a break from planning it, too,” she’d cooed, acting as if she were doing Char a favor.
I called her on it, saying out loud, in front of everyone, that Tate only wanted it because Char had worked so hard to make it shiny and popular, plus, with Tate at the helm we’d be reading Kardashian biographies every month.
It was bitchy, but losing the club would have broken Char’s heart. And it worked. In the end we moved to my large basement rec room with Char still in charge. Given the history, I couldn’t help but enjoy watching standard-American-pretty Tate meet exotic Roux. Tate straightened, one hand going to smooth her hair, then excused herself to the restroom. Two minutes later she emerged with fresh lip gloss and her T-shirt knotted to show a strip of flat, tanned midriff.
Charlotte began banging out chimes on Lisa Fenton’s wineglass, then motioning with the spoon for everyone to find seats. Unfortunately, Roux happened to be standing in front of the leather wing chair. Roux didn’t even look. She sank backward, and the wing chair received her. It was the tallest chair, the natural focal point of the circle, traditionally Charlotte’s. Char jerked like she’d received a small electric shock when she looked up from herding ladies and saw Roux already settled there. I took a seat in one of the dining-room chairs that I’d pushed up against the fireplace and motioned Char to join me.
“Honestly,” Char whispered as she sat next to me. “I mean, she didn’t know, but you’d think someone would have mentioned.”
Instead there’d been a minor traffic jam as five different women tried to claim the seats on either side of Roux.
“Next time I’ll set the printouts in your chair to hold it,” I said, and Charlotte brightened. She liked having a plan.
I was thinking that I wouldn’t have to. Braless, rental-house Roux and her bird tats would not be back. She didn’t strike me as a joiner, much less a woman who wanted to talk potty training and the lighter side of classic literature. She’d end up at bunco, or maybe nowhere, if her business got done fast enough.
Tate and Panda Grier finally closed the circle, cramming together on my padded piano bench. They’d made a quick dash to the wet bar for a final splash of wine, and no other seats were open.
Charlotte split the stack of printouts and sent pages both ways around the circle, saying, “Take one and pass, please.” She culled discussion questions from every book-club guide she could find on the Internet. “So how many of you finished House of Mirth?”
Almost every woman present put a hand up. Me, too.
She smiled, bright and approving, though I suspected that more than a few were lying. I sure was. I’d read most of it, but Oliver had been up and down all last night. When I rocked him to sleep this afternoon, he’d felt as toasty as a little jacket potato on my chest, his bald head reeking of delicious baby. I’d drifted off. We’d both slept hard and long. Madison had helped me throw together a dinner, and Davis had cleaned up after so I could skim Wikipedia to see how it ended.
“How many at least got partway through?” Char followed up, and now every hand was raised, including Roux’s. “Super, but if you didn’t finish, fair warning! Our talk will be chock-full of spoilers.”
“Oh, no, Lily Bart dies?” soft-hearted Sheridan Blake said on my other side. She’d been reading ahead in the discussion questions.
“Before we start, we have a new neighbor,” Charlotte said. “This is her first time at book club. Let’s all welcome . . . um, Roux.”
A murmur of hellos went around the circle, and Tate whispered something to Panda. Panda nodded, like always, but maybe less emphatically than usual. Panda Grier was top-heavy and matronly, with both a plain, sweet face and a delicious husband. She’d made Tate her best friend the minute the Bonascos moved in, petting her, bringing over fruit and coffee almost every morning. It was as if Panda thought Tate was a smoking-hot volcano god that must be propitiated, lest she erupt with sex all over Panda’s marriage.
Now Roux was in the room, an obvious expansion of a dangerous pantheon, and Tate was bristling at the competition. Panda couldn’t serve both gods, and I was small-town enough to wonder how it would play out. I thought she’d likely stick by next-door Tate. The Sprite House was four blocks