The Scarlet Letter Society. Mary T. McCarthy

mothers who demanded Airplane be turned off when Captain Oveur asks Joey if he’s ever seen a grown man naked.

      Those bitches can go to Starbucks, Zarina had thought.

      All kinds of people came into the café. As a journalist, Zarina kept a notebook to write character sketches for future stories. There was a husband and wife who stopped by every Tuesday morning and ordered exactly the same thing. Only they’re on their way to marriage counseling, thought Zarina. There was a teenage boy who came in at the same time after school every day, buying only a bag of Mystery flavor Air Heads. He’s only here because he hopes the blonde lacrosse player will come in with her friends to giggle over skim mochaccinos.

      And there were the moms. Although occasionally there was the lone mom like Tara, who came in to actually read a book and get some peace and quiet while her child was at school, most of the moms travelled in gaggles, like geese. There were PTA moms (the most annoying; the way they yammered on about cookie dough fundraisers and teacher appreciation donuts made Zarina’s head spin), save-the-planet moms (cloth diapers, raw organic homemade baby food), and brand new moms (dark circles and sweatpants) just trying to have human contact with someone other than a newborn.

      Thinking of the early morning visit of the adulteresses, Zarina smiled at the thought of someone like Tara overhearing a conversation about blowjob spray.

      “’Adultresses’ seems like an outrageously old-fashioned word to use,” Zarina thought, as she cleaned the espresso maker, “but what else is there to call them? The Women Who Cheat on Their Husbands? MILFs?” Some would say ‘sluts’ or ‘whores’ in a more serious way than the club members, who used the terms jokingly. “Maybe it’s best to just call them what they call themselves, in honor of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famous novel,” Zarina decided. They’re simply known as “The Scarlet Letter Society.”

      “I don’t know what I’d do if Ron and Charles found out about each other,” whispered Eva after the gathering at the coffee shop. “Not to mention if my husband found out about my two lovers. Ugh.”

      The worn oval sign reading Wings Vintage Clothing creaked on its iron hinges as the women entered Maggie’s downtown shop, its name chosen as a tribute to her favorite piece of literature, Erica Jong’s revolutionary 1973 book Fear of Flying. Maggie had even gone so far as to name her first daughter Erica (her other daughter’s name, Lilith, also reflected a healthy sense of feminism.)

      “Well it’s plenty to worry about, hussy,” laughed Maggie. She tossed her unruly reddish-brown curls, always bordering on disheveled and frizzy, over her shoulders. The two had been friends for years and shared the comfortable conversation style reserved for sisterhood and rare relationships between women.

      Eva absentmindedly dusted the top of a vintage frame containing a piece of antique handmade needlework that served as another nod to the shop name: “My child, I wish you two things. To give you roots, and to give you wings.”

      “I need advice,” declared Eva. “Everything is just so complicated, and I honestly feel like my life is spinning way out of control. Have you ever felt that way?”

      Maggie smiled, a glint in her green eyes. “Yeah, once upon a time, I guess I did.”

      Eva replied, “Well, what did you do? I feel like my whole life is a circus, and I’m a terrible ringleader.”

      Maggie turned to face Eva. “You just gotta learn how to keep all the balls in the air.”

      “There are just so many balls!” said Eva. Both women laughed. “Now help me pick out something vintage and fabulous to wear to my meeting next week.”

      Maggie picked out a few vintage 40s dresses and sent Eva into a dressing room. Eva modeled; everything always looked amazing on her. Maggie rang up the purchase, sending Eva on her way with a hug, some reassurance to take one day at a time, and an A-line navy dress that looked stunning on her petite frame.

      As she put the dress into a bag, a certain smell triggered a long ago memory. After Eva left the shop, Maggie sat in a trance-like state, remembering.

      Frost formed on the insides of the two-room efficiency apartment window. Maggie was locked inside alone on one of many nights when her mother, a waitress at a nearby bar, couldn’t afford a sitter. Maggie didn’t even remember her own mother’s name, only that she’d run home to check on her only child during fifteen-minute breaks, smelling of stale cigarettes and beer. Like a choppy scene from a horror movie, the images flickering and jerky and too quick, then too slow, then too quick, Maggie thought of nights where her mother tucked her into bed, leaving a flashlight on the nightstand in case she had to use the bathroom. The electric bill hadn’t been paid. The smell. That familiar smell, from the hourglass-shaped glass bottle with the gold bow. Her mother would spray that Estee Lauder (a gift, somehow Maggie knew it had been a gift... but from who?) on her to hide the bar smells before she climbed into bed with Maggie; they’d slept in the same bed to stay warm.

      The jingle of the shop door’s bell jolted Maggie back into the moment, her face flushed and hands sweaty. Her heart was beating faster and her head was pounding as she reached for the pills in her purse.

      “Daymares?”

      It was Dave, Maggie’s first husband, who knew she called her daytime trances “daymares” since they reminded her of nightmares.

      Maggie’s face softened when she saw Dave: bearded, tall, corduroy and flannel-clad. He walked over and hugged her.

      Eva couldn’t get the lyrics to “Lyin’ Eyes” out of her head ever since Maggie had sent the invite to that month’s Scarlet Letter Society meeting. The line “she’s so far gone, she feels just like a fool” played in her head after she left Maggie’s shop and headed over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge toward her mother’s Matthew’s Island cottage on what James Michener called “the calmer waters of the Eastern Shore” of Maryland.

      Her phone rang as she finished crossing the bridge, and “Call from Ron” appeared on her car dashboard screen. She answered it on the steering wheel of her Mars Red Mercedes SLK 350 Roadster.

      “Eva Bradley,” she crooned in a fake professional tone as she answered the phone.

      “Ms. Bradley, this is your intern Ron. I’m calling to let you know that your meeting next Thursday morning meeting needs to be rescheduled due to a conflict with the client.”

      “Ron, you’re my only intern at the moment. You don’t have to introduce yourself. You can call and tell that particular client to gargle my balls, because this is the third time she’s canceled.”

      A moment’s pause. “Er, Ms. Bradley, I’m not sure the phrase ‘gargle my balls’ is one that the madam Fortune 500 executive is used to hearing…”

      Eva laughed. “I’ve been hanging around Maggie too much. Well, I’ll leave it to you to phrase that in a more diplomatic way, then, Ron. In the meantime, I demand to know why your body is not underneath mine right now.”

      “Ms. Bradley, are you driving?”

      “Yes, Ron, I am.”

      “Well then, the answer is that I wouldn’t want to wreck a perfectly gorgeous piece of German machinery. I will, however, be happy to fill your empty appointment slot on Thursday morning since your client canceled.”

      “In that case,” replied Eva, blushing slightly despite herself and snickering, “you can thank that bitch of a client for me.”

      Eva hung up the phone, smiling at the way her body tingled just hearing her young lover’s voice. He made her happy. Her husband Joe, a department head physician at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, worked virtually 24-7. Her twin boys Calvin and Graham were fourteen, started high school this year, and were hormonal and smelly and