The Book Club

by Mary Alice Monroe

  “So you don’t want anything artificial?” Midge was fascinated, drawn in. As an art therapist, this was right up her alley.

  “Right. It’s not hard once you’re committed.”

  Gabriella studied her hair intently, tapping her full lips. She was having a hard time getting past the no-dye issue. “It’s weird. I mean, white is for old ladies, sure. I’m thinking Barbara Bush here. But your skin looks pinker and it kinda makes your eyes more blue. Sexy.” She broke into a grin despite herself. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like it. On you, that is.”

  “So do I,” agreed Eve.

  Doris beamed. “I was afraid that I was turning old overnight,” she admitted. “But in fact, it was happening in bits and pieces for years, only I denied it. I was so angry all the time. I didn’t really even know what I was angry about. And the anger made everything worse. To tell you the truth, now I don’t worry about getting old anymore. All those gray roots were signals that I was ignoring, along with other physical changes. What was I afraid of? It’s just my body, my hair. I’m going to spend another twenty to thirty years in this vessel so I better start taking good care of it. And oddly enough, since I’ve started, I like my body with all its imperfections—even the gray. I accept them all as part of me. And that makes me feel strong, and maybe not young but youthful. Anyway—” her brow rose in a saucy manner “—this is me and the gray stays.”

  “What does R.J. say?” Midge’s voice was testing.

  “I didn’t ask him and I don’t care.”

  This was met by ooohs, laughs and pats on the back.

  “Don’t get too excited. I’m not sure he’d notice anyway.”

  “But that’s another issue,” Eve said, her eyes still admiring the straight-shouldered stance of Doris, her glowing skin and her bright-eyed awareness. Doris hadn’t lost weight as much as the puffy pastiness. Most beautiful of all was her buoyant confidence. She was more like the Doris Eve had met years ago when she’d first moved to Riverton, the Doris who had knocked at her back door with a cherry pie and a pot of coffee, with young Sarah peeking behind her skirt.

  “How about inside the head?” Midge probed.

  “Fine,” she replied brusquely, revealing a bit of the tight-lipped Doris they remembered. “I’m still working on it, but I’m okay. We can talk about all that later.” Then changing tone she asked, “What’s going on with Annie? Have we heard anything yet?”

  “No,” Eve replied, suddenly somber. “They’ve been in there for about an hour. We’re just waiting for word.”

  “I’m so sorry for her,” Doris said. “And to think we were worried about menopause and getting old. We should be happy we are getting old.”

  “Makes you think.”

  “I wish I’d known earlier,” Doris said with a frown. “Things might have been different between us.”

  “Hey, they still can be,” Midge offered. “She’ll be out of there in a little while.”

  “I can try,” Doris replied softly. “I want to.”

  “Well you made a good start by coming here today,” Eve said. “Coming all this way.”

  “Of course I came. But, to tell you the truth, I almost didn’t. When I heard from you, I got scared. The news burst my little nest of security there at the cottage. I didn’t want to call or come home, as if I’d be contaminated by the news. Out of sight, out of mind.”

  “I think we all felt that to some extent,” Eve said. “It’s threatening. The thought that one of us actually got cancer...and Annie of all people. She exercises, eats right. If someone like her can get it, what does that say for us?”

  “Well, don’t go thinking you should give up fighting,” Gabriella muttered, giving them all the warning gaze. “I hope you’re all getting your mammograms and doing all that self-screening stuff. I’m not up to going through this again.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Eve said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.

  “How’s Annie taking it?”

  “You know Annie. She meets everything head-on, fists at the ready.” Eve walked to a row of chairs and sat down, suddenly very weary. “But I’m worried. This is going to come hard on her later on. She hasn’t really dealt with the fact that she’s not going to have any children.”

  “She was so determined.”

  “Yes...Annie is used to going out and getting what she wants.”

  “But life isn’t like that,” Gabriella said, taking a chair beside Eve.

  Eve nodded and cupped her chin in her palm. “I depended on her for so long for advice and strength. Now it’s my turn to pay her back. Poor Annie. For her this is like hitting a wall. Splat. And on top of that is the threat that the cancer will reoccur. It hangs over her head like a dagger.”

  “She’s a survivor.” Gabriella patted Eve’s hand.

  “She’s going to go through depression and anxiety in the next few months,” Midge replied, moving closer.

  “We’ll all be there to help her,” Gabriella said gently.

  The mood lowered again. The women sat quietly together in a long row of chairs. Eve thought glumly that whoever chose the colors for the hospital gowns also chose the dreadful colors on the walls. The room was depressing, not a window anywhere. It even felt germy.

  “I was thinking,” Eve said, breaking the silence. “Maybe we should pick a book for the next meeting that will be inspiring to her. Something that will point our discussion in the right direction.”

  “Good idea,” Midge said. “Any suggestions?”

  They tossed around the titles of a few bestsellers, books about women friends, memoirs of survivors, and a few classics and biographies. All of them made do but none of them seemed quite right.

  “We need something with real impact, wisdom and comfort,” said Gabriella scooting forward in her chair.

  “How about the Bible?” Midge said as a wisecrack.

  There was a thought-filled silence.

  Eve tilted her head.

  Doris pursed her lips.

  “Oh, no,” Midge said, shaking her head.

  “Why not?” asked Gabriella, sitting up.

  “What? The whole thing?” Midge was appalled.

  “We could.” Eve found the concept intriguing. “I have to confess, I’ve never read the Bible through. Have you? Most of what I know from the Bible I heard Sunday morning from the pulpit. It might be quite a journey.”

  “We’re turning into a Bible group now?” asked Midge.

  They all laughed lightly but it was clear which way the vote was swaying.

  “We don’t have to read the whole thing. We could break it up somehow. I’m sure we could get lots of advice from our pastor or the Divinity School,” said Doris.

  “I’d like to read the whole thing, cover to cover. We’ve done that with other books. Remember the Odyssey? And we went for weeks and weeks doing the Artist’s Way. This could be a special project.” Gabriella was sitting at the edge of her chair, lobbying hard.

  “I think it’s a good idea,” pushed Eve. “Hey, it’s a bedrock of our culture. Great literature is derived from it. And then there are the psalms. Hard to find anything more beautiful.”

  “You’ve got to admit it’s different,” added Gabriella. Then pulling out her date calendar she said, “We don’t have any books chosen for the fall. The calendar is free.” She looked up, smug. “It’s perfect.”

  “And it’s timely,” added Doris. “It may take a long time, but so what? Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing for all of us, not just Annie. I say, let’s do it.”

  Midge leaned back in the chair and clasped her hands across her belly. She was never herded into anything but even Midge could see the decision was already made. There was nothing left for her to do but join in. She shrugged, and with a lopsided smile said, “Just don’t tell my mo
ther. I’ll never hear the end of it. She’ll be lighting candles and saying novenas, claiming a miracle has happened.”

  Eve sighed and leaned back into her chair, too. “Now all we have to do is convince Annie. She’s not exactly spiritual.”

  “After today she will be,” Gabriella said with a knowing eye.

  Doris nodded and crossed her arms across her chest. “After this, I think we all will.”

  * * *

  Two hours after Annie was wheeled into the operating room, the door to the waiting room opened and John and Dr. Gibson walked in. The Book Club all rose to their feet.

  John looked shell-shocked. “The cancer went a little farther than we’d hoped.” He looked to Dr. Gibson for confirmation.

  “The tumor invaded the uterine wall,” she said, in a professional, dispassionate voice. “We removed the uterus, both tubes, the ovaries and the pelvic nodes. Unfortunately, radiation will be required. But she made it through beautifully.” She paused then and offered a warm smile that encompassed all of them. “You know, a potent weapon in battling cancer is a strong support network. I’m sure Annie will do well with friends like you.”

  After Dr. Gibson and John left for the recovery room, the four women wound their arms around each other and cried with relief, openly and without shame. They had all faced mortality with Annie. Each of them knew that in the scheme of things, they were next in line to cross that bridge. But today, Doris, Eve, Midge and Gabriella all felt like survivors.

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Doris entered the colonial redbrick house that had, for fifty years, been her home. She walked serenely through the same, sunlit rooms she’d skipped through as a child. As she looked at the familiar furnishings, she felt an ancient energy sizzle in her veins, as though another self was rising from the ashes.

  Her mind began creating a to-do list in its customary efficient manner as she walked from room to room. The windows would have to be washed, dust was building up under the cabinets in the living room—evidence of a missing mistress to watch over things. In the kitchen she prowled through the cabinets and the fridge, making up a grocery list to add or replace food that had been consumed in her month’s absence. She was amused to find several low-fat, low-cal items among the instant meal selections. It was obvious Sarah was doing the shopping.

  Still, she had to hand it to her daughter. She’d grown up quite a bit in her absence. Their long conversations on the telephone had gradually shifted from endless wailing and complaining to conversations that revealed bits of themselves. Sarah wasn’t looking for her mother to solve problems or step-and-fetch it as much as she was looking for a role model. Doris felt that now, for the first time in many years, her daughter was looking at her, if only through one squinted eye.

  Doris went to the library, sat down at her desk and began writing out long lists and copious notes of all that had to be done. While she wrote, her hand reached out to take hold of the phone. Her first call was to her maid. Would she consider adding a few days to her schedule? At least through the fall? Next she called the lawn service to relay instructions for the fall cleanup, then the cleaners to pick up the dozen or so items she’d collected from the children’s closets to get them ready for the new school year, and the milkman to cut back the order after Bobby returned to college. Twenty-five minutes passed quickly. She realized with horror that this was only the top of the list. It would take days to complete and she hadn’t even begun shopping for fall clothes for the children and...

  Her mind shut down when she saw R.J. standing in the doorway, looking at her with an expression of surprise mingled with a mocking I told you so. She felt her back stiffen as she set down her pen and calmly folded her hands upon the table. She’d wondered—worried—what she would feel when she saw her husband again. In the past month her hatred for him had ceased. Unfortunately, so had her love and respect. Looking at him now, ruddy-cheeked and fit in his golf attire, leaning with a cocky insolence against the door frame, she was amazed at how very little she felt for him at all.

  “So, you’re back,” he said.

  She waited to reply, half expecting him to ask for his dinner on the table.

  “It’s about time,” he added huffily, straightening and crossing his arms. He looked down at her from his height like a general about to mount a charge, or perhaps a judge considering the punishment.

  Doris remained silent. She tilted her head and stared at his heightening color. A month earlier she might have fluttered about him, trying to appease him, to please him. Or cried... Thank heavens that sniveling creature had gone, she thought to herself. She relaxed her hands and recalled her beloved cottage, her mornings spent sitting alone on the deck watching the sunrise. And the freedom there of not having to accommodate the constant neediness of one husband and two children while neglecting her own.

  Doris looked down and saw the piles of lists and notations she’d created, the dozens of projects that would tie her time up for days. She laughed shortly, quietly, at her own folly. How easy it was to slip back into a mold, to always do what was expected.

  She looked back into R.J.’s angry eyes. Bobby Jr. had those same eyes and that same fierce expression when she had told her twenty-year-old son that she would not be available to pack his suitcase for college.

  “It’s good you’re back,” R.J. was saying. “The place is falling apart without you. We need you.”

  Not we missed you, or we love you. But we need you.

  “But I’m not back, as you put it.”

  “Wha—what do you mean?” His face was thunderous. “You don’t think I’m going to allow you to just waltz out of here again, do you?”

  Rather than cringe, Doris watched the performance and had to struggle to keep from laughing.

  “It doesn’t matter to me in the least what you will or will not allow,” she said crisply.

  “We’ll just see about that.”

  “Sit down, R.J. We might as well have this conversation here and now. And close the door, please.”

  R.J. appeared stunned, like a bullet had whizzed by his head and he didn’t know whether to duck or run. He closed the door, then gathering his bluster, strode across the room and sat in his favorite wing chair, crossing one leg over the other in his usual manner.

  “What’s this we have to talk about?”

  She looked up and said calmly, “I won’t be coming back, R.J. Not in the way you might expect. I will stay for a few days to visit my friend Annie in the hospital, and to help the children organize for school. I intend to give them cash and send them out to the malls to fend for themselves. Before you sputter and rage, I should tell you now that my plans are set. Bobby and Sarah and I have already discussed this. Frankly, Sarah is thrilled to not have me breathing down her neck all the time.” She smiled briefly at the recollection of her heart-to-heart with Sarah the night before as they lay stretched out on her bed, chatting as they had not in years.

  R.J. was listening in silence, studying her as though seeing her for the first time this morning. She felt his gaze sweep over her with a thoroughness she hadn’t experienced in years.

  “You look good,” he said magnanimously, as though he’d just awarded her the highest compliment. “You lost some weight? And your hair. I don’t know, you look different.”

  “I am different, R.J.” Doris refused to allow herself any flush of pleasure at his compliment.

  He settled back into the chair, creating an aura of comfort, perhaps even of intimacy. “Maybe your little vacation did you some good, after all. I guess we needed a little separation, a little time to miss each other. Things just weren’t the same without you here. I mean, I guess I just didn’t appreciate all that you do around here and maybe I took you for granted. Oh, Sarah did a pretty good job at organizing the meals and shopping, and the maid kept things pretty clean. But no one can do thi
ngs quite the way you can. You have a special touch. I guess I don’t tell you that enough.”

  “R.J., what’s my name?”

  He seemed startled by the question. “What?”

  “My name. You never call me by my name. Really, I can’t recall a single time in the past several years when you’ve called me by my name. Someone once said that the sweetest sound in any language is the sound of your own name. I believe that is true because I have longed to hear my name on your lips.”

  “Doris, I...”

  She held up her hand in an arresting gesture and shook her head. “Please, R.J., not now. It’s too late.”

  His mouth shut and his face grew impassive, even cold. She imagined this was the face he used at meetings when he wanted to close the deal. “It’s too late? For what? What does that mean?”

  “It means, R.J., that our marriage is over.” Despite herself, she felt a ripple of pleasure at the sight of his stunned expression. “I’ve already been to see my lawyers and I’ve been informed that I have more than enough evidence of adultery to establish cause. I suggest you find a divorce lawyer of your own because I intend to initiate proceedings at the earliest date possible. Also, I’ve contacted a real estate agent and I’ve put the house on the market. I intend to divide the property into four lots and sell them individually.” Her eyes sparkled with triumph.

  He rose and came forward toward the desk, his face mottled. “You can’t do that.”

  “Oh yes, I can,” she replied. “And I have. The house and the property is in my name. As is half your business.” She gathered her lists neatly into a pile, then tossed them into the wastebasket. She was intensely aware that R.J. stood on the other side of the desk, breathing like a locomotive, watching her every move. She rose to a stand, smoothed out her skirt, then tugged at her cuffs.

  “You have until the end of September to vacate the house. I’m going back to the cottage and I want you gone when I return. Now then—” She gathered her hands together in front of her and smiled politely. She might have been smiling at a salesman for all the warmth it conveyed. “I think that’s everything that needs to be said between us, don’t you?”