The Muffia by Ann Royal Nicholas Read Free Book Online

with a wink.
    “Hey”—I blurted involuntarily; I am , after all, the mother of a fourteen year-old girl and I’ve been a tad touchy on the subject of oral sex ever since Lila told me that some of her classmates had been caught giving blow jobs to the boys.
    “We all need to be able to satisfy ourselves at the end of the day,” Jelicka sighed, “however we can.”
    “Amen,” said Kiki. All heads turned. She hadn’t used that word since her conversion to Judaism. “What?”
    Everyone was still staring at her.
    “I’m havin’ a little religious crisis, tha’s awl. I still love going to temple with Saul and everything but lately I’ve been missing my Catholic girlhood for some reason.”
    “You’re not going to convert back, are you?” Jelicka asked. Jelicka was Jewish too, but by birth, not marital conversion. “I don’t know if you can even do that.”
    “Of course you can,” said Quinn. “You can be whatever religion you want.”
    “Not in Iraq—not if you want to live,” I pointed out. Nobody stepped up to argue with me.
    “I have no plans to re-convert,” Kiki went on. “Besides, every religion I’ve dabbled in is flawed. Or maybe I’m just tired.”
    “Are we done talking about this book?” Paige asked. “I have babysitter issues this evening.”
    “I am”—this from Vicki. “And to start the roundy-round, I might as well come out and tell everyone unless Sarah has already—yes, I have some sort of growth in my breast, and yes, I’m a little worried because none of these doctors seems to know what the best medical approach is. I might need a lumpectomy, which would leave me lumpless but the proud owner of a breast with a divot. Or I might need radiation, in which case I’ll be tired but functional. Or I might need a lumpectomy and radiation, in which case I’d have a bumpy breast and I’d be tired but functional. I might, however, need chemo in which case all the above would happen plus my hair will fall out. That said, I will go ballistic if any of you start treating me like some sort of sicko. Until I’m keeling over and losing my hair in fish soup, I don’t want you to treat me any differently.”
    It seemed to me we were all sitting there with our jaws slightly open, the pause growing longer and longer, not sure what Vicki needed or wanted to hear.
    “So, whose turn is it to pick the next book?” Sarah asked.
    And so, just like that, we found out one of our inner circle was sick with something we all feared terribly we’d get ourselves. I said a prayer and made a private vow to increase my charitable contribution for breast cancer research. Even though we were unsure what to say that night, I knew we’d talk about it and send endless emails back and forth. Together the Clitties would formulate a plan to help Vicki in every way she needed it— from grocery shopping to cleaning to monitoring Enrique to whatever else needed tending to. But that night we honored Vicki by doing as she’d asked, though probably not as she truly wished.
    “I think it's Madelyn's turn,” said Paige. “That’s what I remember from last month.”
    “Has anyone read the new Jane Smiley?” Rachel asked.
    “Rachel, you have to wait until it’s your turn again to pick a book,” Vicki said. “I think if we’ve established anything this evening, it’s that the hostess picks the book.”
    “How about The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver?" Quinn suggested. “Or is that too obvious a choice?”
    “What did she just say , Quinn?” Paige asked, rather too pointedly, I thought. “It’s Maddie’s, I mean Madelyn's turn to pick. But that was a great one and loved by book clubs all over the country.” Paige tended to like the obvious choices.
    “It’s seven hundred pages,” I said. “I think I should pick something that we, as a group, have a chance of finishing. And it’s supposed to be something I’ve read, right?”
    “How about the Calvin Trillin book about the death of his