Wish Upon a Star (42 page)

She sipped the tea and looked out the window at the soft sunshine and the gardens below. A cat crept along the top of a fence, and a laburnum tree waved its fronds, so that the cat lifted its paw and batted at one. Claire felt pure happiness. It was odd that in less than two months she had created a little home for herself here in this strange city she loved, a home that was far more comfortable, far prettier, and far more ‘her’ than Staten Island had been. She had certainly been astonishingly lucky with this flat, but part of the charm of her new life was that she had so little, but that each thing she had was necessary or beautiful or both. From her kettle to her raincoat she liked and used each one of her belongings. The thought of her bedroom in Tottenville with the old knick-knacks, the dreary prints on the wall, the unwearable clothes in the closet, was utterly distasteful.

But Tottenville waited for her. She sighed, finished her tea and then opened her mother’s letter.

Occasionally life juxtaposes events so diametrically opposed, in such a short space of time, that it seems as if there must be some cosmic intelligence—not necessarily a pleasant one—at work.

Dear Claire
,

I don’t know what you are thinking. You just picked up and left. Tina says you are having an affair with some guy at the office. Is that true? Jerry says he was probably married. I don’t want to believe that. Why haven’t you come home? Tina says you quit work. Are you pregnant?

I went to church and lit a candle for you. Father Frank told me I should pray for your well-being but I said you sounded well enough in your card. Taking in the sights and living the life of Riley. Other people have to work
.

Frankly, Claire, I’m surprised at you. You’ve always been quiet but you’ve never been sneaky. When I go to church I can’t even look at the other women. Just don’t come back with a baby
.

I got the bill from Saks and Jerry nearly hit the roof. We were talking about a timeshare in Sugarbush, Vermont. We can forget that now. Thanks a lot. Jerry says we should turn your room and Fred’s into an apartment the way the O’Connors across the street did. I haven’t heard from Fred lately so I don’t know when he comes back from Germany, but I sure know we can use the money. Especially with that Saks bill. I don’t know what you were thinking of. Two hundred and ten dollars for shoes? If you want to buy jewelry and shoes, why don’t you let your married boyfriend pay for them?

So I don’t know what we’re going to do upstairs. Property taxes are probably going up—school taxes surely are. I’d like to hear from you and know if you’re coming back soon and when you plan to pay the bill. Right now I’m just paying the interest but Jerry says it’s a lot of money to throw away every month. Father Frank said he might be able to get us a tenant, but I’m not sure if I like the idea
.

Claire crushed the letter in her hand and, on impulse, opened the window and tossed the paper ball as far as she could. She couldn’t sit back down so she paced up and down the small room. What was the matter with people? Perhaps she should have told her mother she was going to London, but would it have changed anything or produced a softer response when she told her she was staying on? Why in the world would her mother think she would become involved with a married man? Or that she was pregnant? Surely Tina wouldn’t tell her that. They might no longer be friends, but Tina was never a snitch.

She went to her bureau, took out all of the cash she had, including the money from Mrs. Patel and Mrs. Venables, and counted it. It was nowhere near enough to pay her mother back, and if Claire did give it to her, it would be more difficult, maybe even impossible, for her to stay on.

And the moment after she had that thought, she knew she was staying on. She was never going to return to Tottenville, her mother, Tina, Jerry, Crayden Smithers or any of her previous life. She had no idea how unhappy she had been until she had experienced the happiness she felt here almost daily.

And then the thought of her father and his early death came to her. He’d spent so much time talking about the things he was going to do, but he never got a chance to do them. And—if she was honest with herself—she would admit that he might never have done them, no matter how long he lived. She decided to try and live every day as if it was her last.

The next morning Claire had an important errand and though she was nervous about undertaking it she was also very determined. She had spent a lot of time—it felt like hours and hours—awake in the middle of the night thinking about her mother’s letter, her life at home, her new life in London and her future. Her daring plan—to cash in the return ticket, pay her mother back and live in London permanently—gave Claire the determination she needed to make a bold move and, as she opened the door to the airline office in Regent Street she told herself to be brave.

The long queue moved slowly. Claire tried to counteract the butterflies in her stomach by looking at the posters on the wall and imagining herself in Crete, Amsterdam, Lucerne, or Milan. Perhaps she’d manage to visit these other places someday. The most attractive poster was for Nice, and the price seemed very cheap—it was a four-day ‘excursion’ which included the flight, hotels, transfers and ‘two Continental dinners’ (whatever those were). The picture of the water and the hills behind it seemed, Claire thought, the perfect combination of beach and town. She wondered if Fred had ever taken vacations away from his base in Germany. He was far more adventurous than she was and had probably been all over.

The line had cleared and she was next. An older woman nodded to her and Claire smiled as she walked up to the counter. Perhaps a smile would help. She laid down the ticket and her passport. ‘I’d like to return this ticket please,’ she said. Her heart seemed to thump almost audibly.

The woman, who wore a name tag that identified her as ‘Sara Brackett’ picked up the ticket and looked at it. Then she looked at Claire. ‘Oh. You didn’t have to wait,’ she said. Claire felt her face pale and hoped her heart wouldn’t stop beating. She clutched the counter with her right hand. ‘This is a first class ticket. You could have been served over there.’

Confused, Claire looked in the direction Mrs. Brackett was indicating. Another agent sat at a low desk with two comfortable chairs in front of it. A discreet sign indicated the area was for first class tickets only. Relief flooded her. ‘Should I go…’

‘Oh, I can take care of it,’ Mrs. Brackett said. She examined the ticket more closely. ‘Do you want to change the date and reschedule?’

Claire shook her head. ‘Just a refund, please.’

Once again Mrs. Brackett examined the ticket. ‘Well, you see, this was bought through your travel agency in New York. So normally the refund would go through them.’

‘But I’m not returning to New York,’ Claire said. ‘You see, that’s the point. I came here for company business but…I stayed on. And I’ve had this ticket since then. And I…’ She could feel tears tremble on her lower lids. Oh, how could she explain what she’d done and how she’d changed since she first got into the limo on her way to JFK airport?

Mrs. Brackett looked over her reading glasses and then back at the ticket. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘what we could do is exchange this for a much cheaper flight elsewhere and refund the rest to you now.’ She looked back at Claire. ‘Is there another destination you want to book in the near future?’

Claire saw the opportunity and she took it. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like to inquire about that excursion to Nice.’

‘Oh, that’s very well-priced. It’s not for first class, though. I’m afraid a first class round trip would be much dearer.’

‘I don’t need first class,’ Claire said. ‘I’d like to go to Nice…’ She tried to quickly compute something slightly believable. ‘When does the offer end?’

‘Just let me check for a moment,’ Mrs. Brackett said. She looked down at her computer console and then walked over to the agent at the first class ticket desk. Claire held her breath, then reminded herself that she had to keep breathing. She watched the two women chat casually about her future. She actually crossed her fingers.

Mrs. Brackett walked briskly back to her station. ‘I’m afraid there’ll be a surcharge for exchanging a single,’ she said. ‘It will be an extra fifty pounds.’

Claire thought about the huge amount the ticket had cost and the small percentage that this would deduct from the balance. ‘That’s fine,’ she said, and felt as if she was a con-artist cashing a forged check. But, after all, the ticket was hers, wasn’t it? It had her name on it. And neither Michael Wainwright nor Abigail Samuels nor anyone else from Crayden Smithers had contacted her. Obviously, the ticket hadn’t been cancelled and Claire was sure they could have done so if they wanted to. Of course, Tina might have been told to and forgotten, but whether or not that was true, Claire was going to simply be grateful.

Mrs. Brackett lowered her voice. ‘A bit of advice to you. If you’re going to Nice this time of year look out your woolies. We lower the price because it can be cold in the south of France.’ Claire thanked her and waited while they issued the new ticket.

In less than ten minutes Claire was back on Regent Street with a round-trip ticket to Nice and a check for more than three thousand pounds in her pocket. She didn’t have a bank account, but she was sure she could ask Toby, Mrs. Patel or even Mrs. Venables to pay it into theirs and cash it for her. It wasn’t as if she needed the money immediately—she just had to send two thousand dollars to her mother to be free of that debt forever.

As she got into the underground and took her seat she nervously checked again that the blue slip of paper and the gaily-colored folder with her new tickets were still in her purse. She was lucky. At that time of day there were many empty seats and she got the one she preferred; facing forward and against the window. It was silly, since there was nothing to see out the windows but she felt happiest and most secure there. She stared out at the gray murk of the underground tunnel streaming by. She would be able to pay off her mother and she would have some money left over—at least three months’ rent and maybe more. More importantly, she would owe nothing to anyone.

Claire had never felt as if she were a proud person; if she were, she certainly wouldn’t have let Tina treat her as a lackey or allowed her mother to displace her the way she had. But perhaps she had always been proud and perhaps their behavior had always rankled—she simply hadn’t had an option back then or hadn’t had the courage to find one. As she looked out at the tunnel whizzing by, interrupted only by bright posters at the stations, she thought how she had let her life—up to now—whiz by as gray as the tunnels were. When they stopped at a station in front of an enormous ad for BT, she thought of the smaller poster of Nice. She was not only going to pay back her mother, but she was going to have another adventure! The fact that she spoke no French and knew no one there made her slightly nervous (after all, she had been brought to London and shown around by Michael) but surely she could do this on her own. And, it was only four days. She decided she would ask Toby for any novels he had, set in Nice, and perhaps buy a travel guide as well. She was proud of all she had accomplished that day; having the nerve to return the ticket, the ‘exchange’ she had created, the spontaneous trip to Nice, and the check in her purse.

When she got off the train she passed a flower stand and paused. She would buy a bouquet for Mrs. Venables and a smaller one to put in her darling vase from Mrs. Patel. In fact, she would buy flowers for Imogen as well.

Laden down with lilies, roses, statice, fragrant stock and lilac, she went home. She filled two vases, wrote a thank-you note to Imogen for coming to her class, admired her room with its exquisite vase filled with pretty pink roses and ferns and headed back out to Knitting Kitting.

When she got to the door of the shop she was pleased to see three women customers inside. She entered and everyone, including Mrs. Venables, looked over at her.

‘What absolutely lovely flowers,’ a woman whom Claire did not recognize said.

‘Oh, I adore early syringa,’ a bossy-sounding woman she identified as Mrs. Lyons-Hatchington said and smiled at Claire as if she liked her. ‘While you’re here,’ she added, ‘can I use this cotton instead of the wool yarn? Does it make a difference?’

‘Well, it depends on what you’re making,’ Claire said. ‘Cotton is lovely and very flexible, but it tends to split more easily when you push the needle into it instead of around it.’

‘Well, I was thinking of a summer jumper but I…’ Claire gently led Mrs. Lyons-Hatchington to a decision then she walked over to Mrs. Venables at the counter. The third woman was standing beside it and Mrs. Venables was wrapping up what looked like a large order. When she raised her head her blue eyes opened wide at the bouquet Claire held.

‘Oh, my dear!’ she said. ‘Those are quite astonishing. Aren’t you lucky.’

Claire nodded. ‘But not because of these,’ she said. ‘These are for you.’

‘My word,’ Mrs. Venables said. She stood for a moment staring at the blooms. Before her customer could get impatient, Claire handed the wrapped flowers over and quickly packaged up the purchase. She thought she recognized the middle-aged blond woman from Mrs. Venables’s class but couldn’t be sure and simply smiled.

‘Enjoy your wool,’ she said.

‘Oh, I will. I also want to thank you for starting these classes. I love getting out and meeting people and the two of you work so well together. I never expected knitting to be so relaxing and fulfilling but to take a ball of wool and turn it into something useful is—well, it’s like spinning straw into gold.’

‘That’s lovely that you feel that way and thank you for the compliment,’ Mrs. Venables said.

Claire, not knowing how to react to the praise, turned to Mrs. Venables. ‘Shall I go upstairs and get a vase?’ she asked.

‘No, dear, I can do it.’ Mrs. Venables looked at the flowers. ‘These are quite magnificent. You really shouldn’t have, you know.’ She pursed her mouth and puckered her eyes in a mask of mock sternness. ‘You don’t want to go spending all the profits, especially before we’ve made them.’ Then she laughed. ‘I do sound like Nigel, don’t I?’