Hieroglyphics by Jill McCorkle

Author:Jill McCorkle [McCorkle, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781643750538
Google: _qupDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1616209720
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2020-07-27T23:00:00+00:00

When the lawyers looked over the other day and realized she was listening to their conversation, she studied the shorthand pad in her lap, where she had recorded their jokes; they were always telling little jokes. A couple of their jokes were racist, even though the judge was black, and Shelley had notated all of that as well—oh God, that was there, too, with the grocery list, not my joke, their joke—and she’d also put in her own two cents about how the judge would’ve made Judge Judy melt like sugar. Shelley had once seen the woman in Pinehurst buying shoes—and really expensive shoes, too—but Shelley didn’t make eye contact, because there is no way that woman would remember her, but still, she took note of those shoes, beautiful ostrich-skin pumps in a kind of burgundy color, and she has seen the judge come into the courtroom wearing them, too, and it’s hard not to feel a little connected since she herself witnessed her buying them.

Now, she cringes with the idea that someone so fiercely intelligent has by now probably read all that Shelley wrote about the trial and would know that she sometimes buys inferior products, that in fact her list is filled with places where it says buy whichever is cheapest. It would be so much better, make such a better impression, if she had written a particular brand: Crest, Colgate, Tom’s of Maine (that would have really made a good impression probably—all natural). And there was a time when that would have been true, like in high school when she’d wanted to use Vibrance shampoo because of the commercials and the way it showed the girl’s hair go from straight and stringy to a wild wavy mass like Mariah’s. Hair so full of life! And she liked Aquafresh—the cool, freshening stripes—ski slopes, and happy families. That’s the way I like it.

But the list Shelley accidentally turned in really doesn’t represent her well, and, even worse than that, she’d described the judge as having angry eyes and hair that all but leapt from her head as if it might burst into flame, the way the pirate Blackbeard’s beard supposedly used to do. She had learned that from Harvey, that he put candles in the beard so it looked like he was on fire when he invaded ships. “Harvey, do not ever let me catch you putting candles in one of those fake beards,” she had said, and Harvey asked how she knew he was thinking that. But she knew. She did know. She later found a box of birthday-cake candles tucked under the stuffed turtle on his bed.

Shelley’s job has always kept her feeling better about herself. Sometimes the worse the case, the happier her life can feel, because, yes, it may be difficult to not know where someone is, but at least no one has put a cigarette out in your eye while you slept or a broomstick up your vagina, no one has shaken your baby

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