The Scarlet Letter Society by Mary McCarthy Read Free Book Online Page A

this fucking room? And then, on the bad days, he would hit her. Eva and her sister would hide in their bedroom closet until it was over.
    Stay out of his way, just stay out of his way . When the attacks came, whether verbal or physical, Eva’s mother would look down shamefully, never yelling back, never fighting. She just took it. To this day, living alone on the island, her abusive drunk asshole of a husband long dead, she was as vacant as an abandoned motel. It was like life had battered her down into a state of complacency that amounted to just waiting to die.
    Eva found herself getting lost in her thoughts a lot. It was difficult to concentrate at work when she had so much going on in her personal life. The paperwork stacked on the desk in front of her demanded her attention for the big trial coming up. She wanted to prepare for it, but thoughts of her troubled marriage, wayward sons, New York chef lover, and her intern Ron, were constantly getting in her way.
    The monthly visits to Maryland’s Eastern Shore were the only time she really had to herself to try to put her life into some kind of perspective. Her mother’s cottage on Matthew’s Island had a separate small caretaker’s cottage where Eva stayed when she visited. Her mom had become more and more forgetful as time went on, and once a month was the minimum Eva could visit in order to make sure her mother was getting along okay.
    “Going to your happy place?” asked Ron as he peeked his blond head around the corner into her office door.
    Ron walked in, observing Eva staring at the enormous vintage apothecary jar on the corner of her desk. It was filled with sea glass she found on the island. It was a hobby she’d picked up from her mom. Searching for the worn pieces of glass tossed onto the beach by the Chesapeake Bay was her personal form of relaxation-therapy even. She’d check the low tide charts, then ride a bike over to the hidden spot she’d found where the best variety of colors could be found. The most typical colors- white, brown, and green were found in abundance but the jar before her held only the pale turquoise she loved best. Though she had jars filled with other colors at the cottage, her office collection represented her favorite color, each piece collected at a moment of peace not otherwise found in her life.
    Eva smiled at Ron. He was gorgeous in his sleek black suit, perfect grin, huge blue eyes staring at her eagerly.
    “That sounds like a fantastic idea,” she said.
    Ron walked over and closed the door.
    “You know, you never invite me on your New York trips,” he said, smiling at Eva. “I’d love to get out of DC once in a while.”
    “Yeah, sometime we’ll have to do that,” said Eva, immediately thinking that she’d have to find a reason to stay in a different hotel, because there was no way in hell she could stay at her usual Plaza suite and have the worlds of her two very different lovers collide. “But for now, why don’t we get out of here and take a coffee break?”
    “And by coffee break, I am guessing you mean at my apartment?” Ron beamed at her, acting surprised at the invitation.
    She grabbed her purse and they left the office separately, walking the few blocks to his apartment building.
    “What’s the matter today?” asked Ron as they walked up the steps and into his loft space apartment in an old warehouse building. “You look a world away.” Eva sat on a tan leather chair, plopping her feet on its ottoman as Ron fixed cups of coffee for both of them. She asked for Bailey’s in hers. When he returned from the small kitchen, she saw that he had unbuttoned his yellow Oxford shirt, smiling as he walked over to her with the steaming cup.

    “Oh, it’s nothing, just thinking about my day,” said Eva. “Which looks like it might be getting better already.”
    Ron’s black pants hung low on his hips. His blond hair was tousled, and Eva admired his perfect chest and abs as he put the coffee down on the