The Matrons

June

“You’re invited to June’s December Cookie exchange!”

I look anxiously at the invitation. Not even the beautiful design can distract me from my spiraling thoughts. I know what I need to do, I’ve thought out exactly how I’m going to do it thousands of times in the last week. But I still have no idea how he will react.

“How do you like it?” my best friend, Cara, asks me.

Without looking at her, I nod and manage not to sound like I am dying when I assure her the invitations are stunning. “I’ll send them out today.”

My stomach stirs. Am I really ready to do this?

August

           “You’re invited to June’s December Cookie exchange!” Sierra reads aloud. I nearly drop the plate I’m drying. “I have been looking for an excuse to make a huge batch of cookies. We should totally go.”

           June. I haven’t heard from June for a long time. “Oh, uh, yeah,” I mumble.

           “Maybe we can also wear our matching sweaters,” Sierra says as she comes over to me and wraps her arms tightly around me from behind. She must feel my back stiffen because she presses a kiss to my shoulder and whispers, “We don’t have to go.”

           For some reason, this doesn’t make me feel any better. But it’s not like I have anything to worry about. June is my past; Sierra is my present, my future. Maybe she invited a bunch of people from grad school. That must be it.

           “No, we should go. June is a friend from grad school. It will be good to see her again.” I turn and give my wife a long kiss and press my hand to her growing stomach. “Plus, if it means we get to make cookies together, I’m all in.”

June

           “Date: December 19^th”

           I wonder if he will recognize the date. It was too convenient not to do the cookie exchange today. After all, it was what happened on this day that brought August into my life, and the reason I need to talk to him now.

I give my dining room table one last glance before I head up the stairs to go to bed. The new table cloth that I got is neatly laid over my small table. My own cookies waiting in their ancient cookie tins to be joined by those of all of my guests. I invited a total of about 25 people. If I thought I could get Gus here on my own, I wouldn’t have bothered, but I knew that he probably wouldn’t come if I just asked him to come see me.

           I was shocked when he RSVPed. I was honestly expecting him to put up more of a fight. I was even prepared to have Cara go over to his house to prove that I invited a bunch of our friends from school. Our break up was pretty ugly, but I’m glad that it didn’t stop him from coming.

August

           “Date: December 19^th”

    The date makes me nervous. December 19th. After that day we were inseparable; thick as theives. What the hell is June getting at. It's a coincidence; it's a Saturday in December. Why wouldn't she do it today, I tell myself.

The hideous sweater that Sierra coerced me into wearing with more than one treat scratched my skin and I am already annoyed by the whole situation. I still don’t understand what June thinks she is doing. With how our relationship ended, I find it hard to believe that she just wanted to invite me for fun.

           I heard that Cara and Haze will be there, so at least there will be someone there that I know. And I just hope that I don’t have to explain my messy relation with June to Sierra. I just told her that we were friends in grad school because I didn’t want to put her on edge. We both have enough to worry about with the baby on the way.

           “I can’t believe you waited until the morning of to make the cookies,” I say as I emerge from the bedroom to find my wife still rushing around the kitchen. My heart suddenly swells with love for her. The next time she passes me, I sweep her into my arms. She looks up at me with wide eyes and I notice a little brush of flower coating her cheek. I brush it off with my thumb before kissing her softly.

           “We need to leave soon or we’ll be late.”

June

           “Time: 1:30 PM”

           Now I’m starting to worry. It’s almost two and August still isn’t here. What will I do if he doesn’t show up?

           “June-bug!” Haze, Cara’s husband shouts as he saunters in carrying two sleeping children. Hazel was Gus’s best friend in school. Incidentally, he and Cara were the couple that survived. Despite every sign, I thought Gus and I were going to make it too. How wrong I was.

           “Here I can take James,” I say, reaching for one of the children in Haze’s arms. “How have you been. I have seen you in a while.”

           “I’m doin’ good. I actually got that promotion that I applied for. I had to fight a bit for it, but it means that we can finally get Ava into that art school she’s been dying to go to.”

           Ava is Cara’s oldest daughter, and you would never guess it, but she had her before she married Haze. Ava was an infant when I first met Cara, and I know that one of the main reasons that Cara and Haze are still together is because Haze has been an amazing dad for Ava.

           “That is amazing. I can’t wait to hear about how she likes it.”

           Just as I finish, I hear the doorbell ring. August.

           “Woah, June. Are you okay, you look like you’ve seen a ghost? Do you what me to get the door?”

           “Uh, no…I’ve got it.”

August

           “Time: 1:30 PM”

           “Maybe I can call Haze and see if he will let us in so that we don’t have to be the people who are almost 45 minutes late.”

           “Oh, shush. It’ll be fine. Worst case, we can blame the baby,” Sierra says, placing a hand on her stomach.

           Sighing, I reach out and ring the doorbell. I can hear people inside talking, and I get a jolt of excitement when I realize that Haze is here. It has been months since I saw him last.

           After a moment, the front door opens slowly. Her raven-colored hair is longer than it was the last time I saw her, but it still has the same waves. I have to push away the memories of playing with her hair before my eyes can even focus on her face. Tan skin stretches across her facial structure like silk and her dark eyes not looking at me, but at my wife.

           Why did I think this was a good idea? June is one of the most beautiful people I have ever met, inside and out. She is one of the first people I truly loved. For some reason, I thought time could heal this wound.

           “Oh, uh…” she starts.

           “Hi, I’m Sierra, August’s wife,” Sierra says, oblivious.

           “June,” she says, taking Sierra’s outstretched hand.

           “Wow, you are gorgeous,” my wife gushes.

           “Thank you,” June says softly. “Here, come in. I will take this for you and put them on a dish. The cookies are in here, feel free to take as many as you want.”

           I still haven’t caught June’s eye; I don’t know if I want to.

June

           I wasn’t expecting him to have a wife. This might complicate things.

How did I not know? Haze and Cara must know. Were they just keeping it from me?

           The dull thud of my heartbeat sounds in my ears. I know that I still have to do this. I focus on emptying Sierra’s thumbprint cookies onto a platter. The cookies are perfect. I mean, what should I expect? After the mess that was Gus and me, why shouldn’t he want to go find someone who is perfect? People can only stand messy for so long. And the matching sweaters just proves how much he has changed.

           I find Sierra and Gus embracing in the dining room, Gus already has a cookie in his mouth. A Russian Tea Cake. My cookies. Pushing away the thought, I hand Sierra her cookie tin and look up at Gus.

           His eyes are hard. I wouldn’t blame him if he hates me.

           “It’s been a long time, June,” he says in a deep voice. Manhood fits him well. The scruffy beard makes his jawline more visible, sharper.

           “Yeah, it has. I see a lot has changed since then.”

           He lets out a sound that is halfway between a chuckle and a sigh. “That seems like an understatement. I mean look at you. A teacher now at the university.”

           “I’ll let you two catch up,” Gus’s wife says softly, pressing a kiss to Gus’s cheek before swiftly leaving the room.

           “She’s pretty.”

           “June,” Gus says in a warning tone.

           “And one on the way too,” I can hear my voice break as the fact starts to really sink in. But I have no right to be upset. Gus isn’t mine, and he hasn’t been for a long time.

           “June,” he says again. He runs a hand down his face, and I realize how tired he looks. “Why did you invite me. Why did you bring me here?”

           “Oh, that.” I suddenly feel like I’ve made a big mistake.

           Gus ignores my non-answer. “Why am I not surprised that out of all of, you were the one that couldn’t leave that school. I didn’t even know that you wanted to be a teacher.”

           “Is there something wrong with that?” I say defensively.

           “No, nothing wrong with it,” he says, clearly holding something else back.

           There is a heavy silence in the room. The air clouds my airways, spiraling into my lungs, then refusing to move. Stagnant. My whole being is stagnant. He’s right. I haven’t left the school where I first met Gus. I haven’t been able to escape the gravitation pull of the school and its secrets. I suddenly wonder if Gus knows what I want to say to him.

           “You should probably go find your wife.”

           “Really?” he almost sounds mad now. “Is that it, June? You just came here to check up on me. To ultimately get hurt when you saw that I moved on. That I‘m not stuck in the past like you are. I just hope you’ve given up on solving that stupid mystery you were obsessed with in school.”

           I can almost feel the scars this man left on my heart burning. Part of me wants to throw something at him. How dare he? He was the one that told me about the stupid thing. He cared about it just as much as I did.

The other part of me feels incredibly stupid. Why haven’t I been able to let it go? Why haven’t I been able to let him go?

When we fell apart. I threw myself into solving the stupid mystery. I couldn’t handle losing him, so I focused on the part of him that he couldn’t take away from me.

August

           “So, I guess you wouldn’t be interested in hearing what I found?” Her voice is so soft I almost miss it. I freeze, halfway out of the dining room, blood running cold.

           She found something? No. That’s impossible. I never told her everything I knew. I knew more than her. How was she able to find something when I couldn’t?

           I turn around. I can feel the snarl on my face before I have a chance to filter my emotions. “What did you say?” the words come out harder than I want them to, but at this point, I don’t think I can control it.

           “I found something.”

           “No, you didn’t. You are just as delusional as you always were. You couldn’t find anything even if it were right in front of you.”

           A look of hurt passes over her face before a steely look takes its place, and a deeply twisted part of me says, Good.

           “Well, it’s a good thing that someone told me where to look.”

           “You little—”

           “August?” All the fight seeps out of my body. I’ve been caught. It isn’t until I hear my wife’s voice that I realize how close to June I’ve gotten. She is looking up at me with a defiant look, but I can see the way her hands are grasping the sides of her skirt. She’s scared of me.

           “Sierra. I’ll be there in one second. June says she has something to show me. Something we worked together on in grad school. It will only take a minute.”

           Sierra gives me an unsure look before nodding slowly. “I’ll leave you to it then,” she says before quickly leaving the room. I can tell she’s mad at me.

           Great. June is scared of me and Sierra is mad at me. What am I doing?

           June swiftly walks out of the room, only stopping to throw a glance over her shoulder and say, “What? You invited yourself and now you’re not coming?”

           June leads me to her home office. What if she really did find something?

           Before I can dwell on it too long, she hands me a slip of paper.

June

           I watch as he reads it. His face transforming from anger, to shock, to fear.

           “How did you get this?” he demands.

           “They gave it to me.”

           “You liar,” his face flashes to anger again.

           “You realize if you want to hear the whole story, you’re going to have to start believing me.”

           “Fine,” there is still an edge to his voice, but now he just looks defeated.

           I take the invitation back from him. The Matrons. The secret society that Gus and I had been trying to find in grad school. The one we thought might be connected to the mysterious death of the president of the university in the 60s. The one we know was connected to the disappearance of a major politician who was an alumnus on December 19th.

           “They had no choice.”

           “What do you mean?”

           “They had to initiate me," I pause, "after I found the body.”