Deceit

SIXTEEN

After my story about the moving homecoming of Lowell Beaumont passed muster, after it earned me a verbal hug from he-who-must-be-pleased, not to mention scattered praise from the peanut gallery of copy-desk drudges, I did it again.

I wrote a piece about an American soldier of fortune who sold his services to the highest bidder-including a Taliban warlord-leaving him in the awkward position of battling his own countrymen.

The piece was alarming, dramatic, and even sad.

It just wasn’t in any way, shape, or form true.

I’d never met this soldier of fortune.

He was an amalgam of different people I’d talked to, read about, or possibly dreamed up.

No matter.

It went over like a charm.

Other pieces followed, one after another, a dizzying anthology of truly creative writing.

A group of out-of-work Hollywood actors who loaned themselves out to the Russian mob for various cons, impersonating everyone from computer-parts salespeople to temple cantors.

A Republican evangelical think tank that asked what Jesus would do on every major policy issue.

A game of Auto Tag sweeping the nation’s highways-cars tapping each other’s bumpers at eighty miles per hour, till the loser crashed and burned.

A secret society of pyromaniacs who traded videos of their greatest hits-forest fires, block burnings, gas station flash fires-over the Web.

There was something exhilarating about it, of course.

Creating stories out of thin air. Giving them the black-and-white imprimatur of fact. Telling bigger and bigger fibs and holding my breath till I saw if I’d gotten away with it. It was like betting the house on every turn of the wheel.

It was, in a way, addictive.

So was the resultant praise and clamor for more of them. Even the jealousy it kicked up among my peers was addictive.

After all, they were jealous of me.

Of course, one of those jealous reporters ended up taking me out to Keats and pumping me full of Patron tequila. All the while pumping me for something far more valuable-the fascinating details concerning my series of scintillating scoops. Especially my latest one-red-hot and read all about it-the abortion clinic-bombing pediatrician. As I remember, he spent a lot of time that night scrounging for details: how did I meet this doctor? Where? How did I figure out the doctor was feeding me anagrams-for his place of birth, his city of residence?

Okay. Maybe my drinking partner wasn’t jealous-maybe he was simply being diligent, protecting his chosen profession from what he perceived as a dangerous polluter.

He tipped off a certain editor, of course.

I should’ve known when he requested my notes.

Not that it hadn’t happened before. I’d become remarkably adept at conjuring up voluminous notes whenever they were needed.

Sometimes they were. Someone-real as opposed to made up-would complain that what I wrote never happened, that they’d never been interviewed by me, never laid eyes on me, never even heard of me. It didn’t hurt that I’d portrayed the majority of these people in an unflattering light. It was fairly easy to attribute their motives to anger, to the simple desire to discredit their muckraking accuser. Of course he says he never heard of me, I’d say, dismissing their accusations as if they were hardly worth the trouble. What would you do if I’d just exposed you in the paper?

It helped that we live in a plausible denial world.

Just pick up today’s news. Everyone denies everything.

It was taken out of context. It was misguided, misheard, misunderstood, misrepresented, or just made up.

Accountability is out; ask our president if he’s found any WMDs lying around Iraq lately. I was a creature of our times, someone who otherwise couldn’t have existed.

Which is not in any way an excuse.

No.

I might’ve scored sympathy points long ago by going the Oprah route and dredging up my childhood for national TV. Sprinkling my public absolution with select anecdotes from the Valle childhood album.

One anecdote, at least.

After all, these days the only thing more popular than denying your sins is going on television and confessing them. It’s okay to do bad stuff, America keeps reminding us, as long as you’ve got a reason.

I resisted that temptation.

I still resist it.

Speaking of temptation.

This is what it looks like.

Like Anna.

We were sitting in Violetta’s Emporium, the two of us.

Our table came complete with glazed netted candle that threw a soft, flickering light on the remarkable face sitting across from me. Not that it was in any particular need of mood lighting. Not with those eyes.

The table was cozy enough to make it hard to avoid touching knees. As if I wanted to avoid them, as if I didn’t do everything within my power to brush against her knees again and again and again. Two years ago, on my cross-country journey into ignominy, I stopped at a resort in Arizona and blew my last remaining cash on a hot-stone massage. That’s what Anna’s naked knees felt like-smooth hot stones sending shivers of fire shooting down my legs. And in the opposite direction.

I know. Mush, of the most egregious kind.

I’m simply trying to paint you a picture, to sit down with my inner police sketch artist and re-create for you what hit me.

We ordered matching pastas, though I did little more than move the vermicelli around my plate.

Women who’ve had the misfortune of going on first dates with me generally came away with the misconception that I wasn’t much of an eater.

I can eat with the best of them.

It’s simply that my hunger for one thing generally takes precedence over my hunger for another. I’m perpetually famished for love and approval-this according to Dr. Payne, who tried mightily to delve into the underlying reasons for my sociopathic behavior.

You had an absent father and an alcoholic and abusive mother, he concluded, so what else would you do but seek massive and extreme pats on the back?

Sounded sensible to me.

After all, it would help account for why so many first dates failed to materialize into second ones. Apparently neediness wasn’t an attractive quality in a man. The one woman who did find it endearing married me. She lived to regret it.

Anna and I made small talk.

She asked me about working for a newspaper.

“I took journalism classes in college,” she said, with a small pout meant to convey, I think, her ineptitude at it. “What, when, where, how… what’s the fifth one? Anyways, it wasn’t me. I’m not an observer. I lack objectivity. I flunked.”

“Okay, you’re not a reporter. What do you do? It didn’t say in your profile.”

“Sure it did. I play the conundrums-remember?”

“Yeah. That was cute.”

“Ya think?”

“Yeah, I think.”

“I work for a nonprofit organization,” she said. “Very Berkeley, even though it’s in downtown Santa Monica.”

“Oh? A nonprofit organization for what?”

“The usual. Clean planet, clean politics, dirty movies, the stuff near and dear to a blue stater’s heart.”

She ran her middle finger around the edge of the candle glass, catching a small drip of hot wax, then holding it up to the light, wincing. “Ever try it?”

“Try what?”

“Hot wax.” She giggled, took another sip of her Chianti.

“Try it how? You mean, like have it dripped on me?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Does dripping it on myself count?”

“I don’t know. Were you practicing self-abuse at the time?”

“I was filling bottle caps for scully. I was 7.”

“Then I’d say it doesn’t count. What’s scully?”

“A New York street game. You fill bottle caps with crayon wax, draw this chalk square on the sidewalk, and try to knock the other guy out of the game-it’s like bocci with soda caps.”

“New York, huh?”

“Yeah, New York-you mean you didn’t spot the accent?”

“I thought it was Lithuanian. Stupid me.”

I wanted to tell her that she wasn’t stupid at all. Even though I knew she was just being funny. I wanted to tell her that she was the most dazzling, most special, most alluring woman I’d ever seen. Of course, that’s something I’d told other women at other Violetta’s Emporiums. I had the unfortunate habit of falling desperately in love after two drinks. Just seeking massive and extreme pats on the back, Dr. Payne.

“What’s a New Yorker doing here?” she asked.

“Working on my tan.”

“No, really. Why are you here?”

“I needed a break.” It was one of those answers that a government commission might term deceptive, though not actual perjury.

“From what?” she asked, not letting go. Her cheeks glowed with matching wine-blooms, creme brule topped with raspberry swirl.

“I had a rough time on my last newspaper job,” I said. I needed to change the subject.

“So, do you have a boyfriend?” I asked.

“Boyfriend? What’s that?”

I felt a sudden surge of sweet, seductive hope. “Been awhile?”

“A long while. I’m married.”

“Oh.”

Hope said see ya, exploded into flames like that car on Highway 45.

“Don’t look so depressed,” she said. “I’m seriously thinking of dumping him.”

“You are?”

“Well, he’s living with a 24-year-old Pilates instructor. So, yeah, it has crossed my mind.”

“So, are you going to get a divorce?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Eventually. Sure. It’s not that easy. We have a son.”

“Really? How old?”

“He’s 4.”

“What’s his name?”

“Cody. Can I be a boringly cliche mom and show you his picture?”

“Do I have to be boringly cliche and ooh and ahh over it?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

She pulled out her wallet and held it open for me. “Go ahead-ooh.”

A blond munchkin pumping away on one of those toddler pedal bikes, with Anna hovering right behind.

“What’s that thing you’re holding on to?” I asked her.

“You haven’t seen the newest contraption for instilling self-confidence and independence in your preschooler?”

“Guess not.”

“It’s a push-and-pedal. Your kid pedals while you push. They think they’re charging down the open road like Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider, but you’re the one really steering. Dirty trick, huh?”

“Yeah. Can I get one?”

“The next time I hit Toys ‘R’ Us, it’s yours,” she said. “So, what about you?”

“Me what?”

“Single? Married? Divorced? Divorcing?”

“Number three.”

“Ahh. What’s it like? Getting a divorce?”

I hesitated just long enough for Anna to apologize for being nosy.

I answered her anyway.

“It was pretty much my fault. I kind of fucked it up.”

I remembered something. I didn’t want to-someone starts talking about their failed marriage and the toxic memory drifts over you like secondhand smoke. My sweet and stalwart bride going out for some Starbucks and never coming back. Muttering something about vanilla frappuccino and needing to figure this thing out just before she went through the front door of our apartment. This thing being the very public fraud I’d perpetuated on a major American newspaper-on my marriage too, I guess, since she’d said I do to a bona fide investigative journalist who wasn’t. My ex, an architect specializing in high-rises, tended to see life in structural terms-the blueprint for a good relationship being a foundation built on trust. I’d put too many cracks in the retaining walls, and the structure would not hold.

“Sorry it didn’t work out,” Anna said.

“Me too.”

I asked her why she just hadn’t given me her phone number that night in the parking lot.

“I did. Kinda.”

“You wrote your screen name on my transmission. How’d you know I’d even look?”

“I didn’t. But if you did look, maybe it’s because you were supposed to.”

“Like fate?”

“Maybe. Your engine’s beat to crap-I mean, have you ever changed your oil even once? I thought you’d be under that hood again. By the way-I wrote it on your carburetor, not your transmission.”

I laughed and she laughed back and when I reached for my wine glass, I knocked it over onto her lap.

“Shit,” I said.

We both sprang up, Anna trying to shake off the excess wine, while I grabbed for a napkin, dipped it in water, and lamely wiped at the lap of her clearly ruined dress.

Which is when she did something kind of lovely. Other than not calling me Shrek and storming out of the restaurant.

She said: “If you wanted to sexually assault me, all you had to do was ask.”