The Scarlet Letter Scandal

by Mary T. McCarthy

“We need to talk about planning the New Year’s Eve Toga Party,” said Kellie.

  “Business meetings before coffee?” asked Brandon.

  “Well, during coffee at least,” said Kellie, handing him a cup.

  “Do we really even need to plan anything special?” asked Brandon. “We both know our income isn’t coming from the swingers’ club anymore.”

  “I get that we’re the neighborhood Walmart for illegal prescription drugs,” said Kellie, “but now the club is a cover for that operation, don’t you think? It’s taking the cops and the county months to figure out if they can shut us down after their illegal little bust at the masquerade party, so we should continue business as usual until someone stops us from doing that.”

  “Why take the chance of getting busted running the club when we already have a lucrative underground business now? The Internet site where I’ve been buying everything has worked out great,” said Brandon. “We’re making more money than we ever did running a sex club out of the basement.”

  “I LIKE running the club,” said Kellie. “It’s what I do! I love sex, I love seeing new people, I love the excitement and the fun. The drug money is great but I don’t want to shut down the club.”

  “It’s not drug money like you make it sound,” said Brandon. “We’re not meth dealers. And I bet I know who you mean when you talk about new people.”

  “Really,” asked Kellie, “who?”

  “Well, it’s not Batman,” said Brandon. “That was Chaz, by the way, since you didn’t seem to notice him that night.”

  “No, I had no idea,” said Kellie. “But things got a little crazy with the visit from the cop shop and all.”

  “Rachel and Kate were here too that night asking where you were,” said Brandon.

  “Why are we even talking about this now after all this time?” asked Kellie.

  “Why don’t you want to talk about it?”

  “I don’t mind talking about it, I just don’t understand what your problem is.”

  “We don’t know who that guy was,” said Brandon. “That’s my problem. We are a membership club. He was not a member. He’s got to be the mole.”

  “It was also a silence night, so I didn’t talk to him to ask,” said Kellie. “Anonymity was the whole point of that party! I am so fucking sick and tired of talking about this! Drop it!”

  “Maybe I will,” said Brandon, and he slammed down his coffee cup and left the kitchen.

  Kellie sat at the table, fuming. Fuck him, she thought. Or not! She realized now that her and Brandon’s relationship had only ever been about sex. How they were going to have it, how kinky they could make it, and planning the sex parties that were their business. He had been better to her than her first husband, so she thought that meant she loved him, but deep down she’d known theirs wasn’t a forever thing. She had been stupid to agree to marry him one night—they were both drunk anyway, and he’d never even been able to afford a nice ring. It was a joke of an engagement. They got along fine, at least at one point, but she was bored and lonely and sick and tired of being stressed out about money. At least that situation had gotten better since the prescription money had started rolling in.

  She had become nearly obsessed with the Phantom and wanting to know more about him. She felt something with him that she never had before with anyone—and completely without words—without ever even setting eyes on him.

  She opened her laptop and began working on the invitation for the New Year’s Eve toga party for the website. Brandon could worry about selling Xanax and Oxy for money while she set up another opportunity for the Phantom to appear again.

  Kate arrived early at Rachel’s office. It wasn’t a place she frequented. Usually they met at Kate’s office or at the coffee shop. Kate knew her daughter, Zarina, was suspicious they were having an affair, but it wasn’t something they spoke of. She wouldn’t lie about it if Zarina asked. She just didn’t bring it up. The accounting firm receptionist showed Kate to Rachel’s office, explaining that Rachel had run out for coffee and would return momentarily.

  Kate sat in the leather chair across from Rachel’s desk at first, but got bored after a few minutes of checking her phone and stood to walk around. The décor of the office was classy and elegant—an antique desk and matching chair, oil paintings on the walls, heavy tapestry curtains hanging beside the ten-foot Victorian windows; all were befitting of a swanky historic downtown Keytown workplace. As she turned from the window, something caught her eye on Rachel’s desk. She walked over and realized what she’d seen that was familiar: that Keytown Mouse logo. Rachel’s laptop sat on the desk next to her desktop and on the screen read the words ADMIN LOGIN and PASSWORD and just above them, that little cartoon mouse.

  Kate wasn’t usually a snoop, but she found herself opening Rachel’s top drawer, not even sure what she was looking for. The thin center drawer below her desktop had compartments for paper clips and other office supply items, and Kate saw that the entire center section, where the pens should be, was filled with loose blue and white capsules that read ADDERALL. Kate picked one up, marveling at the tiny white beads visible through the capsule’s shell. She put it back in the drawer and closed it.

  Kate quickly walked around to the “guest” side of the desk and sat down. Her heart raced. That computer screen could only mean one thing. Rachel was the Keytown Mouse? Kate searched her memory for what the blog had said. It was the talk of the town, even reaching the newspaper! Kate thought back to attending the masquerade party with Rachel and how many people would go nuts if they knew the identity of the secret blogger. Especially Maggie. Rachel had always been jealous of Maggie, asking far too many questions about the fling they’d had in the past and the friendship they still shared.

  And the pills! Kate was sure they didn’t belong to Rachel’s son, or they wouldn’t have been loose like that. Not to mention how many there were. It seemed so risky and sloppy to keep them in her drawer where her boss could accidentally discover them.

  Why wouldn’t Rachel have told her these secrets? It was the behavior of an…addict? Kate tried to push the word from her mind, even as images of Rachel’s often-frenzied behavior flashed before her in memories of the recent past.

  In that moment, Rachel breezed in, holding two coffee cups from Zoomdweebies Café up the street. My own daughter’s shop, thought Kate. The tangled webs we weave.

  “Oh, hey there,” said Rachel, placing the coffees on the desk, perky out of happiness that her boss was out of town at a conference, otherwise Kate wouldn’t even be in the office to begin with. “I didn’t think you’d be here this early. You know you’re always ten or fifteen minutes late.”

  “Usually,” said Kate. “But I decided not to stop at the campus library to pick up the book I needed till after…”

  “What’s wrong?” said Rachel. “You look distracted.”

  Kate picked up the coffee and took a sip, buying time. Should she tell Rachel she saw the computer screen? Was there any other reason the screen would be there? Why the hell didn’t her screen saver kick in, anyway?

  “Just busy today,” said Kate. “The department chair called a lunch meeting, so I have to go in a few minutes.”

  “Oh, okay,” said Rachel, sitting in the chair beside Kate. “And that sucks. Ugh, surprise meetings.”

  Kate stood and looked down at Rachel. “Yeah, surprises can suck. Thanks for the coffee.”

  She turned and walked out of the office, leaving the coffee on the desk, her cheeks burning. She couldn’t sit there and pretend nothing happened. She would simply go back to her office and read through that stupid blog for clues. No way was she going to accuse Rachel of authoring the blog and keeping it from her if it wasn’t even true, though her instinct told her it was.

  As Kate took the short drive back to the college campus, she thought about all the upheaval the blog had caused. Zarina had told her about the chatter in the coffee shop. Women in the subdivision talked about who was running the swingers’ club,
and of course Maggie and Lisa had been in and wondered who was spinning the half-baked tales.

  Although she wasn’t affected directly, Kate couldn’t help but feel betrayed. She didn’t like the idea that someone who was so close to her was so enthusiastic about spilling secrets. Kate’s bisexuality wasn’t exactly intelligence agency level material, but as a college professor she sure didn’t want her life splashed all over the Internet.

  After parking, Kate walked back to her office on the tree-covered campus. Maggie and Lisa needed to know that Rachel was writing about them. She picked up her phone and struggled with whether or not to text Maggie. She cared about Rachel, but she had always had a funny feeling about really trusting her. An instinct not really backed up by anything specific, just a gut feeling. She worried Rachel had fallen in love with her, and Kate didn’t really do love, preferring mature relationships of mutual respect. Though she really had fallen for Maggie harder than she’d expected to, it had been a reminder that it was better to keep your heart neutral. When you lower expectations about relationships, it isn’t as easy to get hurt. Still, Maggie deserved to know the truth.

  After a moment, Kate texted Maggie: Rachel is the Keytown Mouse.

  Maggie walked up the street toward the printing shop in downtown Keytown. She was picking up postcards for Wings Vintage Clothing’s holiday open house. The annual event featured a local keyboardist playing holiday music, free champagne, and some light hors d’oeuvres. She always figured if you were going to ask people to shop somewhere other than big box retail shops for Christmas, it helped to do a little extra. Inevitably, people would pick up a sequined blouse or pair of shoes or jewelry set for holiday events, so sales at the shop were always good, too.

  As she walked, her camera around her neck, snapping photos of a cat in a garden, an ornate iron fence, she breathed in the fresh air of her beloved small town. She wouldn’t have traded her setting for a fancy big-city life any day. The long leather ’70s coat she wore was testament to the fact that she loved her job. Going to auctions or estate sales and finding boxes or trunks of old clothing was a treasure hunt to her. Things were great with Dave. Normalcy was underrated. She’d traded a life of dating and uncertainty for one of watching old movies under a huge down comforter with her life’s best friend and partner. She was learning to appreciate what being happy meant. Someone told her once that happiness was a decision, not a feeling, and she thought it made a lot of sense.

  As she turned the corner toward the printer shop a few buildings down, she glanced over at the Starbucks across the street where two well-dressed men were walking out the door onto the sidewalk. They seemed intimate, laughing, one touching the other’s coat sleeve, standing that tiny bit too close that meant relationship versus business meeting. And in one quick second, one of them caught her eye, quickly looking the other way. Her heart sank. It was Alfred, the Brad Pitt–lookalike husband of her best friend, Wes. Maggie instinctively knew, both from their body language and from Alfred’s avoidance of her glance, that the shorter black-haired man wearing the skinny jeans and turquoise oxford shirt was not just a friend.

  She pursed her lips and turned to walk into the printer’s shop. She would have to talk to Wes about this later. He’d been so worried about Alfred cheating, there certainly wouldn’t be any cover-up of this incident. Maggie ached for Wes. All he wanted was a house in the country and a family, and if Alfred couldn’t appreciate that, well…she’d have words for him later.

  Seeing the receptionist at the printer was finishing up with another customer, out of habit, Maggie took out her phone. On her lock screen she saw the message from Kate: Rachel is the Keytown Mouse. She put her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp. Of course it was Rachel. Maggie should have known all along. The one who bridged the gap between that skanky subdivision and the heart of downtown Keytown. Maggie knew Rachel and Kate had been an item for a while now. That damn Rachel probably used Kate—and Lisa!—to somehow collect information about the Scarlet Letter Society. And she lived right in the middle of Swingtown, so no wonder she had all the info about the goings-on there, too.

  Maggie decided then and there that she’d put an end to this Keytown Mouse nonsense. No one deserved to have his or her private life put on display for the world to see by someone else. What was Rachel’s motivation? Boredom? Clearly she wasn’t happy in her marriage; otherwise, she wouldn’t be seemingly in love with Kate. Kate. Maggie paid for her postcards, walking back out onto the street and pressing Kate’s phone number on her Contacts screen. There must be a reason Kate wanted her to know.

  A minute later, Maggie was putting her camera in its bag and her phone away into her purse. Kate was on her way into class, promising Maggie they’d catch up later, telling her she thought she deserved to know that Rachel was the blogger. Don’t do anything rash, Kate had said.

  But Maggie’s Irish blood was boiling. She was not going to sit around and tolerate this bitch—who worked one block over from Maggie’s shop!—making people’s lives miserable. She hadn’t even realized she was headed to the accounting firm. She hoped she wouldn’t have to see that miserable wretch Aileen, whom she hated encountering even just at the occasional Chamber of Commerce event.

  She had no idea what she planned to say to Rachel as she thundered her way past the brick building’s heavy wooden door. She put down her purse and the package from the printer on a chair (smiling to herself as she wondered whether she should remove her earrings, like the girls in the Jerry Springer fights on TV) in the small reception area and asked the startled receptionist to see Rachel. The receptionist politely asked if she had an appointment.

  “I do not,” said Maggie. “Just tell her Maggie Hanson would like to see her about a personal matter.”

  The receptionist stood, deciding news of this arrival should be delivered in person versus over the phone. She returned two minutes later and simply gave directions to Rachel’s office.

  Maggie walked into the room and closed the door behind her. She didn’t need that tyrant Aileen knowing her business.

  Rachel stood from her desk with an amused grin, extending her hand.

  Rachel began cheerfully. “Maggie! I don’t really know whether we’ve actually ever really had a chance to…”

  But the sound of Rachel’s voice was interrupted by the loud, sudden sound of a slap. Maggie had walked straight in, reached across the desk, and heartily bitch-slapped Rachel in the middle of her sentence, silencing her. Maggie now stood, trembling, taking in shallow breaths.

  “You conniving, gossiping little cunt,” said Maggie. “Who the fuck do you think you are coming to this town and bringing your subdivision bullshit swinger fairy tales and spreading people’s business for the world to see? And you have some nerve calling out anyone for adultery when you’re cheating on your own husband with Kate. Yeah, that’s right. I know about Kate. We’re still friends! In fact, she’s the one who told me about your stupid fake online joke persona. A mouse. It’s perfect for you: sniveling in corners because you’re too small to have a life of your own. I know it drives you nuts that you aren’t the only girl Kate’s ever fucked. It’s amazing what that woman can do to your nipples, isn’t it?”

  Rachel sat down, gathering herself. Her cheek burned where Maggie had slapped her. The blue and white capsules just inside her desk seemed so close and so many worlds away. She’d give anything to reach in and swallow five of them dry right now. She took a deep breath. She looked at the laptop screen on her desk, where she’d just finished typing:

  Tuesday, November 26, 2013

  posted by F. Ritchie

  Things have heated all the way up this holiday season around town as the “ROCKS” lifestyle club (also fake-known as a fitness club) is set to swing in the New Year with a toga party on New Year’s Eve. Maybe it’s not too late to join as a member- check out their website at rocksprivatefitnessclub.com. Who doesn’t want to watch the annual ball drop with a bunch of naked neighbors?!

  The so-called Scarlet L
etter Society has been quiet lately since their existence was printed on real newspaper thanks to yours truly! No word on whether they’ve gone further underground.

  The Keytown Mouse is dedicated to bringing you all of our town’s gossipy crumbs.

  Buffered by seeing her own words in front of her (how dare Maggie show up here and boss her around?!), she stood and faced the intruder.

  “Get the hell out of my office before I call the police and report you for assault,” Rachel told Maggie, staring at her coldly and trying not to shake, something her body had not been able to avoid lately.

  “The Keytown Mouse is dead, Rachel,” said Maggie, narrowing her eyes at the jumpy redhead. “The only one who enjoyed it was you. Find something else to do with your free time.”

  Maggie turned, walked back to the front office past a confused-looking receptionist, picked up her things, and closed the door firmly behind her, happy to be away from that troublemaker.

  What a fucking day, thought Maggie as she walked back to her office. Dealing with the town crier was one level of shit, but having to talk to Wes about seeing another guy with Alfred was something else entirely. These were people she actually cared about.

  She unlocked her shop, turning on lights, adjusting the heat, and placing the postcards on the counter. She turned the sign to “OPEN” even though business was slow on Tuesdays. She turned on the wireless speaker and the “’70s Lite Rock Radio” station on her Pandora. She texted Wes because he absolutely hated phone calls.

  Maggie: You around?

  Wes: Right here at my desk working on theatre program. Yawn.

  Maggie: Can you come by? Need to talk to you about something.

  Wes: Ugh. On deadline to get this to printer. Can we text?

  Maggie: Of course we can text, high school girl. Listen I kind of have some bad news I guess?

  Wes: Ruh roh, Scooby Doo. What is it?