The Accidental Book Club

by Jennifer Scott

  But as she always did, she pasted on a timid smile as she came into the kitchen, hoping against all hope that the smile would disarm Bailey’s foul moods and even fouler mouth. Bailey was leaning against the stove and eating a Pop-Tart. Jean glanced at the luggage that Bailey had parked in the entryway by the front door. Everything she’d come with, even the pillow and blanket she’d been holding when she arrived, was threaded through the handle of one suitcase. Jean felt a pang of something she couldn’t quite pinpoint. Relief that she’d once again have her house to herself, lonely and quiet as it might be, and sadness that her granddaughter was leaving before they ever got a chance to connect, mixed together. Was there an emotion for that?

  “You can take those with you,” Jean said, motioning toward the Pop-Tart in Bailey’s hand. “For the trip.”

  “Already done,” Bailey said around a mouthful of Pop-Tart. “I also took the lotion in that bathroom because I like the way it smells. It’s not too widowy.”

  From the beginning, the word widow always stung, and Jean hated hearing it. It made her feel old and gnarled and terribly alone. She hated the sympathetic and uncomfortable way people looked at her when they found out she was a widow. It always seemed to Jean that there was less finality to phrases like passed away or moved on or is up in heaven, because those phrases connoted movement, and thus existence. Words like dead and died and widow all seemed so dark and final. He was deader to her somehow when she thought of herself as a widow.

  “That’s fine. I’ll buy a new lotion. You can take the perfume up there too. I think some of it was your mom’s.”

  “It’s skunky.”

  Jean moved to clean up some of the crumbs that Bailey had left on the counter, which, thankfully, forced her to turn her back to the girl, where she could hide everything she was thinking, everything she was feeling. There were so many things she wanted to say to Bailey—how she understood and felt her pain, how she wished she would let other people in and stop with this tough act, how she missed her and hoped that she would come back and that maybe someday they could have a real relationship, how she regretted the way she’d raised Laura if that had anything to do with why Laura drank herself, and her life, into oblivion. But none of those things felt safe to Jean. They all seemed attached to feelings rooted so deeply inside of her, she feared that if she said them, she might eviscerate herself right there on the kitchen floor.

  Soon there was the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, and Laura plodded in, wearing a torn and filthy old sleep shirt and looking like hell.

  “Coffee?” she croaked, turning in circles, searching for a coffeemaker.

  “I’ve already tossed the pot. It was cold. I’ll make another,” Jean said, reaching for the carafe.

  “Don’t bother,” Laura said. “I’ll just go back to bed. My head is killing me.”

  “When are we leaving, then?” Bailey asked, swallowing the last of her Pop-Tart and sipping a glass of milk.

  “For what?” Laura peered up at her daughter—who was taller than she was, Jean just noticed—out of one squinted eye.

  Bailey let her shoulders drop downward impatiently. “Home. Duh.”

  Laura shook her head, scratched her neck. “We’re not going home. Not right now. We’re staying here until I can get back on my feet.” She turned to Jean. “I assume that’s okay?”

  Flustered, Jean didn’t even have time to think before she found herself nodding yes and saying, “As long as you need.”

  “No, it’s not okay,” Bailey countered. “I want to go home. This place is lame. What did you come here for if it wasn’t to get me?”

  “To get control,” Laura said, sounding frustrated and weary, then rubbed her hand over her forehead. “I don’t know. To get away. To get . . . better, I guess.”

  “I thought that’s what rehab was for,” Bailey said. “I thought you were all ‘cured’ or whatever.” She made quote marks with her fingers when she said “cured,” and Jean half expected the milk glass to slip out of her hand and shatter on the floor.

  “I did. I am.”

  “Then why can’t you ‘get better’”—again with the air quotes—“at home?”

  “Bailey, you don’t understand. Your dad left me with a lot of things to handle, and I just don’t think I can do it right now. I want to get some rest before I go back.” Laura pulled her hand away from her face. She seemed to sink down into herself, getting smaller and smaller before Jean’s very eyes. She’d never seen her daughter look lost and helpless before—not even when she was little. She was an angry infant, a bold toddler, a precocious little girl, but never once had she ever been helpless.

  “But I mean, why can’t it ever be about what I want?” Bailey countered. “Why can’t I ever have any sort of say in my own life? I’m not the one who got all hooked on booze, so why am I the one who’s always suffering? It’s not fair. I don’t see why—”

  “Because I can’t do it, okay?” Laura had gone taut like a fire hose, her voice, loud and sharp, bouncing off the kitchen cabinets. “I can’t do it all alone, Bailey. You know what it was like over there. Trash and dishes and the bill collectors and the water turned off. The house is broken and I feel broken, and now I’m afraid every time I drink, everyone will be eyeing me, judging me, saying I need to go back to rehab. Especially your dad. I can’t do that anymore.”

  “But you’re sober now. You’ll do better,” Bailey said.

  “I was not falling apart because I was drinking too much!” Laura shrieked, her hands balled up in fists at her sides. “I was falling apart because I was alone to do it all. I was falling apart because everyone expects me to just be able to handle everything with no help.”

  Jean could see Bailey’s chin quiver. “Lies,” she finally said in a very quiet voice.

  Laura closed her eyes and steadied her voice. “I just didn’t get much sleep there and need some time to get back on my feet. To work up a plan. We’ll go back when I get caught up on sleep. Everything will be better then.” Laura turned and rummaged through the pantry, then came out with a sleeve of saltines. “I’ll make some coffee later,” she said, and then trudged back upstairs.

  After she’d gone, Jean felt more in the way than ever. She wasn’t sure what to make of Laura’s denial. Maybe Curt was making things sound worse than they were. Maybe Laura was simply heartbroken and overwhelmed, and couldn’t Jean, more than anyone, understand how that felt? But yet . . . Bailey was so very angry. Clearly there was more to it than maybe even Laura understood. Maybe it was possible that Laura truly didn’t realize she had fallen so far down into the hole she was in. Meanwhile, Bailey’s anger came off her in sheets and oozed out beneath their feet. Jean almost felt light-headed from it.

  “Would you like to go to the pool today?” Jean asked quietly, knowing this question would do nothing but anger Bailey, but unsure what she could say that wouldn’t, and also unsure what silence would do.

  Bailey gazed at her, teeth gritted, as if she’d never seen the woman before, and then lifted her milk glass and chugged what was left. When she finished, she slammed the glass in the sink so hard Jean winced and braced herself for flying broken shards of glass, which never came. “Bullshit,” Bailey mumbled, then spun on her heel and went the way her mother had just gone. “This is not fair!” she cried, much louder, when she reached the top of the stairs. The outburst was followed by yet another slammed door. If this kept up, Jean would have a splintered door on her hands.

  But that would be the least of her worries.

  TWELVE

  Jean had just finished cleaning up the dishes from her egg salad sandwich, to which she’d added capers as a trial run for a possible future club dish, when Bailey came into the kitchen. Jean didn’t acknowledge her. She’d learned her lesson one too many times now. Engaging with Bailey meant opening oneself up to all manner of abuse, and after the shrieking match between Laura and
Bailey in the kitchen that morning, Jean just didn’t think she had it in her.

  She knew she couldn’t ignore the situation forever. At some point she would need to talk to Laura, find out how long she planned to stay, find out what exactly the plan was and how she could help. But today was not that day. Laura was hungover and pissed off and, short of calling Curt, who was unlikely to do anything, Jean was at a loss how to deal with any of that.

  Wayne would have known. Wayne seemed to always know. And he had a way of getting Laura to listen to him. If only she could get Kenneth to come home while Laura was here. Maybe he would be able to get Laura to listen to him too.

  “So when are we leaving?” Bailey asked.

  Jean turned, still holding the dishrag in her hand, and tried to paste on a smile, though that was getting harder and harder with Bailey. “What?”

  Bailey grunted and shook her head as if Jean were possibly the dumbest person who ever walked the face of the earth. “Swimming?” She mimed doing a breaststroke. “You said we were going swimming?”

  “Oh. I didn’t think you’d want to go.”

  “I don’t. But it’s better than sitting around here all day. With her.” Bailey gave a quick glance over her shoulder at the stairs.

  “Okay,” Jean said, wringing out the dishrag and draping it over the faucet. “We’ll go. Just let me . . .” She found herself strangely rattled by this sudden request for together time, still wanting to do things right. Still hoping that doing things right was a possibility. She tried to move five directions at once, bobbing and weaving this way and that. She patted the sides of her hair and felt her shorts pockets—for no particular reason other than she didn’t know what else to do—until her brain kicked in. “Let me get ready,” she finally said, and that seemed to be what it took to get her moving. She picked up her book and put it down again. “Do you need something to eat?”

  “I ate a Pop-Tart. Remember?”

  “That was hours ago.”

  Bailey rolled her eyes and sighed with annoyance. “I ate four of them, okay? Are we gonna go, or are we gonna talk about the History of Bailey’s Stomach Contents?”

  Jean nodded, started to move past her granddaughter. “Do you swim?” she asked as she passed.

  “No, I’m planning to drown myself in your neighborhood pool,” Bailey said.

  Jean tried not to smile. She knew Bailey was trying to be tough, to be abrasive. But something about the way she’d said it led Jean to believe that just maybe she might be breaking through that angry exterior after all.

  Jean rushed upstairs to her bedroom, pausing only briefly to listen at Laura’s door. Hearing nothing but silence, she moved on. She would leave Laura a note, invite her to join them, even though she knew Laura wouldn’t.

  Jean pawed through her dresser drawer, rifling past clothing items she hadn’t worn in years—a clutch of slips that her mother had insisted she buy when she first got married, though she never wore dresses, a knotted pair of panty hose, a lacy negligee that Wayne had loved (she’d last worn it for him the week after he was diagnosed, for what Jean would always think of as their farewell lovemaking session, even though they’d made clunky, clumsy, half-sick love several times after that). Scrunched in the very back, half-stuck behind the drawer, was her old swimsuit, a black and gold skirted thing that practically screamed old lady. She held it up over her torso and studied herself in the mirror, shuddering at the very idea of squeezing into it. She hadn’t swum in years—maybe not in a decade. And she certainly didn’t plan to start today.

  But if Bailey wanted to go down to the pool, she would go. She would wear the suit and she would sit in a lawn chair and she would be thrilled to do it, if it meant a few minutes of happiness for her granddaughter—and peace and control for her.

  When she finally sucked up enough courage to face the world in her swimsuit and found her floppy sun hat, Jean headed back downstairs, where she found Bailey leaning over the bar, eating pickle chips out of a jar and thumbing through the Flavian Munney book.

  “You ready to go?”

  “This is stupid. You actually read this?”

  Jean felt her face flush. “You mind if I call my friend Loretta to go with us?” she asked, reaching for the phone.

  Bailey picked up the book and turned so that she was resting backward against the counter. She held it up in front of her face. “Flavian’s chest heaved under Roberta’s shaky touch. She let her fingers dip into the playground of a divot at the top of his six-pack, and she shuddered, moaning aloud and swirling her finger in the pool of sweat that had gathered there,” she read aloud. “Gross! Who wants to play with sweaty man nipples?”

  “I’m going to call,” Jean said, dialing Loretta’s phone number.

  Bailey continued to read, her voice going low and sultry. “Roberta let her hand trail down his stomach, over the muscles that rose and lowered with his every breath, toward the erection that was unrolling to meet her just above his belly button.” She laughed out loud. “Unrolling? Makes it sound like one of those party favor things you blow into.”

  “I don’t read them normally,” Jean explained, her face burning. “The club voted . . .”

  But Loretta picked up the other end of the line, rescuing Jean from having to explain further, and fortunately by the time she was off the phone, Bailey had finished her pickle chip and had laid the book down while she rooted around in the pickle jar for another one. Jean grabbed the book and stuffed it into her purse, as if she were dying to read it at the pool, but knowing she was simply hiding it from further humiliating read-alouds.

  “Loretta will meet us down there,” she said. “Do you have your swimsuit on?”

  “Duh,” Bailey answered, finally fishing out a pickle and devouring it in one bite.

  Maybe because it was still early in the day, or maybe because the neighborhood had all grown up and moved out, or maybe because it wasn’t all that hot that day, the pool was nearly deserted when Jean and Bailey arrived. A lone lifeguard sat at a round patio table, listening to music and chewing on a thumbnail so intently, Jean wondered how it wasn’t hurting him.

  He pulled the earbuds out of his ears when they opened the gate.

  “Hey,” he said as Jean signed them in. “Nice day, huh?”

  “Very,” Jean said, and it was true. The sky was brilliant blue, with just enough clouds to make it look interesting. The sun washed over the pool deck, giving it a bathed, glittery look that suggested excitement ahead. That had once been Jean’s favorite part about early summer—the promise that it held. But ever since Wayne died, she’d had so little to look forward to. What promises mattered when that one—the one that they’d be together until they were old and dotty—had been broken? She would be old and dotty alone. “Where is everyone?” she asked.

  The guard shrugged his tanned shoulders and popped a handful of sunflower seeds, which he’d seemed to produce out of nowhere, into his mouth. “Been dead all week. Got the pool to yourself.”

  “Awesome, dude,” Bailey snarked.

  Jean offered him an apologetic smile and took her things to a deck chair. Suddenly she didn’t know why she hadn’t been to the pool in so long. Sitting in the sun for an hour or two would feel good. Had she gotten any sun on her face since Wayne died? She couldn’t remember. In some ways, it was as if the sun had died right along with him.

  Loretta barreled through the gate just as Jean was getting settled, a giant bag dangling from her arm and an even bigger pair of sunglasses dwarfing the top half of her face. She signed in and made her way to Jean and Bailey, waving the whole way.

  “How do you like our private pool?” Jean called.

  “If I’d known, I’d have worn my bikini,” Loretta answered, and out of the corner of her eye, Jean could see Bailey make a gagging gesture with her finger. Loretta must have seen it too, because she leaned toward Bailey and said, “The thon
g one.” Jean tried hard not to giggle as Bailey shot daggers into Loretta with her eyes.

  “I brought Flavian with me,” Jean said.

  “Flavian in a Speedo—now, that’s my kind of after-lunch aperitif,” Loretta answered, pulling an oversized towel out of her bag and spreading it over the chair before settling into it. “What do you think of it so far?”

  “You know the rules. No talking about a book before the club meets.”

  Loretta pulled a sweating plastic cup out of her bag and took a healthy sip through the straw. “My rule. I can break it.”

  “Nope. You have to wait, just like everyone else, if you want to hear my deep thoughts about Flavian Munney.”

  “Don’t say deep and Flavian Munney in the same sentence. You’ll give me a hot flash.” Loretta took another sip as Bailey, making retching noises, got up from the deck chair and sat on the edge of the pool, down by the diving board, out of their earshot.

  “So I see she’s warming up nicely,” Loretta said, gesturing to Bailey with her cup.

  Jean leaned her head back against the vinyl strap of the chair. “I’ve given up. She’s sour and mad all the time, and her eating habits are atrocious. And she does the strangest things. Things you and I would never think of doing. Like the cake thing. That was just bizarre, wasn’t it?”

  Loretta shrugged. “She’s trying to shock everyone because when she does, she gets attention.”

  “Well, she’s losing mine. I just don’t have the energy for it. And to make it worse, now Laura has shown up. Drunk, of course, and having driven herself all the way across the state like that.”

  “Oh, my, the prodigal daughter returns.”

  “Yes, so what did they have first thing this morning? A screaming match in my kitchen. Wayne is probably rolling over in his grave just listening to it. He would have known how to handle all of this, and obviously I’m not doing a very good job of it. It’s hard to handle someone you barely know.”