The Rejected Writers' Book Club (Southlea Bay)

by Suzanne Kelman

  Just as I was about to get into that with him, the phone rang. I ran down the path, grabbing it on the last ring before the answering machine kicked in. It was Chris. He sounded tired, but calm.

  “Hi there.”

  “Chris? How is she?”

  “She’s much better.” The relief in his voice was obvious. “They’ve managed to stop the bleeding, and she’s sleeping now. They’re keeping her in overnight for observation, and they’ve booked her in for another scan tomorrow, just to be on the safe side.”

  “That’s terrific news,” I gushed, pulling off my witch hat and slipping off my pointy witch shoes.

  “Oh, and by the way, there’s also some other news. Stacy is having twins.”

  “Twins!” I shrieked at the phone. “How on earth does she feel about that?”

  “She’s getting used to it,” he said tactfully. “I’m sure it will be a handful, but I know she’ll be a wonderful mother.”

  There it was: love in its entire rose-colored splendor. He was certain my ice child would be a wonderful mother. And who knows, I thought to myself. Motherhood could do the most remarkable things to a woman.

  “I’ll call you in the morning after the doctor has been in.” He yawned.

  “Okay, get some rest—you sound tired—and give Stacy our love.”

  I put the phone down and wiggled my striped-socked toes.

  Twins! Wow! Where did they come from?

  Chapter Five

  CLOAK-AND-DAGGER & A ROW OF SHOES

  Lying in bed the next day, my thoughts were full of the twins and Doris.

  The phone rang, and it was Stacy.

  “Hi, love, how are you doing?”

  “Okay,” she mumbled quietly. “I feel terrible but I’ll survive.”

  “What did the doctor say today?”

  “I have to stay off work for the next month!” The disgust was obvious in her tone.

  “I’m sorry. Will they give you the time off?”

  “I’ve already talked to my boss. She’s fine with it. But the problem is with Chris. The doctor doesn’t want me to be alone, and he has to go on that important business trip to China the week after next. I also have a really important client coming to meet with me at the San-Bay Conference here. I’m going to have to find someone to come with me or the doctor says she won’t let me go . . .”

  Her voice trailed off. I knew the end of this conversation. She still found it hard to keep friends.

  “Could you come down?” she finally said, meekly.

  Sitting down hard on the sofa, I took a deep breath. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to take care of her. My heart was breaking, and I hated being so far away. It was just things never worked out well when we got together for any extended length of time, and I was hesitant to make our fragile relationship any more distant.

  “I’m not sure I can, honey. There’s a lot going on here at the library, and your dad needs me . . .” I never got any further. It was as if I’d sprung a bear trap.

  “I’m sorry. I suppose I’m just not as important as the library!”

  “No, darling, you know I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just I have work, and you know I hate to fly.”

  “Hate to fly” was an understatement. I was petrified, always had been. In fact, my parents had once taken our family to Disneyland when I was a child. I had screamed so hard all the way there that my dad had rented a car to drive us back. At that time, we lived in the Midwest, and it was a standing joke between my brother and sister about the time we went to Disneyland and spent most of the vacation driving home. In fact, my dad had just laughed about it with me the last time he and Mom had called me on his weekly call from Florida, where they now lived. They had moved there a few years ago and already had a more active social life than we did.

  “Surely they would understand at work,” Stacy said in her whiny, six-year-old voice. “And I’m sure Dad could take care of himself for a week or so, couldn’t he? And you love to drive. You could be here in just a few days. Mom . . . I really need you.”

  There it was, the “guilty pull” that came with the umbilical cord. I sighed deeply and found myself saying, “Let me get myself together here and see what I can do.”

  When Martin came home that evening, he found me on the sofa starting on my second glass of wine.

  “Hard day?” he asked with a smirk.

  I filled him in on the news.

  “Are you going to go down?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve just been sitting here hoping that this would all blow over in a week or so.”

  “Or it could escalate into a hurricane. Want me to go down?”

  I huffed at him. “What would you do with a pregnant woman? You upset her when she’s not pregnant.”

  “Good point.” He helped himself to a cup of coffee. “What about work?”

  “I’m owed about a month’s vacation, and this is usually a quiet time of the year for us. I’ll talk to Karen tomorrow.”

  “So, you would drive down then?”

  “All the way,” I said sarcastically.

  “You probably should give yourself four or five days to get down there. Then you would only have to drive a couple of hundred miles a day.”

  “There’s still a few days for the weather to change, then,” I said optimistically.

  “It’s Stacy, remember. When she has an idea, she’s like a dog with a bone. It’s going to escalate. I would start packing your rescue remedy and tranquilizers now.”

  When I talked to Karen the next day, she was extremely sympathetic and said they could manage without me for a couple of weeks if they needed to. It was around lunchtime that I found myself down on my knees staring at Doris’s shoes again, except this time they had bred—now there were three other pairs lined up next to them. Looking up, there, indeed, was Doris. Beside her, standing to attention, was Ethel, as happy as ever and still dressed as an alien as far as I could tell, plus Annie and Flora.

  “We need to meet and talk urgently. This is important.”

  When wasn’t it important with Doris?

  “Okay,” I agreed, not even trying to make an excuse this time. “My lunch break is in about an hour. Why don’t I meet you over at the Crab?”

  Doris nodded and then she and her posse were gone.

  When I arrived an hour later, I looked around the restaurant. The theme of the Crabapple Diner, understandably, was apples. There were apple menus, apple tablecloths, apple motifs on the water glasses, and every kind of apple-tree-picking picture you could imagine, all ripe and choking the walls. The owner also did a play on the word “apple” on the menu, with creations like the “Apple-y-Dapple-y Pancakes” and the “Happily Apple-y Daily Special.”

  I didn’t need to look around long to find the group. Lavinia and Lottie had joined them, and they had all managed, somehow, to squeeze themselves into the back booth. Doris sat looking like a tube of toothpaste just waiting for someone to remove her cap so she could spray the walls.

  Gladys, the Crab’s oldest waitress, was behind the counter. She was a permanent fixture there. Rumor had it she’d started working at the Crab as a young thing from college. Let’s just say Lincoln must have been president about then. She walked over and greeted me.

  “Happily apple-y day,” she muttered without the faintest hint of sincerity. Then, shoving her pencil behind her ear, she stuffed her notepad into her bra and handed me a menu. “They’ve been squashed into that booth like a tin of sardines, waiting for you,” she sniffed. “To be honest, I’m recommending salads all around, or we’re gonna need a can opener to get you all back out!”

  I followed her to the booth, and before I could find a chair, Annie jumped up, pushed me into the hulking mass, and squeezed herself in next to me.

  “Wouldn’t we all be more comfortable at a larger table?”

  Doris scowled at me. “And be overheard by every flapping ear that just happens to be passing by? No! This is the best booth. It’s close to the kitchen,
and all that cooking clatter will drown out our conversation.”

  Why did she always make it sound as if she was about to divulge state secrets? Succumbing to my squished fate, I jumped in. I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.

  “What can I do to help you all?”

  Doris bowed her head and beckoned us all in closer. This was not easy, as I was having trouble breathing, and I wasn’t sure which arms or legs were mine anymore. But we all obediently bowed our heads and drew closer toward her.

  Waitress Gladys appeared at the table.

  “Don’t mind me,” she grunted. “I can wait till you’ve all finished praying. By the looks of the meatloaf today, praying might not be such a bad idea!”

  Lottie raised a brow. “I’ve prayed for it many a day,” she murmured under her breath.

  Doris yanked open a menu, glossing over Gladys’s praying comment, saying, “I think we’re ready to order.”

  Gladys pulled out a pencil and her curled-up notepad. She looked us over, sniffed, and then grunted. “Well?” She was just too old and tired to care about anything more amicable. “Just to let you know, the salad is looking real good today,” she said, winking at me.

  “I would like a patty melt,” said Doris, ignoring her, “with french fries and an iced tea.”

  “Me too,” said Ethel.

  “What a surprise,” muttered Gladys.

  “Lottie and I already ate,” said Lavinia, “but I’m sure we would both love an iced tea too.”

  Lottie agreed. Gladys wrote it down as Annie ordered a chicken salad sandwich, and Flora ordered a green salad.

  “What about you?” she asked, pointing her pencil in my direction without looking up.

  “A cup of your tomato soup and half a turkey sandwich.”

  Gladys trundled off to put in our order, and Doris resumed her conversation in a hushed tone.

  “Let me get straight to the point,” she said, bowing her head close to us all again. “We have our rejection group to save, and I have invited Janet here because she has offered to help us in any way she can.”

  I suddenly felt unusually warm.

  Ruby arrived at the table, windswept and breathless. She was adorned in a full tie-dyed kaftan with huge pink and orange splotches that was cinched at her waist with a faux-alligator belt. Her hair was scooped up high into a beehive knot, a silk green-and-pink scarf woven through it creatively. From her ears dangled long, feathery pink flamingos that matched her shell-pink nail varnish and lipstick, and around her neck, an oversized silver peace symbol hung to her navel.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said, grabbing a chair and joining the end of the booth. “Big rush on scarf and glove patterns today. Cold weather’s coming in.” She looked around the table. “Is your momma coming?”

  “Momma is resting,” said Doris.

  “Recovering from the Island Lurgy,” stated Lottie.

  “Ohhh,” said the rest of us, nodding in unison, acknowledging the Southlea Bay nickname for the flu that was sweeping through the island faster than a California wildfire.

  As Gladys approached the table with our drinks, she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Ruby and didn’t hide the fact that she was checking her out with disgust. “Will you be requiring anything?” she asked with obvious annoyance at the growing table. “Like maybe a mirror or something,” she added sarcastically.

  Ruby ignored her comment. “Water is all I need. Oh, unless the chef has those little nut cutlets and the beansprout salad on the menu.”

  “I’ll check. I’m not sure if we’re catering to the hippies today.”

  Gladys left.

  Doris whispered, “This is the plan.”

  Gladys shuffled back with Ruby’s water, and Doris slammed her hand down on the table with an exaggerated, “Shhh.”

  Gladys didn’t skip a beat. She glared at Doris. “If you and Sundance”—she gestured at Ethel with her pencil—“and the rest of the Hole in the Wall Gang are planning on robbing the place, I should let you know it’s been a slow morning. There’s only about sixty-seven dollars in the till.” She sucked in her cheeks and hitched up her nylons with her free hand. “Plus, I get off in twenty minutes. If you could wait to rob the place till after that, it’s more of an even fight with Geraldine. She’s younger and enjoys the drama.”

  Doris, unruffled, ignored her comment and sipped her iced tea. “Could I get some extra sugar? I like my tea a little on the sweet side.”

  Gladys sniffed, pulled some sugar packets out of her well-worn apron pocket, and dropped them in the center of the table. “Your wish is my command, your ladyship!” Then, without so much as a backward glance, she shuffled off again, mumbling to herself.

  Doris beckoned us back in closer once again. “We all know how much anguish this most unfortunate incident has caused our little group.”

  “I haven’t slept for days,” said Lottie.

  “Me neither,” said Annie over the clack of her knitting needles.

  “Exactly,” said Doris. “It’s like all these years we’ve been bonded in our failure, and now that’s all in jeopardy!”

  She talked about success as if it had kidnapped her firstborn child.

  “I have a plan. We’re going to launch an attack.”

  “Right on!” rallied Ruby, pumping an arm into the air.

  An attack? On a publisher? What was she going to ask me to do? Drive the getaway car?

  Doris paused as Gladys came back and topped off our water glasses, saying to Ruby, “No rabbit food today. Jim’s cooking, and he’s strictly a red-meat-and-potatoes guy. Shaping peanuts to look like little pork chops just isn’t part of his skill set.”

  Then Ruby nodded, as Gladys scuffled away again.

  Doris moved. “I’ve been calling them ever since I got the letter, and no one ever seems to answer the phone, so this is what we’re going to do. We’re going down to see that Shrew and Gavy person, and we are going to demand that he give me back Love in the Forest and that he writes us a nice, gilded rejection letter instead.”

  “And an apology,” added Lottie. “You know, for liking it in the first place!”

  Everyone nodded her own approval.

  “This time we need to act fast.” Doris seemed encouraged with determination. “Writing them a letter and waiting for their response is just not going to cut it. You all remember how long those can take to come back. Remember letter 133?”

  Everybody, except me, nodded in remembrance.

  “Letter 133?” I asked, tentatively taking a sip of my water.

  “Eighteen months!” said Lavinia with disgust.

  “Eighteen months after we sent in the manuscript before they finally replied!” added Doris. “No, we are going to hit this head-on.” She dropped an octave, as if she were about to share a deep dark secret. “I have been researching all about them on the World Wide Web.”

  All the ladies looked impressed.

  In between the food starting to arrive, Annie asked a question. “What if they refuse to give us a letter?”

  “Then,” said Doris, with a flourish of grandeur, “we will go to plan B!”

  “Plan B?” I asked in a tight voice, not really wanting to know what that was.

  Doris sucked on a piece of ice from her tea. “Ruby has agreed to chain herself to one of their toilets. It would be like the Occupy Movement. Except this will be handy in case she needs to ‘go.’ So, Ruby is on Occupy the Toilet Movement, no pun intended,” she said seriously, “and Ethel will be there as my right-hand woman.”

  Flora fluttered her white lashes nervously as she delicately sipped her water through a thin straw and spoke for the first time. “What about me? How can I help?”

  “I thought that would be obvious,” snapped Doris. “You’re the youngest in our group. If we need some womanly wiles to seduce this Gaveston fella, that will be your job. You’ll bring him around to our way of thinking by the oldest trick in the book.”

  From Flora’s expre
ssion, she hadn’t the foggiest idea what Doris was referring to.

  Doris became irritated. “You know, the femme fatale. A low-cut blouse and some sass.”

  I thought Flora was going to pass out on the spot. The blood visibly drained from her face, and she started to cough uncontrollably.

  “What I need from you all now is commitment and solidarity.”

  Ruby put her fist in the air again, like a salute, and they all followed. Doris’s was the only fist still in the air when Gladys arrived back with the last of our order. As she placed down Doris’s food in front of her, she quipped dryly, “Can I get you some greasepaint to go with that patty melt, Rocky?”

  “Just some ketchup,” replied Doris curtly.

  I must admit this had all been immensely entertaining, but it was time for me to gracefully step off this carousel ride and go back to the real world. I was actually grateful for my daughter’s emergency. It was about to come in really handy. As soon as Gladys left the table, I started on my exit speech. “I don’t think there’s really much I can do to help your group,” I said, winding up gently.

  “Nonsense,” Doris replied through a mouthful of patty melt. “You’re a book person. You’re an insider, and you know the trade. We’re going to need you to help us strategize.”

  “I would really love to help you—honestly, I would—but unfortunately I have to drive down to San Francisco next week to help my daughter. She’s having some complications with her pregnancy, and she needs me there while her husband’s away. So I’ll have to bow out of this little adventure. I wish I could be there to help the cause. I really do,” I lied, adding my most contrite expression.

  Doris looked at me, and her eyes narrowed. I was getting used to her facial expressions. This meant she was thinking.

  “Did you say San Francisco?” she asked intently.

  “Yes,” I said as I scraped at the bottom of my soup bowl. Something about the turn of this conversation was starting to make me feel uncomfortable.

  “When did you plan on coming back?”

  “Oh, about a week or so later, I’m not really sure yet . . .”

  “Perfect,” said Doris, getting excited. “You’ll be glad to know there is something you can do.” She paused, taking a long sip of her iced tea, then added, “You can take us with you!”