Best Friends & Other Liars Read online

  Best Friends

  &

  Other

  Liars

  Heather Balog

  To my best friend Mookie: Don’t ever lie to me. I know where you live.

  Best Friends & Other Liars

  Heather Balog

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2019 Heather Balog

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by: Daliborka Mijailovic

  ISBN 9781796925548

  Published 2019

  Published in the United States of America

  VIOLET

  To my husband and children:

  I’m sorry for leaving you like this, but it’s not like I didn’t warn you. I’ve tried to explain many times that this was inevitable—I was either going to have a heart attack or a nervous breakdown that would drive me to the edge of a cliff. Literally. I know that I yell at you guys for using the word literally too much, but this is literally what literally means.

  I’m sorry that I wrecked the car, but there was no other way to get you to listen to me. I wish it didn’t have to end this way...

  My cell phone rings on the nightstand next to me, causing my ninety-five pound yellow lab Sunshine to dive under the bed like a bomb is going off.

  “Weenie.” I frown at him and reach for the phone. “It’s a cell phone. I’d hate to see you in a real emergency.”

  I squint as I read the screen—I already took my contacts out for the night and I am blind as a bat without them.

  Leah.

  I sigh. Not that I don’t want to talk to my best friend of twenty-eight plus years. It’s just that she has the worst timing ever. I want to finish my letter and a prolonged chat with the queen of long-winded conversations will mess up my momentum.

  Why don’t you just ignore the call, you might ask. Send it to voicemail?

  Oh, well that’s simple. With Leah, ignore is not an option. She will continue to call me until my phone burns a hole in my comforter. And then the house will catch fire and I will be overcome by smoke and die in my bed. And then Leah will drive to my house and bang the door down till she can get in. She’ll ignore the flames and drag my charred body out onto the front lawn, where she will yell at me for not picking up the phone. It’s just best to give in with Leah.

  I press the Accept button to answer the call.

  “Violet! Why did it take you so long to answer the phone?” Leah immediately accuses before I can even say hello.

  I roll my eyes. Leah can get a tad bit needy with me. It’s probably because she’s thirty-nine-years old and the longest relationship she’s ever had (besides with me and her therapist), has been with her cat, Ernie. And even he runs when he sees her coming at him with her kitty-sized knit sweaters. And I really hate when she calls me Violet. I mean, it’s my real name and all, but Leah knows I dislike it greatly.

  “Calm down,” I tell her. “It took me all of ten seconds to answer.”

  “It was more like a minute. What were you doing that took an entire minute for you to answer your phone?” Leah demands. And then she pauses. “Oh God...you weren’t having sex with Dick, were you?”

  “Leah!” I gasp. “Why must you call him that? You know he hates when you call him Dick.”

  “Which is exactly why I do it. It not only irks the shit out of him, but Dick suits him better than Richard. He looks like a Dick to me. He acts like a Dick to me.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter what he looks like or acts like. I was not having sex with him. There’s no sexy time in this house anymore. It’s doubtful that I will ever have sex again. In fact, I’m composing a letter to him as we speak—”

  Leah groans. “Oh God. Not the suicide manifesto again. How many times do I have to tell you? You are not going out Thelma and Louise style because I’m your Louise, and I’m not driving a car off of a cliff. Stop with the romantic movies. They make you melancholy and suicidal.”

  “I’m not suicidal. I would never actually do it.”

  And this is totally true. Just writing my letter usually makes me feel better. Then I ball it up and throw it out. Sometimes I shred it. Once I even lit it on fire.

  “Honestly, I just want to run away instead.”

  “Dick’s not even worth the energy of running away from. Just tell him you’re leaving his ass. And then kick him out of the house.”

  “It’s not just him,” I reply, struggling to fight back tears. Actually talking about my life makes me sadder than just writing about it. “It’s the kids and my job and pretty much everything.” I sound like the biggest mope on the planet. I hate myself when I start with the pity party. Which makes me even more upset. “Richard’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “Well, I warned you when you married him…” Leah trails off in a sing-song voice.

  “You most certainly did not. You were too excited about getting to be the maid of honor.”

  Leah was full of plans when Richard and I got engaged. Plans that included low-cut bridesmaids’ dresses that doubled as Victoria’s Secret lingerie, and trips to male revues in the city. She actually forgot to organize a bridal shower for me because she was too busy planning the bachelorette party. The bachelorette party that I didn’t even go to because my mother found out about it and flipped her lid. She and my father threatened to withdraw funding for the wedding if I went.

  “And you were too busy hoping you were going to be in paradise after getting married, only to realize that marrying a guy you met because your best friend puked in the backseat of his cab was not—”

  “Ha,” I scoff, cutting her off. “Please remind me when I’ve been in paradise. I didn’t even get paradise on my honeymoon.”

  Our honeymoon was a disaster as far as honeymoons go. Richard didn’t want to travel anywhere far because he was afraid an emergency would arise at the gym that he was just opening up. We got a suite in New York City for four nights.

  During that time Richard worked out obsessively and refused to eat anything on a restaurant menu without a chef coming to our table to break down the exact ingredients in the meal. He checked into work at least fifteen times a day and carried his pager everywhere—this was before cell phones. He also refused to go to a Broadway show with me, and wouldn’t let me take a taxi anywhere, claiming they were full of germs and for lazy people.

  “Never. You’ve never been in paradise. Which brings me to the reason for my call. I want you to come on a cruise with me,” Leah announces as if she’s asking me to perform a simple task, like call her in the middle of a disastrous date with a fake emergency—something that happens at least once a month.

  “A cruise? Like on a boat?”

  “No, a cruise like in a floating car. Of course on a boat. What other kind of cruises do you know?” Leah asks with a snort. “It’s for your birthday.”

  I cringe at the word birthday. I am not looking forward to my birthday. This is a big one. One that has a big, bad four in front of it, followed by a zero. Leah knows I am dreading it.

  “Thanks for bringing up that sore subject,” I grumble.

  “You need to get over it,” Leah says matter-of-factly.

  “Easy for you to say. Your big birthday isn’t for another eleven months. You have eleven months to get over it.”

  Leah and I met in our first year of
middle school, in seventh grade. We were instant friends when we were the only girls in the advanced math class the second semester of school. Well, the only girls other than Becky Hinkley, and nobody wanted be friends with her. She would wet her pants after lunch every day because she would have a sneezing fit, due to the fact that she was allergic to the smell of processed cheese. I wish I hadn’t laughed at her then—I totally feel her pain now. After giving birth to three children, I wet my pants whenever I sneeze. Or cough. Or laugh.

  Anyway, even though Leah and I were in the same grade, I’m almost a year older. My birthday is January first and Leah’s is all the way at the end of the year, November twenty-seventh.

  “That’s true. You will always be older and I will always be prettier,” Leah purrs. “And better with money. Which is why this trip is my treat.”

  “Oh no,” I protest. “Absolutely not.”

  “Why not?” Leah asks, wounded. “The benefit of not being married is that I get to choose how I want to spend my money, and I want to spend it on you.”

  Leah has spent the last decade and a half hoarding money, while I’ve been raising three kids...and a husband. Not that she has a glamorous job or anything. She works in “communications”, whatever that means. I think she designs websites for companies or something. Anyway, she loves to wave her money in my face and mock me for not having my own money. It’s very annoying.

  “I don’t think so,” I reply.

  “Okay, I’ll bring back the scented candle I got you for Christmas and you can pretend it’s your Christmas present, too.”

  “No way.”

  “Fine. If you want the candle that much—”

  “No, Leah. I’m not going on a cruise, and you’re not paying for it.”

  “What?” Leah taps her phone. “I don’t think I heard you correctly. There must be something wrong with the phone.”

  “Leah, I’m pretty sure Richard and the kids would not survive if I went on a cruise with you,” I snort, sending snot flying out of my nose and onto the dog’s paw. Before I can wipe it off with a tissue, he licks it up.

  Disgusting animal.

  “And I’m pretty sure they would be just fine. And even if they aren’t, they deserve it after the way that they treat you.”

  “They’re not that bad,” I say. “They’re just kids.” I don’t lump Richard in with them. Leah doesn’t notice.

  “I think you’re just scared to go anywhere without the kids,” Leah challenges. “You never leave them alone.”

  “Oh please,” I scoff, waving my hand in front of my face as if she can see me through the phone. “I go plenty of places without them. I went to the beach this summer without them.”

  “They were in camp,” Leah points out. “And you were probably bored out of your mind and lonely.”

  “I was not,” I retort. Although, I did pack up and leave before noon. It was mostly because I was worried that one of the boys would get hurt at football camp and the coach would be unable to reach me if I was on the beach, not that I was bored.

  “Anyway, I’m sending you pictures of the cruise. It goes to the Caribbean. I can get a cabin for really cheap, and I promise we won’t have to share a bed.”

  “How will you get it really cheap?” I interrupt, afraid of the answer. It doesn’t sound like it’ll be kosher.

  “I know a guy.”

  That’s exactly what I’m afraid of. Leah knows a lot of guys. An endless parade of men that she gets favors from. They end up trailing after her like puppy dogs and she promptly kicks them to the curb because she can’t be bothered.

  “Ugh, Leah. I’d feel like a cheap hooker if you get this from a guy,” I groan.

  “It’s not like that. This guy is gay.”

  “Oh sure,” I say sarcastically. “They’re always gay.” This is usually how she describes guys she dumps—she tells me she thinks they’re gay and she doesn’t want to waste her time with them. When the truth is more like she’s terrified of commitment.

  “Anyway,” Leah says, ignoring my dig. “The ship is the Princess and it leaves on the twenty-sixth of December—”

  “The twenty-sixth of this month?” I pipe up, suddenly glad to have some completely legitimate excuse to turn down this vacation. “Oh well, then I definitely can’t go. Samantha is doing a poetry reading at the art museum on the twenty-seventh and I can’t—”

  “Damn it, Vi. You can miss one lousy poetry reading. You make everything else. You haven’t missed a blessed thing your kids have done since the cord was cut.”

  “That’s not true. I had the flu for Jeremy’s first basketball game three years ago. And besides, it’s not just some poetry reading. She won an award. The mayor is going to be there.”

  Leah imitates snoring, interrupting me as I speak. “Big whoop. Get Dick to record it for you.”

  “He can’t do that. He’s got an important client that day and he won’t be there.”

  “Oh, so it’s okay for him to miss it, but you can’t? Why is that, Vi? Why is it okay for him to miss his daughter’s poetry reading and pretty much everything else in her life, but you can never miss one damn thing?”

  “It’s work stuff, Leah. He doesn’t have a choice. It’s much different than me deciding to miss it to selfishly go on a cruise.”

  “It is not selfish for you to do something for yourself every once in a while, Vi. I wish you mother-types would stop getting so hung up on being such damned martyrs.”

  Wait. What?

  “Mother-types? What the heck does that mean?” I snap, fury rising in my chest.

  “Oh relax, Vi, you—”

  “I will not relax!” I cry out, choking back tears.

  Not only am I wholeheartedly insulted by Leah’s glib comment, the events of the day are swirling around in my head and making me even more emotional. Including the fact that the dog got into the garbage again, and everyone stepped over the trash that was strewn all over the living room. If that wasn’t bad enough, nobody helped me clean up dinner as usual, and one of my favorite patients in long-term care, Mrs. Grover, suffered another stroke today.

  I am a speech therapist, a job I absolutely love, but one that I find incredibly stressful and emotionally draining. Unlike many of my jaded co-workers, I have a very difficult time compartmentalizing my life. My patients and their setbacks tend to affect me profoundly. It seems like nearly every one of these sweet people remind me of someone in my life who is, or was, dear to me.

  Mrs. Grover reminds me of my great-aunt Edna who taught me how to play poker, and to her I attribute my luck in Atlantic City. Mrs. Grover and I were working on a few card games of our own until her stroke this afternoon.

  So since my day has already been wrought with emotion, I’m pretty sure that’s why I snap at Leah, “I’m not a mother-type! I’m an actual mother! Something you would know nothing about.”

  The second I utter those words out loud, I wish I could grab them from the air and stuff them back in my mouth.

  I chew my cuticle nervously as I am met by stony silence from Leah’s end of the phone. Do I apologize or ignore it and hope she lets it go?

  It all depends on which is less likely to tick her off today. I decide to be contrite and go with the apology.

  “I’m sorr—” I start to say, but she cuts me off.

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that. And I’m going to hang up the phone and call you tomorrow, and we are going to discuss this cruise like normal people. Goodnight,” she says curtly and the phone cuts out.

  Dummy, I chastise myself as I toss my cell onto my nightstand. Sighing, I swing my feet over the side of the bed. How could you say something like that to her?

  I’m already in my pajamas (okay, my sweatpants and a T-shirt) so I throw on my robe, shove my foot into my left slipper, and grab the right one from under the dog’s chin. It’s slightly wet since he was probably chewing it or drooling on it, but I stick it on my foot anyway. I’ve experienced worse.

  I hea
d downstairs, bypassing the living room. I can hear both the TV blasting and Samantha and Matthew fighting. I don’t want to get involved in their scuffle unless I actually hear something break, whether it be bones or glass. They’re old enough to sort it out themselves.

  Instead, I push open the swinging door to the kitchen and flick on the light. The cat is sitting on the counter next to a bottle of wine. I reach for a clean glass in the dishwasher and grab the bottle from the counter. At the same time, Samantha screeches from the other room. Cringing, I desperately search through the drawer for the corkscrew. I find it behind the collection of baby spoons that I have saved for some unknown reason.

  After poking the cork with the corkscrew, I twist, pulling the cork upward. A satisfying pop follows. As I pour the wine, the cat squints judgmentally at me.

  “I know. I know. Kids are stressful. I should have just had cats. I could have been the crazy cat lady. Cats aren’t a pain in the rear. They do their own thing and never screech.”

  I place the full glass of wine down on the counter. “Except for in the middle of night.” I lower my eyes to the cat’s face and peer at her. “Can we talk about that? Why are you being a pain and yowling in the middle of the night? I thought we understood each other. You need to be quiet in the middle of the night so I can sleep. I don’t get enough sleep as it is.”

  The cat blinks uninterestedly at me before standing and pivoting, making a point to swish her tail under my nose.

  My cat Bert is the sibling of Leah’s cat Ernie. Yes, I know, it’s unoriginal as far as names go. Leah and I got Bert and Ernie back when we shared an apartment in college. We saw them in the window of the pet store off campus. One was orange and white, and the other was all black. We only went into the pet store because Leah fell in love with the orange one, the one we named Ernie. The guy in the pet store said they were brothers, and if we didn’t buy them both, the other one would be fed to the snakes in the back. Of course being the bleeding heart pet lovers that we were (despite the fact that neither of us had ever had pets before) we took both.