Except a gnawing anxiety in the pit of my stomach as I question if he’s grilling Margie or if he knows more than he’s letting on.
If Cyril had been dyed, dusted, and smacked with a frying pan upon entering a room, he would’ve absolutely not rested until he found every hole in their story.
Good thing I really love research.
Because I can pull off being Margie Johnson like a boss.
Even if I’m well and truly sweating now. Can he smell it? Can he smell my sweat?
“I hope it wasn’t Piedmont,” I say, naming a real high school in Des Moines. “They were assholes in football. Though Northview wasn’t much better.”
“You didn’t go to either of those two then?”
I force a smile. “I didn’t say that, now did I? Where did you grow up? Was football a big thing there? You probably get this a lot, but you look like you could’ve been a linebacker.”
More staring.
More eating stew.
“I gather your high school experience was as fantastic as mine then.” I take another spoonful of stew too.
“What wasn’t great about yours?”
“The usual. Not part of the in crowd, didn’t like half my teachers, and with being raised by a single mom, I needed to work to help pay the bills.”
This is my favorite part of my fake life history.
The part where I was tight with my mom and we worked together to raise me, even if I was a misfit who just wanted someone to understand her.
My original plan to tell anyone who presses is that she got married once to a man with two daughters, and my stepsisters hated me for those few years, and one of them even stole the captain of the football team out from under me for a prom date when I thought a miracle was about to happen.
Yes, fine, I’m twisting Cinderella a little, but it was my favorite when I was little. I’ll never be Cinderella, but playing housekeeper for a few weeks while pretending to be basically broke and alone is as close as I’ll ever get.
But I don’t like the way he’s staring at me, and I’m starting to think the Cinderella thing might be overkill in my fake story.
It’s like he doesn’t believe even the little bits that I’ve told him. Or I’ve triggered something with my story that’s making him even more suspicious of me.
Do I need to make up more details? Tell him a fabricated story about somewhere that I worked in high school?
More likely, I need to shut up and ask more questions of him than I give answers in return.
Or maybe tell him the fucking truth? my conscience whispers.
As if I wouldn’t in a heartbeat if I thought I could trust him.
Sleep in the same cabin when he’s passed the basic security checks from both Cyril and the triplets?
Fine.
Outright tell him who I am?
There’s not a world where that makes sense, no matter how much I’m sweating under his scrutiny.
“So where did you grow up?” I ask him with as much of a smile as I can force.
He lifts his eyes and stares at me with the slightest smirk playing on his lips. “Connecticut.”
My stomach bottoms out.
