“It’s not real,” said Simon. “Bunch of old made-up crap. I don’t know why you waste your time with it.”

I frowned at him but didn’t get the chance to argue, and I wasn’t sure what I would have said anyway. Melissa had turned her lighthouse smile on us again.

“OK,” she said. “So swim, then drink; or drink, then swim?”

“Swim,” said Simon, leaping to his feet.

“Swim,” agreed Melissa, continuing the game.

Gretchen predictably followed suit, and Marcus gave me a look.

“Swim?” he said.

I didn’t want to. I doubted the water would be as warm as Simon claimed, and I felt uncomfortable stripping down to my one-piece in front of all these near-perfect bodies, but it was impossible to say no.

“Swim,” I said.

I wore my glasses in the sea, partly because I wanted to be able to see what was going on, and partly for the same reason I had kept my hand luggage in my lap as we drove in from the airport. They made me feel a little less naked, which, after the towel incident with Marcus, felt important. It was choppy but the water was indeed warmer than I had believed possible, especially a few inches under the surface, so I waded out till I was chest deep and then half squatted, half floated between the waves, my chin just under the surface, my feet touching down on the rippled sandy bottom to push myself up and over each new surge.

I had an OK body. Paler than I would like, a little heavier and less toned than I had been, but I wasn’t neurotic about it. I ate reasonably well unless money was very tight, and I did enough walking at work that I didn’t feel bad about letting the gym membership slide. I had some cute dumbbells and a Pilates ball that I dragged out from time to time, but I didn’t obsess about my body—though I’d be lying if I claimed not to have noticed the very slight spread and sag around my boobs and butt. When I was working reasonable hours and pulling down a healthier salary, I’d take them on, I told myself, and the occasional pizza wasn’t going to kill me, was it?

That’s what I had thought a few days ago as I modeled my bathing suit in front of the mirror in my apartment.

Not bad, I had thought. Not as bad as I had feared, anyway.

But that was then, and now I was here with Melissa and Gretchen, who had basically the same body as each other, lithe and toned, everything still tight and perky like nymphs, goddesses. It was impossible not to stare. I stayed under the water, even as the waves swelled in the wake of a passing speedboat, watching Melissa and Simon swimming like Olympians and play wrestling, kissing each other wetly, and doing God knew what with their hands under the water. I turned away quickly and found Marcus looking at me.

“Water feels good,” he observed.

“Yeah,” I replied. “I’m sorry about before, when we bumped into each other. When I was coming out of the shower—”

“No, that was my fault,” he cut in. “I guess we weren’t expecting each other.”

“Not in that moment, no,” I agreed, smiling. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, a rarity that made his face strangely open and young. It reminded me of waking up next to him.

“And then there was the Introduction to Gretchen debacle,” added Marcus, still pained.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Sorry,” he said. “I just didn’t know how to . . .”

“And Melissa said . . .”

“Right,” he agreed before I could say any more, not needing me to. We nodded at each other, smiling, finding an odd kind of familiar ease in discussing our previous awkwardness.

“You doing OK, Jan?” he said. “You look good.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You too.”

“I mean, outside e-mail and Facebook we haven’t spoken for . . .”

“It’s been a while,” I agreed, still smiling, glad we were having the conversation and that Gretchen had taken herself after Melissa and Simon, splashing less expertly in a ponderous crawl.

“Oh, and how about that promotion?” he asked, his eyes wide and encouraging. “The executive team leader thing.”

I should have been ready for the question, but I had been thinking about other things, other times, so home—work—was the last thing on my mind. I looked down. Just that. A momentary, reflexive gesture that would have meant nothing to anyone else. But it was Marcus, and I just couldn’t get my face to do what it needed to do fast enough.

“Oh, I wouldn’t have been right for it,” I said in a low voice, my eyes flashing to Melissa, who was screaming with delight as she straddled Simon’s broad shoulders.

“What? Jan! I thought you were really excited about it.”

“The salary wasn’t that much of a step up, and there was a lot more responsibility,” I said breezily. “I’m better off on the hourly plan. The benefits are still good and—”

“Jan?”

“What?” I said, my smile fixed.

He was giving me that look, the one that made my heart race and my skin break into pink blotches. He lowered his head slightly, and when he spoke his voice was little more than a whisper.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He looked sad and embarrassed.

“Why?” I said with manic brightness. “It’s fine.”

But Marcus always knew when it wasn’t fine. When I was fibbing. In my head I saw it all as it had happened two days before I got on the plane for Greece.

“I’m sorry, Jan,” Camille had said, offering me her slim dark hand and smiling apologetically. “We just didn’t feel you were ready for this much responsibility.”

I shook her hand, blinking, feeling the color rise in my face.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I understand.”

I reminded myself to let go of her hand. My own had started to sweat.

“Maybe you should take a few days off,” she suggested. “Just till you feel ready to . . .”

“Actually,” I said, “I plan to. I’m going on a trip.”

“Good for you! Anywhere nice?”

“Greece,” I said. “Well, Crete, actually.”

“Wow,” said Camille, looking more impressed by this than she had by my interview. “That’s fantastic. Just don’t forget us. I hope you have a great time.”

“I will,” I said, grinning and hoping she couldn’t see the tears in my eyes.

OK, yes. That’s how it actually happened. I prefer the first version, and I’d worry less about my bank account had it been true, but yes, I made that up. I do that sometimes. My application to move into the executive team for one of Charlotte’s best-known megastores had been unsuccessful. Again. Which meant that I would still be going into work at three in the morning, making sure the backroom kept the store stocked and that the previous day’s sales were steadily, constantly replaced, a new item slotted into the shelves as its counterpart left the building in Great Deal’s ubiquitous and horrible yellow shopping carts. That was my life. Another cog in the great yellow machine, working my eight or nine hours till I crawled back to my apartment at lunchtime, to the roommate I needed to share my rent but never saw because I was in bed by six every night. That was my life. Nine dollars an hour with a degree in biology and a minor in English, subjects almost comically irrelevant to what I did for a living, a job I had taken on as a way of building up cash while I was a student with the vague idea that it would help me prepare for med school. But I hadn’t gone to med school. Hadn’t even applied, though sometimes I pretended I had.

Once last week, I told a new employee in hardlines—cute in his way, but far too young for me—that I had been accepted at Chapel Hill and would start next fall. It was a stupid and unnecessary lie, and I knew it would bite me in the ass even as I was saying it, though even I was surprised at how quickly he started avoiding me. No biggie. I am used to being alone.

While I’m making my confession, I should also say that Chad Hoskins wasn’t my boyfriend and we hadn’t had dinner together the night before I left Charlotte. He was my occasional therapist, the closest thing to a psychiatrist my health insurance would cover, and though I fantasized about him occasionally, we had no relationship outside of his dingy office.

And there you have it. Me. Jan the liar.

Voted—in a dazzling bit of mean-spirited group creativity—most likely of her graduating high school class to have flammable pants.

So yes, I’m used to not being believed. I’m used to feeling stupid and humiliated, caught in the web of my own fantasies, mocked, passed over, and rejected, usually for reasons entirely in my own control.

Except that—painfully, inexplicably—they’re not.

I lie. I can’t help it. I don’t mean to. Not usually. I just prefer the version of my life that I make up, but then I say it, not out of malice or the desire to trick or mislead others, but to get that nicer, happier version of the world out there where I can see it, where I can believe in it . . . but then that’s not true either, is it? Of course I mean to mislead others. Or myself.

It’s pathetic. And it’s why Marcus left me.

Chapter Nine

He sits there in the dark. He? I have no idea, but I’m chained up, imprisoned, and someone is there, someone I assume is responsible for my situation, so yes, decades of books and movies and damsel-in-distress crime TV says he.