“Hey, Zarina,” said Rachel as she closed the door to the café. “How is everything?”
“Great, busy,” said Zarina. “Stan has your sandwiches ready. Is one of these for my mom? Totally her sammie.”
Rachel smiled. Zarina knew the women were close friends, but she didn’t know the relationship went beyond that.
“You called it,” said Rachel. “You know your mom loves Stan’s California Hippie with all that avocado and sprouts and whatever other rabbit food is on there.” She ordered a black unsweetened iced tea. She was trying to lose a little weight and had cut out all sugar.
Stan laughed from behind the counter. “‘The Rabbit Food’ would be a great name for that sandwich,” he said. “One of those is coming right up and of course your very non-veggie roast beef and provolone.” He smiled, handing the wrapped sandwiches across the top of the counter.
Rachel turned around and saw the baker Lisa Swain walk in the door.
“Oh, hey, Lisa,” said Rachel.
“Hi, Rachel,” said Lisa, glancing at the lunch menu on the blackboard. She looked over at the cozy couch area, where Fletch was playing on the old-school TV. Fond memories of sitting at that spot with her friends for Scarlet Letter Society meetings, she wished they were meeting her there today.
“We missed you at the Housewarming Committee meeting last week,” said Rachel.
“Oh, you know those meetings are always during the time when I’m at the shop early baking the morning cinnamon rolls,” said Lisa. She looked at Zarina.
“Good morning, Lis,” said Zarina. “Saved you a copy of this newspaper that has the ad from your shop in it. Usual coffee?”
Lisa took the folded-up paper, noticing Zarina’s quick wink. Lisa hadn’t run an ad. She tucked the paper into her purse and ordered a turkey wrap with her usual iced mochaccino.
“I promised the other ladies I’d ask you about the muffins for the baskets,” said Rachel.
“I’m happy to donate muffins for the welcome baskets anytime,” said Lisa. “If you or whoever is putting the basket together when someone moves in just lets me know the day before, I can have them ready whatever morning you need.”
“Great,” said Rachel. “I’ll let them know, and maybe we can move the meeting time to a more convenient time for you next month.”
“Oh, don’t move the time just for me,” said Lisa, widening her eyes slightly in Zarina’s direction. “My hours at the bakery are insane.”
“Sounds like tax season for me,” said Rachel. “Okay, well, thanks for offering the muffins! See you soon.” And she walked out of the shop, seemingly in a hurry. As she rushed back to her car, she tossed the two Adderalls she’d had in her pocket into her mouth. She had called her son’s doctor and reported losing his prescription, picking up a “replacement” bottle that been serving her new casual habit.
Zarina walked around the counter to talk to Lisa while Stan made her sandwich, handing her the iced drink.
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of your neighborhood busybody,” said Zarina. “But have you seen this morning’s paper?”
“I wish. I never get a chance to read the whole local paper,” said Lisa, taking the paper out of her purse. “It comes to the door in the morning at the shop and I glance over it in between batches of baking, but I don’t have time to read it cover to cover.”
Zarina took the paper and opened it to a page past the center section. “Honestly, I can’t believe they still let this old woman write a gossip column,” she said. “How many print newspapers still have those? Anyway, check this out.” She pointed to a paragraph in the “Jane’s Corner” column.
Lisa read.
It seems a local web log is reporting the goings-on about town with an impressive and detailed level of knowledge. Known as ‘The Keytown Mouse,’ the latest online edition of this blog reports that a secret group of adulteresses in town meets regularly to discuss their extracurricular activities, not to mention some type of – dare I even say it? – sex club in a local community. Reminds me of those hippie swingers in the ’70s. Could they be making a comeback? This reporter would be curious to know who this anonymous, mysterious ‘mouse’ is, though considering how much he (or she!) seems to know about people’s personal lives, I certainly wouldn’t want to be in that doghouse!
Zarina half-smiled at her, not knowing what to say.
“Who even uses the term web log any more?” Zarina offered in the way of conversation.
“Old ladies with print newspaper columns,” said Lisa. “Maggie and Eva and I had talked about the Keytown Mouse blog. And you know whose neighborhood this is, don’t you?”
“No way,” said Zarina.
Lisa gestured the newspaper toward the door where Rachel had exited.
“Rachel’s and mine,” she said.
“Holy wow,” said Zarina. “I remember that you sort of hate living in that place, but I had no idea…”
“And adulteresses,” Lisa continued. “Nice to see that word still showing up in a newspaper.” She shook her head and puffed out a blast of annoyed air.
“Unreal,” said Zarina. “Both.”
“Well, I don’t think my husband reads either the ‘web log’ or the local rag,” said Lisa, “so I guess all the dirty secrets around town are safe for now, not that I even have any.”
“How is everything with you guys?” asked Zarina.
“Same old same old, I guess,” said Lisa. “Sometimes I think marriage is just about lowering your expectations so you’re not disappointed.”
Remembering where she was, she looked over at Stan, who had put her sandwich on the counter, and added, “Present company excepted, of course. You guys are so adorable.”
Zarina smiled. “Still newlyweds, at least for now!”
Lisa thanked them and walked out with her sandwich, hearing Chevy Chase as Fletch in the background singing “Strangers in the night… exchanging clothing… strangers in my pants…”
G-chat
Lisa: You won’t believe it. Zarina gave me a newspaper article that calls out our “adulteresses” club.
Eva: There are still newspapers?
Maggie: Oh Christ it has to be that ancient twat who writes the gossip column.
Eva: People still read gossip columns in newspapers?
Lisa: People in town still read the local rag.
Maggie: Yeah they read the whole thing at the stoplight.
Eva: Does it mention us by name?
Lisa: No, it’s vague. Mentions the swinger club in my neighborhood too. I’m famous!
Maggie: 5 minutes of fame, slut.
Eva: Hamster cage liner. Fish wrap.
Lisa: I just don’t want it to get around that it’s us.
Maggie: Ah, who gives a fuck. Maybe we’ll get a reality show.
Eva: Extreme Whores. I’m in.
On the other side of Keytown, at 101 Oak Street, where no landscaping rocks adorned the yard, Jeannie Appleton set about cleaning up the morning’s breakfast. It hadn’t quite gone according to plan. She had imagined that the other women would be shocked and horrified by both the news bombs in the website posting. A secret group of women cheating on their husbands and meeting to brag about their adultery, not to mention sex rings in their neighborhoods? She shook her head as she Swiffered the crumbs from the dining room floor. Unbelievable. She picked up the landline phone and called her sister.
“Hi, Cindy. It’s me,” she began.
“Oh, hey, Jeannie. Everything okay?”
“Just because I call you on the phone doesn’t mean something’s wrong,” Jeannie said.
“I know. My phone just doesn’t ring that often so I always worry it’s something with a kid or family member.”
“You know I can’t stand texting and don’t have time for it,” said Jeannie. “I just wanted to tell you that I printed out that piece of, ugh, writing you sent me and showed it to two of the women here in the neighborhood today.”
“Did they laugh
?” said Cindy. “My friends here in Maine think it’s a riot.”
“I fail to see why anyone thinks this is funny,” said Jeannie. “The inappropriate sexual goings-on of this community are embarrassing and now they’re public and no one seems concerned in the least.”
“Aw, big sis, you sound like Sister Saint Whosiewhatsee back in Catholic school,” said Cindy. “Times have changed. People sleeping with other people’s spouses isn’t exactly cause for a town meeting, or a stoning in the town square.”
Jeannie bristled at her sister’s nonchalance. “I wasn’t calling a town meeting, I was calling a meeting of one of my monthly committees to see what they thought.”
“And what did they think?” asked Cindy.
“They were very casual about it,” said Jeannie. “Apparently family values don’t mean anything to anyone anymore.”
“Look, sis, you left one of the most conservative religions in the world, Catholicism, to join your husband’s even more conservative uber-Christian right-wingnut cult, no offense, church or whatever, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world is on board with your cries to stone all the witches.”
Jeannie fumed. “How dare you use the word cult with me? Our church is not a cult!”
“I’m sorry,” said Cindy, even as she wrote “#sorrynotsorry” on the grocery list she was jotting down. She knew she never should’ve sent her sister that blog post. Her friends had warned her against it. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Hey, I gotta run—Abbie has a dentist appointment and I need to grab her from art camp. Talk more later?”
“Fine,” said Jeannie. “But I’m positive I’m not the only one who’s upset about this.” She slammed the receiver back onto its base.
The floor finished, she scrubbed the counters with vigor. The cleaning lady would be there tomorrow and Jeannie needed to get everything practically perfect so she wouldn’t be disappointed at the half-baked job Luisa did.
Her husband, Chaz, insisted on hiring a monthly cleaning service even though Jeannie more firmly insisted she didn’t want it. I’d rather just do it myself, she’d argued. This Hispanic woman was a relative of one of Chaz’s landscaping crew managers. Chaz owned a large company that employed over 100 immigrants, supposedly legally, though Jeannie had her doubts.
“You shouldn’t have to take care of this home all by yourself,” Chaz had said, and Jeannie felt like she could practically see him puffing out his chest with the same caveman-provider bravado pride he used as commissioner of the travel hockey league. “Let Luisa clean at least once a month. Their family needs the money, too.”
“I don’t see why we need to take care of someone else’s family when we have a family of four to raise right here,” Jeannie had tried to argue, to no avail.
She loaded the few remaining items into the dishwasher and polished the kitchen sink faucet, marveling once again at how her kids had to somehow leave fingerprints all over the kitchen every time they came in here.
She walked over to the kitchen pantry door to review the monthly calendar schedule that hung there. Chaz was constantly telling her to upload the kids’ schedules into the fancy smartphone he’d gotten her, but she could barely figure out how to make a phone call on that thing much less create some calendar.
I don’t have time to manage one more thing anyway, she thought.
She didn’t need an electronic device to tell her what the most dominant repeating event was on her life’s calendar. CJ’s ice hockey schedule was all-encompassing. The sport seemed to be 24/7/365 and her son was only eight years old. She shuddered, thinking not only of the temperature of the ice arena where she spent so many hours, but at how demanding the ice hockey lifestyle was.
And the hockey moms.
The night before, like every other night, Jeannie sat in the far corner of an upper bleacher, away from the other parents. As usual, she had paperwork in front of her. Sometimes PTA fundraiser forms, but yesterday the proposed revision to the homeowners association bylaws. Her six-year-old daughter, Kaylah, had been beside her, playing with her American Girl doll since she didn’t have gymnastics that night.
The hockey moms always sat in a cluster, talking loudly, using bad language, drinking coffee spiked with God knows what. Jeannie failed to see how they could even consider drinking alcoholic beverages while their children worked as hard as they did on the ice. She had already spoken to the coach about it once, which didn’t help matters since his wife was one of the partiers. This was supposed to be travel hockey, not some girls’ night out.
Forcing thoughts of hockey mom stress aside, Jeannie began to gather her keys and purse. She had to get over to the elementary school, where the PTA needed her desperately thanks to their having appointed some ridiculous idiot woman principal.
Beneath the note about checking the tire pressure on the minivan and setting up an appointment with her mother’s cardiologist, Jeannie had jotted a note down on the ever-present small spiral notebook in her purse, reminding herself to speak with Chaz about getting back to town earlier in evenings to take CJ to more of these perpetual, freezing hockey practices so she could attend to other matters. It was impossible to be at two places at once anyway on the nights when Kaylah had gymnastics.
Jeannie never really thought about it this way, but there was absolutely nothing about her life that had anything to do with her.
On their weekly lunch date, Rachel parked her car at the tree-covered small liberal arts college and checked her texts. School was out so there weren’t many cars on campus. She grabbed the lunch bag and walked up the stairs to Kate’s second floor office. The academic building was nearly empty save for a few office lights on here and there for professors who were teaching a summer class or working on fall curricula. Kate’s office was tucked down a narrow hallway and relatively secluded. Rachel knocked on the door, which was cracked open, and Kate said,
“Come in.”
She did.
Rachel closed the door behind her, placing the lunch on a round glass table near two chairs; a spot meant for teacher-student conferences.
Kate rose to greet her, walking around to the front of her worn oak desk and placing her reading glasses on the desk.
Rachel admired Kate’s low-cut pale yellow silk blouse, the view of her long legs from below her short fitted black skirt that fell just above the knee, her sexy taupe peep-toe heels revealing a magenta pedicure color.
“My son-in-law made our lunch, I’m guessing?” she asked.
Rachel laughed. “Yes, ma’am. Just left your old shop where your daughter is keeping things perfectly in order. They guessed the sandwich was for you.”
“Rabbit food?” asked Kate. “Isn’t that what you call it?”
“Stan said he might have to change the name of the sandw—” Rachel began.
But Kate had grabbed her around the waist and kissed her firmly on the mouth. Her magenta lip color blended with Rachel’s red as they hungrily explored each other’s tongues. She pulled Rachel decisively toward her, moving her hand to push up the green cotton dress and finding Rachel’s thong beneath.
Kate’s nipples immediately hardened beneath the silky blouse as Rachel ran her fingers across the top of the thin material, trailing her thumb down Kate’s cleavage to let it graze across the peak. Kate’s right hand circled around Rachel’s left hip toward the front; she slipped her fingers under the thong, pushing it aside to find Rachel wet as she moaned softly. Kate whispered “sshhh” into Rachel’s mouth and then inserted her tongue to quiet her, moving her left hand around Rachel’s neck to run through Rachel’s unruly strawberry hair. She tugged on a handful of hair at the back of her neck, bringing Rachel’s chin up as she trailed kisses down her neck.
Rachel’s hands were more insistent at Kate’s breasts, unbuttoning buttons, squeezing nipples, unfastening her bra. She ground her hips against the pressure of Kate’s fingers. Kate moved her left hand down and swept aside the items on the desk to clear a space. She placed her hands on Rachel’s hips
as Rachel moaned her disapproval of the removed pleasure. She pushed her backward, forcing Rachel to hop up slightly so she was sitting on the edge of the smooth, worn desk. Kate lifted Rachel’s dress up over her hips, took a pair of sharp scissors from a Ball jar on the desk, and cut off one string edge of the thong, then the other. Rachel giggled softly as Kate put her index finger to her lips: SShhh.
Rachel unbuttoned her own shirt-style dress, pulling the halves aside to reveal her perfect C-cup breasts in their cream-colored lace bra. Kate lowered her head at the invitation, returning her right hand’s fingers to explore Rachel’s warm center and using her left hand to ease Rachel’s left breast out of her bra. She gently licked around the nipple, and with increasing pressure began sucking, teasing the tender flesh with her teeth.
Rachel wanted to return these favors but was literally stunned motionless from pleasure; it was all she could do to hold herself steady on the desk as Kate dominated her. She managed to reach up and release the front bra clasp to free her breasts and give Kate more access. Kate looked up at Rachel and brought the fingers of her right hand to her mouth, licking her fingers. She pulled her own black skirt up and lowered herself into a squatting position using muscles attained at the college’s gym, and she pushed Rachel’s legs apart. She licked the insides of Rachel’s thighs, eventually moving inward until her tongue reached the throbbing, drenched pleasure zone, causing Rachel to lean backward on her elbows and arch her back in delight. Rachel had unconsciously put one of her wrists into her own mouth to stop herself from sighing aloud in pleasure as she climaxed.
Wordlessly, Rachel sat up, slid off the desk, and led Kate by the wrist around to her leather chair. She gently pushed her shoulders downward, and Kate sat, smiling up at Rachel, softly running the tips of her fingers across Rachel’s nipples. Rachel pushed her hands away, instead shoving Kate’s black skirt up over the tops of her thighs. In anticipation of today’s lunch, Kate’s panties were already in her top office drawer.
The Scarlet Letter Scandal Page 5
