The Dirty Book Club(66)

And I love that pie.

You girls were devastated. If I quit, you’d all have to quit. I felt the weight of my decision, believe me, but for the first time in years, I had hope. Sixteen weeks later I was pregnant.

Thirty weeks after that we buried Ritchie.

As always, the three of you were by my side. Forcing me to bathe, eat, and laugh.

Jesus wasn’t my savior after all.

The Dirty Book Club was.

I stopped wearing my crucifix.

I started wearing our key, and my religious ambivalence, the way Marjorie wears gold sequin.

Around that time, Mrs. Craig, the owner of our holy bookstore, was diagnosed with cancer, and Patrick asked me to step in while they looked for a replacement. So I did.

Angela Kelly worked in the back room. She balanced budgets, placed orders, and took inventory. She listened to Fleetwood Mac and quoted Betty Friedan. She wore clogs and blowsy tops that slid off her shoulders. She smelled like strawberry shampoo and incense. And we had sex for the first time on her thirty-fifth birthday.

(Yes, Marjorie, you were right.)

We were hungry for each other all the time and fed our cravings as often as we could. Reason said I was betraying Patrick, but passion wasn’t convinced. The sensations were so different—so explosive and liberating they couldn’t possibly be compared. With Patrick, sex was a means to an end. A botched recipe for making babies. One of the many items on our holy to-do list. With Angela it was pleasure for the sake of pleasure, nothing else.

I kept our secret for many years. The only thing I shared was my newfound joy.

Patrick assumed his unwavering devotion had turned me around. You girls chalked it up to laughter, our club, and martinis. Angela said, “Eros.”

You were all right.

I needed Patrick, the three of you, and Angela to feel complete. Unable to find fulfillment in one place, I siphoned it from three different sources.

I was ashamed by my capacity for betrayal. And yet, I was enjoying it too much to stop.

In 1986 we read Henry and June, and everything changed again.

Dotty, you called Ana?s Nin “bogus.” You didn’t believe she could love Hugo, Henry, June, Eduardo, and Richard all at the same time.

And Gloria said, Women don’t pile lovers onto their plates like we’re at some all-you-can-eat buffet. We select them carefully, one dish at a time, and dine.

So I was counting on you, Marjorie, to speak up and say everything I had been thinking and feeling. All those affairs you had with pilots. My God, your cockpit had runneth over. How could you possibly judge Ana?s?

But you did.

I agree with Gloria, you said. Sex is a buffet, but not love. Love is a sit-down dinner for two, not two vaginas, though, that’s not how I like to eat. No offense, but Ana?s lost me with that whole June obsession of hers.

You’ve never been curious? I asked, desperate for you, Marjorie, to pave my way. But all you said was: It’s not natural.

Madonna thinks it is, I tried.

The Virgin Mary? Dot laughed. She said no such thing!

No, Madonna the singer.

That’s when Marjorie asked who I was fucking.

Patrick.

Who else?

No one!

You’re lying, Liddy. What’s her name?

Her?

Lighters flicked. Martinis were gulped. Chairs scraped along the flagstone as you slid in closer to catch my tears while I confessed everything.

When I was done I expected sympathy. I got contempt. Not because I cheated on Patrick or had sex with a woman, but because I didn’t tell you about it sooner.

We’re the Dirty Book Club, Dotty said. We keep secrets from the world, not each other.

To you, what I had done was cheating of the worst kind, and you were right. Because we were nothing without trust and I killed it. I killed us. It was another death on my long list of many.

The Dirty Book Club 1963–1987.

With this loss, I turned to Angela instead of God. Sex instead of scriptures. Vodka instead of holy water. The green futon in the coffee break room became my pew. It was there that I did all of my kneeling and worshipping. Taking Angela’s body into my mouth instead of Christ’s. Until that spring afternoon in 1988, when Patrick poked his head in the coffee break room and witnessed it all.

Angela was fired immediately, and I watched her go without a fight, thinking that with enough repenting and prayer Patrick and I could rebuild what we once had.

But he couldn’t get past it.

The betrayal against him was one thing, and the betrayal against God and our congregation? Well, that was two more.

Three sins, you’re out.

Doors slammed in my face, my parents’ being the first among them.

Angela refused to take my calls. And I was too proud to contact Gloria and Dot, because we hadn’t spoken in months. So I checked into the Holiday Inn with the money I made at the Good Book. While I was there I made an overseas call to you, Marjorie, asking if I could join you in Paris and start over.

I got your answering machine.

I left a message.

You never called back.

My savings dried out.

On my last night at the hotel the concierge delivered an envelope. Inside was the deed to the Good Book (in my name!), a set of keys, and a note written on our Dirty Book Club stationery. It read: Liddy,

Please consider stocking the shelves with DBC-approved literature, turning the coffee break room into our private meeting place, and hiring four topless bartenders. Three guys for us and a lesbo for you.