Wish Club (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Something
in the jacket of the yellow Hermès skirt-suit Lindsay was wearing was cutting into the back of her neck, and she kept reaching her hand around to smooth it down while she waited backstage for her turn on the runway. A lot of the models were milling around with her, many of them looking just as nervous as she felt.

All Lindsay had been able to eat today were a few bites of toast, her whole body fraught with tension. It didn’t help that, in order to make her suit fit, she’d been pinned and taped into it so haphazardly that now she was afraid to take deep breaths. Apparently she was even more of a skinny-binny than Nancy Blades.

But, at least so far, the luncheon seemed to be going off without a hitch. And Lindsay had only overheard a few snide comments on the mauve tablecloths—although one of them had been from Evelyn Cantwell.

“Who thought mauve was a good idea?” Evelyn had laughed.

Lindsay stopped and turned around, then walked back to explain. “The mauve was no one’s idea. It was a total mix-up on the Metron’s part.” But when she looked at the expression on Evelyn’s face, Lindsay was reminded too late of the saying that said explaining was the same thing as losing.

What’s that about? Does she really despise mauve that much?
At the time, Lindsay might have worried more about Evelyn’s disapproving look, but she’d needed to hurry backstage.

Now, Lindsay had plenty of time to mull over the day’s events while she paced backstage, and she fretted over what Evelyn’s odd expression could have meant. This was supposed to have been such a happy event for her, but her mood matched the gloom outside.

The morning had begun with a light rain that had faded into a drizzly fog, and the top floor of the Metron was still encased in it. There was no view at all, except for the inside of a cloud, which was a shame because the view from up here was usually so spectacular. One of her earlier worries had been that the turnout might suffer because of the rotten weather, but it didn’t seem to have had any effect. So far, so good. If things could just keep going smoothly, the women might be extra generous when they pulled out their checkbooks, raising more money for the adult literacy campaign, which might get Lindsay her hoped-for mention in Ann Gerber’s column.

“I thought witches only wore black.” Jocelyn Cantwell had come up behind Lindsay. She was Evelyn Cantwell’s sister-in-law, her brother’s second wife, the trophy wife. Her old-money status obtained via marriage and plastic surgery.

“Witches? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I think you know what I’m talking about,” Jocelyn said, and the woman standing next to her, whom Lindsay didn’t know, tittered.

“I’m sure I haven’t the foggiest idea.”

“We know all about your little book group.” Jocelyn shared a look with her friend. “We know you like to pretend to be witches.”

Lindsay tried to brush the tag or whatever it was away from the back of her neck, but it fell back into place, rubbing into the raw spot at her nape. When she’d reached her arm up, she’d felt one of the safety pins at the back of her skirt pop, poking into her hip. “My book group? Where did you hear such a preposterous thing?”

“Everyone’s talking about it.” Jocelyn smiled—a smile reminiscent of Molly Bonner from the Forest Woods High School cafeteria. “Everyone’s talking about how your book club has gone…
supernatural.
”

“Supernatural? That is so ridiculous. What would make people think something like that?”

Jocelyn shrugged. “You know what they say about a kernel of truth behind every rumor.” She grinned again, revealing two extremely white rows of impressive cosmetic dentistry.

Lindsay hesitated.
What on earth am I going to say?
She should deny it completely.
No, too defensive.
Throw them a bone to chew on with their perfect little teeth. “Well, we did read a book about witches last fall—in October. You know, for Halloween. And we did that finger-lifting thing—you know, like in junior high, ‘Light as a feather, stiff as a board.’”
Why am I making stuff up? Because it sounds better than the truth.
“But that’s all it was—a bunch of drunken silliness. Do you think that’s how such a silly rumor got started? I mean, witchcraft? Honestly.”

Jocelyn shrugged and gave Lindsay a mysterious look before she and her tittery friend walked away.
Well, that would explain that look from Evelyn. Which means I’m ruined. Oh dear God no, I’m ruined.
Lindsay felt nauseous.

The stage manager was waving her out. From the look on her face, and the fact that the other model was more than halfway up the aisle on her way back, Lindsay knew she had missed her first cue. She wiped the sweat from her upper lip, took a deep breath, and stepped out into the floodlights.

The lights added another ten degrees to the temperature on the stage and Lindsay was already covered in a light film of sweat. She walked the way they’d taught her to, one leg crossing in front of the other, and it took all of her concentration. The pin on her hip poked her with every step, and she wanted to look down to check that her skirt wasn’t crooked, or worse, about to fall off, but she resisted. Her whole being felt wobbly, her nerves on edge. She attempted to get her bearings. She looked at all the smiling faces staring up at her, watching her, judging her—wondering if she was a witch.

She tried instead to focus down at the tables, where the waitstaff was handing out the plates of dessert.
Oh, this is too much. No!
Lindsay quickly lifted her eyes, but there was nothing solid for them to grab on to, nothing but cloud-filled windows.

She made it to the end of the runway and was turning around when she heard a low-pitched grinding noise and felt the room begin to lurch out from under her. She took another wobbly step down the runway. The whole room felt like it was moving.
Oh my God, I’m going to be sick.

Lindsay looked at the floor-to-ceiling windows and the tables inside the room. Wait. The whole room
was
moving. She tried to find something to focus on, to establish in her mind that this wasn’t a trick and that the room was really rotating, that the spinning wasn’t just in her head. Near the doors to the kitchen Jocelyn and her tittery friend stood grinning by the panel of light switches, the large red bulb in the center glowing like a one-eyed monster in a horror movie.

The runway platform no longer lined up with the exit. There was no way out. The outbound model had just passed her. They were, essentially, trapped out there. Trapped in the center of a room filled with women, all baring their teeth at her. A science-show factoid popped into Lindsay’s head: humans are the only animals that bare their teeth in greeting.

The heat and the stress and the fear of being outed as a witch welled up in her stomach like a noxious bubbling potion of newt-filled brew. She felt the bile rise in her throat. She tried to steady herself, but between the rotating tables and the horizonless windows her eyes found nothing stable to focus on. Every time she moved her gaze, she felt a wave of vertigo.

Lindsay wiped more sweat from her upper lip—a big fashion-show no, no, which only brought on more panic. She felt the room spinning, her whole world spinning right out of control. She took a shaky step down off the runway and hobbled a few more paces toward a table. Then, in the middle of the Chicago Women’s Foundation Spring Fashion Show Extravaganza, Lindsay fainted on Evelyn Cantwell’s streusel.

A
truck’s horn blared in her ear. Gail lurched, her heart racing, and slammed her foot on the brakes—before realizing she wasn’t driving at all, but sitting inside her parked minivan, outside of her sons’ school. She must have fallen asleep.

The truck was trying to get by all the SUVs and minivans parked and double-parked outside the school. It looked to Gail as if the Hummer in front of her was the sticking point.

She swallowed and tried to breathe. Stupid natural-birth breathing exercises. They’d failed her three times; she didn’t know why she thought they would calm her now. Emily was still sitting contentedly in the back seat, watching the moms parade by outside her window. “C’mon Em. Let’s go get the boys.”

A couple of kindergarten moms stood outside the gate, and Gail walked down to join them. When she got close, she saw them whisper to each other and close ranks. Two of them picked up their toddlers, who had been running around on the sidewalk.

That’s weird. What would they be upset with me for?

A voice called from behind her. “Gail Preskill! We haven’t seen you in ages.” Ugh. Susie Schaeffer. Craft mom.
Probably wants me on another committee.
“Have you been hiding?”

Hiding is the impossible dream.
“No, I’ve just been busy. Andrew—”

“Well, we thought you might be hiding.” Susie ended most sentences with the same two tones. One high-pitched. One low. She alternated the pattern from low-high to high-low and it made her sound as if she were caught in some eternal playground-taunt hell.

“Why would I be hiding?” Gail tried to sound calm.
She knows about the porn.

“Well, when I heard, I just couldn’t believe it. I said, ‘Not Gail Preskill. Our kids play together.’”

“Couldn’t believe what?” Gail’s pulse was racing and her mouth had gone dry.
I’m holding my two-year-old’s hand. Would she say something about the porn in front of a two-year-old?

“About your book club. You know, the
witchcraft.
”

Gail didn’t know whether to be relieved or irritated that she now had something else to worry about. “Witchcraft?”

“Just say it’s not true. Because no one wants to believe it—so just say the word, and we will back you up one hundred
percent.
” Susie smiled, waiting. “It’s not true, is it? Because,” she laughed nervously, “if it were, I of course couldn’t let Connor—”

“It’s not true,” Gail said.

When
Claudia entered the reception area of Peterson’s office after classes, his secretary glanced up and then continued typing, not making eye contact, appearing to be very interested in her computer screen. Claudia thought this was a very bad sign. The woman leaned in a little closer to her computer and squinted without taking her eyes from it as she told Claudia, “Go ahead in. He’s expecting you.”

Claudia pushed open the door and found Peterson waiting behind his desk, his fingers intertwined, elbows resting on top of it.

Shouldn’t he, really, be busier?

Claudia had wondered if he would display any hint of embarrassment at what he certainly by now must know she’d seen evidence of this morning in Marion’s office. But no, he seemed to be in complete denial—or could he honestly think she hadn’t seen anything? That she was so unobservant as to not notice his shoes, or Marion’s unusually ravaged condition? The ridiculous little nurse’s hat on her head? She would have liked to have seen him right then, seeing as how he always looked so
pressed.
Not in the
pressed for time
sense, but in the
my clothes are perfectly pressed
sense. What was that term Mara used for something like this?
Precious.
That was it. Peterson was like the male version of “precious.”
Pressed.

“Claudia, hello. Sit down please.”
Uh-oh. Pressed and professional. This was
not
good.

“Claudia, I’m afraid it’s come to our attention…Some very serious accusations have been made about you, and”—he cleared his throat—“and I wanted to discuss them with you, first.”

Accusations? First? Before what?

“Accusations?”
Are they going to accuse me of planting babies in garbage cans? In teenage girls? Oh God, this is the last thing Dan and I need.

“It’s come to our attention that you’ve become involved in some sort of a—a witchcraft cult. A coven.”

“A coven?” Claudia was stunned. She’d thought for sure Peterson had called her in here to talk about Elliot and the whole baby-in-the-bathroom incident. “Witchcraft?” Claudia repeated. “Who’s making these accusations?”