Free The Accidental Book Club by Jennifer Scott Page A

how full they were, followed by how amazing Mitzi’s egg rolls had been, and flavorful Dorothy’s sliders, and as always they joke-guessed about who was going to get May’s “extra protein” in their cheesecake bite.
    “I’m wearing a bandanna when I cook now, you guys. I told you,” May said, but everyone continued to giggle anyway.
    And then, since Jean’s emergency trip to St. Louis had derailed their last meeting and they had no book to critique, they all agreed on reading the first few chapters of
Blame
aloud, Mitzi starting, followed by Dorothy, and rounded up by Loretta, who made everyone laugh with her sultry, deep Thackeray voice.
    “Gross, you sound like Count Chocula trying to get it on with Franken Berry,” Mitzi said, which elicited more giggles, especially after Loretta retaliated by smacking Mitzi’s arm playfully with her book.
    Too quickly, the meeting was over. The dishes were washed and put away, and Jean was too full to eat dinner, too tired to watch TV, too wired to read.
    She ended up taking an early shower to wind down, and then wrapping herself in her fluffiest terry-cloth robe and bunny slippers. She turned on the television and held the Thackeray book in her lap while watching the evening news, her wet head still wrapped in a towel.
    “Well, Wayne, we’ve got a doozy this month,” she said aloud, and held up the book as if to show it to someone in the room. She opened it and began reading.
“Johnna Bland’s life was a travesty. She’d been hooking since she was thirteen, stuffing her grand, vellicating thighs into clothes three times too small, counting on her meth addiction to keep her thin, to keep her pretty, too blind to realize how not thin and not pretty she already was. Not even to her daughter, Blanche, whose grandest hope was to hook half as well as her mother someday, to gather up a little cash and have a little fun before unceremoniously killing herself on a subway track
.
”
She frowned at the page. “Dear God,” she said, then looked upward toward the ceiling again. “We’re in for a long one, I’m afraid,” she said. She let out a long sigh. “I sure wish you were here to read it with me.”
    The day Wayne died wasn’t the day Jean felt her life spin out of control. That actually happened on the day he was diagnosed.
    She would never forget the silent car ride home from the hospital. She’d driven to the appointment, because Wayne hadn’t been feeling well and wanted to push his seat back and recline, maybe grab a quick nap while she traversed cross-town traffic. But on the way home from the hospital, he’d snapped his seat back into its upright position and had simply stared out the window, the only sounds being the rushing of the heater and the muted noises of the cars around them—a thumping bass here, a honk there. He was thinking. Jean knew the set of her husband’s jaw when he was ruminating. But she didn’t ask him what he was thinking about. She already knew.
    She couldn’t remember blinking once on the way home.
    They’d sat that way all night—side by side at the dinner table, on the couch watching a movie, in bed reading paperbacks. All in total silence, as if neither of them knew what to say to the other.
It’ll be all right
would be a lie.
I’m scared
would be too honest for either of them to handle.
Maybe it’s a mistake
would be so optimistic as to be idiotic. It wasn’t a mistake, and it wouldn’t be all right ever again, and they were both frightened as hell, and to admit any of those things aloud would be to say a truth that neither was ready, or prepared, to face.
    “We need to tell the kids,” Jean finally said after Wayne had flipped the switch on the bedside lamp and they’d both lain in the dark, silent, side by side, eyes wide-open and staring at the ceiling.
    “I know,” he’d responded. “Can we wait?”
    “The doctor said it could be just months.” Jean almost choked on the word
months
, her voice wavering at