The Dirty Book Club Read online

  “Actually, about that . . .” Actually about that . . .

  M.J. squinted through the infuriating echo.

  “The Red Cross asked me to stick around for a while and help out.”

  A red cross popped into M.J.’s head. It had Kardashian-sized curves, a nurse’s cap, and a sultry Marilyn Monroe whisper: Hey there, Dr. Dan, I just love how man-shaped you are. What do you say you stick around for a while and help me out? Then she wrapped her brick-thick arms around his war-torn scrubs and blushed herself redder.

  The front door opened with a bang. Then footsteps. Not heels, though, Birkenstocks. “Stop eating!” Britt called as she charged the bedroom, bangs parted like tent flaps. “Don’t eat—” She stepped on one of the brownies, slid across the floor, and landed forehead-first on the unopened DBC box.

  M.J. wanted to ask if she was okay, but she couldn’t speak—she couldn’t even breathe—she was laughing too hard. A staccato of guttural clicks was the only sound she could make.

  “Baby, are you crying?” Dan asked. “I know you were worried and I—”

  Britt cupped M.J.’s face between her hands and looked at her with those whiskey-brown eyes of hers. “How many did you eat?”

  “Have your lashes always been that thick?”

  “M.J.?” Dan called. “Can you hear me?”

  “How many did you eat?”

  “Dan is alive!” M.J. told her. “And he’s fucking a red cross.”

  “How many did you eat?”

  M.J. raised two fingers. Then three more.

  Britt found the phone in a lump of sheets. “Dan, I’m so glad you’re alive. Listen, M.J. ate five pot brownies and . . . She didn’t know . . . I didn’t know, either . . . What should I . . . Okay . . . Bye.”

  Britt dialed 9-1-1.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Calling an ambulance!”

  “Why? It was just a bump on the head. You look fine.”

  Britt snickered. “It’s for you, dumb-ass.”

  “Me?” M.J. knocked the phone from Britt’s hand. “I don’t need an ambulance.”

  “I know, but you need a hospital and my electric golf cart won’t get us there.”

  “Come.” M.J. began crawling toward the kitchen, finding comfort in the low center of gravity.

  Britt followed, tracking chocolate all over the floor.

  “Take my Mini,” she said, pointing up at her purse, which she’d left on the counter.

  “It’s yours?”

  “Yeah, but you can have it.”

  CHAPTER

  Eleven

  Pearl Beach, California

  Monday, June 20

  Full Moon

  THE FIRST FIFTEEN minutes M.J. spent at the Good Book had been fine, pleasant even. She sat in the reading lounge, sipped prosecco and flipped through her notes on Fear of Flying. She couldn’t wait to deconstruct Isadora Wing’s brazen affair with Adrian. Couldn’t wait to read the forty-two-year-old letter in the dust jacket of her book. Couldn’t wait for some company, having spent twenty days without Dan. And yet, all she did was wait.

  Outside, the full moon was bright and bloated. Instead of casting an approving glow on the first gathering of the new Dirty Book Club, it mocked M.J. by shining a light on the three members who didn’t show; on Dan, who missed his connecting flight in Hong Kong and wouldn’t be home for another day; on her voice mail that hadn’t heard an apology from Gayle in over a week.

  While Easton scurried about, returning errant books to their proper shelves, M.J. lifted her eyes to the chandelier and summoned her father, a shrewd investor who always knew when the market was about to collapse, when to get out. “I promised I’d give Pearl Beach a chance and I did,” she said. “I decorated the cottage while Dan was gone. I took a stand-up paddleboard lesson. I even joined a book club!”

  The ceiling creaked. He was all ears.

  “Yeah, well, don’t get too excited. I’m at our first meeting right now and no one is here.” She twisted the gold wedding bands on her thumb. “Dad, it was a mistake for me to leave City the way I did. I wasn’t thinking clearly and now I think I should accept Gayle’s offer and go back to New York before she changes her mind. I’m bored and lonely and the tap water here tastes like saliva.”

  A bookmark, one of the hundreds that hung from the rafters, drifted to the floor. It read, Sorry, yesterday was the deadline for all complaints. M.J. laughed. Her mother, a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bra-straps kind of gal, must have been eavesdropping.

  “I’m not complaining, Mom, I’m confused.” M.J. drained half a glass of prosecco in a desperate gulp. “If I go, I’ll lose Dan. If I stay, I’ll lose my mind. What am I supposed to do?”

  The chandelier began to swing.

  “Leave?”

  The ceiling shook.

  “Stay?”

  The chandelier swung harder. Bookmarks began raining down from the ceiling. Either they wanted her to leave or this was the start of something biblical.

  M.J. crawled under the coffee table and took shelter. If the movie San Andreas taught her anything it was that. “It won’t be long now,” she told her parents—an RSVP to the family reunion she assumed was decades away.

  “There you are,” Easton said, poking his face under the coffee table.

  “Earthquake!”

  “Nah, it’s just Addie, stomping around her apartment.” He offered his hand.

  “She’s home?”

  Seething, M.J. began the climb to Addie’s apartment. The flat soles of her gladiator sandals reprimanding the stairs with resentful stamps. If only she had worn her Lanvins, those chunky square heels would have landed like anvils.

  Then footsteps came toward her, carrying the satisfied spring of a boy who had just become a man.

  “ ’Sup?” he said, tucking in his Enchanted Florists uniform as he passed.

  M.J. stomped harder.

  “Back for more?” Addie cooed from the open door at the top of the landing. She wore a gauzy white cover-up that revealed her dark areolas like a botched surprise. “Oh, sorry,” she said, disappointed, “I thought you were Marilyn, the delivery guy.” She twisted her cinnamon-colored hair and fastened it with a chip clip.

  “That guy’s name was Marilyn?”

  “The tattoo on his back said Marilyn, so I’m going with it.”

  M.J. swallowed her laughter as punishment. “Why did you blow off the meeting?”

  “That’s tonight?”

  Normally, M.J. would have fired back with something biting, then walked off with a smirk. An underdog who got the last word. But then what? Another night spent rearranging furniture, stalking Liz Evans on social media, and popping an Ambien at sunset? She couldn’t tolerate more solitude; how it coiled around her lungs and squeezed.

  So, there she was. Plucked, showered, and dressed in a tasteful black jumpsuit. Ready to embrace the Dirty Book Club and its ragtag members. Only now had it occurred to her that they might not embrace her back.

  “Yes, Addie, the meeting was tonight. No one showed. Easton locked up the store. We’re done.”

  “Relax,” she said, yanking her inside. “This is California. Everyone’s late.”

  Moments after she texted the change of address, Addie, still flitting about in a see-through dress was welcoming Britt and Jules into her cozy one-bedroom apartment; breezily asking them to remove their shoes because the floorboards were old; being praised for offering to host on such short notice.

  “Sit wherever,” she said, indicating the small but opulent living room. Gold foil wallpaper, black velvet furniture, splays of animal hides, flickering vanilla-scented candles. It was sensual and sexy with an undercurrent of illicit behavior—perfect for a drug lord’s paramour or a Rihanna video.

  M.J. sat on the curvaceous daybed, behind which was a mosaic of ornately framed oil paintings of Rubenesque women, pale and exposed.

  “Y’all are never gonna guess who I just met with,” Jules said, as she unbuckled her sandals
and placed them neatly by the door.

  ISIS? M.J. might have joked had they been better acquainted. Instead, she remained silent while Jules went on about her three-hour caucus with Piper Goddard and her fiancé, Gill—whatever his last name was. It didn’t matter. Piper was Goddard Cosmetics. And she had just hired Jules to plan her third wedding at the Majestic.

  “You don’t understand,” Jules said. “I worked the Goddard counter at Saks for two years. It’s the only thing I use. See?” She closed her lids, showcasing an expertly blended gouache of indigo and violet shadows.

  “You’re a makeup artist,” Britt said, as if that explained everything.

  “Self-taught,” Jules chirped. “I was accepted into the cosmetology school at Paul Mitchell but”—she sighed—“life. You know?” With a resilient grin she sat on the couch, removed two Goddard pouches from her tote and placed them neatly by the roses that were probably from Marilyn. “Come,” she said to Britt, patting the cushion beside her. “Let me cover that ’stache rash for you.”

  “Is it still red?” Britt fingered her upper lip. “Serves me right for getting waxed at a nail salon.”

  M.J. cut a look to Britt’s glossy reds. “That’s why you were late?”

  “Paul’s taking me to Marrow. It’s our thirteenth anniversary.” She cast a wide-eyed glare at M.J.—a silent reminder to keep the brownie incident under wraps. Even though Britt accidentally fed her the batch Paul was making for a friend with colon cancer—not himself—she didn’t want the others to know. “Why stir the pot?” she quipped on the drive home from the hospital.

  “You’re going out for dinner tonight?” M.J. asked, more peeved by Britt’s early exit than the unintentional overdose.

  “Our reservation is in forty-five minutes.” She beamed.

  “How romantic,” Jules squealed. “Wha’daya say we glam you up? It’s amazing what a wee bit of I-give-a-beep can do, especially around the eyes.”

  Britt scratched at a crusty splotch on her mouse-gray maxi dress. “I did give a beep.”

  “I know, shugah. You just need to give a twinge more.”

  Compulsion shot up the back of M.J.’s throat and straight out her mouth. “Actually, the word is tinge.”

  “Not where I come from,” Jules declared, then to Britt, “Look up so I can get your lashes.”

  Addie returned from the kitchen with a warm bottle of chardonnay and a tower of red plastic cups. “Isn’t it a little soon for a makeover scene?”

  Jules turned away from Britt and sneezed. “Sorry.” She sniffed, then sneezed again. “It’s the—Ah-poo—roses. I’m allergic.” She popped a Claritin.

  “Say no more . . .” Addie opened her window and dumped the roses onto the street.

  “You didn’t have to do that!”

  “Poor Marilyn,” M.J. said.

  “Marilyn didn’t buy the roses, he delivered them.” Addie lowered herself onto the zebra hide and leaned back on her elbows. “The flowers were from some hottie I met at the juice bar on Teal Street.”

  “Did you know the hottie or was it a zipless fuck?”

  “What’s a zipless fuck?” Addie asked.

  “Spontaneous sex with a stranger,” Britt told her. “It’s from Fear of Flying.”

  “Really?” Addie asked as she coaxed a floating piece of cork from her cup and flicked it across the room. “What’s it about?”

  “Didn’t you read it?” M.J. asked.

  Addie shook her head. “We agreed that I didn’t have to, remember?”

  With a slight eye roll, M.J. turned to her notes. “Written by Erica Jong and published in 1973, this novel is a mock memoir about Isadora Wing, a New York writer who travels to Vienna with her husband, Bennett, so he can attend a conference. While there, she meets Adrian Goodlove—a scruffy Englishman who becomes her lover after helping himself to a fistful of her ass.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “It was,” M.J. said, hoping for backup. But Jules was busy contouring Britt’s cheekbones, and Britt was busy urging Jules to contour faster because Marrow didn’t hold tables. M.J. felt like a substitute teacher on the last day of school.

  With that in mind, she pulled Gloria’s letter from the inside of the book and began reading it aloud, desperate to cover the material before the bell rang and she lost them forever.

  THE DATE: Thursday, January 10, 1974

  THE DIRTY: Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

  THE DETAILS: By Gloria Golden

  I was in the checkout line at Safeway, flipping through one of those women’s lib magazines when I learned about Fear of Flying. The review claimed that Isadora Wing’s erotic fantasies—along with her affair—proved that women love sex just as much as men. And I thought, Now this, I have to read.

  My plan was to start tonight’s meeting with a poll: Hands up if you think women love sex as much as men. I needed to know if anyone else disagreed with this statement. If they, like me, didn’t love sex as much as men, they loved it more and thought there was something wrong with them. But Marjorie asked if anyone had had a real-life zipless fuck (as if she didn’t already know), so we ended up starting with that.

  Liddy, Dot, and I had not. Of course, Marjorie had had several. There were a few at Woodstock, one in the back row during The Poseidon Adventure, and Flight #645: New York to Heathrow.

  Liddy said, It was Marjorie, in the lavatory, with a pilot, like we were playing Clue.

  I wondered why anyone would want to have spontaneous sex with strangers. To me, making love without the love part was the same as preparing meat loaf without meat. What was the point?

  Pleasure, Gloria. Pleasure is the point. (Marjorie.)

  But Isadora loved Bennett, I said. And they had pleasurable sex. So why did she cheat?

  Because Adrian made her underpants wet enough to mop up the streets of Vienna.

  So?

  So, love has nothing to do with it, Marjorie said, like she was Dr. Joyce Brothers or something. Lust and love are different. I love lust. Which is why I’m never getting married.

  Liddy, of all people, agreed with her. She said that most people get married because society makes us think it’s the hip thing to do. And if magazines and movie stars said being a spinster was cool no one would do it.

  Dot said: Speak for yourself, floozy. I couldn’t wait to marry Robert. Society had nothing to do with it.

  Then I said: Maybe it’s genetic, like some people are born wanting more sex than others . . . Like me.

  Marjorie practically choked on her cigarette smoke. You want more sex than Leo?

  Be grateful you even have a libido (Liddy), Patrick and I are trying so hard to get pregnant, my Mother Mary is red, raw, and stuffed as a nose in flu season. I think I have a penis allergy.

  Marjorie raised an eyebrow as if to say, I told you she was a lesbian.

  Robert and I do it four times a week. Five when Jenny spends the night at her grandparents’. (Dot)

  What about you, Glo? (Marjorie)

  Once.

  A day?

  A month. Leo’s always at work, and by the time he gets home he’s too tired.

  They looked at one another like they had a secret.

  Have an affair, Marjorie suggested as if offering me a second slice of pie. That’s the groovy thing about Isadora, she shows us that it’s okay to spread our wings. If men can fly, we can fly, too.

  Isadora isn’t groovy, I said. And she shouldn’t be spreading her wings. She’s married. And now poor Bennett has to spend the rest of his life wondering why he’s not good enough. I could hear the despair in my voice, taste its vinegar on my tongue. I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Maybe the vodka. Anyway, why does anyone have to fly?

  Marjorie told me to ask Leo.

  This time everyone looked at her, not like she had a secret, but like she spilled one.

  What? Marjorie said, all big eyes and innocence. I assumed it was one of those things we all knew but never talked about. Like how Robert would rather be i
n Vietnam than work another day at his father’s grocery store and that Liddy is gay.

  I am not gay! I’m married to a pastor!

  Marjorie opened a new pack of Camels and didn’t even offer us one. Then she said: I thought when you’re best friends with someone for twenty years you can speak the skinny, but I guess we’re still pretending here; so, Glo, about that Durex wrapper you found in Leo’s racquetball bag. You’re saying that was yours?

  You know about that?

  They nodded.

  We also know about the Chantilly on his dress shirt, the crumpled-up receipt from the Biltmore, the mysterious midnight phone calls, and those autograph pictures. (Liddy)

  One for every pot roast that went to waste. (Dot)

  I became angry and told them to stop; angry because I expected them to pick up these tidbits of information like a fallen Cheerio—dump them in the trash and move on—not come to conclusions behind my back. I was also angry at Leo for making me look like a fool. Angry with myself because I didn’t cook like Julia Child or look like Raquel Welch. If I did maybe Leo would think I was enough. But most of all I was angry because they were right. I knew Leo was messing around. I had always known it. I was just too scared to admit it, because once I did, then what?

  What am I supposed to do now? I asked while they rubbed my back, lit my cigarettes, refreshed my martini. We have four kids and three fund-raisers next month. What will I tell my parents? How will I face the neighbors? Who will hold my hand at the movies?

  I bet a romantic vacation will help you two get back on track. Hawaii or maybe even Florida. (Dot)

  And let him get away with it?

  Yes, let him get away with it. Gloria, you keep things from Leo all the time. (Marjorie)

  Like what?

  You call his curved penis Captain Hook. You get dolled up for that Little League coach. You prank-call Leo’s busty secretary. And what about this club?

  What about it?

  You say you’re at a town hall meeting, Leo says he’s working late.

  We’re talking about affairs, not white lies.