Three

After school I told Drew I had stuff to do and headed to our town library. It was my favorite place on the planet. Built over a hundred years ago, with its granite blocks, scratched wooden floors, and deep-set windows, the library felt solid and permanent. It had a sense of peace, like a church without the religion.

My chosen spot was the reference room in the very back of the second floor. It was poorly lit and dusty, but it was almost always empty, and there was a cracked dark green leather bench on the back wall, perfect for curling up. I would lie there for hours reading, pretending it was my living room, until the librarian announced they were closing for the night by flashing the lights on and off.

My hand ran over the shelf, stopping at the spine of one of the outdated World Books. The letter L. I paused and then instead I pulled the giant maroon map book from the shelf below onto the worn table and flipped to the map of Manhattan. I’d looked at it so often I could have drawn a copy with my eyes closed. My fingers traced the roads, up Sixth Avenue to Rockefeller Plaza and Radio City Music Hall, then across to Fifth Avenue, skirting along Central Park and into Harlem, then across the East River and into Queens.

The sound of my finger whispering across the page relaxed me. I closed my eyes and imagined myself there. Our dream apartment would have an exposed brick wall, and we’d know that you couldn’t have the light on in the living room and run the blender at the same time or you’d blow a circuit. Our neighbors would speak Cantonese, Spanish, Russian, and some language we couldn’t place, but we’d play a made-up drinking game where we had to guess the subject of their conversations.

My hand shook. There was no way I could afford to go to New York. It wasn’t just coming up with the monthly rent. I’d need a security deposit, plus utilities, cable, food, and everything else required to survive. A minimum-wage waitressing job wasn’t going to cut it, and I wasn’t qualified to do anything else, no matter how many fancy gallery jobs I dreamed up. I couldn’t ask Drew to float me.

I should have told her months ago that it wasn’t going to work, but I hadn’t wanted to let her down. It was easier to pretend graduation was never going to arrive. When Drew asked, I’d made up a number for my savings account. I liked that she felt proud of me for saving all that money. I wanted to be the kind of person who had that kind of discipline. There were a lot of times I could almost forget it was a total lie, until my bank statement would come in the mail.

Making big plans almost always turned out badly for me. My destiny was set before I was born. My mom was fifteen when she got pregnant and dropped out of school to have me. Then perhaps to punish me for ruining her life, she named me Candi. With an i, no less. You know what you never hear? “Let me introduce you to my neurosurgeon, Dr. Candi Thorn.” Or, “All rise for the Honorable Judge Candi Thorn.” A parent who names you Candi is setting you up to be a stripper, or a Walmart greeter complete with a wrinkled blue uniform vest festooned with various smiley-face buttons and flag pins. Or a lifer waitress at the Burger Barn. I had to go by my middle name, which was still pretty hippie dippy, but Skye is light years better than Candi.

When Drew and I became friends, I realized that there was this completely different world possible. At her house there were matching dishes, and their glasses weren’t collectibles from some gas station promotion. The heat was never off because the bill hadn’t been paid, and their fridge wasn’t full of ketchup packages stolen from McDonald’s. It wasn’t that I didn’t know people lived like Drew, but I’d never seen it up close. I knew that was what I wanted. I would become the kind of person who traveled, who went to art galleries and knew people who talked about real things like politics and books.

I wanted to be the kind of person who moved to New York.

But as much as I wanted life to be a certain way, wishing doesn’t make things happen. For years I tried wishing my mom into a better job. Or there was the disaster of when I tried to fix her up with my fourth grade gym teacher so they could get married. That ended with the whole school witnessing my mom screaming at him in the parking lot.

Then there was the lie about my dad . . .

I sat in the corner of the bench and pulled my legs up. One reason for wanting to move to New York was to be in a city where every single person I came across hadn’t been a part of the most humiliating experience of my life. I don’t remember when I started lying about my dad. Early. First or second grade. And I didn’t set out to lie as much as I wished the truth—that my dad was a car mechanic who dumped my mom as soon as he found out she was pregnant with me—weren’t real.

My mom had always been honest: I picked a real loser when I picked your father. I used to wish that she’d told me he was dead instead of AWOL. It seemed better to have a dead dad than one who was very much alive and working at a garage three towns over but had no interest in my life.

So I made up a dad. He was in the military. That explained his long absence from home and why he and my mom divorced. She couldn’t bear him being in harm’s way. Deployment is so hard on those left behind. His job made me a bit more noble too, gave me a whiff of respectability that my mom’s job at the grocery store didn’t convey. I was the daughter of a real live American hero. The kind of guy other people thanked for their service. And I might have gotten away with that lie. A distant dad, gone from my life not because he couldn’t be bothered, but because he was called to a higher purpose—protecting America.

Then in eighth grade I pushed my luck. I told people my dad had been injured. I can’t remember what made me add to the lie. To embroider the story with a roadside bomb, VA hospitals, and countless surgeries. Maybe the original story had become dull. Or people wondered why he never seemed to get leave to visit and I thought I needed to create a reason. But my lie went a step too far. Instead of merely keeping people from asking too many questions, it made people feel bad for me. To want to do something.

Without telling me, Drew got the ball rolling when she asked her parents if they would let her take money out of her savings account so I could fly to the veterans hospital in Washington, DC, to visit my dad. Her parents told people at their church, and suddenly the thing spiraled out of control. Weeks later there was an all-school assembly with my mom invited for a big surprise. The mayor of our town was there. A representative from the Rotary Club presented me with a check in front of everyone. Enough cash so I could travel to Washington with my mom. There was talk of the excess money going toward an accessible home for my poor amputated-legs dad. It was a great example of a town pulling together. A bunch of people were crying and waving these tiny American flags the local Walmart had donated for the event. It would have been amazing—made for TV—except for the part where I’d made him up. I’d just stood on the stage and wished for a meteor to strike me dead while my mom looked around confused, trying to figure out what the hell everyone was talking about.

I still remember Drew’s face when she realized I’d lied. She was with her parents, all dressed up for the occasion, and her face collapsed. Her response hurt almost as bad as the pitying looks from everyone else and the hushed snickers. The money had to be returned. No more big giant cardboard checks for me. I had to stand there next to my mom as she explained the truth. I knew, even at thirteen, that no one was ever going to let me forget this.

I did get a few things out of the situation, even if there was no dad or trip to our nation’s capital. I got a standing appointment with a counselor to get at the root of my “issues,” and the development of a full-blown anxiety disorder complete with panic attacks.

Drew forgave me. I felt bad that she’d tried to do this amazing thing for me and I’d ruined it. She felt bad that her plan had blown up so publicly in my face. Or maybe she felt bad because my life was so messed up that I had to make up an entire parent. Either way, we never talked about it much after that. We moved on. But I knew she never forgot.

I wasn’t sure we’d move on from this. If Drew discovered I’d lied again, she wouldn’t forgive quite so easily. She might finally decide she’d had enough.

Or maybe I’d had enough. Maybe the only way to make the life I’d been wishing for a reality was to do something big. If destiny was going to try and keep me here, I was going to have to do something bold to change it.

I jumped up and crossed the room with jerky steps to the set of World Book Encyclopedias, pulling out the L volume with a shaking hand. I flipped through, and the typed note was tucked in between the pages describing the Lindbergh kidnapping.

ARE YOU IN? Y or N?

My pen hovered above the page for just a split second and then I circled Y. I slammed the book’s cover shut and put it back on the shelf. One step closer to my new life.