The Dirty Book Club(58)

“What’d you do that for?”

“I’d have pushed you if you weren’t so . . . thick.”

His jaw hovered somewhere between outrage and amusement. “Why push at all?”

“Because you’re painting Addie to be some shrew who traps men into thinking she’s pregnant and that’s not what’s happening here. She’s telling the truth. She took six tests and they were all positive and you’re the fa—”

“There you are, Davey,” said a Bambi-eyed twentysomething with a bath towel twisted over her wet hair, a second wrapped around her body, and a Star of David necklace adorning her oiled décolletage. “That sunroom would make a great office, am I right or am I super right?”

“Super right.” Then, “M.J., this is my girlfriend, Hannah,” David said, clear as a warning.

“Are you a snowboard instructor, too?” M.J. asked.

“Me? God, no. I’m a graphic designer.”

“Cool. What kind of stuff?”

“You know . . . ,” she said, with a surreptitious side-eyed glance at David. “Graphic stuff.”

“It’s niche,” he stated.

A descant of high-pitched shrieks brought their attention to the beach, where Addie and Destiny had collided and were now tumbling ashore.

“Show me what you’re thinking for the sunroom,” David said, placing his arm around Hannah’s shoulder and steering her into the house.

Now what? M.J. wondered as she watched Addie and Destiny giggling their way toward the deck. Was she supposed to forget that she saw David? Forget that he has a girlfriend? Forget that he implied Addie was faking her pregnancy?

Absolutely. At least until her next phone session with Dr. Cohn, maybe he’d know what to do.

M.J. went inside and started cleaning the tissues, pizza boxes, popcorn kernels, and tabloid magazines. The busy work would keep her occupied, give her a place to divert her lying eyes should Addie ask what M.J. did while they were surfing.

But Addie never asked. Her curiosity was directed at Destiny, who was scrolling frantically through a chain of text messages, and repeating, “Oh no.”

“It’s Chest isn’t it,” Addie said, as if bored by the male species’ never-ending ability to disappoint.

“No,” Destiny lowered her phone. “It’s Mom. She’s in the hospital.”





CHAPTER


Nineteen


Pearl Beach, California

Saturday, July 23

Waning Gibbous Moon

“IMMEDIATE FAMILY ONLY,” Easton said, while pacing the waiting room. “So, of course, Brandon’s in there.”

“My dad?” Destiny asked. “He came?”

“All the way from Oceanside. Room 204.”

Brows arched with I’ll believe it when I see it skepticism, Destiny pushed through the double doors and took to the linoleum with sneaker-squeaking determination, leaving them with a mountain biker (branch sticking out of his calf), a toddler (vomiting), and a teenaged girl shivering sweat and scratching herself bloody (withdrawal).

M.J.’s legs began to tingle. She tasted pennies. How did Dan do it? The fetid smells, the bodily fluids, the possibility of death at every wrong turn? “I need to sit.”

Addie glowered at the vomiting toddler. “I’ll stand.”

“I have a lot of sympathy for the Beatles,” Easton said, unclipping his bowtie. “Choral Fixation made one girl faint and I’m a mess. Imagine taking down thousands.”

“Choral Fixation?” Addie asked.

“My men’s chorus. We performed at your birthday, remember?”

Addie shrugged.

“One minute Jules is singing along to ‘Saturday in the Park,’ and the next she’s down,” he marked her landing with a clap. “Luckily, our gig was in the children’s ward, so we were already here, but still . . .” He shuddered.

“Do they know what caused it?” Addie asked.

“Is she okay?”

Before Easton could respond the automatic doors yawned open and gave way to Britt, hurriedly unclipping her pink helmet, oblivious to the hair extension swinging from the strap.

“You biked here?” M.J. asked.

“Scootered.” Britt fanned her beading forehead. “How’s Jules?”

“You leave that to me.” Easton approached the receptionist’s plexiglass wall, wedged his face into the conversation hole, and on behalf of men’s choruses everywhere, threatened to ban all hospital performances if he didn’t get some answers, stat.

“Did you really scooter here?” M.J. asked, thinking of all the money she’d spent on Lyft. “Are they hard to ride?”

“Harder than a Mini Cooper,” Britt teased. “Anyway, it’s not like I wanted to. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Why?”

Britt opened her mouth to answer and then paused. “Over here,” she said, summoning them to the water cooler, the dried-up potted plant. Deciding that the corner wasn’t private enough, she began to jostle the leaves, and in a whisper said, “I was showing the Brazilian a condo with a very open floor plan when—”

“You still don’t know his name?” Addie asked, somewhat impressed.