Read Online Cartwheel by Jennifer Dubois - Free Book Online Page B

different connotationsin order to illuminate the reality of a situation. Who could deny that the differing designations reflected an emotional veracity, if not a biological one? You looked at Lily—leaving aside questions of guilt or innocence—and you saw her callousness, and her emotional remoteness, and her sexual experience, and you knew you were dealing with an adult. And then there was the small matter that Lily would grow up, in prison or out, and Katy would always be a girl and would always be dead.
    “What?”
    “It’s a simple question.”
    “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
    “Is it fair to say you thought were you smarter than the victim?”
    “Is it fair to say you think you’re smarter than me?”
    Eduardo put down his notepad and raised his eyebrows. Lily’s face was flushed; he could tell that she was slightly surprised, but also slightly pleased, at what she had said.
    “I would not presume that,” he said firmly, and lifted his notepad again. “Insipidness aside, there were a lot of other things you didn’t like about Katy Kellers.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “Let me remind you of some of the things you didn’t like about her, according to emails you sent during the month of January alone: her hair, her name, her teeth—”
    “I loved her teeth!”
    “ ‘They were not the teeth of a serious person,’ according to a Facebook message you wrote to your friend Callie Meyers on January seventeenth, 2011.”
    “I liked her teeth. I wanted teeth like that.”
    “Do you think Katy ever had to have braces?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “She never had braces. They were just naturally straight.”
    Lily stared at him.
    “You had to have braces, didn’t you?” said Eduardo. “I understandyou had them into college. I understand you had to visit home on weekends for orthodontic follow-up.”
    “I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”
    “We’ll move on. Tell me about your relationship with Sebastien LeCompte.”
    “We were friends.”
    “You had a sexual relationship?”
    Lily turned her face to the side. “Briefly.”
    “Were you aware that the victim was also having a sexual relationship with Sebastien LeCompte?” This query contained a bluff, as well as a fairly obvious supposition—but, being a question, it was not exactly a lie. And at any rate, the reality of Sebastien LeCompte’s involvement with Katy Kellers did not matter half as much as whatever Lily had believed that reality to be.
    “I wouldn’t necessarily have called it a relationship.”
    “You were aware of it, though?”
    “I mean, I certainly wondered.”
    “What made you wonder?”
    “I’m not stupid.”
    Eduardo pretended to make a note of this, though he wasn’t really writing anything.
    Lily shifted in her seat. “I just mean, I could tell. They weren’t as careful as they thought they were.”
    “And how did you feel about it?”
    “Not much.”
    “Really? You weren’t angry?”
    “Not really. We weren’t in love or anything.”
    During his seventh week with Maria, Eduardo had whispered into her ear while she was sleeping: “Tell me who you are, because I love you already and I want to know who I love.”
    “I mean,” said Lily, uncertain about what to do with his silence. “Sebastien and I weren’t, like, a couple.”
    “But you were sleeping together.”
    Lily looked pensive; the light through the bars made long tapering wicks on her face. “I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore today,” she said.
    Eduardo nodded. “That’s your right,” he said. He snapped his notebook shut in order to convey a sense of finality, of satisfaction. “This has been a good conversation. You can go have your medical exam now.”
    Though he would never let it matter, it was true that something about Lily Hayes reminded Eduardo of Maria. What was it, exactly? The breeziness of a person to whom nothing was ever denied? But in Maria this quality had been charming and elfin,