The Scarlet Letter Society. Mary T. McCarthy
hate being called hipsters.”
“We know,” said Maggie. “But what else are we supposed to call you youngins? And by the way, thanks for getting the books for us this month, hipster.”
“No problem, Mag Hag. You don’t mind if I call you that, right? Only every time you call me a hipster.” Zarina winked at Maggie, enjoying her fake horror face response, and retreated behind the counter to begin supplying the early morning caffeine.
Maggie began the meeting with her typical style. “Ok, so which of you adultresses read the book? You know, the one our entire tiny club is named after?”
Lisa cleared her throat. “I read it. It’s not an easy thing to do. That old-fashioned language made me remember why we all read Cliffs Notes back in the day. But the theme of sin and the conflict between heart and mind are timeless.”
“Well that was a thought-provoking, brief but detailed book review, Lisa. Thank you for that,” said Maggie. Eva laughed.
“What are you laughing about, missy? I bet your big-shot corporate-attorney ass didn’t even read page one,” said Maggie.
“I did so read page one!” proclaimed Eva. “Plus more than half of the Wikipedia page.” They laughed.
Lisa always found herself a little jealous of the relationship between Maggie and Eva, who’d known each other for years. Lisa hated feeling like the perpetual third wheel on the SLS bike, but the current company represented her only friends, so she did her best to swallow her insecurity.
“The whole first page of the book, huh? Wow, we’re impressed,” said Maggie. “Well, ladies, how about if I give my thoughts on the book? I actually took notes.”
“Notes? Geez!” said Eva.
“I took notes, too,” admitted Lisa, clutching her trusty notebook and flipping through it.
“Pipe down, Eva. It looks like our little book club discussion is being led by me and Lisa, since you barely cracked the cover—er, opened the app,” said Maggie. She continued, “There’s a reason all of our club invites include the one quote about the scarlet letter as ‘her passport into regions where other women dared not tread.’ I picked it because it describes that there are basically two types of women in this world. Those who cheat, and those who do not.”
Lisa looked down at her coffee, then pretended to write something down in her journal.
“Well I guess we’ve come to the right place,” said Eva. “I know I’d rather be the mistress than the wife.”
Lisa turned to Eva and said, “But you are a wife.”
Eva replied, “I didn’t say I wasn’t, but in addition to the fact that I’m a terrible one, obviously, I think being a mistress is so much more fun. There’s no laundry or kids’ sports practices or fights about spending money. It’s just fun.”
“Which brings up another key quote from the book: ‘She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom’,” said Maggie. “I think that’s what Hawthorne was trying to say there. Being in a marriage can feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. But when you’re with a lover, you’re in another world, and you’re free. Even if it means you pay the price of a sinner.”
“Exactly,” said Eva. “Sin or no sin, it’s an escape from reality. And if you’re with several lovers, you’re even more free! Right, Maggie?”
Maggie sighed. “Why do I have the feeling that we’re never going to end up actually discussing the books in our book club? Ok, well, since you seem to be asking, Eva, the professor and I are just friends.“
“Margaret Katherine Hanson, I believe you just blushed for the first time in the history of your half-century life,” said Eva.
“Fuck you, half-century!” said Maggie. “I’m nowhere near fifty yet!”
Lisa looked at the two women and laughed nervously, secretly worrying she didn’t fit in to this club. She scribbled in her journal and thought to herself: how am I going to keep coming to these meetings if I’m contributing literally only fictionalized accounts of fantasy encounters with my graphic designer? I love Maggie and Eva’s stories and their confidence, but will it be enough for me to take the leap and have a real affair of my own?
Zarina listened intently to the June meeting of the Scarlet Letter Society and wondered to herself who Maggie’s new professor friend was; whether it was a friend of her mother’s at the college. She observed the group dynamic of the women. Maggie was clearly the leader. The confidence in her boisterous New England accent alone could have made a ship full of men sail toward a hurricane if that’s what they’d been told to do.
Eva was more serious generally and seemed so conflicted. One time she’d seem happy, giddy almost, and another day she’d seem kind of moody and somber. And Lisa? Well, she just seemed to be in a world all her own. She often came into the shop and wrote quietly; alone. She was so much more reserved than the other women. Her quiet nature always made Zarina wonder how she even got the nerve to have an affair.
But when Zarina heard the women talking about another book selection, she couldn’t help but chime in. Anna Karenina? Ugh. Zarina had an immediate sneaking suspicion the women would not enjoy trudging through the 1852 Tolstoy classic. She’d read it herself in her last semester at college. At the meeting, Maggie had come in with the Anna Karenina opening quote,
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
It was true the women often talked about their own families—who had lost a parent (Lisa), whose mother was getting a bit senile (Eva), and who was orphaned as a kid (Maggie, who spent a fortune in therapy trying to get over those years that were so difficult to forget). But Zarina knew the book would end up being torture, if any of them even got through the tome. So she approached Maggie.
“I hate to interrupt,” said Zarina. “And of course I’m happy to order you ladies any book you want. But I’m not sure any of you will like reading this one.” Zarina understood their desire to find wisdom and meaning in adulterous literature. But there was no sense letting them read voluminous Tolstoy about a woman treated as a social outcast…especially since Anna committed suicide at the end by hurling herself in front of a damn train.
”What about Fear of Flying by Erica Jong?” asked Zarina. She knew Maggie’s shop was named for the 70s novel, as was her daughter Erica, who Zarina had gone to school with as a kid.
“Oh, for the love of baby Jesus,” Maggie had said, laughing. “How have we not read it already?” She told Zarina to order copies just before they left.
She was looking forward to reading it. Her mom had spoken fondly of the “feminist bible,” and she was eager to see what Jong’s take on the whole infidelity thing would be.
It was barely 7 am as Eva sat in her eighth floor office building near Union Station in Washington, D.C. She thought about her boys. After a week of being “unplugged”, she thought the boys had learned their lesson and hopefully wouldn’t get busted doing stupid shit again.
Disciplining the boys had triggered her memory of the kinds of discipline that were doled out in her home as a kid. Her dad would drink, get drunk, scream at her mother for some ridiculous housewife violation—the laundry was piled up, why was the dishwasher not emptied, why couldn’t she just vacuum this fucking room? And then, on the bad days, he would hit her. Eva would hide in her bedroom closet until it was over.
Stay out of his way, just stay out of his way. When the attacks came, whether verbal or physical, Eva’s mother would look down shamefully, never yelling back, never fighting. She just took it. To this day, living alone on the island, her abusive drunk asshole of a husband long dead, she was as vacant as an abandoned motel. It was like life had battered her down into a state of complacency that