The Dirty Book Club(61)
M.J. placed her hand on Britt’s shoulder. “That’s a mirror.”
“Huh?”
“That is us,” Addie said.
Britt leaned forward and squinted. “Fuck.”
CHAPTER
Twenty
Pearl Beach, California
Monday, July 25
Last Quarter Moon
“GO AHEAD, JUDGE,” M.J. said, imagining her parents glaring down at her, tsk-tsking what she considered to be a legitimate form of cardio. Because every time she clicked on an article about her ex-boss or trolled social media for answers, her heart would speed.
Would she find pictures of Gayle at one of those corporate retreats? Read about a terrible accident or maybe a scandal that forced her to resign? Each tap of the mouse was a step closer to closure—anything that might explain why it had been four days and she still hadn’t acknowledged M.J.’s signed contract.
Sometime around her third cup of coffee, the Web connection had become dial-up slow. “How passive-aggressive,” M.J. told her meddling parents. “If you really want me to stop, have Gayle give me a call.” She shut off her modem and began counting to thirty.
Instead, the call, which was more of a yell, came from the Goldens’ house.
“Are you okay?” M.J. asked David’s girlfriend, Hannah, when she opened the door. She was dressed this time: white jeans, a navy tee, leather sandals. There was an Upper East Side of Manhattan look about her now: flat-ironed hair, J. Crew pretty, never going to swallow. In a game of “Kill, Fuck, Marry,” she’d be altar-bound every time.
“I was okay until the Wi-Fi went down,” she said. “Do you think you could reboot?”
M.J. didn’t understand.
“The cable guy doesn’t come until tomorrow, so I’ve been using yours,” Hannah explained with a neighborly smile. “Sorry, I have a deadline and you don’t have a password, so . . .”
“You’re a graphic designer, right?”
Hannah nodded, maybe even blushed.
“What kind of stuff do you do?”
“Children’s books.”
“Really?”
“No.” Hannah snickered. “You’re not religious are you?”
“Atheist, why?”
Hannah invited her inside.
The white tufted furniture and dated accents remained exactly as Gloria had had them, though they were now catch-alls for the gutted suitcases and Xbox games.
“Moving sucks, am I right or am I super right?” Hannah asked.
“Super right.”
“Anyway, this is my office,” she announced, as she opened the door to the sunroom, which looked nothing like it had the day of Leo’s shiva. The table that had once been filled with lasagna, casseroles, and M.J.’s plagiarized garlic bread, had been replaced by ergonomic office equipment and a panic-room style display of computer monitors. The natural light that once bled through the glass panes was now clotted by cartoon renderings of naked Asian women with jagged Crayola-colored haircuts, colossal breasts, tiny waists, and impossibly round asses. Many of them were being vigorously manhandled, some held a lover’s face between their legs, and others enjoyed the company of two men at once, men with oozing penises and pendulous balls.
“Wow, when you said graphic—”
“Yeah, I meant graphic,” Hannah said. “It’s Japanese anime porn. Best. Gig. Ever.” She indicated the kitchen. “Tea?”
They sat at the kitchen island the way M.J. and Gloria had weeks earlier, swapping particulars while the kettle boiled. Hannah talked about growing up in San Diego, meeting David at Comic-Con, staying in touch while he was in Colorado, and how she quit her job as a graphic designer for the San Diego Union-Tribune to move in with him. “Live in the same zip code, you know?”
“Do you ever worry that you made a mistake? I mean, you had such a stable job and—”
The kettle whistled. Hannah removed it from the burner with the effortless swoop of someone who stayed calm in a crisis. “Now, where are my tea bags?” She began shifting canisters of protein powders and vitamin jars until she found them. “Peppermint okay?”
M.J. nodded, even though it wasn’t. The smell conjured her father’s futile attempts to conceal his pipe breath with Altoids; how she hated it then, and missed it now. “What if things with David don’t work out?”
“I’ll leave.” She made an O with her lips, blew steam off her mug. “I’d rather regret something I did than something I didn’t do, you know? And I’d regret not trying this commitment thing with Davey.”
“Trying?”
“We had an open relationship because of the distance, but now that I’m here we’re exclusive. Effective the day I moved in.”
Relief warmed M.J. in ways that Hannah’s peppermint tea could not—David Golden wasn’t a cheat. While it didn’t change the fact that Addie was pregnant, or that Hannah’s boyfriend might be a father, it did mean that David wasn’t a self-serving asshole. And that maybe he’d do the right thing, whatever that was.
“What about you?” Hannah asked. “What’s your deal?”
“Mine?” M.J. took a thin sip of tea. Then, a window in one of the bedrooms slid open. Footsteps followed, soft and scuttling. A bedspring creaked. “Is he home?”