The Dirty Book Club(53)

“Bullshit,” Britt rasped.

“Fine, but we wouldn’t have taken a bath together.”

“Bullshit again.”

“Okay, but I wouldn’t have tried to aqua-come. I would’ve moved to dry land for that.” Addie lifted her sundress and revealed her bruised kneecaps. “Bone meet porcelain, porcelain meet bone. I had to down half a bottle of Macallan to dull the pain.”

“Ah-ha! So you admit it, then.”

“Admit what, Jules?”

“That it’s impossible to, you know, in the bath.”

“Not when you run the warm water and spread your legs under the faucet.”

Jules examined the tips of her hair as if checking for dead ends. “Is that a thing?”

Everyone nodded.

“Did it work?”

“No,” Addie said. “But only because I passed out.”

“And Bungee?”

“No clue. When I came to he was gone and my bathroom was flooded, so I went to buy bagels.”

“You just left it like that?” M.J. asked, realizing that Addie must have known about the deluge when she had stopped by Jules’s earlier that morning.

“No, I didn’t leave it like that. I opened the windows so it would evaporate.” Above them a water pump began to rattle. Bookmarks fell from the ceiling like soggy autumn leaves.

Britt, Jules, and M.J. exchanged a worried glance.

“Will you help me tarp the shelves before the books get ruined?” She held her hands together in prayer. “Please?”

“If you promise to quit having irresponsible conversations with my daughter.”

“Masturbation is not irresponsible, Jules.”

“Oh, really?” She stabbed her index finger toward the sagging ceiling. “Then how do you explain that?”

Addie managed a clench-toothed smile. “Fine, I’m sorry, okay? I was only trying to help.”

“Help?”

“These girls need someone to talk to. Someone they can trust. And I can be that person.”

“Why? Because you have a daughter?”

“No, Jules, because I don’t. Not to mention I work in a women’s clinic. And every day our waiting room is full of daughters. Daughters hiding under the hoods of high school sweatshirts begging our receptionist to get them in to see a pregnancy counselor before their lunch period is over so they’re not late for class.”

“Well, please leave my Destiny out of it, okay?” Jules released a cleansing sigh and then twisted her hair into a low chignon. “Now let’s get to work, shall we? I didn’t cancel a meeting so I could stand around and look pretty did I?” She giggled. “I’m just playing. I mean, I did cancel a meeting, but I don’t think I look very pretty.” She glanced toward the door marked HOLY WATER. “Hey, is Easton around? I’m sure he’d be a big help.”

“I told him to take the week off because the building was being sprayed for termites. If that busybody finds out this was my fault, Liddy will find out. And if Liddy finds out she’ll make me pay for the damage, and if I have to pay for the damage I won’t be able to go on my trip, and if I don’t get out of this town I’ll die and haunt you for—”

The rattling water pump stopped.

Then, a new sound, like the crack of a tree branch before it breaks.

“Look!” Jules indicated the bulge overhead. “The ceiling is pregnant.”

“More like crowning,” Britt said.

There was a distant rumble, like thunder, and then—

“Run!” Britt shouted as Addie’s bathtub—a five-foot, claw-footed mass—fell from her apartment and crushed the Pride aisle to dust.





CHAPTER


Seventeen


Pearl Beach, California

Friday, July 22

Waning Gibbous Moon

“TWENTY-EIGHT,” M.J. COUNTED. She had checked her in-box twenty-eight times that morning and, still, no word from Gayle. The contract arrived in New York yesterday and, according to the shameless call she made to the mailroom, Gayle had signed for it herself. So where was the celebratory phone call, the welcome-back fruit basket, the company-wide announcement that their beloved M.J. would be returning to City magazine in September as editor in chief? Fine, coeditor in chief, but still, a little acknowledgment, please. Unless Gayle had sent the e-mail to M.J.’s old work account and not her Gmail address. “Twenty-nine. . . .”

The doorbell rang.

M.J. answered to find Addie—hair big and makeup bold—wearing a tight white lab coat and pink Crocs. She looked more like a porn star pedaling nurse fantasies than a pregnancy consultant on her way to work.

“I need some advice.”

“Is it about those shoes?” M.J. teased.

“Shoes?” Addie said as she peered at the Goldens’ house.

“Oh, I see what’s happening here,” M.J. said, suddenly realizing, “You don’t want advice. You’re here to stalk Da—”

Addie slapped a hand over M.J.’s mouth. “Shhh!”

“Relax. He hasn’t moved in yet.”

Addie lowered her hand. “I thought Britt said Friday.”

“She did. But it’s only eight thirty,” M.J. said, tempted to lecture her on “playing it real,” but she was hardly qualified. So she invited her in for tap water instead.