Wish Club

by Kim Strickland

  Gail glanced in the rearview mirror. Emily was singing to the side window of the car. She had a thoughtful look on her face, an expression you might see on a ballad singer’s face as he crooned “Dust in the Wind,” which was made all the more humorous by the fact that she could only pronounce half of the words she was singing. “I’m just a kid who’s four, each day I grow some more, I like exploring, I’m Caillou.”

  I need to learn to treasure these moments, she thought. I need to take Excedrin before I go to the grocery store.

  “Fuu—uck.”

  Gail’s eyes jumped to the rearview mirror. Emily had stopped her singing and her finger was pointing out the window. “Fuu—uck.”

  “Emily Anne—”

  The sound of a fire truck’s siren reached her ears. Oh jeez-o-pete.

  “Say Figh-errrr truck, Emmy. Figh-errrrr.”

  Another fire truck came barreling down Foster, hurtling up behind Gail, and she pulled over to the side, her heart pounding. She’d been so caught up in Emily’s suspected profanity she hadn’t noticed its approach. Sad the way the Universe worked, she thought. At the time in your life when you wanted to be the safest driver possible, you were so distracted by your kids you turned into a menace. Every time she saw one of those crashed broomstick witches at Halloween, she’d tell her kids, “You know what happened here, don’t you? That witch got distracted by the kids on the back of her broom.”

  Speaking of witches, Gail remembered she still needed to call Claudia back. Claudia had left another of her incomprehensible messages this morning, telling Gail to call her back right away, It’s urgent. She’d sounded extremely upset.

  Man, there sure were a lot of fire trucks. There must be a huge fire somewhere. A third truck sped by. This time Gail had pulled over to the side in a timelier manner.

  “Where are all the fire trucks going, Emmy? There must be a big fire.”

  When she went through the intersection at Ashland, past the tall buildings on the corner, she could see black smoke rising from the west, a few blocks south. “Look at all that smoke…”

  The smoke was near the boys’ school.

  No. It couldn’t be. Worrywart. Worrywart. Stop it—just stop.

  In spite of what her brain was trying to tell her was just paranoia, Gail turned south down a side street to pick up Burns Street westbound, forgoing her trip home to drop off the groceries. The air was foggy with smoke and people were standing on their front porches or in the street looking west. As Gail got closer and closer to the school, the smoke got thicker and thicker.

  When she turned down Harcourt, she could see the flashing strobes of a squad car blocking the intersection farther down, at the northeast corner of the school. Her heart dropped in her chest. No. No!

  The smoke was thickest here, and it smelled acrid, but also, oddly enough, it had the pleasant wintry smell of crackling hardwood. Cars jammed Harcourt and Gail couldn’t drive any closer. She double-parked and got out, yanking Emily from the back seat, leaving her hat where it had dropped on the floor mat. The ding ding ding of the van’s warning system, You’ve left your lights on, The keys are still in the ignition, faded behind her as she broke into a run down the sidewalk toward the school. Smoke billowed from the second floor and roof. Flames were still coming out of some windows on the east side of the building, despite the stream of water the firefighters had trained on it.

  “You can’t go down there, lady.” A cop was shouting but Gail didn’t turn around. In the noise and commotion she elected to pretend she hadn’t heard him. Let him try to keep me from my kids, she thought.

  It would take a bullet.

  Kids milled around the edge of the parking lot in the smoke-fog, some of them crying, huddling close to teachers. One group was still wearing gym clothes, and stood shivering. Gail scanned for Will and Andrew. For Andrew’s blue sweater, Will’s maroon one. She looked for the junior kindergartners, the third-grade class. Their teachers, Mrs. Dwyer or Mrs. Mitchell. She circled the teachers’ parking lot, heading toward the playground on the northwest corner, closer to where the kindergarten classrooms were. There were parents and kids and firefighters everywhere, cops running.

  Two firemen ran by, heading toward the corner ahead of her. “They said about twenty still on the second floor,” one was yelling into a radio. “Northwest stairway’s blocked—they’re going up the main stairway on the east—”

  There are kids still inside? A short wail, an “ahh” escaped Gail’s mouth, and Emily started chewing on the knuckle of the thumb she’d been sucking on.

  Gail hurried to the edge of the playground, to a group of what appeared to be first-or second-graders standing together with their teacher.

  “Where’s the third grade?” Gail asked the teacher. “Mrs. Mitchell’s class?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t seen them.”

  “Mrs. Dwyer—the junior kindergartners?”

  The teacher shook her head and shrugged sympathetically.

  “Mrs. Stone? Kayla fell over”—a boy started tugging on the teacher’s arm—“and her eyes are all—” he rolled his eyes back into his head, apparently a simulation of Kayla, and Mrs. Stone hurried away from Gail.

  A fireman yelled over a megaphone. “You have to stand back—get back, people. We need to get everyone back and out of the way so no one gets hurt.” Gail left the playground and hurried out to the sidewalk, which was crowded with spectators. She jogged down toward the kindergarten entry.

  Smoke poured from the second floor here, but no flames. On this side, the west side of the school, the sidewalk was deserted—no teachers or children—just emergency workers. Gail sensed that panic was close, waiting to take hold of her, like a bird of prey circling overhead.

  Emily started sobbing and Gail pulled her tighter, closer, glad for something solid to hang on to.

  “Everything’s going to be okay, baby.” Gail patted the back of Emily’s coat while she held her. “Don’t you worry. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  The headquarters for the Chicago Women’s Foundation were in a large Victorian house in Lincoln Park West. The house, in its heyday, must have really been something—inlaid wooden floors, mahogany woodwork, crystal chandeliers—and while it hadn’t fallen into disrepair, it had taken on a more worn appearance. The Women’s Foundation was, after all, a foundation based on charitable works and therefore, they couldn’t be seen squandering too much money on something as unnecessary as appearances.

  Lindsay hung up the phone in the first-floor office and consulted her notes. A member of the planning committee for the spring fashion show, Lindsay was working with the Metron Hotel, this week’s trendiest, see-and-be-seen-at hotel. The fashion show was going to be held there three weeks from now, during the second week in March, and she’d just finished talking with the Metron’s events coordinator when Evelyn Cantwell stuck her head inside the door.

  “Lindsay. Hello, love.”

  Evelyn had a way of calling all the Foundation women “love.” It was always good to get one of Evelyn’s “loves,” because it usually meant you were in her favor, and since Evelyn was the president of the Chicago chapter of the Women’s Foundation, and therefore the gatekeeper of Chicago society, it was good to be in her favor. The irony was, as often as Evelyn handed out the “loves,” she was one of the least loving people Lindsay knew.

  “Evelyn. Hi.” Lindsay smiled.

  “My goodness, Lindsay, you’ve been looking fabulous lately. What’s your secret—have you lost weight?”

  “Oh, well thank you.” Lindsay’s smile brightened naturally, warming to her favorite subject of late. “I’ve lost a little weight, yes. Thanks for noticing.”

  Evelyn stood in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest officiously. “Well, everyone’s talking about how great you look—and I have to agree, you’re simply radiating.” She continued to stare at Lindsay, her eyebrows pulled together ever so slightly.

  Lindsay just smiled, speechless. After a brie
f moment, she got the feeling she shouldn’t just be sitting there smiling, or radiating, so Lindsay got down to business. “I just got off the phone with the Metron. George wants to know if we want them to take care of the flowers using their house florist, or if we’re going to be supplying them. He seemed rather intent on having us go with their in-house florist, but I don’t think we should—”

  “That is so George, now isn’t it, love? I was at a Chamber Music board meeting last fall and I’m pretty sure his precious in-house florists had done the arrangements because they had carnations in them.” Evelyn made a face as if to say, can you believe it? “Your instincts are correct. We should supply our own. Can we get Keiko’s? On this late notice?”

  “I’ll call over there right now.” Lindsay put her hand on the phone.

  “Something orchidy, I think.”

  Lindsay nodded in agreement, smiling. How perfect. I share your vision.

  “But not just Phalaenopsis, something more exotic. Keiko will know.” Evelyn dropped her arms down onto her hips. “I’ll let you get to it, then. Keep up the good work, love.” She gave Lindsay another smile before turning to leave the room.

  Lindsay picked up the phone and tried to dial, but it was difficult. She couldn’t stop bouncing in her seat.

  Emily kept squirming in Gail’s arms as Gail ran along the west side of the school. The building was closer to the street here and it was quieter on this side, too, only a few firemen hurrying around. One stopped to yell at her, “You can’t be over here. Get across the street.” He waved her over to the other side.

  Unable to pretend she hadn’t heard him, Gail obeyed, crossing over and cutting in between two cars. The snow on the parkway near the curb was in a high mound and she climbed over, her right foot breaking through the frozen crust on top, sinking her down about a foot. She put her other foot down on the icy snow and it skidded out from under her. Gail fell. Emily slid from her arms and simultaneously Gail heard a snap, feeling a sharp pain in her right knee.

  “Emmy!”

  Gail climbed out of the snow bank and crawled over to where Emily was crying, lying on her side, a little pink bundle. “Are you okay, honey?” Gail’s eyes widened at the splotches of blood on the front of Emily’s coat. “Where does it hurt honey? Where—?”

  Emmy’s right thumb was bloody. Gail calmed slightly. It didn’t look too bad.

  Gail’s eyes filled with tears; she had her daughter out here in the cold, running around in the snow, with no hat and no gloves, her coat unzipped. Gail hugged Emily close, wishing she could be holding her sons close as well. Her fingers shook as she zipped the front of Emily’s pink parka.

  God, let the boys be okay, Please let them be fine. Gail looked over Emily’s shoulder. She could see people moving through the smoke, on the sidewalk farther down. I want Will and Andrew to run up to me now. God, I’ll do anything, anything if you just let them be okay.

  Gail lifted herself and Emily up out of the dirty snow, wincing as she put weight on her right leg. She made her way carefully over to the sidewalk, looking down, watching where she placed her boots on the ice. The sidewalk was dry, and she hurried down to the group of people, her right knee throbbing. There were older kids here, fifth-and sixth-graders. A few teachers.

  “Has anyone seen the kindergartners? Or the third grade?” Gail shouted. Her eyes burned with tears and smoke.

  People shook their heads.

  Gail worked her way down the sidewalk, bumping into people, asking her question over and over.

  “Mom!” It came from pretty far away.

  Gail spun around. “Will?” but she didn’t see him in the crowd, through the smoke. Had she mistaken another child’s voice for her son’s? It had happened to her before, in other places at other times, always driving a guilt-stake through her heart.

  “Will? Will! Where are you?” Gail circled back down the sidewalk the way she’d just come, squinting her eyes against the smoke. Then she saw his back, his sandy brown hair, the maroon sweater he’d worn to school that morning. He was standing still, his head tilted up, watching the faces of people as they passed him by.

  “Will!”

  He turned around and, seeing her, ran, crashing into them with a thud rendered silent by the commotion around them. Gail teetered back with the impact, but didn’t fall. She dropped to her knees and, with Emily still tight in her arms, hugged her son.

  Mara sat at her desk, chewing her way through a box of Girl Scout Thin Mints while she filled out the previous week’s paperwork. The elastic band on her pants kept digging into her waist, which was taking on a new, rounder shape. She had put on a few pounds. Well, quite a few pounds. In fact, she’d probably put on as much weight as Lindsay had lost.

  Well so what? she tried to tell herself, I can afford it. Besides, she’d had to take a couple of days off work to let her nose heal. (Personal days and sick days—Dr. Seeley must have done a slow burn.) And it was easy to eat too much when you were just sitting around, what with the refrigerator so close and all.

  But something had changed. Previously when she’d looked in the mirror, she had been repulsed by the little pooch her belly made, but not recently. Finally, I’ve come to accept my body. To love it for what it is.

  Well, if she wanted to, this weight wasn’t anything she couldn’t exercise off. But the exercise would have to wait for a while. She touched a finger to the bandage over her nose. She wouldn’t be allowed to jostle it around any time soon. Maybe she could wish the weight away at the next Wish Club the way Lindsay had.

  Her greatest fear wearing the bandage around was that people would think she’d had plastic surgery on her nose. Imagine. She already had the perfect nose. Her other fear, and Henry’s too, was that people were going to think he had hit her. She had two huge purple bruises under her eyes.

  Mara had been at Tate’s Drugs two days ago, and while she’d been checking out, the cashier kept glancing up at her face after she slid each item over the scanner. When the cashier, a young, extremely thin woman with long, unkempt hair, had handed Mara the receipt, she’d said, after another quick glance around, “You know there are people that can help you.” She looked like someone who might know, and she’d kept her hand on the top of the receipt in Mara’s hand for an extra moment until Mara had replied, “Help me what? Recover from plastic surgery?”

  At least Dr. Seeley had refrained from any verbal comment this morning.

  “There’s a lot of filing backed up,” he’d said to her when she walked in. When she had turned around after taking her coat off and he could see her face, his face had expressed surprise, but he hadn’t said anything. Maybe he’d thought she’d had plastic surgery, too.

  Before heading into his office he’d hesitated for a moment, in that manner of his that made it look like he was trying hard to think of something nice to say. Apparently unable to come up with anything, Dr. Seeley had pursed his giant lips again and left the room.

  What a kind and considerate man I work for.

  Mara bit into a Thin Mint and tore it away from her mouth, glaring at the tall stacks of files that lined the front edge of her desk. They were all uniformly two feet high, except for the pile farthest to the right, which was only about six inches tall. The most recent one—a work in progress. She leaned forward on her elbows and shoved the rest of the cookie in her mouth. With her bruised circles under her eyes, she felt like a raccoon peering out from inside a burrow.

  She gave a deep sigh. The eleven-o’clock patient had canceled, and there was no time like the present to get started on these files. But maybe she should get lunch. She sure had been hungry lately. Hungry constantly, it seemed. If she hadn’t known better she would have thought she was pregnant. It’s probably just middle age or hormones or something. Nothing extraordinary.

  What was extraordinary was the way Henry’s hair had been growing. The downy hairs on his head kept spreading, filling in the bald spot. It looked as if he were using one of those hair-transplant-in-a-ca
n products. He now had enough hair to hold down a comb-over if he wanted to have one. And then there was her discovery last night.

  Mara had been reading when Henry had come to bed. He’d sunk down beside her, asking how much longer she was going to stay up.

  “Just to the end of this chapter. Two more pages.”

  He’d smiled at her, “all right,” and turned over.

  She’d bent over and kissed his head, then started to stroke his back, when she’d noticed, after one pass, that there was more of that light brown, downy hair sprouting up. On his back. Was this another one of those middle-age things? Like hair growing out of noses and ears, or sprouting on chins? Henry had never had hair on his back before.

  Mara’d run her hand over the hairs again. Henry nestled more deeply into the covers and made a little sighing noise. There were an abundance of hairs, mostly concentrated around his shoulder blades. She leaned in closer to inspect them, but not too close, lest Henry make any sudden moves.

  “Henry. You’ve got hairs on your back!”

  After some discussion and several minutes of watching Henry’s elbows point off in odd directions as he tried to get his hands onto the hair, Mara had placed him in front of the bathroom mirror and given him her hand mirror so he could look at them.

  There they were. Two small dark patches of fur growing in between his shoulder blades. Their eyes met in the mirror.

  Of course there had to be a plausible explanation for spontaneous hair growth, but neither one of them had been able to think of any. Mara thought he should see a doctor.

  “It’s just hair, Mara, not open lesions. You’re making such a big deal about this.”