Wish Club

by Kim Strickland

  But maybe not necessarily. Maybe all the wishes would fix themselves on their own, like Lindsay had said. Claudia could write again, although not very well. Earlier in the week, while watching for the woman at Barnes & Noble, she’d spent the better part of her time working on her handwriting. Now she could do a pretty good job of signing her name. Most everything else she wrote was illegible to anyone but her, however, and she still couldn’t put lesson outlines on the board. Typing up Post-it notes on her old typewriter in order to grade her papers was getting old, fast.

  No, they needed a witch and Claudia was pretty sure this woman was the one. She looked around the Wild Prairie Café one more time. Then she looked at her watch; she really should get going now. She was exhausted.

  She closed her book and tucked it in her bag and told herself it was common sense and exhaustion, not her realization about wanting to keep Elliot, that had curbed her enthusiasm for her quest.

  Claudia maneuvered her car into a cramped space with a minimum of bumper thumping, happy she’d found a place to park on her block. She was so tired, she decided not to go to the hospital tonight so she could get home a little earlier than usual, a maneuver intended to placate Dan.

  Her cell phone rang and Claudia fumbled through her purse to find it, her finger narrowly missing the point of the compass that had been in there for over a week now. One of these days she’d remember to return it to the math lab.

  The phone flashed red as she pulled it out, flipping it open without checking the caller ID. It was Mara, frustrated with her search for a witch.

  “Have you had any luck?” Mara’s voice rose up an entire major scale with the question. The singsonginess was getting worse.

  “Nope.” Claudia leaned back into the seat of her car.

  “I’m at my wit’s end. I don’t know what else to do.” Mara sounded horribly panicked, in spite of her musical voice. “Henry’s got so much hair—on his back, and his arms. He has to wear long-sleeved shirts all the time, even at practice, and it just keeps getting thicker.”

  Claudia knew. She’d seen him at school.

  “And I’ve gained so much weight—I can’t stop eating.”

  “Mara, we’re going to find someone.”

  “It can’t happen soon enough. I thought I had a lead, a tarot reader at the Chakra Shoppe. I had a reading with her last week and then I went back a couple of times, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to ask her, you know, if she was a witch. And then, and then yesterday, when I walked in, they asked me to leave.” Mara’s voice was in an extremely high-pitched range now. “They said I was making Star Raven nervous. I got kicked out of a New Age bookstore. For stalking! These people—the New Age woo-hoos—they’re the most tolerant, accepting people in the universe and they kicked me out. I’ve been banned from the store like on that Seinfeld episode!”

  Claudia tried not to sound alarmed at the odd ululations and gyrations Mara’s voice was taking. “At least Dr. Seeley isn’t starting an investigation into you because he thinks you’re a witch.”

  “What? Who’s doing that?”

  “Strawn.”

  “I should have guessed. They’re so freakin’ uptight. Peterson already had a talk with Henry about shaving—making a nice, clean-cut impression on the young men and all that. Yeah, right.” Mara paused. “Wait. How did they know? Who snitched?”

  “I have no idea, but Gail’s been accused, too. Another mom at her kids’ school just walked right up to her at pickup last week and straight-out accused her of being a witch. Right there in front of all the kids. Told Gail she wouldn’t let her son play with Andrew anymore.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” A car had pulled up alongside Claudia and the driver was asking via sign language if she was leaving her space. Claudia shook her head and turned off her lights.

  “I wish I could have been there to hear Gail’s comeback.”

  “Gail said she couldn’t think of a thing to say—it had taken her so off guard. She said at first she thought it was about the Internet thing…you know, the pictures.” Another car had pulled up alongside Claudia and was waiting for her to pull out. Claudia decided to get out of the car and walk home. “Gail denied everything, of course.” When Claudia opened the door, the car sped past, the driver giving her the finger.

  “Jeez. Some people.”

  “I know. They have a lot of nerve, coming up and accusing someone to their face, based on a rumor.”

  “Huh? Oh, I know.” Claudia didn’t feel like explaining someone had just flipped her off. “You heard what happened with Lindsay?”

  “The fainting thing? Yeah. I feel so sorry for her.”

  “At least now she’s really trying to find someone to help us. She’s been to Transitions twice and yesterday she drove out to Insight in Naperville. I got the impression her heart wasn’t in it before.”

  They fell silent on the line for a moment as Claudia walked toward her building. The fresh air felt good in her overcaffeinated lungs.

  Mara spoke first. “You know, you don’t think Jill could have started the rumors?”

  “Funny you should say that, because she’s the first person I thought of, too, even though it would be completely irrational. It doesn’t make any sense. I mean, why would she do it? She was right there along with us, even when she was so against the wishing. And the wishing helped her meet this Marc guy, who she’s so involved with no one’s seen or heard from her since before she blew us off at the emergency meeting. But I don’t know why she would spread rumors. Like I said, it doesn’t make sense. It is a little weird, though, that both of us thought of her first.”

  “I still wouldn’t put it past her,” Mara said. “Maybe it is irrational…she’d be implicating herself, too. But who else knows about all of it and would talk? Besides, I’ve never gotten any warm fuzzies from Jill. I don’t care how misunderstood Lindsay says she is. I think it would be right up her alley to try to put a stop to it by spreading nasty rumors about us and witchcraft. And now it’s like she’s totally avoiding us.

  “And what about this Marc guy?” Mara continued. “What if she told him about the wishing and he made her quit? All it would take would be for either one of them to mention it to a few people. This town can be pretty small sometimes.

  “She’s still seeing him, right?” Mara tried to imitate Jill’s smooth voice when she said, “Is it still going fabulously?” but her words came out in a descending minor scale. Decidedly un-Jill-like.

  “I think so, but I don’t know for sure. Like I said, no one’s heard from her. As far as I know she’s still seeing him. As far as anyone knows, it’s still fabulous. Lindsay’s been trying to call her for days, trying to figure out what’s up, but Jill won’t return her calls. Lindsay’s hoping it’s just because Jill’s busy, between Marc and the opening on Friday.”

  “I’m telling you she’s avoiding us.” Mara paused. “Hey. We can talk to her on Friday. Why didn’t I think of that before? We’re all going to be there anyway and we can ask her about everything. The rumors. Why she blew us off.”

  “At her opening? With all those other people there? Don’t you think that’ll really piss her off?”

  “Not if she isn’t behind the rumors. Not if she really has just been busy.”

  “It’s at five-thirty, right?”

  “See you then.”

  Jill’s phone rang again. It was the doorman downstairs. Someone was trying desperately to come up and see her, or he wouldn’t have tried twice. She had only one friend with that sort of tenacity.

  Jill reached her arm out and patted the other side of the bed, but Marc had already left. She lifted her head and looked at the clock. It was nearly noon. Her head ached: too much to drink again last night. Mercifully, the phone stopped ringing.

  Why were they making this so hard? Everyone from Book Club kept calling her, trying to find out if she was okay. Leaving all these messages. And now Lindsay was downstairs trying to barge in on her morning�
��what was left of it. Couldn’t they just leave her alone? She’d made up every excuse in the book. You’d think they’d get the hint by now.

  Jill got up out of bed and went to the bathroom. The phone rang again. Ugh. Give it a rest. The phone was still ringing when Jill went into the kitchen.

  She picked it up. “A Lindsay McDermott here to see you.”

  “I know.” Jill sighed. “Send her up.”

  A few minutes later Lindsay was striding around her condo. “This place is a mess. I knew something was up. I knew things weren’t all fabulous with you.”

  Jill stood behind the kitchen counter in her bathrobe. She lit a cigarette, defiantly blowing the smoke out through her mouth.

  “And look at you. It’s twelve noon and you’ve just now gotten out of bed.”

  “I would have slept later, but someone kept calling.”

  “I’m worried about you. We’re all worried about you. I know you’re busy with this new Marc guy, but the least you could do is return our calls, especially in light of everything that’s going on.”

  “I’ve been busy.” Jill pulled on her cigarette again. She must have lost at least twenty pounds, Jill thought. She doesn’t look good. Jill fought down an emotion: worry. She exhaled with a sigh. “Listen. I’m not trying to blow you guys off…”

  Lindsay raised her eyebrows.

  “Okay. Maybe a little bit. It’s just all this wishing stuff and then all the creepy things that have been happening. I…I don’t want to be a part of it anymore. We can still be friends. I just don’t want to go to Book Club anymore.”

  “And you couldn’t just tell us that? You couldn’t pick up the phone and call me and tell me that you want out?”

  Jill shrugged. “Marc said”—she could sense Lindsay’s nerves heighten at the mention of Marc’s name. “I just want out.” Jill shrugged again, Okay? I’m telling you now.

  “What did Marc say?”

  Jill hesitated. “Oh, he…he just says I should focus on my work—on the show. That I didn’t have time for a big social life right now.”

  “A big social life? Since when is Book Club a big social life? Did you tell him he wouldn’t be in your life now if it hadn’t been for Book Club?”

  Jill tapped some ash into the ashtray in silence.

  “No. Of course you didn’t tell him. Jill, I’m not so sure I like this guy; I don’t care how charming and sweet you say he is. Look what he’s doing. He’s isolating you from your friends. He’s turning you against us.”

  Jill stomped her cigarette out. “He’s not turning me against anyone. In case you don’t remember, I never really cared for all the wishing in the first place. I hated it, remember? But you guys just kept pressing along and pressing along. And we made all these wishes. Well, maybe Marc did come into my life because of a wish. I don’t know. But I’m certainly not going to tell him that. He’ll think I’m a lunatic and I don’t want to risk losing the best thing that’s happened to me in ages.

  “I know I was going along with all the witchcraft stuff, but that doesn’t mean I ever liked it. And horrible things have started to happen because of those wishes, too. Weird, horrible things have started happening to all of us.” Jill paused and ran her eyes up and down Lindsay. “Look at you. How much weight have you lost? You look terrible.”

  Lindsay’s mouth hung open. Terrible?

  “And I haven’t been able to paint a thing since my last wish. Not one thing. I can’t work anymore—at all. My second wish has completely backfired: I wished for inspiration and now I’m totally blocked! My opening is tomorrow night and it’s going to be awful.”

  Lindsay’s eyes flashed. “I knew it. I knew something was wrong. I knew there was a reason why you were blowing us off. This is why we’ve been so worried about you. Don’t you see? We care about you. With all the bad things that have been happening, I just couldn’t believe that you were the only one whose wishes were going fine. Maybe your Marc wish is going fine, but your creative inspiration wish has…” Lindsay’s voice faded out. She snapped her head up. “You don’t think Marc is behind your inability to paint, do you? He came into your life right about the same time. Maybe he’s like…like a psychic vampire or something.”

  “Listen to you. Can you just hear yourself? Psychic vampires now?”

  “Well, I don’t know what you want to call it, but if he’s behind—”

  “He’s not behind anything. He’s the one person in my life right now that’s normal.”

  Lindsay put her hands on her hips. “Will you at least think about coming to the next meeting? We want to help you.” Lindsay gestured at Jill’s messy apartment.

  “I don’t need help.” She looked across the housekeeping disaster that was her living room. “I’ve always been a little sloppy, you should know—”

  “Sloppy is one thing. But this?” Now Lindsay waved her hand up and down at Jill.

  “I don’t need any help.” Jill crossed her arms over her bathrobe.

  “We’re going to try to fix all the wishes that are going wrong. We’re going to get help. We’re trying to find a real witch.”

  “A real witch? Good Lord. Are you guys nuts? Haven’t you learned your lesson?” Jill shook her head. “You’re just not getting it. You need to leave it alone. All of it. Just drop it.”

  “Don’t you want to paint again? Don’t you want to help the rest of your friends with their wish troubles? The least you could do—”

  “I don’t want Marc to know. He’ll—” Jill closed her eyes and took a breath. “The least you could do is respect my wishes. I told you, I don’t want anything to do with wishes and witchcraft or Wicca or whatever you want to call it. I’m done with it. All of it. And, unless you guys agree to keep me out of it, stop bothering me with all of this witchy nonsense, then maybe we shouldn’t…Maybe we can’t…”

  But Jill couldn’t bring herself to say the words out loud.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The 10 duck hung in shreds from the big canvas. Jill was breathing hard, her heart pounding. The X-acto knife she’d used to shred it was still gripped in her left hand. Her chest heaved in and out with the exertion. She was covered in sweat. She stood back and looked at it. There, take that, you fucker. I hate you. I hate you!

  Her opening was tonight, and there would be no breaking out or big canvas. The more she’d thought about it, the more she was sure it was going to be a disaster. She would be lucky not to be made a laughing stock.

  The anger and frustration had surged up inside her, like nothing she’d ever known before. She laid into the canvas with the knife, shocked at how good the release felt. She hadn’t had a tantrum like this since she was a kid.

  The shreds hung from the stretcher bars in ragged strips, torn every which way. Gesso dust covered the floor. Jill glared at her handiwork. It was exactly how she felt. She felt torn to shreds. She looked down at the knife in her hands, the purple lines of veins in her wrists. She started to cry.

  The tears hurt at first, breaking their way through ducts constricted from years of disuse. It’s not that she wanted to die. She didn’t. She wasn’t suicidal. It just felt like she didn’t know how to live.

  What’s wrong with me? The tears came streaming faster now.

  I’m lost. The thought brought on a fresh round of sobs. Look at that canvas. Look at what I’ve done. I’m crazy. Crazy and alone. Her show was ruined. She’d abandoned all of her friends.

  Someone knocked on the door to her studio and Jill jumped. It was probably Marc. She should ignore it. She didn’t want him to see her like this. Jill looked down. The blade of the knife glistened under the fluorescent light. She dropped it on the table and ran to get the door.

  “Hey, hey, hey babe. What’s the matter?” He grabbed Jill and held her, confused by so much emotion pouring out of her. His eyes took in the big canvas—or what was left of it.

  “What happened here?”

  “I’m falling apart. My whole life is falling apart. I—I—�
��

  “Hey. It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.” He paused. “Except for maybe the big canvas.”

  Jill allowed herself a brief smile through her tears. “I don’t know what got into me. I destroyed it—I was so mad. At everything. My show is ruined.” Jill sniffed and wiped her eyes.

  “Your show is not ruined. It’s going to be great—just a little smaller than you wanted, that’s all. Which, in the great scheme of things, is no big deal, huh? You can’t be Picasso every time, right?”

  She looked up at him, trying to gauge his expression. It was the first clichéd thing she’d ever heard him say.

  He was staring over her shoulder at her studio. His eyes lit up. “Let’s go to New York.”

  “What?”

  “I mean now. Let’s go right now. Spend the weekend, just the two of us.”

  “Leave now? My show opens tonight.”

  “Forget your show, nobody goes to those anymore, it’s so…bourgeois.”

  Bourgeois?

  “C’mon, be crazy. Let’s have some fun. We can go check out some galleries there, watch someone else stress out at their opening. If we leave for the airport right now, we’ll be there by dinner. Let’s go, with just the clothes on our back, what do you say?”

  It was the craziest, most careless, impetuous idea she’d ever heard.

  Of course, she loved it.

  “I’ve never seen Jill looking the way she did yesterday, not in my whole life.” Lindsay spoke into her pink Razr phone as she walked down Diversey Parkway, talking to Gail. “Her hair was a mess, eyes all puffy and bloodshot. The apartment was a train wreck. I know from college she was never a neatnik, but it looked like a bomb had gone off in there.”

  “And you think talking with her tonight is going to help with any of that?” Gail asked.

  “It’s this Marc guy. I think he’s bad for her. When I was there I got the impression that he was the one turning her against us. As soon as he came into her life, she started to shut us all out. We just think it would be a good opportunity for all of us to talk to her about him—”