The Dirty Book Club(25)
M.J. inched toward the entrance. Then—
Oof.
The door flew open; a man, sharp-boned and smelling of waxy hair products bashed into her.
“Sorry, miss,” he said, smoothing his shellacked side part. “I didn’t see you there.” He placed a placard that read CLOSED FOR A PRIVATE EVENT firmly on the sidewalk. “We open tomorrow at ten.”
“Easton, it’s M.J., we met at Leo’s shiva.”
He stroked a goatee that wasn’t there
“I’m not here to shop. Gloria invited me.”
His suspicious, brown-eyed squint lowered toward M.J.’s unadorned chest.
“Oh, right.” She reached into the pocket of her denim dress and flashed the ancient key.
“Follow me.”
The shop smelled dank and earthy, like Manhattan after a midday downpour. Over time, moist air must have penetrated the wood rafters and seeped into the cracks between the uneven floorboards.
“So, what exactly is this private event?” M.J.’s fingers stamped quotation marks around the words she needed him to define. “Is it a . . . Christian thing?” she asked, taking in the labeled bookshelves that stretched toward the back of the narrow space, even as church pews. There were seven: PRIDE, ENVY, GLUTTONY, LUST, WRATH, GREED, SLOTH—one for every deadly sin. A pulpit furnished with a cash register faced them all.
“Christian thing?” Easton’s sharp Adam’s apple shook as he chuckled. “You obviously don’t know Liddy. That framed first edition of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, is as religious as she gets.” He parted his velvet sport coat and patted the inside pocket. “This letter should explain everything. Not that I read it. It has a wax seal, so I couldn’t, even if I wanted to.”
The soles of M.J.’s feet itched with anticipation. “Can I—”
“?’Fraid not.” Easton buttoned his sport coat. “All four of you have to be together. You’re the third to arrive so it shouldn’t be much longer.” He indicated the walkway between Gluttony and Lust. “Why don’t you put on that necklace and go back to the lounge. The staff room pantry is fully stocked, so think it and ye shall drink it.” Then with a backward tilt on the heels of his Oxfords: “I graduated bartending school last week.”
“Do you have prosecco?”
He did.
“Could I get it in a rocks glass?” M.J. tapped the tip of her ski-jump nose. “It doesn’t fit in a flute.”
“As you wish.” Easton pivoted and headed for the door behind the pulpit marked HOLY WATER.
Assholes, M.J. thought as she ran her hand across the mess of signatures and cartoonish doodles that defaced splintering bookshelves. Was Liddy too strapped to replace them or too stubborn to let the vandals win? Either way, the Sharpie-wielding hoods had her beat. There was Stephen King, whose pretentious inky loop wrapped around his name like a lasso, the bulbous-nosed monster drawn by Maurice Sendak, Maya Angelou, Angelou underlined. She passed Shaun Tan, Kate DiCamillo, Dorothy Allison, Jonathan Tropper, Jeanette Walls, Adrienne Rich, and hundreds more.
They’re autographs! said the young girl inside M.J., tugging. Who’s the asshole now? She began turning M.J. in every direction, begging her to touch the names of her favorite authors, poets, and illustrators—the ones old M.J. forgot how to love.
Eventually, she emerged from the stacks and entered the lounge—a chandelier-lit reading area with black upholstered couches and red beanbags that faced the fireplace. Decorating in the devil’s colors was a nice sardonic touch. But the hearth—a mosaic of artfully burned book covers—was a masterpiece. Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lolita, The Joy of Gay Sex, The Grapes of Wrath, Forever, The Color Purple . . . All of them titles that had once been banned. It was an installation befitting the Museum of Modern Art.
“This place is Las Vegas for librarians.”
A closemouthed, Pillsbury Doughboy giggle trickled out of the petite blonde in the polka-dot dress who was sitting stiffly on the edge of the couch. “So true, so true,” she said, then uncrossed her ankles and stood, right arm extended. “I’m Jules, Jules Valentine,” she announced with a honey-coated drawl. Her hand was cold and her bones were delicate, but her grip was firm.
M.J. introduced herself and tried to place what it was about Jules that seemed familiar. Wide blue eyes that blinked innocence, pursed lips, a sun-shaped face too big for her girlish frame . . . was it Tweety Bird?
“I guess you got Gloria’s invitation, too,” M.J. said, noticing the dangling key around Jules’s neck.
“Gloria? No, mine came from my coworker, Dotty Crawford.”
“That’s how I know you!”
Jules stiffened even more.
“You work at the Majestic. You’re the, oh, what’s it called, the—”
“Liaison of Love?”
“Yes! You were there when I—” M.J. pointed out the smile-shaped scar above her eyebrow.
“That’s right! You bonked yourself on the head with a beer can.”
“It was sunscreen, actually.”
“Then, a handsome prince appeared from out of the fog and rescued you with true love’s kiss.”
Fog?
M.J. would not have been using sunscreen if there was fog. And Dan didn’t kiss her until later that night, which had more to do with tequila than true love. But correcting a liaison in the middle of her liaise was probably like waking a sleepwalker. What if she lashed out?