“The problem was, I couldn’t get rid of this guy for weeks. We have sex once and suddenly he thinks I’m his. He kept calling. I had to change my number. He started coming to my door. I told him I would call the cops if he didn’t go away. ‘You’re a whore,’ he said to me, ‘you’re a real whore.’ Problem was, I kind of felt like one. No. I felt bad. I didn’t know how to tell him I was using him to get back at the boyfriend. How could I? I mean, how do you explain that to a guy without looking like — something bad? A whore, something like that. It took me a while to feel better about myself.”
“We all do rash things now and then,” Tasha says.
“Yes, we do,” I say, looking at my ex-wife.
Amelia finishes her beer. “I’m out of beer.” She waves at the waitress again.
Chapter 4…
“It’s a sad thing,” Amelia says, “when you’re out of beer.”
“I’ll have a vodka tonic this time,” Tasha tells the waitress.
“Same here,” I say.
“Well,” Cara says, “I’ll have a tequila sunrise.”
“Another,” Amelia holds up her beer.
Lisa sticks to wine.
I look at Sheila and imagine myself the old boyfriend’s best friend she seduced. I picture her ten years younger, in shorts and a halter, coming to my door. I see myself taking her into the bedroom, stripping her clothes off, knowing she’s my best friend’s girl but not caring because I want to stick myself inside her.
“It was difficult at first, running into Stephen now and then,” Cara says. “Our city was small. A town. We didn’t talk. Then we started to talk. We were still friends. At least we were still friends.”
“Was he still with the slut?” Amelia asks.
“No. She changed guys every week or two.”
“She’s probably dead now,” Sheila says.
“Funny you should say that because the last I heard — about a year ago — she went to the West Coast and was modeling in cheap porn videos and walking the streets in L.A. But that could have been a rumor. You know how rumors are, especially in a small city.”
“I could really start ranting about the porn industry,” Lisa says, “and what it does to some women. But I won’t.”
Amelia giggles. “I once let a guy take nudie pictures of me.”
“I bet you did,” Sheila says.
“I thought it was kinda neat. I was fifteen.”
“Fifteen?” I say.
“How old was he?” Tasha asks.
“I’m not sure,” Amelia says, “maybe twenty-eight or so.”
“That’s illegal,” Lisa says. “It may be even kiddie porn, if you were fifteen. He could have gone to jail.”
“Jail?” Amelia says. “Maybe, if I told. But I wasn’t going to tell. I liked him.”
“Did you sleep with him?” Cara asks.
“No. I just let him take nudie pictures of me. It was innocent, really.”
The waitress returns with our drinks.
“Okay,” Amelia reaches into her jeans pocket, “I’ll get this one.”
Chapter 5…
“At least I have money,” she adds, pulling wadded bills from her pocket, along with several paper clips, two stamps, and someone’s business card.
Cara reaches for the business card. “A temp agency?”
“Yeah,” Amelia answers.
“But you have a job.”
“Who knows for how long, with all the cutbacks in the schools. I’m not even making very much as it is. I was thinking of moonlighting, filing, or word-processing, bring in some extra money, or maybe finding a full-time job through temping, one that pays better than a teacher’s salary. And if I get laid off, I’m going to need to find a job really fast.”
“Let’s not talk about jobs and money,” Sheila says. “That shit depresses me.”
“Tell me about it,” Amelia says, and smiles. “There was a problem with the payroll checks once. They were over a week late. I was really stressed. My rent was due, I barely had any food, and I didn’t have a dime. I was ready to walk the streets and make a quick fifty.”
“You don’t mean that,” Lisa says.
“I don’t, but think about it. How far would any of us go if it came down to immediate survival?” She straightens out the bills on the table. “All for this green paper. I hate this green paper.”
“Really, let’s not talk about money,” Sheila says.
Tasha nods. “Let’s not.”
“Sorry,” says Amelia.
Sheila says, “Not that I’m hurting right now, thank the lucky stars, but there were times I was really destitute and I’d rather not remember those times.”
I know that feeling. I sip my drink.
“Anyway,” Tasha raises her voice.
“Anyway,” Sheila says. “Enough of that.”
Silence as we drink.
“So,” Cara says to Lisa, “how’s the new book coming along?”
“Sluggishly,” Lisa says, “but I’m getting there.”
“What’s it about?” I ask.
“Sex, death, sex, and love,” Sheila says, “isn’t that what any good book is about?”
“Isn’t that what everything’s about?” Cara says. “Movies, plays, music — you name it?”
Lisa says, “They’re categorizing it as ‘romantic suspense.’ They’ll sell it in grocery-store stands and chains. Just like my last one.”
“Actually, it’s rather good,” Tasha says. “It’s genre, but quality genre. Lisa fleshes out her characters nicely; you really get to know them. That’s the charm of her work.”
Sheila laughs, touching my ex-wife’s arm. “You’re supposed to say that, hon. You’re her editor.”
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it,” Tasha answers. “I have to edit some real crap sometimes. And I do mean crap, the romances and mysteries, but they bring in the bucks, so who cares if they’re crap?”
“You accept crap?” from Amelia.
“They’re not my acquisitions. As an associate editor, I sometimes get dumped with excess workload from the senior editors, or if an editor leaves and the orphaned books are disseminated around the office, I have to take one.”
“I think that would be a cool job,” Amelia says. “Sitting around the office all day reading books.”
Tasha laughs. “I hardly ever read anything at the office. I’m on the phone, in meetings, checking galleys, talking with the marketing crew. I do all my reading at home. Nights, weekends. Hell, I’m always on the job. It seems like the only time I ever really get out is these weekly Thursday night get-togethers.”
“Maybe you need a man in your life,” Cara says.
Awkward silence. Tasha sips her drink. Cara looks at me, flushes.
“Don’t we all,” Sheila says.
“Except Leonard,” Amelia says.
“Except Leonard, of course.”
“You have a man,” Cara says to Sheila.
“I don’t ‘have’ anyone,” Sheila says. “You may try to possess someone, but you never really can. It’s like we’re all a bunch of birds in a dark room, flying into each other now and then, but never flying in the same direction with some other bird. We just keep flitting about looking for an exit and some light. It’s ridiculous. But I could go for a new relationship right now. An affair, a fling, something to get some excitement back in my life. Because the excitement is gone with Roy — Roy is my boyfriend,” she says to me—“and I’ve been thinking about calling it off.”