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Deception

You did it!” Kiera said when I said hello. “I just knew you could.”

I was still feeling ambivalent about it. Now I was part of so much deception and lying that I felt as if I was standing on a ladder created out of cardboard. One more lie, and I would come tumbling down like Humpty Dumpty, and in both Donald’s and Jordan’s eyes, I wouldn’t be able to be put together again.

“Did you call Ryder Garfield?”

“Not yet.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Your father said he was going to call you first. I wanted to be sure everything was still on. What did he say?”

“He was very tricky, or tried to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“First, he was trying to see if I really invited you first or you invited yourself, and then he wanted to know what you had told me about Ryder Garfield. He sounded very suspicious. You were right. He has a particular dislike for him.”

“Oh.”

Maybe he had seen through me at dinner, I thought, but why would he still approve of my visiting Kiera? In this house, I could never believe things that were said the first time they were said. I had to think hard about why they were said and what they really meant. Here, the most difficult thing to find was the truth. Kiera lied constantly to her parents. Donald lied to Jordan, and Jordan lied constantly to herself. Now I was part of their world of falsehood. In a strange and eerie way, I had become a March, after all.

“Don’t worry about it. I was very nonchalant,” Kiera told me. “I said you told me he was a troubled but nice boy. You wanted advice on what to do, and I told you look for someone with no baggage. Who has time for other people’s problems, especially boys’? He liked that and told me to encourage you not to get so serious with anyone while you were so young. He gave me a backhanded compliment. He said no one knows better than I do how to avoid being serious, and I could be a good influence on you for a change.” She laughed. “Me? A good influence? I think when it comes to me, he really believes it’s the other way around. No decent young man would get serious about me. Won’t he be surprised when he finds out about Richard?

“Anyway,” she continued, “I think that’s why he approved your visiting me. I’m to give you a Kiera March pep talk. So, as Richard says, ‘no worries.’ ”

“He says that? That’s Australian, not English.”

“He’s brilliant. He can speak French, Italian, and Australian,” she said, and laughed again. “Are you calling Ryder, or aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Okay. Let me know when that’s settled. I’ve already made the reservation. I’ll e-mail you the directions. We’re going to have a great time. See you soon.”

After we hung up, I sat thinking. Maybe it was all going too fast. Maybe I should have waited before asking permission to visit Kiera. I admitted to myself that I had acted out of anger, but now that Donald had called Kiera, it was too late to change my plans. Jordan and Donald would seriously question what had suddenly made me decide against going. Ironically, they would suspect some secret rendezvous between Ryder and me here instead of up there with Kiera.

Very nervous about it all, I called Ryder. I thought he wasn’t going to pick up when it rang four times, but then I heard him say, “Just a minute.” A good thirty seconds or so passed before he came on again.

“Hi.”

“What happened? Why couldn’t you talk?”

“I’m practically hiding in a closet,” he said. “It’s a little like Iraq or something here. IEDs everywhere I walk. Either my father or my mother has to cancel a shoot tomorrow to go with me to see Dr. Steiner, and that’s equivalent to being diagnosed with a fatal illness in this family. They’re arguing about it right now.”

“I’m sorry, Ryder.”

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything.”

“I should have waited longer to tell you what was being said.”

“It would have all happened anyway. So, has the news reached the March castle? Is your foster father or whatever you call him giving you a hard time about me?”

There didn’t seem any way to postpone bad news when it came to Ryder Garfield. He knew too well how to look for it.

“Yes,” I said. “He doesn’t want me seeing you socially.”

“Figures. It’s my own fault. I provided the excuse. I certainly didn’t want to make any trouble for you. I have enough to do making trouble for myself. If your psychic friend from the beach were here, she’d predict a long life of unhappiness.”