The Scarlet Letter Society

by Mary McCarthy

  She lounged because she was enraptured by Judy Blume’s Wifey. Her mom had bought her all of Judy Blume’s books when she was younger. She devoured Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Tiger Eyes and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret like they were candy. Blume’s conversational writing style always made her feel like someone was just sitting next to her telling a story, and she was a funny writer. Zarina had never made her way all the way up to the ranks of Forever (“THE SEX ONE!” middle school friends had proclaimed) and Wifey, but here she was. She vowed to go back and read Forever after finishing this one.

  She wondered how the Scarlet Letter Society gals were going to like Wifey. It was written in 1978, five years after Fear of Flying, so you’d think it would be drenched with the same bra-burning feminist enthusiasm as Jong’s book. And yet once again, here they were with the slut shaming. The bored New Jersey housewife/mom Sandy (who slept in a separate bed from her husband!) had an affair, and then she got a sexually transmitted disease and went back to her amazingly boring spouse.

  What the fuck, Judy!?

  At least, what-the-fuck was how she thought Maggie and Eva and Lisa would respond to it. How couldn’t they? It’s no different than the nineteenth century shit where the “whores” die in shame. Jong gives us a strong woman who is going to demand that her sexual needs be met if she returns to her husband. Blume gives us…an STD? It was a bummer, because Sandy was a cool cat up until she didn’t choose herself…again.

  She couldn’t wait to hear what the girls had to say, or whichever ones read it, and wondered if she was becoming sort of an unofficial club member. But just as she thought this, a text message came in to her phone:

  Joy: Hey there Z! What up?

  Zarina: Not much. How are things at your shop?

  Joy: Boring. Wanna hang out later?

  Zarina: I’d love it. Dinner, movie, drag queen karaoke? What’s it gonna be?

  Joy: All of those things, hopefully at the same time. Lol

  Zarina had been trying to convince herself the new relationship was just girlfriends getting together. But the more she’d spent time with Joy, the less she could deny her girl crush, and she wondered to herself if there was something more.

  She heard the ding-a-ling of the door and jumped up, straightening the books on the coffee table. When she heard Stanley’s laugh at seeing her straighten up from the couch, she relaxed, putting away her phone (which struck her as odd because she hadn’t texted anything inappropriate) and turning around to smile at him.

  He walked over to her, and despite his hipster skinny jeans and ironic black leather 80s bomber jacket, she thought he looked adorable. He hugged her, she hugged him back. She loved how he hugged her when they saw each other. It was so intense, so tight, like if he let her go he’d drown. And he always hugged for a good long time, too. Stan would hug Zarina for five minutes. He’d say “mmm” under his breath while he did it, too, like this hug was the best thing that ever happened to him.

  When they finally stopped hugging, Stanley looked at her and said, “We need to talk.”

  She thought to herself, no fucking way would he break up with me after that amazing hug.

  “Or,” he said, seeing her concerned expression, “at least, I have something that I want to tell you.”

  And then he looked straight into her eyes, practically into her soul, and he said, “I fucking love you.”

  Zarina’s expression turned to mystery at first, thinking he was being sarcastic or overly dramatic for some reason that hadn’t yet been made apparent. And when she looked into his eyes, she saw he was serious.

  “No,” Stanley said. “I love you. I mean it. I’m tired of thinking it and being afraid to say it because you might not say it back, or because the time is not right. I know that I’m emotionally challenged or something and that I never tell you how I feel. But life is too short not to tell your favorite person in the world that you love them. And so I want you to know that I really do love you.”

  Despite her best efforts to stifle them, tears welled up in Zarina’s eyes, simply because she didn’t remember the last time someone had told her that in a romantic way. She couldn’t believe how happy it made her to hear the words.

  So she looked at her sweet boyfriend, feeling happy he was hers. “You’re my favorite, too,” she said. “And I love you right back.”

  And then they hugged again, even tighter than before.

  Lisa, Maggie and Eva sat around the table at Zoomdweebies on the first Friday of September, exchanging their usual banter and laughter and stories.

  Zarina found herself hoping that someday when she was their age, she’d have a group of friends that she felt so “herself” around as these women did with each other.

  Caramel lattes all around; she brought apple pie crumb cake to them, and they loved it.

  “Well we missed you last month, EVA!” began Maggie with her traditional flair.

  “I really missed you girls, too,” said Eva. “I am so sorry I was unavoidably detained.”

  “What does that mean? Charles had to upgrade to a heavier chain gauge to hold you to the bed?” said Maggie.

  Eva smiled, raised an eyebrow, and pursed her lips at Maggie.

  “Well it wasn’t exactly that kind of detainment, though I’d be up for it,” Eva said. “Charles and I just decided to take the day off and enjoy the city together.”

  “Excuse me,” said Lisa. “You decided to what the what off?”

  “I know, I know,” said Eva. “I’m not usually one to call in sick. But he made me this amazing dinner and put Pop Rocks in my vag for dessert, and then he asked me if I wanted to do like a New York touristy day, and we went to the Met and we did the whole carriage in Central Park thing, and then we went to see Chicago on Broadway. It was dreamy.”

  “Pardon me for just one moment,” said Maggie. “I’m as big a fan of Chicago as anyone, but why are you talking about a Broadway musical when you just used the words “Pop Rocks” and “vag” in a sentence together? And did you also just use the word ‘dreamy?’ What’re you, Marcia-fuckin-Brady now? And horse carriage rides? Really? Tell me you weren’t riding through Central Park with Pop Rocks in your vajayjay.”

  “It was surreal,” Eva said, laughing. “I took a shower obviously, those things are sticky. And the horse ride was the next day. It was weird that we spent this day together—he never takes days off either,” said Eva. “We just said screw it. Neither one of us is going to get fired, and God knows if either of us did, we’d probably breathe a sigh of relief. So we just decided to have fun.”

  “Fun,” repeated Lisa.

  “Yeah, what a concept, right?” said Eva. “It went by so fast. I think I hummed ‘All That Jazz’ half the way home on the train. I was sad it was over. Also, we had a little discussion about my wine drinking, but I convinced him I don’t have a problem, I just like wine. The whole trip was just what I needed after the stress at home with Joe.”

  “Whoa, a smackdown with the French Chef? That’s as new as the day off. What is going on with you two, and in a related matter, what are you going to do about your marriage?” asked Maggie. “Have you thought about it?”

  “Oh well yes, I’ve thought about it a ton,” said Eva. “And I still don’t know. It’s not like I can leave the boys. And how am I supposed to tell Joe to leave his own house, right? So I made the decision, for now, to move into the spare bedroom. I am going to ask Joe for a separation, and if we work that out, we’ll tell the boys.”

  “Why wouldn’t you just ask him for a divorce?” asked Lisa.

  “Well, ultimately that’s what is going to happen, but in Maryland you have to be separated for a year before you can get a divorce unless you bring proof of adultery. It’s like the 16th century. March the whore into the town square for the public stoning! So I’m just going to list my mom’s place as a second address for now and do the pre-separation thing, I guess.”

  “And you haven’t talked to Joe about any of this, not even t
hat you know about what’s-her-nurse?” said Maggie.

  “I guess I’m going to need to do that this weekend,” said Eva. “But not with the boys around. Maybe we’ll go out for the most sad dinner ever. Ugh.”

  “That doesn’t sound easy,” said Lisa.

  “No, it’s going to be horrible,” said Eva. “But I have a feeling I’ll have a sense of freedom when I finally do it. And then as for Charles, it will be easier to see where that relationship could go while I’m not stuck under the dead weight of this one. But I have to say, some days I feel like swearing off relationships completely.”

  “It’s just like Hawthorne says; ‘she didn’t know the weight until she felt the freedom,’” said Maggie.

  “Anyway, speaking of books? I didn’t read the whole thing,” admitted Eva. “Started it though.”

  “You might not even want to finish it,” said Lisa. “I thought it was depressing. Blume’s narration is as flawless as it always has been, but the story ends up being awful at the end.”

  “The main character Sandy is so close to having it all together,” said Maggie. “She figures out what she wants, goes for it, then it all falls apart and she goes back to the husband that makes her miserable. Why would you do that?”

  “Who knows?” said Lisa. “Why stay with someone who makes you unhappy?”

  Eva looked at her.

  “Who did you just ask that question?” she said to Lisa.

  “Oh, well, we just learned you’re not going to stay with someone who makes you unhappy anymore,” said Lisa. “And as for me, it’s not like I am completely unhappy… I’m just sort of not really happy. I need to figure out a way to do something about that somehow.”

  Maggie asked, “So if you’re not happy and you’re not unhappy, what are you?”

  “Married?” said Lisa.

  And they all laughed.

  October 2012

  “Are you gonna stay with the one who loves you? Or are you going back to the one you love?”

  - The One You Love, Glenn Frye

  Monthly meeting of the Scarlet Letter Society.

  Zoomdweebies Café

  Friday, October 5, 2012

  5:30 a.m.

  Zarina has copies of Madame Bovary at Zoomdweebies. Don’t blow it off just because it’s historical fiction, EVA.

  “The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.”

  - The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Lisa opened the email at her laptop in the kitchen of her house in the subdivision in which she hated to live. She didn’t understand why they couldn’t be in one of the gorgeous brownstones downtown near her business, but her ever-practical husband Jim had insisted the property value would be better here. Since the real estate market had crashed, Lisa doubted it. The building where she rented her bakery was for sale, and Lisa had been trying to figure out a way to convince Jim that she should buy the downtown building. They could convert the two upstairs apartments into a two-level home that would be big enough for the two of them and even for the baby she yearned for.

  She’d pick up her copy of Madame Bovary from Zarina, but this book club aspect of the SLS was getting disheartening Here she was, trying to find a way to justify potentially having an affair with her graphic designer, and all the literature pointed towards adulterous women ending up dead, otherwise humiliated, or contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

  And now that she had learned about Ben’s son, she wondered what it meant for their potential affair. Is it really even a potential affair? How much of the mutual attraction is just in my head? Every nerve ending in her body was alive when she was with Ben, and she couldn’t believe the feeling wasn’t mutual. She felt like he was attracted to her. They met, and her whole body screamed “JUST KISS ME!”

  The thought scared the complete hell out of her. What if he did kiss me? She knew they’d end up sleeping together. Was that truly what she wanted? She thought so, but she wasn’t positive.

  She tried to think about consequences and outcomes of an affair, but it was hard to think with her brain when her heart and her body were just telling her to go for it.

  And it was at that moment, with Lisa deep in thought, staring blankly at the October SLS invite in front of her, that her husband walked into the kitchen.

  “You look like you’re really concentrating on something,” said Jim. “What is it?”

  Lisa looked at him. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she answered, composing herself. “I was just going over the bakery orders for the day. I need to get into town soon and fire up the oven.”

  “Can we talk for a few minutes?” Jim asked as he walked over to pour himself a cup of coffee.

  “What is it?” said Lisa, concerned at his tone.

  “I just thought we should sit down and chat about a few things. We’re always just rushing around. I feel like you’ve been kind of stressed lately. This is kind of awkward to bring up, but I know that my—um, preferences about feet annoy you,” said Jim. “I’m ashamed of it. I really do try my best not to act on my fantasies that often, but the last thing I want to do is be a turnoff to my wife while we’re trying to have a baby.”

  “Thank you for saying that,” said Lisa, pleased he was even mentioning trying to conceive. “I don’t think you should be ashamed of it,” said Lisa. “I knew about your foot fetish when we started dating years ago. At first, it was a lot of fun…”

  “Yeah, and now it’s something that is coming between us and that is not what I want,” said Jim.

  “Well, it isn’t as much about the sexual part of it as the expense,” said Lisa. “There are many more things I’d like to do with money than spend it on expensive shoes that I can’t wear to the bakery.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Jim. “That’s why I wanted to talk. I just want you to know that I started seeing a therapist in DC to talk about my fetish, and I am working on it. And also, I signed up for some more tests to try to get more information about any fertility issues I might have. I know you’re always working on it and thinking about it,” he gestured toward the calendar, “and I want to feel like I have a part in trying to make our family happen.”

  “Wow,” said Lisa. “Thank you. It’s really nice of you do that for me.”

  “I honestly just really want you to be happy,” said Jim.

  “I want both of us to be happy, too,” said Lisa. “I’m so thankful you decided to bring this up and I appreciate your honesty.”

  She walked across to the coffeemaker and kissed her husband. Maybe, for once, they could have unscheduled sex…while she was barefoot.

  Eva was sitting at her desk in New York City, working on a case that was scheduled to go to trial the following week, when the call came.

  “Eva? It’s Marvin Schubert on Matthews Island.” Marv was the next door neighbor of her parents. He lived in the cottage beside theirs near the waterfront. He had never called her before, and she couldn’t imagine how he had gotten her number.

  Eva was immediately concerned. “Hi, Marv…” she began.

  “I am so very sorry to have to be the one to deliver this news. There’s been a car accident. Your mother…”

  “My mother?” repeated Eva. Her entire body froze.

  “I’m afraid she didn’t make it,” said Marv.

  “Didn’t make it?” She heard the words coming out of her mouth, repeating him like a parrot, but she didn’t know what she was saying. She couldn’t get her brain around the concept that anything could happen to her mom. She had just left her days before; Mom had waved to her from the front yard of her cottage, like she always did when Eva left. She was there. She was always there.

  “The accident happened not far from the drawbridge. It wasn’t her fault. A deer ran across the road and she swerved to avoid it… Since I’m a fire company volunteer, I was there to respond to the call from another motorist. She’s been taken to the hospital, but she was pronounced dead at the scene. Someone more official will call y
ou, I’m sure, but I thought…”

  “When did it happen? Which way was she traveling? Was she conscious when you got to the scene?” Questions streamed out of Eva as her head spun.

  “It was just a few hours ago,” responded Marv. “One of her neighbors said she was headed to her knitting club meeting in St. Luke’s. She died on impact, so she did not suffer. If there is anything else I can…”

  “No, thank you for calling, Marv. I’ll be on the next plane to Maryland,” said Eva, and she hung up.

  Her body remained completely still, and her eyes shifted to the photos on her desk. There was a photo of her two smiling boys in their lacrosse uniforms one day after a game they’d won, and there was a photo of her mother, sitting in her Adirondack chair in front of the cottage, facing the water. She had her reading glasses on, and you could see newspapers on the ground in front of her. She was smiling up at Eva. The photo was her favorite because it was impromptu and casual.

  The photo of her mother triggered a memory for Eva. Her father, coming in late usual, drunk as always. Her mother tried so hard for so long to pretend everything was ok: put a happy face on, and some makeup, and pretend the bad part is not happening. Just a normal family, nothing to see here, move along. Like any codependent person, Joan Bradley had been in complete denial of her husband’s drinking problem. She preferred to live in a world of illusion; smoke and mirrors, because who wanted to see the reality as it truly was? Certainly not her.

  Eva pictured her mother at the kitchen stove, cooking a roasted chicken dinner, actually wearing an apron and asking how was your day, Eva? even as they could hear her drunken husband stumbling his way through the house, angrily asking if dinner was ready. The stench of stale beer filled her mind and her office. Eva hated beer to this day. She had never seen her father drink a glass of wine or champagne, so somehow, she thought her own drinks of choice meant she was different enough from him. She shook her head and the tears came.