Lisa Swain walked into Zoomdweebies Coffee Shop in historic downtown Keytown, Maryland, on this chilly spring morning before heading one block over to open her bakery. She greeted the owner, Zarina, as she always did. Once again she noticed the two women at their usual table in the corner.
“The usual?” asked Zarina.
“Sure,” said Lisa. “Too early in the morning to be adventurous! But I will try one of those blueberry scones.”
“Just baked them this morning,” said Zarina.
“Even though I have a bakery, it’s always nice to start off the morning with something baked by someone else,” said Lisa.
“Let me warm it up for you with some butter and I’ll bring it over, if you have a second to sit down,” said Zarina. She looked over at the table where Maggie and Eva were sitting.
Lisa too glanced quickly over at the seated women.
“Sure,” she said. “Thanks, Zarina.”
Lisa felt guilty for doing it, but once again she took the table beside the two women. She had seen them about a half a dozen times or so in the coffee shop: the auburn-haired woman she recognized as owning the Wings Vintage Clothing store in town, and the black-haired, well-dressed woman. She knew their names from eavesdropping on their conversations: Maggie and Eva. There used to be a third woman in the group, Stacy, with a long blond braid, but Lisa knew she’d moved away from town a few months before.
Zarina brought over a caramel latte and blueberry scone, and Lisa thanked her. Lisa had her journal out and was writing in it. Her journal was her shield—when she wrote in it, she didn’t have to talk to anyone, but also it seemed to make her invisible, or she liked to pretend it did. The women at the next table wouldn’t notice she was eavesdropping on them if she was writing away in a journal, minding her own business. So she wrote, but they didn’t know she was writing about them and their club, the Scarlet Letter Society.
“If I have to live another moment in this marriage with Joe, I will hurl myself off that bay bridge the next time I cross it to visit my mother’s cottage,” said Eva.
“Well, you damn well aren’t coming to me for marriage advice after I just escaped my second one,” said Maggie, “after cheating on both my husbands.”
“Thank God for lovers,” said Eva. “Or how the hell would we stay married to anyone in the first place?”
“It’s a fair question, friend,” said Maggie.
Lisa scribbled furiously. She was miserable in her marriage, too. She had no friends in the subdivision, Stony Mill, where she lived, and she had decided she wanted to be friends with Maggie and Eva. Her problem was that she was painfully shy, so she didn’t know how to approach them. Her other problem was that she wasn’t cheating on her husband, which seemed to be the singular requirement for membership in the Scarlet Letter Society. Her only advantage, really, was that “society” seemed to be a group word, and right now there were only two of them, so they were down a member. One day, she was just going to do it—somehow figure out a way to approach them. She finished her scone and coffee, closed her journal, thanked Zarina, and left, heading over to her bakery a block away.
Less than an hour later, Lisa was at her bakery, Blackbirds Pie, rolling out dough on the counter when she heard the gentle ting-a-ling of the shop door. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Standing before her were Maggie and Eva, holding coffees.
She tried to hide the shock from her face. This was her chance. Lisa stood up, smoothing down her tan skirt, pulling her blond ponytail tighter. It gave her confidence that she was blond—maybe she could fill the blond contingent in the group. She walked up to the counter.
“Welcome to Blackbirds Pie Bakery,” said Lisa. “May I help you?”
“Yeah,” said Maggie, “our friend Zarina said we had to try the chocolate croissants over here so we wanted to get two of those to go.”
“I was just at Zarina’s shop today too!” she said, putting croissants in individual bags, placing them on the counter. “First ones are on the house.”
Then Lisa started speaking very quickly. “Listen, you ladies don’t know me, and this is a little bit awkward, but my name is Lisa. I’m sure it’s very rude that I overheard your coffee shop conversation, but I just want you to know that um, I’m cheating on my husband and I need a club and I wondered if you might consider…”
Maggie started laughing. Eva looked at Lisa like she was from another planet.
“Hello, there, Lisa the baker,” said Maggie, “who is cheating on her husband. That’s a pretty brave move, just putting that out there like that.”
“I think ‘rude’ is the word she used,” said Eva, the corporate attorney. “She was listening in on our conversations without permission for who knows what period of time…”
“I’m really very sorry,” said Lisa. “I would completely understand if you just told me to…”
“Aw, give the girl a break, Eva,” said Maggie, looking pointedly at Eva. “That took a lot of guts. And you know what we say about the Scarlet Letter Society. It’s a region where other women dare not tread.”
Eva clearly struggled to hold her emotions in check, pursing her lips.
“Maybe you could join us for coffee sometime, Lisa,” said Eva.
“Really?” said Lisa. “Oh, wow, thank you. That’s so nice of you. I don’t have anyone to talk to and I thought if I could get your advice...”
Maggie seemed to sense it was time to get Eva out of there if this was going to work.
“Yes, great,” said Maggie, taking Lisa’s business card and the two bakery bags. “I’ve got your email address here. Thanks for the croissants. We will see you at the next Scarlet Letter Society meeting. But whatever you do, don’t speak of it to anyone.”
“The first rule of…” began Lisa.
“Yes,” said Maggie, smiling, as she and Eva turned to leave. “That.”