The Dirty Book Club(16)

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.

“Save 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 If a person who valued style could overlook such outdated pieces, what else, M.J. thought, might she fail to notice?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?”