The Scarlet Letter Society (20 page)

“You will always carry her with you,” said Maggie. “She’s part of who you are.”

Maggie looked down for a minute as she thought about how mothers are always part of who we are, even the kind of mother who abandons you.
Do I carry that around? Abandonment? Leaving people so they can’t leave me?

“It’s true,” Zarina said, taking the liberty of interrupting the conversation only because she knew what it was like to lose a parent. “I’m so sorry, Eva.”

She delivered lattes and muffins and then faded into the background again, not wanting to be a distraction to such an emotional scene between the women.

“You know, we should talk about the book,” said Eva. “Because with everything I had going on and taking off work for the two weeks, I had time to sit around and actually read it.”

“Oh, God,” said Maggie. “More death. Are we sure we want to do that this month? We can skip it completely…”

“No, let’s talk about it,” said Eva. “I mean, all these women dying or getting STDs in these books just because they’ve had affairs seems kind of ridiculous, doesn’t it? At least the one girl, Isadora, didn’t die. That’s been the best one so far. I did write down one quote from
Madame Bovary
, because it came at such an opportune time and it is so true: ‘Death always brings with it a kind of stupefaction, so difficult is it for the human mind to realize and resign itself to the blank and utter nothingness.’ It’s the nothingness that’s the hardest.’” Eva’s eyes filled with tears.

“Even though there is death, Emma is so beautiful in her tragedy,” said Lisa. She took out her journal, the trusty, faded book in which she’d taken notes on each and every book they’d read. She read:

“Before she married, she thought she was in love; but the happiness that should have resulted from that love, somehow had not come. It seemed to her that she must have made a mistake, have misunderstood in some way or another. And Emma tried hard to discover what, precisely, it was in life that was denoted by the words ‘joy, passion, intoxication’, which had always looked so fine to her in books.”

“It does always somehow seem better in books, doesn’t it?” said Maggie. “except when you fucking die at the end of the book, then maybe not so much. I just don’t get this whole ‘you’re in love, you don’t play by the rules society expects of you, you die’ storyline.”

“So true,” said Eva, sniffling. “Who wrote all these books? Catholic priests?”

“Sure seems like it,” said Lisa. “Like we don’t have enough guilt in our lives already without feeling like we’re supposed to feel guilty because it’s what the literature says.”

“Well, I haven’t had guilt about anything in a long time,” said Eva. “I think you actually have to still love a person to feel guilty about cheating on them, and I haven’t been in love with Joe for probably a decade. We have finally decided to get a separation and divorce.”

“Oh, wow,,” said Maggie. “that is big news. You’ve had a tough month. Are you ok with it?”

“It feels like a relief,” said Eva. “Like I’ll be free. The marriage was a façade for so long. I didn’t even realize how unhappy I was until I started finding happiness in other places. I can’t say I’m not sad in some ways, and I definitely feel like a marriage failure, but it seems like it will be pretty peaceful.”

“It takes two people to allow a marriage to fail,” said Lisa. “But fail isn’t even really a good word. It’s an ending and another beginning. I am sure the divorce will be tough for the boys, but once they make it through, the peacefulness will be good for them and for you.”

“I hope so,” said Eva. “I know high school is a tough time, so I hope this doesn’t make it worse for them, but I can’t believe having two happy parents in different places isn’t going to be better for them than having two miserable ones in the same place.”

“That has got to be true,” said Maggie.

“Enough about me,” said Eva. “I want to know what is going on with you two. I haven’t been around much to see you and catch up on the latest news in your love lives.”

“My husband is in counseling for the foot fetish and some additional fertility testing, too,” said Lisa, “and Ben is…well, he’s just…Ben.”

“No steamy stories of hot sex under covered bridges for us today, Lisa?” asked Maggie.

“Not today,” said Lisa. “He came to the shop for lunch recently…”

“And then he helped you eat some pie?” said Eva,.

“He loves my pie,” said Lisa with a smirk.

“I’ll bet he does,” said Maggie. “Well girls, I have to report things are a little confusing for me lately. Too many people in my life. I want to simplify things, but I don’t know how. I’m too old for all this action. I want to settle down. I just want someone who will be there to have coffee with every morning, maybe even bring it to me in bed once in awhile.”

“That,” said Eva, “absolutely has to be the truest love of all. Someone who will bring you coffee in bed.”

“Absolutely,” said Lisa. “I think that’s all
Madame Bovary
ever wanted. She might have even made it to the end of the book if she had a guy bringing her coffee in bed.”

November 2012

“Tempted by the fruit of another/Tempted but the truth is discovered/What’s been going on /Now that you have gone /There’s no other.”

-
Tempted
, Squeeze

Monthly meeting of the Scarlet Letter Society.

Zoomdweebies Café

Friday, November 2, 2012

5:30 a.m.

Pick up book of the month from Zarina:
The Awakening
by Kate Chopin
.

“The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.”

-
The Scarlet Letter
, Nathaniel Hawthorne

Lisa sat at the counter of her shop with her coffee. The air was filled with the smell of holiday pumpkin and apple pies baking. Her laptop was in front of her. She’d just opened the SLS invite from Maggie. She had already read
The Awakening
, but would pick up her copy to give it a second look.
Oh Christ
, she thought,
we can’t get away from whore-punishing death around here, can we?
She might skip the second reading and just find some quotes from Goodreads to bring to the meeting. She thought about telling Maggie that maybe they should read books about something else-
anything else
- for awhile.

She sat down and began to work on how to phrase the email she wanted to send to Ben. She wanted to see him again, but she didn’t want to seem overeager.

from:
Lisa
[email protected]

to:
Ben
[email protected]

date:
Thursday, November 1, 2012 at 9:10 AM

subject:
Graphic

I love my new logo so much that I ordered t-shirts. Made sure they weren’t all girly colors, so I could save one for you to thank you for your perfect graphic design. Wanna grab a drink one day after work so I can bring your shirt?

L

This was the third version of the email.
Should I ask to have lunch? Was asking to have drinks too forward? Why didn’t he just make out with me when he was in my shop the last time?
She felt like a fool. It had been awhile since they’d even communicated. She didn’t even know if he was as sexually interested in her as she was him, or if he was at all. The electricity between them seemed obvious to her, but maybe she was imagining it. There was no way in hell she was going to be making the first move physically, but she knew if he made it, she could not turn him down.

She hit send, and immediately the guilt, because she knew her husband was trying to patch things up between them. Ben answered her almost immediately.

from:
Ben
[email protected]

to:
Lisa
[email protected]

date:
Thursday, November 1, 2012, 9:14 AM

subject:
Booze and t-shirts

Well if it isn’t the lovely baker putting the booze invite out there. Hmmmm…I guess technically now that my firm’s work for you is complete, you’re not formally a client anymore. Therefore, engaging in drunken t-shirt exchanges seems entirely appropriate. Pick a day.

Ben

Lisa smiled, feeling her cheeks flush.
That’s right
, she thought. I guess the whole “professional” relationship was over now that her logo was on the window sign, t-shirts were here and the website was all but complete. So now what? This was the question she was going to have to answer for herself, especially before her lightweight ass hit the barstool next to her hunky “former graphic designer.” She answered him with three words:
Why not today?
and hit send. And then she walked over and took the fresh, steaming apple pie from the oven.

Zarina and Stanley met at the restaurant simply because they could both walk there. Stanley had said he wanted to try the new fancy celebrity chef’s restaurant on Commerce Street, and she’d been surprised. Usually he wasn’t the type of guy who wanted to go fancy. Zarina had mentioned the restaurant a few
weeks before, but maybe he had just seen the guy on t.v. and wanted to try it out. She was thrilled to get dressed up in something other than the usual t-shirt/jeans attire. Heels! Makeup! Perfume! All rarities for her. But it was always fun to feel like a girly girl once in awhile.

She chose a peach colored velvet Juicy dress she’d found at an upscale consignment shop downtown. It looked nice with her caramel skin and black hair. Black tights and boots, and she cracked open last year’s Sephora holiday box of makeup for one of the first times to pick out fun eye shadow shades and a lipstick. She stood in the lobby of the restaurant, which was a renovated historic brownstone mansion complete with curved terraces on the upper floors, bay windows, and beautiful stained glass.