In a Book Club Far Away(11)
Regina grinned. “I hope you don’t mind, but we passed out drinks. The book clubbers were getting restless.”
Adelaide’s face heated. God, she was already failing. “Thanks.”
Regina batted away her words. “No problem. It was easy, and people were more than willing to wait with a glass of wine. Great choices, by the way. Oh, I made an apple tart to share. It’s made of puff pastry…”
Regina kept talking, about wine and hors d’oeuvres, and Adelaide shifted on her feet. It was all too much—the talking and the noise—and she broke out into a sweat. “I… I’m just going to sit,” Adelaide said, and perched on the closed toilet seat. She cradled her head in her hands to block out the light and the embarrassment and the panic running through her. “I’m sorry. This is unlike me.”
From above her, she heard Sophie whisper, the padding of footsteps, and the door closing. Then, the sound of rustling, and two thumps. She looked up to Sophie, who was on her knees, her face at eye level. “So, really, are you okay?”
Adelaide contemplated telling Sophie that she might be pregnant. That for the second time this year, her period hadn’t come when it was supposed to. But Adelaide had learned her lesson in the past. No one wanted to hear a sob story about miscarriage. Most people only wanted to see the good, the pretty. So, despite her desire to tell the world, her news would have to wait until she was in her second trimester. “I just need a second. I don’t think I ate enough preparing for this.”
“I can call Captain Chang, or send everyone away? Because I can; I can say you’re ill.”
Those two suggestions alone stirred up nausea. She hadn’t even told her husband that she was late. “Oh my, no… no. Matt’s out at a friend’s house with my dog, Scout, and I just… I don’t know… need to take a breath. Maybe a glass of water.”
Sophie inspected her face. “I can definitely get you that. Anything else?”
“I… I don’t think so.”
“Okay, then, I’ll grab you some water, and I’m sure Regina can keep everyone entertained. She knows half the people in there. In fact, she’s already admitted to most everyone that she didn’t finish the book.” She cackled a laugh. “These young people, I swear.”
With that, Adelaide smiled. It was a reminder that, by God, she could do this. This wasn’t her first party, or her first duty station. She and Matt were rounding their sixth year; she had three duty stations and two deployments under her belt. Before that, almost twenty years following Daddy through ten different homes.
“I’ll be back,” Sophie said, standing. But as she turned to open the door, Adelaide called out her name.
“Yes?”
“Could we keep this…” Adelaide wasn’t sure what to say that didn’t sound fake or pretentious.
“On the DL? Sure.”
She swallowed her relief. “Thank you, Sophie.”
“Hey.” She touched the toe of her flat shoe to Adelaide’s boot. “What good are we if we can’t handle a little SOS? We’ve each got to be someone’s Katniss every once in a while.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sophie
If Sophie heard Regina say “I volunteer as tribute” one more time, she was going to cry from laughter.
All the book clubbers were seated in different spots, plopped on couches, and on the floor around the coffee table. Of the twenty-one members who arrived, two were men. An hour in, most were tipsy, which meant that none of the book had really been discussed yet.
It was unlike any other book club she’d attended, where it had been serious, literary, and high-brow. Sophie hadn’t been this relaxed since she and her family left their last duty station and home in Louisiana. It was exactly what she needed.
Everyone had gone around at the beginning of the night and introduced themselves and said what their spouses did for the Army. From there, it had been easy to deduce unit and possibly rank, and then age. All except Sophie were spouses to active-duty soldiers at Fort Fairfax.
Any person in this business with any kind of social awareness was careful to note where everyone else fell in the unit or on post, since at times the position of the service member transposed itself to the spouse. Sometimes, though not always, when the soldier rose in leadership, their spouse took on a greater role within the family-program structure. That spouse might be involved with unit social functions, with the dissemination of information. The bottom line, in this environment, was that no one wanted to insult someone with senior rank’s spouse, unless, of course, they deserved it.
This meant Sophie always stayed on the right side of etiquette. She was still sipping the same glass of wine she had poured earlier that night. Despite letting her guard down a little, she wouldn’t be caught doing something foolish when she didn’t know these people at all. This wasn’t Fight Club. Loose lips sank ships and reputations, even if this was a neighborly Army social function and not the Navy. Never, ever Navy.
“Okay, everyone,” Adelaide said, tapping her drink glass with her fork. She was laughing now, seemingly one hundred times more relaxed than she’d been in her bathroom just an hour ago. She had repinned the sides of her hair into a loose victory roll. She was a really pretty woman and had great style. Earlier, Sophie couldn’t stop looking at the trinkets behind the glass cases in her living room, the wall of hand-drawn sketches of the homes the Wilson-Changs had previously lived in. The pillows strewn across the sofa, the quilt folded and hung over an antique ladder—the decor was effortless.