It had been coming. I guessed I thought I knew. I guessed I thought I knew it when she started going to book club. It was the first thing. Before that, we had done almost everything together. We travelled together, we exercised together, we cooked together in the evenings over a glass of wine and talked about the day. Then book club. That was preceded by her reestablishing a relationship with her best friend from high school whom she had not bee friends with since I'd known her. Her name was Molly. Molly had gotten married to and had a child with a man from a good family who worked hard and made plenty of money. But he was not exciting. You could see that in her eyes. One night my wife and I went to dinner at the home of a couple we knew, and there they were. Molly was drinking too much, he just looking embarrassed and miserable. It was obvious that they were having trouble.
After that evening, though, she began calling my wife almost every day. In a few weeks, went to dinner at the unhappy couple's house. After that, Molly and my wife began the book club. I knew it was bad, but what could I say? No, you can't go to book club? In retrospect, I think, that is when the trouble began.
Within a couple months, Molly had filed for a divorced. I saw the husband out somewhere, and he was sick with misery. He wasn't a big guy, but he had gotten smaller. I wanted to tell him he had been released early and was better off, but they had a daughter. That was what made it so bad.
Molly and the fucking book club.
Time moving in chronological order is merely a man-made idea anyway (or that's what I've been told) -- I only say that because I like the way an entire chunk of your life just disappeared into the fog (for now).
ReplyDeleteI have friends who are in book clubs -- one is a doctor's wife and she makes it sound so stressful (well she makes taking her kid to camp sound stressful in all honesty). "I HAVE to finish this book for book club" to which I usually ask "do you like the book? do you talk about the book?" and she usually responds "well some of us want to talk about the book but that usually lasts about 15 minutes and then the wine starts pouring and everyone gets off topic."
Why would I join and risk a DUI and not have talked about the book? It would be horrible I think. All that complaining ...
I have a friend who says prostitutes are among his favorite people because they never wear a mask -- they just do what they do -- have sex for money. Interesting the different way of looking at things.
L, I just haven't been able to pick up where I left off. This seemed the place to start again.
ReplyDeleteDoes your friend like prostitutes or the idea of prostitutes? I'm betting they aren't much different than the rest of the population on the mask thing.
he likes prostitutes. mush is a very interesting guy --
ReplyDeleteI am in a book club, sort of. I was also once married to a prostitute. I'm not sure I agree with the idea that they have no masks towards the world.
ReplyDeleteThey have one mask that certainly seems to suit their purposes.