“Have you?” He gave a light laugh. “I wish I could do that. It’s different when you have to look at the result of your trauma every day in the mirror.”
“There’s no comparing one person’s trauma to another’s. Things affect people differently.”
“Agreed.” He put his glass down and studied his hands. “I’m sorry I brought it up. When I saw how upset you were, I wanted to help is all.”
“That’s kind of you. And likewise, I’d do anything I could to help you out. But it isn’t clear what you need.”
“I like sitting here with you and drinking wine.”
“Well, those two things, sitting and drinking, happen to be my best events. You ever play two truths and a lie?”
“Is that a drinking game?”
“C’mon. It’s fun. You tell me three things about yourself—two truths and one lie.” I got up and got his Maker’s Mark and noticed there was a fresh bottle behind it. I collected two highball glasses. “If I guess the lie correctly, you have to take a shot. If you fool me, I take one.”
“You should probably know I’ve had SERE training.”
“In other words, you can lie effectively?” I filled the glasses with a finger’s worth of bourbon and put the bottle between us. “Don’t count on that.”
“You’re an actor, so same goes. Is that it?” He gave a disarming grin.
“Let’s see, shall we? Who goes first?”
As he relaxed into his seat, I moved closer.
“Your idea,” he said. “You go first.”
“Fine.” I might have had a bad feeling about things, even then. “Uh…One: When I was five, my mother bet me in a private poker game and lost. Two: I threw up on Pope Benedict’s papal loafers. Three: I smoked grass with a famous sixty-three-year-old rock icon when I was eight.”
“I think I’m going to need clarification on number one.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
“Your mother.” He had a way of peering at me that made me feel naked. “Did you mean to say she betagainstyou, and you won?”
“No. I meant she used me as a wager and lost.”
“That one.” He shook his head with a chuckle. “That’s the lie.”
“Bzzzzt. Take a drink,Dances with Wolves.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Nope. That’s how I ended up the face of Franklin’s Fizzy Tabs, which ceased manufacture six months later, happily, due to trademark infringement. I shit you not.”
“But—”
“But for six months of infamy I was Franklin’s Fizzy Kid.” He made jazz hands.
“What was the lie, then?”
“I never smoked pot at eight. Geez. We were actually smoking cigars.”
Silently, Stone knocked the shot back and poured another. “You didn’t tell me that you’ve been through such an unbelievable load of crap.”
“There’s more where that came from, baby. Your turn. Amaze me.”
“Okay. One: I met my wife in the seventh grade. Two: I participated in the largest lottery scratch off ever organized. It was a world record. Three: I once shoved the Monopoly dog so far up my nose it took a doctor to get it out.”
