Liars Read online

  Praise for Benchere In Wonderland

  “Plaudits are due for Steven Gillis’s brilliant fifth novel, an ambitious treatise on the role of art and the artist in modern day society. Gillis has an uncanny knack for depicting the best and worst of humankind…(while) carefully examining the fallibility and resolve of the artist.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for The Consequence of Skating

  “A compelling meditation on media influence and social isolation. Gillis’s fourth novel explores the struggle for redemption and acceptance in a world saturated by information.”

  —Booklist, Five Stars

  Praise for The Law of Strings

  “This story collection hooked me from story one and continued to captivate to the end. Expert dialogue and movement and resolution in each piece. This is a book you could read in one sitting…the pace is that swift, the stories that good.”

  —Stephen Dixon, two-time National Book Award finalist

  Praise for Temporary People

  “Here is a fable for our time, and for just about any other time you can imagine.”

  —Chris Bachelder, finalist for 2016 National Book Award

  Praise for Giraffes

  “Gillis’s stories are illuminatingly strange, filled with power, electric, and will stay with you long after you think you’ve gone to sleep.”

  —Stephen Elliott, author of The Adderall Diaries

  Praise for The Weight of Nothing

  “Beguilingly mystical!”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for Walter Falls

  “An exceptionally well-written novel. Walter Falls is highly recommended as a powerful and moving saga of the human condition.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  This is a Genuine Vireo Book

  A Vireo Book | Rare Bird Books

  453 South Spring Street, Suite 302

  Los Angeles, CA 90013

  rarebirdbooks.com

  Copyright © 2017 by Steven Gillis

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic. For more information, address: A Vireo Book | Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 453 South Spring Street, Suite 302,

  Los Angeles, CA 90013.

  Set in Minion Pro

  epub isbn: 978-1-947856-01-1

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

  Names: Gillis, Steven, 1957–, author.

  Title: Liars / Steven Gillis.

  Description: First Hardcover Edition | A Genuine Vireo Book | New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA: Rare Bird Books, 2017.

  Identifiers: ISBN 9781945572470

  Subjects: LCSH Marriage—Fiction. | Family—Fiction. | Divorce—Fiction. | Adultery—Fiction. | Authors—Fiction. | Psychological fiction. | BISAC FICTION / Literary | FICTION / General

  Classification: LCC PS3607.I446 L5 2017 | DDC 813.6—dc23

  For Mary. Truth. Always.

  I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, “Please—a little less love, and a little more common decency.”

  —Slapstick, Kurt Vonnegut

  The truth is always an insult or a joke, lies are generally tastier.

  We love them. The nature of lies is to please. Truth has no concern for anyone’s comfort.

  —Geek Love, Katherine Dunn

  She lies and says she’s in love with him, can’t find / a better man /

  She dreams in color, she dreams in red, can’t find / a better man.

  —“Better Man,” Pearl Jam

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Today at the market, I saw them for the first time. He was wearing a poplin short-sleeved shirt, untucked, blue and green, beige cargo shorts, and dark weathered sandals. His glasses were Oakley, wire rim, his hair unbrushed, brown, and curling in the summer heat. She was similarly dressed in a gray T-shirt, blue shorts, her hair left loose, her frame shapely with a few extra pounds acquired at the start of middle age. Her purse was a knitted satchel, yellow and green, strung crossways on a strap from her right shoulder to her left hip dividing her breasts.

  Together they were pushing one of the smaller carts. Examined separately they were easily ignored, while as a couple, smiling so, chattering and whispering, their fingers and hips with a frequent touch, I couldn’t look away. How happy they seemed, smug in their public persona, wanting everyone to believe their relationship was blessed, arranged by Aphrodite, aided by Cupid’s arrow, or some such silly thing. Since my divorce I have puzzled over romance, its verisimilitude and relentless ache, and I have come to regard every relationship as its own intimate deception. To me, love is organic, conceived in the heart by way of a chemical reaction, a synaptic impulse with pheromones and dopamine made to dance, the course of any couple’s commitment is time-sensitive and marches inevitably toward its own demise. Love grapples as all things do against its physical limitations, its shelf life as it were, the wearing down from age, from compound failure, from boredom and natural change. Over any prolonged period love is unsustainable, of this I am sure; devotion is a fantasy given status through poetry and film, while in the real world such application is as fictional as the Loch Ness Monster, as wanting as Don Quixote’s quest.

  This is no cynical view forged after Lidia left me. I am no pouting Thomas. I am romantic enough in my own way and have experienced over the years every sort of relationship, brief and extended, sexual and virginal, wistful and wanton. That I failed in my marriage was a consequence of application not effort, or so it seems to me. During our time together, in my effort to address the complexity of keeping a wife, I adhered to a firm belief in the application of free love, convinced the only way to mount a successful relationship was to give it wings. Lidia, too, for a time, believed as much. When we met, I had recently published my first novel, Kilwater Speaks. To date, some twelve years later, Kilwater remains my only real success. The novel was received well with a handful of reviews yet sold poorly upon release; a parody of our times, a product of youthful ambition up against a thousand other titles, Kilwater flatlined out the gate and disappeared.

  I had sent a copy of Kilwater to a friend who was then an assistant set designer on The Sopranos. By chance, one day, he pulled my book from his pocket while at work and placed it in a scene. Delivering his lines, James Gandolfini happened to pick Kilwater up off the table, the title flashing out to millions of viewers. By the end of the night, social media had exploded with wonder about the book. New reviews were written revisiting the novel, which achieved instant validation and full ringing support from a new wave of readers leading to accolades and ridiculously high sales.

  Based on the success of Kilwater, I was offered a chance to teach. The same schools that had turned my applications down before came calling now. I accepted an offer from the university in my hometown. That summer, I attended BookExpo America (BEA) where I partied hard and stumbled through a handful of panel discussions. At some point, I was introduced to Lidia who was finishing her MBA at Bowling Green and doing research for her thesis, which examined the marketing efficiency at carnival-like conferences such as BEA. We
bumped into one another a few more times throughout the three days. Lazy in my conceit, I assumed my name and glow from Kilwater were all I needed to get her attention. Lidia expected more.

  We wound up at the same party on the next to last night of the conference, a gathering in a reserved room at the Langham Hotel. Lidia came with Monica McFawn Robinson, a friend of hers from Bowling Green. I was chatting indiscriminately, looking to get laid, when, in a group to the right of me, P. J. O’Rourke made a disparaging remark about Wesley Clark—he was actually quoting Rush Limbaugh referring to Clark as a “sock puppet”—and Lidia at once turned and dressed O’Rourke down. I was not so much a political person, then or now; rather I was more of a social commentator, an observer of the winds and such, though I did have strong liberal leanings and tended to immerse myself in periods of interest only to lose focus and commitment when my curiosity drew me to something else.

  To his credit, O’Rourke was charming as Lidia suggested he’d do better to concentrate on the crimes of the current administration rather than to glibly besmirch an actual American hero like Clark. I needn’t have, as Lidia had O’Rourke on the ropes, but I interjected just the same, noting Clark’s work with the Open Society Institute and his efforts to improve education, freedom of the press, and public health around the world—this I had only by chance just read. I remember how Lidia had looked at me then, first in her effort to place me, and then disparagingly, as if my effort to chime in was more sexist than chivalrous, more ego-induced and intrusive than helpful at all. “The Open Society Foundation,” she corrected me, letting me know the organization had changed its name a few years ago, and as the others dispersed and O’Rourke slipped off, she asked me to tell her what else I knew about the OSF.

  I knew nothing, of course, and knew even less about Clark, though I bluffed my way through for a minute or so, until Lidia stopped me again and, with a reference I didn’t expect, said, “I thought so. This is the same trouble I had with Kilwater.”

  I didn’t understand, didn’t know she had read my book, and was startled by her critique, equally so when she said, “Oh, it’s brilliant, yes. Everyone thinks so and you know that. But your observations in Kilwater are set on the surface, like makeup, or no, like a juggler who receives our applause for keeping ten balls in the air, but everyone knows eventually the juggling has to stop. You pulled off the novel no doubt, but when I finished I wasn’t sure if your most cleverly worded insights were anything more than that and wondered how much you actually understood about the lives you created.”

  The comment stung not only because I didn’t care to hear it, but because I had often thought the same and worried that my writing was just that: a house of cards I could construct with a certain flair but was untenable nonetheless. I stuttered out some comment in turn, some foolish reference to a manuscript being no different than a painting where the text is meant to be representational and not dependent on what the author actually knows, but this, too, came out poorly, and Lidia stopped me, touched my arm, smiled, and said, “It’s okay,” before turning and walking away.

  The next day, at the end of the BEA, Lidia asked me to take her to the airport. I was surprised as I did not think she liked me. We were staying at different hotels and had flights to separate cities, but I agreed and picked her up in my cab. During the drive she asked me to tell her something about myself without mentioning my writing. I thought for a minute then said, “When I’m away from home I miss my dog.”

  It was enough, I suppose, or maybe she had already made up her mind. Living as we did a few hours’ drive apart, we began a relationship with phone calls and weekend visits. I was struggling then to start my second book—for which I had already signed a contract and received an advance—worried about my talent, how to meet expectations, and what exactly I had to say. Falling in love offered me a diversion, and I was falling, as best I knew how, which was mostly from what I read in books.

  Six months after we met, Lidia left Ohio and moved in with me. The unexpected payout from Kilwater and advance on my second novel enabled me to buy a house with extra bedrooms and a yard for Rex, my dog at the time. Lidia brought her vanity, a gift from her mother, her clothes and books, and a loveseat the color of verbena. She took a job waiting tables at Sere’s, a position I didn’t quite understand, but she told me not to worry, that she had a plan. In six months she would be managing the restaurant, she said, and in six months she was.

  We married the following spring. A year later Lidia purchased a space on Verne and Fourth, using money drawn from two silent investors and nothing from me. That spring she opened Caber Hills, a slightly upscale restaurant and bar. In no time Caber Hills became a success. Lidia paid off her investors, expanded the building, and created a local organic menu of meats and vegetables, fish and cheese, which she changed and added seasonally to the menu. Her industry was a marvel to me and inspired me to hunker down and address the challenge of my second book.

  However motivated, the effort took time; my attempt then was to write a book about a man who fell in love with his doppelganger’s wife. I struggled to clarify my ideas, threw out hundreds of pages, started over, veered around, and doubled back. After five years, I finally finished and watched as the success of Kilwater shined a light on my new novel. There were articles written, interviews and reviews, and all sorts of discussion as to whether I caught lightning in a bottle twice. The short answer was I did not. Where Kilwater was a timely blend of youthful angst, observation, and humor, A Full Fog Front veered toward a more mature narrative for which I wasn’t entirely ready. At best my sophomore effort was called ambitious, my saber touch intact, though most reviews were indifferent with some going so far as to say the book was a misstep.

  “Not to worry,” Lidia said. A long career, she told me. You hit the notes you wanted and next time, she was sure. Oh, she was giddy with the success of her restaurant, and my poor little book she was hardly concerned about. Baffled, I took my new novel out on tour. The stores and audiences were happy to have me, though they mostly wanted to talk about Kilwater. I missed Lidia, though somehow it was also a relief to be away. Up until then our marriage had proceeded mostly without issue. Lidia was busy and so was I. We were happy together, didn’t quarrel much, didn’t doubt our relationship in any tangible way, and were consensual in our satisfaction, and while we did discuss having kids this somehow didn’t happen and we tried not to dwell.

  Sexually, we were quite compatible; we had similar tastes and preferences, were open-minded in our views, fearless to the extent we allowed ourselves to be. We shared our fantasies and desires with one another, which we then played out as games designed for two. As Caber Hills grew in success, life became more defined for us, the mystery of who we were individually and collectively made clearer, our ability to point at one another and say, Ahh yes, that’s who you are.

  The question then became whether we were satisfied with our answers or wanted more. The wondering, on my part, was not so much an issue of displeasure as it was doubt, a feeling that I couldn’t possibly sustain whatever it was that made Lidia love me, the mystery of it all, and that such a thing as love was too powerful a force to be contained in any sort of tight-grip fashion, and that we could not continue on together to the exclusion of all supplementary emotional interests without eventually growing resentful of each other. In an effort to address this dilemma, I decided to test myself. It was a big step. In five years I had not been with anyone but Lidia, though there were temptations and flirtations, a few extracurricular toes-in-the-water amounting to nothing. I knew I loved Lidia, though what if there was more to love than sustaining social norms, constrictive monogamy, and marital decorum? What if real love required a different kind of trust and liberation?

  Two days later, I flew west and read at Powell’s. A reception was arranged for me afterward and I struck up a conversation with a woman in a maroon top, gray jeans, and black ankle-high boots. Over cocktails she questioned me about A Full Fog Front, accused me of wri
ting a bromance and deliberately leaving women at the periphery of my book. “So tell me,” she asked, “are you a misogynist or are you gay?”

  Her comment was intentionally baiting. I took the bait, took her for more drinks after the reception, took her back to my hotel room where she took off my clothes and danced with me to music by Prince playing on the clock radio. Mounted and mounting, kissed and kissing, probed and probing, I explored my reaction while sexing my Portland playdate. She was moderately attractive, eagerly limber like a bodacious stick of licorice, her nipples tasting of almonds, her pubes shaved down to a cherubic peach. Over hills and into valleys, I felt no guilt to speak of, no worry or alarm. Despite what seemed an extemporaneous tryst, I continued to think about the properties of my marriage and to what extent my feelings for Lidia remained unbowed. Waiting for my answer, as we finished, I went so far as to talk about my marriage, compared and contrasted, and announced without apology, “This was fun and I still love my wife.”

  At home, I waited to see if I would crumble in Lidia’s presence. When this didn’t happen, I tested myself again. And again. It was intriguing at first, and then I began to mull the consequences of my manifest, whether my intention was to be a secret philanderer forever or if my inspiration was legitimate, and I honestly believed the best manner of marriage was liberal and free. If I did truly believe the latter, what sort of selfish display was I conducting if I refused to share as much with my wife?

  I considered the prospect, weighed the risk, and ultimately decided to open my theory up to discussion. Casually at first the idea was presented. We spoke of how individualism is the greatest gift we can allow the people we love, the freedom to explore and express ourselves, the courage to know that true love supports an open-minded approach to relationships and that we need to be embracing of all that fulfills us and not be forced by tradition to maneuver and manage our relationship toward some safe middle ground. Such narrow values, I argued, were about control and had little to do with love.