The Dirty Book Club(35)

And let him get away with it?

Yes, let him get away with it. Gloria, you keep things from Leo all the time. (Marjorie)

Like what?

You call his curved penis Captain Hook. You get dolled up for that Little League coach. You prank-call Leo’s busty secretary. And what about this club?

What about it?

You say you’re at a town hall meeting, Leo says he’s working late.

We’re talking about affairs, not white lies.

His affairs are like our dirty books—a cheap thrill between covers to fill the void—that’s all.

Void? What void could Leo possibly have? I give him everything.

No one gives anyone everything. He’ll never understand you the way we do, and you’ll never stroke his ego the way those desperate little starlets do. We get different things from different people. It’s nothing personal. It’s how we survive.

Well, my void is full. (Dot)

Same. (Liddy)

If your voids were so full you wouldn’t be reading about Isadora’s orgasms, you’d be having your own.

We purred.

As usual, Marjorie made it all sound so neat and logical. Doable, even. I get support and laughter from my friends, romance from my books, love from my sons, security and companionship from Leo. All I had to do was change my perspective. Live off the à la carte menu instead of the prix fixe.

It would take some adjusting. But I could do it. I could greet Leo with a smile on my face and love in my heart, even when he carried a whiff of Chantilly. Because he needed those starlets like I needed this club.

I’m sitting alone now at my kitchen table writing this letter. My brain is soaked in vodka, my body is heavy from crying, and Leo is three hours late.

It’s as if I’m at the end of Fear of Flying. I am both Isadora in the bathtub and Bennett returning to his hotel room unaware that she is there. I am inside that parenthetical moment. Before they see each other. Before they are faced with each other’s pain. Before decisions have to be made and action has to be taken. Like Isadora, I have no idea what will happen next.

—G.G.



* * *



“WELL,” ADDIE SAID, refilling her red cup with wine. “We all know how that turned out.”

“You think Bennett took Isadora back?” M.J. asked, pleased that Addie wanted to explore the novel’s ambiguous ending. It wasn’t the most logical place to start, but the question was valid nonetheless.

“I’m talking about Gloria and Leo,” she said. “Gloria stayed with Leo even though he was cheating on her. It’s pathetic,” Addie practically spat. “It’s weak.”

“Maybe she busted Leo and then held it over him for fifty years,” Britt said. “Made him kiss her ass and buy her diamonds so she wouldn’t leave.”

“Hold still,” Jules said, her lip liner hovering inches away from Britt’s mouth.

“My guess is that Gloria let Leo think he was getting away with it,” M.J. said, remembering the “five-minute warning” Leo got from Gloria the day she stopped by. At the time she assumed the phone call was a harmless little ritual, but what if it was an act of preservation—a chance for Leo to extinguish his cigarette or shove his girlfriend out the back door—to keep them from an unwanted run-in with the truth?

“Why would she let him get away with it?” Britt asked.

“To keep her family together,” Jules said. “It’s the opposite of weak. Putting her marriage before her ego is strong.”

Addie yawned. “Sounds like a pussy move to me.”

“Isadora was the pussy,” M.J. said, with a self-conscious giggle. It was the first time she had referred to a literary character as such and was tickled by its subversiveness. It was liberating. Not only to her but also to Isadora, who suddenly stopped being a character trapped in the 1970s and became another confused woman just like the rest of them. “She was all talk.”

“All talk?” Britt asked. “Isadora had an affair.”

“Yeah, but she went back to her husband’s hotel in the end. And what about her fantasy—where she meets a stranger on a train and has sex just for the sake of sex? No attachments, no ulterior motives? Isadora had an opportunity to do that and when it came down to it she was revolted.”

“Y’all wanna know what I found revolting?” Jules asked. “The ending. How are we supposed to know if Bennett and Isadora stayed together?”

“What’s the difference?” said Britt. “Marriage is boring. Single is lonely. They’re screwed no matter what.”

M.J. shuddered. It was all so depressing. “So what’s the answer?”

“Maybe the answer is pull a Leo,” Britt said. “Tie the knot, but keep it loose.”

“A slipknot,” Addie suggested, plucking the chip clip from her updo and mussing her hair.

“Exactly.”

Jules lowered her gloss wand. “Y’all can’t be serious.”

“We have two choices: married or single,” Addie said. “And they both suck. So why aren’t we, as a society, throwing out some new options? Why aren’t tastemakers planting seeds of change? Why isn’t anyone TED-talking about it?”

“But marriage is so romantic,” Jules said.

“And romance isn’t real. It’s conceptual. Only reality is real,” M.J. said. “We all have romantic visions of how our lives are supposed to play out. Then someone dies unexpectedly, or we get passed over for a promotion, or your partner is never around—”