The Dirty Book Club(18)

It didn’t matter that she had known Leo for only a few hours, or that his death, while sudden, wasn’t tragic. She found his lifeless body. She heard Gloria’s primal cries. It was another unexpected loss. The simple act of being there popped a stitch in her slow-healing wound.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered to Dan.

He bowed his head and began mumbling along with the others.

“What’s wrong? Are you having a stroke?”

“Hebrew,” he mouthed, then lifted a stern finger to his lips, the way her mother had when she and April would giggle in church. “It’s the mourner’s prayer.”

The Pyrex dish in M.J.’s hands almost slipped from her grip. Dan could pray in Hebrew? Gloria was right. M.J. did move in with a man she barely knew: a man who might have a wife and kids or a connection to a terrorist organization or who might not be a man at all. Maybe he was a Stanford-engineered robot designed to administer experimental drugs on an orphaned girl no one would ever miss.

Dan hooked his arm around M.J.’s waist and pulled her toward him. Whoever he was, whatever his intentions, that simple gesture shattered the panes of her worst-case scenarios and restored her faith. Besides, they had only lived in the same zip code for a few weeks. New details were bound to present themselves, right?

There was a tap on her shoulder.

“What is that?” asked a heavily hair-sprayed woman, her pinched nose trained on M.J.’s foil-wrapped dish.

“Homemade garlic bread,” M.J. lied, because she was trying to pass off one of Mama Rosa’s appetizers as her own.

“At a shiva?”

“It was Leo’s favorite,” Dan offered.

“My brother ate garlic? With his stomach?” She rolled her pale blue eyes. “No wonder he had the GERD. That bread is probably what killed him.”

The service was over and a sudden burst of chatter woke the room. Black-suited men greeted one another with somber smacks on the back, while the women, like videos unpaused, seemed to pick up their conversations right where they had left off. Uniformed waiters balanced trays of champagne while children chased one another though the labyrinth of legs. And Gloria was at the center of it all talking to a fit, silver-haired couple who could easily play the role of “sexually active old people” in a Cialis commercial. Her bright smile suggested she hadn’t begun to feel the impact of her loss. And she wouldn’t. Not until everyone went home and she returned to her daily routine: a routine that would be forever stripped of its rhythms, patterns, and distinguishing marks. Where the once familiar would be foreign and Gloria would be left to wander aimlessly through it all, wondering who would zip her zippers and fasten her clasps.

“Why are we even here?” M.J. asked. “We didn’t even know Leo.”

Dan kissed her on the forehead. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“According to whom?”

“My Jewish guilt.”

“Is it Jewish guilt or Dan guilt?”

He lowered his watery gaze. “Both.”

M.J. wanted to pull him in for a hug, but the damn Pyrex dish. “Dan, this isn’t your fault. Even if you were home when I found him there’s no way you could have—”

He smiled weakly. “It’s not your fault, either.”

M.J. drew back her head. Had she told Dan about her superstition—that every time she lost herself to a moment of fun, someone died—or was that a lucky guess? “It’s not my fault, either? What does that mean?”

“It means we both need a good therapist.” Dan nudged her forward. “Come. I bet there are dozens in here.”

A baby-faced waiter approached M.J. with an empty tray and a full agenda. “How about I take that to the sunroom,” he said, reaching for her dish. “The buffet is already set up, so I can just slide it on in there . . .”

“That’s okay,” M.J. said, eager to delay what was sure to be an emotional encounter with Gloria. “I’ll take it myself.”

“Awesome,” the waiter said. “The sooner the better, though, if you don’t mind. I mean, it smells rad to me but some of the old folks are complaining.” He leaned toward her ear and from the side of his mouth muttered, “You know how they are.”

The sunroom was a glass-walled reprieve off the kitchen that was teeming with plants, thirtysomethings, and small talk. Hips were jutted, champagne glasses were swinging, forks were clanking, and friends were greeted with open arms and high-pitched squeals. The only thing they seemed to be mourning was the lack of vegan options.

“Dr. Hartwell!” rasped a woman. She waved him over with a tanned, bare arm, which absolutely did not jiggle, not even around the tricep. Something about the thick dark hair that spilled past her shoulders was familiar to M.J., like she had seen it before, maybe on a commercial for TRESemmé.

“It’s me, Britt Riley.”

Prickles of humiliation began to metastasize inside M.J.’s body. Britt wasn’t a hair model, she was Dan’s Lycra-loving Realtor, the one she accused of having a yeast infection. And now she had a mustard stain on her white blouse that M.J. was trying not to look at.

With a casual step toward the buffet table, she began shifting homemade lasagnas, casseroles, and salads to make room for her contribution. She found a spot by the lox but continued to fuss because there was no way she was turning around—not until her burning cheeks cooled and her heart stopped beating Morse code for awkward.