The Accidental Book Club

by Jennifer Scott

  Jean ran her fingers over Bailey’s newly casted arm, which was lying across her stomach while she slept, drifting up and down with the motion of her breath. She turned back to Curt.

  “What happened?”

  “He’s what happened,” Laura said, gesturing at Curt, and Jean thought she recognized a glassiness to her daughter’s eyes. “I go out for one night, and he lets Bailey get bombed and take off in his car.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Curt argued. “First of all, I did not let her get bombed. In case you haven’t noticed, our daughter is a willful—”

  “Is she drunk, Curt? Is she?” Laura demanded, hand on swaying hip.

  “You are,” he responded. “That much is clear. And I told you a thousand times, I’m not going to talk to you when you’ve been drinking.”

  “Please. Like you ever talked to me before. You just don’t want to admit that this is your fault.”

  “Oh, really? So where did she get the booze, then, huh? Because I sure as hell didn’t buy it. I don’t have bottles stashed in my boots in the hall closet. Oh, you thought I didn’t know about that? Because, what, I’m blind? I’m stupid?”

  “Don’t even ask me what you are. Because right now I have a list a mile long.”

  “Would you keep your voice down? People are trying to sleep in here. I know that doesn’t fit with your Center of the Universe complex . . .”

  Laura scoffed. “I’m the center of the universe now? Me? I don’t think so. You couldn’t handle your own kid for even a few weeks, so you shipped her off. First you leave. Then you force me out. Then you send her away. Are we that much of an inconvenience to your life? And now look at her.” She waved her hand in Bailey’s direction, narrowly missing hitting Jean in the chest.

  “It was your idea to send her to your mom’s,” Curt cried.

  “Because you were calling me every day, whining about how you couldn’t handle it.”

  “How many times do I have to say it? You had things in such a bad mess, financially, I couldn’t keep missing work. And she set fire to my apartment!” Curt hissed.

  “She put a cigarette out on your pillow, Drama Queen. She didn’t—”

  “Enough!” Jean barked, loudly enough that Bailey’s eyelids fluttered open and both Curt and Laura stopped midsentence and turned toward her. Jean lowered her voice. “I’ve had enough,” she said. “You two are . . . ridiculous, and . . . and toxic. Have either of you stopped looking at each other long enough to look at your daughter for five minutes?” She held her hand out toward Bailey, as if presenting her to an audience. “Look at her! This fighting is why she does the things she does. She’s trying to get noticed, and it’s not working, so she just tries harder and harder, and . . . she is in trouble, and neither of you give enough of a . . . a shit . . . to even notice. How can you not see it? You’re so busy blaming each other and blaming her, you never even consider what you can do to make things different. You never even try to listen to her or make things better. She is hurting and neither of you care. You should both be ashamed of yourselves.” She swallowed, feeling her face burning over, of all things, her use of profanity in a public place. “Right now I’m ashamed of you.”

  Curt at least had the decency to look duly chastised, to appear embarrassed by his behavior. But Laura cocked her head to one side and placed her hand back on her hip. “No offense, Mom, but this is none of your business.”

  “The hell it’s not,” Jean said. “I got a call in the middle of the night saying that Bailey was asking for me. Did she ask for either of you? I’ve tried to mind my own business when it comes to your life, but now I’m making this my business, because that child needs to be somebody’s business, and you’re clearly not making her yours.”

  Laura’s face scrunched up, making her look ugly and somewhat monstrous in the dim light. “How dare you? Go ahead and join the Judging Laura party, Mom. Curt will be glad to have you. But the fact is, nobody is complaining when Laura Butler is bringing home the paychecks and taking care of the fund-raisers and baking countless cookies for PTA bake sales.”

  “That’s not true,” Jean said, and again she swept her hand toward Bailey. “She complained. And she is still complaining. That’s what this is. That’s what she’s doing right now. Every time she breaks something or does something crazy, she’s complaining, and if someone doesn’t start to pay attention, she is going to kill herself trying to make her complaints heard.”

  Laura shook her head, her eyes pointed up toward the ceiling. Jean could smell alcohol in the air, but she wasn’t sure whether it was coming from Laura or Bailey. “Go ahead,” she said. “Blame me. Fine.”

  “How can you not see it?” Curt said, but then seemed to rethink speaking. Instead, he just loped over to the chair next to Bailey’s bed and slumped down in it, shaking his head.

  Laura looked from him to Jean and back again. “So what do you expect me to do?” she asked. “Make myself disappear? Is that what you want?”

  “No, of course not,” Jean said. She reached for Laura, but Laura ducked away from her touch. “But you need help for your drinking.”

  Laura lifted her palms up and tipped her head back. “What? Rehab again? Are you serious? I thought we’d been through this before.”

  “It didn’t work,” Curt mumbled from his chair.

  “Shut up!” Laura shouted, and immediately Jean heard the squeak of shoes coming down the hall toward their room.

  “Laura, you’ve got to keep your voice down,” Jean said. “They’ll make you leave. You’ll wake Bailey.”

  Laura threw her hands in the air. “Yet another thing I’ll have done wrong! The list just keeps growing and growing. Hey, maybe next I’ll cause a flood or a hurricane or . . . the goddamn Apocalypse! Right? Because, oh, Laura’s a drunk, Laura needs rehab. I’m so sick of hearing it!”

  “But it’s true,” Jean said, though she heard her voice getting smaller and smaller.

  “Excuse me, ma’am?” a nurse said from the doorway. Jean did not recognize her from before. “Is there a problem?”

  Jean shook her head, but Laura barreled over her. “Nothing anyone here can fix,” she said, aiming a steely gaze at Jean and then over at Curt, who was still looking down at his shoes.

  The nurse shifted her weight. “Well, we need you to keep your voices down so our patients can rest.”

  Laura’s clenched jaw pulsated a couple of times. She looked much more in control of herself than she had when Jean arrived, and Jean found herself wondering just how much she’d had to drink. Maybe not much after all? Maybe Jean had unfairly accused her?

  “I’ll do you one better,” Laura finally said. She leaned over and grabbed her purse out of the chair by the door, and pushed past the nurse, disappearing down the hallway, her heels clacking on the floor.

  Everyone stood still, even the nurse, until the heels stopped reporting and there was the sound of the elevator opening on their floor. The nurse slowly faded away from the doorway, and Jean and Curt sat quietly in Bailey’s room, listening to the faint hisses and beeps and the occasional murmur of the machines stationed all over the unit.

  “You think she’ll come back?” Jean eventually asked, breaking the silence.

  Curt shrugged. “No idea what she’ll do anymore.” He was quiet again, then, “We’re getting divorced.”

  Jean nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at her. “I figured you would. It’ll probably be for the best.”

  “I tried,” he said, and Jean could have sworn she detected a catch in his voice, and it occurred to her that he really had tried. Living with Laura had never been easy for anyone; they’d all just pretended it had been because she gave them no choice. When a person looks to all the world like she has it together, who wants to be the lone naysayer out there? Laura gave such a strong impression of perfection, even those she was most imperfect with bought the act. “I f
ailed,” he said. “I tried, but I failed.”

  Jean thought about Wayne. About all the times they had failed each other. The trip to Yellowstone. The arguments about the children. The rough patch after Kenneth moved out. They had tried, and they had sometimes failed, and by the end, none of it mattered anyway. In the end, someone always ended up alone.

  “You tried,” Jean said. “Nobody would blame you.”

  “Bailey blames me.”

  “Bailey blames everybody,” Jean said. “She’s hurt. Someone needs to acknowledge that. She’s a smart kid.” She shifted in her seat. “You know what you should do for her?”

  Curt looked up, one eyebrow cocked higher than the other.

  “You should find her a book club,” Jean said. “She loves books. She reads all the time.” She thought about Dorothy sitting down in the main lobby, probably flipping through magazines or maybe dozing with her head propped on one chair. “You’d be surprised how much good book clubs can do.”

  “Bailey? A book club?” Curt asked skeptically. “I can’t even get her to go to school. I don’t even know if she can read.”

  “Of course she can read,” Jean said. Then she added under her breath, “Sometimes more than I wanted her to.”

  “Well, you’ll forgive me if I’m not really into finding an enrichment activity for her at the moment,” Curt said. He pulled himself to standing. “And since Laura has decided to take off, I guess that means I’m on the night shift. I should get some coffee. You want any?”

  Jean shook her head. “I’m just going to sit for a while.”

  Curt headed out, and Jean leaned forward, studying her granddaughter in her sleep. She looked so peaceful, and without all the anger, her face appeared so much younger. Pretty, even, if it weren’t for the cuts and bruises.

  As if she knew she was being watched, Bailey opened her eyes.

  “Hey,” Jean said, leaning forward and reaching to put her hand on Bailey’s good arm but feeling self-conscious and taking it back at the last second, resting it in her lap. “How are you feeling?”

  Bailey tried to scooch up to a better position, but winced and eased against the pillow again. “Like I’ve been thrown into a windshield.” She touched her cheekbone gingerly.

  “You look a little like you’ve been thrown into a windshield too,” Jean said. “You had me scared to death.”

  “At least someone was,” Bailey said, glumly. She lowered her hand and pushed her head back into the pillow again.

  “Oh, honey,” Jean said. “They were scared. They’re your parents.”

  Bailey chuckled, then winced again, touching the ribs on her left side just as gingerly as she’d felt her face a moment before. “Yeah, you can stop lying now. You heard them. The only thing they care about is themselves.”

  Jean couldn’t argue that, could she? After what she’d witnessed coming into this room, how could she for an instant say Bailey was wrong about that?

  “I heard what you said,” Bailey said. She fiddled with the wire to the remote. “All the things you said about me? About me being smart? That stuff?”

  “Oh.” Jean quickly wracked her brain for memory of what else she’d said. And, worse, for what Curt and Laura might have said. What exactly had Bailey heard?

  “Thank you for that,” Bailey finished, and Jean could have sworn she saw tears gathering in the corners of Bailey’s eyes. “’Cause I was a pain in the butt at your house, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to stick up for me.”

  Jean leaned forward, and this time she did put her hand on Bailey’s arm, a gesture that felt strange and warm and right all at the same time. “Everything I said was true. I don’t know how long you’ve been going through all this . . . stuff . . . but just from what I’ve seen, I know it hasn’t been easy. You’re very strong.”

  Bailey’s chin crumpled, just like a small child’s, and the tears spilled over. “I’ve been acting so stupid,” she said, her voice cracking. “I could’ve died tonight. I’m lucky I didn’t.” She turned her eyes up to Jean’s, and Jean thought she could see a lifetime of heartache in them. “I don’t want to die,” Bailey said. “I don’t want them to do that to me.”

  Jean squeezed Bailey’s arm. “Then don’t let them,” she said, and then she was reminded of something her therapist had said to her one time before Wayne died, when he started really going downhill. “You can’t control what’s going on with someone else. The only person you can control is yourself,” she said, reciting his sentence word for word.

  “I thought I was,” Bailey said. “I thought I was doing everything I wanted to do, and they couldn’t stop me because their lives were so messed up. But it turns out I was only doing what they didn’t want me to do. They were still calling the shots, even if I didn’t know it. I’m so stupid.”

  “You’re not stupid,” Jean said.

  “My haircut is stupid,” Bailey said.

  Jean paused, then nodded. “Okay, the haircut is kind of stupid,” she admitted, and they both laughed.

  “I want to come live with you,” Bailey said after a beat. “Like, permanently. I don’t want to go back with them. Either one.”

  But before Jean could answer, Curt came into the room, carrying a cup of coffee. He paused when he saw the two of them talking.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, his body silhouetted in the doorway.

  Jean and Bailey gazed at each other for several moments.

  “Everything’s fine,” Jean said, finally. “Actually, everything’s looking better than it has in a long time.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Dear Mr. Thackeray:

  My name is Jean Vison, and my book club recently read your book Blame. Several members of our club have expressed an interest in trying to speak with you directly as part of our book discussion. We have already spent an entire meeting discussing it, but we would be more than open to discussing it again if you were there to shed a little light on your inspiration and what exactly you were trying to say with this book.

  We know that you don’t normally make visits to book clubs, but we were wondering if you’d be willing to make an exception this one time. We have taken up a collection and could cover your airfare and a rental car.

  We will meet at my house, 1155 Mount View Road, at one p.m. on the nineteenth. Please feel free to stop by.

  I hope to hear from you soon.

  Sincerely,

  Jean Vison

  Dear Bailey,

  You are fooling nobody. I suppose this Jean Vison is the dear old granny you have been talking about in your e-mails. You should tread carefully when it comes to misrepresenting yourself and pretending to be someone who you are not online.

  At any rate, it doesn’t matter. I was planning to come anyway. Your last e-mail had me at “story.” But the money is, as they say, icing on the cake.

  I am allergic to eggs, strawberries, and am fairly lactose intolerant. Also, I don’t care for olives and prefer to eat organically whenever I can, because a green society is the only society an intelligent individual would tolerate inhabiting.

  See you on the nineteenth.

  Sincerely,

  R. Sebastian Thackeray III, Author

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It took Bailey only two days after being released from the hospital to get entirely packed and ready to go. Like, more ready than she’d ever been for anything in her whole life. Her grandmother had loaded everything into bags and boxes from the grocery store. What she couldn’t fit in her car, she’d taken to the post office and shipped, assuring Bailey that it would all arrive within just a few days.

  Bailey didn’t really care. The box full of her books had made it into the car. A new copy of Anne of Green Gables, which her grandmother had brought to the hospital, was tucked in her backpack. Everything else was just stuff.

  They’d loaded up on snacks
and drinks—way too many for such a short trip, in Bailey’s opinion—and Grandma Jean had bought her a new iPod so she could block out their boring old-lady talk from the backseat. Not that Bailey thought it was always all that boring. But she wouldn’t say that to Jean and Dorothy.

  Bailey’s arm was in a cast. Her shaved forehead was scabby and sporting the tiniest bit of fuzz in some places, and was dwarfed by a giant gauze bandage. Her eye was blackened, and she wore a pair of old pink sweats that she used to wear back in seventh grade, before things got so out of control, and a plain white T-shirt that used to belong to her dad. She looked terrible—shocking, even. But she didn’t care.

  She had only one more thing to do.

  • • •

  Getting into the rehab center had been no easy task, especially as strung out as she looked, but once she got past the nasty desk nurse who treated her like trash, she walked down the hall until she found her mom’s room. Her mom was in there, sitting on the edge of the bed and staring out the window.

  “Hello,” Bailey said.

  Laura jumped, looked like she wanted to stand up, but thought better of it and eased back down on the mattress, which let out a small plastic gasp.

  “Bailey,” she said, “look at you. How’s your arm?”

  Bailey looked down at her wrist, momentarily forgetting about it, and then back at her mother. “I’m fine. I just wanted to tell you good-bye.” Laura’s eyebrows twisted up, and she pressed her lips together. She looked flummoxed. “I’m going to live with Grandma Jean,” Bailey continued. “I didn’t know if Dad told you.”

  Laura shook her head. “He didn’t. I haven’t talked to him. You’re sure? That’s a long way from your friends.”

  “I’ll manage,” Bailey responded with a hint of bitterness. Like she had any friends. And why did her mother still not know that? Why did she insist on living under this delusion that everything was okay?