No One's A Mystery By Elizabeth Tallent For My Eighteenth Bi

No Ones A Mystery By Elizabeth Tallent For My Eighteenth Birthday Ja

No One's a Mystery by Elizabeth Tallent for my eighteenth birthday Jack gave me a five-year diary with a latch and a little key, light as a dime. I was sitting beside him scratching at the lock, which didn't seem to want to work, when he thought he saw his wife's Cadillac in the distance, coming toward us. He pushed me down onto the dirty floor of the pickup and kept one hand on my head while I inhaled the musk of his cigarettes in the dashboard ashtray and sang along with Rosanne Cash on the tape deck. We'd been drinking tequila and the bottle was between his legs, resting up against his crotch, where the seam of his Levi's was bleached linen-white, though the Levi's were nearly new. I don't know why his Levi's always bleached like that, along the seams and at the knees.

In a curve of cloth his zipper glinted, gold. "It's her," he said. "She keeps the lights on in the daytime. I can't think of a single habit in a woman that irritates me more than that." When he saw that I was going to stay still he took his hand from my head and ran it through his own dark hair. "Why does she?" I said.

"She thinks it's safer. Why does she need to be safer? She's driving exactly fifty-five miles an hour. She believes in those signs: 10 Short Fiction `Speed Monitored by Aircraft.' It doesn't matter that you can look up and see that the sky is empty." "She'll see your lips move, Jack. She'll know you're talking to someone." "She'll think I'm singing along with the radio." He didn't lift his hand, just raised the fingers in salute while the pressure of his palm steadied the wheel, and I heard the Cadillac honk twice, musically; he was driving easily eighty miles an hour.

I studied his boots. The elk heads stitched into the leather were bearded with frayed thread, the toes were scuffed, and there was a compact wedge of muddy manure between the heel and the sole—the same boots he'd been wearing for the two years I'd known him. On the tape deck Rosanne Cash sang, "Nobody's into me, no one's a mystery." "Do you think she's getting famous because of who her daddy is or for herself?" Jack said. "There are about a hundred pop tops on the floor, did you know that? Some little kid could cut a bare foot on one of these, Jack." "No little kids get into this truck except for you." "How come you let it get so dirty?" " `How come,' he mocked.

"You even sound like a kid. You can get back into the seat now, if you want. She's not going to look over her shoulder and see you." "How do you know?" "I just know," he said. "Like I know I'm going to get meat loaf for supper. It's in the air. Like I know what you'll be writing in that diary." "What will I be writing?" I knelt on my side of the seat and craned around to look at the butterfly of dust printed on my jeans. Outside the window Wyoming was dazzling in the heat. The wheat was fawn and yellow and parted smoothly by the thin dirt road. I could smell the water in the irrigation ditches hidden in the wheat. "Tonight you'll write, ' I love Jack. This is my birthday present from him. I can't imagine anybody loving anybody more than I love Jack." "I can't." "In a year you'll write, `I wonder what I ever really saw in Jack. I wonder why I spent so many days just riding around in his pickup. It'.s true he taught me something about sex. It's true there wasn't ever much else to do in Cheyenne.' " "I won't write that." "In two years you'll write, `I wonder what that old guy's name was, the one with the curly hair and the filthy dirty pickup truck and time on his hands.' " Short Fiction 11 " I won't write that." "No?" "Tonight I'll write, `I love Jack. This is my birthday present from him. I can't imagine anybody loving anybody more than I love Jack.' " "No, you can't," he said. "You can't imagine it." "In a year I'll write, `Jack should be home any minute now. The table's set—my grandmother's linen and her old silver and the yellow candles left over from the wedding—but I don't know if I can wait until after the trout a la Navarra to make love to him.' " "It must have been a fast divorce." "In two years I'll write, `Jack should be home by now. Little Jack is hungry for his supper. He said his first word today besides "Mama" and "Papa." He said "kaka." ' " Jack laughed. "He was probably trying to finger-paint with kaka on the bathroom wall when you heard him say it." "In three years I'll write, `My nipples are a little sore from nursing Eliza Rosamund.' "Rosamund. Every little girl should have a middle name she hates." " `Her breath smells like vanilla and her eyes are just Jack's color of b l u e . ' "That's nice." Jack said. "So, which one do you like?" " I like yours," he said. "But I believe mine." "It doesn't matter. I believe mine." "Not in your heart of hearts, you don't." "You're wrong." "I'm not wrong," he said. "And her breath would smell like your milk, and it's kind of a bittersweet smell, if you want to know the truth."

Paper For Above instruction

Elizabeth Tallent's short story "No One's a Mystery" explores the complex and often troubling dynamics of an intimate relationship through a vivid portrayal of a young woman’s interaction with Jack, her lover, during a tumultuous car ride. The narrative delves into themes of control, desire, vulnerability, and the power imbalance inherent in their relationship, offering a layered meditation on intimacy and dependency.

The story begins with an intimate gift: a five-year diary given to the narrator by Jack for her eighteenth birthday. This gesture symbolizes a desire for permanence or record-keeping, yet it is juxtaposed against the unstable and risky environment in which they find themselves—drinking tequila in a pickup truck, with Jack driving at unsafe speeds. The narrator's passive role during this moment underscores her vulnerability and the imbalance of power, as Jack is depicted as controlling and unpredictable.

Throughout the narrative, Tallent employs a stream-of-consciousness style, blending dialogue with internal monologue to reveal the characters' thoughts and emotions. Jack’s remarks about his wife’s habits and the commentary on his boots serve as symbols of his rough, untamed nature and a reflection of his masculinity. The motif of dirt and disrepair—visible in the boot stitching and muddy manure—further emphasizes themes of neglect and the transient, gritty reality of their lives.

Interpersonal dialogue between Jack and the narrator exposes underlying tensions, especially around themes of love, dependency, and the passage of time. Jack’s sarcastic references to their future, framed in speculative writing about their lives, reveal his detachment and perhaps a fear of commitment or change. Meanwhile, the narrator’s repeated affirmations of her love for Jack contrast with her underlying awareness of the instability beneath their relationship, hinting at a struggle between genuine affection and recognition of their dysfunctional dynamics.

Tallent also explores the gendered expectations and societal pressures that influence their behaviors—such as the wife’s habit of keeping lights on during the day, which Jack criticizes. These details serve to deepen the portrayal of characters' identities and social contexts, painting a vivid picture of life in rural America, where traditions and individual desires collide.

By weaving together descriptive imagery, dialogue, and internal reflection, Tallent crafts a nuanced narrative that examines the fragility of human connections. The recurring motif of the diary, a symbol of self-expression and record of life, is contrasted with the chaos and impermanence of their circumstances. Ultimately, the story leaves the reader contemplating the nature of love, obsession, and the ways individuals grapple with their own fears and vulnerabilities within intimate relationships.

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