Hieroglyphics

by Jill McCorkle

  What man wouldn’t look elsewhere? That was the line that got stuck in her head, playing the same part again and again. What man wouldn’t look elsewhere? A line that seemed to repeat itself as she watched all the women who had to take the stand during the trial—all of them preened and ready, wedding rings in full view, and diamond or pearl earrings, trails of perfume. They all were thin and tanned, with ropy muscles in their arms and calves, even though the skin of more than one was showing the sagginess of age. Linen sheaths, tailored suits, conservative colors. Shelley once heard a lawyer say that people on the witness stand should wear navy blue, because it suggests truth and dependability, only to go home that night and realize she owned nothing navy other than blue jeans and one pair of underwear. Shelley has seen a lot of these women elsewhere in town, and they looked very different when sporting clothes made for teenagers, short skirts and leotards, leopard and zebra prints—all those things that seem to say, Look at me, look at me. And such flamboyance is not a crime, and it certainly doesn’t invite violence, but Shelley has always been aware of how the louder one is, the more color visible, the easier the target. The picture of the young woman who was murdered was the opposite of these: she was well camouflaged, with dark rings of eye makeup—what Jason calls “goth”—and hair dyed and pulled up in a messy knot. That last night, there was no eye makeup at all, just a little bit of lip gloss, and she wore something very different, something more in keeping with the parade of women who had taken the stand, an expensive, conservative-looking silk blouse.

  “I can swear on that Bible a hundred times,” the murdered woman’s friend said, “that she never would have bought that for herself. Not her style and not her budget.” She then told how the young woman wore only black and kept a low profile, which made her an exception to Shelley’s idea about what might keep you safe, proof that sometimes there is no way out. That’s what Shelley’s brother had said to her. He said there was “no way out.” He’d said he was sorry he wouldn’t be there to help her clean up the mess.

  Harvey told her he has also seen the Dog House Girl in their yard, moving from tree to tree. He says it is hard to sleep when you know things like about her, and about Lyle and Erik and what they did, and Lizzie Borden and what she did, the Beast of Bladenboro, right down the road, and the statue in the cemetery that will chase you at night. He says he tries to think about happy things, to have a party in his head for just nice people who are still alive, but the others all keep coming anyway. He’d asked her if she thought the Dog House Girl knew she was being killed, and Shelley said she hoped not.

  Marva, Shelley’s only friend at work, said Harvey might need a little counseling, and she gave her a name of someone, but Shelley hasn’t had a chance to call yet. She and Marva—everybody calls her Marvy Marva—bonded when they discovered they both had always loved tiny little dolls they could keep in their pockets. Shelley had had a Polly Pocket and one of the newer versions of Liddle Kiddles, one with pink hair, like strawberries, but Marva is older, and so she has one of the original ones, a little cowgirl with white boots and a spotted orange rocking horse. Marva is the kind of person who makes Shelley feel safe, because she’s confident and does that southern thing where she pats your arm and blesses your heart, and Shelley’s heart cannot possibly be blessed enough these days. But what would Marva say if she saw what Shelley wrote that has the judge so upset? Fuck this monster. Send his ass up the river. She would probably chew on those pearls she always wears and then snap her fingers with some words of wisdom that would again lead her to bless Shelley’s heart, which is sometimes a kind way to say you feel sorry for someone or that you think they’re stupid. Bless your heart. She doesn’t say that to Harvey, because she shares his feeling that there is something there—a ghost?—that someone might be watching them. Brent? Someone from her past? That old man? Surely not the old man. She has his address, and Google says he used to be a teacher in college somewhere in the north; he isn’t steady enough on his feet to be that quiet. She is not ready to tell Marva or anyone else, who might think she’s losing it. Not yet. Last night, in the time it took her eyes to adjust and her heart to slow, whatever she thought she saw was gone, surely just a dream, a bad dream because of all the stress.

  I made a bad mistake, she will tell the judge, even though you should know that I am capable of holding a lot of words in my head at one time. All she wanted was to get all the language crowding her head out so she wouldn’t be tempted to say any of it. She wants it all behind her and forgotten. She wants to go to work and pretend nothing happened, to pick up a pencil or sit at a keyboard and let the words come tumbling out in a way that finds order on the page.

  Call. Please call and give me another chance.

  The more she thinks it—chance, chance—the more foreign the sound and the more desperate she feels. I made a bad mistake, she will say. Or she could say that she didn’t write any of that at work but that it was in her satchel and she accidentally got it mixed in. She could say that she is taking a writing class at the community college, something that she really has thought about doing, or maybe she could say that she is teaching a little writing group, because that would sound even more responsible.

  “When will you ever learn, Shelley?” Brent had asked as he packed his stuff. “When will you ever learn to just tell the truth?”

  Lil

  September 7, 1969 (a keeper!)

  Newton

  Back to school! And already it is feeling like fall, my favorite time of year. I have all the windows open, and it is glorious, but I know by the time Frank gets home from work, I will need to close them and maybe even think about turning on the heat. Everyone is still talking about Chappaquiddick (and how do you explain such a thing to children?), such a horrifying story, and one that nearly eclipsed the moon landing. Jeff mimics the giant leap for mankind at every opportunity, often offering his sister one small step (or cookie, or whatever he is supposed to be sharing) and “one giant one for Jeff.”

  The back-to-school project for all the grades (even kindergarten) is to prepare a time capsule. What would you tell about your life and this world? What are your wishes? Becca wishes for world peace, and peace with the Martians if that is who finds it. She wants the world to know about her summer camp in Sturbridge and that she hopes to be an actress, and at the last minute she added a little troll doll from her collection but then took it back. Jeff, at Frank’s urging, said he wants the Red Sox to win the World Series, and he put in a photo of Carl Yastrzemski he cut from the paper and an old Duncan yo-yo and those clacker balls that are no longer allowed in school because somewhere (Ohio, maybe?) one broke and blinded a child. (Glad to send it to the moon!) Together, the children took a Polaroid of Margot and the new puppy, Rudolf, and added another photo of the four of us we had our neighbor take. Jeff touched it before it was dry, so there’s a big smudge on me, and I said that was just as well. I wrote that I hope my father’s good health and happiness will continue, that we will have a nice Christmas this year, and that I hope my dance school can survive, and I included a program from last year’s recital (yet another woodland forest free-for-all with bunnies and sunbeams). We put in a copy of the latest Billboard hits, and I added the front page of the Globe. I’m not sure what Frank wrote; he took his time, sealed his envelope, and handed it over to Becca, who is in charge of collecting and wrapping it all up airtight. The whole process reminded me of that old cartoon, where that frog is stuck in the cornerstone of a building and leaps out singing and dancing with a top hat and cane. That song has been stuck in my head ever since.

  Now we are into the routine of homework and early bedtimes. The kids get to choose one night a week to sit up a little bit later and watch a show. Usually they pick “Bewitched,” and I enjoy that one, too. Wish I could twitch my nose and get everything done in the kitchen! Becca is also obsessed with that spooky afternoon show “Dark Shadows,” and there’s all this talk of vampires and drinking blood. These girls act it out, silly and carryin
g on in ways I don’t remember ever doing. I take great vicarious pleasure! And I am about to do what I do every year and buy up all the cheap discarded perennials that have been marked down to nothing at the nursery, just empty pots with roots in dirt. But come spring, what a bounty. I have yet to be disappointed.

  Becca’s back to school list:

  Blue Horse notebook/Fat Boy paper/#2 pencils/Crayolas

  New booksack—(the red one we saw)

  Dark Shadows lunchbox—PLEASE!

  Milk money—5¢/day (teacher prefers nickels to pennies)

  Snacks (teacher prefers things without crumbs)

  All accomplished, and she is fast asleep with tomorrow’s clothes on the chair by her bed! Jeff wanted to sleep in his clothes so he’d be ready early, and I gave in and let him.

  The entries in this envelope are all from the same year in our Newton house. Can’t decide if I should keep or burn. I am inclined to burn. What is there to gain?

  May 13, 1981

  It’s a clear, beautiful day (at last), and I am finally seeing green in the garden. I love the cleanup, pulling away all the old, rotted dead to make room for the new. I added four peonies in the fall, those reduced for final sale, 50¢ for a pot of roots, because who knows what color they will be. Something to look forward to, because Frank is so agitated these days. He gets agitated over little things (maybe I forget to turn down the thermostat or to buy milk). And he jingles whatever is in his pocket (maybe that old badge from his childhood or one of his flattened pennies). “So sue me,” I say.

  He may not think it’s a lot to direct a stageful of children, but I have bad days, too. If one dancer vomits, three more will follow, or if somebody whines about not getting the part she wanted. I’m doing “The Four Seasons,” and they all wanted to be Spring or Summer, because they love the bright colors, so now I also have pink snowflakes and purple leaves.

  I certainly don’t bite his head off if I find his socks beside his chair or little shaved hairs all over the sink. I’m the one planning Becca’s graduation party, and I’m the one helping Jeff move out of his dorm; freshman year barely behind him and he’s already saying he wants to transfer somewhere warmer. It’s just the two of us, so shouldn’t that make life easier? People say “empty nest,” and I for one am sick of hearing it. Everything has a name now—a label or diagnosis or definition or little slot to get filed away. As if I don’t hear enough about labels and classifications for anything that gets dug up. Frank is obsessed with the plans for the upcoming Big Dig, which they say might take years of construction, bridges and tunnels that will help city traffic but might also send rats looking for new homes. I listen to it all. I listen, and I don’t jingle my pockets and huff and puff. I listen, but let’s just say, my mind is occupied with other things.

  October 18, 1981

  Dad is not doing well these days. He forgets things and is not steady on his feet. I feel I need to check on him more and more often. It was a hectic summer; it seemed to fly, and I’m not even sure why, and now the back-to-school rush with kids signing up for dance keeps me busy. I have someone coming in once a week to teach tap and gymnastics, and the kids are flocking to her classes. I love ordering all those little pink shoes and tights. Always have. But now, the fall feels settled, Frank’s semester up and running, overloaded as always, and today I fully realized the shift in light—a quick venture into Star Market in the late afternoon and by the time I got home, it was dark. People complain about the early darkness (they order special lights and so on), but I love it.

  Everyone says I come through the house at dusk, clicking first the hall lamp and then the one by the green chair, in the exact same order, stopping and lighting the candles on the dining room table, adjusting the door to the hallway just so. “Clockwork,” Becca said. “Obsessive.” And I said, “What about dependable? What about reliable?” Clockwork, that was my father, and how interesting the importance of time to the men in my life—one whose work was all about precision and trying to keep it moving forward second by second, and one whose career is all about reaching back and digging (except when personal). Some days, I feel like I am like that tiny screw in the center, holding the hands in place.

  October 23, 1981

  Even though we occupy the same space, Frank and I politely excuse ourselves if we bump in the hallway or when lying side by side in the bed we have shared for years. It is October, my favorite kind of breezy, sharp day, the kind that makes even an old dog like Rudolf frisk about and nuzzle into the fallen leaves. I walked him while all of the little things that have bothered me lately were building in my brain. By the time we had made our big loop and I turned the corner to see our house, it all came together. The ringing of the phone and no one there. Odd errands at odd times. The agitated jingling of his pocket on top of my doing nothing right. The kiss good night barely a brush against my cheek, if that. The name of a colleague that comes up a little too often, and then suddenly, not at all.

  October 31, 1981

  It’s Halloween, my favorite holiday, but I am not up to the task. Frank has a “meeting”; he said he was sorry to miss the trick-or-treaters, and then he laughed and said I never let him answer the door anyway, so I would probably enjoy the solitude. I have left a big basket of candy on the porch with an electric jack-o’-lantern, to give enough light for their coming and going, and have chosen to sit here with just the street light coming in the window. It’s easier than putting on my usual witch garb and cackling through the night, oohing and aahing over the various costumes, especially the little ones’. But it’s easier to just drink a glass of wine or two, and have a cigarette or three or four, and listen to the laughter, the mothers admonishing not to take too much, those who are regulars wondering where I am this year.

  Not only did Frank suddenly forget that he had a “meeting”—on a Saturday night, no less—but I also got a note from Jeff today. It seems I am not the only one having trouble communicating with their father. He wrote:

  He talks about the Titanic when I want to talk about school and what is happening in MY life. Who gives a shit? It sank. That was then and this is now. He is the iceberg. He is an asshole in the middle of an ice cold sea and it would take more than a cruise liner to chip the surface. You say you’ll talk to him but you haven’t yet, so just forget it. Okay? Just forget it, Mom.

  I read his note, and I felt sick, like such a failure, and I thought immediately of a saying about taking an axe to the ice. Something I heard at one of those awful faculty parties I attended with Frank one year or another. One of those where I smiled and was polite and tried to hear something that interested me without drinking too much too fast or chain-smoking, while secretly wishing I could find an escape hatch. I recall that the person who wrote about the axe also wrote about being a cockroach, which is what I feel like tonight, hunkered down in the dark here and dreading the bright light of truth. What breaks the ice?

  I want to tell Jeff I can’t forget how he is feeling, because there is nothing more important to me, that I also want to break the ice, but I also hope to spare him whatever ugly facts I might find; I want him and Becca to be okay. When Jeff was seven and ran away, I saved his note, written in red crayon on a paper towel: I’m GONE and you will miss me. I found him within 10 minutes, in the toolshed, with a bag of Cheetos and a packet of Pop-Tarts; he said he was never coming back, but as soon as it started getting cold and dark, he did. He came in just in time for Huckleberry Hound and Quick Draw McGraw. This time, it might not be as easy to get him back. Like father, like son.

  The trick-or-treaters are dwindling—many adults this year dressed as Ronald Reagan with his big grin and his pompadour, tagging along with the witches and ninjas and devils—and when I last peeped out, the candy was almost gone. My favorite was a little swaybacked, flare-footed guy dressed as Hulk Hogan with a long blond wig, pulled along by his sister, Tinker Bell, and it has left me completely weepy and nostalgic for days that now seem so easy, even though I know they weren’t. Still, I
’d give anything right this minute to be out there trudging through the thick, damp leaves with my two, the only worry being how many more doorbells we might ring before the houses go dark.

  November 4, 1985

  This was left on my windshield while I was inside teaching dance this afternoon, there where a parent or one of my little students might have seen it:

  Leave me alone! I know it’s you calling every day. You are pitiful and he deserves better. Blame yourself and leave me alone!

  I saw the glances. I felt the shift in the air as clear as Rudolf knows a storm is coming and starts drooling and panting and scratching and digging into the floor. That’s how I feel right now—panicked and panting and needing a cave. Leave her alone? Leave her alone? What about me? That’s what I plan to ask Frank. I blame him for not thinking of me. What about me? And all this time he has continued to do all the normal things: brief hugs hello and goodbye, getting the snow tires, putting in a supply of salt, and telling me about his classes or what he has read in the paper. He’ll talk about holiday plans and what the kids will do, but he won’t look me in the eye anymore.

  I also keep thinking about Jeff’s note and trying to figure out what to say or do. He asked who cares about the Titanic, but clearly many people do. I can’t stop thinking about how it is 370 miles from land and far below the ocean’s surface. It is so hard for my mind to go there, driving from here to Delaware or beyond, and then taking a straight turn downward into the cold and dark. How quiet it must be. I keep thinking that. How quiet it must be.