Regan Stillwater is a sassy and cynical divorcée whose two kids live with her ex and his twenty-something wife in the Bay Area, leaving her to bask in her sizable alimony with various pool boys and, apparently, grocery store stock boys. She is outspoken and irreverent and may or may not have been a porn star in her youth. I totally love her.
And this is why I adore book club. Where else could you find such opposing personalities gathered together, all getting along and having a terrific time? The UN should take note. We have formed a sorority and everyone is allowed to express her opinion and disagree and debate. Sometimes voices are raised. One time, an argument almost came to blows. But at the end of the night, we all leave as friends. A typical discussion about a particular book might go as follows:
Mona: “Why does the character have to say the F-word in every sentence?”
Mia: “Because he’s from the fucking streets. This is not a fucking ‘tea and crumpets’ story.”
Liza: “I can see Mona’s point, but Mia’s right about the character.”
Jill: “The point is not that he says f-u-c-k every other word. The point is that he is a tortured soul who has never felt tenderness or affection in his entire life and who has no chance of ever finding true happiness because he carries around the excess baggage of his youth.”
Sandy: “It’s too bad he can’t turn himself around. He does have the potential.”
Regan: “Oh, who gives a crap? It was a crap novel anyway. Where’s the wine?”
I tend to keep my mouth shut and listen for the better part of our meetings. I find the interaction fascinating. And I have to say that I have never met a book I didn’t like. Wait, I’ll amend that statement. I have never read a book in which I couldn’t find some redeeming characteristic. Faults? Yes. Clunky language, certainly. But a book doesn’t just happen. It is the blood, sweat, and tears of some masochistic, self-flagellating workaholic who has the fortitude and determination to actually finish something, no matter the price. It is hard for me to condemn a novel as rubbish. I like some more than others, and I dislike many things about some, but I honestly have never put a book down and not finished it. No matter how banal, I always want to know how it ends.
But I do love the debate.
Forty-five minutes later, we have moved on to that portion of the evening, and all of my cohorts are dissing the latest James Patterson novel, which was Sandy’s choice. (Sandy likes murder mysteries. They’re safe and dependable, just like she is.)
“Well, I think Mr. Patterson has just gotten too big for his britches,” says Mia. “I mean, how masturbatory can you be?”
Mona flinches, Liza giggles, and Regan doesn’t miss a beat. “Are you asking me personally?”
“I would never ask you about your self-love schedule, girl. Don’t have that much time!”
“I liked his earlier books better,” Sandy admits. “This one was hard to follow and I have to say that I didn’t like any of the characters. They’re all so removed.”
“Assholes,” Mia agrees.
Mona flinches again and takes a sip of wine. “Too much cursing.”
“In the book or in this room?” Mia asks with a grin.
Mona grins back. “Both, if you want to know the truth.”
That’s the thing about Mona that makes her a welcome part of the group. She’s not evangelical. She doesn’t frown on anyone because they swear. She just doesn’t do it herself. But I get the distinct feeling that nothing would give her greater pleasure than running down the middle of Main Street screaming fuck at everyone she passes.
“What do you think, Miz Thang?” Mia asks, turning her attention to me.
I shrug noncommittally. “It wasn’t a total disaster, but the ending was kind of anticlimactic.”
“I liked it,” Liza says adamantly. “Patterson has switched things up, gotten out of his routine. He’s trying something new.”
My ears perk up at the last sentence and suddenly I am thinking about my blog. I wonder whether anyone will read it, what they will think about it. Maybe I should peruse the other entries to see what my competitors are writing about, but that might undermine my confidence, which, frankly, after writing about cheese balls, is not very high anyway. No. I won’t do that. But what should tomorrow’s post be about? And the next day’s? Oh, God, what if another idea doesn’t come to me? What if the well is already dry? What if the Men are Cheeseballs post is the final literary accomplishment of Ellen Ivers? That would totally suck.
“Hello? Earth to Ellen!”
I look up and find six pairs of eyes staring at me expectantly. I feel myself blush, then turn to Jill, whose expression has turned suspicious.
I clear my throat and take a breath. “I have to agree with Liza,” I say. “It’s always good to try something new.”
“So, what were you thinking about?”
I am not surprised that Jill has taken this long to bring it up. When it comes to having a pointed discussion, she is as organized as she is in every other aspect of her life. The ladies have long since left, Greg has already brought home the three Ds and put them to bed, and the two of us are side by side at the sink, washing and drying the dishes.
“When?” I avoid her eyes as I take a dripping tray from her hands and gently wipe it with a towel.
“You know when. You were thinking about him, weren’t you?” She uses a wineglass to gesture toward the house next door. Through the window in the family room, I can just make out the property fence and the beige stucco walls on the other side.
“I was not, Jill.”
“Uh-huh.” Her tone reveals that she doesn’t believe me. “Then what? Come on. Give. You were off in Ellen-land, and you had this kind of smug smile on your face.”
“I was thinking about my blog,” I say casually, carefully placing the dry wineglass on the counter.
“Your what?” I turn to see her gaping at me in complete disbelief. “Did you say your blog?”
I nod and grab the crystal platter from her before she drops it in the sink.
“You mean for the Ladies Living-Well Journal competition?”
“What the hell other blog would I be talking about?” I snap.
“You did it!” she exclaims gleefully. “You really did it!”
“You’re going to wake up the boys.”
“I can’t believe it!” she gushes, ignoring my comment. “This is so exciting! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did it today, for God’s sake. Give me a break!”
“I am so proud of you, Ellen.” Oh Jesus. Here we go. “You actually took the initiative and did something totally positive that’s completely for you. You should never have given up writing, but that doesn’t matter anymore, because you’ve finally gotten back to it. Don’t you feel great? Aren’t you just bursting with self-respect?”
Ordinarily, I bristle at Jill’s patronizing tone. But she is so genuinely happy and filled with pride on my behalf that I just can’t get mad at her.
“So, what’s it about? I bet it’s brilliant. It is, isn’t it? I’ve never read anything you’ve written that wasn’t absolutely amazing!”
“Hey, Jill, tone it down, okay? It’s one blog post, it’s not like I’m getting the Pulitzer.” And brilliant is not the adjective I’d use to describe my man/cheeseball dissertation. In fact, looking at Jill’s face, all lit up like that, I am certain that she is going to be more than a bit disappointed.
“Well, I can’t help it. You’re going to win, I know it.” She shuts off the faucet with emphasis. “And I will be able to take credit for pushing you to do it! Oh. I can’t wait to read it. I’m going to boot up my computer and I’ll read it after you leave! What’s your username?”
“Jill, I don’t think your expectations should be quite so high,” I tell her.
“Don’t be silly,” she chides me.
“No, seriously,” I say. “And I don’t want you telling anyone about this. Not a soul.” Her expression falters. I know she is already th
inking about how she’ll comment about this on her Facebook wall. “And no Facebook posts.”
“But I have five hundred and seventy-three friends! The more hits the better, right? All my friends will go to your blog and—”
“No.” I am firm. “If you don’t give me your word, I won’t tell you my username.”
Jill pouts. “I could just read all of the contest blogs and find you. I’d know which was yours.”
“Yeah, but that would take a while.”
She considers this for a moment. My cousin hates not getting her way, especially when it comes to me. But she can tell by my demeanor that I am not going to budge. She clenches her hands into fists and expels an exasperated breath. “Oh, all right! I won’t tell anyone. I don’t get it, but okay.”
“Jill, I haven’t written anything in a decade. I could make a complete ass out of myself. I really don’t need an audience of people I know for that.”
“See, there you go again,” she admonishes. “Putting yourself down. Preparing for failure. You are too talented to fail. You’re a great writer. And your blog is going to be fantastic, I just know it. It’s going to be brilliant!”
Twenty minutes later, just as I’m putting the leftovers in my fridge, my cell phone rings. I don’t want to answer it, knowing it’s Jill, certain she is about to lay into me. But the house is blessedly asleep and I don’t want to wake anyone up. I grab the phone out of my bag and punch the Talk button. Jill doesn’t even give me time to say hello.
“Cheeseballs? Men are cheeseballs?”
“What can I say? I’m brilliant.”
• Eight •
Saturday morning at eight forty-five finds me frantically stain-sticking Matthew’s soccer uniform, which he left in a heap behind his bed after practice on Thursday. The white jersey sports a four-inch-long grass stain from a sliding header he took in an unsuccessful attempt to stop a goal. I wasn’t there to witness the event, but Rita Halpern gave me a blow-by-blow description, including as much of a physical reenactment as her sixty-year-old body would allow, cackling bemusedly all the way through. I am now cursing myself vehemently for allowing Matthew to wear the jersey to practice in the first place.
He had insisted, and I’d firmly shaken my head and told him I wanted the jersey to stay fresh and clean for his first game. I then received the lower-lip tremble and was informed that he wouldn’t feel like a real player unless he got to wear the jersey and that the rest of the team would be wearing them and, “Jeez, Mom, don’t you want me to play well?” Well, shit. How do you argue with that? I mean, what was I supposed to say? “Matthew, sweetie, you fall down at every goddamn practice, and therefore there is a very high probability that you will stain your fucking jersey.” That would’ve added another year to his future therapy, no doubt. Therapy that I will probably have to pay for because I’m convinced that Matthew is going to live at home until he’s thirty-five.
Meanwhile, the stain is not coming out, even though I’m using my forty-dollar miracle stain remover that I ordered after drinking a little too much Merlot one night. The infomercial showed a guy rubbing a conglomeration of stain-causing substances on a white cotton shirt: ketchup, grass, grape jelly, red wine, mustard, motor oil, lipstick. And although I may have been drunk, I could swear he actually sliced his hand open so that he could drip his own blood onto the shirt. Then he rubbed this “miracle stick,” which looks a lot like antiperspirant, on the stain, brushed the shirt with a scrub brush, ran it under hot water for thirty seconds, and presto. Stain gone! I am on round three of rubbing, brushing, and rinsing, and so far, the stain is winning. I fleetingly wonder if I should just use some Liquid Paper to cover the stain and call it a day.
“Mom,” Jessie calls from the kitchen.
“In the garage,” I reply.
“Can I stay over at McKenna’s tonight?” she hollers in her typical eight-year-old “I can’t manage to walk the ten steps it would take for me to talk to you in a normal tone of voice” way.
“I can’t hear you!” I call back.
Instead of taking those mere ten steps, she ups her decibel level. “CAN I STAY OVER AT MCKENNA’S TONIGHT?”
“Jessie!” I holler, matching her volume. “If you want to speak to me, COME HERE!”
“Why are you yelling at the kids?” Jonah asks with a scowl as he comes through the side door that leads to the backyard.
I frown at him. “I am not yelling at the kids, I am yelling at Jessie.”
“Oh, well, okay then,” he jokes without humor. He is clad in shorts and a sweat-soaked, belly-hugging cotton tank top that reveals far too much of his underarm hair for my taste. Hugh Jackman might get away with the look. Ben Campbell, even. But Jonah just looks icky. To round out the ensemble, he has a surgical mask perched on top of his head, which he wears when he mows the lawn to keep the allergens out of his nose. Very manly, huh? He plucks the mask from his head and drops it into the trash, then starts to remove his shirt. I can smell him from six feet.
“You have no idea how you sound when you yell like that.”
Yes, Jonah, I do, I think, looking down at the neon stain. I sound like a woman on the edge. If I don’t get this shirt into the wash now, it will not be dry in time for the ten o’clock game, and even so, it’s going to be close. Why the hell couldn’t Matthew have been on a team with black jerseys? Or better yet, green! Next year, at soccer registration, I will demand that he be placed on a team whose uniform is a color more suitable to a child who spends more time on the ground than standing up.
Jessie appears at the door to the garage and smiles sweetly at me. “Can I spend the night at McKenna’s house tonight?” she asks in a pleasantly soft voice.
Again, I match her volume. “Thank you for coming to me and asking me nicely,” I say. “Is this something that McKenna’s mom knows about?”
“Like, duh, Mom,” my daughter says, rolling her eyes. “We’re going to rehearse for the play.”
Apparently, McKenna’s an Oompa-Loompa, too. And after seeing her in the talent show last year singing “Tomorrow” like Harvey Fierstein in Torch Song Trilogy, I can understand why. She may be the only student in the entire elementary school who makes Jessie sound like Julie Andrews.
“Well, I’ll just give McKenna’s mom a call to make sure.”
“What, you don’t believe me?” Jessie glares at me.
“Of course she believes you, sweetheart.” Jonah jumps in. “But moms and dads have to check with each other, just to be sure.”
Jessie looks over at Jonah and scrunches her nose. “Yuck, Daddy, put on a shirt!”
I couldn’t agree more.
“What if I go call McKenna right now and you can talk to her mom?”
“Fine.”
Jessie skips off to the kitchen. I heave a sigh of frustration as I finally surrender to the stain and toss the jersey into the washing machine. I crank the knob to the On position and dump in some laundry detergent, then turn to see my husband standing next to me holding out his muscle shirt.
“I am not touching that,” I tell him.
“Come on,” he says, rolling his eyes. (I seem to be on the receiving end of numerous eye rolls this morning.) “You’re doing a load of whites. Just throw this in.”
My first thought is that I don’t want his disgusting shirt swishing around the washing machine with, and possibly contaminating, my son’s precious uniform. My second thought is that Jonah’s battery-acid-like sweat might be just the thing to remove the stain. In the end I scrunch my own nose and say, “Throw it in yourself. I wouldn’t touch that thing with a ten-foot pole.”
“Pussy,” he whispers, grinning broadly, and I can’t stifle my own amusement.
Suddenly, Matthew’s screech reverberates through the house and reaches the garage. “MOOOOOM! WHERE ARE MY SHIN GUARDS?”
Anticipating my response, Jonah instantly covers his ears.
I make a face at him. “Pussy.”
I barely have time to make myself look dece
nt before heading out to Matthew’s first soccer game, a fact that nags at me all the way to the field. It’s not that anyone in particular will be there, no, not because of that. It’s because for the past two weeks, I have been making an effort to look good. I have taken pride in my appearance for the first time in several years, and I am starting to feel pretty good about it. Jonah has noticed it, too, although he is keeping mum on the subject. It’s almost as though my efforts are a threat to him in some way. I can’t help but find it ironic that he has no problem showering me with compliments when I feel like a hag, but now that I’m looking trimmer and have a healthy glow (not to mention some delicately applied cosmetic enhancements), he’s become as mute as friggin’ Marcel Marceau.
He glances over at me from the driver’s seat and I can feel him surveying my appearance.
I turn to face him. “What?”
“Are those new jeans?” His tone is suspicious, as though I’ve just gone over my spending allowance, like I ever had one.
“They’re from the back of my closet.”
“Oh.” He returns his attention to the road and his message is clear. Subject closed.
A needle of anger jabs at me. Subject not closed. “I haven’t fit into them for a while.”
“Hmmmm,” is his response. The needle grows to ice-pick proportions.
“Size eight,” I say smugly.
“Jessie! Stop kicking my seat,” he admonishes, completely ignoring my comment.
I fold my arms across my chest and stare through the windshield.
I wallow in my annoyance almost all the way to the field until I hear the trembling voice of my son from the backseat.
“I hope I don’t embarrass myself too much.”
My heart does a little wrench-thing. My poor Matthew. I yank at my seat belt and wedge myself between the minivan’s front seats so that I can look him in the eye.
“The most important thing is that you have fun, Matty.” I realize that I haven’t called him that since he was five, but he suddenly looks so small. “Seriously,” I say. “It’s supposed to be fun. Do you think you can do that?”
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