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“The Eating Club” was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 71st Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author.

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collage by Judith Beth Cohen

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The Eating Club

by Judith Beth Cohen

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 ….. Over her desk Lee hung a twelfth century Japanese print titled, “Infirm Lady and her Faithful Cock.”

 ….. “The rooster looks as if he’s about to peck her eye out,” Jay said.

 ….. “That’s impossible,” Lee said. “Why would her faithful cock do such a thing?”

 ….. Clashing colors decorated Lee’s studio: Mexican blankets draped the walls; a crazy quilt covered the bed and reproductions of Great Masters were taped to the refrigerator. Lee wrote on an Underwood electric typewriter mounted on a black stand. Elegant and noiseless, the machine belonged to a friend who was voluntarily entering a mental hospital. “I won’t need it there,” she’d told Lee.

 ….. Next to the rooster was a photograph of Lee’s face divided into  six frames, each one taken from a different angle so that it looked like her decapitated head rolled on a conveyor belt. Her last lover, a photographer, had shot the series just before she moved out of his studio.

 ….. “That’s a wonderful picture,” Jay said.

 ….. “I’m saving it for my novel dust jacket,” Lee said.

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 ….. Lee and Jay each lived in a one room studio funded by a foundation that supported promising writers. The rooms were sparsely furnished, a single bed pushed against the wall, a desk and a basic kitchen. Their front doors were connected by a creaky wooden catwalk worn by the salt air which made the comings and goings of all residents public.

 ….. “My possessions have been reduced,” Jay explained five minutes after Lee met him. “My car was vandalized in New York. They took everything, even my clean underwear.”

 ….. “How upsetting,” Lee said.

 ….. “Actually, I’m pleased about it,” Jay grinned. “I’ve come to regard it as an initiation rite, a passage from youth to manhood.”

 ….. “But kids get robbed, too,” Lee said.

 ….. “True,” Jay said. “But I’ve never been.”

 ….. Lee noticed how immaculate his place was–an oriental rug on the floor, books carefully arranged alphabetically by author; World War II model planes hung by wires from the ceiling, and an 11 by 14 photo of Babe Ruth stared from the wall. “For the ambiance, “Jay said when Lee asked about Babe Ruth.

 ….. Jay spent his mornings writing on yellow legal pads at a Formica kitchen table.  Behind him hung an eight by ten glossy picture of himself, bearded and grinning, embracing a wide hipped woman in white painter’s pants. Though the beard was gone, Lee assumed that the woman still existed, though she didn’t ask.

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 ….. A day after they met, Lee knocked and invited Jay over for a drink, a trip involving twenty small steps.

 ….. “I’ll just finish this sentence,” Jay said. Lee liked the way his blue eyes glistened when he looked at her. After three drinks from her dwindling bourbon bottle, Jay became philosophical.  “We live in strange times.  When you’re as old as we are, you’ve known so many people, you forget them as you move on.”

 ….. Old? They were both in their thirties. Unlike Jay, she’d spent the last ten years trying to live with one person, but like Jay she spoke in abstractions, eliminating colorful particulars. Since neither of them had any food, the exception being one can of SpaghettiOs in Jay’s cupboard, they agreed to have dinner at a neighborhood Portuguese restaurant.

 ….. “I’m out of cash,” Jay said, closing his wallet. “Could you pay for this and I’ll reimburse you tomorrow?”

 ….. “Sure,” Lee smiled, pleased to hear him indicate a future.

 ….. “I’ve finished a hundred pages,” Lee said when Jay asked how her novel was coming along. He didn’t inquire about its content.

 ….. “I don’t count pages,” he said. “Some days I spend the whole morning on one paragraph. It makes me crazy, but the hardest thing for me is eating alone. I hate eating alone.”

 ….. “I do, too,” Lee said. “I lose my appetite. My menu gets reduced to yogurt and canned soup.” In her jeans and denim jacket with her short, shaggy haircut, Lee appeared slim but like the lady in Jay’s picture, she had ample hips.

 ….. Jay knocked on her door the next day. “Writers drink, don’t they? Let’s go drinking.”

 ….. Lee shuffled to the door from her bed, pulling a thermometer from her mouth.

 ….. “I have intestinal flu,” she said. “Do you think it was last night’s fish?”

 ….. “I feel fine,” Jay said.  “I’m off to do research on my novel,” he mumbled, then he disappeared for a week.

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 ….. Since most of Lee’s work concerned failures in human relations, she didn’t have to do research. During Jay’s absence she thought about how ordinary he seemed, quite unlike the arty types she usually fell for. Jay was a strange mixture, like peanut butter on croissants. When she teased him about his crew neck sweaters, he said: “My grandmother bought them when I was in college.  They still fit. Why shouldn’t I wear them?” Despite his pristine appearance, he did have a few quirks: a collection of baseball caps in various colors, a cracked leather jacket he’d found in an abandoned house, plus the fishing line hanging from his ceiling which often entangled her as she entered and exited.

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 ….. Marching across the catwalk a week later, Lee noticed Jay’s car back from its mysterious travels. A striped bass decal looked as if it was about to leap off the rear window. Was this new decoration a form of irony, or bad taste? Lee imagined his little Fiat plastered with stickers: Six Gun City, Santa land, Little America. So far there was only the fish.  Lee thought about the leftover chili in her refrigerator. She’d end up throwing it out if she didn’t ask him over.

 ….. They began to share a nightly meal. She made quiche; he broiled fish, and together they sliced vegetables. One sunny winter afternoon they walked out on the breakwater at Land’s End. In the blowing wind, with numb fingers and dripping noses, they picked live mussels, ripping them from the seaweed clumps they fed on. As she filled the bucket, jagged cuts appeared on Lee’s fingers, mixing her blood with the shellfish. Jay noticed her wounds and gave her his precisely folded white handkerchief to wrap around her cuts. She stared at his offering, remembering similar men’s wear in her father’s compulsively ordered bureau drawers.

 ….. “My grandmother sends them,” Jay shrugged when she commented.

 ….. In his studio they steamed the mussels in a black cauldron borrowed from their neighbor, a quiet poet. Drowning in white wine and butter, the glistening black shells opened slowly. Slivers of garlic and sausage floated over the golden flesh as they watched and waited in anticipation.  When they finally sat down for their feast, Lee tried to ignore Jay’s silent guest, but the woman in the photograph seemed to be glaring at her. After they’d eaten and washed the dishes, Lee stretched herself on Jay’s Oriental rug. He decorously spread himself beside her, and abruptly, as if a starting gun had gone off, he reached for her.  Given the meal she’d just consumed, Lee felt too lazy to respond.

 ….. “Come lie on the bed,” Jay invited.  On his narrow cot, Lee wiggled free of her jeans and was about to pull her tee shirt over her head when Jay, like a preacher administering vows, asked: “Is there any reason why we shouldn’t be doing this?”

 ….. “Probably a million,” Lee said but didn’t name any. Was he thinking of possible diseases? She didn’t have any that she knew of. Was this his subtle way of asking about birth control? Or was he referring to their silent chaperone?

 ….. “There’s no rush,” she whispered, pretending to be lost in a sensual stupor but he seemed frozen. Lee decided to apply herself to the task at hand. Future meals might depend on the outcome of their tryst.

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 ….. A few days later their initial awkwardness was forgotten. Nimble and agile, they moved like dancers, looking at each other for cues. “That was really terrific,” Jay pronounced with his face to the wall.

 ….. “Your body is great,” Lee said.

 ….. “Really? You don’t think I’m too thin?” Jay wondered.

 ….. To make room for her, he slept crouched against the wall. In the morning he donned a chartreuse bathrobe trimmed with white piping, his initials on the left breast, another gift from his grandmother.

 ….. “You have nice feet,” he said, bringing her coffee.

 …..        “Thanks,” she regarded her feet with new respect.

 …..      “I’m writing a NEW YORKER story,” he said, “called “Impasse,” about a sophisticated family whose daughter comes to visit. Then they sit around their Upper East Side apartment with nothing to say to one another.”

 ….. “Do you know such a family?” she asked.

 ….. “More or less.” He shrugged. “But my fiction is never autobiographical. For me, writing is just another nine to five job, like engineering or law.”

 ….. With her back to the photo gallery, she drank her coffee, then collected her discarded underpants and ran the twenty steps back to her own room where the lamp still glowed from the night before. Unlike his, her work was very personal. Sooner or later he’d probably appear in it. Still, nothing had been said about their coupling or the woman on the wall.  Even if this were a temporary arrangement, she could enjoy it while it lasted. As they walked to the post office, he surprised her by reaching for her hand. Maybe his public display of affection meant something?

 ….. Though they made no plans, each day around four or so he knocked at her door.

 ….. “What are you doing about dinner?” he would ask, as if this were their first meal together. Then they’d shop and while she sipped sherry and he drank cokes, they’d spend the late afternoon preparing their meal.

 ….. “My story came back from THE NEW YORKER,” Jay said. “They wrote: ‘well- written but the situation holds no interest whatsoever.'”

 ….. She laughed and so did he.

 ….. “I guess I ought to go back to my novel. Now that I’ve done some research, I can write the scenes that take place during the London blitz when limbs fell from the sky like rain.”

 ….. “Why are you writing about World War II?” She asked.

 ….. “I suppose it’s because I was cheated out of fighting a just war.” He tackled their chicken dinner, ripping meat from the bones.

 ….. “How can you lust after war?” Lee asked, watching him chew.

 ….. “I’d like to be in a barroom brawl,” he said when his mouth was empty. He dabbed the coke off his mustache. “Have you ever had a violent quarrel?”

 ….. “Sort of” Lee said, remembering how she’d flung her hiking boot at the photographer, grazing his eye. She wasn’t proud of the scene.

 ….. “Tell me about it,” Jay leaned forward, his eyes flashing.

 ….. “I’d rather not,” Lee said. “I find it humiliating.”

 ….. “Humiliating?” Jay flushed and his voice rose. “Humiliating? God, what I’d give for the release of rage.”

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 ….. Later he screwed her energetically, not roughly but with no hint of tenderness. For Lee, all their writhing around began to feel like acting out a bawdy tale with no plotline. During his next absence she strolled past a dead seal on her solitary beach walk. Lee imagined how intrigued he’d be by that corpse. It was something to tell him when he returned; better than questions about his “research, “or where he went, or whom he saw.

 ….. “I brought back a special treat.” Jay held up a green plastic lime.

 ….. “Key lime juice from Florida,” he explained. “For making Key Lime Pie!”

 ….. Had he been all the way to Florida, she wondered?

 ….. “It’s as if I’ve never been away,” Jay said, pawing her while the pie baked. She responded as the two-pound lobster they’d selected left its bag and began slowly crawling towards the door. Laughing, he retrieved it while she went next door to borrow the poet’s large pot. Later, when she carried him a piece of their Key Lime pie, the silent poet took it, giggled, and shut the door.

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 ….. With only one month left to their fellowship, Jay spoke of coming into port as if they’d been on a long cruise.

 ….. “I guess I won’t see you again after June,” Lee said, and Jay didn’t contradict her.

 ….. “At least you have a job waiting for you,” he said. “I don’t know what I’ll do.” He poured himself a glass of straight gin.

 ….. Lee offered constructive suggestion: teach adult education, work for a newspaper, apply for another fellowship, but he objected to all her ideas.

 ….. “They’re too unreal. I’d rather work on shrimp boat.”

 ….. By then their sexual gymnastics, much diluted had just about evaporated, but their meals went on as before. A package from Jay’s grandmother arrived, containing along with the handkerchiefs, a large, canned ham.

 ….. “Eggs Benedict,” Lee said, looking at the can. While he ran out to find English muffins, she whipped Hollandaise sauce. Jay returned with the muffins and a single red rose, which he presented to her with a bow. “What a wonderful brunch,” he said, his voice almost loving.

 ….. “Yes,” Lee agreed. Her back to the photographs, she looked at the rose and blurted: “What about us?”

 ….. “You mean the lack of sex?” Jay asked. “I never feel sexual when I’m depressed but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel affectionate.” He squeezed her hand as if to demonstrate.

 ….. “We both pretend as if we don’t care, as if it doesn’t matter if we ever see each other again, as if none of this happened.”

 ….. Jay didn’t answer. After an uncomfortable silence, Lee returned to her room. The next day she rushed to share her news with him. “Book contract,” she announced waving an envelope in front of him. “Not final but it sounds very promising.”

 ….. He scanned the letter then poured glasses of last night’s wine for a toast.

 ….. “That’s terrific for you.” His eyes wandered, resting on his model plane.  “I think I’ll go to England. It would be good to finish my book there.”

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 ….. Lee now slept alone, neither fighting his withdrawal nor accepting it. Before she turned out her light, she would listen for his footsteps on the catwalk, uncertainty feeding her interest. When she heard nothing, she slept, as uneasy with abstinence as she’d been with excess.

 ….. Late one night, Jay woke her. “Can I sleep here?” His voice was meek. “I’ve been walking the streets for hours. God, the last time I felt this way, I got on a plane but I can’t do that now, I have no money.”

 ….. “What is it?” Lee asked. “Tell me what’s bothering you?”

 ….. “Uncertainty about my life,” he said. “I can’t talk about my troubles. I’m not used to revealing anything,” he said.

 ….. “Try,” she encouraged. “It’s about her isn’t it, the woman in the picture.”

 …..        “I can’t,” he said, and crawled under the covers. She moved against the wall, making room for him; then she stroked his back, accepting his silence.

 ….. “I’m glad you’re here,” he embraced her in the morning. “Let’s do something really special this weekend.”

 ….. Touched, Lee took down the photo of her rotating head and handed it to him. “I’d like you to have this.”

 ….. Jay grinned. “You know how much I like this picture.”

 ….. They began planning the elaborate meal they would have–a whole bluefish stuffed with crab. As a surprise Lee baked cookies. With a frosting tube she lettered each one: “Lee,” “Jay,” “Fiction,” “Novel,” “War.” She was trying to come up with other words to fit on the cookies having eliminated, “Guggenheim” and “Pulitzer” when Jay knocked.

 ….. “I have to fly to New York,” he said. “My friend just called. She’s wiring the ticket money. It’s urgent, I have to go.”

 ….. Lee blanched. It was the first time he’d mentioned his “friend.”

 ….. “I feel ripped off,” she said, looking at the cookies.

 ….. “I haven’t been deceiving you,” he said. “I’ve acted honorably.”

 ….. ‘Honorably,’ what an archaic word, Lee thought in the silence that followed.

 ….. “It’s not a question of honor. You made plans with me for this weekend. Tell her you can’t make it.”

 ….. “I can’t do that,” Jay said redder now than she’d ever seen him, more flushed than he was during sex. “Then take your cookies,” she said, handing him the platter.

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 ….. Lee packed her books and papers and tried not to think about Jay, but in idle moments she’d imagine him contrite, standing at her door while she considered whether or not to give him another chance. When she noticed his fish embossed car back in its usual spot, she vowed to ignore him. Though she hurried past his door, she nearly tripped over a pair of sling back pumps discarded at his threshold, a territorial marker. Later, sitting alone at a restaurant Lee could hardly eat as she scanned for signs of Jay and the shoe owner. She headed to her room when her path was abruptly blocked–the figure on Jay’s wall had materialized, but it was too dark to see if she resembled her picture.

 ….. “Hello, Lee,” she heard Jay’s embarrassed voice coming from behind the woman.

 ….. Lee stepped aside to let them pass. Back in her studio, she wondered if he’d removed her own rotating head from his row of photos. Since Jay and his “friend” were out, why not look?  Quietly, she walked to his door and peered through the window. The walls were bare. All of Jay’s pictures had been taken down, even Babe Ruth; only a cleanly picked fish skeleton had been left on the table. Except for the dinner remains, the place looked sterile. Her stomach growling, Lee gazed hungrily at their meal scraps.

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J. B. Cohen’s  story collection,  Never Be Normal  (2021),  is available from Atmosphere Press, and her novel,  Seasons  (1984),   from The Permanent Press of Sag Harbor, New York. A collection of her collages:  Cats and Their Ladies: From The Wife of Bath to Willa Cather  (2025) is available from Shawmut Peninsula Press, Boston, MA.    After many years as an educator at Harvard, then Lesley Universities, she is now a semi-retired yoga teacher.

 

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“Where the Music Wasn’t Allowed,” Jane McCarthy’s winning story in the 71st Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest

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