her thrift-shop jeans and sweatshirt, generic short haircut, she was nothing like the knuckle-rapping nuns of St. Catherine’s.

  “Maggie MacGowen,” she said, surprised. “Are you here working on a film?”

  “No. I’m looking for my sister, Emily,” I said. “Have you seen her?”

  “First thing this morning.”

  “Where?”

  “The rectory at La Placita church, downtown. She was giving T.B. tests to a new group of Salvadorans who are taking sanctuary with Father Hermilio.”

 
“You haven’t seen her since?”

  “Has something happened, Maggie? Your father?”

  “No. Everything’s okay,” I said. People always seem to be waiting for my father’s obituary; when it comes, it will be a lulu. “Emily called. We talked about our brother, Marc. She said she had a surprise, said I had to meet her at four. But she didn’t show.”

  “You know Emily,” she said, smiling as she shook her head. “She resides in that space between this world and her own. Sooner or later, she’ll remember your date.”

  “Where is Dr. Emily?” Agnes Peter’s hairy companion demanded. “That woman’s not doing nothing about my new teeth. I told her the County won’t give me any new ones. What’s she gonna do about it?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Emily can only help you if your problem is contagious.”

  “Yeah? Well, first one tooth fell out, then another. You tell me that ain’t contagious?”

  “Will you settle for new socks, Mr. Barnard?” Agnes Peter took a pair of clean, but used, cotton socks from her jeans pocket. “Better hurry. Time to queue up for dinner.”

  Mollified by the socks, Mr. Barnard tucked this boon inside his coat and hustled toward the line forming for soup.

  “Where might you find Emily?” Agnes Peter mused as she unfolded the last of her chairs. “She’s been working on the measles epidemic for the last month or so. Have you tried County Health?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And the Free Clinic, Harbor General, and the Clinico de la Raza. I have called or visited every place I could think of. I would have called you, if you’d had a telephone.”

  “Maggie, we don’t even have a permanent zip code.” She touched my arm. “Are you worried about Emily?”

  I shook my head. “No. It’s the date. Makes us all a little crazy. Emily sounded so happy when she called me. I need to know why.”

  “Stay put,” Agnes Peter said. “The Elks are here.”

  The Elks, five of them, in ties and raincoats, came in struggling under enormous plastic salad bowls. Agnes Peter was effusive with them, but they seemed ill-at-ease, eager to deposit their salad and leave. Perhaps they had been snared by Agnes Peter before.

  With a skill that was half Fred Astaire and half Rambo, she somehow maneuvered the Elks toward the poor box at the end of the serving table. She gave them plenty of time to grope for their wallets before she shook each hand and allowed their exit.

  Outside, it had started to rain again, harder now. The latecomers, androgynous in their plastic drapings, surged in and filled what space was left in the small shop.

  I was keenly aware of the smell, of wet clothes and infrequent showers, the remnants of bait shop stench that even the onions in the sisters’ soup couldn’t cover.

  It was time for prayers and the room fell still. Agnes Peter fingered her beads. She’ll always be a puzzle to me; a notorious rabble-rouser, she still closed her eyes for prayers. I read the familiar litany of grace on her lips but didn’t recite along with her. I had put all of that away a long time ago, at about the same time I packed away my bobby socks and blue plaid jumpers.

  The diners looked more hungry than prayerful, but they waited patiently—the price to pay. Some of them kept their eyes open, like me. I always loved the secret feeling of spying on people during prayers, hoping to catch someone unawares, find out something useful. For my benefit, my older brother, Marc, used to pick his nose and pretend to eat it. He did this with his eyes closed to protect his place in heaven. For his sake, I hope it worked.

  I gazed up, not toward heaven, but at the posters tacked to the walls. The messages were an odd mix. Obviously, some had moved in with Grace House, while others had been left by the previous tenant. A butcher-paper banner on one side wall promised JESUS LOVES YOU, its opposite offered FRESH NIGHTCRAWLERS. Both seemed appropriate.

  When I looked down again, I found I was being stared at. A tiny little girl with enormous brown eyes peeked out at me through a curtain of ponchos. When I smiled, she only stared.

  She looked pitiful, shrouded in an adult’s cheap plastic raincoat. But her hair was carefully combed back into a tight ponytail and her face was clean. She never took her eyes off my face, as if I was some sort of oddity, an interloper in the world she knew.

  Agnes Peter crossed herself and came back to this mortal sphere. She followed my line of sight to the little girl.

  “How’s your daughter, Maggie?” she asked.

  “Casey’s fine. She’s spending the holidays in Denver with her dad. You know Scotty remarried?” I asked.

  “Did he?” she asked, watching me closely. “How old is Casey now?”

  “Twelve,” I said. “She’s already as tall as me.”

  “Good nutrition,” she said knowingly.

  I looked again at the little girl in the line. “Does she have a home?”

  “Now and then. We got her and her aunt into a family shelter last week, but the aunt got into some problem there. Tonight they’ll probably go on the Salvation Army bus to the downtown mission.”

  “On Skid Row?”

  “Unless you have a better idea.” There was no challenge in the way she said this.

  “You’re busy,” I said. “I’ll call tomorrow at the church. If you hear from Emily, I’ll be at her apartment.”

  “Do you have a car?”

  “Emily’s. She always leaves the key under the front seat. It’s hardly worth stealing, is it?”

  “The VA hospital is pretty lenient about admissions when it’s raining. Don’t suppose you’d be able to drop a few of our vets off there on your way.”

  “The VA isn’t on the way to Chinatown.”

  “Worth a try, though, wasn’t it?”

  I noticed Agnes Peter had walked me toward the poor box as she talked. I peeled off my last five and said a little prayer that the Volvo made it back to Chinatown.

  Agnes Peter gave me a hug that smelled equally of onions and Zest.

  “Don’t worry about Emily,” she said. “She’s somewhere, trying to keep busy. This morning, she asked me to light a candle at mass for your brother.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes,” Agnes Peter said. “Twenty-two of them.”

  Chapter Two

  I HAD no idea what Chinatown did about Christmas, but votive candles in little jars pasted with decals of a blond Virgin Mary seemed an unlikely part of local tradition. I counted a dozen candles flickering on the covered stoop of Emily’s apartment building.

  There hadn’t been any candles or pots of flowers on Emily’s stoop when I had arrived there straight from the airport at four o’clock. At four, it wasn’t dark enough for candles. Agnes Peter told me that Emily had spoken to her about lighting candles for Marc. That’s what I was thinking about when I saw them. Maybe Emily had set out the candles, I thought, as either a gesture toward custom or, more likely, some sort of nose-thumbing at Establishment rituals.

  Whatever the reason for the candles, I was encouraged: if Emily had set them out, she couldn’t be too far away.

  It was almost seven. I tried Emily’s apartment, and when there was no answer, buzzed her landlady, Mrs. Lim. Still no response. I pulled the collar of my sodden wool coat higher on my neck and went to the edge of the stoop to watch the rain and try to decide what to do next. If Em didn’t show soon, I had friends in L.A. I could impose upon for at least a ride back to the airport.

  Across the street there was an eight-foot plaster Buddha with a line of Christmas lights strung between his hands. He grinned malevolently on traffic flowing north out of Downtown toward the Pasadena Freeway, traffic that was still heavy long after rush hour. I watched the cars, and the people trudging along the sidewalk, looking for Emily in everyone who passed.

  I was beyond cranky. Except for a few doughnuts during filming breaks, I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before. I thought there might be funds enough available on one of my MasterCards to cover moo shu pork and a few drinks at Hop Louie’s, a restaurant a block over on Gin L
ing Way. The company of people who had homes to return to would be a nice change. What I really wanted was a hot bath and a warm bed. I had put in a long day even before I got on the plane from San Francisco.

  Basically, I’m self-employed. I make documentary films. There isn’t a lot of money in it. Most of my films are co-produced by the PBS affiliate in San Francisco, now and then by WGBH Boston or the BBC. It’s good work, it’s what I want to do. The tough part is selling the product. Like most arts-related industry, selling the product really means selling myself. My image, that is. Now and then my soul; I have a daughter to feed.

  I had spent the day filming promotional spots for PBS affiliates. You know the sort of thing, “If you enjoyed this presentation of ‘Aged and Alone,’ and want to see more quality programming like it, then the most important gift you may give your family this holiday season is a membership in Wichita’s only viewer-sponsored television station, WKRN.” Or Duluth’s, or Honolulu’s.

  Someone with more zeroes in his contract than I have thought I should look network-slick for fund-raising, so a wardrobe/makeup person had been brought in to give me a commercial veneer. I didn’t mind at first. It was like the old days when I used to anchor the evening news. But every time the camera stopped, this makeup person, Stella, pulled out her sponges and brushes and patched my face.

  We had started before five that morning. By one, when my producer, Errol, came back from a liquid lunch, my coating of matte-finish goo was pretty thick, and I bore little resemblance to the portrait that sits on my mother’s baby grand.

  Errol’s own cheeks glowed like Max Factor crimson number six. He gave me a boozy leer when he said: “Aleda Weston surfaced today.”

  “So?” If I could have moved my lips I would have said more. But my face was clenched in Stella’s hand while she painted over break-through freckles and under-eye shadows that I thought gave my face character.

  “After twenty-two years, Aleda picks today to come out of hiding.” His eyes had a morbid sparkle. “Something’s up, Maggie. Something very interesting.”