The Dirty Book Club(78)

“They’re in France!” Britt said.

“And they gave you the key,” Jules added.

“Still.” Addie took the phone from M.J. and used it to find the Tiffany lamp that hung in the center of the room. With a tug of its dangling chain, she illuminated the mirrored table beneath it, which seemed as round and bright as the full moon, and the four Prim-covered books that had been laid out like a place setting.

The space was no bigger than a starter office at City; something a newly promoted fact-checker might celebrate. And yet, the view was heart-stopping: Hundreds of identical books cloaked in white dust jackets rose from floor to ceiling on every wall, packed on shelves tight as secrets.

“Whoa,” M.J. said. “Is this what an acid trip feels like?”

“I had this vision in my head for years,” Addie said. “I thought I dreamed it.”

“This isn’t a dream,” Britt said. “It’s porn for broken iPads.” She pulled a book from the shelf and peeled back its cover. “My Secret Garden.”

Jules did the same. “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”

Then the others. “Vox.”

“Forever.”

“Tropic of Cancer.”

“Beautiful Bastard.”

And so it went until M.J. reached into her crocodile bag, grabbed their once-discarded keys, and released them to the table.

“You saved them!” Jules beamed.

M.J. said she had been meaning to toss them but forgot. Because she didn’t have time for sentimental speeches or teary-eyed attempts to keep them from breaking up. Addie was leaving. Dan was waiting. Her future writing career pending. She had to go.

“So now what?” Britt asked. “No one read the book.” She slid the cover down to reveal its title, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale, by Jenna Jameson with Neil Strauss. “Can we still read the letter?”

“I don’t think so.” Jules pulled a sealed American Airlines envelope from one of the copies. It read For: Addie Oliver in serious black ink.

Addie backed away from the table, drew her thumbnail to her mouth and bit.

“Do you recognize the handwriting?” M.J. asked, and then wanted to take it back. Only one of those women worked for American Airlines and they all knew it.

But Addie was just standing there, biting. Her body was swaying slightly from the pain medication.

M.J. checked her watch: twenty-five minutes. She really had to go. “What if you hold it up to the light,” she suggested. “You know, dip your toe in the water . . .”

“And then?”

“If you like what you see, we dive.”

“We?” Addie asked, suddenly awake and attentive, as if the haze had been burned off by that one little word. She gripped the back of her chair and examined the three women for twitches or tics or anything that might signal looming betrayal.

After several minutes, each of which was probably being counted by Dan, Addie took the envelope, raised it toward the stained-glass shade, and ripped it in half.

“What the ham?” Jules gasped.

“I can’t handle any more bad news.”

“How do you know it’s bad?”

“It’s always bad,” M.J. answered for her.

Addie grinned, because it always was.

And that was that. There was no closing ceremony. No turning keys or crossing bands of smoke rising as one. Just a quick hug when they dropped M.J. off in the Mini Cooper, a promise to give it back when she returned from Africa, and a pall of sorrow, because Addie and their secret room would be gone when she did.



* * *



THOUGH SHE WAS three minutes late, M.J. sauntered into the cottage with an early person’s pride. How delightfully smug she would feel rocking on the porch swing—Louis Vuitton steamer trunk packed and final pee taken—when Dan screeched into the driveway. The guilt he’d feel for doubting her. The light she’d shine on his hypocrisy. The window seat she’d demand in exchange for the badgering she endured.

But Dan’s bags were no longer by the front door. A sheet of yellow legal paper was there instead. Taped over the peephole and festooned with his semi-legible doctor’s scrawl. There was also an airline ticket. Not to Bangui M’Poko International Airport, but to JFK. And the flight was leaving at seven the next morning.

Tears began to gather like a team of first responders, waiting for their orders, ready to react. The ocean thudded and fizzed. Something like a metal fan turned inside M.J.’s stomach; she could feel its blades scraping against her gut, taste the rust. Or maybe it wasn’t a fan at all. Maybe it was Fortune’s wheel gearing up for another ill-fated spin.

Fingertips cold and heart hammering, M.J. leaned against the door and thought of Addie. How easy it would be to rip Dan’s letter in half. Destroy the bad news before it destroyed her. But she had learned to tolerate adversity as if it was a pair of three-inch heels. Now she was one of those girls who was used to the pain. And so she read.

Dear M.J.,

Go back to New York. Sign Gayle’s contract. Become the best editor in chief City magazine will ever know. Climb the corporate ladder and don’t stop until you reach 35,000 feet. Then wave to the doctor in the airplane. The one blowing you kisses as he flies by. And know he loves you enough to let you go.