The Good Lie by Robin Brande Read Free Book Online Page B

mankind has to
offer.  What a tragic day.  Why did they have to eat?
    But what if that story repeats
itself in each new soul?  What if we’re all born completely innocent of how
ugly mankind can be?  If we die young, we might never know, and that is God’s
blessing to us—compensation for having to leave this world too early.
    Otherwise, if we live long enough,
we eat so much knowledge of evil we’re bloated and nauseous from it, and we
wish we had never seen that beautiful, tempting tree in the distance.
    At least that’s what Posie and I
think.
    I was about to test it for myself.

It Started with Cosmopolitan
    [1]
    My dad and I had this weird
competition going on when I was little.  We tried to see who could memorize the
most things out of the Bible.  I finally became the hands-down champion when I
was in fifth grade and could recite all sixty-six names of the books of the
Bible, in order, Old Testament and New.  He took me out for a three-scoop
sundae and shook my hand and told me he was retiring from the game.
    Victory.
    Until then he gave me a run for my
money, always keeping a few verses ahead, but I guess a young mind can
withstand more than an old—like they say little kids can learn languages so
much more easily.
    I know he wished he could ask me
for tips as he pored through his Bible every night searching for more verses on
adultery that he could include in his letters to my mother.  He wrote to her
every day.  I sneaked into his room one morning when he was in the shower and
read one, and believe me, he hadn’t done too badly.  Ten pages on legal pad
paper, filled with the best of the best on fornication, adultery, and other
sexual sins.  I think he retired from our game too early.
    I’m sure my mother threw them away
without reading them.  Wouldn’t you?  Who wantsto get a thick envelope
in the mail every day saying you’re a piece of trash and you’re going to hell? 
But the funny thing was, at the end of this awful, vicious letter I read, he
had written, “The children and I still love you and beg you to come home.”
    How pathetic is that?
     
    [2]
    How long can a man go without sex?
    Jason would probably say two
hours.  For my dad, it had been about four months, if you include that month
before my mother left when she was hiding out with me.
    As far as I can tell, it started
with Cosmopolitan .  I understand why he did it—who knew who might walk
into a Circle K or 7-11 and see you buying a Penthouse or Playboy ? 
What would the church leaders say?  What would his clients say?  He was the
Christian Real Estate King.  His reputation was his business.  He couldn’t be
caught with smut.
    So he figured it out.  He could get
away with buying Cosmo .  He might be buying  it for his wife.  Or his
daughter.  No one would have guessed he was touching himself to the bra ads. 
To the articles— “How to Drive Him Wild in Bed” —to the covers with their
digitally-enhanced bosoms.  It was perfect.  No one would have guessed but me. 
And that’s only because I heard him.  Believe me, I wish I hadn’t.
    And then one day he noticed me. 
What luck!  I was a female, right?  Right there in his very own home.  No need
to go to the store.  No need to plunk down the cash.  No need to risk being
seen.  Here she was, boobs and all, just walking around all the time.  More
convenient than a convenience store.
    I don’t know how guys think we don’t
know.  You can tell when someone’s eyes are on your boobs and not your face. 
Hello.  We know.
    And I knew.  He could tell me how
many threads I had in each button hole, he was studying them so carefully.
    I’m a modest person.  It’s not like
I flaunt them.  But I have my mother’s generous breasts.  They just grew that
way, no fault of mine.  And as far as my father was concerned, those breasts
were on his child, under his roof, and therefore he had the right to look.
    Besides, I was the daughter of a
whore, right?