“It doesn’t,” Mitzi said, a little too defensively to sound completely honest. “I’m just saying if my mother knows best, we wouldn’t be reading this guy’s book at all.”
“We voted,” Jean reminded her, knowing Mitzi’s democratic convictions would outweigh her concerns about Thackeray. “You voted affirmative, from what I understand.”
“Of course I did,” Mitzi said, popping a raw carrot into her mouth and moving toward the dining room with a mischievous grin. “I never did anything my mother told me to. Why would I start now?”
“Starting with marrying Blake,” Dorothy added, picking up a carrot of her own and following her friend, her Keds looking very white against Jean’s hardwood floor.
“Oh, yes, Mother did have a thing against Blake,” Mitzi said, pouring herself a glass of wine. She took a sip as Jean opened a second bottle and passed it down the table. “She thought he was—how did she put it?—horny as a dog with a brand-new humpin’ pillow. And worse, a Catholic.”
The ladies burst out laughing. “Speaking of,” Loretta said, pulling Dorothy’s book toward her and opening it to the About the Author page, then turning the book out for everyone to see. A photo of Thackeray, sitting in an antique maroon chair, a cigar dangling between the fingers of one hand, his hair brushed straight back in a way that looked wet and overly coiffed, took up half the flap. “Am I the only one who thinks he’s sexy?”
“Ew,” May said, sauntering in with a glass of ice water. “Yes, you are the only one.”
Mitzi picked up the wine bottle and waggled it at May. “What’s with the water?”
May looked down at her glass, a hint of disappointment on her face. “Too many calories for a Tuesday. I’m on a diet.”
“Lady, you are always on a diet,” Loretta said. “And you know what? Gravity takes it all in the end anyway. If I were thirty again, I would strike the word diet from my vocabulary. I’d let it all loose like a house made of Jell-O.”
“Whatever,” May said. “You’re fabulous. And I’ve seen pictures of you and Chuck. You were a rail.”
“I think you’re beautiful just the way you are, May,” Jean said from the kitchen.
May glanced in that direction, blanched, embarrassed, and then gathered herself. She pointed at the photo of Thackeray. “He looks like a sharpei. You can’t even see his eyeballs.”
“Pshaw,” Loretta said. “What do you know? You dated that guy with the out-of-control mole situation.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” Mitzi said, turning to May. She patted a space at the table, inviting May to sit. “How’d your date go last night?”
May blushed, as she always did when the ladies asked about her love life. Never married and with no kids, she was something of a curiosity for the group. Loretta once claimed that her culinary talents were wasted on having no man to share them with, but Mitzi accused Loretta of being sexist, and a loud debate on the merits of feminism had ensued. Jean had sat back and listened, sipping her wine and thinking that Wayne would have loved to have been a part of it, especially when it ended with everyone eating May’s cheesecake bites and drinking the pear wine Mitzi had brought and agreeing that one thing was right—nobody could cook like their curly-haired singleton. Later that same day, after everyone else had left, May had stuck around to help with dishes.
“I have a confession,” she had said, twisting a sudsy washcloth around the rim of a wineglass. “All those guys I’ve been talking about?”
Jean, who was busy covering leftovers, glanced at her. Even at the end of the day, May’s hair was beautiful, effortlessly curly. “Yeah?”
May pressed her lips together, ducked her chin down a bit into the neck of her turtleneck. For someone so young and pretty, May always dressed so buttoned-up and conservative. Or, as Loretta put it, A sexy librarian horn beast is lurking under there somewhere, but it’s trapped by all those buttons and snaps and embroidered appliqués. “Made up. All of them. Fiction. Even the guy with the moles.”
Jean glanced at her again, then a third time. “What?”
“I just . . .” May dipped the glass in the water, held it up to the light. “I gave up. On men. And dating. I never liked it. I don’t want to get married. I don’t want kids. I like being by myself. But nobody ever understands that. They think that if you’re alone, you must be lonely, and I’m not lonely. I mean, look at today, right?” She rinsed the glass and set it, upside down, in the dish rack. “If I were married with kids, I’d probably be way too busy to join a book club. I wouldn’t even know you guys.”
“But you’re only with us once a month. That’s hardly the same,” Jean said.
“But it’s all I need,” May said.
She picked up another glass and dunked it in the sink. “I don’t know. It’s just . . . It’s such a scary world. I’m afraid to bring more people into it. Half the time these guys . . . They ick me out. They’re either gross or they’re overgrown babies. They’re divorced because they cheated or they have no job and . . . God, to think about bringing a daughter into this world to face all that . . . I just . . . can’t.”
“I can see that,” Jean said. More than May even knew, probably.
May let the glass float, and made a face at Jean over her shoulder. “I make up fake disastrous dates so I can stay home with my cat and eat takeout in my pajamas. That’s not normal, is it?”
Jean and May gazed at each other for a moment; then both burst out laughing. “No, I suppose it’s not,” Jean said. “But whatever works for you is what is normal, right?”
“Right,” May said, going back to the dishes. “And I don’t make them up for me. It’s just that . . . the ladies, they all want to know how it’s going. It’s like they need proof that I’m at least trying to find myself a husband. So I just give them what they want, you know? And I make them all crazy bad dates so I won’t look weird for not wanting to go on another one. I figure they’re little white lies, so what does it matter? This way I don’t get judged. There’s probably something wrong with me. Do you think?” She went back to washing her glass.
“Of course not,” Jean had replied. “Nobody’s required to do it a certain way. If you’re happy, you’re happy. It’s possible to be happy alone. Look at me.” She’d meant to finish the sentence with something hopeful like, Look at me! I’m alone and I’m happy! but she couldn’t make herself say the words. She was alone. But, unlike May, she cared. She still longed for him every day, like a silly fairy-tale princess. And not for a man. She longed for one specific man: Wayne.
“Mitzi would think there’s something wrong with me,” May had said.
“Mitzi thinks there’s something wrong with everyone,” Jean had answered, and they’d laughed.
She’d never told anyone about her conversation with May that day, not even Loretta, with whom Jean shared everything. Had Wayne been alive, she might have told him, but otherwise, she’d seen May’s doubts and fears as their secret, and she’d stopped jumping on the when-are-you-getting-married bandwagon whenever the others brought it up. Which they always did. And today was no different.
“Yeah, tell us about the date,” Dorothy urged. “Was it love at first sight?” Jean waited for the lie.
May shrugged, stroking the Thackeray cover. “He was bald. Well, not bald-bald, but balding, so he’s still in denial about it.”
“Uh-oh, comb-over city,” Mitzi said in a low voice.
“Exactly. And he wore a lot of brown.”
“What’s wrong with brown? I like brown,” Jean said. Of course, she was wearing a brown plaid flannel shirt with a brown turtleneck underneath it, which May took one look at and cracked up.
“What? Brown is fine,” Jean insisted.
“But brown and balding on a first date is not,” Mitzi finished. She lifted her wineglass and clinked it against May’s water glass. “I’m with you on that one, sister. Kick him to the cur
b before he brings out the white socks and black shoes.”
“Can we get back to the dog humping a pillow?” Loretta said, turning the book around again and tapping it on the table. “I do not see sharpei.”
“I think he’s kind of handsome,” Janet said, and everyone turned at once, suddenly reminded that she was in the room with them. This happened often. Janet would finally get the courage to squeak out something, and everyone would stop what they were doing and stare at her. It couldn’t have made her shyness any better. She sipped on her water and swallowed much harder than she needed to. Redness crept up her neck.
“Well, finally!” Loretta said, a little too late to be seamless. She set the book down and gestured toward Janet. “Someone who knows sexy. The rest of you have no taste.”
“Oh! Speaking of no taste,” Dorothy said, gulping down the last of her wine. “I heard the ex’s skank got a job at Lookie Lou’s.”
“Before we get off task,” Jean began, but it was already too late. You didn’t bring up an establishment like Lookie Lou’s and not get a reaction. Not in this group, anyway.
“No way!” May gasped. “The stripper place?”
Dorothy nodded. “That was my reaction too. Who wants to see that old broad take her clothes off?”
“You mean other than Elan,” Loretta pointed out.
“Well, Elan’s standards plummeted the moment he turned fifty and bought that dumb motorcycle of his,” Dorothy said.
Loretta rolled her eyes. “That thing’s not a motorcycle. It’s a glorified bicycle. All it needs is tassels on the handlebars.”
“I’m pretty sure the tassels are on his girlfriend, if you know what I mean,” Mitzi said.
“How’d you find out?” May asked.
Dorothy made a face. “You’d rather not know.”
Which, of course, made everyone want to know.
“Justin saw her there,” Mitzi finally volunteered. “Can you imagine? Busting into a strip club with your fake ID, all ready to get your excitement, and there’s your dad’s girlfriend? Hi, Stepmom! When’s dinner?” She cackled and upended her drink.
“For real?”
Dorothy nodded miserably, then turned to Jean. “We gonna eat soon? This conversation is going to turn my stomach.”
“Of course,” Jean said, jumping up from her chair and herding everyone back into the kitchen. “Before everything gets cold.” Not that Jean cared too much about cold these days. Lately she’d taken to eating cold soup out of the can while standing over the kitchen sink. What was the point of dirtying a bunch of dishes for one person? Although, on the inside, she supposed she knew that was hardly healthy behavior.
Truth was, she wasn’t really in the mood for food right now, either. She’d been too into everyone’s stories. The dating, the ex-husband, the mother, even Loretta’s creepy adoration of R. Sebastian Thackeray. Keeping tabs on her friends’ lives helped her feel connected. And helped keep her mind off Laura.
“So, Jean, how is Laura, really?” Mitzi finally asked as they all sat down around their plates.
“I haven’t talked to her since the hospital,” Jean said. “And Curt hasn’t called me in two weeks. I’m assuming everything is status quo.”
“Is she still in there?”
Jean shrugged. “Who knows? They don’t exactly keep me in the loop. And I hate to bother them. Curt seems . . . frazzled, I guess.”
“Who’d blame him?” May said. “Sounds like his life is a shambles right now. I think I’d be frazzled.”
“Both of their lives,” Jean said. “My granddaughter, Bailey, is apparently acting out too. Being a real problem, from the sound of it.”
“Aw,” Mitzi said, and clucked her tongue. “Poor thing. Probably doesn’t know what hit her.”
Jean shrugged, remembering the sadness she saw in her granddaughter’s eyes that day she’d spotted her up in the loft. There was something about those eyes that begged for help, yet at the same time seemed to also threaten. In the end, Jean couldn’t bring herself to tell Curt he’d seen her up there. She felt as if it wasn’t her battle, and Bailey wanted it that way. She couldn’t pretend to know what was going through Bailey’s mind, or what the girl was thinking and feeling. Surely she felt lost and alone. Surely she missed her mother. But Jean couldn’t shake the nagging feeling of guilt for not reaching out to her when she could have. She wasn’t sure she’d done the right thing. “I’ll call them again tonight, see if I can find out what’s going on,” she said.
“It’s all you can do,” Loretta agreed.
“Maybe you haven’t heard anything because it went so well she’s already out and back at home,” May added.
“Hopefully so,” Jean said, but deep down inside she knew it meant anything but that.
After lunch, they convened in the living room, where everyone sprawled back against the thick cushions, complaining about how full they were, followed by how amazing Mitzi’s egg rolls had been, and flavorful Dorothy’s sliders, and as always they joke-guessed about who was going to get May’s “extra protein” in their cheesecake bite.
“I’m wearing a bandanna when I cook now, you guys. I told you,” May said, but everyone continued to giggle anyway.
And then, since Jean’s emergency trip to St. Louis had derailed their last meeting and they had no book to critique, they all agreed on reading the first few chapters of Blame aloud, Mitzi starting, followed by Dorothy, and rounded up by Loretta, who made everyone laugh with her sultry, deep Thackeray voice.
“Gross, you sound like Count Chocula trying to get it on with Franken Berry,” Mitzi said, which elicited more giggles, especially after Loretta retaliated by smacking Mitzi’s arm playfully with her book.
Too quickly, the meeting was over. The dishes were washed and put away, and Jean was too full to eat dinner, too tired to watch TV, too wired to read.
She ended up taking an early shower to wind down, and then wrapping herself in her fluffiest terry-cloth robe and bunny slippers. She turned on the television and held the Thackeray book in her lap while watching the evening news, her wet head still wrapped in a towel.
“Well, Wayne, we’ve got a doozy this month,” she said aloud, and held up the book as if to show it to someone in the room. She opened it and began reading. “Johnna Bland’s life was a travesty. She’d been hooking since she was thirteen, stuffing her grand, vellicating thighs into clothes three times too small, counting on her meth addiction to keep her thin, to keep her pretty, too blind to realize how not thin and not pretty she already was. Not even to her daughter, Blanche, whose grandest hope was to hook half as well as her mother someday, to gather up a little cash and have a little fun before unceremoniously killing herself on a subway track.” She frowned at the page. “Dear God,” she said, then looked upward toward the ceiling again. “We’re in for a long one, I’m afraid,” she said. She let out a long sigh. “I sure wish you were here to read it with me.”
The day Wayne died wasn’t the day Jean felt her life spin out of control. That actually happened on the day he was diagnosed.
She would never forget the silent car ride home from the hospital. She’d driven to the appointment, because Wayne hadn’t been feeling well and wanted to push his seat back and recline, maybe grab a quick nap while she traversed cross-town traffic. But on the way home from the hospital, he’d snapped his seat back into its upright position and had simply stared out the window, the only sounds being the rushing of the heater and the muted noises of the cars around them—a thumping bass here, a honk there. He was thinking. Jean knew the set of her husband’s jaw when he was ruminating. But she didn’t ask him what he was thinking about. She already knew.
She couldn’t remember blinking once on the way home.
They’d sat that way all night—side by side at the dinner table, on the couch watching a movie, in bed reading paperbacks. All in total silence,
as if neither of them knew what to say to the other. It’ll be all right would be a lie. I’m scared would be too honest for either of them to handle. Maybe it’s a mistake would be so optimistic as to be idiotic. It wasn’t a mistake, and it wouldn’t be all right ever again, and they were both frightened as hell, and to admit any of those things aloud would be to say a truth that neither was ready, or prepared, to face.
“We need to tell the kids,” Jean finally said after Wayne had flipped the switch on the bedside lamp and they’d both lain in the dark, silent, side by side, eyes wide-open and staring at the ceiling.
“I know,” he’d responded. “Can we wait?”
“The doctor said it could be just months.” Jean almost choked on the word months, her voice wavering at the end of it. “We want to give them time. To say . . .” Good-bye. Give them time to say good-bye. But her throat wouldn’t let the word out.
“But I don’t want it to be just months, Jeanie,” Wayne had said, and he’d sounded almost like a little boy rather than the fearless man she’d known and loved for decades. She’d reached out under the covers and touched his hand.
“I know,” she said. “Neither do I.” And she’d swallowed and swallowed because she didn’t want to cry in front of him. She didn’t want his fears confirmed, that he would leave her broken and alone. She’d wanted him to feel she could take his death. That she could handle it and be okay. She wanted to gift him that peace.
They’d called both kids the next evening on the speakerphone. Wayne had told them himself, breaking down halfway through the sentence each time. Kenneth had cried like a baby, had blubbered on about how his dad was a fighter and he could beat this. Laura had sounded distant, distracted, as if not really taking in the news.
“Whoa, that’s rough,” she’d said. “How long?”
Wayne had squeezed his eyes shut. “They’re saying not very, I’m afraid. I’d like to see Bailey soon.”
“Sure, yeah,” she’d said, but in a very yes, dear sort of way. “Wow. Cancer. You’re what, sixty-seven?”
The Accidental Book Club Page 6
