The Dirty Book Club

by Lisi Harrison

  “What if he sees you?”

  “I told him I was hosting a town hall meeting tonight and he couldn’t get out of here fast enough. It’s what I say when I need a little alone time with my girls.” Her eyes narrowed as if straining to find a fading memory. “It’s a funny thing . . . Back when Leo worked, I was desperate to have him home. And now that he’s retired I want him out.” She laughed to herself. “Isn’t that the way?”

  “How many daughters do you have?”

  “No daughters. Four boys. David, my baby, is almost thirty-seven.”

  “Oh. When you said girls I thought you meant—”

  “I was talking about my friends. When you’ve known someone since high school they seem young forever.”

  A car pulled into her driveway. Then three doors slammed.

  “Speak of the angels.” Gloria snubbed out her cigarette on the rosy cheek of a ceramic garden gnome. “A gift from my daughter-in-law, Kelsey. A real bitch, that one. Anyway, it was nice meeting you, M.J.”

  “You too,” she said, meaning it. “Oh, and Dan will return the chair as soon as he gets back from the Realtor’s. He’s trying to open a medical practice here and—”

  “Please, it can wait until tomorrow. And if he works weekends and can’t do it for a few days, so be it. My Leo worked so many Saturdays I started telling people he was a rabbi. You’ll bring it when you bring it.”

  As Gloria left to greet her girls, M.J. tried to imagine growing old with the friends who knew her when she was young. To share a lifetime of memories, inside jokes, and milestones. To know who will be pulling into her driveway when she is Gloria’s age. All she saw was darkness.

  M.J. gathered her things and went inside. “Mom, Dad, April?” she said, eyes closed, hands together in prayer in front of the open fridge. “I’m looking for a sign here. It doesn’t have to be big. Just a little something to show me the way, because things are pretty fucked right now and—”

  The doorbell rang. She hurried to answer.

  “May-June Stark?” said the FedEx deliveryman as if serving a summons and not a package.

  Heart pounding, she nodded.

  “This is for you.”

  “Thanks, Curtis,” she said, while signing his electronic signature pad. “Oh, and call me M.J.”

  “Only if you call me Neil.”

  “Neil? Why Neil?”

  “Because that’s my name. Curtis works for UPS.”

  “Of course he does,” M.J. muttered to herself. Her family was probably dying all over again laughing at her blunder.

  With the door still open she pulled the cardboard tab across the envelope and read the document that was tucked inside. A document that instantly transformed her from a spiritual skeptic into a woman who believes in signs.

  CHAPTER

  Six

  Pearl Beach, California

  Saturday, May 21

  Full Moon

  M.J. RELAXED HER gait and loosened her hips in the manner of a carefree maiden on an aimless Saturday-afternoon stroll, who also happened to be casually swinging a bottle of Tito’s vodka by her side. To see her was to think she was the trope of small-town spontaneity; to be her was to grapple with the urge to turn around and run home.

  This whole “pop by the neighbors’ for a visit” thing had been Dan’s idea—another attempt to set M.J. up with a life before he opens his clinic and is gone all day. But M.J. wasn’t a “popper.” She needed an invitation; nothing formal, just an overall sense that she was welcome.

  “It’s what locals do,” Dan assured her. “They think it’s rude if you keep to yourself.”

  “No, what’s rude is taking their outdoor furniture without permission.”

  “Hence, the apology vodka.”

  The gesture would have felt a lot less invasive if Dan had gone with her. But he had a lunch meeting with a retiring doctor; a local hotshot in search of someone to take over his practice. So M.J. had to play first lady and handle the social outreach alone. It was either that or spend another afternoon sunning solo on her deck and judging the mothers who let their teenaged daughters wear thong bikinis to the beach.

  “Well, hello there,” said the man in Gloria’s garage. He was rubbing soapy circles into the hood of a cranberry-red Aston Martin, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. His MacBook-colored hair, still thick as a teenager’s, was weekend-morning wild, his tan was retirement deep. He was a picture of old-school machismo, even as Barbra Streisand’s “Stoney End” blared from his boom box.

  “Mr. Golden?”

  He straightened his posture and smoothed his side part. “Call me Leo.”

  M.J. went limp with relief. While it didn’t erase the fact that she called Neil “Curtis,” getting this one right was encouraging. “I’m M.J. I live next door.”

  “So I’ve noticed.” Leo turned up the good-time glint in his navy-blue eyes as he bridged their forty-year gap with a lingering handshake. Then, aiming his cigarette at the bottle that was now slipping from M.J.’s sweaty palm, he asked if she would care for a glass.

  “The vodka is for you and Gloria. From Dan and me to thank you for not arresting us,” she said, with a nervous giggle. But why? M.J. was a street-smart woman, and Leo was at least seventy. Yet his unwavering eye contact made her squirm.

  She took a tiny step back.

  “Dan returned the chair, right? This morning, before his meeting? Not that he works on Saturdays. He doesn’t. Not usually . . . Anyway, he’ll be home at three. We’re going couch shopping.” Embarrassed, M.J. shook her head. Why was she telling him this? She sounded like a schoolgirl with a teacher crush. Even Lolita was more composed.

  “You know who you remind me of?” Leo asked. “A shorter Elle Macpherson. Not to say you’re short—”

  His phone dinged. He glanced at the screen and then returned his attention to M.J., who was wishing she had worn something less revealing: a maxi dress and Birkenstocks instead of denim cutoffs and a boxy T-shirt that offered peekaboo glimpses of her flat midriff. “Is Gloria home?”

  “She will be in exactly”—he glanced at his screen again—“four minutes and six seconds.”

  “Are you sure? I can always come back.”

  Leo chuckled as if recalling a joke. “Oh, I’m sure. That woman has been giving me five-minute warnings for the last fifty years. Which means we better hurry if we want to—”

  “Want to what?”

  Leo approached the life-sized cardboard cutout of Marlon Brando, reached behind the rose on his lapel, and removed the box of American Spirits that had been taped to the back.

  He lit two cigarettes, offered one to M.J.

  Though M.J. didn’t smoke, she accepted it on behalf of her fidgeting hands that desperately needed something to do.

  “So tell me, M.J., are you an actress?”

  “No. But your wife obviously was.”

  She indicated the back wall, where dozens of framed headshots hung in evenly spaced rows. Audrey Hepburn, Mia Farrow, Elvis, Faye Dunaway, John Travolta, Jessica Lange, Diana Ross, Goldie Hawn, Harrison Ford . . . There were at least thirty, and they were all addressed to Gloria.

  “Those came from me,” Leo said proudly. “I was a producer at Paramount for forty-eight years. Back when people who loved films made films.” He took a deep Those were the good old days drag of his cigarette. “Today, executives have their heads so far up their own bottom lines, I bet half of them don’t even see the movies they make. But me? I cared.” He snickered. “Too much, Gloria would say.” His smile melted into a closemouthed fatherly grin. He flicked his ash. “Make sure that boyfriend of yours doesn’t make a habit of working weekends. It’s a hard one to break, and like most bad habits, it’ll catch up with him in the end.”

  A horn honked.

  Leo released his cigarette into a sudsy puddle. It died with a quick hiss. He signaled for M.J. to do the same.

  “There’s my queen!” he announced as Gloria emerged from her Mercedes sedan.

  “S
ave the ass-kissing for your cardiologist,” she said, slamming the car door. The key around her neck knocked clumsily about her collarbone as she charged toward him. “You’re out of refills. You have to see Dr. Winters first thing Monday morning or else—”

  Leo gripped her slender shoulders, then kissed her firmly on the mouth. “God, I’ve missed you.”

  Gloria gave him a playful shove. “I’m serious. This is seri—” She raised a professionally arched eyebrow at the cigarettes floating beside his sandaled feet.

  Leo pointed at M.J. “They’re hers!”

  M.J. laughed. It was something her father would have said. Gloria, however, was not amused.

  “Call Dr. Winters,” she insisted. Then, with a sharp tilt of her head, she ordered M.J. and the Tito’s to follow her inside.

  “This is why you look so young,” M.J. said as a blast of frigid air greeted them in the front foyer. “The temperature is set to cryogenic.”

  “We have Leo to thank for that. He says the cold keeps his cranky arthritic friends from stopping by.” Gloria turned up the thermostat. “I say it’s the reason I stopped wearing lingerie.”

  M.J. instantly warmed. “You and Leo really seem to love each other.”

  “Love, my dear, has never been our problem.”

  The sweet almond smell of macaroon cookies censed the bungalow, which, on first glance, seemed as elegant as Gloria herself. The white tufted furniture was chic yet comfortable, the accents a timeless palate of flax and gold. But a closer look revealed porcelain monkeys, a mirrored wall, bamboo floor lamps, and a coffee table book called Prim: A Modern Woman’s Guide to Manners. If a person who valued style could overlook such outdated pieces, what else, M.J. thought, might she fail to notice?

  In the kitchen, Gloria held a silver cocktail shaker against the door of her fridge and deftly caught the avalanche of ice that rumbled forth. “If only a ready-made martini came out next,” she laughed. “Now that would be something.”

  “To new neighbors,” Gloria said with a sharp hoist of her glass.

  M.J. hoisted back, then she drank: one sip to keep from spilling, a second to lubricate her rusty social wheels, and a third because the martini was just the right amount of dirty.

  From there, they sat on opposite sides of the cooking island and began to chip away the top coats of their colorfully painted pasts, careful not to expose the dark details that lay hidden underneath.

  “This doctor of yours must be something,” Gloria said. “Getting you to leave New York City for Pearl Beach.” She listed toward the window above the sink, indicating the surfers and sunbathers that animated her view. “This place must feel like a retirement village to you. Everyone tooting around in electric golf carts. Restaurants close at nine. And the constant smack of those unsightly rubber things. Oh, what are they called?”

  “Flip-flops?”

  “Yes,” Gloria paused for a quick sip. “My dear friend Marjorie used to date a Frenchman named Philipe Follop.”

  “You’re lying!”

  Gloria raised her right hand. “On my life. Soft, cheap, and unsupportive, Marjorie used to say; just like the sandal.”

  M.J. laughed. “They’re for broken toes and pedicures if you ask me,” she said, leaving out Dan’s fondness for the “unsightly rubber things.”

  Gloria clinked M.J.’s glass in a show of solidarity. Then, the brightness behind her eyes dimmed, as if setting the scene for something more intimate. “I admire you.”

  M.J. laughed again.

  “I’m serious, “Gloria said. “I’ve lived in this town for seventy-two years. Appliances and hair colors are the only things I’ve ever changed. But you? You had a glamorous career in the most exciting city in the world and you walked away from it all. Now you’re starting a new adventure in a sleepy beach town with a man you barely know.” She topped off their drinks, and then with a slight slur said, “You have a big braload of courage. I envy that.”

  “Thank you,” M.J. said, because Gloria’s assessment wasn’t entirely wrong. M.J. joined an improv group in college. She bungee jumped off a rotting bridge in Cancun. She even occupied Wall Street. To call her courageous wasn’t inaccurate, just slightly outdated. But what was she supposed to do? Tell the truth? Admit that she hadn’t walked away from anything, that she’d run like a petulant child. No, but the truth was no way to make a good first impression.

  Still. If M.J. accepted praise she didn’t deserve, she’d be no different than Liz. And Liz was the antithesis of courageous; she was corrupt.

  “I didn’t leave New York because I’m adventurous,” M.J. admitted. “I left because my ex-boss gave fifty percent of my promotion to a glorified sorority girl and I was pissed.” But there was more. Though the development was less than one day old it weighed on M.J. as if fully grown. And the vodka in her dirty martini wanted to talk about it. “I got an offer from that ex-boss yesterday.”

  Gloria’s eyebrow shot up. “What kind of offer?”

  “I have enough unused vacation days to take the entire summer off, with pay, so she’ll call my resignation a leave of absence if . . .”

  “If what?”

  “If I go back in the fall.”

  “And the sorority girl?”

  M.J. twisted a finger around the frayed denim hem of her shorts. “She’ll be there.”

  “And you’re okay with that?”

  M.J. sighed. “Two weeks ago I would have said no way. But now?” Her eyes fluttered closed.

  “What does the handsome doctor think?”

  “He found the FedEx envelope in the trash, which he promptly moved to the recycle bin, and then asked why my ex-boss, Gayle, was reaching out.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That my old coworkers sent some good-bye cards.” M.J. pressed two fingers against her throbbing temple. “It’s the first time I ever lied to him.”

  “Does this mean you’re accepting her offer?”

  M.J. shrugged. She didn’t sign the contract, but she didn’t tear it up, either. She hid it in one of her suitcases, buried it under the black cashmere sweaters that had yet to find a place for themselves in her sunny new world.

  Gloria reached for her hand. “There’s no shame in leaving your options open.”

  “I know, but I should tell Dan. And I will. Today. After we buy a couch.” M.J. looked at Gloria and frowned. “It’s just that he’s so proud of me for taking a stand and we love living together and—”

  “You can’t do that.”

  “You’re right. It’s cruel.” M.J. reached for her purse. “The decent thing would be to tell him now, before the couch. Before he spends another second believing I’m all in.”

  “No, you can’t do that.”

  “What?”

  “Tell him. Not until your bags are packed and your flight is booked.”

  “But—”

  “Trust me. Wait until you’re sure.”

  “I can’t wait. Gayle wants an answer by the end of July.”

  “Do you have one?”

  “No.

  “Exactly, so why rock the boat?”

  “To be open and honest.”

  “Sometimes honesty causes more problems than lies. And openness?” Gloria leaned closer. “Honey, do you think Leo and I stayed married for fifty years because we’re open? Christ, we wouldn’t have made it past the honeymoon if we were. This is the kind of stuff you figure out with your best friends first. Then you tell Dan.”

  “But Dan is my best friend.”

  Gloria lowered her fist like a gavel. “Now that’s a problem.”

  * * *

  MARIPOSA LANE SEEMED more vibrant than it had when M.J. first arrived at Gloria’s. The bougainvillea, the palm fronds, the lemon tree, the cloudless sky . . . It was as if a jewel-toned filter had been added to the lens through which M.J. saw her neighborhood. Her vodka-soaked senses were heightened, her bloodshot eyes amazed.

  Stumbling toward home, she wondered what Dan would think of his day-drun
k girlfriend with the cigarette-scented fingers.

  Her stomach roiled.

  Was she really going to stay quiet about Gayle’s offer? Could she? Honesty had always been a source of pride between them. They swore they’d never become one of those couples who lied. Though, technically, this was more of an omission than a lie. Lies were sharp and incising, and this was blunt, pliable. An omission might poke their hymen of truth, but wouldn’t break it.

  “Nice meeting you, Leo!” M.J. called toward the garage.

  If he answered, she couldn’t hear him over Barbra’s optimistically upbeat “Time and Love.”

  She called to him again.

  Still nothing.

  Perhaps he was on the deck, or maybe the beach.

  But the water . . .

  What once snaked down his driveway, now rushed.

  M.J. kicked off her shoes and padded upstream back to the garage. There was Leo. Sitting against the fender of his Aston Martin, his spouting hose unmanned. “Good thing there’s no drought,” she teased. “I mean it’s not like California is in a state of emergency or anything.”

  If Leo appreciated her sarcasm, he didn’t show it. He just sat there; legs splayed, shoulders slumped, chin to chest.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t report you,” she said, though Leo didn’t seem the least bit worried. His lips were slightly parted and the lines on his forehead were smooth. If anything he looked relaxed, almost serene.

  “Hey.” M.J. gave him a nudge.

  “Bug off, lady, I’m sleeping,” Leo seemed to say as he tipped toward the oil-stained concrete and landed stiffly on its side.

  CHAPTER

  Seven

  Pearl Beach, California

  Sunday, May 29

  Last Quarter Moon

  THE BLAST OF cold air that had greeted M.J. on her previous visit to the Goldens’ bungalow had been replaced by a pall of coffee-scented sorrow.

  There was a rabbi in the living room leading the well-preserved congregation in some unintelligible prayer, and like respectful theatergoers who arrived during the first act, M.J. and Dan waited by the front door until he was done. It would have been longer, if M.J. had her way.