Daring Chloe

by Walker, Laura Jensen

  “Deal.” I sprinted to the kitchen, ponytail flapping, so Becca wouldn’t see my flaming face. “I still think it needs a little color to — ” I was stopped in my tracks by a huge gourmet food basket tucked in a corner of the counter that had been invisible from the living room.

  A food basket with a card addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Chris O’Neil.

  “What’s up?” Becca joined me and saw the basket. And the card. She slid me a hesitant glance. “Want me to open it?”

  I nodded.

  Becca read aloud, grimacing as she did: “Welcome, newlyweds. Here’s a little something to keep those home fires stoked — and to save you from cooking for a couple days since we know you’ll be busy with other things. Love, Sheri and the gang.” She directed a quizzical glance my way. “Who’s Sheri? And how come she didn’t get the message that the wedd-uh, circumstances had changed?”

  “Sheri’s the receptionist and diehard romantic from work.” I ripped open the cellophane to remove the bottle of champagne sticking out the top. “The very pregnant receptionist now on maternity leave. She probably had this all set up before she went on leave and no one else knew to cancel it.”

  Becca eyed the basket of bounty. I could tell she was itching to dive into it — the same way she’d dove under the sea in Cabo to explore the treasures there. “What I want to know is, does this Sheri have good taste or are we talking Cheez Whiz and Ritz crackers?”

  I pulled out a package of Alaskan smoked salmon and imported English cheddar and affected a snooty British accent. “Nothing but the best from our champagne wishes and caviar dreams girl.”

  Becca’s eyes glittered as she zeroed in on a box of pears. “Ooh, I recognize these! They’re from Harry and David. We got a box at the store last Christmas from one of our authors who lives up in Ashland. They’re the most amazing pears you’ve ever tasted.”

  Any second now she was going to start foaming at the mouth.

  “Help yourself.” I continued to rummage through the basket as she chomped into the juicy fruit. “Just try and save me one.”

  “Ub kors, whaddya ache me for?” she mumbled around a mouthful of pear. “Uh pig?”

  “Just so you don’t root through those.” I set a box of truffles off to the side and continued to remove goodie after gourmet goodie from the never-ending basket: more cheese, English water crackers, fat red apples, peanut butter pretzels, a variety of breakfast breads and mountain preserves, mixed nuts, English shortbread, and something called Bing cherry chocolates.

  “Those chocolate cherries are to die for!” Becca said. “Have you ever had them?”

  “Nope. I don’t get out much.”

  “Well, honey, that’s about to change.” She tore into the tempting chocolates package and held it beneath my nose. “Try and resist that.”

  I popped one into my mouth. Definitely not my mother’s chocolate-covered cherries that she bought in a two-dollar box from the grocery store every Christmas. I popped in another one and chewed slowly.

  “See what I mean?”

  Becca’s voice punctured my food ecstasy. I opened my eyes, and as I looked around the formerly stark and pristine black-and-white kitchen now a mess with the decimated remains of the basket, my eyes lit upon the red apples on the black granite countertop.

  “We need to bring some color in here.”

  “Good thing I have a red toaster and teakettle. If you want, we could pick up a few more accents at Target.” What she meant was, I could pick up a few more accents at Target. Becca wasn’t going to have much more to spend on this place after rent and utilities. When I had told her what the rent was, her normally olive complexion turned cotton-ball white. “No way can I pay half of that.”

  I’d reassured her that since I was taking the large master bedroom and bath with a tub, shower, and huge walk-in closet, she didn’t have to pay as much — she could simply pay the same amount she was paying at her studio, and chip in for utilities and groceries.

  I took her on a tour of the rest of the condo, showing her the stackable washer and dryer behind an accordion door in the hallway and her smaller bedroom with its fabulous view of Tower Bridge.

  “Sweet!” Becca stuck out her hand to shake mine. “Let’s start turning this cell block into a home, roomie. And the first thing we need to do is rescue your books from your parents’ attic.”

  Three hours later we sat back with a satisfied sigh, having filled the cubed black bookcases to overflowing with my books and Becca’s — arranged alphabetically, by subject, of course.

  My new roommate didn’t work in a bookstore for nothing.

  We had butted heads a couple times over the organization: Becca liked all her books arranged standing up, but I preferred to mix it up a bit with some books stacked on their side like I’d seen once on one of those designer shows I’d been pressured into watching with my mom and Julia.

  “But books aren’t about how they look,” Becca said, horrified. “It’s all about content.”

  “True. But why can’t that content be arranged attractively too?”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Wonder who that is?” I stood up and brushed my book-dusty hands against my jeans.

  “Maybe the condo association welcome committee? Here to make sure no one’s absconded with their big-screen TV?”

  I peeked through the peephole and released a loud sigh.

  “Who is it?”

  Turning to face Becca, I mouthed Ryan’s name and then opened the door.

  “Uh, sorry to disturb you,” Ryan said, distinctly uncomfortable, “but Chris called and said he left his stunt kite here and asked if I’d pick it up and send it to him.”

  “Seems you’re always picking up after him.” I grudgingly waved him in.

  He gave a casual nod to Becca sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Hey, what’s up?”

  “Just getting settled into my new place.”

  “You’re moving in?”

  “Someone had to,” I interjected. “I couldn’t afford the rent on my own, and there’s that whole lease thing.”

  “Chris never told me he signed a lease.”

  “He didn’t. It’s called bad credit.” I waved him toward the sectional. “Have a seat while I see if I can find that kite.”

  I checked the hall closet. Nada. Unless it was masquerading as an ironing board. I moved to the bedroom, jerked open the closet door, and began shoving clothes aside. I finally found the kite in the far corner, partly hidden by my sweaters — the rainbow kite we’d flown on a windy day in Sausalito on our second date. I remembered it well, it was a chilly fall day, and we’d been running up and down the beach trying to catch just the right wind to keep the kite soaring. I’d taken off my glasses, which had gotten wet from the tidal spray, and Chris kissed me for the first time.

  Yanking out the boxed kite and tearing a corner of cellophane in the process, I stormed back to his best man. As I passed the kitchen, an apple from the decimated honeymoon basket caught my eye.

  “Heads up.” I threw the apple to Ryan, and he caught it neatly. “You might want to send that to Chris along with the kite since it was a gift to both of us. Of course it would probably be rotten by the time it got to San Diego, but I think that would be appropriate, don’t you?”

  “Chris isn’t rotten, Chloe. You know that.”

  “No, actually, I don’t. I don’t know anything about Chris anymore except that he’s a coward and a jerk.” I pushed my glasses up — I really needed to get to that glasses place at the mall and get them adjusted. “But I know you’re happy. You never wanted us to get married.”

  “I just thought things were moving pretty fast. And that neither of you was quite ready.” Ryan met my eyes squarely. “I still think that. But I am sorry he waited until the last minute to realize that. He was afraid to hurt you.”

  “Looks like he got over that fear.”

  “I’ll say.” Becca strode over to me in girl-power solidarity.

  “Well .
. .” Ryan stuck the kite under his arm and pocketed the apple. “Guess I’ll be going. Thanks, Chloe. Hope to see you at church Sunday.”

  Becca, who didn’t have much use for church or organized religion in general, snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  Was I ready to go back to church and face everybody? How humiliating. But I didn’t want to blame God for what Chris had done. It wasn’t his fault. I couldn’t blame him, right?

  While I wrestled with myself, Becca’s voice dimly registered through my brain fog. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

  I blinked and Ryan was gone. I felt like Samantha on Bewitched (although everyone always tells me I look more like Tina Fey with the whole brown hair and glasses thing).

  “Okay, stop thinking about Chris. That’s the past.” Becca popped open the bottle of champagne and filled two glasses. “And this is the future.”

  She raised her glass in a toast. “Here’s to new roommates and new beginnings.”

  5

  “Wouldn’t it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true and we could live in them?”

  Little Women

  Normally, leading the discussion at the Paperback Girls Book Club wasn’t my strong suit — that’s more Becca’s thing — but tonight I jumped at the chance to be in charge, so I could steer it away from what I knew was on everyone’s mind: my wedding that wasn’t.

  “So which of the four little women did you identify with the most?” I’d chosen Little Women as our January selection, so it was up to me to lead the book club discussion.

  I’d already marked down which March girl reminded me of which Paperback Girl.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you,” Becca said, “but I totally relate to Jo.” Of course she did. They shared that same reckless, adventurous spirit, born-leader nature, and storytelling gifts.

  “Now there’s a surprise.” Tess arched her brows. She was another Jo, in love with words and the theater, adventurous, and unafraid to take risks. But Tess also had elements of Meg, the oldest and most practical March daughter.

  “Jo was too much of a tomboy. And I can’t believe she whacked off all her gorgeous hair!” Kailyn fluffed her golden mane. “Personally, I identified more with Amy.” Kailyn — our youngest at twenty-three — the resident girly-girl and most beautiful of the group, with her perfect body and cascading blonde curls, was definitely Amy.

  “You do what you have to,” Kailyn’s mother Annette said. It was a little trickier classifying Annette as one of the four March girls. She was more like Marmee, the wise, kind mother. With perhaps a trace of Meg.

  Paige Kelley was another Meg, although not as pretty. Not that Paige is unattractive; she’s just kind of ordinary: medium height, medium weight — plus a few extra pounds now and then — medium-length, medium-brown hair. Not anyone who would ever stand out in a crowd. Until you got her talking about movies. Then she becomes as animated as Amy.

  Jenna, perpetually tan and athletic to a fault — definitely Jo all the way.

  And me? I’m a combination of practical, responsible Meg and shy, stay-at-home Beth. Deep down, though, there’s a part of me that longs to be Jo.

  Seven very different women with a love of books in common.

  Becca’s Almond Joy eyes snapped, crackled, and popped. “I had this great idea for the upcoming year. I thought that instead of just sitting around stuffing our faces and discussing the books we read like every other women’s book club on the planet” — she paused dramatically — “we could live out some of the adventures in the books instead!”

  “Uh, I’m really not up for sucking anyone’s blood.” Jenna held up Dracula, her suggestion.

  “You’re not?” Tess said. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  Becca rapped her knuckles on the white board she used to keep track of our book suggestions. She’d started the Paperback Girls nearly two years ago with a dozen women, but over time the club had been whittled down to our core group of seven.

  That first year, each woman got to choose a book, and we wound up with a list from all sides of the literary spectrum: Dickens and Dostoyevsky, Hemingway and Faulkner, Charlotte Brontë and Virginia Woolf, Danielle Steel and Jackie Collins, Dr. Laura and Dr. Phil.

  Sarah and Lisa, the two best friends who’d selected Jackie Collins and Danielle Steel, weren’t too crazy about Dickens, Dostoyevsky, or Woolf, but Faulkner was the final nail in their book club coffin. They fled, flip-flops flapping. To be honest, most of us were tempted to flee after Faulkner.

  After a couple more literary defections, we decided to set up some group guidelines. We wanted to improve ourselves, but also have fun and mix it up a bit, so after much discussion and a vote, we decided to include both fiction and nonfiction. The only requirement was that all the books had to be paperback. Each Paperback Girl was asked to bring two or three choices to the planning meeting, and we had to select at least one book from each member.

  “For instance.” Becca held up a green paperback with a black-and-white photo of a woman, aviator glasses perched on her head.

  “Is that Amelia Earhart?” Annette squinted over her reading glasses.

  “Same era, wrong continent. This is Beryl Markham’s memoir, West with the Night. She was a pilot in Africa in the 1930s and friends with Denys Finch Hatton and the writer Isak Dinesen — ”

  “Dinesen and Hatton?” Movie buff Paige’s eyes lit up. “Robert Redford played Hatton in Out of Africa. I loved that movie. So romantic. He could wash my hair any day.”

  “Any day in Africa,” Tess reminded her. “And I understand they have lots of bugs there.”

  Becca ignored the rabbit trail and continued. “Beryl Markham was this fearless, amazing woman. She was the only female professional pilot in Africa at that time.”

  “You want us to go flying in Africa?” I gulped.

  “I wish. I had something a little more local in mind. There’s this place in Lodi where you can go gliding.” Becca sent us a sly smile. “And right across the street they have skydiving.”

  “Not for this girl,” Kailyn said.

  “Or this one,” her mother agreed. “No way will y’all ever catch me jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. That’s what the pilots I worked with always used to say. And if a pilot in the Air Force of these here United States sees no reason to jump out of an airplane, neither do I.” Fifty and strawberry-blonde, Annette originally hailed from Texas, and she still retained traces of her accent.

  “I’m with you.” I imagined myself hurtling to the ground and landing with a splat when my parachute didn’t open. “Way too scary.”

  “No it’s not.”

  Six heads swiveled to Jenna.

  “I went skydiving for my twenty-fifth birthday, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. It was the biggest rush ever.”

  “Yesss!” Becca pumped her fist in the air.

  “Count me in,” Tess said.

  “Tess!”

  “What?” Behind her glasses she made her eyes all wide and innocent. “I’ve always wanted to go skydiving, and I’m not getting any younger. I’d like to take a page from Jenna’s book and do it for my birthday too. Except it would be my fiftieth.”

  It was hard to believe at times that Tess came from our family. None of the rest of us had her daring, adventurous spirit. Everyone else just thought she was different. I loved her for it.

  “Do all the adventures have to be physical in nature?” Paige asked Becca.

  “Uh, yeah,” Becca said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “What else?”

  “An adventure means doing something you’ve never done before — taking a risk and trying something new,” Tess said. “I like the idea of adding some physical adventures to get us off our couch-potato butts, but why limit ourselves? Why not expand ourselves mentally and culturally as well?” She held up her two suggestions: Marjorie Morningstar and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

  “What’s Marjorie Morningstar?
” Becca frowned. “I don’t recognize that.”

  “That’s because you’re young. My mother read it in the 1950s when it was first released and fell in love with it. She gave it to me when I was a teenager in the 1970s and I fell in love with it too,” Tess said. “It’s a coming-of-age story of a young woman in 1930s New York who wants to break away from the wife-and-mother expectations her parents have for her and become an actress instead.”

  “And the adventure aspect would be?” Becca tapped her foot.

  “Going to the theater. We could see a play in town or go to San Francisco and make a whole day of it.”

  “Works for me as long as we don’t have to see Annie.” Jenna grimaced. “If I hear ‘Tomorrow’ one more time, I’ll slit my throat. That reminds me — I’d like to offer my other suggestions.”

  “Let me guess.” Becca prepared to add Jenna’s titles to the white board. “A mystery maybe?”

  Jenna was our resident horror and mystery lover, and she was always trying to drag the rest of us over to the dark side with her. In addition to Dracula, she suggested an Agatha Christie and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep.

  “Well I think shopping’s always an adventure,” Kailyn said. “So I nominate Confessions of a Shopaholic.”

  Becca groaned.

  “What?” Kailyn shot a pointed glance at Becca’s frayed Birkenstocks. “Someone here could do with a little shopping adventure.”

  Kailyn also suggested the children’s paperback Heidi, while Annette, our classics lover, nominated Emma, Les Mis-érables, and Wuthering Heights.

  “Ooh, I’ve always wanted to read Wuthering Heights.” Paige stared dreamily off into space. Paige was a sucker for romance, especially the tragic kind.

  “I have too, but I’m leaning more toward Emma,” Tess, our Austen aficionado said.

  “I don’t know what kind of adventure we’re going to find in a Jane Austen,” Becca grumbled. “All everyone does is sit around and talk.”

  “Or have picnics and talk,” I said.

  “Or drink tea and talk.” Becca widened her eyes in mock wonder. “Although sometimes they take incredibly exciting strolls around the room. Those Austen chicks were really adventurous.”