The Dirty Book Club(3)

The platter made a full rotation around the table before it was returned to its original spot.

“So,” Dot said with an enthusiastic clap, “someone has a date with Patrick Flynn tomorrow night.”

Blotches formed instantly at the base of Liddy’s neck. “It’s nothing,” she said, rubbing them redder. “He’s just a friend from church.”

“Well, I heard he’s studying to be a pastor.”

“Past-her sweater and under the bra,” Marjorie teased.

“Just promise us you won’t wear that old periwinkle thing,” Dot said.

“What’s wrong with my Easter dress?”

“All that pilling reminds me of Lenny Guzman’s zits.”

Purr.

“You’re twenty-two, Lids,” Dot continued. “Most decent men are already taken, and Patrick is a real catch. Whom, might I add, has made a believer out of every spinster in town. Did you see how full those pews were last Sunday?”

Liddy folded her arms across her ivory sweater set.

“Hold the phone!” Gloria hurried into the house and returned with her Ladies’ Home Journal. “What about this tangerine shift? Jackie wore something exactly like it on her visit to India.”

Liddy palmed the scarf around her short brown hair. “A peekaboo back?”

“Foxy, isn’t it?”

“He’s a man of God, not a nightclub owner.”

Dot grabbed the magazine, studied the photo. “It’s a cinch to make. I could scallop the neckline if you want.”

Marjorie shuddered. “Don’t scallop the neckline, lower it. Show some skin and he’ll never look at another spinster again.” Then with a wink, “Besides moi, of course.”

“Patrick doesn’t want skin.”

“Honey, every man wants skin.”

“Tell that to the good book,” Liddy said. “Timothy 2:9–10.”

“Doesn’t sound like a good book to me,” Marjorie said.

Dot reached into her straw bag and pulled out a tome, thick as the American history text they used to lug home from school. The cover looked like a wedding invitation—glossy white with gold script that read, Prim: A Modern Woman’s Guide to Manners, by Alice Eden. “This is my bible.” She flipped to one of the dog-eared pages and began reading with a faint British accent, though both she and Mrs. Eden were American. “And I quote: ‘A girl should don her prettiest dress on a date, something modest and suited to her age. A boy wants to see her as he remembers her, not as an overdressed older woman of thirty, nor as someone his friends might assume is easy.’?”

“You carry that brick in your purse?” Marjorie asked.

“Robert and I are engaged.” Dot said, her deep-set blue eyes wide. “I have to know things.”

“Jesus!” Marjorie made a show of pulling out her own hair. “The Bible, Prim . . . They’re rule books, not good books.”

“I like rules,” Liddy said.

Dot and Gloria agreed.

“Rules don’t inspire people, expériences do.” Marjorie lifted her martini above her head. “Viva la France!”

“What’s so great about Frahn-ssss?” Gloria asked.

“French women don’t worry about going to hell, being gossiped about at Crawford and Sons Grocery, or becoming spinsters. They do what they want, when they want, with whomever they want and they’re only 5,652 miles away.” Marjorie lit a Gauloise. Raw and dark, the tobacco’s stench was more Lawrence of Arabia than Marjorie of California. “Even their cigarettes are unfiltered.”

Liddy fanned the air.

“I’ve got a transatlantic flight on Tuesday. Come with me! I’ll prove it.”

Liddy reached for her crucifix. “I’m not going there.”

Marjorie turned to Dot. “What about you?”

“I’m engaged.”

“And I have a baby,” Gloria added, wondering if Leo would even notice she had gone.

“Then, I’ll wait.”

“Wait?” Gloria asked. “For what?”

“For your kids to grow up and your husbands to die. And when they do we’ll move there together.”

“What if we die before our husbands?” Gloria asked, her tongue heavy with vodka.

“Impossible,” Marjorie said. “Men come first, men go first. It’s a fact.”

They paused to consider her logic.

“Come on, girls, who’s with me?” she asked, her green eyes crackling with hope.

Dot gazed up at the overcast sky. “There’s a full moon tonight. That’s why you’re acting all crazy, right?”

“She’s not acting,” Liddy said.

Gloria giggled. “I mean, if we really do become widows someday, maybe France would be nice.”

The others nodded, deciding that a plan B was better than no plan at all.

“Fab! Let’s make it official,” Marjorie said.

Without waiting for their response, she put four Lucky Strikes between her lips, lit each one, and quickly doled them out before anyone could object.

It had been that way since the sixth grade. Whether she was debasing an innocent game of truth-or-dare, encouraging them to glug the Dewar’s from her father’s liquor cabinet, or stuffing socks in their bras before a dance, Marjorie was their pied piper of mischief; You’ll never get caught and you’ll thank me a lot—her seductive tune.