Genuine Lies

it I got an education.”
    Though Julia wasn’t fooled by the little show he wasputting on for her benefit, she was interested in the story. “You said they didn’t see eye to eye. What do you mean?”
    “Well, I can’t say what happened when they were girls. I get the impression that all three sisters competed for their father’s attention. He was away quite a bit. Some sort of salesman. From what my mother has said, they often lived hand to mouth, and Eve was never content. It could have been more basic than that,” he said with a smile. “I’ve seen pictures of them, all three of them together when they were young. I don’t imagine it was easy for three beautiful women to live under the same roof.”
    Julia blinked and nearly lost her train of thought. Did the man have any idea how much he glinted? she wondered. The gold band on his Rolex, the gleam of his caps, the mousse in his hair.
    “I—ah.” She glanced hurriedly down at her notes, unaware that he preened, certain her attraction to him was distracting her. “So Eve left.”
    “Yes, and the rest is history. My mother married. I’ve heard gossip that my father had been in love with Eve. My mother wasn’t particularly young when she married, and I believe there were many years of struggle before she finally became pregnant. Are you sure I can’t get you anything?” he asked as he rose to go to the neatly stocked bar at the side of the room.
    “No, nothing. But please, go ahead.”
    “Well then, in any case. I turned out to be the one and only.” As he spoke he poured sparkling water over ice. He would have preferred a drink, but felt sure Julia would disapprove of such habits before lunch. As he sipped, he angled his head, treating her to his other profile. “Lucille devoted her life to traveling. I think she even lived in a commune for a few years. Very sixties. She was killed in a railway accident in Bangledesh or Borneo or some out of the way place, about ten years ago, I guess.” He passed over his aunt’s life and death with barely a shrug.
    Julia scribbled a note. “I take it you weren’t close?”
    “To Aunt Lucille?” He started to laugh this off, thendisguised it with a cough. “I don’t think I saw her more than three or four times in my life.” He didn’t add that she had always brought him some fascinating toy or book. Or that she had died with little more than the clothes on her back and pocket change. No inheritance for Drake, no fond memories of Lucille. “She never seemed—well, particularly real to me, if you know what I mean.”
    Julia softened a bit. It wasn’t fair to judge the man as callous because he lacked affection for an aunt he barely knew. Or because he was a preening peacock with an overindulged sense of his own sexual attraction. “I suppose I do. Your family was scattered.”
    “Yes. My mother kept the small farm she’d bought with my father, and Eve …”
    “What was it like for you, meeting her for the first time?”
    “She was always larger than life.” He perched on the edge of the desk to enjoy the view of Julia’s legs. Exploiting her would be anything but a painful experience. And, to be fair, he intended to see she enjoyed herself as well. “Beautiful, of course, but with that quality so few women have. Innate sensuality, I suppose. Even a child could see it, if not recognize it. I believe at that time she was married to Anthony Kincade. She arrived with mountains of luggage, red lips, red nails, what was surely a Dior suit and the ubiquitous cigarette perched in her fingers. She was, in a word, fabulous.”
    He sipped, surprised at how vivid the memory was. “I recall one scene right before she left. Arguing with my mother in the kitchen of the farmhouse. There Eve was, puffing smoke and pacing over the cracked linoleum while my mother sat at the table, red-eyed and furious.
    “For chrissake, Ada, you’ve put on thirty pounds. It’s no wonder Eddie ran off with some tacky little waitress.”
    Ada’s dissatisfied mouth thinned. Her skin looked like day-old porridge. “There’ll be no taking of the Lord’s name in my house.”
    “And little of anything else unless you pull yourself together.”
    “I’m a woman without a husband, all but penniless, with a boy to raise.”
    Eve waved her cigarette so that smoke zigzagged in the air. “You know very well money won’t be a problem. And there are women all over the world without husbands. Sometimes all to the good.” She