Wip Wednesday: Liar, Liar, Sweat Pants On Fire

When your MC's most important characteristic is dishonesty and secret keeping, it's not so easy to get the reader to like them. You have to balance it. Besides the obvious, like other admirable qualities, you could do what I'm doing. Add a character who is as much of a liar as your MC, but make the your MC and your reader hate him. When the reader and the MC can hate him together, they'll bond. 

 You can see everything in the link above, Prologue & Ch 1-5:

Chapter 5

One minute I was enjoying a humid afternoon, I tucked my feet into the warm Cape Cod sand, so densely packed that it looked like brown sugar crumbling around my ankles. I could taste the salt in the breeze. Ahead of me, Pablo scampered across the damp shore line, chasing away the seagulls. What an astonishingly beautiful child. The sun labored away, deepening his bronze skin and brightening his gold tipped curls, he was like the child of Greek Gods.

In a moment of bliss he let out an explosive burst of laughter and I realized the warmth was not a product of the summer sun, it was emanating from Pablo. He exuded pure happiness in rays of light that intensified with every smile, every laugh. In the surge of heat a drop of cloudy gray wax dripped down my arm, then another, and another. I had never noticed the dull film that covered my body, but now it was melting away, exposing that same iridescent skin. All of the fears I’d been harboring were trapped in the wax, rolling off my shoulders onto the sand. My liberated skin started radiating its own pinkish glow.

The next minute, I felt the beach shudder beneath me. The loose grains of sand danced across the surface of the ground around my hands. Out in the surf, Pablo was still. His blinding smile twisted into a terrified grimace. The next wave of vibrations rocked the coast with a thunderous roar. Pablo let out a shrill scream. I tried to lurch forward onto my feet, but the waxy sludge hardened into an icy straight jacket around me. The comforting heat around my toes drained out of the brown sugar sand. As the vibration intensified, I could distinguish which direction it came from, and more importantly which direction it was going.

From the corner of my eye, an enormous stampede of exotic beasts were charging down the coast, only moments away from decimating our little haven in the sand. My body ached to escape what had become little more than a living sculpture. I could see each monstrous animal now, giraffes, rhinoceroses, elephants, and hippopotamuses. One of the most grotesque rhinos was standing several yards away, staring at me. It braced to charge and bowed its head, carefully aiming its massive horns before it exploded towards me. I wasn’t even able to scream because my lips were encased in wax.

In the final seconds before it descended, the rhino leaped into the air and bellowed, “ROXANNA! WE HAVE TO LEAVE!” in a thick Russian accent, just before she crushed me.

My eyes flew open and the beach was gone. My mother hovered above my bed, her arms flailing and her eyes damn near ready to fly out of their sockets. The door swinging closed behind her.

“Oh. My. God. Mom? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Told you she'd forget.” said Gabby. I hadn't even noticed my sister leaning against the wall, glaring at me with her arms folded over her chest.

“Nice to see you too.” I spat. “What are you doing here?”

“Yesterday I tell you we are coming, today you forget? It is already eleven Roxanna! We must go now, get dressed.” My mother was indeed having one of her patented spaz attacks.

I stretched under the black silk covers, without Alex next to me they were cold against my bare skin, which reminded me; I was a bit under dressed for company.

“The airport. Nick. Right.” It took everything I had not to tell my mother I didn't listen to a word she'd said on the phone yesterday. It wouldn't have done me any favors and it was a long drive to the airport.

“Where is Alex? Tell him hurry, we must go now.”

“Mass, Mom. It's Sunday.”

My mother rolled her eyes, she may have admired Alex's values and all, but skipping a family outing to attend church probably reminded of her too much of Dad. Who was also AWOL.

Gabby plucked a shirt off the closet floor, balled it up, and threw it at me. While slipping it over my head I  flipped her the bird. I could really care less what I wore because I didn't give a shit about Nick, and I wouldn't want to send any mixed signals.

My mother, on the other hand, practically collected the dirt he walked on in a bottle next to the holy water. She never left the house without a full face of makeup, but of course today she went the extra mile. Head to toe my mother was buffed, polished, and waxed into a living porcelain doll. Not surprising.

Gabby normally would have been more dolled up than mom, I would have expected stilettos, curls, and red lipstick for this vintage photo op. But not today. She looked like. . . me. Was she actually wearing a hoodie? And sneakers? What the hell?

“What? No pearls today, Princess?” I said, glaring at my furious sibling as we climbed into my mothers sedan. She clamped her mouth shut with an audible click and stared at the ceiling of car.

I watched her shift back and forth in her seat for almost an hour. “What?” she demanded, “What are you looking at?”

I shrugged, this was amusing. “Oh, nothing. Just wondering why you look like a bag lady.”

Bingo. She started huffing and clicking her tongue, whatever she was about to say would be full of shit. She sucked at lying. “They lost my shirt at the cleaners and there wasn't time to pick out a new outfit. And, anyways, this is Nicks hoodie, so I wore it for him. What do you care anyways?”

Liar. I sat back and watched her simmer until we pulled into the parking garage. Once we reached the gate Gabby could've cared less what I thought, she was consumed with excitement. For Christ sake, it'd only been two months. That was probably a third of their whole relationship.

Boredom and exhaustion took my hand and led me to a bench where I would have probably fallen asleep, had Gabby not let out the most grating shriek I have ever heard.

“Baby!” my sister took off like a shot. I was prepared to shield my eyes from what promised to be a graphic reunion. But – to my surprise – it was fairly innocent. Nick dropped his bags and kissed my sister on the forehead, she turned her head and I could see that tears were pouring down her face, good thing she'd skipped the mascara. They shared a few quiet words and another kiss. That was it? No ass grabbing exhibitionism today?

Once they were finished gazing nauseatingly – er lovingly – into each others eyes, Nick started kissing my mothers ass, “Hello ladies. Mrs. McAllister, you look lovely, as always.”
Ugh, he really made my skin crawl. I didn't hide it either, I freely advertised my opinion of him through my expression,  If it weren't for the military, you would be selling used cars in Hoboken. 

Of course my mom giggled like a school girl and gave him a hug, “We all missed you so much Nick, isn't that so Roxanna?”

“What?” Seriously? Why? “Oh. Yeah, of course.”

Nick didn't pretend with me anymore, I think he figured out a long time ago that I wasn't buying it. What he said was for them, not for me, “It's nice seeing you again Rocky, it's been almost a year now, hasn't it?”

It always surprised me how easily people fall for lies. Like Nick, he was smiling, but his eyes were flat, no crows feet. He wasn't even trying. I mirrored his fake face right back to him, the side of his lip twitched and his nostrils flared. His quickly muted smirk was followed by the slightest of raised brows, as to say, It takes one to know one. 
Touche.