Wish Upon a Star

‘Goin’ down?’ Marie Three said, being her usual obnoxious self. Claire, for once, didn’t blush and no one laughed.

‘She’s got a round-trip ticket,’ Tina added. ‘If she can afford the taxi fare she can come back whenevah she wants to.’

‘I’d never come back,’ Marie One said.

‘What about Vic?’ Marie Three asked.

‘Screw Vic. Then I wouldn’t have to,’ Marie One said and they all laughed.

‘Look, ya don’t hafta do anything ya don’t wanna do,’ Marie Two reminded Claire. ‘And what goes on in the bedroom is none of our business,’ she told the rest of the table, though Claire knew Marie Two was always eager to listen to stories of sexual dysfunction, romps and betrayals.

The truth was, Claire was just as curious to find out what might go on in the bedroom as she was to see London. The idea of Michael Wainwright choosing her, actually wanting her, even if only by default, was astonishing as well as exciting. She could hardly believe she was going to get on an airplane with a man she’d only been kissed by once, fly to London and sleep with him. She thought again of his hand on hers and had to close her eyes for a moment to contain the thrill. If such a small gesture, such minimal contact, had that effect on her how would she react to his body on hers? Claire shivered.

‘What will you take to wear?’ Michelle asked. ‘Do they wear hats, like Princess Di used to?’ She sighed. ‘I loved her hats.’

‘Forget hats and bags,’ Tina said. ‘Claire, do you even have a passport? You can’t go to Europe without one.’

For the first time since she’d made her decision Claire felt her optimism and hope begin to disappear as slowly but surely as the Cheshire Cat did – but leaving no smile behind. In fact, her vision got blurry with tears. She didn’t have a passport and – worse – she didn’t even know how to get one. She looked at Tina, trying to keep the panic out of her eyes. ‘I can get one.’

‘Ha! You’re screwed,’ said Joan. ‘And not in a good way. I’ve been to the passport office. Forget it. You hafta get your birth certificate and photos and go to the post office, fill in a form and wait six weeks.’

Claire felt the walls suddenly contract, as if she was on the morning’s elevator ride. She should have realized that escape, that a real adventure, couldn’t happen to her. She wasn’t the kind of person who had a passport sitting in her top bureau drawer. No. She had knitting needles. She wouldn’t be able to go. She clenched her fist hard, so that the physical pain of her nails biting into her soft palm distracted her from the other agony she was experiencing.

‘Six weeks?’ Michelle asked. ‘Always?’

‘Always,’ Joan said.

‘Nonsense.’ They all turned to see Abigail Samuels in the doorway. She ignored everyone but Claire. ‘You can get it in a few hours. You just bring your birth certificate, your application and a letter on our letterhead saying you must go for business.’ Abigail smiled at Claire. ‘And bring your ticket. Or do what our executives do. For fifty dollars an expediting service will take care of it all. And in two hours. You should know that, Tina.’ They all turned to Tina, who said nothing.

‘Thank you,’ Claire told Abigail Samuels, her voice shaky.

‘You’re welcome.’ She smiled at Claire again, her small, even teeth as white as her hair. Then her mouth snapped into a thin, straight line. She looked at Joan but continued speaking to Claire. ‘If you have any difficulty getting a letter from the firm, come to me and I’ll give you one signed by Mr Crayden, Senior.’ She eyed them all, then turned to go. But before she moved down the hall she looked at Claire. ‘And if you need to borrow a trunk, I’d be happy to lend you one of mine.’

The table was silent for at least a moment after Abigail Samuels left. Then ‘Holy shit!’ Marie One whispered.

‘She family?’ Marie Three asked.

‘Fagetabout family,’ Marie Two said. ‘Has she got this table bugged? Because if she does, we’re all in deep yogurt.’

Tina looked over at Claire. ‘You tell her?’ she asked. ‘Because if word gets out among the executives about this … I mean they might not like it.’

Claire shook her head. Before the day Abigail Samuels had specifically requested her help, Claire had never spoken to the woman. And in helping her she hadn’t spoken much either. There was a social order at Crayden Smithers that was as unbreachable as Fort Sumter had been. Secretaries, administrative assistants, analysts, bookkeepers and all the so-called ‘support staff’ were working-class people. They lived in far-flown suburbs – never in Manhattan. They all said ‘the city’ when they meant Manhattan, even if they lived in Queens or Brooklyn or Staten Island – all a part of the city. They wore clothes from discount stores, cheap chains and factory outlets. Their hair never looked right, not the way hair looked in fashion magazines or on the heads of women professionals. And the inside of their heads had been educated in public schools, never the tony private ones. If they’d gone to college they hadn’t graduated, or if they’d graduated it had been from a junior college or a state school, never from the Ivy Leagues. They were an underclass and, though none of them would admit it, they either resented the elite professionals (as Joan did) or – worse to Claire’s way of thinking – basked in the reflected glory of the professional they worked for.

The one exception was Abigail Samuels. She’d probably been a secretary for fifty years. She’d gone to the best schools, dressed in the best conservative clothes and looked like a wife of one of the elderly partners. But Abigail Samuels had ‘gone to business’ back in the days when secretaries wore hats and gloves and women didn’t even think of law or business school. Her class separated her from the secretaries and her job separated her from the professional staff. Claire had always thought she must be the loneliest person at Crayden Smithers.

Claire had no idea how Abigail knew about the trip. She was also surprised that, knowing, she didn’t seem to disapprove. The thought that Abigail Samuels would be interested in anything that Claire did – besides photocopying – was as surprising to Claire as it was to the rest of the table. That Abigail knew about her trip, that she’d volunteered not only the information about the passport expeditor but actually threatened Joan on Claire’s behalf and then offered to lend Claire a bag was …

‘Fuckin’ amazin’,’ said Marie One.

Claire saw all the faces turn to her, and recognized the faint tinge of suspicion on each face. In this hen house, when anyone changed the pecking order feathers were ruffled.

‘She must like you,’ Marie Two said.

Curious and curiouser, Claire thought, but was wise enough not to quote Lewis Carroll at that table.

NINE (#ulink_2220ee0f-fa8a-540d-b953-5ccb1b974e75)

After work on Friday, Claire decided she’d better go get money for her trip. She had a little over nine hundred dollars in her account. A pathetic amount to travel with, but it was highly unlikely that her mother would be paying back her ‘loans’ anytime soon. She carefully counted the bills, then put them in an envelope and hid the envelope inside a beach bag in the bottom drawer of her bureau. And what exactly could Claire say to her mother as an excuse for going away? It was too early for a bachelorette party for Tina and it certainly wouldn’t require that many days. Claire would just come up with a plan at the last minute. Now she had more important things to worry about.

She began to sort through her closet. In less than half an hour she had a big pile of garments on her bed. Way too much stuff. It was only four days, she reminded herself sternly, but somehow it felt as if she needed everything she had and yet none of it was right. She was a little thinner than usual – not much – so while the size twelve tops fit, size fourteen slacks and skirts were a little looser than usual. But not loose enough. She sighed. Perhaps her problem wasn’t that her butt was too big, but that her tits were too small. She wondered if there was a scientific ratio to determine that. She thought of Katherine Rensselaer and her perfect body in her perfectly cut clothes. Claire’s best jacket came from Ann Taylor. Katherine Rensselaer had probably never been in there, just as Claire had never been in Prada. She would definitely have to shop, not that she had the money for that. She looked at the pile of clothes on the bed, shrugged and then smiled. She might have fat thighs and second-rate clothes, but it was she, not Katherine Rensselaer, who was going to London with Mr Wonderful.

Claire spent Saturday morning trying on almost every decent garment she owned. By lunchtime she was exhausted. She had decided on a pair of black slacks from a pantsuit (but not the jacket), a beige sweater set from BCBG, a black and tan tweed A-line skirt and not much else. There was also the possibility of a navy dress she’d worn to a wedding, but it was floor length, which wouldn’t work.

‘Where you been all morning?’ her mother asked when Claire, rumpled and tired, walked down the stairs and into the kitchen. ‘You’ve been so quiet. More knitting?’

‘No. I finished the sweater.’ And she had. It had come out beautifully and Claire would definitely take it with her. The thought made her smile.

‘So what were you up to?’

‘Just doing some spring cleaning,’ Claire told her mother. ‘Do you have any navy thread? I have to fix a hem.’

‘Look in the bottom drawer. I think so.’

Claire rummaged in the kitchen drawer full of old ice cream scoops and dull knives. She found thread, all of it in a tangle, and pinking shears that might or might not cut. Meanwhile, her mother got a can of beer and a diet Pepsi from the fridge and wandered out. Claire was hungry, but she wanted the skirt and pants to fit. So she made herself a tuna salad, poured an iced tea (without sugar) and took them back upstairs.

She ate lunch then tried on the navy dress. It was a sleeveless boat neck, a simple full-length sheath. If she cut it short, above knee-length, it might look nice. But before she began cutting she took out a pad, sat at her desk and began a list. Despite the piles of things she’d tried she really had no other clothes up to the mark. She’d need a nice black T-shirt and a good blouse – white or beige silk – along with a pair of shoes; maybe strappy heels. She had comfortable shoes for walking, but – she almost blushed – she’d definitely need some nicer underwear and a good nightgown.

Claire didn’t really enjoy shopping. Perhaps if she was a size ten she might, but she always found it dispiriting to hopefully pick out a size twelve, have trouble getting her thighs into it, go back for a fourteen and just barely fit. And then her taste was so different from everyone she knew. Claire didn’t read women’s fashion magazines and she was too modest to realize that she possessed style, though it was a simple, classic one. She just thought, as Tina so often told her, that ‘she dressed boring’. That reminded her that Tina would be over in an hour. She would prefer not to do the shopping with Tina, but that was absolutely impossible.

When Tina arrived, she was apparently over her sulking and was now acting as if the whole plan was her idea. ‘Victoria’s Secret, here we come!’ she yelled as they stepped out of the door.

‘I’m not sure I want to go there,’ Claire said.

‘But you said you need panties and a bra. And a sexy nightgown. I saw a red lace robe and nightie that …’

‘I want to go up to Saks.’

‘Saks Fifth Avenue? You’re crazy! It’s so expensive.’ The wind whipped the two of them as they stood out on the street.

‘But I have a Saks card,’ Claire said. It actually was her mother’s, but at this point she owed Claire something over a couple of thousand dollars. And Claire would pay the bill when it came in.

‘Well, that’s different!’ Tina said. She lived on her credit cards. ‘Let’s go.’

Two hours later, after cruising the third and fourth floors at Saks, Claire had on a cream silk blouse she was at last ready to buy, despite the price tag of two hundred and ten dollars. ‘You’re nuts!’ Tina told her. ‘This was thirty-nine dollars. On sale at Banana Republic.’ She pointed to her own top and Claire looked at the two of them in the three-way mirror. That decided her. The blouse she had on looked as if it cost five hundred dollars more than Tina’s. It was something Katherine Rensselaer might wear.

Getting the black T-shirt, thank god, was easy and so were shoes. In fact, two pairs. It was pleasant in the shoe department, a relief to be sitting down, to be served by a polite older man and easy to give him her size without blushing. She didn’t have to fight a zipper to get into a high heel. She selected backless black ones with beige stitching that were comfortable enough for walking and a pair of navy courts with a little leather bow – in the back. ‘They are something,’ Tina admitted. ‘And everyone’s wearing heels with pants now.’

‘Really?’