Wish Club (10 page)

“And where do you live now?” Molly asked, and when Claudia told her Forest Hills, Molly’s demeanor immediately became frosty.

“I’m from Forest
Woods.
” Molly eyed Claudia’s tray. “Tell me,” she paused, “do they eat a lot of meatloaf in Addison?”

Claudia swallowed hard. “No, not really.”

“Do you
like
meatloaf?”

“No, not really.” Claudia knew she was doomed.

“Then why did you get the meatloaf if you don’t like it? That doesn’t seem very smart.” She paused. “Or are you lying to me?” Molly’s demeanor had quickly changed from frosty to mean.

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you? I think maybe you really like meatloaf.”

Molly glanced over to her table; her friends were smiling at her in encouragement. A large portion of the lunchroom was paying attention to them by now. Claudia glanced up and met the eyes of her new classmates. They looked hungry for carnage.

“I think you need to eat your meatloaf,” Molly said, “just like you did back home in Addison.”

Claudia looked down at her cold plate. The gray meat looked as menacing as Molly’s green eyes. “I guess I’m just not very hungry.”

“Oh, I think you are. I think you’d better eat your meatloaf, Cloddia.”

And so Claudia’s new nickname was born, accompanied by a rumble of laughter from her peers, from which the word
Cloddia
could be heard repeated several times.

“You better eat your meatloaf, or no one here is going to be your friend.”

Claudia looked down at her plate. She could sense the room holding its breath, waiting to see if she might actually try it.

“I’m not hungry.” Claudia said it with more strength than she felt. There came a point on the downward spiral where you had nothing more left to lose.

“I think you are. I think you need to eat your meatloaf like you did in Addison.” Molly smiled and looked over at her table of friends again. “If you don’t eat your meatloaf, you won’t have any friends. You won’t have a single friend at this school.”

Claudia couldn’t imagine that eating her meatloaf would help her in any way. With more hostility this time, while simultaneously managing to stare down Molly Bonner, she said, “I’m not hungry.”

The standoff had captured the attention of the entire room and, to Claudia, there seemed to be no escape. She looked down at her plate, then up at Molly again, this time with calm defiance. “Maybe you’re the one who isn’t very smart, because I’ve had to tell you I’m not hungry three times.”

A silent yet palpable gasp permeated the room.

Claudia held Molly’s gaze. Clearly, this was not the response Molly had been expecting. She’d obviously been hoping for tears or pleas for mercy, or maybe even to see someone sample the meatloaf and gravy for the first time in the history of Forest Woods High School.

Something along those lines would have been the response Claudia would have normally expected from herself as well. Instead she continued down her newfound course. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight. If I eat this crap, then I can have a bitch like you for a friend. Hmm. What’s behind door number two—”

“I’ll be your friend,” she heard a girl’s voice say. It had come from the next table over.

The voice had belonged to Lindsay Tate.

Watching the social dramas unfold in the Strawn Academy cafeteria brought Claudia back to her adolescence every time, like a lesson in social hindsight. The students interacted in their assigned hierarchies and she wondered which friendships would last. It wasn’t predictable.

People sometimes decided you would be their friend, and it was as though you weren’t given any choice in the matter. Lindsay had chosen her that day because of the way Claudia had stood up to Molly Bonner. In both situations, Claudia felt her choice had been made for her. It hadn’t been a conscious decision to stand up to Molly. It had just happened.

And as far as Lindsay’s overture of friendship went, Claudia saw no choice there either. She saw no other possibility in a lunchroom full of people, everyone waiting to see if the two of them would unite to deflate Molly Bonner. And so, for nearly twenty years, Lindsay Tate-McDermott had been Claudia’s friend.

Later, other friends, like Gail, would comment on how odd their pairing was, what improbable friends Claudia and Lindsay seemed. Unlike most friendships between women, theirs was never warm and girly, based on a mutual affection for each other. It was a friendship that merely persevered. But, like an arranged marriage in which the man and woman eventually fall in love and become happy growing old together, time gradually softened the hard edges of their friendship. Shared experience formed a common bond. They were friends now, real friends, but occasionally Claudia could sense a cold undertow, just below the surface—that sometimes made its presence known with a vicious comment or an angry look. Claudia had never thought much about it until recently, not until she watched the trickle-down economics of social status play out in the high-school cafeteria at Strawn, seeing it through her thirty-three-year-old eyes.

At Strawn the cliques were divided along strictly fiscal lines, with the most popular girls belonging to either old money or really big-name new-money families. Fame also helped, and the scions of famous actors or sports stars could be accepted.

It had been the same at Forest Woods High School but it hadn’t been quite so apparent to Claudia at the time. Everyone had had more money than her family did, and she had known nothing about society and its striations; she had only known she fell at the bottom.

She had learned that Lindsay Tate was the granddaughter of one of the heirs to Tate Drugs and that her family was extremely wealthy—wealthier than Molly Bonner’s family and most of the families of the girls who sat at the popular table. But Lindsay had cultivated her own clique, eschewing Molly’s kind of gumball popularity—sweet on the outside, hollow on the inside, with a flavor that didn’t last for very long.

At that time, Claudia had thought Lindsay had decided to stand apart, refusing to fit into the place society had carved out for her—her own little form of rebellion, a striking out against her birthright—and that Lindsay’s independence had garnered her her own following. It wasn’t until much later, when they were grown and living in the city, that a different truth had occurred to Claudia: that maybe it hadn’t been Lindsay who’d done the eschewing after all.

The adult Lindsay seemed so hungry to be accepted by society—and not just by the other rich people who lived around her, but by
real society.
The big names, with mentions on the society page. Ann Gerber’s column, the Women’s Foundation annual spring fashion show. All of it. Claudia watched Lindsay visibly wince whenever someone mentioned being asked to do that fashion show—the brass ring, an invitation Lindsay had yet to receive.

Her independent clique in high school had seemed to be Lindsay’s way of making the best of her situation, and Claudia’s angry “I’m not hungry” in the cafeteria that day was what had probably made Lindsay decide Claudia would be an asset to her little group. But it had been so out of character for Claudia to behave that way and she was later able to sense Lindsay’s frustration with her every time she refused to stand up for herself.

A spit-wad fight was breaking out at Strawn’s popular boys’ table. Claudia had been watching it brew for several minutes now, waiting for it to die down. It wouldn’t. She scanned the room for Henry, but he was over on the other side of the room with the second-graders, breaking up an argument—probably over a poorly traded Twinkie.

The boys at the popular table were now starting to target other tables, namely the popular girls’ table and the leftovers, who looked ready to fight back. Claudia started walking over and she could see the boys nudging and elbowing each other. She hoped that just walking by the tables would be enough.

One of the boys at the popular boys’ table, with his back to her, was readying a spit wad in his straw. The boy directly across from him was talking to him, leaning in, without taking his eyes from Claudia, obviously telling him she was on her way. The boy fired the spit wad through the straw anyway—landing it on a backpack at the leftover table.

“Hey,” Claudia said to him. “I think you need to st—”

A spit wad fired from the leftovers hit Claudia squarely in the forehead. Laughter erupted at both tables as Claudia wiped it away.

“Just knock it off,” she said as she walked away, even though the fight had already ended. A common enemy was one way to unite would-be rivals.

Chapter Ten

The
10 duck was fighting back. The fabric was just so cumbersome and heavy. Not what she was used to, and Jill was starting to lose patience. This canvas was going to be the centerpiece, the pièce de résistance of her show. And she wanted to make it huge—literally. She’d never built a canvas this large before, and she barely had room for it on the floor of her studio. All the furniture in the room was pushed up against the walls. When the canvas was finished, Jill would have to hang it on the back wall in order to paint it.

Kneeling over the canvas, Jill gave the 10 duck one more perfunctory tug before sinking back and sitting cross-legged on the floor, the stretching pliers in her hand hanging over her thigh, still holding the edge of the heavy canvas in its grip.

She really needed someone to help her with this. Stretching a canvas this size wasn’t a job for just one person, even though Jill would have liked it to be.
I should just ask someone on the floor to help me.
It would only take a few minutes—just until she could get a few main anchor points stapled in. Why was it so hard for her to ask for help? She looked down at the rumpled 10 duck. If she kept at it like this, it was going to look like a first-grader had built it. Jill let go of the pliers and stood up.

In the hall outside her studio, most of the other doors were closed. It was a luxury, she knew, for her to be here during the day. Most everyone in the building had a day job—except the husband and wife sculptors who shared the big studio on the first floor. They made their living with their art. Jill made her living with her art, too. She just
lived
off her trust fund. A luxury. She half-heartedly knocked on a few doors with a preconceived notion of futility, not expecting any answers.

Jill went down the back stairs to the first floor, worrying now that she might not find anyone around. She really wanted to get the canvas stretched and primed today so she could start working on it. Something this size was going to take some time to complete. It was only the first week in February and her show wasn’t opening until the third week in March, springtime, which seemed such a long way off—but in reality it was not much more than six weeks.

Greta, the owner of the Eleventh House Gallery, which represented Jill, never agreed to a show unless her artists already had a fair amount of pieces ready, which Jill did, but they both wanted more. If she could pull it off, she knew Greta would let her use the entire floor. Greta was generous that way. Jill envisioned the giant canvas hanging on the back wall of the gallery, imposing, stunning, anchoring the rest of the pieces in the show, a sun around which they could orbit.

It was cold in the hallway of the first-floor studios, a chill breeze gliding through. When Jill turned the corner, she saw boxes stacked up outside a doorway in the front hall, in front of the studio directly below hers. Someone was finally moving into 1W. Great. She’d found signs of life, but what life form would be willing to help her stretch canvas on its own moving day?

The front door was being held open with the cinder block they usually kept just inside of it for that purpose. A tall stack of boxes rounded the corner and came through the door, the stack held up by muscular forearms that attached to equally muscular biceps that attached to the profile of an amazing-looking man.

Wow. Jill stopped, frozen to her spot in the hallway.
Wow.

“Hey.” He greeted her as he went into the studio, the word breathy and clipped with exertion.

Dark black hair hung over his face in sweaty strands. Brown eyes; unbelievable face. Smooth muscular skin. Gorgeous.

Jill heard the boxes being set down inside with a gentle thud, then footsteps heading back toward her. Involuntarily, Jill licked her lips.

“That was it.” He gave a quick glance in her direction before he went to close the front door, wiping the side of his face on a raised bicep as he passed. As he walked away, Jill couldn’t help but admire his tall physique, the broad shoulders, the narrow waist. He bent over and picked up the cinder block and set it back down inside the door. Cute butt, too. The door-closer hissed as the door swung shut behind him, muffling the sound of the El running by outside.

“Well, I guess
this
is really it.” He gestured at the stack of boxes outside the studio door, one hand on a hip. He looked up then and reached the other one out to her. “I’m Marc. Marc with a ‘c.’”

He’s so young.
Mid-twenties at most. Gorgeous, though. And the way he moved, smooth and graceful, like a big cat. Sexy. He had a calm demeanor, so confident. It made him seem older. But now that she studied his face more closely, she noticed he had a little strip of beard down the center of his chin, a sort of bunny-wax for the face.
Okay, still a kid.

“I’m Jill.” She took his hand. “I’m right on top of you.”

He held her hand in his grip for maybe a second longer than was necessary, his smile growing wider, revealing beautiful white teeth.

“I meant my studio is…up there.” She pointed to the ceiling. “On—above yours.”

“You know,” he said, his eyes laughing, “I had a feeling I was going to like it here.”

Lindsay
worked out in her downstairs exercise room on the treadmill, race-walking to a 1980s hair band. She pumped her fists back and forth, the song “I Ran So Far Away” blaring over the rumble of the treadmill, upon which she ran exactly nowhere.

She felt great today, as if she could keep going forever. She punched up the speed with her index finger, increasing the pace a few tenths of a mile. She punched up the incline a half of a percentage, too.

It had only been two weeks since the last Book Club meeting, when she’d made her wish to lose weight, and she’d already lost six pounds. It was unbelievable. Three pounds a week! At this rate…Lindsay smiled at herself in the mirror.

Her whole life she had struggled with her weight. She had never been fat—not really. She was just never thin.
Pleasantly plump
was how one high-school boyfriend had put it. Ouch.

But now—and she hadn’t been doing anything any differently, nothing she could think of anyway—now, with the power of Wish Club behind her, she was on track to be thin in a matter of months. Just months. Lindsay smiled at herself in the mirror again, reflexively bringing her right index finger up to touch her nose.

The signal. Lindsay laughed out loud. It had been years since she’d done that—used the signal. It had been years since she’d even thought of it. What a funny reflex. It was as though for a moment something outside herself had taken over—like channeling her inner child. Or maybe a muscle memory. The signal: an index finger touching the tip of the nose. To her clique of high school girlfriends it had meant something was cool. It had meant,
Isn’t this great?
Or
Oh my God, he’s so cute.
Or
I totally agree with this.

Lindsay had tapped her finger on the tip of her nose and held it there when she had heard Claudia tell Molly Bonner, “I’m not hungry,” in the Forest Woods High School cafeteria. The girls around her table had all brought their index fingers to their noses in agreement, their eyes locked together, wide with excitement, as they listened to the argument unfold. When Claudia had coolly stated, “If I eat this crap, then I can have a bitch like you for a friend,” Lindsay had excitedly tapped her nose twice before announcing, “I’ll be your friend.”

Her treadmill flashed numbers at her in red, 37:34. The time was flying by; she was almost finished with her workout. Lindsay slowed the speed on the treadmill and its rumble lessened, as if she had turned the volume down. She wiped her face with the hand towel and scooched her headband up a bit higher on her forehead. She frowned at her reflection.
This headband is hideous—so retro—so eighties.
Struck by another memory, she brought her thumb and forefinger up to tug at her right ear. The other signal, the opposite of the nose tap. They used to tug their ears whenever they wanted to leave a bad party, or when they needed help with a situation, and every time Molly or one of her henchwomen walked by.

That was a long time ago—the day she and Claudia met. And to think they’d been friends all these years (Lindsay refused to do the math). Claudia had been so sweet, so innocent really. Even now she was sweet, but it was infuriating how she could still be such a wuss sometimes. It was like dealing with two different people.

After the showdown with Molly Bonner, the girls had slid closer together at their lunch table to make room for Claudia to sit down. As Claudia had walked over, Lindsay remembered thinking she was such a pretty girl, something that hadn’t been apparent at first glance. Claudia was still the kind of pretty that took a while to notice. Sometimes Lindsay would make little hints about some makeup or maybe a change of wardrobe, but Claudia, to date, had never taken a single hint. In fact, her hairstyle hadn’t changed since high school: long and straight, a nondescript shade of light brown. And those glasses!

Back then Claudia had taken a seat at the end of the table, across from Lindsay, as the rest of the lunchroom had settled down around them, the sound level ratcheting back up, returning to its usual boisterous hum.

“I’m Lindsay Tate.”

“I’m Claudia—” and in what they’d learn was typical Claudia fashion, she’d hesitated before saying, “—Podzednik.”

They had gone around the table introducing themselves.

“Thanks for the rescue,” Claudia Podzednik had said, lowering her eyes. Her voice had grown soft, as if she were trying to show them she wasn’t usually so controversial.

“Way to go, standing up to Molly like that,” Lindsay said, beginning to wonder if maybe she’d been wrong about this girl.

And Claudia went all fumbly the way she did, stammering and shrugging—she probably dropped something, too. She pushed her glasses up her nose before saying, “I’m not usually so bitchy, but—”

Lindsay’s eyes bored into her. Had she made a mistake? Who was
this
girl?

Somehow, Claudia must have sensed her consternation, because, with a nervous glance at Lindsay, she changed her tack. “But…but that girl. Molly? Fight fire with fire, huh?”

“You were great.”

“Did you see the look on Molly’s face?”

With a
welcome to our club
camaraderie, the girl next to Claudia congenially picked something off Claudia’s shoulder while Lindsay watched.

“Am I perfect now?” Claudia quipped without missing a beat.

“Sassy,” said one of the girls from the other side of the table.

Lindsay’s gaze softened. Maybe Claudia wasn’t exactly who she’d thought she was, but she had some spunk. “You’ll do,” she said.

“I brought this down for you.” Lindsay’s husband, James, walked through the open door of the exercise room, holding a wheat-grass shake in his hand. He turned the stereo off, silencing the New Wave music.

“Thank you, sweetie. Could you set it over there? I want to keep going for a few more minutes. I’m feeling really good today.” Lindsay realized as she spoke that she didn’t even have any shortness of breath.

He set the shake down on the window ledge and looked around the workout room. “One of these days, I’m going to get around to putting those up.” He nodded at the stack of shelves in the far corner.

“You should have just bought a free-standing unit.” Lindsay’s fists continued to pump back and forth.

James had bought adjustable shelves that fastened to the wall with metal runners. It was going to be a place for her to store her exercise books and videos and rest her yoga mat and ankle weights, and all the other forgotten by-products of her past fitness crazes.

He shrugged. “It seems like an easy project. I just haven’t found the time.”

“I don’t know why,” Lindsay was breathing a little harder, “you want to bother with it. You get so little free time as it is…you should relax when you get home…pay someone else to do that kind of stuff.”

James nodded as if in agreement, but Lindsay was fairly certain he pictured himself walking around with a huge tool belt around his waist grunting like Tim Allen. That vision of her husband, with his thinning hair and paunchy belly, made her smile.

He walked over to inspect the pile of shelving supplies and stared at it for a while, in the male take-charge position. Hands on hips. Then he passed her, heading toward the weight bench. James’s eyes popped when he saw the timer on her treadmill: it read 44:47. “How long were you planning on going at it?”

“I don’t know—maybe forever. I just feel great today.”

James gave her a look.
Don’t overdo it.

Lindsay ignored it. “I’m finally, finally starting to lose some weight.”

“You look fabulous, just the way you are.” He gave her a meaningful look in the mirror, then leaned over and peeked at her rear end.

“You’re fresh.”

He grinned, pleased.

“I think it’s Wish Club,” Lindsay said.

“Wish Club?”

“Well, actually, Wish Club is the same as Book Club, but we’ve started working together to make wishes, so now I’m starting to think of it more as Wish Club.”