Chapter 10 - Where the Truth Lies

BEEJAY WAS NOT ALL that entranced with me when I explained what had happened. She pointed out that when she’d offered to trade apartments with me for a week, she hadn’t actually intended to throw in her birthright as a loss leader.

“I mean, what was on your mind, kiddo?” she asked in what had become a native New York accent—tragic, because she had grown up in Savannah, Georgia, among some of the world’s most graciously spoken people. “Why the hell didn’t you just make up a name?”

I tried my best to give her a rational reason. “I always try to work as much truth into a lie as I can. The thing a journalist learns early on is that the truth propagates a million details. Say a bank is robbed and the police ask me where I was at the time it happened. I say I was standing outside the A&P supermarket. Now, if I really was there, I saw lots of silly inconsequential things that you could never invent. The chicken on top of a Chicken Delight van parked outside was missing its head. Its driver wore a shirt with a mug of beer on it that read VIRGINIA IS FOR LIVERS. Four kids on a bus from Albertus Magnus High School mooned a cop. This is all stuff you could corroborate that you would never invent. But if you’re lying, when you say you were outside the A&P supermarket, then that’s all you’ve got. This afternoon, I was looking at a five-hour flight with Lanny Morris. If I had made up who I was, I’d have had to improvise a life story that wasn’t attached to anything on earth—I couldn’t have supported that. On the other hand, you’re real, Beejay, your story comes equipped with all those little details, and I know a lot of them. So suddenly I could tell him where I work, where I live, where I was born, my father’s name… instead of having to invent each fact question by question and, worse, keep track of it all.”

I thought my explanation was reasoned and understandable.

Beejay replied casually, “As vengeance, I found a bag of Campfire marshmallows in your cupboard and I’m roasting a few over the gas jets in your fireplace. They seem to be making quite a mess, you’re going to have some cleanup job when you get back here. Tell me, how long do you plan to keep this scam going?”

I told her that this depended a lot on Lanny. Perhaps I’d never hear from him again. But if I did, I asked for her permission to—well, I was going to say “preserve the illusion” or “maintain the charade,” but I suppose “continue to lie” was what I really meant. I said I’d promise to only be “Bonnie Trout” for a little while longer and only within his immediate circle.

“Well, for crying out loud, Kerry, I hope so,” she said. “So did you kiss him?”

I told her I did, and if a cringe is something you can hear over the phone, I heard her cringe. “Listen, kiddo: yuck. Lanny Morris is such a weasel-faced middle-aged wanker.” I told her Lanny was very far from that. “Yeah yeah yeah, isn’t it wonderful that out of all the world, Cupid singled out you and a considerably older, wealthy, internationally known grating entertainer. I guess true love conquers all. Oh, listen, you got a package. Not the post office. Messenger service. I signed your name.”

“Aha! Thereby impersonating me, in my apartment.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, the delivery guy had a clipboard with a space above your name so I signed it that way or else I got the feeling he wouldn’t have left it.”

I was curious about the package and asked what the return address on it was. She said there was none. I asked her to open it. She did. I heard a rustling, tearing sound. “It’s a manuscript. About fifty pages long. Entitled ‘Excerpt from the Memoirs of Lanny Morris.’ Hey, he’s writing you love letters already.”

I reminded Beejay that when the manuscript had been sent, I hadn’t even met Lanny. I saw no reason at this point to tell her about the previous manuscript I’d scrutinized at John Hillman’s office. I asked if the package included a cover letter from anyone—Lanny, Hillman, Warren Richter…

“Nothing. Just these pages, typed on an IBM, if I’m any judge and I am.”

I wanted desperately to see those pages now. But there was no way to get printed matter across the country in an instant or even overnight. There were telex machines, but these were only good for telegram-length messages. There was first-class airmail but that would be two, maybe three days at best and I was dying to know what was in those pages before I next saw Lanny, if that was to happen. “Beejay. You’re going to hate me. I need you to read me that manuscript. Now. My dime, remember?”

It was only ten-thirty her time. I tried to think of the most persuasive words I could use. “Please? I’ll give you half my sandwich.”

There was silence on her end of the phone.

I added, “You don’t actually have to read everything, just skim it and let me hear whatever looks significant.”

I heard her sigh. Then: “I have to get some water.”

“There’s a water cooler with four gallons of Arrowhead spring water sitting in the kitchen.”

“Okay. And I have to pee.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll wait.”

I heard her scurry off. I went to get some New York tap water for myself from the kitchen. It was excellent if, like rice, water is healthier when it’s brown.

“Okay, ready?” she asked, as I could hear her rustling into position within the down-filled comforter and loving folds of the silky sheets on my lovely bed. “Just the highlights, okay?”

“More than okay,” I said, trying to find some part of her beanbag chair that didn’t contain beans.

A few days later, I would have the actual manuscript in hand, and that is what I will share with you here. It would almost certainly have been more helpful for me if I’d been able to read it for myself the first time, rather than hear Lanny excerpted and paraphrased by Beejay. The manuscript did not pick up where the chapter I’d previously read had ended, though in both instances, Lanny’s voice again seemed nothing like the man I’d met that day, nor could I fathom why these words were being shared with me. But these were easily the least of the puzzles I faced.