Nineteen

Sadie couldn’t put the book down, and she kinda hated herself for it.

Reading Lace in the library surrounded by so many other, more worthy reading options—including “Notes on ‘Camp’” sitting on the table just waiting to be explored in her nonexistent thesis—made her focus on the trashy novel all the more shameful.

On a flawless summer day, she was huddled indoors, racing through six hundred pages of outrageous drama and even more outrageous sex.

If she had any intellectual integrity, she would have stopped reading at the prelude, a graphic scene of a thirteen-year-old-girl getting an illegal abortion at the hands of an indifferent doctor. But then the book jumped ahead a few decades to four successful women—Maxine, Judy, Pagan, and Kate—who had been summoned to the Pierre Hotel. They’d been called to meet with an international film star named Lili, who Maxine thought of as “that gold-digging slut.” Maxine, in her forties, had already had a face-lift, justifying that it was sensible to have it done when you were still young so that nobody noticed. Now, there’s some life advice, Sadie thought. Judy, at least, had some more useful words of wisdom: the idea that you became an adult when you stopped caring about what other people thought about you and instead started caring about what you thought of them.

The four women were old friends from a Swiss boarding school. When they were all assembled for the surprise reunion, Lili appeared and said: “Which one of you bitches is my mother?”

Sadie had to admit: that was an opening. And the writing was serviceable, even if its primary service was detailing the women’s glamorous and privileged lives.

The book flashed back for long sections of the characters as teens at their boarding school. The pages were filled with “flesh throbbing” and various scenarios of consensual and nonconsensual sex. Just when Sadie thought she’d had enough, that it was an insult to her intelligence to be reading the book even as a guilty pleasure, one of the characters would do or say something that made her rethink the book. For example, despite the retro gender roles, Maxine called out the sexual double standard, noting that it was accepted that a boy could get carried away by passion but it was always the girl’s responsibility to set the sexual limit. Why was it her job to control his lust?

Right on, sister, Sadie thought.

What had her grandmother thought of all this? Her friends? She’d resisted the urge to delve further into the book club journal because she didn’t want any spoilers. But as soon as she was finished with the novel she was going back to the journal.

She could see the appeal of book clubs for the first time; she’d never understood the point before—maybe because her need for group intellectual discussion was fulfilled by her classes. But now? Now she would have loved to hash out this crazy story with someone. Like Holden. If they were still together, they probably could have gotten off together over some of the sex scenes.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Leah said, surprising her from the doorway. “I could use some company.”

Sadie tried to hide Lace under her laptop, but she was too slow. Leah grabbed it.

“Are you reading this?”

“No,” Sadie said quickly. “I just found it on the shelf.” Well, searched it out and found it. But no need to go into all of that.

Her mother examined the cover. “My god. I think this is the original edition. I remember this book.”

“You read it?”

Her mother smiled. “I wasn’t supposed to. But Gran used to have a book club. She and her friends would get all dressed up and sip wine on the veranda—it all seemed very glamorous to me at the time. My parents had lots of parties, but this was different. It was exclusive, and certainly exclusionary to me.”

Sadie couldn’t help but glance up at the stairs. Should she tell her mother about the book club journal? Did she already know about it?

“Anyway, the book you’re reading was one of their selections,” Leah said. “I snuck Gran’s copy when she wasn’t around.”

“Mom. You rebel.”

Leah flipped through the pages and laughed. “No wonder you’re not getting any work done.”

Sadie felt herself blush. No, she wasn’t getting any work done. But only partly because of the book. How much longer could she pretend that she was making progress on her paper? She hated to admit her failure—even to herself. It was definitely not something she wanted to share with Leah, but at the same time, she didn’t want to lie. Her parents believed she had a job to get back to. “I wasn’t getting work done before.”

Leah put the book down and focused on her. “Hon, then maybe you shouldn’t have stayed out here. Get back to school. I don’t want this stuff to distract you.”

Sadie shook her head. “No, that’s not it. I wasn’t getting any work done at school, either. I seriously hate to say this but . . . I’m a little frozen on my thesis.”

“Since when?”

Sadie hesitated. “Months.”

“What’s wrong?”

The distressed look on her mother’s face was exactly what she’d wanted to avoid.

“I don’t know,” Sadie said. “I kept thinking it was just temporary. But for the first time, I just can’t get a handle on what I’m supposed to be writing.”

“Why don’t you take the summer off and focus on your work for Dr. Moore?”

“Well, that’s another thing: since I’ve missed deadlines for my thesis, my status in the honors program is in jeopardy. Dr. Moore . . .” Sadie swallowed. “She fired me.”

“Fired you?”

“Not in a punitive way. But she doesn’t want me spending time working for her when I should be focused on my academics.”

Leah frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I guess I didn’t want to let you down.”

“You could never let me down.”

“I thought the change in scenery out here would help. But for the past few days I’ve just been reading this crazy novel. I can’t believe that Gran—”

“You can’t believe Gran what?” Vivian said from behind them.

Sadie and her mother turned to find Vivian standing in the doorway along with Peternelle, who held cardboard boxes. Sadie slipped the copy of Lace back into her bag.

“Mom!” Leah said. “I’m so happy to see you out and about.”

“Not a moment too soon, from what I just heard in here,” Vivian said. “What are you two gossiping about?”

“Nothing,” Sadie said quickly. “Just . . . it’s such a great collection here.”

“Yes, well, I’m glad you’re enjoying it while you still can. Those awful buyers are here today. I suggest you both lock your bedroom doors. I can’t prevent them from traipsing through here, unfortunately, so Peternelle is going to help me gather a few things.”

“We can help, too,” Leah said.

“Fine. I need the family photo albums from the upper level. That staircase is treacherous, so I’m hoping you more agile beings can get the job done. Peternelle and I will start down here.”

Sadie followed her mother up the stairs, feeling paranoid. Was her grandmother really collecting the photo albums because of people visiting the winery, or did she suspect Sadie had been snooping around? Did Vivian even remember that the journal was up there?

Her mother bent down and began piling albums into her arms. “I’ll get this row. If we can each pack up half a shelf, I think we can make it in just a few trips.”

What if her grandmother had forgotten about the journal and mistakenly left it behind for the new owners to discover? She had to confide in her mother; Leah would know what to do.

“Mom,” Sadie whispered. “Did you know that Gran had a book club journal?”

“What do you mean, a journal?”

“She wrote down all this stuff about starting a book club. How she’d tried to keep a journal before but didn’t stick with it, so instead she was going to write about this one specific thing: the books they read, who was there . . . that kind of thing.”

“How do you know?”

“I found it hidden away in a compartment behind this shelf.”

Sadie, one arm full of photo albums, pointed to the spot at the back of the shelf. Her mother crouched down on her knees to get a better look.

“It’s locked,” Leah whispered.

“It’s not—I sprung the lock last time. We can pull it open.”

“Do you need another set of hands?” Vivian called from below. “Should I summon Asher?”

“No, Mom—we’ve got it,” Leah yelled back. She turned to Sadie. “We really shouldn’t invade her privacy.”

“I know,” Sadie said.

“But I have to admit, I’m curious,” Leah said. “I never knew her to keep any kind of journal.”

“She wrote stuff in there about feeling pushed aside, not having a lot to do. This was, like, her thing. A project.”

“Pushed aside? I always saw her as so busy and in control of her domain.” Leah bent lower, peering again into the shelf. “Well, I don’t want to snoop.”

They sat in silence. Sadie, trying to justify her own behavior, said, “If you just read, like, the first page it wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Maybe just a few sentences?”

Sadie glanced nervously at the stairs, hoping no one was walking up to bust them. Then she pulled open the compartment door and retrieved the journal, passing it to her mother.

“What in heaven’s name is taking you so long? At this rate we’ll be here all day!” Vivian called out.

“Coming down now,” Leah said, tucking the journal in her arms behind the photo albums. They reached the first floor and unloaded their armfuls of books onto the table.

“Wonderful,” Vivian said. “Peternelle, please hand me a box.”

Leah began organizing piles. Sadie looked around for the journal but had lost track of it. She had to trust that her mother would take care of it.

Vivian walked around the room, directing Peternelle to pull certain books, and then they all pitched in to seal them in boxes. The efficient operation ended with her mother calling for staffers to help carry out the boxes. Vivian trailed behind them, muttering about the indignity of having to pack up her personal belongings to keep them safe.

When she was alone with her mother, Sadie said, “Do you have the journal?”

“No,” Leah said. “I slipped it under your Susan Sontag book.”

They glanced back at the table, completely empty. “Notes on ‘Camp’” was gone.

And so was the journal.