Page 22 of The Lies We Play

“What did you think I meant?”

“I refuse to answer that.”

“Smart.”

We are on the roof for another forty or so minutes.

She tells me she just moved into the building three days ago. Her mother didn’t like her roommate and made it a whole thing—too embarrassing to keep a friendship. She’s on the ninth floor, two below me, in an apartment her parents picked because the building has a doorman with thirty-two years of experience and they decided that was sufficient information. She hasn’t unpacked. She has eaten three meals at the Vietnamese place on Columbus because she doesn’t yet know how to cook and isn’t yet ready to find out.

She is reading Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass for the third time, because every September she rereads His Dark Materials, and apparently September makes her nervous.

“You have a seasonal anxiety novel?” I ask.

“Trilogy,” she corrects, without looking up.

“That feels worse.”

“It’s organized.”

I tell her I read His Dark Materials once and didn’t get the fuss.

She looks at me like I have admitted to a small criminal record.

“You didn’t get it.”

“The compass thing seemed busy.”

“Read it again,” she orders, appalled.

“Why?”

“Because the books are about a girl who realizes the adults lying to her aren’t smarter or kinder or more moral than she is,” she says. “They just got to the lies first. So she learns how to lie back, and you’re going to find that information useful at some point in your life.”

I look at her for a second.

“That’s what you took from the talking bears?”

“Armored bears,” she corrects. “And yes. Some lies trap you. Some lies keep you alive. The trick is knowing which one you’re playing.”

“That sounds useful?”

“As I said, you’re going to find it useful at some point in your life.” She shrugs one shoulder.

I sit with that for a long second.

“I’ll read it again,” I say.

“Good.”

Around midnight, she stands up and stretches and announces, with no preamble, that she is going to bed.

I stand up too. Habit. Manners.

“I’ll walk you down,” I say.

“I live in the same building.”

“I know.”