The Oakdale Dinner Club

by Kim Moritsugu

  “Beats me.”

  “And how come we can’t do it today when it was coming in so clear last night?”

  “We can. I saw you knocking at my mental door. Heard you, too. In my sleep.”

  “You did? Then what am I thinking of right now?”

  Alice lifted a corner of the curtain that covered her mind and glimpsed Mary Ann’s thought picture. “An orange cat sitting on an elephant’s back. Why, I don’t know. I can’t do this right now.”

  “Okay. We’ll try again later.”

  They covered a block in silence. Only a few more to Mary Ann’s house.

  Mary Ann said, “Aren’t you curious about how it went with me and Sam?”

  Alice tried to make her voice rise above a monotone. “How’d it go with you and Sam?”

  “Amazingly. Aside from him getting a bad case of the guilts. But I think I could make a habit of this.”

  “Of Sam?”

  “Of sleeping around.”

  Melina was tidying up the girls’ breakfast dishes when Mary Ann and Alice arrived. “Good morning,” she called out, and saw that while Mary Ann seemed her usual upbeat self, Alice looked dead.

  “How are you doing?” Melina said to Alice.

  “I didn’t sleep much,” Alice said, Mary Ann coughed, and Alice added, “With Lavinia not home, I mean. How is she?”

  “Fine,” Melina said. Sheesh. If Alice and Mary Ann expected people to believe they’d spent the night in the same place, they should have organized themselves better. But hey, no judgment.

  While the girls watched TV in the family room, Melina recounted the highlights of her babysitting stint — Annabelle’s toothbrush crisis, Kayla’s nocturnal wandering, Lavinia’s early waking. Mary Ann listened attentively to all of this while Alice stared into space. “And what about Josh?” Mary Ann said. “Did he behave himself?”

  “Yes, he did. He was good company for me.”

  Josh had entered the room dressed in a T-shirt and jeans and was standing in front of the open fridge. He looked more awake than Alice, but not much. “I’d still be asleep if everybody wasn’t making so much noise down here,” he said.

  Mary Ann handed Melina a cash-stuffed envelope, thanked her profusely, and said, “I’ll run you home on the way to pick up Griffin from his sleepover. Alice, can you watch the kids a minute? I won’t be long.”

  When Mary Ann and Melina had left, Alice sat down at the kitchen table and closed her eyes.

  Josh rattled some cutlery in the drawer. “Hey, Alice, can I ask you a favour?”

  Alice opened her eyes. “Are you talking to me?”

  “Yeah. There’s no one else here.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “I’m thinking of doing a history project on the old train station. Could I interview you about it, and arrange to have my class come visit? And you could maybe give the class a tour?”

  Alice closed her eyes again. “Sure.”

  “Thanks. I’ll email you about it, okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “Like later today, I’ll email you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The doorbell rang, making Alice jump and say fuck, loudly.

  Josh said, “You sure swear a lot.”

  “Just answer the goddamned door, Josh.”

  He did, to admit Sam, who greeted Alice and asked her how she was as if he hadn’t seen her fifteen minutes earlier. After he’d collected his girls and left, Lavinia said she wanted to go home, Mary Ann returned with Griffin, and Kayla asked her mother what they were doing for the day.

  “We might go bowling later,” Mary Ann said. “You up for that, Alice?”

  “I hate bowling,” Josh said.

  “Can I bring a friend?” Griffin said.

  Alice made her escape with Lavinia. “I’ll call you later, Mary Ann. Much later.”

  23

  Later the same day

  “Yay, Kayla!” Mary Ann yelled, right in Alice’s ear. “A strike! That’s great, honey. Now help Lavinia lift the ball.” Mary Ann leaned back in the hard plastic chair and said to Alice, “You look much better than you did this morning. Much less likely to pass out within the next ten minutes.”

  “Your mom rescued me. She took Lavinia for a few hours and made paintbox cookies with her while I napped. But what’s your secret? Where did you get those bright eyes and rosy cheeks? Did you get a nap in too, or are you on some banned substance you ought to be sharing with me?”

  “Griffin!” Mary Ann yelled. “It’s your turn. And stop wrestling!” She turned back to Alice. “If I’m bright-eyed, it’s because I’ve spent the day mentally reliving the sex I had last night.”

  “Stop right there. I’ve already heard enough.”

  “Meanwhile, you’ve told me next to nothing about your night. Was Jake’s penis python-like or not?”

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  “You know what was great about Sam?”

  “I beg you — no anatomical descriptions.”

  “He smelled so clean. Everywhere. Bob sometimes had this musty kind of smell —”

  “Stop! If I tell you about Jake, will you spare me any more details?”

  “Okay, go.”

  From the foot of her lane, Kayla called out, “The game’s over. Should we play another one?”

  “Yes.”

  “But we want to get candy from the machines. Can we, please?”

  “Please?” Lavinia said.

  “Here are some quarters,” Mary Ann said. “Get candy, then come back and bowl some more. And Kayla, keep a close eye on Lavinia.” She turned back to Alice. “Start at the beginning and leave nothing out.”

  Alice searched for the right words. “The sex was good. It was intense. And powerful.” Alice’s mouth opened and closed. There was nothing more to add.

  “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say? What a rip-off.”

  “Okay, if you must know, there was something weird about the whole exchange.”

  “Tell me anything. I won’t be shocked.”

  “Get this, then: when it was all over, I couldn’t wait for him to leave.”

  “Gee, not me. All I could think about when Sam and I finished each round of sex was — how long till the next one?”

  “It gets worse. When he told me he was going away for three weeks on some tours he’s doing in Thailand and India, I was relieved.”

  “There were gross smells, weren’t there?”

  “NO. My attitude had nothing to do with smells. I was relieved because as much as I liked being with him, I don’t want him hanging around, disrupting my life.”

  The girls came back then, hands full of little pink-and-yellow candy pacifiers, which they gloated over in front of Griffin and his friend until they asked for their own quarters.

  When the boys had departed for the candy machines and the girls had resumed bowling, Mary Ann said, “You’re not saying you regret sleeping with Jake, are you?”

  “Not at all. The sex was great. Intense and —”

  “Yeah, I know, powerful. And would you do it again? With him?”

  “Sure.” Alice smiled. “As long as he doesn’t stay over.”

  “I thought that was supposed to be the guy’s line.”

  “I think I’m just a loner by nature.”

  “You were inclined that way even as a teenager,” Mary Ann said, and into Alice’s mind popped a picture that she gathered was meant to be of her younger self — bracelets clattering, hair swinging — the day they’d been summoned to the principal’s office.

  Alice said, “You make me look so arrogant. Was I that bad?”

  Mary Ann sent another picture that made Alice’s bearing less aloof. “How about this? Not arrogant, but confident. And totally different from anyone else.”

  Alice snapped her fingers. “That’s it, Mary Ann. That’s why the telepathy came back. High school.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t you see? The reason we could talk with our minds last nigh
t is because we were acting like juveniles — harbouring crushes, dancing, getting drunk, making out in public. You especially.”

  Mary Ann patted her hair. “I liked being Veronica.”

  Alice was still thinking. “But why is it still with us now, when we’re acting more like our responsible adult selves?”

  Mary Ann gave a thumbs-up sign to Griffin, who was calling her attention to the big slash on the overhead monitor signaling his latest spare. She turned to Alice. “Do you think it might have something to do with Bob?”

  “Bob, who’s not in the country?”

  “Yeah, that one. Maybe he acted as some kind of inhibitor. And now that I’m free of him, we can mind-read again.”

  “You’re free of him because you slept with someone else?”

  “No, because I’ve decided to divorce him.”

  “What? When did that happen? When Sam went down on you?”

  “Now who’s being indelicate? And within earshot of the kids, too.” Mary Ann leaned closer. “Two days ago I had an epiphany about the subject in the park, when I was out walking the dog. And this morning, I emailed him in Singapore and asked for a divorce.”

  “You asked for a divorce by email?”

  “It’s fitting, don’t you think, given how I found out about him and his girlfriend?”

  “I’d forgotten about that, but I guess using email to break your news does make a kind of twisted sense. How do you think he’ll take it?”

  “I doubt he’ll be happy, but he can’t be surprised. If he wants to stay married, he shouldn’t travel seven months out of twelve or have fallen in love with some young floozy, now should he?”

  Alice knew better than to take any side other than Mary Ann’s on this subject. And one thing Alice hadn’t forgotten was how quick she’d been to call Bob a shit, an asshole, and a cocksucker when Mary Ann had told her about his cheating nine months before. “Should I congratulate you?”

  “You should. I’m thrilled about the idea, and can’t wait to start over. I’m going to ask Tom if he’ll hire me to work freelance for his company after the Main Street project winds up.”

  “This is all too much to take in.” Alice stood up, stretched, and sat down again. “But if your theory is correct that we’re only telepathic when we’re both uncommitted to a romantic relationship, what will happen to our powers when you and Sam become a couple? How do you know it was Bob the individual who was the inhibitor? Maybe it was Bob, the husband.”

  “You don’t understand,” Mary Ann said. “I don’t want to pair up with Sam.”

  “You don’t? What, then? You’re going to be single?”

  “I think I’ll become a femme fatale, embark upon a series of brief but satisfying love affairs. Sow the wild oats I missed out on in my youth.”

  Alice smiled at the image Mary Ann was transmitting, an image of Mary Ann costumed in a sexy, slit-skirt black suit, accessorized with black stilettos, a bouffant hairdo, dark sunglasses, and red lipstick. She climbed out of a limo, the flashbulbs popped, and a crowd of good-looking young men — were they strippers? No, Mary Ann corrected her, they’re models! — danced attendance on her. “It’s a look,” Alice said.

  “The new me.”

  “In that case, you’re really going to have to work on your wall-building.”

  24

  November 22, 2010

  As soon as Mary Ann walked into the office on Monday morning, Phoebe said, “So how’d your night go?”

  Mary Ann shook her head. “You first.”

  “Okay. Tristan was unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. I can’t even begin to tell you. I’m a woman transformed.”

  “That good, huh?”

  “Better. What about you? How’d you make out? Pun intended.”

  “Let me put it this way: I didn’t get much sleep Saturday night.”

  “At your age?”

  “Nice talk.”

  “Sorry. I just meant — I don’t know what I meant. Considering how hot and heavy you two were in the bar, I shouldn’t be surprised you did a marathon.”

  Mary Ann held up a hand. “I know that making out in public was not a discreet thing to do, and I apologize. I slipped into teen mode there for a while.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mind. It was entertaining. I think that bar should ask you guys to come back, and include a live sex show as part of the talent line-up. It could bring in a whole new batch of customers.”

  Mary Ann made to swing at Phoebe, and Drew walked in, with bags under his eyes. “Well, if it isn’t the two wild women.”

  Phoebe said, “Mary Ann was just apologizing for her public display of affection at Chuck’s, and I was telling her not to. We’ve all done crazy things when gripped by wild sexual urges. Haven’t we, Drew?”

  Drew sat in one of the waiting room chairs. “Yeah, but some of us regret those things.”

  Mary Ann said, “You shouldn’t. You should allot yourself a number of no-strings, just-for-fun flings in your lifetime and enjoy them for what they are. Before you get married and settle down.”

  “I’m never getting married,” Drew said.

  Mary Ann said, “Does that mean you’re single and available?”

  Drew was still glum. “Depends if I decide to take a vow of celibacy.”

  “You seem awfully sorry for yourself,” Phoebe said. “I suggest you dive into your work and forget your personal life for a day.”

  “Good idea,” Drew said, and tramped upstairs.

  When he’d gone, Phoebe said, “Poor guy seems pretty down.”

  Mary Ann was listening to Drew’s footsteps overhead. “Do you think he’s ready for a rebound fling yet?”

  Phoebe’s eyes widened. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Of course I am.” Not.

  Sam was on the phone, in his study, in the middle of the afternoon, when he thought he heard the front door open and close. Chutney heard it, too. He lifted his head from where he lay sleeping under Sam’s desk, got up, and trotted downstairs to investigate.

  Sam didn’t hear anything else, and he wasn’t expecting anyone — the cleaning woman had left an hour before, the girls were at school, Hallie wasn’t due home from London for two more days. So he wrapped up the conversation with one of his old suppliers, a meat man, hung up the phone, went exploring, and almost shit his pants when he found Hallie in the kitchen, filling the dog dish with water.

  She knew about him and Mary Ann. Someone must have told her. And she’d come home early to confront him about it. Good thing he’d laundered the sheets and put them back on the bed. He said, “Hallie, what a surprise. How come you’re home early?”

  She set Chutney’s dish on the floor. “I got fired.”

  Pulse still pounding in his ears. “What?”

  “That prick Andrew Bathgate fired me. Can you fucking well believe it? And in London, too.”

  She didn’t know about him and Mary Ann. “What do you mean? Why?”

  “He put it down to a difference in personal style. A euphemism for fuck off. So aggravating. Is there any mail?”

  Sam ducked into the dining room and picked up Hallie’s mail from the table, happy for an excuse to remove himself from her steely glare, even if the steel had been meant for Andrew Bathgate.

  He handed her the pile of envelopes and tried to think straight, come up with a normal reaction to her news. “Why didn’t you call me when this happened?” Yes. That’s what an innocent person would ask.

  “I don’t know. I was embarrassed. And pissed off. And I needed time to process it.” She pulled a butter knife out of the cutlery drawer, started slitting open the mail. “How’re the girls? I missed them.”

  “They’re good. Except Jessica still has a bit of a cold. They missed you, too. Annabelle’s been marking the days off on the calendar on the fridge until your arrival date. See?” He pointed to the calendar and Hallie smiled.

  She turned back to him, seemed to be checking his face over. Looking for love bites, maybe. “And how ar
e you doing? You need a haircut.”

  “I’m good. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while you’ve been away. In the last few days especially.”

  “So have I, and you know what? To hell with Morris Communications. Who needs them? It’s time to start fresh, move on to the next stage of our lives. Don’t you agree?”

  “You weren’t thinking of that suggestion I made a while back that we go around the world on a boat, were you? Because I don’t think —”

  “No. No boat. Let’s wipe away all the shit that’s been going on lately, forget it ever happened, and concentrate on our future. On the kids, your book, a new job for me — whatever that might be. That’s where we should be directing our energies.”

  “About the book —”

  “I haven’t been very supportive about it, and I’m sorry. From now on I will be. Let’s get that sucker published.”

  “I’ve put the book aside for a little while, but I’ve got another idea. If you want to hear it.”

  “I hope it’s an idea for a new business.”

  “Yeah, it is. I’m thinking of opening up a prepared food shop on Main Street. In one of the old houses Tom fixed up. I’d take all the best recipes from the women around here and build up a boutique operation. The Oakdale Dinner Club, I’d call it.”

  Hallie didn’t respond at first, which Sam was sure meant that she hated the idea. Until she said, “I like it.”

  “You do?”

  “It builds on your strengths, it fits with market trends on convenience foods, it’s a quick start-up, it doesn’t require too much capital.”

  “A woman named Danielle Pringle has a farm nearby, and she grows some amazing heirloom vegetables and fancy greens —”

  “Even better, it’s a franchisable concept. In a few years, we could be seeing The Oakdale Dinner Club brand of frozen entrees in every supermarket freezer.”

  “I was thinking more of a small, local, part-time type of operation.”

  “Naturally, it would have to start out that way. Start out small and humble, build word of mouth, create cachet, get New Yorkers out here just so they can eat Oakdale food. You could develop a reputation, then look to do a cooking show on TV, and write cookbooks, and develop a line of branded foods.”