Tell Me No Lies by Adele Griffin

Author:Adele Griffin
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers, an imprint of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a division of Workman Publishing
Published: 2018-06-16T04:00:00+00:00

part three

spring

thirty-four

“Hey, Blizzard. Happy New Year.”

“Hey, Theo. You, too.” I yawned, wedging the phone closer to my ear. “Mimi’s not here.” In fact, I’d seen Mimi only once over break, when she’d picked me up for lunch at Saladalley on Christmas Eve—and she’d barely had time for that meet-up.

“Actually it’s you I need. Are you free today?”

“Oh.” I was now awake and on guard. “Depends what it is.”

“You can’t tell Meems. Because she offered to help, and I shafted her.”

“Okay . . .” What was this all about? What did Theo think I could do better for him than his kid sister? “What’s up?”

“I’ve left it to the last second, but I’ve got to find Violetta a birthday gift to take back to school. A good one.”

Aha, a girlfriend-gift mission. I felt the pinch of disappointment. “Theo, it’s New Year’s Day. Everything’s closed.”

“King of Prussia Mall stays open till five today. I’ll come get you.”

“Why am I being singled out for this VIP field trip?”

“Full disclosure? I think you might be ten percent less of a dork these days, Bliz. So I’m enlisting you to help buy my excellent girlfriend something special.”

“Now you’re just gettin’ on my noives.”

I could hear Theo’s smile on the other end of the line. “See ya in twenty. I’ll beep.”

Twenty minutes later, I was running out the door to jump in.

“Thanks for this,” he said first thing.

“I only got sprung because I lied to my parents that I was helping with the blood drive at the Red Cross, and you were giving me a lift over and back.”

“See, because parents trust me. I’m basically the town hero. National Merit and All-American? They should build a statue in the park already.”

“As soon as they learn to make one out of hot air.”

“Nyuck nyuck nyuck nyuck.”

At the mall, we browsed for over an hour, finally choosing a book of poems by Elizabeth Bishop, and then at the Macy’s counter, a tiny crystal bottle of Chanel No. 5—after we’d sprayed and sniffed a dozen different scents.

“A late Christmas gift?” The old lady at the register winked at Theo. “Smart of you to have your girlfriend come along and test our fragrances herself. Saves the embarrassment of having to return something, mm?” She winked.

“Yeah, I’m careful like that,” said Theo, throwing an arm around my shoulders and giving me a bone-crushing football buddy squeeze. “Anything for my little honey.”

“It feels a little cheap for our five-year anniversary,” I added, which made the lady’s eyelashes flutter in surprise as Theo laughed outright.

But it was weirdly fun to be mistaken for Theo’s girlfriend, even if the reality was that we were out shopping for his actual girlfriend, and Violetta was someone I’d never even met. Theo looked hot in his barn jacket and unlaced work boots, his hair overgrown in a way that Mimi said their parents hated for being “girlie,” but I thought softened the razor cut of his jawline. And I enjoyed the sweet nature of the errand, even when we’d moved to the even-more-awkward lingerie department.

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