The Scarlet Letter Society

by Mary McCarthy

  “Oh, yeah, that’s so annoying that he wants to risk his boring 9 to 5 job to pursue his dream of music because he has a shot at making it in the nation’s number one music industry city. How rude,” snarked Wes.

  “Why does everyone leave me?” asked Maggie in a quiet voice.

  “Oh sweetie, no one leaves you,” said Wes. “You leave them. You’re always the one in control, right? You left Dave because the two of you didn’t know how to be married again after losing a child. You left Matt because he bored you to fucking tears and you’d rather be alone than be in a building with that man for another minute. And if Ted goes to Nashville he won’t be leaving here as much as going somewhere but you’ll probably leave him to punish him for leaving you.”

  “Fuck you,” said Maggie, sniffling, “for knowing me so well and for your honesty.”

  “It’s such a lonely word,” said Wes.

  “Yeah, everyone is so untrue, aren’t they, Billy Joel?” said Maggie. Wes could always make her smile. Incorporating Billy Joel lyrics into conversations was something they had been doing for the decade they’d been best friends- in fact it started at a party where they were both quoting a song and no one else recognized it; they’d smiled at each other and that was the beginning of this beautiful friendship.

  “You know what I think your problem is?” asked Wes.

  “Oh, Christ, please do tell,” said Maggie.

  “You don’t ever want to admit that you need someone,” said Wes. “Little Miss Independent. God forbid you’re vulnerable and you cry and fall into a man’s arms, because your bra-burning mother’s generation told you poor little Gloria Steinems to grow dicks so you never had to need one from a man.”

  “Paging Dr. Freud,” said Maggie, laughing, “and fuck you again by the way. What the fuck are you, taking shrink school on the Internet?”

  “No,” said Wes. “What the fuck I am is right. If you are still in love with the man you have now publicly referred to as your husband even though you haven’t worn his ring in a damn decade, then you better take a look in the mirror, sweetie. Stop trying to pretend you’re a lesbian, too, because that annoys the shit out of real lesbians. They don’t go around sleeping with your potential boyfriends, so you shouldn’t be playing ‘come on down’ like it’s the Price is Right with their potential girlfriends.”

  “I am not trying to pretend I’m a lesbian,” said Maggie. “I was just having a bicurious interaction. I think they call it experimenting?”

  “Oh, actually when you’re sleeping with everyone, I think they call it being a slut,” said Wes. “Experimenting is for rats.”

  “I am not sleeping with everyone,” said Maggie.

  “But I think there’s only one person you want to be sleeping with,” said Wade. “And it sure isn’t the one with the tits.”

  Eva drove over the drawbridge to Matthew’s Island with tears in her eyes. Normally, she felt emotional due to the happiness and relief of crossing the bridge to a more peaceful side of the waters. It felt like the end of the earth, really, leaving behind a faster-paced world on the other side, behind her. But this time she cried as she crossed it because her mother wouldn’t be at the cottage to welcome her.

  It wasn’t her first time back since the accident; of course she’d been back there with Joe and the boys for the funeral and burial, and to take care of things like mail and newspapers. Her mom’s cats and the houseplants had been looked after every few days by the cleaning lady, but she needed to spend the weekend at the cottage to decide “what was going to happen next.” Would she sell the place? What would she do with all her mom’s things?

  She pulled into the Matthew’s Island Country Store. On the island there were three restaurants, a few carry-out places, and the country store; her favorite place. Patty and Jack, who had bought the store a few years before, had created something completely rare in today’s world: a sense of place. They’d respected the history of the store. Its original wooden shelves, sagging slightly under a century of supplies, still held flour and canned goods and trash bags. But they’d incorporated local art and local wines and excellent homemade prepared foods and baked goods so the store had a modern feel as well. It was the perfect blend of old and new, and Eva bought everything from them when she was visiting. Local watermen brought fresh crabmeat and oysters caught on in the Chesapeake Bay, and a local creamery delivered ice cream in an amazing array of flavors.

  Patty and Jack always greeted her, and all their customers, by name. They knew she’d order the London Broil on a plain wrap with their homemade horseradish sauce. They knew she’d go to the freezer in the back to see what new flavors of homemade ice cream had arrived.

  There was comfort in familiarity. Even though she wasn’t on the island but maybe once a month, everyone locally seemed to know her and no one treated her like a tourist (what islanders often referred to as a “chicken necker” or an “up-the-roader.”).

  Eva took the short drive to her mother’s cottage. My cottage, she corrected herself. Once the will had been executed, of course the cottage had been bequeathed to her as the only child. Her mom didn’t have any money, just enough to cover the expenses of her death and burial, but she had this cottage. Her home. And now it was Eva’s.

  She drove toward the southern tip of the island and turned left on Tilghman’s Neck road. Many years ago, before a population decline, Matthew’s Island had consisted of four small villages. Tilghman Neck was one of them. There was still a small church and post office (though now residences) and even though the entire island was only four miles long, the small village with its cluster of 20-25 houses had an even cozier feel to it. She pulled into the driveway.

  The cottage sat at the end of the drive, off to itself a bit, nestled near some loblolly pine trees and constructed diagonally to face the water. Built in 1932, it was a Cape Cod-style house with arts and crafts styling, though no truly high form of architecture existed on the provincial island. There was a screened front porch with a vintage 1930s metal porch furniture set: a three seat glider, two rocking chairs and a matching table. She entered the porch, always appreciating the thwap of the wooden screen door behind her. The extra key was “hidden” under a jar of seafoam green sea glass on the coffee table. She used this key, forgetting that she had her mom’s set in her purse now.

  Eva’s mom had been a great decorator, achieving the perfect “coastal style” after devouring books and magazines on the décor for years. The soft aqua, yellow, orange and cream hues throughout the cottage creating a soothing environment and a perfect backdrop for her sea glass and driftwood accents. Eva put the groceries away in the small retro red and white kitchen with its two-seat chrome metal table and vinyl and chrome chairs. She stopped and stared at the table. It was like the ghost of her mom was sitting there, drinking her coffee and reading the newspaper like she did every day for fifty years, the last several decades alone since her husband had died.

  Every moment she remembered her mom wasn’t coming back felt like a punch to the stomach. Being in the cottage alone was strange. It wasn’t bad, it was just different. Quiet, peaceful, a tiny bit spooky. She would have to learn how to be alone. She was used to noisy worlds: teenage boys, industrious big city law firms. When she’d left this island at age 18, she swore she would never come back. After growing up in such a small place, she wanted nothing but big cities. But now, the smallness of it all created a completely perfect place for her to try to put the pieces of her life back together, somehow.

  She sat down at the small table to eat her meal. Taking out her iPad, she put her Pandora 80s station for background noise, and did the first thing she always did when she got to the cottage: she checked the tide schedule. As any good sea glass hunter knew, low tide was the best time of the day to find the shards of bottles and tableware from years past. Enormous antique apothecary jars like the one in her office, filled with sea glass in colors that matched each room’s décor around the cottage, awaited her new beach finds after they we
re cleaned and dried and sorted. Tomorrow morning, she knew where she’d be at 9:10 a.m.: on the beach, picking up the broken pieces.

  Lisa walked into the downtown restaurant and saw Ben sitting at the bar. She immediately recognized the blazer/jeans/tousled dark brown hair and that fabulous smile with that goddamn distracting dimple as he got up from his seat and turned to face her. That dimple, she had written in her diary, is so entrancing. She walked over and he reached out to embrace her. He held on to her for a second longer than casual business acquaintances or friends would do, and she breathed in his smell. It was familiar, and she felt a shiver through her spine as he stepped away.

  “So what do beautiful bakers like to drink?” asked Ben, looking into her face intently with those gypsy hazel eyes. “Vanilla vodka? Chocolate liqueur?”

  “Beer,” said Lisa, smiling at him. “It’s pumpkin ale season, and there’s a local brew I love.”

  “Sounds great. I’ll try one, too,” said Ben. “Do you want to get an appetizer here at the bar, or should we get a table?”

  “Oh, let’s stay here and get an appetizer,” Lisa said. She was too nervous to sit at a table—any one of her customers or her stupid subdivision neighbors could walk in, and sitting at the bar with someone who wasn’t your husband seemed so much less formal than having a table to themselves.

  They ordered the crab dip with homemade Old Bay chips, a Maryland staple, and some calamari. The pumpkin ales arrived and they sipped from the bottles.

  “So you haven’t told me much about your husband,” said Ben.

  “Well, he’s a real estate developer in DC, so he’s gone a lot,” said Lisa, and then she found herself blurting out, “and he has a foot fetish, which is really awful since I have a whole closet full of shoes I don’t even wear. I’d rather turn them all into cast iron cookware or a new Viking stove or a college fund.”

  Ben laughed softly. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I don’t mean to laugh. But I think that’s more words in a row than I’ve ever heard you say.”

  Lisa blushed and said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” said Ben. “I like the idea of getting to know you. And that sucks about the whole shoe thing. I’ve heard of foot fetishes but I don’t know much about them and I wasn’t even sure they were a real thing. I guess they are.”

  “Oh, it’s real,” said Lisa. “Believe me. I probably have $40,000 worth of shoes that say it’s real. Too bad he doesn’t have a flip-flop fetish. I prefer wearing those”

  “Well, you might have your Viking stove that way, I guess,” said Ben.

  “So what about you, mystery man?” said Lisa. “We’re friends on Facebook but I feel like I don’t know you. I find out you have a son, and honestly, I don’t even know if you’re married or separated or divorced or what.” For some reason, talking about Jim and her feet had made her more conversationally bold.

  “I was with Max’s mom for a long time,” said Ben. “But she left over a year ago.”

  “Oh, Ben,” said Lisa. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t really have personal pictures on my Facebook account because I have clients for friends, and I don’t like having pictures of Max on the Internet for some reason. I used to have family pictures up, but after she left, I couldn’t stand to have them there anymore.”

  “That sounds tough,” said Lisa. “And now you’re a single dad?”

  “It’s not easy,” said Ben. “But Max is absolutely the coolest little guy in the world, so it really isn’t as difficult as it could be.”

  Their food arrived. They ate together, sharing stories about their siblings, their jobs, their neighborhoods. But it was getting late. Ben had to pick Max up at the preschool’s aftercare program, and Lisa wanted to be home before Jim got home.

  He walked her to her car near the bakery.

  “Thanks for a nice evening, Lisa,” said Ben, looking down at her, the shadow of that dimple more pronounced in the streetlight.

  She looked up at him.

  “No, thank you,,” she said. “I enjoy spending time with you.”

  And then he took her hand in his and leaned down and kissed her. Ever so gently, right on the mouth, right on the street where anyone could drive by and see. It wasn’t a long kiss, it almost could have been mistaken from a distance as a friendly goodbye kiss, but it was just long enough for her to feel it all the way inside her body and wish it went on forever and ever or at least for a few hours, preferably while naked.

  “Goodnight, Lisa,” said Ben as he gently released her hand.

  “Goodnight, Ben,” said Lisa.

  Lisa was a few minutes early for the November meeting of the Scarlet Letter Society. She parked her Chevy Equinox (Cyber Metallic Gray; she’d bought the 2010 car used, swearing she wasn’t thinking about it being roomy enough for a baby) a few blocks over at the bakery where she’d walk back to work after the meeting.

  Zarina saw Lisa as she walked up the street toward the shop, holding the door open to let her in.

  “I know I’m a little early, Zarina,” said Lisa. “Sorry.”

  “Why would you be sorry, silly?” said Zarina. “Come on in and get warm by the fake fire and tell me what kind of coffee you want. You think everyone is sick of the pumpkin lattes we drank all through October? I did break out the peppermint mocha latte. Too soon?”

  “No way,” said Lisa. “It’s never too soon for a peppermint mocha latte. I could drink them all year. I never understand why they have to be a holiday thing.”

  “So what’s new with you?” Zarina asked, sitting down next to her.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Lisa. “I’m stuck in this place of trying to decide whether I should fight for my marriage. We’re thinking about going to marriage counseling. And then whether we would go for in vitro so I can have the baby I’ve been wanting for what seems like forever. Or, I could just go ahead and have a passionate love affair with my graphic designer, get pregnant with his love child, and Jim would never know the difference.”

  “Whoa, there,” said Zarina. “Back that train up for a second. What do you mean go ahead and have one? Haven’t you been having one for months? I seem to recall something about walk-in freezer and covered bridge sex.”

  Lisa turned crimson red, as though her internal temperature instantly rose 10 degrees.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “I am such an idiot. You can’t say anything to Maggie or Eva. They would throw me out of SLS.”

  “Chill,” Zarina said. “I’m not going to tell anybody anything. Do you mind me asking why in the hell you want to be a member of the Scarlet Letter Society in the first place when you aren’t even cheating on your husband?”

  “I’ve thought about cheating on him for a year,” said Lisa. “I have a guy I would cheat with, and actually he kissed me last night for the first time. I have no friends in my subdivision. When I met Maggie and Lisa in the shop last year, I really liked them and I wanted to fit in. I overheard them talking about boyfriends versus husbands, and I just sort of…”

  “You just sort of completely lied to get into the group,” Zarina said. “You know, if they knew about this, they would probably just laugh it off, but don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. I have enough problems of my own without blabbering about yours.”

  “So what else is up?” asked Lisa, happy to change the subject.

  “Stan asked me to marry him,” said Zarina, frowning at the memory of how the night went.

  “Isn’t that supposed to be a wonderful thing?” asked Lisa.

  “I guess it’s supposed to be,” said Zarina. “Or it would’ve been, if I’d said yes.”

  “Oh, gosh, you said no,” said Lisa. “Yikes. Wow. Why?”

  “I don’t even think I know,” said Zarina. “I just don’t think I’m ready for marriage. I love Stan, but I hate the thought of the dress, and the paperwork…”

  “I understand,” said Lisa. “So did you guys break up?”

  “Stan summoned enough of his poor humil
iated ego to say he was fine with giving me some time to think about it,” said Zarina, “but it’s been super awkward.”

  “It’s ok to need time to think about something as major as marriage,” said Lisa. “Don’t feel guilty about it. You have to think of yourself first and what you want. This is a lifelong decision. Trust me.”

  “Thanks, Lisa,” said Zarina.

  Maggie and Eva walked in.

  “Well you girls look cozy,” said Eva. “What are you over here chatting about?”

  “Just deciding how many of Zarina’s gingerbread muffins I’m going to buy to bring over to the bakery,” said Lisa. “Her stuff flies off the shelf faster than my own.”

  “Yep, just getting Lisa’s muffin situation worked out,” Zarina said, and winked at her as she walked over to the counter to prepare coffee for the ladies.

  “Well I would like to have that peppermint mocha,” said Lisa, glancing at the chalkboard sign on the counter. “Never too early.”

  “Yum,” said Maggie.

  “Make it three,” said Eva.

  “I made both gingerbread and pumpkin cheesecake muffins in mini size,” I said. “So you could sample.”

  “Thanks, Z,” said Maggie, settling in with the other women in their cozy chatting spot. “So what do you girls think of this book, The Awakening by Kate Chopin?” asks Maggie.

  “Well, I read it,” said Eva, and acknowledging the surprised glances around her, added, “I know, it’s becoming a habit. And really? More goddamn death? Suicides? You gotta be kidding me.”

  “Agreed,” said Lisa, as she took out her beloved journal. Before she flipped back to her notes on the book, she smiled when she read her most recent entry, only a few words scrawled the night before: ‘Is there any going back?’

  “But there is so much beautiful language in the book,” said Lisa. “Listen to this gorgeous prose: