Time stopped. No one moved. Patricia wanted to lie, but a lifetime of breeding had made her a lady.
“Some of it,” Patricia said.
Marjorie let out a soul-deep sigh that seemed to go on forever.
“Where did you stop?” she asked.
“The first page?” Patricia said, then began to babble. “I’m sorry, I know I’ve let you down, but the babysitter had mono, and Carter’s mother is staying with us, and a snake came out of the commode, and everything’s just been so hard this month. I really don’t know what to say except I’m so, so sorry.”
Black crept in around the edges of her vision. A high-pitched tone shrilled in her right ear.
“Well,” Marjorie said. “You’re the one who’s lost out, by robbing yourself of what is possibly one of the finest works of world literature. And you’ve robbed all of us of your unique point of view. But what’s done is done. Who else would be willing to lead the discussion?”
Sadie Funche retracted into her Laura Ashley dress like a turtle, Nancy Fox started shaking her head before Marjorie even reached the end of her sentence, and Cuffy Williams froze like a prey animal confronted by a predator.
“Did anyone actually read this month’s book?” Marjorie asked.
Silence.
“I cannot believe this,” Marjorie said. “We all agreed, eleven months ago, to read the great books of the Western world and now, less than one year later, we’ve come to this. I am deeply disappointed in all of you. I thought we wanted to better ourselves, expose ourselves to thoughts and ideas from outside Mt. Pleasant. The men all say, ‘It’s not too clever for a girl to be clever,’ and they laugh at us and think we only care about our hair. The only books they give us are cookbooks because in their minds we are silly, lightweight know-nothings. And you’ve just proven them right.”
She stopped to catch her breath. Patricia noticed sweat glistening in her eyebrows. Marjorie continued:
“I strongly suggest y’all go home and think about whether you want to join us next month to read Jude the Obscure and—”
Grace Cavanaugh stood, hitching her purse over one shoulder.
“Grace?” Marjorie asked. “Are you not staying?”
“I just remembered an appointment,” Grace said. “It entirely slipped my mind.”
“Well,” Marjorie said, her momentum undermined. “Don’t let me keep you.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Grace said.
And with that, the tall, elegant, prematurely gray Grace floated out of the room.
Robbed of its velocity, the meeting dissolved. Marjorie retreated to the kitchen, followed by a concerned Sadie Funche. A dispirited clump of women lingered around the dessert table making chitchat. Patricia lurked in her chair until no one seemed to be watching, then darted out of the house.
As she cut across Marjorie’s front yard, she heard a noise that sounded like Hey. She stopped and looked for the source.
“Hey,” Kitty Scruggs repeated.
Kitty lurked behind the line of parked cars in Marjorie’s driveway, a cloud of blue smoke hovering over her head, a long thin cigarette between her fingers. Next to her stood Maryellen something-or-other, also smoking. Kitty waved Patricia over with one hand.
Patricia knew that Maryellen was a Yankee from Massachusetts who told everyone that she was a feminist. And Kitty was one of those big women who wore the kind of clothes people charitably referred to as “fun”—baggy sweaters with multicolored handprints on them, chunky plastic jewelry. Patricia suspected that getting entangled with women like this was the first step on a slippery slope that ended with her wearing felt reindeer antlers at Christmas, or standing outside Citadel Mall asking people to sign a petition, so she approached them with caution.
“I liked what you did in there,” Kitty said.
“I should have found time to read the book,” Patricia told her.
“Why?” Kitty asked. “It was boring. I couldn’t make it past the first chapter.”
“I need to write Marjorie a note,” Patricia said. “To apologize.”
Maryellen squinted against the smoke and sucked on her cigarette.
“Marjorie got what she deserved,” she said, exhaling.
“Listen.” Kitty placed her body between the two of them and Marjorie’s front door, just in case Marjorie was watching and could read lips. “I’m having some people read a book and come over to my house next month to talk about it. Maryellen’ll be there.”
“I couldn’t possibly find the time to belong to two book clubs,” Patricia said.
“Trust me,” Kitty said. “After today, Marjorie’s book club is done.”
“What book are you reading?” Patricia asked, groping for reasons to say no.
Kitty reached into her denim shoulder bag and pulled out the kind of cheap paperback they sold at the drugstore.
“Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs,” she said.
It took Patricia aback. This was one of those trashy true crime books. But clearly Kitty was reading it and you couldn’t call someone else’s taste in books trashy, even if it was.
“I’m not sure that’s my kind of book,” Patricia said.
“These two women were best friends and they chopped each other up with axes,” Kitty said. “Don’t pretend you don’t want to know what happened.”
“Jude is obscure for a reason,” Maryellen growled.
“Is it just the two of you?” Patricia asked.
A voice piped up behind her.
“Hey, everyone,” Slick Paley said. “What’re y’all talking about over here?”
CHAPTER 2
The last bell of the day rang somewhere deep inside the bowels of Albemarle Academy and the double doors opened and disgorged a mob of small children strapped beneath bulging, spine-bending book bags. They hobbled to the car pool area like elderly gnomes, bent double beneath three-ring binders and social studies books. Patricia saw Korey and pecked at the horn. Korey looked up and broke into a loping run that made Patricia’s heart hurt. Her daughter slid into the passenger seat, hauling her book bag onto her lap.
“Seat belts,” Patricia said, and Korey clicked hers in.
“Why’re you picking me up?” Korey asked.
“I thought we could stop by the Foot Locker and look at cleats,” Patricia said. “Didn’t you say you needed new ones? Then I was in the mood for TCBY.”