Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
POLLY
Friendship is like peeing your pants; everyone can see it but only you can feel it.
Penny Reid, Neanderthal Seeks Human
I was strangling the neck of a wine bottle with my sweaty hand as Leah and I walked up to Rose’s front door. I lied to myself, blaming the sweat on the summer heat, but I knew better. Nerves wracked my body. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d hung out with a group of girlfriends. Oh, wait. Never. Because you’d have to have girlfriends in order to hang out with them.
I turned to Leah just before she grabbed the door handle. “Wait! Isn’t forcing me to go to book club going against this “best friend” code?”
Leah put her arm around me, giving me a half hug. “Nice try. But no. This is in the glossary of the best friend code.”
“There’s no glossary in the best friend code.”
“Maybe it’s in the appendix. Whatever. A true best friend can call someone on their crap and push them out of their comfort zone because they know and understand their friend’s true boundaries. They’re gonna love you. Let’s go.”
Without waiting for my reply, Leah opened the door and shouted, “We’re here! I hope y’all are eatin’ because I didn’t have time for lunch!”
Rose’s home smelled like cinnamon and baked bread. As I toed off my shoes, I spotted a fully decorated, artificial Christmas tree with seashell ornaments and aquamarine garland; a large sand dollar sat at the top of the tree. Darting my eyes to Leah, she didn’t seem to give the tree any mind, so I assumed this was maybe just an eccentric entry way decoration.
As we made our way through the living room to a hallway, I huffed out a laugh when I spotted another artificial Christmas tree near the other end of the living room. This one was massive, easily eight feet tall, and decked out with all different Disney ornaments. And if I wasn’t mistaken, it was rotating.
“Polly?”
I whipped my head to see Leah standing in the hallway, presumably waiting for me to follow. I merely pointed to the tree and raised my eyebrows.
“Isn’t it great? That’s the Disney tree. I’m so jealous. It would never last in our house. Bernie would knock it right over. Some of those ornaments are vintage.” Leah gave a longing look at the tree, then turned, done with that conversation. I followed her, the mystery of the summertime Christmas trees distracting me from my nerves.
A cozy kitchen had a rectangular island where four women were gathered. Two women were seated on one end of the island, drinking wine. They both had ash-blonde hair and glasses, and had to be identical twins because they looked, well, identical. Rose and a woman with dark hair were organizing a tray of cookies at the opposite end of the island.
As I debated how to say hello, Leah announced our arrival as subtle as a herd of elephants. “Y’all, this is Polly, my best friend, the one I told you about. She’s agreed to come hang out with us, and if we’re not nice she won’t come back. So . . .” Leah took a deep breath in for dramatic effect, “Best behavior! Smiles! Be welcoming!” She pointed to one of the identical-looking women drinking wine. “That means, you, Tiffany.”
“What the hell, Leah?” The woman—Tiffany presumably—shouted, narrowing her eyes behind her black-rimmed glasses.
“I said what I said,” Leah deadpanned as Tiffany shrugged and took another sip of her wine.
“Honestly, Leah, if she’s doesn’t come back, it’ll be because of you, not us,” the identical-looking woman sitting next to Tiffany quipped.
“Me?” Leah’s tone was incredulous as she reached for a chip, scooping up a generous helping of taco dip. “No way. We’re ride or die.” She then shoved it all into her mouth.
“Polly! It’s so good to see ya again. Welcome!” Rose came around the island and went right in for a hug, then linked her arm through mine and turned me to face the group. “Y’all, this is Dr. Polly Alberton, the new medical director for the school, and the savior of my hair color. I was going gray, wouldn’t you believe, with all the stress I’d been under.”
She pointed to the identical twins at the end of the island.
“That’s Tiffany,” Rose said, pointing to the women with the black framed glasses who raised her wine glass in greeting. “And this is her sister, Margo. They’re identical twins, if you can’t already tell.”
Margo, who wore funky multicolored retro glasses, gave a short wave.
I held up the hand holding the malbec in an awkward hello gesture. “Hi, I’m Polly—Leah’s former friend.”
Rose and the twins cackled while Leah could only let out a disgruntled noise as her mouth was full of taco dip.
“It’s alright. We’re used to Leah at this point, we won’t hold her against you,” Tiffany joked.
Rose pointed toward the woman with dark hair carrying over the cookie tray. “This is Eliza. She works at the superintendent’s office, so you might see her from time to time.”
Eliza nodded hello and said, “I was happy to hear that the district was getting a new medical director. It’s nice to meet you. And Rose isn’t joking about her hair. I helped her dye it last month.”
“And then she gave me a ride to the salon the next day to fix it!” Rose exclaimed.
“Thank you all for having me,” I said softly once the laughter quieted, looking between Tiffany, Margo, Rose, and Eliza. I slid my eyes to Leah. “Though it doesn’t seem like you had much of a choice.”
Leah, who’d been pouring herself a healthy serving of white wine, rolled her eyes at my comment.
I held up the malbec I brought. “I brought wine!”
“Sold!” Tiffany toasted her wineglass.
Rose took the wine bottle from me and set to open it as Tiffany said, “I’ve been looking forward to this all week. I slowly lose my sanity every day watching my three boys. It’s nice to have some real adult time.”
“And you think you get that here?” Margo raised an eyebrow at her sister.
“As long as none of y’all barge into the bathroom when I’m in there, it counts as adult time. And adult time talking about books? Yes please!”
“How old are your kids?” I asked.
“Five, three, and my youngest just turned one.”
“I have two boys, four and eight.” Margo bumped Tiffany’s arm. “Guess we don’t know how to make anything else.”
“So, what you’re saying is, you both have a lot of free time?”
Margo chuckled. “Spoken like a fellow mom. You must have kids, too?”
“A ten-year-old son, and my daughter just turned six.”
Margo sighed wistfully. “I think it’d be nice to have a girl. Though I don’t know if I’d have enough energy to try for one more. We might have another boy and then I’d be in real trouble.”
“Don’t do it!” Tiffany coughed into her fist.
Eliza took a seat next to Margo. “You recently moved back here, right? Leah told us you live near the Donner Lodge. It must be gorgeous out there in the fall.”
It was, from what I could remember. I glanced at Leah, who was eyeing up the cookie tray. “You really did tell them everything, huh?”
“I don’t know why you ask questions you already know the answer to,” Leah mumbled.
“Oh, sugar beets!”
We all looked to Rose, seeing that the handle of the wine opener had snapped off, leaving the metal corkscrew stuck in the cork of the bottle.
Tiffany blew a raspberry, Leah made a sound of distress, and Eliza and Margo asked if Rose was alright.
“I’m fine, though I ’reckon we’ll be sticking to sweet tea for the rest of the day.”
“Sweet tea, my ass! Does anyone have a knife?” Tiffany asked, standing up.
“Wait!” I exclaimed, foreseeing suturing in my future. I turned to Rose. “Do you have a hair straightener?”
Puzzled expression in place, Rose hesitated. “I do, but . . .” she eyed my already straightened hair, “Why?”
“I’m going to use it to open the bottle.”
* * *
“Nothing’s happening.”
“You gotta give it time to warm up, Leah.”
“That’s what she said.”
Snickering sounded from behind me as I rotated Rose’s straightener around the neck of the wine bottle. Something I’d been doing for the last thirty seconds. We were all crammed into Rose’s half bath: Rose and Leah beside me, Tiffany, Margo, and Eliza craning their heads around from behind us, all of our eyes glued to the cork. As the straightener’s plates slowly heated the glass, the gas from the bottle should expand and push the cork up and out of the bottle.
At least, that’s the theory.
Forty-five seconds in and still nothing. I was just a weirdo holding a straightener to a wine bottle.
Maybe this wasn’t a great idea. They were going to kick me out of this club before I was even a member.
“I think I see something! Oh, wait. No, nothing yet,” someone murmured from behind me.
“Do ya know how long it’s supposed to take, sugar?” Rose whispered as I continued patiently holding the straightener to the bottle.
I shrugged. “I think only a minute.”
“Maybe you need to rub it.”
“It’s not a genie, Tiffany,” a different voice mumbled, followed by a cackle that I think was Margo’s.
“Or a dick.” That was said loudly in my ear by my best friend.
“Y’all are assholes,” Tiffany grumbled.
I bit back a laugh, loving the banter of these women.
“Look!” Rose’s shout quieted all of us as the cork suddenly jerked. Then after a few more seconds the cork wiggled up and out of the bottle followed by shouts and claps and whoops and I think even a “Well I’ll be!”.
Putting the straightener down, I grinned from ear to ear and held up the now cork-less bottle victoriously, which only made them cheer louder.
Maybe I was going to fit in here after all.
* * *
Two hours and three bottles of wine later, we were spread out in Rose’s living room, a large rotating Disney tree beside us, discussing something I never thought I’d discuss with other people before: romance novels. For the first half hour, we talked about the book we read which was hands down, the best slow burn I’d ever read.
“I wasn’t expecting to like it so much,” I admitted. “I never thought I’d like a slow burn that much.”
“Mariana Zapata is the queen of the slow burn. Read Wait for It next. I’ll do a buddy read with you,” Eliza offered.
Rose, who was sitting next to me, grabbed my hand. “ Wait for It is one of my favorites! Can I read it with y’all? It’s high time for a re-read.”
It was after this that Margo asked the question if you could take three book boyfriends to an island with you, who would you take and why? Everything kind of went off the rails from there, wherein we talked about anything and everything books in the most enthusiastic, tangential, talk over one another without anyone getting angry kind of way.
“Have any of you read anything by Lady Jane?” Tiffany asked. She was on the floor across from me, sitting in front of Margo who was braiding her hair.
“I have!” I replied. “I started with American Tail and the series keeps getting better. I started the fourth book this week and I’m loving it.”
“Do they end on a cliffhanger? I don’t start a series if the books end on a cliffhanger. Someone did me dirty once, recommending a book like that without warning me first.” Tiffany pressed her lips together in a line and turned her head to glare at Eliza.
“It was one time!” lamented Eliza from her spot on the loveseat next to Margo.
“People don’t forget,” Tiffany deadpanned as Margo turned her head so she could finish braiding her hair.
“Is American Cream the fourth book in the series you’re talking about, Polly?” Rose asked me, looking down at her phone.
“Yes. I’m actually reading it right now. And to answer your question, Tiffany, they don’t end on a cliffhanger. Each book is a standalone with a sort of romantic suspense femme fatale vibe. This last one has a female MC who’s a bounty hunter undercover as a dominatrix and it’s very spicy. I’ve listened to all of them and the narration is spot on.”
“Who’s the narrator? I can be picky about my narrators,” Margo asked, finishing up Tiffany’s braid.
“Brittney Houston.”
“She’s great!” Eliza said. “The narrator for Ann Richter’s books is fabulous, too.”
“Did Ann Richter write the Brag Queen series?” Margo asked, picking up a small notepad she’d been studiously taking notes in all afternoon.
“I’ve read those! Drags to Riches was my favorite. They were as illuminating as they were hysterical,” Tiffany snorted.
“Would y’all quit talking so fast? I can only add so many books to my Kindle at a time and I’m trying to write these all down for my Tbr. Ann Richter wrote what now?”
Margo hopped up, showing Rose the list of books she’d written down.
Eliza sighed. “The last thing I need is to add more books to my Tbr. It’s already a mile long and that’s before I took a detour into monster romance books this past month. The last book I read was a doozy.”
“Are you talking about the book where the sunscreen is the MC with the micropeen?” Leah suddenly asked, startling me. She’d been sitting on my other side the whole time, but hadn’t moved or spoken for the last twenty minutes. I honestly thought she’d fallen asleep from the sheer volume of food and wine she’d consumed upon our arrival.
“Did you just say micropeen and sunscreen? Like the sunscreen has the . . .” I made a gesture that made everyone laugh. “How would that even work?”
“I feel like the length of the micropeen would be SPF dependent somehow,” Margo pondered aloud, causing Tiffany to snort.
Rose winked at me. “Eliza reads the most wackadoodle books.”
“Which I freely admit!” Eliza held up her hand. “But they make me laugh. But at least you’re calling them books and not smut. I’m so sick of people who tell me I’m not reading real books because it’s a romance. Like adding sex to a book makes it fake literature in some way.”
Rose scoffed. “If folks think I read romance for the sex they can go right ahead. I know the truth.”
“I’ve read books for the sex,” Margo shrugged and Leah snickered under her breath, “Haven’t we all?”
Rose gave them each a hard look. When she was satisfied that no one was going to speak, she continued, “I read romance on account of the happily ever afters. I have no desire to read hundreds of pages about folks who don’t end up together. I’ve lived sad endings, I have no interest readin’ about ’em. And I could care less if the heroine comes a hundred times or if the hero has a dick the size of a baseball bat. I read to escape, smut or no smut.”
Tiffany quirked her mouth and tilted her head to the side. “But, like, maybe a little smut.”
Rose ignored her. “I want a book that’ll take me on a million journeys with laughs and suspense and tears and still leave me happy at the end. Think about Disney! Can y’all think of one that has a sad ending?”
“ Old Yeller !” Leah called out followed by Eliza shouting, “ The Fox and the Hound !”
“My point is, I pity the folks who judge romance readers. As if the books we read are fluff. Like just because the books I read have some sex in a few chapters makes them somehow less worthy. Those folks are like the adults in Peter Pan , who no longer believe in magic. I, for one, am glad we find joy in readin’ romance.”
Rose paused briefly and looked around the room, finding that for once, we were all quiet, hanging on her every word.
“It means the child that loves to dance and sing, the one that dreams with their eyes open, is inside us all, alive and well.”