“You better not be driving here.”
“Where else would I be going?”
“Don’t you come here, Knox. I’m serious. I’m busy.”
“I’ll be there in less than an hour whether you like it or not, so you need to become unbusy real fast, Queenie.”
The line goes dead.
Gah!
I’m muttering obscenities under my breath as I pull some rice crackers out of the cabinet and red pepper hummus from the refrigerator. I’m not going to allow some random call from Knox to ruin my date like he’s ruined so many others in the past. We’re adults now. I’m not the same clueless, teenaged girl who allowed him to run all over me. How dare he just call out of the blue for the first time in a million years and “tell” me what he’s going to do.
Not happening, homie.
If he comes by I just won’t buzz him in the front door, period. That’s the great thing about having an apartment over an hour away from anyone with the last name Masterson or King. I’m the gatekeeper of my life now.
“Sorry, but I only have healthy stuff in the fridge,” I explain to Matthew as I set our snacks and some water bottles down on the coffee table. “I hope you like hummus.”
“Hummus is great. Thank you.”
I take a seat on the couch but in the opposite corner, so I’m sitting as far away from Matthew as possible. I realize how ridiculous this is. I’m a grown woman, so why am I acting like I’m doing something wrong by having Matthew inside my home?
Get a grip, Gigi.
“You okay?” Matthew asks in a voice laced with concern. “You seem tense.”
I clasp my hands together across my knees.
“I’m totally fine.”
“Did that phone call upset you or something? I heard you raise your voice a couple of times.”
“Not at all,” I lie. “It was just someone from high school who has always annoyed me.”
“High school?”
“Yeah, it’s nothing. My parents sometimes give out my cell number to old friends thinking they’re being helpful.”
“Ahh, understood.”
Matthew stuffs a carrot in his mouth then takes a tour around my living room. It’s small but well furnished. My Aunt Sloan did a great job when it came time to help me decorate and I can tell that he’s impressed. She has great taste and my parents were generous with the budget.
“Your place is real nice, Gigi. I don’t know too many people our age who can afford to live in this neighborhood.”
He picks up one of my water glasses and reads the words etched in the underside of the glass–Tiffany.
“And are these actual Tiffany glasses?”
“Um, yeah, how’d you know?”
I‘ve never given much consideration to the kind of glasses I own. My mom and Aunt Sloan did all the decorating and stocking of my cabinets for me. Shopping is not really my thing, but now I’m starting to feel as if I should have paid attention. I’m clueless about the cost of some of the items in my own home.
“My mom pulls a set of these out for Christmas dinner. She makes a big deal about them because they're so expensive. The hospital must really pay you well.”
I’ve been so careful about keeping my two lives separate, one as a daughter of the King Family and one as a broke college graduate living her life in the city, but it’s moments like this that my mom has always warned me about. The moment when those two lives intersect and a person in one of them starts to ask too many questions for his or her own good; the moment when I have to decide to either tell the truth about who I am or tell a lie to cover up a lie to cover up another lie.
Decisions. Decisions.
Actually, the choice is easy.
I decide on a lie.
Five
Gigi
“The pay at the hospital is actually pretty good.”
While I’ve mentioned to Matthew that I work as a patient actor in the standardized patient program for Temple University’s Medical School, I’ve also tried my best not to talk too much about it. What he doesn’t know is that the gig doesn’t pay me nearly enough to live the way that I do, and if he discovers that truth, there will be even more questions.
“So this acting thing at Temple actually pays you enough money to pay for things like that piece of art on your wall and high end designer stemware?”
“My parents said the glasses were a wedding gift that they never used so they gave them to me as a sort of hand-me-down housewarming gift, and I think my aunt thrifted that painting from Goodwill.”
More lies.
It’s shameful how the words easily roll off of my tongue as if they were truth, but I suppose it’s because the best liars in the world have trained me. I was raised to tell lies or half truths about much of what my parents do to keep me safe. The key to telling a good lie is to keep the story simple, consistent, and close to the truth. Plus, if you tell the same story every single time, you might start to believe it yourself.
“Is this standardized patient thing something you could make a full-time career out of? I can’t believe I’ve never heard of it before.”
From the moment I met Matthew in front of Temple’s School Of Business, he’s been trying to figure out a career path for me, the poor little performing arts major. I almost feel like his pet project and not someone he’s actually interested romantically in. I know he means well, but sometimes it’s annoying and frankly arrogant, as if business majors are the only ones who are going to get “real” jobs after college. I just graduated from Temple a few months ago, and I’ll get steady work in my field when the time is right. How do I know? Because I won’t settle for anything less.
“It can be full-time work for some people, but it won’t be long for me. It’s true that I get to pretend that I’m a real patient presenting with specific illnesses to medical students, but that’s not the type of acting I’m interested in doing forever. The goal is to become a working actor with a role in a regional theatre production.”
“Right, of course.” But he doesn’t sound convinced at all of my ability to be able to do it. “Maybe I should work as a standardized patient too and make a little side money,” Matthew jests, or at least I hope he’s kidding.
“I think you have enough on your hands with your new position at the bank. Show them you’re the hardest worker in the building and I bet you’ll be running that bank in a few years.”
Matthew’s chest puffs out a bit. There’s nothing like a compliment to move a guy off the current topic. My mom taught me that trick.
“You think so?”
“Definitely, I wouldn’t trust anyone else with my money.”
“Aww, thanks, Gigi. I definitely think they’re grooming me for a management slot in the future.”
Matthew slowly walks around the perimeter of the room, picking up one of my silver elephant figurines and stopping once when he gets to the photo collage on my red statement wall. He studies each photograph with an intense scrutiny, as if by figuring them out, he’ll then be able to figure me out.
I don’t blame him, though. I haven’t told him much about my family at all during these months we’ve been dating, so he’s probably very curious about who and where I come from.