The Perfect Lie

September 2003, NYU

Chanty was trying to keep her cool.

Liam Heaton and Zachary Astor kept throwing the same crumpled paper back and forth at each other. It would have been okay if she was not sitting between them, but she was—unfortunately.

When the paper struck her face for the fifth time, Chanty lost her temper and glared at Liam.

“Give it to Zach,” he whispered, his lips barely moving.

If you had been picking the same crumpled paper four times already, you would feel the same fury Chanty felt.

“Chanty…” Zach whispered at her left pleadingly.

She ignored them and continued answering her paper.

“Chanty…” Liam urged.

“No,” she hissed, picked up the paper and threw it forward across another long aisle of students in the amphitheatre.

“Grouch…” Liam muttered.

“Bastard…” she retorted back with ire.

2011

“No, I’ll be there!” Chanty Strindberg almost shouted on the phone. She was in a rush and she was expected to be in the office in five minutes. She still had to drop Willie off at her brother’s place where his wife was going to take care of her four-year old son.

If Philip, her brother, would only leave his precious home, she would not have so much trouble with this new project.

She had to be in the constant presence of Liam Heaton, the representative of the Astor Industries that just signed a merger with Strindberg Corporations to develop a new line of business. Chanty was tasked to handle the new project. It would have been Zachary Astor who should do the job with her, but the man was busy with his own life chasing women around with that stupid show he just got into.

She threw her phone on the empty seat beside her and turned a curb that would lead her toward her brother’s house. Why the hell did his house had to be so far off the city?

“Mommy, you forgot my blanket,” Willie said behind her. He was strapped at the backseat.

“Honey, come on…you know mommy’s busy. You just use aunt Cass’ blanket.”

He did not answer but started to tug on his seatbelt. He was always too excited to see Cassandra. “No howling, no running around and no scatters, okay? Uncle Phillip doesn’t like that,” she reminded her son as she climbed out of the car and went to his side to free him of his straps.

“But aunt Cass said I can shout, run and play with dirt,” Willie uttered innocently.

Chanty stared at her son’s brown eyes for a moment and when she was sure he was not lying, she nodded. She would not be surprised if Cassandra would tell her son something like that. She was always doing something her husband didn’t like.

“Okay, let’s go. Give me a kiss before you go,” Chanty told her son who obliged and gave her a hug as a bonus. She let him climb out of the car and run to the front door of the house. Cassandra immediately opened the door.

She waved at Chanty who did not bother to walk with her son. He was already wearing his backpack on his back. He had everything he needed.

No, he doesn’t, a tiny voice told her. He needs a father.

Chanty shook her head. No, her son didn’t need a father. Cameron was dead to her. He had left four years ago when she needed him the most. She survived and she would survive with Willie without him.

She climbed back inside her car and drove to her new office.

“You have been receiving calls since I got here,” her secretary, Dana, started narrating everything the moment she got inside the doors. “He had been calling five times now and he said he’d call again in five minutes. And the meeting is just about to start. Everybody’s waiting for you and Mr. Heaton.”

That stopped her on her tracks. Her black-haired secretary immediately did as well. “He’s not here yet?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, his secretary came in here—”

“I don’t want his secretary. We’re already late as it is and—”

“I’m here!” The familiar voice said behind Chanty. She rolled her eyes. She had never seen Liam Heaton since that dinner for the celebration of Cassandra’s pregnancy. And that time, she did not even bother to talk to him. The last time she checked, she last had a normal conversation with him four or five years ago when they met months after they graduated from NYU.