The Book Club

by Mary Alice Monroe

  R.J. stood speechless, but his face reflected both shock and defeat. Doris felt no triumph but as she turned and walked from the room, she held her head high and her shoulders straight. With each step toward the exit she felt the same courage and strength of decision within her that she had experienced in the middle of Glenn Lake when she turned around and paddled back to shore, stroke by stroke, rather than sink beneath the murky waters. When she left the room, she smiled with relief, feeling free of R.J.’s gaze upon her.

  * * *

  Another school year was beginning. The vacationers had all returned home and the traffic in Oakley had doubled in volume. Mothers everywhere were packing lunches again, buying socks and underwear, paying school fees, and sighing in utter relief while they waved farewell to their little, and not so little darlings as they headed off to their first day of school.

  Bronte and Finney were more nervous than usual, which was to be expected on the first day at a new school. Sarah Bridges and Bronte had made peace again after a summer’s estrangement and had spent the previous week shopping together for school clothes and supplies. Finney had hidden his anxiety about entering a new school and making new friends with his anxiety over whether or not he’d make the football team. He’d been in football camp all of August and poured his every waking moment into practice and mental preparation.

  Eve, too, was a new student. She’d registered at last for night classes at Saint Benedict’s to update her teaching certification. Bronte and Finney supported her decision and had promised their support at home while she tried to balance work, home and school. And her love life. Once the children’s own lives took shape again, her relationship with Paul Hammond was no longer the monumental, life-threatening issue that they had perceived it to be over the summer when they were lonely, unhappy and without goals of their own.

  She smiled as she parked her car in a space right in front of her building. Perhaps her luck was changing, she thought, yanking up the brake and patting the wheel of her old Volvo affectionately. Faithful old beast, she thought. It had to make it through one more year before she could apply for a teaching job and buy a new car.

  When Eve arrived home, the scent of basil and garlic lingered in the hall. Her mouth watered and her stomach growled, envying her neighbor’s dinner. She opened her door, then dropped her purse on the floor, kicked off her pumps and dragged herself to the living room. There, she paused and leaned against the door frame while a smile played across her face. She watched the scene before her with the same pleasure she would watch a scene from a favorite movie.

  Bronte was sitting on the green velvet sofa with Sarah, wrapping shiny new schoolbooks with thick brown paper. The two girls were laughing, commenting on the new kids at school. On the floor, Finney was playing video games with two boys she didn’t recognize, no doubt new friends from his new school. It was an everyday scene witnessed by mothers throughout the country: children at home goofing around after school.

  Eve relished the ordinariness of the scene. For her, the ordinary was welcome. Her life had been a quixotic drama in the past year and a half. Bronte and Finney had new friends—that was a huge step. They were smiling—even bigger.

  Eve took a deep breath, saving the image in her mind. “Hi, kids!”

  “Oh, hi, Mom,” Bronte said when she spotted her at the door. There were no signals of distress or anger, only a free-flowing smile and genuine pleasure at seeing her. “How’s Annie? Is she okay?”

  “She came through just fine,” she replied. “I’m exhausted, though.”

  Bronte stood and came over, then surprised her by giving her a heartfelt hug, woman to woman. Eve clung tight, grateful.

  “Well, we were worrying about you, too, Mom. You look real tired. Did you eat anything? I made pesto for dinner.”

  Eve looked at her daughter with wonder, realizing those tantalizing, homey smells from the hall had come from her own kitchen. How had she ever managed to raise such a girl as this? This was a woman she wanted as her friend.

  “You’re an angel of mercy. So, tell me, how was school?”

  Bronte’s face lit up and she rushed into a long monologue about the new year at her new high school. She flowed from one topic to another but all Eve heard was a musical backdrop to the vision of Bronte’s face, animated, alive with curiosity and excitement again after a long year of apathy and sadness. When Bronte finished, Eve reached out and hugged her again.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “No reason. Just because I love you.”

  Bronte blushed but rather than spurn her, she smiled.

  Finney turned around and waved, acknowledging her presence.

  “Hey, tiger,” Eve called out. “So...?”

  His dark-brown eyes, so much like Tom’s, sparkled with news. “I made the team.”

  “Oh? You just made the team?” piped in Bronte, looking as proud as a mother. “He’s first string.”

  Finney had always been a natural athlete but he was also naturally modest. He never would have boasted that fact but she could tell he was pleased because a streak of red bloomed over his cheekbones and he looked so much like his father at that moment she felt choked.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she said. Then, because she wanted to keep Tom alive in the minds and hearts of his children she said, “Your father would have been so proud of you, too.”

  Finney’s face pinched. He nodded curtly, then caught her eye. On a corny, emotional impulse she opened her arms and was delighted that he rose with fluid grace, stepped into them and allowed her to give him the briefest of kisses. She played fair, relinquishing him quickly. Then sighing, she leaned against the arm of the sofa, overcome with love for him. He was her own, sweet Finney again. Always the loner, he had gone quietly off to lick his wounds over his father’s death, hibernating in his cave. Now he had emerged again, a young man. Ah, the resilience of youth.

  He turned and moved on to the kitchen. His new friends were tripping over themselves to catch Finney’s attention, to bask in his glow.

  Bronte turned her attention back to her friend, as well, and their project. Within moments, Eve was invisible in her own home. She marveled at how she could seemingly float unobserved from one room to the next while her children’s lives spun around her in their separate orbits. And wasn’t that how nature intended it to be?

  Eighteen

  New Beginnings

  Glenn Lake, Michigan

  September 12, 1998

  Dear Book Club,

  The equinox is approaching! The swallows have already departed. The leaves are dry on the limb and trimmed with gilt. The little nut squirrels are plump, busily gathering provisions for the long winter ahead.

  Come to my cottage for the next Book Club meeting!

  We’ll eat savory meals and take end-of-summer dips in the lake. We’ll dance and sing and roast marshmallows around a campfire while we tell our own stories.

  Please come! We’ll be like those gray squirrels and swish our bushy tails and gather our harvest under a full moon. We shall feast, I promise!

  Love, Doris

  A trumpeting coming from the north heralded the Book Club as they packed suitcases and coolers crammed with food and wine into Eve’s wagon. Midge pointed to the piercing-blue sky and called, “Look! Look!”

  Eve, Annie and Gabriella stopped what they were doing to watch in an awed silence the formation of geese pass in an undulating skein on their way to points south. The long-necked birds were calling out the alert to all who listened that a cold wind was coming, not far behind.

  No one spoke as the geese’s calls grew faint and the birds became specks in the distant sky. Another season was past. Time flew by. The summer had ended. They’d had so many plans! Their hearts replied, Too soon! Too soon! as they strained to catch the last glimpse of wing and the echo of the cal
l.

  Annie broke the introspective mood with a slap on the roof of the car and called, “Let’s go, girls! Time’s a-wastin’. We’re bucking the system and heading north!”

  The festive mood was tugged back as they turned their eyes from the sky to smile at each other with an unspoken understanding. Chatting happily, they loaded up the car. They also brought with them all their dreams and sorrows, a few problems and the odd collection of funny stories that they’d stored in their hearts like a scrapbook. Just maybe they’d be brave enough to share these, too.

  None of them knew quite what to expect from this girls’ weekend, but as they took their seats and buckled their seat belts, they felt like wild geese in formation, flying wing to wing, migrating to a place of refuge.

  They talked nonstop as they pushed past the tentacles of the city, off the highway, then onto two-lane country roads. Rolling down their windows they welcomed the sunshine on their faces and smelled the sweet scent of green. Signs of fall were more evident here than in the city. Cornstalks stood dry and brittle, plucked clean of their harvest. Fields of bright-yellow sunflowers that once smiled at the sun now drooped their heads, their season done. Everywhere were signs that the summer was over and harvest time was upon them.

  The sun, however, was in a mischievous mood, playing tricks with the weather. The sky was cerulean, the weather unseasonably warm and dry. “Indian summer!” Eve exclaimed.

  After two hours they turned off the main road onto a dirt one that twisted its way through a shady tunnel made by the leaves of maples and poplars and elms that bordered it, sometimes too closely. Occasionally the car rolled over a large, cragged root that had stretched onto the road to act as a speed bump.

  Eve slowed to a crawl. They passed a few small, tilting cottages built generations before, made one more turn, then spied the quaint, tidy hamlet of cottages and a few large houses that encircled Glenn Lake. Though no one said it, they all felt as though they were leaving their old world with all its problems and urgencies behind and entering a new, peaceful one. A Brigadoon of their own making.

  Doris stood at the end of the short driveway before her white cottage wearing a long, plum-colored cotton dress and a broad-rimmed straw hat encircled with bright silk flowers. She was waving her hands over her head in welcome as they pulled up. Eve gave three short honks. Annie leaned out of her window and called out, “Here comes the gaggle of geese!”

  It had been nearly a month since their reunion in the hospital but when they hugged and kissed cheeks they all exclaimed how it seemed like only yesterday. The little white cottage gleamed with a fresh coat of paint. Doris’s cheery impatiens and bright-yellow marigolds were at their peak, thriving in their fertile oasis by the front door. They were a sharp contrast to the dry, brittle grass, yellowed milkweed and spurts of thistle that grew tough and sparse between rocks near the slope.

  Everyone—except Annie, who was forbidden to lift anything—lugged suitcases and coolers from the back of the wagon along with the treasures they couldn’t resist purchasing from farm stands en route. Doris’s mouth fell open when she saw the bags of late-season vegetables, a bushel of apples, bunches of grapes and pots of hearty mums.

  “You’ll have to bring food home,” Doris said, wagging her finger. “I’ve been cooking all week!” She led them along the flagstone walkway from the stark rear of the house to the open, cheery front that faced the lake.

  “Don’t worry,” Annie said behind her, holding the armful of dried flowers she was allowed to carry. “I’m starved and will eat all the leftovers.” Everyone was glad to hear this, worried as they were over her scrawny frame. The radiation had brought her down to mere bones and her gorgeous hair had thinned and was cut short, resembling the dry hay they’d passed in the fields. But everyone was careful not to mention it, choosing instead to echo her words about being starved.

  “Leave your troubles at the door!” Doris called out as she opened the front door, pointing to the overhead sign. The women loved the dented, rusted sign instantly and promptly obeyed, laughing loudly, bursting into the first of many stories that would be told that weekend.

  Eve relished the joy bubbling in the house, feeling a bit overcome. She wrapped her arms around herself and quietly walked around the large, sunny front room of the cottage. She adored the comfortable, mismatched sofas tossed with several bright colorful pillows, the game table in the corner and the huge stone fireplace that separated the living room from the kitchen. At the front of the cottage was a large expanse of sparkling glass that opened to a broad wooden deck perched high on a slope overlooking Glenn Lake. Three Adirondack chairs and a hammock faced the lake. Every surface was spotlessly clean, the lace at the windows was crisp white, fresh flowers had been gathered and placed in vases and she could smell a hot lunch in the oven.

  Doris’s touch was everywhere and Eve was instantly relieved by the obvious signs of her friend’s healthy mind-set. Eve had heard about Doris’s cottage for years but had never been able to come up in the past. With a busy husband and two children’s summer schedules, it had never worked out. She hoped this was the first visit of many in the future, a first step to rekindle their friendship, to reconnect after this year of transitions.

  “Everyone, pick a number from the hat for a room assignment,” Doris called out. “It’s luck of the draw. We’re doubling up tonight so I hope no one snores!”

  After they finished the first of the many feasts Doris would cook them, they changed into their swimsuits. Sated and serene, they meandered down the long flight of wooden stairs and across the wobbly dock to spread out on towels and bask in the sun. Women being women, they checked each other out in their suits. Doris wore a funky, navy, dotted Swiss tank suit that she claimed she’d pulled out of an old trunk at the cottage.

  “Very retro chic, don’t you think?” asked Doris.

  Midge swore she saw Doris’s mother in that suit back in the sixties, which set them all howling.

  “There’s no escaping our mothers,” Midge said with a shake of her head and a hearty laugh, but there wasn’t a hint of maliciousness.

  Gabriella wore a brightly colored Hawaiian floral one-piece. Midge and Annie wore plain black one-pieces. Annie grumbled that because of her scar, her bikini days were over, so Eve wore one in her honor. There was no sucking in of the stomachs or worrying if their thighs were too fat or their butts too broad.

  “Those days are over,” Midge officially declared, to which they all murmured, “Thank God!”

  Doris passed around straw hats and suntan lotion as they verbally passed around games of trivia. “What’s your favorite movie?” “When was your first kiss?” Silly games, but the playing acted as a subtle tool to weave them tighter together. As they lay massaged by the warm rays of the sun, they relaxed and shared hitherto unknown minutiae about themselves and their lives—those little, revealing details only best friends know. And in the telling, each felt reacquainted with herself as well.

  When Eve, Midge and Gabriella went into the lake for a swim, Doris stayed behind with Annie. Annie lay against a beach chair, half drowsing in the sun under an enormous straw hat that spread shade over her shoulders.

  “I’m so glad you came,” Doris began, her tone indicating that she wanted a personal moment with Annie, away from the others. She poured water, keeping her hands busy. “I wasn’t sure you’d be able to, so soon after surgery. Or even if you’d want to. How are you feeling? The stairs weren’t too much for you?”

  Annie shook her head and pried open an eye. “No, I’m fine, really,” she replied in a lazy drawl. “I get tired quicker and there’s still tenderness, of course, but the doctor wants me up and around. As long as I don’t overdo. And with John at home and Gabriella here, there’s no chance of that happening.” She chuckled and smiled warmly. “And Doris, I really wanted to come.”

  Doris laughed lightly, relieved that the
old tenseness between them was gone and they’d made it through their first solo session since that infamous Fourth of July. Doris knew that she herself had changed, but so had Annie. She wasn’t subdued, exactly, but Doris thought she was more reserved, not quite so quick to mouth out an opinion or a wisecrack. They talked comfortably awhile, then slipped into an equally comfortable silence, just friends sitting side by side listening to the shrieks and calls of the swimmers cavorting in the lake. When the others sputtered and splashed back to shore, the two reached out to briefly touch each other’s hand in mute acknowledgment.

  The lake was quiet. Most of the houses had been closed up for the summer and those few hearty souls who remained year long had grown bored with summer and were busy indoors. The first blush of fall was visible in the palette of color encircling the lake: the reds of maples, the yellows of poplars, the blending of orange, ocher and rose from the varying shrubs.

  The air cooled sharply as the afternoon waned on and the sun lowered, another sure sign of fall. Steam rose from the warm lake, foglike, and from somewhere they could smell the familiar pungent smoke of leaves being burned. Climbing from the lake, the three women wrapped themselves up in towels still warm from the sun, and all of them gathered their sundries and returned to the cottage at a leisurely pace to change into jeans, sweaters and warm socks. Someone mentioned how she felt like they were at camp, heading back to their cabins.

  On their pillows they found invitations to a tea party. They were hand-painted with scenes from Alice in Wonderland, only in this version the Dormouse, the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter were all women. With each invitation came a long, multicolored twine necklace attached to a playing card, each one a different ace. They were instructed to wear the necklaces and follow the directions to the party.

  “Step outside the front door,” read Eve aloud. Gabriella, Annie and Midge clustered around her. “Walk six paces east, then look up.”