Genuine Lies

punched straight through the image to the woman beneath, to Betty Berenski, the thirsty, dreamy girl who had forged herself into Eve Benedict.
    “Hello,” he said in a childish echo of his father’s cultured voice. “I’m Paul.”
    “Hello.” She had a ridiculous urge to tidy her hair and smooth down her robe. “I’m Eve.”
    “I know. I’ve seen your picture.”
    Eve felt embarrassed. He looked at her as if she were almost as funny as Bugs outwitting Elmer Fudd. She could tell he knew what went on in his father’s bedroom. There was such a cynical curl to his lip.
    “Did you sleep well?”
    The little shit, Eve thought as embarrassment became amusement. “Very well, thank you.” She swept in then, like a queen into a drawing room. “I’m afraid I didn’t realize Rory’s son lived with him.”
    “Sometimes.” He picked up a jar of jelly and began to coat another piece of bread. “I didn’t like my last school, so my parents decided to transfer me to California for a year or two.” He fit the two pieces of bread together, matching up the edges. “I was driving my mother crazy.”
    “Were you?”
    “Oh, yes.” He turned to the refrigerator and chose a large bottle of Pepsi. “I’m rather good at it. By summer I’ll have driven my father crazy, so I’ll go back to London. I enjoy flying.”
    “Do you?” Fascinated, Eve watched him settle himself at the glass-topped kitchen table. “Is it all right if I fix myself a sandwich?”
    “Of course. You’re making a film with my father.” He said it matter-of-factly, as though he expected all of his father’s leading ladies to stand in the kitchen on Saturday afternoons in a borrowed robe.
    “That’s right. Do you like movies?”
    “Some of them. I’ve seen one of yours on the telly. TV.” He corrected himself, reminding himself he wasn’t in England now. “You were a saloon singer and men killed for you.” He took a neat bite of the sandwich. “You have a very pleasant voice.”
    “Thank you.” She looked over her shoulder to assure herself she was having this conversation with a child. “Are you going to be an actor?”
    His eyes lit with laughter as he took another bite. “No. If I were going to go into films, it would be as a director. I think it would be satisfying to tell people what to do.”
    Eve
decided
against making coffee, plucked another soft drink from the refrigerator, and joined him at the table. Her notion of taking a snack up to Rory and indulging in an afternoon tussle was forgotten. “How old are you?”
    “Ten. How old are you?”
    “Older.” She sampled the peanut butter and jelly and was rewarded by a flash of sensory memory. The month before she had met Charlie Gray, she had lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and canned soup. “What do you like best about California?”
    “The sun. It rains a lot in London.”
    “So I’ve heard.”
    “Did you always live here?”
    “No, though sometimes it feels like it.” She took a long drink of Pepsi. “So, tell me, Paul, what didn’t you like about your last school?”
    “The uniforms,” he said immediately. “I hate uniforms. It’s as if they want to make you look alike so you’ll think alike.”
    Because she’d nearly choked, she set the bottle down. “Are you sure you’re ten?”
    With a shrug he polished off the last of the sandwich. “I’m almost ten. And I’m precocious,” he told her with such sobriety she swallowed her chuckle. “And I ask too many questions.”
    Under the veneer of a smart aleck was the poignant tone of a lonely little boy. A fish out of water, Eve thought, and checked the urge to ruffle his hair. She knew the feeling very well. “People say you ask too many questions only when they don’t know the answers.”
    He gave her another long, searching look with those direct, adult eyes. Then he smiled and became an almost ten-year-old with a missing tooth. “I know. And it makes them crazy when you just keep asking.”
    This time she didn’t resist ruffling his hair. The grin had hooked her. “You’re going to go places, kid. But for now, how do you feel about a walk on the beach?”
    He stared for a full thirty seconds. Eve would have bet herlast dollar that Rory’s lovers never spent time with him. She’d also bet that Paul Rory Winthrop desperately wanted a friend.
    “Okay.” He ran a finger down the Pepsi bottle, making designs in the condensation. “If you want.” It wouldn’t do to seem too