Wish Club

by Kim Strickland

  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 win
dow 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.”

  “Wish Club.”

  “We’re using the energy of our group, the strength of women working together to empower our wishes and make things happen. I think it’s why I’m losing weight now, when I could never do it before. I made a wish for it.”

  James looked skeptical.

  “I can tell what you’re thinking,” Lindsay said. “You’re thinking it’s just a coincidence.”

  “No. It’s…I’m just trying to understand. What is it you’re doing, exactly?”

  “Well,” Lindsay was getting more winded. “Everyone gets to make a wish. We get in a circle…and hold hands around a candle…with herbs and maybe some scented oil or something—you know, to add the right energy. Then we chant for the wish to come true. It works. Look.” She waved a hand up and down her waist. “I’ve lost six pounds already.”

  James watched her for a minute. “What you’re doing sort of sounds like witchcraft to me.”

  Lindsay pressed her lips together. “It’s not…witchcraft.” Her words came out in puffs. “It’s wish…ing. It’s different.”

  “I don’t know, Linds. What I know about witchcraft could fit in a thimble, but this wishing thing you’re telling me about doesn’t sound too different. I think people might…I think people could misconstrue what it is you gals are up to.”

  Gals? Ick. She hated “gals.” Lindsay turned the treadmill off. Its rumbling stopped immediately, creating a startling silence.

  “Oh come on. What’s to misconstrue? We’re making wishes. It’s fun.”

  Lindsay toweled her face and neck. She slid the white terry-cloth headband up even farther. Blond streaks of hair puffed out on the top of her head, standing out in contrast with the rest of her damp head. Her own hair-band hairstyle.

  James still hadn’t said anything.

  “Look at you. C’mon, it’s not like we’ve formed a coven or anything.” She picked up the wheat-grass shake and took a drink.

  A dark look passed across James’s face. He was probably all worried about what rumors of a witchy wife would do to the burgeoning new-construction branch of his already lucrative real estate brokerage.

  “Ohh,” she grunted and flipped her wrist down at him. “You worry too much. What’s the worst that could happen?” She laughed, before taking another drink of the shake. “Thanks for this.” She held the glass up an inch higher, her mouth full of wheat grass. She swallowed and started to head out of the room. “I need to hit the shower right away. I’ve got lunch at the Women’s Foundation today.”

  Mara put the bills into the blue mouth of the mailbox and hoisted its bottom ledge up. The big hinge squeaked, twice, because she had to peek in again and make sure all the envelopes had dropped down. That done, she turned back down the block toward home. Normally she didn’t make a special trip out just for the mail, but some of the bills were late.

  She retraced her steps down the sidewalk, which was covered in a slushy snow, making a game of finding her old footprints going in the opposite direction. She could recognize the tread of her boots in some of the footprints. Others were just a foot-shaped impression in the slush.

  Something caught her eye on the sidewalk, partially buried in a boot print—maybe hers. It was unmistakable, what it was—but whenever she discovered it on the ground unattended, there was always that hesitation. As if she weren’t sure it could be hers. And then of course the thrill when she picked it up. It is. And it’s mine. And I just found it. Money.

  Mara reached down and pulled the bill out of the slush, the tips of her wool gloves getting drenched in the process. A one-hundred-dollar bill. She giggled. A one-hundred-dollar bill! The bill was wet and folded in half. It had been partially buried under the icy muck. Mara looked around to see if anyone had dropped it, or was around to claim it, or had seen her pick it up. She must have walked right over it earlier, missing it completely. No one else was on the street.

  How cool was this? She’d just found one hundred dollars. How lucky was that?

  But then, maybe luck had nothing to do with it. Maybe it was abundance already heading her way. Mara smoothed out the bill, wiping some slush from the back of it. This was her wish from Wish Club starting to manifest. It must be. You don’t just find one-hundred-dollar bills lying around every day.

  Mara folded the bill and put it in the pocket of her coat with a smile. She started walking back home, a new spring in her step. She would take the bill home and let it dry.

  Chapter Eleven

  The light had gone all wrong. Or that’s what Jill told herself. It really only happened around this time of the year, when the sun was so low in the sky that the blinds couldn’t quite keep all the light out. It had been cloudy all day, the sky in keeping with the slush on the ground, but the sun had just burst through a few minutes earlier, and now it was blaring through the window of her studio, ruining everything.

  Jill had been working, rather half-heartedly, for the previous hour or so, but her mind had kept straying to the portrait artist downstairs. She hadn’t seen him since that day a couple of weeks earlier when he had moved in, but she couldn’t stop thinking about him. His eyes, his smile, his cute butt as it bent over to move the cinder block when he closed the door. Marc with a “c.” He’s gay, she remembered thinking when he had introduced himself—that whole “with a ‘c” thing. But then he’d really flirted with her: the way he held her eyes, her hand. But he still could be gay, because gay men sometimes did that, flirted with straight women.

  Coffee. That’s what I need. Just a quick little break. Jill looked at the painting she’d been working on and grunted with disapproval. Any excuse to get out of here for a little while. Maybe I should ask Marc to join me for coffee. He probably doesn’t even know about Sally’s yet, the way it’s hidden under the El tracks. Sally’s coffee shop looked like such a dump from the street, like the kind of place where every head turns to see who’s walked in and where the welcome isn’t warm if you’re not a regular. Ju
dging from the outside, anyone who didn’t know better would be afraid to venture in there.

  Jill took off her smock. She thought about stopping to freshen her makeup, but then she might look as if she were trying too hard, showing up at his door with fresh lipstick. But every single morning since she’d last seen him, she’d been showing up at the 4400 North Studios with fresh lipstick. Fresh lipstick in the morning was normal. Would a straight man be observant enough to question fresh lipstick during the day?

  She was dying for another glimpse of him. He was so unbelievably gorgeous. She’d walked away from the studios that first day convinced that her wish for the perfect man was coming true. Look who’d just moved into the studio below hers! Just what the Wish Club ordered.

  But now she was starting to have doubts. If this was the man of her dreams, shouldn’t he make an appearance in her reality, too? One morning earlier in the week, the light in his studio had been on when she’d come up the sidewalk, and her heart had jumped. But when she had gotten inside the building his door had been closed and instead of knocking, she’d just walked past, disappointed.

  He’d dropped everything, almost literally, on that first day to come up to her studio and help her with the big canvas and she’d thought that was so sweet. He’d seemed really into her, as if he couldn’t imagine a better thing to do right then, than help a damsel in distress stretch some canvas—even though, obviously, he had a ton of things to do himself.

  She’d had to get in close to him while he held the 10 duck taut so she could staple it onto the stretcher bars. She’d been afraid she was going to miss the canvas—send a staple shooting across the room—because she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off of his flexed bicep holding the stretching pliers. She’d never met an artist that cut before. Standing so close, she’d had a hard time controlling her breath. She’d had to force herself to make it smooth, a problem not unlike what happened whenever she thought about blinking her eyes; the more she thought about it, the less natural it became. And he hadn’t been making it easy on her, not really moving far enough out of the way for her to get in and staple. She’d suspected he was doing it on purpose.