The Dirty Book Club(8)

“Does toothpaste count?”

“Come out here. Let me take care of you.”

“Next Friday,” she reminded him. “Well, technically Saturday. I have to take the red-eye because I’m doing an interview for the Times.”

“That gives us . . . what? Like a day and a half?”

“I know, but I’ll be back for my birthday, then you’ll be here in June and—”

“That reminds me,” he said with more enthusiasm than she would have preferred. “Randy just confirmed our surf trip. It’s June thirty-first. We’re doing seven days in Java.”

“June only goes up to thirty.”

“Really?” Dan rubbed the back of his neck. “I could have sworn he said the thirty-first.”

M.J. quickly googled Java on her phone. “Indonesia? What if there’s a terror attack? Do they even have cell service? What if you drown?”

“I’m going with two other doctors and a pro surfer,” he said. “We’ll be fine.”

“Randy is a retired pro surfer,” she said, while making a note to fill that week with time-consuming meetings and late-night photo shoots.

“Anyway, I wasn’t talking about a visit and you know it. I was talking about you coming here to live.” He smiled, boyishly. “With me.”

M.J. sighed, tired of defending her choices.

“I know we’ve only been together for eight months, but so what? We’ll get a dog, go on hikes, spend Monday through Friday together. You could start writing again.”

“Dan, I’m not a writer anymore. I’m about to be named editor in chief of the most successful monthly magazine on the East Coast.” Something inside of M.J.’s stomach took flight when she said editor in chief. After two and a half caffeinated years of sweatshop discipline and unwavering dedication it was happening. Really, really happening.

Dan drained his beer and set it down on the railing with a decisive thunk. “Tell them you don’t want the job.”

“I can’t. I’m about to sign the contract in, like, two minutes.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

A calendar reminder popped up on M.J.’s computer screen. It was time.

“Both,” she said. “I have to go.”

“Have to go or want to go?”

She rolled her eyes. “Stop.”

“Fine. Skype me from the cab on your way home. I’ll give you a tour of the cottage.”

“That’s it?”

“I love you.”

“How about ‘Good luck, M.J.’?”

“Luck is the last thing you need. Actually, this promotion is the last thing you need.”

“Meaning?”

“Running that magazine isn’t going to make you happy.”

“What?”

“All those e-mails, and meetings, and articles you’re always editing . . . they’re excuses.”

“Thank you, Dr. Cohn. Same time next week?”

“I’m serious, M.J. It’s been three years since the accident. It’s time to start giving a shit again.”

“I give a shitload of shit.”

“About your job, yes. Not about—”

“It’s not a job,” she snapped, because it wasn’t. City was so much more than corporate perks and cinematic views. It was a playground for the ambitious with rules that made sense. The more she worked, the more she achieved. No surprises, no unexpected calls from blocked numbers. Why was that so hard for him to understand? “Dan, this place saved me.”

“It’s a place, M.J. . . . It can’t save you.”

Her heart began to rev. “Why don’t you move to New York and open a clinic here instead?”

“I just bought a house.”

“And I own an apartment.”

Eyes locked, nostrils flared, chests puffed, they glared at each other. Two soap opera characters enduring the awkward, lingering silence. They had arrived at this impasse many times before. How could they build a life together when neither of them would sacrifice what they had built when they were apart? And now with Dan’s new cottage and M.J.’s soon-to-be-signed five-year contract, a solution seemed further away than ever.

“What do you want me to do, Dan? Move to the beach and work at an organic juice bar?”

“Sounds kind of nice, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” she admitted, if things were different, if she was different—but they weren’t.



* * *



ANN ROSE-COOKE WAS seated at the twenty-six-person conference table, shuffling papers and setting out pens, when M.J. entered. Standing, Ann welcomed her with a Let’s get it done handshake and a Thank God it’s Friday smile. No one had to tell this president of human resources how to commix business and pleasure into a single greeting. Ann made a career out of professional etiquette. She knew.

“I just love daylight savings. The extra hour of sun makes all the difference.”

M.J. glimpsed the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows with a concurring nod, though she had grown to resent the amenable weather conditions other New Yorkers so desperately craved.

While perfect for those who wanted to toss a Frisbee around Central Park or linger at an outdoor café, blue skies and balmy nights did nothing for workaholics but underscore their tragic condition.