The Book Club

by Mary Alice Monroe

  For one moment Annie considered going with him. Her heart ranted against the coward who was her husband. Here was a real man. What kind of man was John? He’d abandoned her. She wanted to punish John. She would show him! Her heart beat heavily with the battle of loving John—of hating John.

  Overhead a bat swerved in the violet light. Behind her the wind rattled the leaves. What did it matter, she wondered, feeling defeat engulf her as her mood plummeted? There was nothing left for her. Her bones felt dry and brittle, ready for the grave. What did it matter, she thought again? She was dead already.

  R.J. rose to his feet in a swoop. Then taking her hand, he pulled her up beside him, close to his chest.

  “The cabana is right over there,” he said bending close, his sour breath hot on her ear. “We don’t have much time.”

  Annie hung back, weaving, feeling sick inside. What was she doing? It did matter. She looked at the tall, middle-aged man before her and saw that he wasn’t just any man. He was R. J. Bridges—Doris’s husband, John’s boss. This wasn’t just about her and John. It was about Doris and R.J., too. This wasn’t just about sex. It involved people. John’s words echoed in her mind: It’s always about you, Annie. Yes, it is about me, John, she thought to herself. Ultimately, the decision was hers to live with. R.J. may be a rat, but he was Doris’s rat.

  Revulsion shook her and she reared, whacking away R.J.’s fat, sweaty palm from her arm. “Keep your hands off of me,” she said, stepping back.

  R.J.’s face flushed but he recouped quickly. “That’s what I like about you, Annie,” he said with a nervous laugh. “You’re sassy. Tough.”

  “Try married.” She tightened her towel.

  “I am, too,” he said with an urbane shrug. “Listen, Annie, nothing happened. We both had a little too much to drink, that’s all. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “I’m a lawyer, R.J., not a judge. Save the defense for Doris.” She turned and walked away in a blaze of anger and shame.

  * * *

  Behind the pool house, amid a cluster of rhododendron that had grown thick with age, Doris stood in the shadows and watched Annie Blake swoop down, scoop up her dress and shoes, then head for the gravel path toward the house. Her long legs took coltish strides and her slim hips swayed beneath the thick terry cloth towel.

  Doris clutched a broad waxy leaf and watched from deep in the shadows as R.J. sat back in the lounge chair, mopped his face with his palm, lifted his long legs and pulled out a cigarette. A flame lit the air, then the cigarette tip glowed red in the blackness. He smoked as he stared out at the night, frowning, inhaling deeply. Her husband raked his hair with his hands and sighed heavily.

  With frustration, she wondered? With relief? Did he care whether his own wife found out that he’d made a move on her friend?

  Doris’s breath was shallow and it felt as though her blood was draining from her face, down her body, straight into the soil. She couldn’t move. She could no longer run away, rooted as she was by the reality of what she’d tried to ignore for years.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later Annie paid the cabdriver, then raced in her bare feet across the expanse of lush green lawn into her house, pushing open the front door so hard it banged against the wall.

  “John!” she screamed in the front foyer. Her fury was bubbling in her veins like lava about to erupt. She dropped her purse and the plastic bag that contained her ruined dress and shoes, and pounded through the halls, shouting John’s name over and over.

  She found him in the kitchen dressed in his white work overalls taping drywall. At this late hour he was working calmly, steadily, easing out his anger as he applied tape in smooth, even strokes. He kept his back to her.

  Annie would not be ignored. “You left me there!” she shouted at him. “I had no money, no dry clothes, and you just left me there!”

  John’s arm paused in the air for a second, then he continued working.

  Annie felt her stomach twist, her throat constrict and her heart break. She trembled with hurt and shame and fury. After all that had happened that night, all the errors made on both their parts, he wouldn’t even turn around and face her.

  She swallowed hard and said in a low, shaky voice, “So, you’re going to be the martyr, huh? It’s all my fault. It’s the silent treatment again.”

  He kept working but said in a controlled voice, “We’d better not talk now. We’ll both say things we’ll regret.”

  His calm was like oil on a flame. “I don’t care! At least we’ll be talking. I’m sick of your pussyfooting around fights. For months we’ve been seething, making swipes. I hate that. I want to fight! To get it all out. Come on, damn you, turn around.” She approached him, tripping over the tarp on the floor and falling against his shoulder.

  His muscled shoulders tensed as she tumbled against him. He went still, his hand clenched white on the roll of tape against the wall over his head. She could see his face turn pale with anger and the bitter control he was exercising not to turn around.

  “You’re drunk, Annie.”

  She hated the superiority in his voice. “Not drunk enough,” she retorted, eager to get a rise from him. “Not as drunk as I want to be.” She shoved his shoulder, this time on purpose. “Damn it, John, at least when I’m drunk I talk. Turn around and look me in the eye. Stop hiding behind that wall you’re building.”

  He wouldn’t.

  “You stubborn, arrogant prig! Why did you walk away?” She cut to the chase.

  He dropped his arm and looked at her over his shoulder. His gaze swept her and he noticed that she was standing in her muddy bare feet, her hair was straight and stringy, and she was wearing an oversize man’s raincoat buttoned up to her neck. She saw the second his concern flashed to anger.

  “It was clear you’d already made your decision.”

  Her chin stuck out. “Oh? And what decision did I make?”

  “To cheat.”

  Her breath exhaled on a curse. “That’s what you think was happening? That I was fooling around with that asshole R. J. Bridges?”

  He spun around, throwing the roll of tape across the floor. “I was there.”

  “I know you were! I saw you. Just standing there in the dark, watching. That’s why I played that game. To see what you’d do. But you just stood there!” She heard the pain in her own voice, felt the tears burn in her eyes. “You didn’t fight for me. Defend me...”

  “There was nothing to fight for. Nothing to defend.”

  She almost doubled over from the blow of his words, delivered in a razor sharp tone that cut deep. All her hurt and doubt coursed through her, making her heart pump hard, stealing her breath. Her brain echoed the words: Nothing to fight for. Nothing to defend.

  He didn’t love her enough to fight for her? His own wife? No one had ever defended her—not as a child, not as a woman.

  She turned her head, hiding her face. She couldn’t let him know how he’d just injured her. To tell him now, in the heat of battle, was to expose her vulnerable underbelly. A street urchin like herself knew better than that.

  “Nothing to defend?” she cried, facing him with mean desperation. “How about your manhood? What kind of man would just watch while another man made a pass at his wife?”

  John’s face was tight with matched fury. “What kind of a woman would accept a pass from her husband’s boss?”

  “I didn’t!”

  “He kissed you, Annie. I call that a pass.”

  “He did that, not me. Okay, it was wrong. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I just wanted to see if you’d stand up to R.J.” Her finger jabbed the air between them. “And you didn’t! You didn’t do squat!”

  “What?” he shot back, lunging forward, his face in hers. His long hands formed fists at his thighs. “Would you feel better if I’d hit him? If
I’d hit you?”

  “Yes!” she shouted back, her eyes gleaming with challenge. “Yes! I want to see you do something. Be a man!”

  John lurched closer like a prizefighter, breathing heavily, his eyes rimmed red, his mouth a thin line of determination. Suddenly he brought back his fist.

  Annie raised her arm to fend off the blow.

  With a violent swing John turned his shoulder and slammed his fist into the drywall.

  Annie ducked, yelped and covered her face.

  She remained huddled for a moment, clenched, waiting, listening. All was silent. When she opened her eyes, she saw John leaning forward in exhaustion, his forehead resting against the wall, and a line of tears carving through the white dust on his cheek. His knuckles were bloodied.

  She gulped deep breaths of air, feeling suddenly sober, sick and drained of all emotion. She wanted only for the anger to be over.

  “I’ll get you some ice,” she said.

  “Leave me alone.”

  “I want to.”

  It seemed her feet were made of lead as she walked in automaton fashion to the freezer, kicking up the fine white dust as she went. Her hands trembled while she loaded cubes of ice into a towel, wrapped them up, then brought it to John. He was sitting on a kitchen chair. His long blond hair fell limp over his drooping shoulders.

  She knew he was withdrawing. He’d be ashamed of his anger, embarrassed that he’d been so physical. But she wanted him to know that she was glad of it. Glad to know that his feelings for her were strong. She wanted to hold him now, to bring him out of himself, to kiss him, to make it all better now that the anger was spent.

  “John, I’m sorry. About everything. I was wrong to play that game with R.J. Wrong to push you...”

  “Don’t, Annie.” His voice was as cold as the ice in her hands. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  She halted clumsily, her hand still in midair. She wanted to talk to him, to clear the air, but when she tried again to touch him, he backed off, raising his bloodied hand to ward her off as though her touch would contaminate him.

  “I’ve got to get out of here. Get some air.”

  “Don’t go,” she said, deadly serious. How many times had she advised her clients never to leave in the middle of a fight. “We need to talk. There’s so much more we need to talk about. You don’t know, John. Please. We’re not done yet.”

  He rose in a swoop and, grabbing his keys off the kitchen counter, made his way over the tools and debris to the back door. There he stopped and spoke in a dead, tired voice.

  “Maybe we are, Annie. Maybe we are.”

  * * *

  Doris lay in her four-poster bed, the embroidered sheets and down blanket tucked high up over her breasts, right to her double chin. The gray light of the television flashed in the darkness. She remembered a conversation she’d had once with her mother, on this very bed, long ago when this was still her parents’ bedroom. Bobby was still a toddler and she was pregnant with Sarah. At that time, she suspected R.J. was having an affair. She’d gone running to her mother in tears, threatening a divorce.

  How calm and accepting her mother had been of the possibility of infidelity. She had settled Doris beside her on the bed, held her hand, and in her lighthearted manner, made Doris feel naive that such a thing as a “fling” should upset her. She recalled her mother’s words vividly.

  “My darling, does he beat you? Does he abuse your son? No! Is he a good provider? Yes! Does he love you? Yes! Oh, don’t be silly, Doris, of course he does. In his way. We can’t all expect romance and flowers, my dear, but we can expect respect.” Her mother had patted her cheek. “Successful men have these...needs. It has something to do with their egos, pressures of the job. Oh, who knows,” she’d said, waving her hand in the air. “And who cares? You have this nice life. A nice home, car, your children, and a bit of spending money.” She’d patted Doris’s hand. “Sometimes it’s best for a wife to look the other way.”

  Doris focused again on the four-poster bed—her bed now. You made your bed, now sleep in it, her mother had told her.

  Doris lay in the bland gray light and fondled the string of black pearls still around her neck. Twenty-five pearls, one for each year they’d been married. A quarter of a century with Robert James Bridges. She’d been patient; she’d looked the other way always believing that, by this point in their marriage, he would have sown his wild oats. These should have been their golden years together, with the hurt far behind.

  She rolled the pearls in her fingers, considering, registering the soft, waxy feel. Twenty-five pearls. Worth quite a bit. Certainly nothing to toss away lightly. Closing her fingers tightly over the pearls she weighed her decision. Suddenly her fingers tightened around them. Grimacing, she gave a firm, fierce tug. The clasp broke, sending the necklace collapsing into her fist. She raised her palm and looked dispassionately at the broken string, then leaned over and allowed the pearls to slide through her fingers onto the bedside table.

  When R.J. stepped into the room a short while later she didn’t bother to look up but her body tensed involuntarily under the blanket. The sound of his shuffling in the dim lighting as he changed from his dinner clothes into pajamas seemed deafening.

  “Hey, what happened to the necklace?” he asked, his gruff voice reflecting shock and dismay.

  From the corner of her eye she saw him standing, stooped over her bedside table. His belly hung a bit over the waistband of his pajamas and in his hands he held the black pearls.

  “The clasp is all broken,” he added, screwing up his eyes.

  “Yes,” she replied, deliberately keeping her eyes on the television.

  “How the...” He looked up at her, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Are you okay?”

  She closed her eyes. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “No reason,” he replied quickly. “You just seem...” He shook his head, then set the pearls back onto the vanity. “Well, I can repair it.”

  Doris raised her eyes for the first time and affixed her gaze on her husband. He appeared to her neither as handsome, nor as dear, as he had just a few hours earlier.

  “Can you?” she asked without a trace of emotion. She saw a shadow of puzzlement flicker across his face, and in his eyes, a flash of worry. Doris turned her head and returned to her black-and-white movie.

  In a dull voice, she replied, “I’m not sure that it can be repaired.”

  * * *

  The night passed in excruciating slowness. Annie drank more, hoping to deaden the pain that would not be doused. And the fear. Yes, that was worse. John had not yet returned. She lay her forehead against the cool of the table. Retracing each phase of the horrible evening, she examined with the discipline of a lawyer her actions and reactions. Yes, she’d acted irresponsibly. No, she should never have gone to the pool. She was sorry about what happened there, wished she could take it all back.

  But always there came the nagging voice that said, What about John? Didn’t he have a duty to her as well? Wasn’t he partly to blame? Back and forth, back and forth. Yet beneath the rationalizations lurked a haze of guilt she couldn’t escape. She was wrong and felt the need to make amends.

  A little after 3:00 a.m. she heard a shuffling at the door and rose from her chair with a start, clumsily knocking over the chair in her haste to open the door.

  “John! Where have you—”

  Her breath hitched, choking her words. Standing under the dim light was Doris. She was wearing her nightgown under a navy windbreaker. And though she was dressed for sleep, Annie saw in the flashing of her eyes that she was ready for battle.

  “May I come in?”

  Annie wanted to say no, to tell her to go home, that she was already battle weary. But she stepped aside and held the door open, groaning inwardly as Doris passed, her shoulders erect with righteou
s fury. She closed the door and faced her, wary.

  “It’s a bit late for a social call,” Annie said. “Is everything okay?”

  “No, everything is not okay,” replied Doris briskly. She was clasping and unclasping her hands, visibly shaking.

  Annie blinked heavily, trying to marshal her woozy thoughts. “If it’s about my falling in the pool, I’m sorry. I lost my balance and went right in.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course that’s not what this is about!” Her facade of control was crumbling.

  Annie wearily mopped her face with her palm, knowing a major confrontation was blowing in. “Look, I’m tired. Believe me when I tell you I’ve had a hell of a day. If it’s all right with you, let’s table this till tomorrow.”

  “No, it’s not all right with me!” Doris shouted back, all pretense of a social call shattered. “I came here to tell you a few things and you’re going to listen.”

  Annie crossed her arms in an unconscious, protective gesture. “So spit it out, Doris.”

  “How could you, Annie?” she cried.

  Annie went cold and the wine in her stomach threatened to shoot forth like a geyser. “What are you talking about?”

  “I was in the garden. I saw you and R.J.”

  “Aw, damn it,” she moaned, shaking her head. She was certain now this was going to be a showdown. At the stroke of twelve, one of them, if not both, would be left bleeding. “Nothing happened, Doris. Nothing at all. R.J. just had a little too much to drink. He got a bit carried away. You know him.”

  Doris swiped at her eyes and regained her control. “Yes, I do. And I know you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You think you’re so superior. You like to play games, Annie Blake, and tonight it was with my husband. I resent that deeply.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Doris.”