Her wish for abundance seemed to be humming along. It had started with that hundred-dollar bill and, while she hadn’t found anything quite so dramatic since then, she kept finding coins lying on the ground, a quarter, a few pennies. Two days ago she’d found a twenty in the pocket of a laundered pair of jeans. This counts, she’d thought. Well, she was going to need all of it when Henry found out it was her turn to host Book Club. The wine and noshes always seemed to break their budget for the month. She could hear Henry now: “Precious snacks for all the precious ladies.”
Precious was Henry’s word for any fabulously-well-put-together woman of means, with perfect hair and skin and clothes and, of course, manicured nails. Mara adapted the term as well, adding a criterion—any woman whose dark wool coat never, not ever, had a speck of lint on it. They had a mutual understanding of who fell into the category of precious: anyone who might fear lint or poverty.
While Mara might have, at first, prejudiciously dumped Lindsay and Jill into that category, she certainly couldn’t have done that to Claudia or Gail. And it was Claudia whom Mara had met first, at some boring Strawn faculty function. Claudia had invited her to join Book Club that same night, since they’d spent the whole evening off in a corner talking about books while Dan and Henry had mourned their Cubs. During the first few Book Club meetings she attended, Mara had felt a little out of place—surrounded by more preciousness than she was used to—but she had stuck it out. They picked such interesting books.
Now, Mara thought all the Book Club women were precious, but in the true sense of the word. She adored every one of them—well, except for maybe Jill, but even she was okay when she stopped being so self-absorbed, when she got over herself and actually showed some emotion, which seemed to be happening a little more often now, ever since the wishing had started.
Mara petted Tippy and sighed as she looked out at her living room. Jill had such a designed apartment; every detail had the touch of an interior decorator written all over it. Very under control. Mara’s house had been designed by life. And she wished she had a coffee table. Tippy, Henry, and the boys had done some redecorating of their own during one of the previous season’s Sunday-afternoon football games.
Mara had discovered their misdeed while driving home. She’d shortcutted down the alley and as she’d driven past her garage, she’d stopped and stared at what she’d been sure was her coffee table in the garbage can in front of it, two of its three remaining legs sticking out of it like a body with rigor mortis.
“Tippy has been jumping on that coffee table for twelve years,” she’d said to Henry when she’d gone inside. “I don’t see how he could manage to tip the glass top over and break a metal leg off.”
Henry had just shrugged, refusing to get defensive. The boys had nodded their heads in support. Mara had been fairly certain the demise of the table had had less to do with Tippy and more to do with the Bears’ defensive line and their loss to the Green Bay Packers on that same Sunday.
The old beat-up coffee table had been better than no coffee table and today, she wished she had something. She had a vision of the Book Club women balancing plates on their knees and setting wineglasses at their feet. Maybe I could run out and get one now? Mara pulled her arm out from under Tippy and checked her watch, disturbing him. He arched up in irritation for a moment before settling back down. No time. Oh well, she thought, sometimes you imagine you absolutely have to have something that you really don’t need. She could just make do with what she had. Her friends wouldn’t mind.
Mara rubbed Tippy’s ears and started to hum, A sailboat in the moonlight and you, Wouldn’t that be heaven.
An old Billie Holiday song. Mara had a lovely voice; people often compared it to Billie Holiday’s. It was something she had once thought she might make a career out of, but that was a long time ago. Her dream had given way to Henry, and then her boys and then hygienist school to help pay the bills. In retrospect, her dream had always seemed a little far-fetched, anyway.
Mara started singing the song out loud, softly.
A heaven just for two, a soft breeze on a June night and you.
Tippy continued to purr in her lap.
But now. Now, maybe her dream wasn’t as far-fetched as all that. Mara allowed herself to think of it—just for a minute or two.
What a perfect setting for letting dreams come true.
The Book Club women sat on the floor in Mara’s living room, having given up on the couches. Without the cofee table, it was easier this way. More like a picnic.
One white origami wish rested on its side in a Tupperware bowl, looking sadly like a bird with a broken wing. The bowl was with them on the floor, which was now covered with candles and herbs and magical ingredients and wineglasses, along with a few empty bottles. Everyone else’s wishes had been cast, with only Claudia’s to go.
I should let everybody off the hook, Claudia thought, just tell them to forget it so we can all go home.
She watched her friends as they relaxed between wishes. She was happy for them, truly. She loved them, but she couldn’t help feeling sorry for herself. She’d been so certain it was going to finally happen for her, that she would finally get pregnant. Even the timing had been right. According to her temperature, she’d ovulated the day after the last meeting, the day after she and Dan had had sex. The way everyone’s wishes had been going, Claudia thought her pregnancy was practically a given. Over the course of the past couple of weeks she kept putting her hand on her belly, hoping it, willing it. What an idiot. She’d gotten her period three days earlier. It had happened the previous Friday morning, right before she called Gail from school.
Everyone had been very consoling about her wish’s lack of success. Your wish is different. It needs a little time. It’s only been two weeks. Only Lindsay found a way to be irritating when she said, You can’t rush Mother Nature. You can’t rush Mother Nature? Good grief.
Tonight, they’d done Jill’s wish first. She’d shown up late and then said she couldn’t stay for very long because she had plans with her new boyfriend later.
“Creative inspiration?” Gail asked when she pulled Jill’s wish out of the Tupperware. “You think you need more creativity? I think your work is amazing as it is.”
“Thanks, but…I’m ready to break out, you know? I want that flash, that brilliant creative insight to help me make a huge splash with my show. I guess I’m just getting tired of futzing along.”
It seemed to Claudia that during this round of wishes, no one held back—everyone was completely honest.
Lindsay finally admitted she wanted to be completely and totally accepted in Chicago society, and not just skirt around the edges, as she felt she’d been doing her whole life, being accepted in some minimal way because of her family name.
Finally, Claudia thought, she admits it!
Whenever the subject of society had come up in the past, Lindsay had shrugged it off, trying to make a point that she didn’t care much about it. Her independent clique in high school was supposed to be proof, but Claudia wasn’t buying it anymore. Not after what she saw every day at Strawn. All of Lindsay’s charity work and fads and fitness crazes—Claudia had always suspected that they were just Lindsay’s attempts to be friends, to fit in, to belong. In some way, it was as though Lindsay were trying to make up for high school, trying to recover from some unrequited longing to be accepted by the Molly Bonners of the world.
So, they’d helped Lindsay with her wish to find her place in society.
When Gail’s turn came, Claudia expected she would ask to go back to work, which she did in a way, but in a way that had surprised all of them. Gail wished to return to the theater.
Claudia had forgotten. She’d gone to see Gail in countless plays down at school, her favorite being Bleacher Bums, in which Gail played the part of the hottie, Melody. Gail was a great actor. She radiated on stage and off, whenever she was in a play. Claudia looked over at Gail now, her short blond hair all that remained of the arts
y girl she’d known in college. Gail’s hair used to change color every few months and her clothes were always so cool, nothing Claudia could ever pull off. It was as if Gail had been made for the theater. It was weird, and sad, that she hadn’t remembered this aspect of her friend. It might be even more sad, Claudia thought, that Gail had almost forgotten about this aspect of herself.
“You know, on the way here, I must have changed my mind about it a hundred times.” Gail said. “I kept thinking I’d like to go back to work, to Foote, Cone, pick up somewhere close to where I left off. Do the next Sunshine Orange Juice jingle. But even though I could see myself back in the office, in the power suit, doing the presentations, the brainstorming sessions, all of it—something just…It just didn’t seem true.” Gail paused, her face asking, you know what I mean?
“It just got me thinking about what I’d really like to be doing—what was in my heart. And then it came to me: the theater. Back in college, I’d given up on the idea of a professional acting career by the time I was a junior, because I’d convinced myself that if I pursued it in any way, I would surely starve to death, and I grew up without much, so I knew I didn’t want that. But over the past few weeks I started thinking, why couldn’t I try again now? There are lots of small local theater companies I could get involved with—or maybe a talent agency, to do commercials or something. I don’t know—as long as I’m wishing, I might as well wish for something that would really be a dream.”
“I was so relieved,” Mara said when her wish was pulled, “to hear Gail talk about always wanting to go back to the theater. You see,” Mara’s normally gregarious demeanor was subdued, “I used to sing.” She paused. No one had had any idea. “Well, I still sing, but only to my cat.” Mara giggled, back to her old self. “I had a scholarship, a voice scholarship to Indiana University, but I didn’t go.”
All the women exchanged looks. This was news to them. “The summer after high school, I…well, I got pregnant with Alan. Henry and I did the whole shotgun wedding thing and I ended up at married student housing at Purdue instead of IU. It was hard being on campus and being a mom. There weren’t many of us, and I always felt so out of place walking around with a baby—being the same age as the students. But I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t change anything. I love Henry and the boys and, who knows, music is such a…well, it’s hard. I probably wouldn’t have been the next Barbra Streisand or Billie Holliday, but would have ended up teaching music somewhere.” Mara sighed. Her face looked wistful. “But still…”
“But still,” Gail continued for her, “teaching music to a bunch of uninterested brats, on a dwindling public-school budget, would still beat the crap out of picking tartar out of gums in Dr. Seeley’s office?”
Mara nodded back with a sad smile.
And so they made a wish to help Mara find her voice again.
“You know, guys. I’m pretty tired.” Claudia pulled her eyes from her wish in the Tupperware bowl. “If you want to just call it a night, we can always start with me the next time.”
Mara looked open-mouthed at Claudia. “Not a chance.”
“Are you kidding?” Gail picked up the bowl from the floor. “What’s this about,” she held the broken-bird wish up and out toward Claudia, “that you don’t want your girlfriends to know anymore?” She started unfolding the wish.
“No, it’s not that. It’s just…well, everyone’s wishes are all going so well,” Claudia pushed her glasses up her nose, “and, mine…” Her voice trailed off.
“—are going to go just fine, too,” Lindsay said. “You just picked a hard one for the first time around.”
“Don’t be discouraged, Claude.” Gail was using her sweet-mommy voice. “I have a feeling about you.” She opened up Claudia’s wish and looked at it, her face puzzled. “I can’t read it…you scribbled out part of the—” She handed the wish over to Claudia. “Here. You’ll have to tell us what it says.”
Claudia looked down at the scrap of paper. She’d scribbled out her wish about writing a novel. I changed my mind, she’d told herself. I don’t really care about writing novels anymore. Even though she knew that wasn’t particularly true. Instead, she’d made a wish for Dan. She wished that he would find happiness with his career—whatever that might entail. Whether it would mean he would finally start up his own firm or make more money at his current job, she didn’t know. She only knew she wanted him to be happy. On some level, she knew it wasn’t a completely selfless wish; if Dan felt more comfortable with his career, he would feel more comfortable having a child.
Claudia had scribbled out her old wish and scrunched her words together trying to make her new wish for Dan fit at the bottom of the paper. No wonder Gail couldn’t read it. It was a mess.
“I wished for Dan. That he find some happiness in his job.” Claudia looked up at them, hoping they would buy it. “I wasn’t sure how to phrase it.” She pushed her glasses up her nose again. “Whether I should ask for him to make more money—because I think that would make him happier—or whether I should wish he could start his own firm. So, I decided to make it more general and just wish that he finds more happiness in his career. That’s why it’s so scribbly.”
“Well, what was so hard about that?” Mara asked, picking up one of the spell books without waiting for Claudia to answer. “C’mon everyone, let’s make a wish for Claudia—or for Dan, rather, and his happy career.”
It occurred to Claudia then, that maybe the only thing more sad than forgetting about a dream, was being too afraid to ask for one to come true.
Chapter Thirteen
Henry had fallen asleep again in his La-Z-Boy recliner, watching whatever sport had been showing on TV. The chair was back in the full recline position, and Henry lay supine, mouth open, his exhalations sounding like someone fogging a mirror. His left hand, flung over the left armrest, was nearly resting on the floor. His right hand still clutched the remote control to his chest, and Mara wanted it so she could shut up the post-game sports announcers who were still bantering on the screen, loudly, because Henry had the volume up too high.
Mara had just returned home from picking up her son, Alan, from wrestling practice. He’d already raided the refrigerator, forgoing the fancy snacks left over from last night’s Book Club meeting for two hastily thrown-together peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, one of which he still carried with him as he ran out the front door to a friend’s house. On her way back from closing the door behind him, Mara wondered how Henry could possibly sleep through all the commotion, especially with the TV volume up that loud.
She reached down over Henry and grabbed the remote, sliding it easily out of his hand. As she stood up, she got a good look at the top of Henry’s head. At six feet one inch, he was a full foot taller than she was, so this was a pretty rare view. And now hair was sprouting there. Right there in what used to be the middle of his rather large, shiny bald spot. True, sometimes it did look different—in the winter, it would get dry and a little dull and flaky. Mara would urge him to put something on it, but Henry would get indignant. I am not rubbing lotion on my head, Mara.
But this was something else, a soft downy little patch of brown hair sprouting out of his scalp. You’d think he would have noticed this, she thought, the way he runs his hand back over his scalp constantly, as if checking to see if this exact sort of thing might have happened.
She rubbed her hand over it to check, to confirm that her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. They were there, sure enough, like the fine hairs on a newborn baby’s head. Henry sighed in his sleep, closed his mouth as if to swallow, and then opened it again to continue his foggy-mirror breathing. Mara put the remote down and grabbed the reading lamp, tilting it toward Henry’s head a little, leaning in close to inspect his scalp.
Suddenly Henry woke with a start, jolting his head upright, right into Mara’s nose. She reeled back, grabbing her nose with a yelp, letting the lamp drop to the floor where it first bounced, then shattered, sending broken glass scattering everywh
ere.
“What the…?” Henry asked.
Mara was doubled at the waist, her hand over her nose, bobbing up and down and moaning. A trickle of blood started down her fingers. “It’s bleeding. My nose is bleeding!”
Henry sat open-mouthed in his chair, his feet thrown over the side. He blinked.
“Henry, I think id’s bwoken. Oh, my nose is bwoken.” She could hear the congestion in her voice. Not my nose! She had the cutest little nose—it was her best feature. Blood continued to trickle between her fingers.
“Let me get you a towel.” Henry rose from his chair. “And some ice.” He put his arm around her shoulders, guiding her along with him as he started toward the kitchen, circling around the broken glass in his stocking feet. “What happened?”
She whimpered. “Ow ow ow,” was all she could manage until she was seated in a kitchen chair, and Henry reached into the drawer next to the sink.
“Don’d use the good towels.” She pointed to a bottom drawer next to the refrigerator with her free hand. Henry bent down and took two of the old dish rags out, handing her one, filling the other with ice. “What happened?” he asked her again.
“I was looking at the tob of your head when you jumbed up and your head hid me in the nose.”
“Why were y—Never mind.” He made a face at her, as if he’d caught her trying to sneak some lotion on his head while he slept. “Let me see it.” He winced when she removed her hand.
Her eyes welled up at his reaction. “It’s bad? Oh, I know it’s bad…Oh Henry, it hurds.”
He gently wiped blood off her upper lip and chin with a damp towel, giving it to her when he finished so she could clean her hands. He gave her the towel filled with ice and she gingerly put it over the bridge of her nose, peering at him over it.
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