Three Secret Lives
The Secret Lives of Medical Billing Personnel
Example: Gayle Devereaux
Gayle Devereaux lived most of her life in Washington state, but moved to Atlanta, Georgia, a few years ago. She likes to swim in Florida springs and has a son in college named Rob; sometimes, she thinks the two facts are related. Gayle renovated the old house she now lives in, and sometimes her family comes to visit her there. (As does Dan, her talented yet humble boyfriend.) Among her many talents are cooking and an appreciation of good beer. But these particular talents do not constitute her secret life. No, her secret life involves another talent entirely. She’s had this talent for many years, but only recently became reacquainted with it. As a child, she first discovered her secret proclivity, but it long ago became enmeshed in the wash and warp of early memories, as distant as her first encounter with a bumblebee, her first lick of ice cream, her first ferris wheel ride. (Alone, sitting cross-legged in the sun on warm grass, next to a large, long rock eaten through by lichen. The green smell of grass and distant flowers. The feel of the tickly ground. And then the sly scuttle onto the stone: a small brown lizard or gecko, head bobbing, throat pink and throbbing. A trickling giggle from Gayle at the sight, a subconscious thought—a wisp of a thought, lighter than cotton candy—and her secret talent manifested, the lizard become as skillful as any Catskills song-and-dance man.)
Recently, Gayle’s secret life manifested itself again. Sitting alone outside on her deck in the backyard, contented as she sipped a bottle of beer, a thin line of green—thin as a papercut—sped across the edge of her vision. Turning, she caught a glimpse of a tiny reptilian tail, a clever, narrow eye, claws light as sharpened pencil points gripping wood. And suddenly, Gayle remembered the first lizard, buried in her past, and what had happened on that long-ago afternoon.
As she remembered it, the lizard on the edge of her deck rose onto its hindlegs and began to sway, foot forward, foot back, foot to the left, foot to the right. And slowly, by the ones and the twos and then the dozens, a torrent of lizards scuttled up to her deck and began to dance and gyrate and even do a little soft shoe, while she watched with a sense of astonishment, but also fear, because she had no idea how she had conjured up this vision, or how to un-conjure it. Bright eyes staring up at her. The almost-silent scrape and patter of lizard foot and lizard tail. The faint sounds of delight issuing from their throats. Was she drunk? Were they? And why just lizards? She had no answer to any of these questions. People rarely understand the whys of their secret lives. Sometimes your secret life is just thrust upon you, without explanation.
But later: in deep winter, in the bronzed dusk of a day when the snowflakes fell slowly and silently onto her deck while the lizards gathered around her despite the chill, Gayle felt a sudden upwelling of emotion, a surge of mingled joy and sadness in which every detail around her was magnified and more intense; it made her shudder and wrap her arms around her shoulders. And she no longer felt the need to know why.
The Secret Lives of Episcopal Priests
Example: Allen Lewis
Allen Lewis (Padre Allen) is an Episcopal priest and banker who loves to cook and collect first edition science fiction and fantasy hardcovers. Padre Allen leads a stable, fulfilling life that often creates solace for others. And yet, behind that gentle smile, those sometimes rambling but always authentic sermons, beats a heart intent on vengeance. Yes, revenge! A base emotion, and one Padre Allen only allows himself to succumb to once every few years, when he boards an airplane for the Australian coast, near the Great Barrier Reef. Once there, Padre Allen dons a steel mesh scuba suit loaded with pockets of chum and jumps off a fast boat into the churning water…and, weightless, floating, fast descending, carries out his private war against the Great White Shark. There is nothing personal about his assault. No relatives or friends have succumbed to the deadly charms of the Great White’s teeth. No chunk of thigh has been separated from the priest in years past, leaving that tell-tale semi-circular bite mark, made official by the faint trace of long-removed stitches. Nothing in the Bible commands him to wrestle sharks. Nor has he any political or social issues with the Great White. Instead, he wages this one-man war against the Great White solely on the basis of having been frightened out of his mind upon first seeing the movie Jaws. Nothing before or since has quite affected him in this way. He seeks to conquer that feeling, to understand it over and over again. And so, down in the briny depths, where swims the hawksbill turtle, where the lacy fronds of certain sea grasses sway hypnotically back-and-forth, where the moray eel peeks furtively from its hidey-holes, and where the Crown-of-Thorns starfish makes its laborious and tortured way across the coral reef, deathstar of Death Stars, so too Padre Allen becomes part of the landscape, framed in light, framed in shadow, armored suit a-gleaming. As the sharks approach, as he can sense the powerful swash of tails, the blocky gray of their bodies appearing through the murk, see that grinning mask of pure ferocity, there is always a moment when Padre Allen wishes he were one of them—so perfect, so certain, so unwavering, with no hint of the doubt he has always been assailed by. God’s creatures. Beautiful in their sensible yet senseless aggression. And then they meet in mortal combat until his air gives out and he rises to the surface, chumless, battered and bruised, his faith born anew.
The Secret Lives of Ad Executives
Example: Jennifer Seaux
Jennifer Seaux is an orchid grower and a retired ad executive. For a long time, those in surveillance who read her private journal on a regular basis thought her secret life was hearing the voices of her orchids. According to these journal entries, the voices manifested as a burbling murmur, an aristocratic mumble, a slight drunken slur while she misted them. “I like the idea of the orchids having voices. I like the idea of hearing them,” she wrote. But, later, when the voices became distinct and clear, she realized they weren’t the voices of the plants at all: they were the voices of the employees she worked with, or the voices of actors who performed in radio and television advertisements. It made her wonder if she’d really retired after all. It made the tenor of her journal entries change, the frequency of her entries more intermittent. Soon, it became clear to those in surveillance that Seaux was writing a book. But what kind of book? A subversive book? A book that ought to be suppressed? Or something harmless? As day followed day, the cover of Seaux’s journal began to gather dust. Instead, she spent hours at the computer, typing madly. About the voices of flowers. About the voices of advertising executives. About people she imagined might be watching her. About something fresh and green struggling to reach the air through deep, fertile soil. Soon, those in surveillance lost their interest. Seaux was writing a novel. They had no interest in novels. In time, they dismantled the hidden camera and audio feeds. They stopped taking photographs of the outside of her home. They moved on to the next case. You could say that Seaux had written them out of her life… As for Seaux’s novel, you may wonder what happened to it. Without surveillance we cannot be sure of anything, but you may be reading part of it right now.
Jeff VanderMeer’s Secret Lives will be published in a limited edition hardcover by Prime Books in October 2005. The mass market edition of City of Saints & Madmen has just been released by Pan Macmillan in the United Kingdom. Bantam Books will release his Veniss Underground in 2005, with his new novel, Shriek: An Afterword forthcoming from Pan Macmillan (UK) and Tor (US) in 2006.
Copyright © 2005 by Jeff VanderMeer.
