“And then?” M.J. asked, eager to know how drinking with random guys lead to Britt forgiving Paul and having sex with him on a Friday afternoon. She loved when seemingly incongruous threads of a story came together in the end. It was so satisfying.
“Then, one of them had me laughing so hard—something about a wad of toilet paper he found in his Tinder date’s V when he was going down on her—that a bit of pee dribbled out. I was tight as a nostril until I had twins. It sucks. Anyway, while I was waiting for the bathroom, the manager kicked them out for being too loud.”
“That’s it? That’s the end?”
“No.” Britt grinned. “It’s the beginning.”
CHAPTER
Thirteen
Pearl Beach, California
Saturday, June 25
Waning Gibbous
THEY’RE IN AN elevator. Before she knows it he grabs her ponytail and yanks down, bringing her face up to meet his. His lips are on hers. She moans into his mouth. She can feel his erection against her belly . . .
M.J. shut her Prim-covered copy of Fifty Shades of Grey, pulled the sheets over her naked body. Why did her inner snob insist on making bitchy faces at Anastasia’s inner goddess? Why couldn’t she fall in love with Christian Grey, like millions of other women had? Why couldn’t she let poor Ana fall for a tortured dominant if that’s where the day took her? Whatever tickles your clit, M.J. would have loved to say, and mean it.
But she couldn’t.
Britt’s “encounter” at Marrow was so much hotter, not to mention the high-stakes drama surrounding it, and M.J.’s thoughts were consumed by it. If Britt’s secret went public she’d suffer more than one of Christian’s stinging slaps to the ass. She’d be nursing the kind of pain that lasts a lifetime; the kind that red wine and a warm bath couldn’t soothe.
“What do you mean, it’s the beginning?” M.J. had asked during her lunch with Britt the day before. The vodka in her Bloody Mary was not about to let Britt’s comment fart by and evaporate into the salt air. “The beginning of what?”
Britt leaned forward and whispered, “Promise you won’t tell a soul?”
M.J. did. Still, Britt made her prove it by stuffing a whole crab cake into her mouth. When M.J. dry heaved Britt said, “That’s the feeling I want you to have if you even think about telling someone what I’m about to say, okay?”
Eyes watering, stomach lurching, M.J. said, “Okay.”
“So I’m waiting for the bathroom and checking my messages to see if Paul called—which he didn’t—when reality sets in. I’m not a sexy, free-spirited party girl; I’m a drunk mom with a loose bladder who was blown off by her husband on their anniversary.” She stirred her Bloody Mary. “I was about to start bawling when a man says, ‘You’re incredible,’ in that throaty Bruce Willis kind of whisper, you know?”
M.J. nodded like someone who didn’t think a Bruce Willis reference was decades too late. “Was it Paul?” she asked, still hoping those loose threads would come together and explain how it led to sex on a Friday afternoon. “Did he finally show up?”
“No,” Britt hissed. “It was a hot guy leaning against the wall across from me, arms folded across his chest and shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows like he’s posing for a Rolex ad.”
“He was wearing a Rolex?” M.J. asked. She treasured her father’s old Timex but had always wished he’d sprung for the crown.
“No, a Fitbit. Even better, right? And he was bald.”
“How bald?”
“Bald. A young bald, though, not an old bald.”
“Like Mr. Clean?”
“Yeah, but without the hoop earring. More like a Brazilian wax.”
“And he said, ‘You’re incredible’—out of nowhere like that?”
“Actually, he was on the phone when he said it, but he was looking right at me. And when I say looking, I mean look-ing. It was primal. And I swear, M.J., my loins ignited like a gas burner. Which is weird, because I’m usually attracted to guys like Paul—dark hair, dark eyes, atrophied muscles . . . but his body was tight and he was licking his lips and watching me—all while telling whoever he was talking to that he’d had a sudden change of plans and whoosh”—Britt indicated a gas explosion over her crotch—“rational thoughts ceased to exist and I—Stanford University graduate, recipient of real estate’s prestigious Gold Medallion Award, mother of twins, and three-time winner of the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot marathon—was reduced to a throbbing slab of meat with nerve endings.”
M.J. was struck by the brazen confidence of this stranger as much as Britt’s ability to be seduced by it. Had some creep who smacked of a Brazilian wax gazed at her in a bar while whisper-speaking like Bruce Willis, she would have ignited his crotch.
“So he hangs up the phone and says, ‘What are you drinking?’ And you know what I said?”
M.J. shook her head.
“I said, ‘You.’ ” Britt smacked the table. “Can you believe? Then I shoved him into the men’s room, because the women’s was still occupied, and straight up fuck-attacked him.”
“So the guy you were with when I called today, that was—”
“The Brazilian.” A slow sunrise of a smile brightened Britt’s eyes, which she was now lining in black kohl.
“What’s his deal? Is he married? What does he do?”
“Dunno. We haven’t done much talking. We didn’t even exchange names. I’m keeping it zipless. The less I know the less real it is and the less I have to feel guilty about.”
“So you feel guilty?”
“Not really.” Britt laughed. “Weird, isn’t it? If anything I feel like I deserve it. Like I’ve done everything I possibly can to fix my marriage and Paul’s completely checked out. At the same time I love the guy. So what am I supposed to do? Get divorced and break up my family? Drink myself numb? Resign myself to a lifetime of missed anniversaries and forgotten couples therapy sessions? God, I’m bone-tired of feeling like I don’t matter and the Brazilian makes me feel like I do, you know?”
M.J. lied and said she could relate. But in truth Dan was a devoted adviser, lover, grief counselor, and friend. If anything she took him for granted and was now starting to wonder if that’s why he stayed in Jakarta for so long. To get away from her apathy and surround himself with people who not only needed his help but also appreciated it.
Just as she was about to share her newfound concern with Britt, Addie appeared. She had an hour-long lunch break at the women’s clinic and chose to spend it drinking with friends and handing out invitations (condoms with the particulars written in Sharpie) to her thirty-fifth birthday party. Though the intrusion was poorly timed, it filled M.J. with delight. She had been small-town sabotaged and invited to a party in the same afternoon. She was starting to belong.
Now, still in bed and close to noon, M.J. kicked off the covers and followed the sound of CNN into the living room, eager to show Dan how much he mattered before someone else did.
CHAPTER
Fourteen
Pearl Beach, California
Monday, July 4
New Moon
BELOW THE ROOFTOP bar, which was cleverly named Rooftop, cars sharked the narrow streets looking for parking, kids ran along the beach waving glow sticks at the dusking sky, and a bouncer worked his way through a line of Pearl Beach B-listers hoping to crash Addie’s party and get an unobstructed view of the fireworks.
“Was she actually born on Independence Day?” Dan shouted above a thudding remix.
M.J. followed his gaze to the train of blondes, dancing on a low table, gyrating rhythmically; their red, white, and blue bikini tops and high-wasted cutoffs a predictable homage to America’s birth. And then there was Addie—the redhead at the center of it all—wearing a flowing gown made of iridescent green and black feathers in a true show of independence.
“She was,” M.J. said, with a parent’s proud smile. Proud because she was part of Addie’s celebration, proud to be holding Dan’s hand amid it all, and prouder still because after three year
s of social celibacy she was back in the game.
Then, a zap of trepidation. She wriggled free from Dan’s protective grip.
“You’re twisting your rings,” he said, the sky’s last fiery streaks of the day lighting his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Was I?”
Dan nodded. “You’re allowed to have fun,” he said. “No one is going to die if you do.”
M.J. looked out at the hilltop homes that shimmered gold in the setting sun. He knew her so well. Better than she knew herself. She gazed up at him with a rom-com actress’s lovestruck grin. “How did I get so lucky?”
Dan traced the scar above her eyebrow. “Sunscreen.” He smiled. “Now let’s go break some hearts.” He ushered her past humid bodies, sloshing cocktails, and the predatory glances of men—and M.J. allowed herself to be ushered. It was one of the first times they were both heading directly into the fun instead of steering around it, a silent but mutual desire to escape the relentless haunt of car accidents and earthquake victims and enjoy each other instead.
“Look who it is,” Dan said, indicating Britt. She was seated alone at the bar, chin resting on her fist, grinning as if savoring a delicious secret. She turned at the sound of Dan’s voice and greeted them both with a chardonnay-scented hug.
Joy swelled inside M.J.’s chest. Not only was she at a party, she knew one of the guests. Granted, said guest had a wet spot on her tank top, but life was about progress, not perfection, as Dr. Cohn liked to say.
“Where’s your better half?” Dan called above the DJ’s stuttering beats.
“Pressed against this stool,” Britt said, pointing to her ass, which was shrink-wrapped in a pair of white skinny jeans. “Oh, did you mean Paul? He’s stuck on a job.” She cut a look to M.J. urging her to play along.
“He’s working on the Fourth?” Dan asked.
“Yep. Looks like you’ll have to fetch my chardonnay tonight in his stead.” Britt raised her empty wineglass and gave it a This isn’t going to refill itself jiggle.
“I thought membership to the Downtown Beach Club included manservants,” Dan joked.
“Downtown Beach Club?”
M.J. bristled. “The manservants are on backorder until the fall,” she said, with a play-along pinch to Britt’s sinewy bicep. “Would you mind filling in?”
While Dan was busy flagging down the bartender, M.J. quickly explained that she’d been using the Downtown Beach Club as her alibi for the DBC and asked Britt what she’d been telling Paul.
“Nothing. He never asks.” She dabbed the corner of her eye with a cocktail napkin, expunging a mascara booger in one efficient blot. Then she peered past M.J.’s shoulder, threw back her head, and laughed with hearty, borderline psychotic, jubilation. “That is hilarious!”
M.J. drew back her head. Was Britt bipolar?
“Laugh,” Britt insisted from the side of her mouth.
“Huh?”
“Act like I just said something funny.” Britt giggled. “Do it!”
M.J. laughed. She sounded more asthmatic than amused. “What’s happening right now?”
“He’s here,” Britt whisper-smiled.
“Who?” M.J. turned to follow Britt’s gaze, when— “Ouch!” She gripped her stinging thigh. “Why did you just flick me?”
“Because I don’t want him to know I know he’s here.”
“Who?”
Britt lowered her head. Black hair flanked her face while she swiped her lips with gloss. “The Brazilian!” she said. “He just walked in.”
“The Brazilian knows Addie?”
Britt shrugged. “He said he wanted to watch me in my natural habitat, but I have no idea how he found me. He doesn’t know my name, let alone my schedule.” She swiped her bangs and stole a quick peek. “It’s kind of hot, don’cha think?”
Heat prickled the base of M.J.’s neck. A bald voyeur was lurking somewhere behind her. “If by hot you mean potentially dangerous and probably deranged, then yes, it’s extremely hot.”
“What’s hot?” Dan asked, returning with their drinks.
“You,” M.J. said.
“Me?”
“Yeah,” Britt added. “Getting M.J. a car for her birthday and hiding the key in a cake is hot.”
“It would be hotter if she actually drove it,” Dan said with a teasing smirk to M.J.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better I love it,” Britt said, “Though an upgrade on that stereo wouldn’t hurt. The bass gets lost when the top is down. Not that I’m complaining,” she said with a quick side-eyed glance at the Brazilian. “Anything is better than what I’m driving.”
“Seriously?” Dan scoffed. “You have a Land Rover and a Prius.”
“That’s the car version of ordering a Big Mac and a Diet Coke,” M.J. said.
Britt threw back her head and laughed uproariously, a reaction so disingenuous that M.J. found herself wishing the Brazilian away.
“The Land Rover is gone. Paul traded it for an electric golf cart to save the quote, unquote, environment,” she rubbed two fingers against her thumb to show what he was really trying to save. “Meanwhile, we look like the Flintstones in that ridiculous thing.”
“Stop,” M.J. tried. “Those carts are cute.”
“Cute isn’t going to get me to work on time.”
“What about the Prius?”
“Paul’s been taking it. Where to, I have no idea. Probably the dispensary,” she grumbled.
“Dispensary?” Dan asked.
Britt lowered her wineglass, punishing it for speaking out of turn. “The plant dispensary, I mean. Because Paul is a landscape architect and— Look, there’s Jules!”
M.J. turned to find her emerging from a plume of secondhand vape smoke wearing an enthusiastic A-line dress befitting a PTA luncheon. With outstretched arms she processed toward them with a cellophane-wrapped gift basket and an accomplished grin. Martha Stewart presenting her Christmas roast to the troops.
“I can’t take all the credit. It’s from Brandon, too,” she said, as Britt gushed over her presentation.
“Brandon is Jules’s husband,” M.J. explained to Dan. “He’s in Oceanside but he’s moving—”
“Actually,” Jules said, “Brandon’s here.” She wedged her basket between Britt and M.J. and heaved it onto the bar. “The gym is closed for the holiday, so he came up.”
Britt scanned the densely packed guests as if searching for Brandon, though it was the Brazilian she was looking for. And it became clear by her waning smile that he was gone.
“He’s in the little boys’ room,” Jules said, off Britt’s disappointed expression. “He’ll be right back.”
M.J. brought Dan’s hand to her lips, kissed the smooth arches of his meticulously cut fingernails. Tonight she didn’t have to tell anyone Dan would be right back. Tonight Dan was there.
“So, I take it you know M.J. from the Downtown Beach Club,” Dan said to Jules.
A round of pop-pop-pops interrupted the conversation before Jules could object. And while red, white, and blue tentacles dripped through the star-spangled sky, M.J. explained her alibi.
Jules nodded in solidarity, then tended to her vibrating phone.
“Oh shoot.” She pouted as she took in the screen.
“What is it?”
“Brandon has a sour tummy and wants to go.”
“I can take a look at him if you want,” Dan offered.
Alight with hope, Jules texted their good fortune to Brandon, who immediately shut it down. “He wants me to take care of him,” she said. “He’s fussy that way.”
“Is it me or does Brandon have a bad case of Snuffleupagus syndrome?” Britt asked, once they had left.
“Meaning?”
“Jules is the only one who sees him.”
The music stopped and Easton, the bookstore manager, began sound-checking the mic.
Thud . . . thud . . . thud.
“Is this on?”
After a collective groan assured him that it w
as, he summoned the birthday girl to join him and five other plaid-suit-wearing gentlemen in the center of the gathering crowd.
Addie smoothed her feathers and swished boldly into the circle, ready to receive.
“Ladies and gentlemen . . . ,” Easton said, “we, the members of Choral Fixation, would like to sing a very special ‘Happy Birthday’ to Addie Oliver.”
With that, the men surrounded Addie, hummed themselves into pitch, and began. Their arms rose and fell with the song’s inflections, their metronomic toe-taps perfectly timed. What could have easily been dismissed as party kitsch turned out to be a spellbinding tribute to a girl who was just as comfortable standing in the spotlight as she was sitting on a zebra rug in a see-through gown.
“Why don’t I hate her?” Britt asked.
When the performance ended the guests erupted in applause while Addie thanked each member of Choral Fixation with a breasty hug. Then Easton handed her a black envelope.
Addie flipped it over—front to back, back to front—searching for a clue to its contents. But Easton’s proud grin gave nothing away.
With a What have I got to lose? shrug, Addie sliced open the flap and read the enclosed card while Easton waited, hands clasped behind his back. His eyebrows seemed to ask if she found the news as exciting as he did; hers seemed to answer no. Then she crumpled the note in her fist, gathered the train of her dress, and left the party.
* * *
WHILE DAN WAS getting the car, M.J. peeled back the tissue paper inside her gift bag to find a bottle of sex toy cleaner, two AA batteries, and a vibrator named Fat & Natural. The note inside said:
Thanks for coming . . . and coming . . . and coming.
Love, Addie
“The pleasure will be all mine,” M.J. thought as fireworks detonated overhead.
Three miles south at the Majestic Resort and Spa . . .
JULES CLOSED THE gift bag.
What was Addie thinking? What if Brandon had been pulled over and their car was searched? The police would think Jules actually paid good money for something so vulgar. Not to mention she was married and had a husband for that, thank you very much.
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