The Truth Jar

by Shauna Checkley

Part 1 appears in this issue.

conclusion

Marilyn had begun to envy Rob, the other Security Guard assigned to the library itself. He's so lucky. He gets to roam the whole place, even do rounds upstairs where the mystery woman works. Marilyn imagined being able to observe Lexi on her home turf, ensconced deeply in her own element. What all secrets could I learn? What would I see? Sexting? Texting? Back-door rendezvous? Stairwell make-outs? Bathroom hookups? She felt her heart race once again.

Though she was dimly cognizant of it, a few patrons had trickled in and out of the gallery. Mothers with young children. Old ladies with thick glasses who spied the long penis tube and frowned. Someone who wandered in and upon seeing the odd creations hurried back out. It was hushed as ever. With a layer of quietude as deep and conspiratorial as the art that hung on the gallery walls, sweeping and secretive with its own geometrical underpinnings.

“Yo,” Rob said as he approached her.

Marilyn jolted to her senses.

“How's it going?” Marilyn asked Rob.

“Okay... And you?”

“Same.”

Rob was a blond, pock-faced young man who sometimes had a nervous eye twitch. Marilyn had always thought he resembled Eminem.

Stepping closer she said, “Hey. what's it like working upstairs? Do you ever see things like... uhh... go on up there?”

Rob shook his head.

“Never?” Marilyn queried.

“Nah, just kids smokin' weed in the washroom. The odd person passed out.”

“Whadda ’bout staff?”

“Those ’tards,” Rob said, laughing.

Then glancing at the time on his phone, he said, “Speaking of that. I better go do my rounds. See ya later.”

He left. Vaguely disappointed that he had no gossip to share, Marilyn exhaled. She had begun to feel warm and heavy in her uniform. She longed to go home and change out of it. Almost quitting time, she observed as she glanced at her watch. Thank God.

Once home, her cat met her at the door. Jigsaw rubbed and purred as she entered. She paused to rub his belly.

After she had changed, fed Jigsaw and attended to her mail and all other details, she settled on the loveseat with her supper. She munched uninterestedly as she stared at Lexi's notes spread out on the coffee table before her. Jigsaw licked her big toe, but she scarcely noticed. She sipped her coffee thoughtfully and stared.

Marilyn lived alone with Jigsaw in a tiny, downtown apartment. She had fled an abusive marriage a few years back, spirited away in the dead of night by another sympathetic farm wife who knew of her misery and drove her to the city to escape Marlon, her ex, who was alcoholic and farmed with bottle in hand.

Moving into the first place she found, Marilyn never looked back. She had no family, few friends. It was a small life, really, but one with steady rhythms and delicate pauses, an existence that afforded quiet contentment if nothing else. She spent a lot of time either playing with her smart phone or her cat.

Sometimes she had her friend Karen over for coffee. Other times, when her apartment grew claustrophobic and intolerable, when it felt like she was a character in a pop-up book, flattened and diminished, she sought out the other regulars at a nearby coffee shop. Seniors. Bored retirees. Burnt-out old hippies. Stay-at-home moms. But mostly she just lay in bed and let her mind wander like a sleeper in search of a happier dream.

On impulse, Marilyn arranged the latest notes in chronological order. She read the notes. Then she re-read them.

I've dropped the whole P.I. thing. Just too expensive OMG! The cable bill is enough already LOL. Besides I can do my own detective work. Gummy Bears!!? Whoever would have guessed that I'd find them stashed everywhere LOL? You'd think I was tailing a kid in grade six or something. Should I feel guilty checking his phone, laptop, car etc? Yet the crazy thing is that I know that he loves me deep down. Still, I haven't had this much fun in years.

I believe things would have been different if we had been able to have kids. I don't think all of these crazy dramas would have erupted. Still when all is said and done, the question that remains is: do I still love him? That's all that really matters. Have I just been settling all these years? Dunno.

What is the picture of marital health anyway? God knows you’re not going to find out in Cosmo or anything. This whole thing has been very wearing on me. I think I need a spa day.

Marilyn leaned her head back against the love seat and nursed her cup of coffee and thought: Hmm, Sexy Lexi is a bit all over the place. Could she be bipolar or something? Nah... Lexi is just young. That's all. She is probably just asking too much from her husband and life. She'll learn. We all do. God knows I've learned over the years.

Remembering back to her time with Marlon, Marilyn wondered at the seismic shifts that rocked her own inner world, that dragged her underground, that made her escape seem like some happy reprieve. Yet it had all worked to darken her outlook, to despoil expectation, to render her the grand dame of sullied suggestion and unrequited dreams, that unkindly narrative that she asserted to Karen so many times, over so many cups of hot chocolate, so many years ago. Still, Marilyn's stance remained firm. But does every woman possess the same resolve? Hmm.

For the next few weeks, Marilyn eagerly collected Lexi's notes. She read them with the good-natured zeal of a fortune cookie or horoscope, always stuffing them into her pocket afterwards. It became another game of sorts to while away the time, just like her ABC game. Like any guilty pleasure, she both revelled in it and felt vaguely ashamed as well. She took the utmost precautions to not be caught. Looked both ways. Made absolutely sure that no one was around. Still, she enjoyed the parlour-game feel to it, the edge it gave to her day.

How are things going to go? Just don't know anymore. Just don't know where things are headed. Where I am headed or anything? Life with Vance is so up and down. It's beyond rocky.

To hell with it! I just give up!

It reminded her of a game they used to play in elementary school. When the teacher wasn't looking or, better yet, when a substitute had taken her place for the day, they used to write secrets or truths or dares on slips of paper and pass them to one another for fun. Sometimes they even hid the notes for the added element of surprise. But it was the good, innocent fun of childhood not this kind of chicanery. Gallery confidential. Library Babylon.

Over time, a picture began to emerge in Marilyn's mind. She saw Lexi as an extension of herself, a prettier and more successful side of course, sans the mousy shell, the silent obscurity. But one beset with the same emotional crags and pitfalls. She imagined herself in Lexi's place. She imagined herself wearing those very scandalous stilettos and having to wrestle with doubt and desire and deceit, drama laced with love like some ever-spooling narcotic. It's not easy, nor is it even fair. Yet she persevered in her flights of fancy, shifting roles, changing voices, her dramatis persona reaching an ever newer and higher and more fevered pitch.

But how had Marilyn begun to view herself? She believed herself to be the voice of reason to the silly sing-song of passion. She believed herself to be an older, wiser incarnate of Lexi, the detached conscience that could advise, instruct, direct. Most of all, though, she saw herself as the protectorate of secrets, the sentinel of mysteries both private and provocative. Like an agent provocateur who moved slyly amidst everyday traffic, she hid out in the open: guardian, gatekeeper to the great mystery of the relational, the emotional; the bonds-keeper that united women or drove them apart.

“Where is the washroom?” a mother asked while her little boy squirmed and clutched his private parts.

Marilyn snapped to attention. “Over there,” she said, pointing in the direction of the lavatory.

“Thank you,” the mother said, and they hurried off to it.

Yet even as she spoke, even as she put her fantasy life on pause, that inner vision of Lexi lilted lightly in the air. Blonde Venus ready to touch down. Marilyn spent most of her workday like this, halfway between reverie and reality. With dreamscapes merging effortlessly between waking and sleeping, all became a surreal wash, a steady stream of fancy and make believe, imagination bleeding and running in a whimsical blur.

She saw the others about her, but they didn't register on her at all. Not the stumbling drunks, the skateboard punks needing reprieve from inclement weather, the art students who studied the art with shining, indoctrinated faces, tourists teeming with their usual happy intensity, all those who passed through the Gallery like irregular punctuation. It passed her by. It passed through her like undigested meat. So seduced had she become by the inner that the outer was of no consequence anymore. Marilyn just stood. Blinked. Stared. That's all.

Finally, that day when Marilyn held the treasured mauve note in her hand, she could feel it moisten in her sweaty grip. But when she read it, the message exploded like a bomb.

Sometimes with all the grief that life can give, relationships especially, it makes me just want to run away! Escape! It just makes me want to get into my car and drive off, far away. And never, ever come back or look back or anything. Is this how people just disappear? Like those ones who go to the store for a loaf of bread and never return? I wonder...

Marilyn blinked. Oh my God! Poor kid! Sounds like a real train wreck. Like a cat basking in the sun, Marilyn felt a wave of compassion fill her. I wish there was something I could do for Lexi. She couldn't be more than thirty, if that. What if she's not strong and experienced enough to handle it all? Maybe she doesn't have the support she needs? Maybe he has been grossly unfair to her? Who knows? He could be another Marlon in the making...

Absorbed in thought, Marilyn snapped back to attention when she realized it was shift’s end. Then she did a final check of the Gallery, bid Toni and Andrea goodnight as they left in a flurry of silk and cashmere finery, shut off the lights, locked up and went home.

Feeling unusually restless and agitated the next afternoon, Marilyn knew that she had drunk too much coffee that day. She was standing next to the Truth Jar. She felt too antsy to sit on her stool.

Marilyn had already read the submissions earlier that day, the usual fart jokes and complaints about library fines. What she was really waiting upon, of course, was for the daily bomb by Lexi and when she looked up and saw the woman walking towards her, she felt her heart race in anticipation.

Marilyn stared at Lexi. She saw sculpted finesse visa vis the gym, spa and salon, modern living breathing art in Manolo Blahniks, Jones of New York, fresh-faced frankness both secretive and final. It struck Marilyn that except for a few passing nods, they had never even spoken; rather, they just extended the civility that co-workers give to one another. That's all. Yet Marilyn had begun to believe that she understood the young woman on some nominal level at the very least, was informed of all the angst and inner workings that had led to this sudden spirit of uprising. It saddened Marilyn even as she searched the smooth, soft face for answers.

Lexi paused beside the Truth Jar. Then she tossed her note in it.

On impulse, Marilyn said, “I know things can seem tough at times. Relationships especially. But never give up. That's what I must tell myself all the time.”

Lexi froze. She looked at Marilyn quizzically for a moment before her eyes narrowed and her face hardened into a stare, and she turned quickly and flounced off. Marilyn was surprised by the rebuff, the seeming disconnect. But what can you tell about people nowadays anyhow? Not much, really.

Marilyn eyed the Truth Jar slyly. Gifted with exceptional peripheral vision, she eyed it in her field of vision like a holy relic, an Aladdin's lamp bearing secrets and wishes and magic and recriminations. After waiting a proper interval of time and after glancing about to make sure the coast was clear, Marilyn discretely retrieved the note and read it.

Heard there's a big sale at the mall today! I'm so going to do some retail therapy hahaha. So going to get a shoe fix. What's money for anyhow but to blow lol.

Marilyn stared at the note dumbfounded. What about all her anguish? The panic even? Once again, Marilyn felt surprise like a sudden slap. She sounded much worse than that? What gives? How can someone just do an emotional 360-degree turn?

She licked her lips in disbelief. Shook her head. Young and flighty, as just what else could it be? We've all been there, that's for certain. Me, too. Humph, millennials, I suppose! How else can you explain such a strange turnaround?

Still, she recalled what a dither she had been in when her own marriage was crumbling. If that Vance character has put her through half of what Marlon made me endure, then it's no wonder she's so scattered. That could explain things. Yes, I'm sure that's it!

The next morning, Marilyn rose from a slumber that had been fitful, unnerving as if her unconscious had been engaged in extreme sports, sudden starts and finishes, elaborate jolts, spectacular burnouts, caught in a performance staggering and brutal, trapped in a pantomime unawares.

Jigsaw yowled frantically. He was lodged at the foot of her bed and stared at her balefully. But she hurried past him as ever on her way to work.

Once there, Marilyn looked for Toni and Andrea as she always did to exchange salutations. But she didn't see them. They were behind closed doors the whole day. Instead, Marilyn just saw the patrons in the Gallery, the regulars milling about the hallway as ever. Rob waved at her but never stopped to chat. The long penis/hot dog tube seemed as hollow and lonely as ever. She suffered under the studio lighting. It seemed more harsh than usual like an overhead phosphorescent eye bearing down.

Marilyn began to restlessly await the arrival of the coveted note. But it never came. Lexi never showed that day. Hmm, maybe sick or something, maybe has the day off. She felt vague disappointment. But she opted just to get through her day, survive the remainder of her workday as ever. God knows, she had had years of practice of doing just that, of clocking time, punching in and out patience, of allowing one sequence to give way to the next just as how light submits to the night, dark to day. Yes, it was an exceptionally quiet and uneventful day, even by library standards, until she received a phone call from her supervisor that afternoon, the off-site Boss.

Marilyn was startled to hear from the company she worked for as she had few direct dealings with them, with everything online and direct deposit.

“Hello, Marilyn... Yes, Rebecca here from the Security office. Just calling to let you know that you have been reassigned posts effective immediately. I'll call you tomorrow and give you the details concerning your new job site.”

Marilyn froze. She exhaled as her mind suddenly swam, desperate to regain clarity and focus. What? How could this be? Just when...

Proceed to Challenge 932...