The Dirty Book Club(69)
“It’s true,” Dan said, his hand on her shoulder this time. “M.J. was promoted to editor in chief of City magazine and turned it down to be with me.”
M.J. smiled weakly at him, apologizing on behalf of her ego, and at the same time, thanking him for leaving that shitty little “co” word out of it.
“Wow, what an opportunity that would have been,” Winsome said, while her furrowed brow seemed to ask, “Why the hell aren’t you taking it?”
“M.J.’s really much more of a writer,” Dan explained. “And she has the capacity to do great things—”
“It’s capability,” M.J. said. “Not capacity.”
It was Dan’s turn to stab bush berries.
“We could always use a journalist in the mix,” Aaron said.
“That would certainly raise awareness,” Winsome added.
Dan leaned back against his chair. “Interesting idea.”
M.J. nodded, though she couldn’t fathom anything worse.
“It would take your mind off the Downtown Beach Club,” he said. Then to the others, “She’s been a little mopey since it closed last week.”
“The Downtown Beach Club closed?” Catherine looked at Winsome as if she held the missing piece. “What happened?”
“Actually,” M.J. announced, “writing about your missions sounds like a great idea. So how would it work?”
* * *
DAN POKED HIS head out of the bathroom, his mouth foaming with toothpaste. “Remember that old lady in New York?” It was the first thing he had said since they left Cali.
M.J. closed her journal, laid it down beside her on the bed. “What old lady?”
“The one who walked into her friend’s umbrella and tore her eyelid?”
Her knees weakened at the memory: Dan insisting they escort her to the emergency room, blood spurting from the wound, the taxi driver swerving through traffic. “I fainted the minute we got out of that cab.”
Dan returned to the bathroom, spat. “Exactly.”
“Exactly, what?”
“You don’t do wounds. I don’t do words. So stop correcting my grammar in public and I won’t ask you to scrub in next time I suture an eyelid.”
“So that’s what the silent treatment was about?”
“Yes, and it’s not over yet.”
“When will it be over?”
“When I have the capability to forgive you,” he said, peeing.
“Actually, you should say, ‘When I am capable of forgiving you.’?”
“And you should say, “I’m sorry, Dan.”
“I can’t.”
He flushed. “Why not?”
“Because I’m a writer now, and one of the first rules in writing is ‘show, don’t tell.’?”
“Then show me how sorry you are.”
“Now, that I can do.” M.J. pushed Dan onto the bed, crawled on top of him and thought, End scene.
* * *
THE DAYS THAT followed were uneventful and wonderfully routine. Filled with the “married people moments” M.J. had longed for when they lived on opposite coasts. A good-bye peck from Dan as he dashed off to a meeting. A hello peck when he returned. His day was always great, and hers could only be summed up with a You wouldn’t understand sigh. Because Dan Hartwell could never sit alone in a beach cottage searching for the perfect way to describe the differences between New York and California. He’d never make a list called Ten Ways to Describe Sunlight on the Ocean, and if he did, “raining diamonds” would not be on it. Dan would not waste time on thoughts because thoughts don’t save lives. People do. But M.J. was fresh out of those.
She had tried contacting the DBC girls several times, but they were too busy for lunch and not interested in dinner. Hannah found out about the pregnancy and left David. And Catherine and Winsome were in Haiti. Dan sensed the return of M.J.’s loneliness and urged her to give it more time. But time was the problem, not the solution. M.J. was drowning in it. Free time. Spare time. Downtime. Quiet time. Alone time. Me time . . . And drowning women don’t want more water. They need someone to stop the flow; something Dan thought he was doing when he came home from work one night with a bottle of Bordeaux, an army-green backpack, and the need to open both on the deck.
“What is all this?” M.J. asked, glimpsing the legal pads, pens, energy bars, sunscreen, and O.B. tampons. “I don’t get it.”
Dan handed her an envelope. Inside were two tickets to Bangui M’Poko International Airport.
“Hawaii?”
“Central Africa.” He beamed as he filled their glasses. “Destination: about 186 miles west of Bangui in a village called—”
“What?” M.J. laughed, though she found none of this funny. Even if he was joking, still, not funny. “Why?”
“Measles outbreak. There’s a team there now, but they’ll need relief. Marco, Catherine, Winsome, and Aaron will get there a few days ahead of us.”
“Us?”
“Yes, us.” Dan chuckled. “We take the red-eye September sixteenth.”
M.J. gazed out at the last traces of Catalina Island before the navy-blue darkness swallowed it for the night. “I thought you were done with that.”