Hush Hush

by Lippman, Laura

  “All in good time. Maybe I’ll use your method, transcribe it in order to better understand it. Now how about something to eat? There’s a restaurant on the first floor that will send food up. Very good, doing that hyperlocal thing. And I have wine. Or tea if you prefer. I promise you won’t have a seizure.”

  Harmony managed a weak smile. That should have been funnier than it was. “Wine would be great, as would dinner. May I use one of your bathrooms?”

  “Sure,” Melisandre said. “There are four of them. Although I’m not even sure where they all are.”

  Harmony headed down a corridor of closed doors. Framed film posters lined the hall. They were all one-sheets by Saul Bass, but lesser-known works, not the iconic Anatomy of a Murder poster. She wondered if Melisandre even knew who Saul Bass was, or if he was just a new affectation, something else to acquire as she reinvented herself as a film producer. Harmony was only a human version of these posters, a bit of cred that Melisandre had purchased.

  She opened a door at random, but it was not a bathroom she had found. It was a girl’s room, a sophisticated teenager’s room, straight from the pages of an upscale catalog, except for one small detail: an American Girl doll, an incongruous note on the pillows of the double bed with its silken linens of teal and rose. Harmony walked over, picked it up. The doll had glossy brown hair and an old-fashioned dress, nineteenth century. She had never been much for dolls. She found their eyes unsettling, and this one wasn’t any different.

  “That was Alanna’s,” Melisandre said from the doorway. “I had some of the girls’ possessions put in storage. I never knew why, but now I’m glad I did. I can’t wait for them to see their rooms here.”

  Harmony smiled weakly, embarrassed. There was no way to disguise the fact that she had been snooping. “I’m sorry—I came in here by accident. I was just looking for the bathroom.”

  “My life is an open book,” Melisandre said. “To you especially.”

  A bathroom connected this bedroom to another one. Ruby’s room, Harmony guessed, but she didn’t so much as crack the door, although she was curious to see if the decor was different, if Melisandre had distinctive ideas about the two teenagers her daughters now were. And if so, what had formed those ideas? She washed her hands and splashed cold water on her face. Melisandre believed that she was getting her girls back. She was so confident that she had created bedrooms for them. Of course, this could be the delusion of a woman who was used to getting what she wanted. Yet Melisandre’s confidence, as reflected in the completeness of the decor, struck Harmony as specific, rooted in something that Melisandre knew and others did not.

  And why wouldn’t she tell Harmony whom she had interviewed today? If Melisandre was an open book, then that book was hollowed out, like a volume used to hide secrets now concealed elsewhere.

  March 13, 2014, Tyner Gray’s office

  SPEAKER 1: Melisandre Harris Dawes

  SPEAKER 2: Tyner Gray

  INPUT: MHD

  MHD: Okay, I think I’ve done it all correctly—I didn’t bring the light, but the light here in your office is fine unless you’re vain. I have the app I’m supposed to use, and the camera is set on the tripod so I don’t have to hold it. Checked voice level. So—go.

  TG: I don’t really understand why I’m doing this, Missy. As your lawyer, I’ll probably forbid you to use anything—

  MHD: Just tell the story. That’s what Harmony does. Says. She gets people to tell the story, tries to stay out of the way. It’s like I’m not here. Ignore me.

  TG: No one has ever been able to ignore you, Missy.

  MHD: You did, the first time we met. Do you remember?

  TG: Impossible. If I was ignoring you, then I hadn’t seen you for whatever reason. So, no, I don’t remember it that way.

  MHD: It was in a restaurant downtown. That cute old-fashioned diner on Redwood with the wooden booths and tiled floors. You stopped to talk to my boss on your way out. You both ignored me. I had to introduce myself. I was a baby lawyer, with nothing to contribute to the conversation, but still. I wasn’t used to men ignoring me.

  TG: Werner’s. I was probably distracted. Lunch there was always a big networking thing. And that place was hell to navigate in my chair. Very narrow aisles, so many people. But I will apologize for ignoring you. What has it been, twenty years?

  MHD: Twenty. Exactly twenty. Almost to the day. It was February 1994. I saw you in the courthouse a week later. That’s probably what you remember. I was stalking you.

  TG: Very funny, Missy.

  MHD: I was. The moment I saw you I realized you were someone I had to get to know. You were kind of legendary. You had worked so hard to achieve something, to make that Olympic team, and then it was taken from you, through no fault of your own, and you had gone on, without bitterness or rancor. You are the strongest man I’ve ever known, Tyner.

  TG: There was bitterness at the time it happened. Some would say I’m bitter still, but I always had a prickly temperament. It just got pricklier. Missy, why are you doing this particular interview? Especially after everything that’s happened this week. Isn’t it enough to produce and star in the film? Do you have to be your own crew, too?

  MHD: Today’s the only day that Harmony can meet with another one of the subjects and we’re behind schedule. I didn’t know it was possible for a documentary to get behind schedule. I thought you just lived it. But Harmony is concerned about the budget. She was accused of exceeding her budget on her second film. It matters to her. And I guess it should matter to me, as it’s my money. But I’ve never cared about money.

  TG: Who is Harmony interviewing?

  MHD: I think it’s Poppy. My roommate at the psychiatric facility. Anyway, let’s establish how we know each other and then we’ll talk about what happened to me. At the end.

  TG: I have known you—

  MHD: Not me. I mean, you can’t say you. You—Tyner—are talking to the camera, to the audience beyond the camera. I’m not here. Talk about me as if I’m not here, as if you’re telling other people about me. I always wanted to know what you said to other people about me.

  TG: Missy—Okay, fine, here goes. I’ve known Melisandre Dawes since 1994. She was Melisandre Harris then. I first became aware of her in the courthouse—she was working as a young lawyer with one of the bigger firms in Baltimore, Howard, Howard & Barr, but she said she was interested in coming to work for me. She was not well suited to my one-man practice. I took on associates for two to three years, but tried to avoid anyone who hoped to have a partnership. My office is a good place for a lawyer to apprentice while studying for the bar, then move on. Melisandre was past that. Besides—

  MHD: Tyner?

  TG: Yes?

  MHD: That’s almost thirty seconds of silence. If this were film instead of digital, you’d be costing me money. And it screws up the transcription, if the silences go on too long. I think that’s what Harmony told me.

  TG: Sorry.

  MHD: Now finish the sentence. Why didn’t you want me to come work for you? I lobbied pretty hard for the job.

  TG: I didn’t hire you—

  MHD: Say, “I didn’t hire Melisandre.”

  TG: Sorry.

  MHD: Why do you keep saying sorry?

  TG: Because I’m screwing up, aren’t I? Okay. Deep breath. Focus. I didn’t hire Melisandre Dawes—Melisandre Harris—because I was interested in her. In dating her. It was the Anita Hill era, or not long after. I had dated some of my other young hires. Before. And it was consensual. I really hadn’t thought too much about it. If one works long hours, where does one meet people? But I saw that I had, in fact, abused my position. To be clear, no one ever complained. I like to think that was because I was always very—up-front. I was up-front with all the women I dated. I had no intention of marrying, no intention of having a family. Do men still say that, up-front? Does anyone believe them if they do? A lot of women didn’t believe me when I told them what I wanted. They really thought it was just a matter of me m
eeting the right woman. But not even Melisandre Harris could change my mind, and she was one of the most alluring and charming young women I had ever known. We dated for six months, a long time for me. She ended the relationship on December thirty-first, 1994.

  MHD: You remember the exact date?

  TG: It’s not hard to remember being stood up on New Year’s Eve.

  MHD: I didn’t stand you up. I called you that morning and said it was time to move on. That I needed a commitment or there was no reason to go forward.

  TG: Yes, you did.

  MHD: No yous, Tyner.

  TG: We broke up on December thirty-first, 1994, at her initiative. It seemed like the next thing I knew, she was dating Stephen Dawes, a friend of mine. Well, acquaintance. We knew each other through the boathouse. He rowed, I coached. Our paths crossed a lot. I might have even introduced you—Stephen and Melisandre. All I know is it happened very fast. He proposed to you three months after the Charm City Sprints.

  MHD: He proposed to Melisandre.

  TG: He proposed to Melisandre three months after the Charm City Sprints. He did it up in a big way, planned a surprise party at the boathouse. He even arranged for people to arrive on a shuttle, so there would be no cars in the lot, which would have been unusual at that time of day. The ring was in a jewelry box dangling from a tree by a ribbon. He proposed to her there, near the site where they had met, then took her into the boathouse to celebrate, where friends and family waited with champagne. He was very sure that she would say yes, I guess.

  MHD: How do you know the details of the proposal? Were you there?

  TG: I was invited to the party. No hard feelings. Everyone was an adult. Melisandre had broken up with me because she very much wanted a husband and children. Stephen wanted a family, too. It was a whirlwind courtship.

  MHD: You consider getting engaged in three months to be a whirlwind courtship?

  TG: I do.

  MHD: Could you repeat that back in full?

  TG: I do consider three months to be a very swift courtship, yes.

  MHD: How long did you and your wife date before you married?

  TG: I don’t think that’s important, Melisandre.

  MHD: Don’t address me by my name. That’s like saying you.

  TG: I don’t want this to be part of the documentary, Missy.

  MHD: I just—I mean, I’m entitled to ask. How did you end up marrying? After all those years of saying it wasn’t what you wanted?

  TG: I changed, Melisandre. People do change over a twenty-year span. I’m not the man you knew. And I didn’t change my mind about children. I didn’t have the temperament for fatherhood. When Tess comes over with her little girl, I find it charming. For about twenty minutes. Kitty, as a doting aunt, is good for the whole visit, but even she sighs with relief when Carla Scout leaves. I had thought the only reason to marry was to have children. Kitty—Look, I don’t want to talk about this.

  MHD: On film, or at all?

  TG: At all. I’ve told you several times now, I’m very happy. I have no regrets.

  MHD: I think you also told me once that anything modified by the word very is suspect.

  TG: Move on, Melisandre.

  MHD: Did you see much of Melisandre Dawes after she married?

  TG: Baltimore is small in its way and you’re apt to run into people, so, yes, probably here and there. I remember sending gifts to each child after their births.

  MHD: What did you send them?

  TG: Okay, I had my secretary select and send the gifts, but I wrote the notes. I was very happy for you—for Melisandre. She had what she’d always wanted.

  MHD: Did you ever see her alone?

  TG: Once.

  MHD: When was that?

  TG: Missy.

  MHD: It matters. You have to talk about this.

  TG: On August eighth, 2002. The day she killed her daughter.

  MHD: And what happened?

  TG: She came to my office.

  MHD: And what did she say?

  TG: I cannot tell you. Because two weeks before that visit, Melisandre Dawes had retained me as her attorney and all conversations subsequent to that time are privileged, in my view.

  MHD: Did you, in fact, serve as her attorney when she was charged with murder?

  TG: No, I referred her to a criminal attorney who had more experience with the insanity plea. But as of that morning, I was technically her attorney. She had never told me why she wanted an attorney of record, only that she did. I didn’t think it meant anything. She told me she was scared and in trouble, but she wouldn’t tell me anything more.

  MHD: Can you tell us what happened that day?

  TG: No, ethically I cannot.

  MHD: But the visit, in fact, represents the missing time? The gap that has never been explained between Melisandre leaving the camp at Friends School and arriving at the boathouse?

  TG: I’m not going to comment. Nothing relevant to the case happened, and she was here for no more than fifteen minutes. If I had been asked to testify, I would have been happy to say that she appeared upset and I tried to persuade her not to leave, but I failed. I thought she was drunk, or had mixed up a prescription. She kept saying that her legs and arms felt strange, as if she were growing scales. But it’s hard seeing someone you have known, as crazy. It doesn’t compute. Also—Well, life with Melisandre was not without melodrama. She was capable of throwing scenes, then reverting to her usual nature, as if nothing had happened. But she did not have her child with her. Apparently, the child was in the car, which I didn’t know. Couldn’t know. I’m still shocked that her car sat behind my office for as long as it did without anyone seeing the child in there. And I did not think she was on the verge of harming anyone, including herself. I have to live with that. I do live with that.

  MHD: Is it possible that Isadora died here?

  TG: Here?

  MHD: In the garage behind your office?

  TG: I don’t remember how precisely the time of death was determined, but I think not. It’s very cool and shady. The temperature inside the car would not have risen quickly enough for that to happen.

  MHD: What did she do? Melisandre, when she visited you. What did she say?

  TG: I can’t say.

  MHD: She told you that she still loved you, that she wanted to be with you.

  TG: You always said you don’t remember anything that happened that day.

  MHD: I don’t. But you told me about it.

  TG: At your insistence. Yes, I did. You told me you needed to know in order to prepare for your trial.

  MHD: I told you that I still loved you, that I would always love you.

  TG: Well, as you know, you weren’t in your right mind at the time.

  MHD: You told me that you didn’t want children. That we could be together, if it weren’t for the children.

  TG: I never said that. Never.

  MHD: Not that day. But you said it before. And suddenly I had three children and the littlest one had colic and would never stop crying and I was so unhappy and I just wanted to be with you again.

  TG: You can’t possibly remember what happened that day. You know these things because you badgered me to tell you.

  MHD: But I did say I would give up the children for you, didn’t I? I said I could free myself if you would let me, that I would let Stephen take the children.

  TG: The ultimate proof you were sick. You would never have voluntarily given up your girls.

  MHD: That’s one way to look at it. I wouldn’t be the first woman to decide her children were standing between her and her romantic future. But you never told anyone what I said. You protected me, Tyner. You stood by me, never doubted me. Oh, sure, you were my lawyer at the time, but if you had a second’s doubt about whether I was mad, you could have used what I said against me. So which is it, Tyner? Did you think that I was mad? Or did you still love me enough to try to protect me from myself? Both?

  TG: Turn the camera off, Missy. Now.

  MHD:
Tell me you love me. Still. I know you do.

  TG: Turn the camera off.

  Friday

  2:00 P.M.

  Joey down for his afternoon nap, Felicia risked a bath, the monitor perched near the tub. Her tub was a beautiful thing, a freestanding soaking tub that Felicia had selected, Stephen grousing about the cost every step of the way. But a good tub was more important to Felicia than a good bed. She considered it vital to her well-being to steep herself in warm, vibrating water on a regular basis. Yet this was her first bath in weeks. Joey had a genius for sensing Felicia’s rare moments of relaxation. If she even started filling the tub for herself, he cut his naps short. But even Joey was cooperating with date night.

  Date night! Felicia was so wiggly with excitement that she barely needed the jets to move the water around. She had arranged for Alanna to babysit—a nice deal for someone who was grounded, making fifteen dollars an hour when she couldn’t go out anyway—and gotten reservations at Pazo, an old favorite from their courtship days. She had tried to persuade Stephen to book a car so both of them could drink, but he had said pointedly that she was still breast-feeding, so how much did she plan to drink, anyway? Only maybe—maybe Stephen wanted to make sure she was wide-eyed when they returned, so she could devote her full attention to him? Okay, fine, she would limit herself to a glass of wine or two, be the designated driver. Ruby had a sleepover, so they didn’t need to worry about picking her up.

  Felicia heard her cell, ringing in the dressing room, but couldn’t imagine what might be urgent enough to lure her from this tub. As long as she could hear Joey’s snuffly breaths on the monitor, nothing could be wrong. Felicia had been one of those parents who stood by the crib in the early months, checking that her son’s chest was rising and falling, that he was alive. She still did it sometimes. Being a mother was like being trapped in the first fifteen minutes of a horror film. Everything was fine, lovely. But there was this persistent sense of dread. Joey wasn’t even a year old, and already there had been a series of averted crises. His first crib had been recalled, and it turned out the little seat he used was considered dangerous, too.