The Scarlet Letter Scandal by Mary T. McCarthy Page A

slut.
     
    Eva: Hamster cage liner. Fish wrap.
     
    Lisa: I just don’t want it to get around that it’s us.
     
    Maggie: Ah, who gives a fuck. Maybe we’ll get a reality show.
     
    Eva: Extreme Whores. I’m in.

O n the other side of Keytown, at 101 Oak Street, where no landscaping rocks adorned the yard, Jeannie Appleton set about cleaning up the morning’s breakfast. It hadn’t quite gone according to plan. She had imagined that the other women would be shocked and horrified by both the news bombs in the website posting. A secret group of women cheating on their husbands and meeting to brag about their adultery, not to mention sex rings in their neighborhoods? She shook her head as she Swiffered the crumbs from the dining room floor. Unbelievable. She picked up the landline phone and called her sister.
    “Hi, Cindy. It’s me,” she began.
    “Oh, hey, Jeannie. Everything okay?”
    “Just because I call you on the phone doesn’t mean something’s wrong,” Jeannie said.
    “I know. My phone just doesn’t ring that often so I always worry it’s something with a kid or family member.”
    “You know I can’t stand texting and don’t have time for it,” said Jeannie. “I just wanted to tell you that I printed out that piece of, ugh, writing you sent me and showed it to two of the women here in the neighborhood today.”
    “Did they laugh?” said Cindy. “My friends here in Maine think it’s a riot.”
    “I fail to see why anyone thinks this is funny,” said Jeannie. “The inappropriate sexual goings-on of this community are embarrassing and now they’re public and no one seems concerned in the least.”
    “Aw, big sis, you sound like Sister Saint Whosiewhatsee back in Catholic school,” said Cindy. “Times have changed. People sleeping with other people’s spouses isn’t exactly cause for a town meeting, or a stoning in the town square.”
    Jeannie bristled at her sister’s nonchalance. “I wasn’t calling a town meeting, I was calling a meeting of one of my monthly committees to see what they thought.”
    “And what did they think?” asked Cindy.
    “They were very casual about it,” said Jeannie. “Apparently family values don’t mean anything to anyone anymore.”
    “Look, sis, you left one of the most conservative religions in the world, Catholicism, to join your husband’s even more conservative uber-Christian right-wingnut cult, no offense, church or whatever, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world is on board with your cries to stone all the witches.”
    Jeannie fumed. “How dare you use the word cult with me? Our church is not a cult!”
    “I’m sorry,” said Cindy, even as she wrote “#sorrynotsorry ” on the grocery list she was jotting down. She knew she never should’ve sent her sister that blog post. Her friends had warned her against it. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Hey, I gotta run—Abbie has a dentist appointment and I need to grab her from art camp. Talk more later?”
    “Fine,” said Jeannie. “But I’m positive I’m not the only one who’s upset about this.” She slammed the receiver back onto its base.
    The floor finished, she scrubbed the counters with vigor. The cleaning lady would be there tomorrow and Jeannie needed to get everything practically perfect so she wouldn’t be disappointed at the half-baked job Luisa did.
    Her husband, Chaz, insisted on hiring a monthly cleaning service even though Jeannie more firmly insisted she didn’t want it. I’d rather just do it myself, she’d argued. This Hispanic woman was a relative of one of Chaz’s landscaping crew managers. Chaz owned a large company that employed over 100 immigrants, supposedly legally, though Jeannie had her doubts.
    “You shouldn’t have to take care of this home all by yourself,” Chaz had said, and Jeannie felt like she could practically see him puffing out his chest with the same caveman-provider bravado pride he used as commissioner of the travel hockey league.