The Oakdale Dinner Club

by Kim Moritsugu

  “Oh yeah,” Drew said, “I remember.”

  Phoebe said, “Do you know her well, Drew?”

  His confused no was overrun by Tom saying, “I’m not sure I know who she is.”

  Mary Ann said, “She brought those smoked salmon roll-ups with cream cheese and green onions in them.”

  “Ah yes,” Tom said. “An ordinary combination of elements, but not without a certain bourgeois charm.”

  “Lisa, or the appetizers?” Phoebe said.

  “I was speaking of the food.”

  Phoebe winked at Mary Ann. “Just checking.”

  Tom said, “I wonder if I could presume on the dinner club’s hospitality to bring my wife Kate to the next occasion. I praised the fascinating company and sumptuous fare at the first meeting so highly that she has expressed a desire to make all of your acquaintance.”

  Mary Ann thought fast. If Tom brought his wife, Mary Ann could hardly court him at the party, but that was okay. It was Drew she’d targeted for this particular outing. “I guess we could make an exception, for you only, since you asked so nicely.”

  Drew pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket, and opened a calendar app. “Other than Tom’s wife, will it be the same people in attendance as last time?”

  “Pretty much.”

  He keyed in the date. “I’m free that day.”

  “Yeah,” Phoebe said, “but are you available?”

  Mary Ann sure as hell hoped so.

  Alice ran into Macy’s to buy some on-sale T-shirts for Lavinia, and on the way out she slowed down in the cosmetics area, with the idea that she should buy a new lipstick or eyeliner or mascara in preparation for her lunch with Jake.

  “Can I interest you in our skin-care products today?” a sales clerk said, and Alice looked into the meticulously made-up face of a woman whose nametag identified her as Suzanne.

  “Skin-care products?” Alice said. “I wanted makeup.” She peered at the coloured bottles, jars, and tubes on display in front of her, and saw that the fine print on the labels all contained words like cream or tonic or treatment.

  “Our makeup line is on the other side of the counter,” Suzanne said and stepped over to a different multicoloured display. Alice already wanted to leave, but she followed along. She would fake interest for a few seconds, and make a break for it.

  Suzanne placed a large oval mirror on the counter in front of Alice. “What specific type of product are you interested in? Eye shadow, lipstick?”

  The reflection Alice saw in the magnifying mirror looked like an illustration from a medical textbook on skin disorders. “My god. What’s happened to my face?”

  “You are showing a lot of pigment.”

  Alice stared in the mirror. “Pigment? Is that what you’re calling those brown spots?”

  “Do you have children?”

  “One. Why?”

  A knowing nod. “Child-bearing leaves marks. Do you use sunscreen?”

  “In the summer, when I’m outside.”

  “Someone with your skin type needs sunscreen every day, all year. Our day cream includes thirty SPF sunscreen. Forty dollars for one and a half ounces.”

  “Forty dollars?”

  “You could try foundation, too, to cover it.” Suzanne came closer, examined Alice’s pores. “You’d need full coverage.” Her hand disappeared underneath the counter and reappeared holding a tester bottle of foundation. “This would be your shade — beige umber. You want to try some? Here.” She produced a Q-tip, dipped it into the bottle, spread some liquid across Alice’s cheek, blended it with a small sponge. “There. Take a look. What do you think?”

  She was lucky not to have a magnifying mirror at home, is what Alice thought. “Maybe I’ll just go into hiding,” she said. “Or hibernation.”

  “I also recommend a skin-lightening cream. You apply it at night, before bed. After about a month, you’ll see the difference. This one is sixty dollars for a half ounce, but it’s to be used sparingly.”

  “What’s in it? Bleach?”

  “No, no. It exfoliates to make your skin lighter.”

  “Lighter as in whiter. Are you suggesting people with pigment should try to be whiter?” Maybe taking a little racially motivated offence was the key to escaping this situation.

  Suzanne shrugged. “You complained about your brown spots. I’m telling you what your options are.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alice said. “This has been an upsetting experience for me. I don’t think I can buy anything today.”

  “Suit yourself,” Suzanne said. “You want to show your face out in public looking like that, you go right ahead.”

  Mary Ann said, “Sam, you know that dinner club meeting I had at my place, the one that Hallie came to?”

  They were standing outside the school, being whipped by a wind that wasn’t doing Mary Ann’s hair any favours but was tousling Sam’s curls and ruddying his cheeks becomingly.

  “Chutney!” he said. “Don’t do that! Sorry, Mary Ann.”

  Mary Ann pushed aside the dog’s head with her knee, fought off the urge to touch Sam’s face.

  “What about the dinner club?” he said.

  Mary Ann settled for touching his arm. “There was a bit of a mix-up there. I meant to invite you. Hallie must have heard my phone message and just assumed. I was happy to have her, but I thought you should know for next time.”

  “Down, Chutney. Who trained you, anyway?”

  “So you’ll come the next time? It’s on October 23rd. At Lisa Carsten’s house.”

  “Isn’t the dinner club a women’s thing?”

  “No, it’s a cooking thing. And I’m dying to try yours.”

  Sam tugged on Chutney’s leash. “I guess Hallie mentioned that the computer guy was there last time, and Tom Gagliardi.”

  “Yes, Tom was there, being his suave self and charming all the ladies.”

  “I’m sure he did a better job of it than I would have.”

  “But I don’t want you there to charm the ladies. I want you there so I can feast my eyes as well as my tastebuds.”

  Sam looked so startled by these words that Mary Ann laughed, and touched him again, and said, “Do you always blush like that when someone pays you a compliment?”

  On the phone, Alice said, “You sleazebag, you. What did he say?”

  Mary Ann leaned back in her chair, put her feet up on her desk. “He chided the dog for trying to hump someone who walked by. And I’ll bet his dog wasn’t the only one with a hard-on.”

  “Don’t be disgusting. But how do you talk like that to someone? That’s my question. Where’d you learn how to do it?”

  “My college sorority gave out booklets on man-baiting techniques.”

  “I knew it. You were trained.”

  “I’m kidding. And you think I don’t feel like a total ass when I say these things?”

  “Well, don’t stop now. You’ve got him going. Keep at him.”

  “Do I hear actual encouragement from you?”

  “I have to admit: the affair concept is starting to grow on me.”

  “How are you doing with your mystery guy?”

  “I’ve arranged to meet him for lunch.”

  “I count on you to tell me every detail.”

  Alice scoffed. “Don’t. And there’ll be nothing to tell anyway.”

  “Should I run over right now and slip the man-baiting tips through your mail slot?”

  “Goodnight, Mary Ann.”

  12

  October 2010

  On the day Sarah came out to see the farm, Danielle and Benny had exchanged a few heated words. And Danielle was upset enough that after she’d shown an admiring Sarah around the greenhouses, introduced her to the workers, and taken her past the dog kennels, through the kitchen garden, and into the house for a cup of coffee, she told her about the fight.

  Benny’s family tradition, she explained, was for a large extended group to get together every October to celebrate a cluster of fall birthdays and a
nniversaries. The host duties rotated, this year was the turn of Benny and Danielle, and the dreaded day was looming when Danielle not only had to prepare food for hordes of people, she had to accommodate Benny’s father, the original picky eater.

  Murray Pringle was in good health for his age (seventy-six), a state he attributed to the dietary regime he followed, his never-eat-raw philosophy. All food prepared for Murray had to be overcooked, since anything served al dente — be it animal, vegetable, or grain — was considered indigestible. Murray never ate fish, due to a traumatic fish-bone incident in his youth. He didn’t eat butter or oil either, unless they were baked into a cake. Murray made an exception for cake.

  “I want to pull out the stops with the family party this year,” Benny had said to Danielle that morning. “No fried chicken and potato salad like Eva and Chris served last year. Don’t you agree?”

  With barely concealed irritation, Danielle had rhymed off her preliminary ideas about the main meal, which would be served at lunchtime. A gravlax appetizer to start, she thought, with a sour cream dill sauce. Spaghetti for a main course, sauced with her own tomatoes, some white wine, and fresh herbs, and topped with steamed fresh clams and mussels. On the side, a cold salad of her greens in a blood-orange vinaigrette, and a warm salad of fava beans with feta in a mustard and mint dressing. For dessert: five kinds of berries with vanilla whipped cream.

  “My mouth’s watering already. But what about Dad?”

  “If he doesn’t want to eat what I make for the adults, there’ll be good bread and cold cuts laid out for the kids, some plain pasta with tomato sauce, and grated Parmesan. And make-your-own ice cream sundaes for dessert.”

  “And cake?”

  “One of your sisters can bring cake. All of your sisters can bring cake. You can buy six cakes at the supermarket bakery. I am not baking any cake.”

  “You’re awfully touchy.”

  “I’m not touchy. I’m describing a very nice menu, and all you can say is, ‘What about Dad’?”

  “I want him to know what a wonderful cook you are.”

  “I’m not a wonderful cook,” Danielle said. Snapped.

  Benny came over, put his arms around her. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  She shook him off. “Nothing. Don’t.”

  “You will serve some more meat than just cold cuts though, right?” he’d said. “Maybe some steak?”

  Danielle refilled Sarah’s coffee cup. “Have you ever heard anything so aggravating in your life?”

  “Your father-in-law sounds difficult. I pity his poor wife.”

  “Would you put up with this?”

  Sarah smiled. “No, but I’m not you.”

  “Murray and his stupid cake.”

  “Where will you find the time to prepare this elaborate meal, when you have to run your farm and care for your children?”

  “Where does any working mother find the time?”

  “I know of a good divorce lawyer if you ever want one.”

  “I’m not at that stage. I mean, Benny’s good points outweigh his bad ones, I know they do. I’ve made a list, and tallied them up. I only wish …”

  “What?”

  Danielle took a big quavery breath. “I only wish I never had to cook again. There, I said it. And I don’t care if I sound petty.”

  “Petty? Who’s to say what’s petty? We’re each allowed to be unhappy in our own way. Take me: I’m financially secure, retired by choice, healthy, my children and grandchildren are safe and well. I have nothing to complain about, yet I’m not the most contented person on earth.”

  “What do you wish for?”

  “Nothing in particular.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Sarah lifted her coffee cup to her mouth, said from behind it, “I could use more to do, I suppose, since retiring from real estate. A part-time occupation.”

  “Too bad we can’t switch places for a while.”

  “When’s your family party?”

  “A few days after the next dinner club meeting, in late October. Why?”

  “How about if I bake the cakes your husband wants? I like to bake.”

  “Oh no, Sarah, please. I wouldn’t dream of asking you. And I don’t care about providing Benny’s family with dessert.”

  “I make a nice fluffy banana layer cake. Does your father-in-law eat bananas?”

  Alice dropped Lavinia off at daycare, ran to her car, started it up, and hit the road. Was she imagining things, or had Lavinia been extra clingy during their goodbye today? As if she somehow knew her mother was going for lunch with a man. Everyone else sure seemed to have caught on. Like Sarah, who’d been sitting on her porch, reading her morning paper, when Alice and Lavinia left. “Don’t you both look pretty this morning,” she said, and made Alice regret trying to dress nicely. Made her want to rip her silver hoop earrings right out of her ears. She might have, too, if it hadn’t taken her a good ten minutes of basically re-piercing the holes by hand to get them inserted.

  Then at Lavinia’s daycare, one of the teachers said, “You’re all decked out. Big meeting at work this morning?”

  Alice could only hope that Carl Somers, the foreman on the train station restoration job, wouldn’t notice any difference when she came by. Or wouldn’t comment if he did. Damn. She shouldn’t have agreed to meet Tom at the site before she headed into the city, not today.

  She drove past the subdivisions out by the school, and turned on the car stereo. NPR was running a discussion on the economy that required argumentative panelists to maintain extreme positions and interrupt one another whenever possible. No thanks. Alice switched the stereo to the CD player and let it play.

  Lavinia’s musical preferences had recently evolved from classic Raffi kids’ tunes to pre-teen pop music, under the influence of Mary Ann’s daughter, Kayla, who was something of a tween music expert. The current CD, Kayla’s birthday gift to Lavinia, was the product of a group called the Bad Boys, though the image they presented was fresh-scrubbed and clean-cut, from their gleaming teeth and product-heavy hair to the brightly coloured boxer brief waistbands that showed above their skinny jeans.

  Kayla had explained to Alice the attributes of each Bad Boy, had delineated the differences between the Cute One, the Young One, the Dreadlocked One, and the One Who Wore Glasses. “If Lavinia wants to pick a favourite, she should go for the Young One,” Kayla said. “Seeing as he’s closest to her age.”

  Lavinia had not shown interest in any particular Bad Boy, thank god, but she liked the up-tempo rhythms of the music and requested the CD be played often in the car. A few weeks of this total immersion and Alice had learned all the lyrics — every single hey baby/you make me crazy/you know I love you/what will I do? one of them.

  For any given line in a song, Alice could identify which member of the group was singing. On a few of the numbers she raised the volume before Lavinia asked her to. And she had begun to listen to the CD when Lavinia wasn’t in the car, to tap out the rhythm with her left foot while she drove, and sing. She’d gone so far as to pick her own favourite Bad Boy — the One Who Wore Glasses. Though at least, she said to herself, when she thought about it, when she acknowledged how absurd and borderline sick it was for a fortysomething, university-educated, worldly woman to take an interest in a twenty-year-old member of a slickly marketed money-making machine — at least she’d chosen him as an object of her attention for his vocal talent, rather than for his youthful swagger or cut abs.

  The One Who Wore Glasses — Alice preferred to think of him as the Voice — was the most beauty-challenged member of the bunch, face-wise. He might not have qualified for admission to the group at all if he weren’t the possessor of a husky, full-throated instrument that imparted undeserved shades of meaning to the insipid lyrics he sang. His voice soared above the layered musical arrangements, cut through the generic pop hooks and spoke — to Alice, anyway — of sweat-soaked passion and steamy sex.

  Alice didn’t know which had come fir
st — the insistent pressure of the Voice’s purring, Mary Ann’s outlook on life as one big affair opportunity, or her sex drive awakening from its years-long postpartum sleep and whispering its own Hey, baby lines in her ear. What she did know was that she was a little too primed for her lunch with Jake Stewart.

  She parked in front of the train station building, ducked inside the plastic sheets that covered the scaffolding around the door, and heard Mary Ann say, “Gosh, Tom, when you talk like that, it takes me right back to the 1870s. As if I’m wearing a corset and my proximity to the sweating labourers is making me feel faint. Do you have any smelling salts?”

  Oh, great. Mary Ann had chosen today to practise her bizarre brand of flirting on Tom.

  Mary Ann saw her and waved. “You don’t mind if I tag along on your site inspection, do you? When Tom told me he was meeting you here, I begged him to let me come.” Before Alice could answer, Mary Ann said, in a drier tone, “You’re looking good this morning.”

  “Thanks.” Alice gave Mary Ann a warning glare. “You look nice too.”

  “We’ve only just arrived,” Tom said. “Carl’s upstairs. He said to ‘holler up’ when we’re ready.”

  Alice hollered, “Hey, Carl! We’re here,” and they started up the back staircase to the second-floor gallery, Mary Ann in lead position, next Alice, Tom last. Halfway there, Mary Ann started fiddling with the silk scarf tied around her neck. “Does anyone else find it warm in here?” she said, pulled the scarf off in a stripteasey manner, and tied it to her purse. Next came her jacket, but underneath was only a V-neck sweater. Nothing racier, Alice was relieved to see, despite the earlier talk of corsets.

  Carl came down the attic stairs, greeted them, and stared at the spectacle of Mary Ann fiddling with a pendant on a chain around her neck. She dropped it into her cleavage, pulled it out, dropped it in again. He didn’t seem to notice how Alice was dressed, or that she was even present, until she said, “So, Carl, where shall we start?”