Bailey rolled her eyes. “Oh, God, is it another old-biddies-with-books meeting?”
Loretta set her bucket on the counter, snapped her fingers. “We should call ourselves that. OBWB. We could get T-shirts—what do you think, Jean? Has a nice ring to it.”
“I’m not an old biddy,” Jean responded, pulling plates out of the cabinet. What she really wanted to say was, Don’t encourage her, Loretta. She’s like a rabid dog—don’t make eye contact, and hope she just sniffs around you and goes away.
“Well, if I’m one, you’re one. That’s all I know,” Loretta said.
“Take it from me—you’re all one,” Bailey added. “And I looked at that book you guys read for this meeting. Nauseating. You must be a bunch of perverts if you like that.”
“Perverts with aphrodisiacs,” Loretta corrected. “Did you know that oysters are an aphrodisiac because they’re reminiscent of a vagina?”
Bailey made a gagging noise. “Speak for yourself. I’m out.”
She left, making dramatic retching noises all the way down the stairs to the living room, where she promptly turned on the TV.
“I know how to clear a room, huh?” Loretta said, smiling and sidling up to Jean.
“You did a nice job,” Jean answered. “And I think Indian food is very sexy. It’s spicy and saucy, just like Flavian Munney’s boxers.”
Loretta laughed, slapped her hand on the counter. “Oh! I almost forgot.” She went over and picked up a tote bag she’d left by the door. She set the bag on the counter and proceeded to pull three bottles of wine out of it. “Chocolate wine.”
Jean picked up one of the bottles. “Yum!”
“Did I hear someone say chocolate and wine in the same sentence?” a voice came from the entryway, and before Jean knew it, the whole club had arrived, each member carrying her own Flavian Munney book and a seductive dish. Chocolate soup, strawberries with whipped cream, silky cheeses with brioche and caviar. Jean’s tikka masala was delicious, but it stayed on the stove, a wooden spoon propped against the side of the pan, barely touched. Jean tried not to tell herself that this was because the sauce was prepackaged.
“Should we talk about the literary merits of Flavian of the Month?” Jean said around a bite of May’s oyster salad, which was sweet and briny and divine.
“It ended. That was the only merit I saw,” Mitzi said.
“Don’t let her fool you,” Dorothy said, licking her fingers. “I caught her more than once reading it at her desk at lunchtime.” She pointed to Mitzi. “You know you were.”
“I was trying to get it over with,” Mitzi responded, but a blush had crept high on her cheeks.
“Well, I for one thought it was a perfect read after that Thackeray crap,” Dorothy said, and there were groans around the table.
“Let’s not go there,” Mitzi said. “I don’t want to get my blood pressure up again. Talk about a book with no literary merit.”
“But to listen to everyone speak, he’s the only writer out there with any merit, literary or otherwise,” Loretta said.
“I’m not kidding; don’t get me started,” Mitzi warned again. “Continue with Flavian, please.”
“Oh, come on, I missed the discussion,” Dorothy whined. “I had lots to say too. For instance, did anyone else think the way the knight-on-a-white-horse love interest was described sounded a lot like Thackeray himself?”
“Oh, my God, I didn’t notice, but you’re right. It totally did,” May said, and doubled over, laughing. “Who does that?”
“Egomaniacs like Sebastian Thackeray, that’s who,” Mitzi said. “Nobody loves him as much as he loves him.”
“You didn’t miss anything, Dorothy,” Jean said. “We hated it. That’s about it.”
“You didn’t think it had some sort of bigger message that we probably all should hear?” Dorothy asked, then after a moment of more groans, said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’m probably just sensitive to the whole mommy thing. Been a rough few years at my house.”
“But back to the Flavian novel,” Jean said. “I thought this one was better than the last one because Flavian seemed a little more humble, and—”
“Yeah, there was a message, all right.” The voice came up over the railing that separated the dining room from the living room down below. All the women stopped eating and glanced at the rail. Was that Bailey?
“What did she say?” May whispered.
Bailey came halfway up the stairs, just far enough so the ladies could see her top half. “The Thackeray book? It had a message. The message was, ‘I’m a douche bag who deserves to have my ass kicked up between my pointy little elfin ears.’”
Loretta chuckled again, shaking her head and diving back into her chocolate soup.
“I’m sorry,” Jean mumbled to the ladies. “Bailey, please,” she hissed. “Not now.”
“No, she’s right, though,” Mitzi said. “She’s on the money.”
“Of course I’m right,” Bailey said from the stairs. “Don’t sound so surprised.” She adopted a high-pitched kindergarten teacher voice. “You know, sometimes we children types have a brain and think for ourselves. Despite what Dickface Thackeray seems to think.”
“Language, Bailey,” Jean said.
“What? Everything I’m saying is true. The guy should have his nuts—if he has any—kicked so hard, he burps pubic hair.”
At this, Loretta burst out laughing and had to cover her mouth to hold in the giggles as Jean shot a look at her.
“Bailey! We’re not talking about that book anymore,” Jean said, trying to be as delicate as possible. She was over her granddaughter’s insolent attitude. “And you’re being rude.”
“Right. I know. You’re talking about the penis party favor book. So much more worth your time. Good call.” She gave a double thumbs-up.
“Penis party favor?” May asked, but Jean shook her head curtly and May pressed her lips together.
“But hear me out. I’ve been thinking about this, and you know what I think you should do? I think you should get Mr. R. Sebastian Thackeray to come to your next meeting,” Bailey said.
“Oooh, good idea,” Mitzi said. “I wouldn’t mind having a little one-on-one with that guy.”
“I’d prefer my one-on-one to be with Flavian, personally,” Loretta cracked.
“Go to the paint store,” May said, and everyone except Jean laughed. But it was an uncomfortable laugh. Nobody, including Jean, seemed to really know how to handle Bailey’s intrusion on the meeting.
“I’m serious. I’ve heard of authors visiting book clubs before. They’re attention whores—they’ll go anywhere if they think somebody’s gonna stroke their egos a little.”
“Bailey!” Jean said, feeling anger bubble up. “That’s enough of this topic. You’re rudely interrupting our meeting. I’ve had enough of your bad manners.”
Bailey’s fists were clenched and on her hips. “God, it was just an idea. You guys were all pissed off, and I thought it might be fun to get a chance to tell him that to his face. You can keep pretending this club is about books. But we all know what it’s really about—stuffing your faces and getting tipsy on a Tuesday afternoon. How does that make you any different from that zombie upstairs, huh?”
“Okay,” Jean said, moving toward her granddaughter. “You’re done now. You need to leave. Go . . . Go back up to your room until the meeting is over.” Jean felt electricity run through her. It took restraint for her to hold her voice down, to keep it from breaking.
Bailey let out a husky laugh. “You’re sending me to my room? Like you’re my mom or something? I don’t have a mom! I haven’t had a mom pretty much my whole life! And you raised her, so what does that say about you?” Bailey was yelling now—her specialty. She pounded the rest of the way up the stairs, and turned just as she passed the dining table. “Oh, and also? Just so you
know, you should never leave two unopened bottles of wine on the kitchen counter when you live in a house with an alcoholic. You’d know that if you grew up in my house.”
Jean set down the book she was clutching to her chest. All heads turned toward the kitchen, where, sure enough, one of the wine bottles was missing.
Laura.
“You’re so blind,” Bailey whispered. She reached out with one arm and grasped the neck of the remaining bottle. Jean heard someone at the table gasp just seconds before Bailey raised the bottle over her head and slammed it to the floor. It landed with a great crash, wine splashing so hard and so far, it snaked up Jean’s legs. Shards of glass slid to a stop under the dining room table. Dorothy jumped as a piece bounced against her shoulder. Bailey shook her head disgustedly, then stormed out, only this time instead of stomping up to her bedroom, she left through the front door, leaving the house so quiet, they could hear Laura’s TV upstairs.
Nobody seemed to know what to say. Mitzi and Dorothy traded worried glances. Loretta let her fork clatter to her plate, and leaned back, wiping her mouth with her napkin. May cleared her throat twice. Janet stared intently into her plate. Jean stood with her back to the dining table, afraid to turn and face them.
Embarrassed. Angry. On the verge of tears.
So alone. So, so alone, even in the midst of all her friends.
Maybe Kenneth was right—maybe they weren’t enough—because all she wanted was them to leave. All she wanted was to crawl upstairs and open the top drawer and cry. All she wanted was to shake her daughter, to slap her granddaughter, to knock some sense into both of them. To take back time, to try it all over again. If she started her life anew, would Wayne have still gotten sick, left her? Would she have known enough to warn him, to talk him into getting tested sooner, catching the cancer earlier?
She didn’t know. She couldn’t know, because she’d been dealt this life, and it was the only one she was going to get, whether it was fair or not.
“We should go,” May finally said, and Jean tried, with great effort, to put on her best hostess smile, as if a puddle of dark wine weren’t staining her hardwood at that very moment. Loretta tossed a handful of napkins on the mess and started to crouch down, but Jean told her to leave it.
“It’s okay,” Jean said. “I’ll handle it.”
She expected Loretta to say something witty, something about handling Flavian Munney or who knew what else, but instead, she just pressed her lips together and grabbed her oyster bucket, patting Jean’s back twice on her way out. Jean knew it was bad when even Loretta Murphy didn’t know what to say.
“We’ll do an e-mail vote on the next book,” Jean said, trying to keep some semblance of protocol as she followed the ladies toward the door. This was the second time in as many months that they’d been unable to choose a book because their meeting had been destroyed by Jean’s family problems, and she hated it.
“Maybe we should skip a month, give you some time to get things . . . worked out,” May said, and sweet May smiled at Jean in a way that made Jean feel pitied, which only deepened Jean’s guilt and humiliation.
Everyone seemed to get out of the house in record time, and it wasn’t until Jean shut the door and turned back to the kitchen and dining room that she could see that all the plates were still on the table. It seemed like they left quickly because they had.
She grabbed a black towel out of the guest bathroom, carried it over to the puddle, and threw it on top. She crouched next to it and watched as the towel sank into the liquid. It smelled terrible, so concentrated, so bitter.
She sank backward onto her bottom, her back leaning against the island, and closed her eyes. The ladies were probably gathering in Loretta’s house right now, speculating, feeling sorry for her, talking about what she should do, talking about her family. She loved the ladies, but having them witness this dark moment of hers felt so personal, and she didn’t like it.
She didn’t like any of it, actually. Her carefully constructed life, the control that she’d taken after Wayne’s death . . . It was all falling apart on her. She was crying every day again; she was yelling at her granddaughter in front of the book club. She felt on the verge of something, as if she never got it right and as if she never would.
She opened her eyes and reached forward to wipe up the rest of the wine with the now-soaked towel. The damage to the floor was worse than she thought it might be. The wine had left a light purple stain, gray against the brown floor, and in the middle of it was a deep chunk taken out of the wood, presumably where the bottle hit. Jean picked splinters out of the gouge, and it was then that the tears started.
She pulled herself up and got the dustpan and trash can from the mudroom, then brought them back to the damage, hiccupping and emitting loud, wet snorts the entire time. She picked up big hunks of glass and tossed them into the can, mumbling to herself, mostly angry, self-pitying words like unfair and give up.
And then she heard the front door open and close again softly. At first she thought it must be Loretta, back to check up on her, but she was crying too hard to call out.
But a pair of black flip-flops and blue, shimmery toenails, the polish chipped, came into view. Bailey. Without a word, Bailey crouched down next to Jean. She picked up a large chunk of glass and tossed it into the garbage pail, then picked up and threw away another and another.
She never spoke. She never apologized or cried or raged or did any of the things Jean would expect her to do. Slowly, Jean’s tears stopped, and she went back to work picking up the glass, sweeping smaller pieces into the dustpan with the edge of the towel, working side by side with her granddaughter.
At one point, she glanced up at Bailey, whose eyes flicked up and shone from behind her hair. But they only stared at each other for that one short beat, something passing between them, some unspoken sentence, some truth that neither of them could put into words but that both of them understood, and then they went back to their cleaning.
Once they had finished their work and the glass shards had been all thrown away, the towel had been wadded up and readied to toss in the wash, and all that remained was the gray stain and the hole in the floor, Bailey stood and walked steadily to her room.
She did not slam the door.
SIXTEEN
Dear Mr. Thackeray:
My name is Bailey Butler. I’m sixteen, and recently my grandma’s book club read your book Blame. We had so many things to discuss about it, and we still ended up with lots of unanswered questions. We would like to speak with you about it, so you can help us understand the true meaning behind your work. I know you do the hermit thing, but would you please be willing to consider stopping by our book club sometime? We have great food.
Sincerely,
Bailey Butler
Dear Fan:
Thank you for reading my book. Due to time constraints, I am unable to answer reader correspondence individually. Please feel free to visit my publisher’s Web site for more information about where to find my books.
Sincerely,
R. Sebastian Thackeray III, Author
Dear Mr. Thackeray:
I know you can’t answer every single e-mail, but this one is different, I promise.
You see, my grandmother is dying, and you’re her favorite author of all time. She has all your books, and she rereads them all, over and over again, during her dialysis treatments.
She wants the chance to tell you in person how much she admires your work before she goes. Think of this as one of those wish thingies they do for dying kids.
Sincerely,
Bailey A. Butler I
Dear Fan:
Thank you for reading my book. Due to time constraints, I am unable to answer reader correspondence individually. Please feel free to visit my publisher’s Web site for more information about where to find my books.
Sincerely,
R. Sebastian Th
ackeray III, Author
Dear Mr. Thackeray:
I’m not giving up. My grandmother is now losing her eyesight. She may not be able to see very much longer and won’t be able to read your books, so telling me where to find more of them is pointless.
Please come before it’s too late. Do it for me, a mere child who’s going to miss her grandmammy something fierce.
Sincerely,
Bailey Butler
Dear Fan:
Thank you for inquiring about my books. Please check my publisher’s Web site for a listing of Braille versions of my work.
Sincerely,
R. Sebastian Thackeray III, Author
Dear Thack:
Is it okay if I call you Thack? I think we’ve e-mailed back and forth enough times now for me to call you Thack. Or to call you R. What does R stand for, anyway? Robert? Randolph? Rufus? You look like a Rufus.
So here’s the deal. The doctors think she may only have a few months left. This is her last chance to meet her idol. I know you’re a decent guy. And I know you say you don’t do fan mail, but I think you actually do. I think you actually do because deep down inside you care. No, I don’t think it. I know it. Because I can read it between the lines in your books.
Please let my grandmother tell you how much she loves you. Come to our meeting. You can meet my grandma’s dog, Riptide (named, of course, after your 1994 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel).
Hey. Maybe that’s what your R stands for?
Sincerely,
Bailey Butler
Dear Fan:
Thank you for reading Riptide. For more information on author appearances, please consult my publisher’s Web site.
Sincerely,
R. Sebastian Thackeray III, Author
Howdy, Thack!
Boy, I do feel we’re having a major connection right now, don’t you? I mean, the way you keep pointing me to your publisher’s web site? So intimate! I feel so very taken care of!
The Accidental Book Club Page 16
