Even When You Lie to Me by Jessica Alcott

Author:Jessica Alcott [Alcott, Jessica]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780385391160
Google: ihn9oAEACAAJ
Amazon: B00NKDMCDW
Publisher: Random House, Incorporated
Published: 2015-06-08T23:00:00+00:00

In the disappointed sigh of a week between Christmas and New Year’s, Asha came over to watch movies. I’d been worried that she wouldn’t accept after our aborted stakeout, but she said Dev had been busy golfing with their dad and she’d had enough of the rest of her family by the time I texted. Meanwhile, I had finished all my library books and was staring warily at the Austen boxed set.

“This is Frida,” I said as she stepped through the door one dark afternoon, brushing snow from her shoulders. Frida sat down and wagged her tail hopefully.

“She’s gorgeous!” Asha said. “A malamute?” She leaned down to pet her, and Frida stood up and pressed herself in an arc against Asha’s knees.

“She likes you,” I said. “I trust anyone Frida likes.”

Asha looked up at me, her dark hair falling into her eyes. Frida’s tail kept time like a metronome. “Has she ever disliked someone?”

“Not yet.” I moved toward the stairs. “My room’s up this way. We can bring her with us.”

When we got to my room, I said, “So did you bring anything to watch, or—”

“I’ve been there!” Asha interrupted. She was pointing at a poster I had up on my wall—a photograph of a German castle on a cliff, surrounded by a forest, that I’d found back in middle school. I’d hung it up because it was the farthest place I could imagine from where I was then.

“You have?” I said. “I wasn’t sure it actually existed. It looks like something out of a fairy tale.”

She nodded. “It’s beautiful. Musty, but beautiful.”

“I always thought I’d get married there,” I said.

Asha kept looking at it as if she hadn’t heard me.

“So when were you in Germany?” I asked. “Family trip or something?”

She sat down on my bed. “Kind of. My dad used to be stationed in Berlin. We went to visit him a couple of times.”

“Wow,” I said. “Did you ever live over there?”

“Nah, never out of the country,” she said, “but we moved around a lot before we came here. Ohio before this.”

“Did you mind?”

“You kind of get used to it,” she said. “Which is not the same as liking it, I guess.”

“Would be hard to make friends,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. She paused. “Especially if you and your brothers are the only brown people in the whole school.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I guess…I guess so.”

She smiled, not unkindly. “So then you get disgustingly close to your family. Especially if you aren’t the biggest fan of other people to start with.” She looked back at the poster. “I’m just saying that theoretically. One would. If they were like that.”

“I’ve lived here my whole life and all I have to show for it is Lila, so you’re doing better than I am.”

She laughed. “I’m sure you have your reasons.”

I laughed too and then felt guilty for laughing. “I’m sorry she’s been such a bitch to you,” I said, and immediately felt worse. You probably weren’t supposed to say bitch to a feminist.

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