I remember once when I was young, about 7, I stole a candy bar from the general store. Do you feel like you've heard this story before? Maybe I'm the person they're telling the story about. When the manager told my father, I told him I'd bought it. He said, 'Let me tell you about lies, my dear.'�

To my left was another broken clock. The house is full of them. One on the mantle downstairs next to dusty trophy figurines, porcelain cats. Beneath the snapshots of people I don't know outside of backyard barbecues and town fairs. But at times when the hour came, (and why did it always seem in the wee hours of the morning?) a loud chime would echo through the house, the sounds of a million clocks ringing throughout the rooms. I sit beside an especially beautiful broken clock, it's hands forever convinced that it was 10 past 2. It sat atop a bookshelf, filled with old dictionaries and shelves crammed with Faulkner and Carson McCullers, the southern literature I'd so grown to romanticize and at times demonize (albeit poetically) my own existence. I looked outside. The air above the gravel waved, the heat giving a blurry appearance to the yard across the street. No signs of fall. One might wonder how I could even differentiate the seasons in this town. I wasn't sure either. My dad came over. Put his hand on my head. Said he'd take me for ice cream after dinner if I'd clean the back storeroom. The muggy hot atmosphere made the back of my shorts cling to me, and I knew the storeroom was not place to be if I was not keel over from the exhaustion of southern summer existence.

My stomach still felt funny from the morning. I'd crossed the street early to have breakfast with Grampa as usual, but in his late years and shallow pockets, his cooking was suffering. When I was younger, I'd always go over for lunch. Wonderbread. Chips. Now the bacon is undercooked, cheap. The potatoes, though cooked, could they be moldy? Still I told him it was good, just to hear him go into detail about prices or cans of beans or beautiful things and I loved hearing his voice and watching him stir the pot and laughing at how he always tucked sweatshirts into his jeans. The back of my cutoffs stuck to my thighs as I held the Popsicle to my teeth. The ice melted and dribbled down my chin, leaving purple polka dots sliding down my pale, freckled skin. I walked outside, sat down on the porch, feeling the hot wood burn against my legs. I closed my eyes, kicking my sneaker against the blue paint, chipping it away slowly. I noticed several new freckles on my legs and arms, the result of too much time spent without an adequate slathering of sunscreen. Caddy and I had always opted for the baby oil, which left small pools in our belly buttons as we covered ourselves generously many an afternoon at the Readfield beach. Watching the waves soak the sand, coming and going with the wind, speaking of how we'd shared these afternoons forever. I closed my eyes and said I'd hoped we always did, as I imagined myself in lands afar.

'Come back to bed,'� Sam said. The sheets were itchy and hot against my legs. His parents were away for the weekend, so I'd biked 40 miles down, skinned my knee on an unlucky pebble and bled 20 miles to his house. Time stopped in the humid heat, though my legs peddled quickly, the endless fields made me feel as if I was going nowhere. The stick-on constellations scattered across his ceiling had been there for so long some of them hardly glowed any longer. My parents cared little for Sam and I, but they let us sleep in the same bed whenever he made us way to Kent Road. Sam had asked his parents if I could stay, an attempt to make my visit a little less dirty, permission granted, us validated, all that. As usual, they'd refused. As usual, his mom said something like 'I feel like I would be giving you permission to sin.'� I looked out the window, to the real stars. Ducked my head back under, beneath the plastic ones. Glowing on our room. They gave us light. 'Come back to bed,'� Sam said.

His breath was hot and lips felt sticky as they pressed purposely into my neck. I looked wistfully away, looking at his childhood things. Though Sam was 17, his room was still circa 1977, when he was 12. A few things had been updated, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the boy moving inside me was the same one who smiled atop a baseball figurine and little league uniform. There were no clocks in Sam's house. They all wore watches. I hated how he never took his off. Sometimes when we were close all I could think of was time passing.

I remember when Sam and I first met. Nothing poetic or beautiful if that's what you're thinking. He tells me he first saw me dancing at Dark Star, a Grateful Dead tribute band that was playing outside the grange. He tells me he'd turned to his friend, 'I'm gonna marry that girl,'� he said. Later he came to a party at my house. I was feeling hot and sick and everyone was outside drinking cheap beer and smoking pot on the porch. I was stoned, chain smoking on my bed. Tank top sticking to me, hair sticking to back of my neck. He told me I was beautiful, came into my bed.


'Em-ly!'� 'Get us the drinks already why dontcha!'� I pulled my hair back hastily, picked up the tray, and tightened the apron around my waist. Sam had moved into our old farmhouse after my folks died. His dad had walked my down the isle. His mom gave us her blessing, or rather, permission to sin. Though there were no working clocks still in my house, though the endless fields made it feel like time stood still, time still passed.

Still I surrounded myself with tales of a life unlived. Buried my head in books, ignored the stickers on the back of pickups to the way to the store. Sam still wore watches, I never fixed the clocks. So I worked at the tavern, painting each moment for more than it was worth. But who's to say? I said and did things for the memory. Told Sam I loved him, danced at concerts when I didn't feel the music, laughed at jokes unfunny, searched for meaning staring at photographs. So let me tell you about lies, my dear.

There are the lies we tell out of sympathy, love even. the lies to protect, the lies to preserve what we think we cannot lose. the lies to prevent change, the sustain the ordinary. there are white lies, small lies, big lies. there are the lies we still believe after all these years. the lies that are told to us. there are the lies we tell strangers, or those we barely know. there are the lies we tell our friends. lies to save. lies to impress. lies to hide. and then there are the lies we tell ourselves.

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