"Then who won the game?" She countered, arms folded as she stood in their tiny kitchen overlooking the alley below. A stray cat hollered outside as another rummaged through the metal trash pails looking for a late snack.

"The Yankees," he said, and Carla knew at once that was too easy a test. A liar as slick as her husband of two years would surely have listened to the news on the way home from wherever he was, preparing for the obvious questions.

"Then where’s the ticket stub?"

"John has it," Peter answered, still wide-eyed and non-defensive. "Since he bought me the ticket, he took care of handling them."

Shit. This was never easy. Carla had no idea which card to throw down on the table next. She had nothing concrete to use as a foothold as she scaled this insurmountable mountain, only her gut instinct, her women’s intuition. Those things, plus a slight stench of cigarette smoke in his hair and the lack of onions on his breath. In all the years she’s known Peter Scalfini, he has never been to a baseball game without having at least two hot dogs with the works, including extra onions. As for the smoke, the stadium banned smoking two years before, and his co-worker friend he allegedly went with was a vegetarian health nut. Ergo, no smokers should have been within his radius.

Yet here he was, stinking of smoke and without a trace of hallatosis. Carla knew he wasn’t at the game. Just knew it. He was probably at the sports bar across the street after having scalped the tickets, keeping the desperately needed cash for himself.

It would be so easy if her husband screwed up big time and lied about it. Like had an affair, for example. It would be something Carla could seek out, find, prove. It wouldn’t be her gut against his words. Plus, she would kick his ass to the curb and sue him for everything. How glorious.

Instead, she’s stuck with an outwardly perfect husband and an eroded gut telling her he’s a liar and a cheat.

Peter often came clean about big things, and that puzzled Carla even more. Last summer, he busted her favorite snowglobe from Coney Island. How easy it would have been to avoid the waterworks and blame by just pointing a finger at the cat, Mr. Pickles. Yet surprisingly, Peter confessed, looking contrite and pale as he handed her the dripping remnants of her glitter-filled globe. And sad she was, Carla didn’t verbally castrate her husband. It was an accident, occurring as he tried helping her with housework one Saturday when she was at her aerobics class.

So she’s proven to herself, and to her husband, that she can handle the truth just fine. Peter might not like the tears or anger that result from honesty, but they blow over so much quicker than the clotted storms of distrust and bitterness. But still, he chooses to lie. Carla can rarely prove it, but she knows he does. She just knows.

Sometimes, she will catch him in the most stupid of lies, like the time he said he called his sister on her birthday, but Carla had be online the entire morning, tying up the phone line. Lies flow from his mouth easier than the truth, and Carla supposed it has always been that way. As the baby of his family, he needed to make up bigger and better stories than his five older sisters in order to get the much-craved attention.

But who gives a shit? He’s a man now, not a snot-nosed four-year-old with an attention problem. He’s her husband, and the lying was so unacceptable, Carla couldn’t put a qualifier on it.

"Honest, babe. I was at the game. Scouts honor."

"You weren’t in the Scouts," she said tersely.

Peter laughed. "Right you are. But that’s my story and I’m sticking to it."

"Christ I hate that saying!" Carla said, tossing the saucer she was drying into the sink and feeling a slight release as the plate shattered into pieces.

"Damnit! What’s your problem?" Peter’s eyes took on a dark cast as he crossed his arms and glared at her across the kitchen.

"You’re lying! That’s my problem!"

"That’s it! I give up. I should lie. I should spin horrific, wonderfully colorful lies just to satisfy you. You think I’m lying all the time, and I hate not being trusted. This is unacceptable."

Carla looked at him incredulously. "This is unacceptable? This? Are you serious? I don’t trust you because you don’t give me a reason to trust, only to think you’re a fucking liar, and then you say I’m the evil one? The one who’s being ‘unacceptable’ with this?" Carla fumed, her dark, frizzy hair making her hotter in the August heat. "That’s it! Fuck you, Peter Scalfini. Just fuck and you."

She stormed out of the kitchen, down the tiny hall to their tiny bedroom, and threw shut the door. The gold-framed picture of the Last Supper (the print Peter picked up at the swap meet last year) rattled with the intensity of the slam.

Carla knew he was lying. She always knew. But how could she prove such things? Most of the time, he could convince a mouse it really liked the snapping of traps, what with his smooth voice and melodious words. Why else would Carla Van Sant Scalfini be in this tiny, fourth-floor apartment in Brooklyn with no air conditioning and no elevator? Didn’t she go to Vassar? Wasn’t she supposed to marry some Long Island banker? Instead, she met Peter Scalfini, and that was that. The computer-game designer said everything Carla longed to hear, never once doubting him. That came later, after she’d already fallen in love and picked out china patterns.

But now, with the varnish worn off and the grain showing through, the marriage was riddled with doubt. Carla, once a stop-and-stare beauty, found herself wearing the same shirt for days, not caring how she looked anymore. All her attention rested on her husband’s next sentence, and if it indeed was the truth or another woven tale. Her job as an office manager at Wedgewood Shipping Company bored her to tears, but they needed the money. At least the down times (and there were so many) kept her brain working on the Peter Problem.

Back and forth in the little ten-by-ten room she paced as the same dumpster cat meowed ceaselessly four stories below. Back and forth, meow meow. Back and forth. Meow meow.

Then, she got it. Like a jolt of electricity coursing through her tired veins, Carla became animated and lightening-quick as she lurched under the bed and pulled out a battered cardboard box. Inside, rested scores of old paperbacks, some pressed flowers, a t-shirt and her grandmother’s leather-bound, journal with a cat embossed on the black cover.

Carla was basically raised by her grandmother as her parents attended every Nantucket party and Manhattan cocktail fundraiser in a vain attempt to make the jump from East Coast Average to Country Club In-Crowd. Only Carla knew Grandma’s secret hobby, her joy that desended down generations.

Her love of spells and magic. Her witch blood.

But as she flipped through the gilt-edged pages, Carla felt the same energy sparking as she did whenever she practiced spells with Grandma. That feeling of magic, that sense that anything is possible, the aura of power.

She gingerly turned each page as the muffled sounds of television passed through the closed bedroom door. Carla turned and caressed each tissue-thin page, until she came to the one she remembered so well from her youth.

Carla knew. She knew this was what she needed.

"Thank you, Grams," she whispered, clutching the book to her chest and gazing up at the cottage-cheese ceiling the color of old teeth.

Best about Grandma’s spells, other than their effectiveness, were the ease of their castings. Just a few chants, some minor hand movements, and a clear objective in what you want is all that’s needed. Carla was ready.

She gathered up Peter’s toothbrush from the adjoined bathroom, a pair of his dirty underwear and the leather-bound book. Lighting the gardenia-scented candle on the bedside and spreading everything out on the floral bedspread, Carla began the ritual. Hands, chants, a certain choregraphy with her feet. And it was done. Now, supposedly, whenever her husband tells a lie, something physical will happen to him, giving his dishonesty away. Carla giggled at the thought, gleeful at her yet-unstated victory. Peter had no idea, but Carla knew exactly. She won.

Peter slept on the couch that night, probably because Carla kept the bedroom door locked. No bother; she knew soon enough he’d straighten out.

But what she didn’t know was exactly how the spell would work.

As a child, she remembered her grandmother placing this hex on their neighbor, who claimed he wasn’t stealing her good dishtowels off the clothesline as they dried. A few days after the spell, and after another two towels went missing, the neighbor denied any knowledge of it. Within hours, scratching like a dog with fleas, the neighbor came pounding on the back door, each MIA towel in her hand.

So Carla figured Peter would get a nasty form of jock itch or something every time he spewed one of his noxious fibs. She giggled at the thought. She was still giggling when he pounded on the door, needing to use the apartment’s only bathroom.

"Come on Carla, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did to get you so mad," he pleaded behind the hollow-core door. She threw off the single sheet she used and traipsed, naked, across the shag carpet.

"The toilet is all yours, master," she said, bowing theatrically. He just looked at her and rolled his eyes. Carla hopped back into bed and drew the sheet around her waist, letting her breasts hang out to tempt him.

"What’s on the schedule for today?" she asked, hoping for a whopper of a tale.

"Not much," he replied, his mouth full of toothpaste. "I have lunch with Tony, then I’ve got to go into the office."

"On a Saturday?" Carla forgot about the spell and instead felt anger well up inside. Since when did he work on a weekend? Mr. Pickles jumped on the bed, rubbing up against her arms. She pushed him off, irritated.

"Sorry, babe. It’s work. Gotta get done."

"When will you be done?"

"Not sure. I’ll call you." He pulled on some jeans after sniffing them to ensure freshness, then a polo shirt and his sneakers. A quick look in the bureau mirror proved the need for a hat to tame his wild Italian waves. Then, doing a double-take, Peter pressed his face close to the mirror and studied his nose. "Does it look bigger to you?" he asked Carla, who shook her head. Probably just his vanity, she thought, wondering when the itching would start.

"Well, it looks weird. I hope I’m not getting some giant zit or something," he said, heading for the door without kissing her goodbye. "I’ll call you from work," he said, fingering his nose gently.

Carla just nodded, a bit disappointed he didn’t collapse into a fit of scratching. She knew he lied about work; he never works on Saturdays. She’ll call him later at the office, just to check.

As Carla was making the bed, fresh from a shower, the front door slammed alarmingly.

"Peter?" she called out cautiously. It had only been a hour since he left. Did he forget something? Or is he done?

Peter rushed right past Carla, locking himself in the bathroom.

"What’s going on?" she asked, holding a throw pillow to her chest. "Peter?" She knocked lightly on the hollow-core door. "Are you sick?"

"I don’t know," Peter said in a tight voice. "Something is wrong with my face."

"Let me see."

Slowly, Peter cracked the door and Carla pushed inside. Peter pressed his face near to the cracked mirror, turning his head from side to side and studying his reflection. A thin layer of greasy sweat coated his dark skin, and his eyes looked deeper in his skull.

"I don’t see anything," Carla said. Peter turned to face her full on, and Carla’s breath caught.

His nose! There was something wrong with it! It looked alive, quivering on its own, almost gelatenous. Carla reached out tentatively to touch it, and Peter shied away.

"Don’t," he cautioned, leaving Carla’s hand in mid air. Her other was pressed against her mouth, the pillows piled at her bare feet.

"Does it hurt?"

"Not a bit. But what the hell is going on?"

His nose shimmied a bit, a ripple coursing up from the tip to the bridge. Carla’s eyes widened at the sight.

"Did something happen at work? Did you eat something funny, maybe something you’re allergic to?"

Peter shook his head. "No, nothing. The office was quiet today. I didn’t see anyone there. Just started working on my computer, and then I noticed my nose looking, well, bigger. Squishier."

Before her eyes, Carla saw Peter’s nose quiver, and then actually grow. Out, up, across–the whole thing just expanded by one full size. She gasped.

"What? What happened?" Peter’s paniced eyes sought hers for answers.

"Your nose just got bigger!" Carla couldn’t understand what was going on. "Let me get some ice."

As she rushed out of the bathroom, her eyes caught sight of the box under her bed. The box containing her grandmother’s book. That contains the spell she cast last night.

"Oh shit," she breathed, stopping dead in her tracks. I thought it would be about itching, not facial deformities, she thought. But, like syrup coating pancakes, a thought poured over her. She abandoned the ice idea and walked the few steps back across matted carpet to the bathroom.

"Peter, what were you doing at the office again?" A test. That’s what this calls for. Maybe the spell attacks the Achilles’ heels. Didn’t Grandma’s neighbor have a thing about flea bites? And isn’t Peter the most vain man she’s ever known? The thoughts tumbled through Carla’s clotted mind as she held her breath in anticipation of Peter’s answer–and the facial result.

"What? Christ, I don’t know. Doing work, catching up on a new design." He barely took his eyes off his reflection as he answered her. "Jesus! What the hell?"

Peter’s voice raised an octave as his nose once again vibrated and expanded in front of their eyes. This time, Carla wasn’t shocked. Anticipation rippled through her belly.

"And where were you last night?" She struggled to contain a manic giggle.

"Fucking shit, Carla! I’m having a physical crisis here! What’s with the third-degree?"

"Just answer me, dammit!"

"I was at the ball game. I told you already. Told you a hundred times. Now will you please focus on me instead of your babyish questions?"

Peter’s nose exploded in all directions, definitely noticable. He screamed loudly. "Christ! Call and ambulance! I must have a bug or creature up there, or cancer! Holy shit! I have leprosy! Help me, Carla!"

He pushed past her, running wildly in the bedroom, searching for the phone.

"Don’t freak," she said calmly. "I have an idea."

"Fuck you! I have a growth and my face will explode! I need a doctor!" His voice sounded like a pre-teen girl’s as he threw piles of laundry around the tiny room in search of the phone.

"Sit down. Let me try something," said Carla as she roughly shoved his shoulders, forcing him down on the paisley bedspread. Sweat stained his t-shirt and dripped from his hairline. His nose, now stretching half-way across his face, looked like melted Play-Doh.

"I can’t breath!" he moaned. "I need a doctor."

"Shut the fuck up," Carla scolded. Peter looked at her, surprised. "Just cooperate for one minute, okay?" He just stared angrily at her. "OK, tell me exactly where you were last night."

"Fuck you," he said. She grabbed his face and turned it back toward her.

"Don’t go there," she said through gritted teeth. "Just answer my question, and I’ll let you know if I’m right."

"Right about what? I’m dying here!"

"Just answer."

He sighed angrily. "The game."

His nose grew so far this time, Peter crossed his eyes to stare at it. "Holy shit! Holy shit!"

"Calm down," Carla said calmly. "Try again. Tell me where you were last night, and tell the truth."

"I did!" The nose creeped past his face by about three inches. Peter started to cry.

"Once more."

"I was at the game," he began, and the nose quivered like an animal in a sack. "But then, I left." The nose abruptly stopped vibrating. Peter’s eyes, still crossed and focused on the center of his face, widened in surprise.

"Good. Now where did you go?"

"I went to T-Shirts and Ta-Tas!" The nose shrank a bit. Peter’s mouth fell open in a little ‘o.’

"With who?"

"A bunch of guys from work." The nose shimmied. "And girls!" Then stopped. Peter exhaled loudly.

"And you lied to me because?" Carla kept her arms crossed, feeling more powerful than ever before in their short marriage.

"Because they don’t know I’m married," he whimpered, watching his nose further retract back into his face. "They think I’m single."

"Why?"
"I don’t know," Peter whined. His nose grew back to where it started from: four inches away from his face. He cried out in agony, flopping down on the bed and rolling from side to side. "No! No! No! This is not happening!"

"Then tell me the truth," Carla said, kicking his foot.

"I like the attention I get from the girls, okay!" He screamed as his nose fell back to where it was a moment ago. "What is happening? Why are you not?" He looked at her sharply. "What did you do to me?"

"Why do you think it was me? Maybe it’s a side effect of all your lying."

"You had to have done this to me! I’ve lied all my life and never had a facial part grow like some fucking weed before! What did you do?"

"Nothing," Carla lied, savoring the power it gave her. "Nothing at all. You did this to yourself."

"Fix it!" he screamed. "Fix it now or I’ll kill you!"

"Fix it yourself."

"I can’t!"

"Where were you today?" Carla asked. Peter, looking her in the eyes, understood. Finally, thought Carla.

"With the girls from last night. At lunch. Pam, the blonde, asked if I had broken my nose because it looked crooked. That’s how I knew something was wrong."

The nose kept shrinking, nearly back to its original size.

"Good, good. One last question: did you sleep with them? Any of them?"

Carla waited painfully in the silence. "No." The nose shrank back to its unaltered state, totally normal. "Happy now?"

"No," she answered. "But your nose is fixed."

He bolted past her into the bathroom, letting out a whoop of glee. "Hot damn!" he spat. "Is it over?"

Carla walked up behind him, meeting his eyes in the glass of the mirror.

"You tell me, Pinocchio."