head, âyouâre unbelievable. Seriously, I donât know if youâre pulling my leg or what!â
âWhy would I do that? Look, if my life shocks youââ
âNo, no,â I lied. âIâm just unused to hearing aboutâthat sort of relationship. Thatâs all. I certainly donât condemn you for it.â
âWell,â Eva said with a drawl, âthatâs big of you.â
I reached out to give her arm a little squeeze but quickly withdrew my hand. âOh, Eva,â I said, âyou know what I mean. Thereâs nothing wrong with having sex without a relationship. In fact, I donât know, maybe itâs something I should consider, at least before starting to date seriously.â
âItâs not you, Sophie,â Eva said with conviction. âIt wasnât you back in college and itâs not you now.â
I felt almost insulted by Evaâs pronouncement. A moment earlier, Iâd been judgmental of her behavior. And now I wanted to be considered capable of it myself. Eva, I realized, was unsettling to be around.
âHow can you be sure itâs not me now?â I asked. âIt wasnât you, either, back in college. You were so serious and sincere, but you changed. Maybe I have, too. In fact, I know I have.â
âAre you saying Iâm not sincere now?â Eva gave me a grim little smile.
âNo, no,â I said hurriedly. âWhat I mean is that you were very earnest back then, very into finding causes to support, very conscious of doing the right thing. You seemed to have no time for people you saw asâI donât knowâcasual or uncommitted.â I smiled. âI remember how you used to berate John for wanting to make lots of money, for being so involved with campus politicsâreally, for just about everything he did!â
Eva shrugged. âHe could be a jerk.â
âI never saw him as a jerk,â I said. âI always felt you were being a bit unfair about him.â
âYouâre entitled to your opinion. Anyway, I donât really remember much about college. That was a long time ago and so much has happened to me since then.â
âTo us all.â
âOf course,â she said. âAnd, as I already mentioned, I canât stand to dwell on the past or on what might have been. I only think about how what I do today is going to affect tomorrow and the day after that. I stay very focused and keep my eyes straight ahead. No nostalgia for me.â
âNot even a little?â And then I dared to say: âIâm curious to know why you agreed to get together after all this time.â
Eva didnât answer my question.
Instead, she asked for the check and I left our first meeting doubting the wisdom of trying to resurrect an old friendship. But my natural optimism had been dampened, not entirely drowned. By the next morning I was looking forward to seeing Eva again. The question remained: Was Eva looking forward to seeing me?
11
Contrary to popular belief, lying will not result in your pants catching fire or in your nose growing to outrageously long proportions. These are myths meant to frighten children away from the largely adult pleasures of telling falsehoods. This writerâs advice? Enjoy yourself and lie away.
âLiar, Liar, Pants on Fire, and Other Harmful Nonsense
E VA
Â
Iâd never told anyone about Ben. Who was there to tell? At the age of forty-two I had no close friends, maybe no friends of any descriptionâuntil the reemergence of Sophie. And I wasnât sure that I could call her a friend and mean it.
And yet, Iâd blabbed to her about my failed relationship with Ben. Worse, I hadnât presented an entirely accurate picture of what had happened between Ben and me, or about how upset I was when he left. The truth was that I hadnât been half as devastated as Iâd let on. So, why the exaggeration?
See, this is