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       I couldn't make our Thursday afternoon meeting. My car was being serviced and I couldn't get there. It was a drag, I lamented.  I was disappointed.

       And as I turned off my cell, I truly was. But not because I couldn't make the meeting. My car would be ready in plenty of time.

         No, I was disappointed because of what I'd told him.  I simply didn't see the need in meeting with him again.

          So I lied.

          I'm not a bad person.  I am earnest in my quest to do the right thing. And yet, one of the most honest things I can say is that I don't always tell the truth.

          In my life, I've told some doozies. I don't have a habit of telling big lies.  Rather, I lie about the things other "honest" people fib about: Why I was late for an appointment; about when I put something in the mail; why I didn't return a call--you know, things that don't feel like lies.     

          Try going a full day without uttering a single mistruth and you  understand just how much lying is part of our emotional make up.

          No one is really hurt by these lies, we say; we tell them to spare the feelings of others. For example, I lied about the meeting not for me, but for the sake of my friend. I didn't want to let him down.    

          But the more I thought about my lie, the more I realized it was TOTALLY self-serving, and bigger than simply me keeping my Thursday afternoon. That lie emanated from the birthplace of all lies--fear. Not  a bogeyman fear, but fear of the light in which the truth might cast me.

          Had I merely explained to my friend that I didn't think another meeting necessary to ferment our business endeavor, I'm sure he would have appreciated my honesty.  In any case, it would have been the truth.  Instead, I feared that I might seem uninterested--not on the ball--and so I concocted a story I figured harmless.

          But lies are lies, immeasurable by size, weight and width.  And they aren't victimless crimes. They affect the person lied to, and certainly, the person who tells it.

          Marcia knows this.  A genius pastry chef and part-time standup comic, she's a worldly and wise thirty-five. Thing is, for the several years I've known her, Marcia's been that age.

          Walking her to her car after a Saturday afternoon lunch, I threw the archaic tradition of not inquiring a woman's age to the wind and just straight up asked: “Marcia...how old are you?”         

         The question seemed to take her by surprise.  “I'm...Forty-seven,” she pronounced  pensively after a second of silence, as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.  "Forty-seven.”

          I knew Marcia had been fudging about her age, but I never got past the idea of a seemingly cosmopolitan and forward-thinking woman lying about it.

         After turning 30, Marcia said she could count on one hand people who knew her true age. “Every woman in my family has lied about it,” she said. “I don’t know my mother’s age, and she didn’t know her mother’s age, either. When we buried grandma, there wasn’t birth and death dates on her headstone. Grandy wasn't havin' it. That’s the way it’s always been with us.“

          During her early forties Marcia said she began to feel silly about it all.  Backstage after a standup performance in Toronto, Canada, "where I knew I wouldn't see any of these people  ever again in life," she dared tell someone her real age.  When they responded with praise, she realized what she’d been missing.

          “Instead of people whispering, ‘She looks kind of old for thirty something,'  someone was saying I looked great in my forties.  Maybe they were lying to ME.  But telling the truth felt good.   Shoot, I earned  every minute of my forties. I'm proud of that.  Why lie?  Lie about your age and you live a part of your life as a lie."

          Marcia said she knew she'd own up to her real age the instant I asked her. And once she did, said she never wanted to lie about it  ever again. She felt...free. The truth has a way of doing that.

          She climbed into her powder blue VW, started the engine and rolled down her window to say good-bye. "Now that I've got that off my chest," she said with a somber face, "I'm going to be honest with you about something else: I murdered my first husband." She rolled the window back up and drove away.

          Marcia's a funny girl.  But I swear, just sometimes,  I don't know when she's telling the truth.

Steven Ivory's book, FOOL IN LOVE (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster) is in stores now or at Amazon.com (www.Amazon.com) Respond to him via STEVRIVORY@AOL.COM  or MYfeedback@eurweb.com