Apples Never Fall

“Oh,” said Logan. “She never said. I could have gone out. Left her to it.”

“Sure,” said Dave. “But she probably got it in her head that a studio was the answer to overcoming her fear. She wants to paint but she’s afraid to paint.”

“Why would she be afraid to paint?”

“In case she’s no good,” said Dave. “In case she can’t get what’s in her head and her heart onto the canvas. Maybe she’s afraid of being afraid. That she’ll be so paralyzed by fear she won’t do a thing, she’ll just stand there with her paintbrush, feeling like a fraud.”

Logan put down his slice of pizza, suddenly bereft. He’d thought it was just a passing whim, and the truth was Indira became weirdly reticent each time she brought it up, as if she didn’t really care all that much. She’d raise it and then she’d instantly back down. She never pushed that hard. Was it possible the reticence was because of fear?

He should have understood that she could have passionate, complicated feelings about art, just like he had passionate, complicated feelings about tennis. Art wasn’t a hobby for Indira, like tennis could never be a hobby for him. When she walked through art galleries she felt what Logan felt when he watched the grand slams: pain and pleasure, like unrequited love.

He was a fool. They could have afforded a bigger place. Why did he insist they stay? Because he never felt like changing anything: his job, his address, his bank, his gym. Jesus. It would have been so simple to move to a two-bedroom place with a second room she could have used as a studio. She could have closed the door, faced her fear. She was probably good. Probably better than this guy. She was probably great.

“Did she break your

heart, then?” asked Dave.

“No,” said Logan. “It just ran its course.” He changed the subject back to the point of his visit. “How long had you been with Savannah?”

“It was only early days,” said Dave. “About three months.”

“You moved in together pretty fast,” commented Logan.

“Probably too fast,” agreed Dave. “I told her on one of our very first dates that I’d been thinking of moving to Sydney, and she said she’d been planning to do the same, but it was so much more expensive than Adelaide—”

“Wait—she told us you both moved down from the Gold Coast together.”

“Adelaide,” said Dave.

“Why would she say the Gold Coast?”

Did coming from the Gold Coast sound more tragic and dramatic than coming from Adelaide? Maybe it did.

Dave shrugged. “She did that. It’s a habit of hers. She lies about things for no reason, things that don’t matter, that are easy to catch her out on, like, I don’t know, what she’d had for lunch. I’d say, ‘But, Savannah, I know that’s not true,’ and she’d say, ‘What does it matter? It’s so trivial, who cares what I had for lunch?’ And I’d think, yeah, it is trivial, I don’t care, but it made me feel kind of befuddled.”

“I bet,” said Logan.

Dave helped himself to another slice of pizza and said, “You know, I did some research. Savannah actually fits the definition of a pathological liar, which is someone who lies when there is no benefit to lying. That’s exactly what she’d do. Lie for the sake of it.”

Logan tried to channel his mother and show compassion. “I guess it might have something to do with her growing up in foster care?” He warmed to the subject. “She maybe got used to saying whatever she thought people wanted to hear and—”

“Yeah, no, mate,” said Dave. “She didn’t grow up in foster care.”

Logan slumped back. “She didn’t?” His compassion vanished.

“No,” said Dave. “Her father died when she was a baby. I don’t think they ever had much money, but she definitely was never in foster care. She’d lived in the same house from when she was seven. She used to do ballet. She says her mother still has all her trophies displayed, like a shrine to her ballet career. I know that part is true. I’ve seen photos of her performing.”

Logan felt queasy. All these unnecessary lies. Had she stolen the details of her childhood in foster care from some poor contestant describing their “journey” on a talent show? None of it was necessary to arouse Logan’s mother’s sympathy. She could have just admitted she was an ordinary girl from Adelaide who had been stood up by her boyfriend on her birthday and Logan’s mother still would have let her stay the night, although perhaps Logan’s father would not have let her stay the second night.

“So that night when you forgot her birthday, is that when she left?” Another thought struck Logan. “How did she hurt herself, then? She was bleeding when she got to my parents’.”

“So I worked late. I’m the new guy, trying to impress.” He lifted his bottle to his mouth, took a long swig. He was loosening up now that he’d nearly finished his beer, becoming voluble. “We’d both got new jobs straight away when we moved in, so we were busy. I was working full-time as a graphic designer, and Savannah was working odd hours at two jobs. We were both exhausted.”

Savannah had two jobs? What happened to those two jobs? The last Logan had heard was that Savannah had said “there wasn’t much out there right now.”

“I had in my head that the birthday dinner was another week away. So I got home and my phone was flat and I couldn’t find the damned charger. We’d only just moved in. We still had boxes to unpack. I was getting hungry because she does all the cooking.” Dave dolefully considered his slice of pizza. “She’s a great cook.”

“I know,” said Logan, although it felt wrong to admit he’d enjoyed Savannah’s cooking, while he was here investigating her.