The Book Club

“Is that part of your job description, too?” Doris asked with a steady smile.

Annie’s eyes narrowed as she studied Doris’s face with the focus of a cat eyeing a plump canary. Silent and still, but lethal. Doris returned a rigidly polite smile.

The doorbell rang again, sounding to Doris like the bell of a boxing ring. She promptly excused herself, feeling breathless and numb, as though she’d just received a solid right hook but hadn’t yet hit the mat. It was only the first round. She was relieved beyond words to find Gabriella and Midge at her threshold, almost hauling them into the house with shrill welcome.

They entered laughing, shaking off snow, explaining as they removed their winter coats how they’d managed to “chow down” some pasta in Little Italy before heading out to the Book Club, which worried Doris tremendously. “I hope you’re still hungry.”

They hurried to assure her they were as they each flopped large leather bags crammed full with manila folders and type-filled papers onto the floor. They each pulled out well-worn paperback copies of Madame Bovary. Gabriella’s had dozens of yellow sticky slips poking out and Doris smiled, knowing that when Gabriella prepared, the discussions were always lively.

As they moaned about their harried day, Doris listened quietly with her hands folded thinking to herself, Two more working women. She knew this, of course, but tonight, on the verge of her fiftieth birthday, it hit her differently, like another punch from another angle. They seemed so very busy, so very alive. They seemed to have such purpose.

Midge was a therapist and an artist. Gabriella was a nurse and a mother. That’s how they described themselves, each giving emphasis to the conjunction and. Both worked at the University of Illinois which fostered the close friendship they shared. The Odd Couple, Doris always called them because they couldn’t be more different.

Midge was unmarried, a feminist who wore her long, dark skirts and artsy sweaters like a uniform. She was boldly antifashion, or as Doris once whispered behind her palm to Eve, a reverse snob. Secretly everyone in the Book Club admired Midge’s scrubbed, handsome looks, her unmade-up face and nails and her long, striking mane of natural pepper-and-salt that she defied dying and wore as proudly as a flag flapping loose around her straight shoulders. Not that any of them would choose that style for themselves, but they all agreed it worked for Midge with her tall, willowy, flat-tummied body and her complicated, fierce intensity.

Gabriella, in contrast, was all accommodation and smiles. This amused Doris, who couldn’t imagine how anyone could be so cheerful working a part-time job with four children at home. Gabby’s flat, round face was carved in half by the smile that always dominated it. Her smile revealed a mouthful of large white teeth and squeezed her dark-brown eyes into small half-moons over enormous round cheeks. Gabriella wore little makeup either, but she loved color and swathed her plump, short body in bright oranges, shocking pinks and sunny yellows in swirling patterns. With her golden skin she resembled a soft, ripe pear.

Now that everyone had arrived, the group slipped into the comfortable pattern of prediscussion chitchat. First they complimented Doris on her clever French menu while she preened and pressed them each into making the most critical decision of the evening: red or white wine. While they nibbled and drank, they poured out good feelings and mutual affection as liberally as the wine. This phase finished, they eased into catching up with what had happened in each of their lives during the past month.

Doris was boasting shamelessly about Bob Jr.’s exploits at Georgetown. “He made the crew team. Just think how much fun it will be to visit him in Washington D.C. this spring, when the cherry trees are in bloom! Can’t you just see my Bobby on one of those cute little rowboats on the Potomac?”

“A scull,” corrected Midge dryly. She’d lived and studied in Boston, and delighted in pricking pomposity.

Doris flushed furiously, feeling another punch.

Gabriella’s husband still hadn’t found another job. Each month that passed, Gabriella had added more hours to her schedule at the hospital. Now she was working at least thirty hours a week. Fernando was growing increasingly depressed and anxious, so it fell to Gabriella to not only work harder, but to be cheerful and make everyone in the family happy and relaxed.

“Fernando is looking for just the right position,” she said with a wide smile that assured everyone it was just a matter of time and not to worry—she wasn’t! Only Midge knew the truth and she met Gabriella’s gaze with a reassuring nod.

Midge’s mother was coming for a visit from Florida next week and she didn’t know how she was going to stand it. “The woman drives me crazy,” she moaned, shaking her head. “She thinks she has to make this maternal pilgrimage every year to visit her single daughter. All she wants to know is when I’m going to get married again.” She reached one of her long arms over to grab a canapé. Waving in the air to make a point, she added, “You’d think she’d get it into her head she’s not going to be a grandmother.”

“Why not? Just because you’re not married doesn’t mean you can’t be a mother,” said Annie.

Midge held the canapé still in the air and looked at her like she was nuts. “For God’s sake, Annie, I’m fifty years old!”

“So what? You’re fit, you eat well, you’re in prime physical condition. Who says you can’t have a baby? There are lots of older women having babies today.”

“I say I can’t have a baby. I’m not the nurturing type.” She popped the appetizer into her mouth. “Besides, why would I want to breastfeed and change diapers at this point in my life? I’ve worked hard to find out who I am and I don’t want to look back. Hooray for fifty, I say.”

Doris leaned closer to catch every word of this conversation.

“I don’t think being fifty has anything to do with it,” Annie argued back.

“Yeah, well, it has a lot to do with your eggs,” chirped in Gabriella. “She might look young but her eggs are dried up. I’ve seen those old eggs under the microscope and I know.”

Annie’s face darkened, then she stuck out her chin and said, “I don’t believe that’s true for every woman. What about those older women having babies you read about in the paper? Some of those women are in their sixties. They look like grandmas, but they had the babies.”

“Those are surrogate eggs.”

“Not all,” Annie said resolutely. “There are lots of women in their forties having babies. What about Susan Sarandon?” When Annie got that tone, no one could convince her otherwise; she had her mind made up.

Gabriella, having heard this sad argument many times in the Women’s Health Center, sighed and shook her head, knowing the futility of listing facts and data.

“In fact,” Annie said clinking her glass, “I’ve got some news myself.”

Everyone quieted and leaned forward.

“John and I’ve decided to have a baby. Actually, we’ve been trying for months now.”

There was a long, strained silence.

“Well, don’t everyone shout at once,” Annie quipped, a blush betraying her.

Gabriella rushed to hug her. “I was busy biting my tongue for what I’d just said about old eggs. Of course I’m happy for you, if this is what you want.”

“Is it what you want?” Midge asked, cocking her head.

“Or is it what John wants?”

“Both of us. He’s wanted a baby since we got married but after Tom’s funeral I finally decided that hey, it’s now or never, right? The ol’ biological clock is ticking away.”

That old clock has run down, Doris thought to herself. Annie was forty-three years old! Who did she think she was kidding? She should be worrying about menopause, not having a baby.

“Are you sure you want to be making lunches and driving carpool when you’re fifty-three? Sixty?” she asked.

“And won’t it interfere with your work?”

“It’ll all work out,” Annie said in her typical bravado. “I don’t intend to let it interfere with my job. I’ll get lots of help, and as for being sixty, what’s sixty? I think young therefore I am. That’s my motto. It’s how you feel inside that counts.”

“Well, your insides are going to feel tired,” Doris replied dryly. “Trust me.”

There was a chorus of agreement, yet they did not give voice to the arguments uppermost in their minds: how, at her age, the odds of getting pregnant were slim and the odds of Down’s Syndrome high.

Annie’s shoulders slumped and she crossed her arms tightly across her chest.

“Well, I think it’s terrific,” Midge surprised everyone by announcing in a loud, authoritative voice. “The rest of us are moping around worrying about wrinkles, and moaning about hot flashes, gray hair and sagging boobs, and you’re out there getting pregnant.” She raised her glass high in a toast. “You go, girl!”

Suddenly it was a rallying call. The mood shift was electric and everyone was raising their glasses, laughing loudly. Relief and victory was visible on their faces as they made jokes about menopause and aging and all the horrors of the inevitable change that they were marching toward like soldiers. Good soldiers facing certain doom. Now they had Annie to hold up as a symbol of defiance. They gloried in her fertility. It was a shared fertility.

In all the excitement and laughter, no one heard the doorbell ring, or the front door open. No one saw a small, slim woman in the long black wool coat enter the foyer, her library, hardcover copy of Madame Bovary clutched in her leather-gloved hand, her dark-brown hair tucked into a beret. She stood quietly on the outside of the tight circle, looking in, her pale-green eyes guarded. She stood and waited, her face a closed book.

Doris sensed a new presence in her home and turned her head. Her heart beat furiously with pleasure as she caught sight of the woman at the threshold. She felt a gush of triumph. Doris just knew she’d come to her house!

“Eve!” she called out in a high-pitched voice and ran toward her, open-armed.

Heads turned, sounds of delight pierced the air, and in a blur of color and motion, Eve Porter was kissed and hugged and loudly welcomed back, again and again. In return, Eve smiled and wept and told them all how she missed them, too, and could they forgive her for staying away so long, and yes of course, she’d read the book! With words and movements they gathered her carefully, firmly, lovingly back into the circle of the Book Club, each feeling a joy, a deep satisfaction that the circle was complete again, stronger, now that the missing link had returned.

Later that night Doris was floating on air, feeling that the whole evening had been a complete and utter success. Everyone had exclaimed how this was one of the best meetings ever as they left, and it was true. She did know how to throw a good party. Treat your family as guests and your guests as family. The crystal clinked in her hands like bells as she cleared away the last of the wineglasses from the library where the Book Club had completed one of their best book discussions. Annie had vehemently defended Emma’s passion and rung Emma’s husband, poor dull Charles, through the ringer. But Doris was smug with the satisfaction of the group’s ultimate support of her own position that, to put it crudely, Emma was a slut.