“I’m with Becca.” I offered Tess an apologetic look. “Persuasion was a bit excruciating — although I loved the movie. But I don’t think I could handle another Jane Austen. Can’t we go with something a little more exciting? If you really want classic, then let’s do classic Grisham — The Firm.”
“Loved the movie.”
“One of Tom Cruise’s better ones.”
“Getting off track again. Time to vote.”
Becca pouted when the majority nixed her female pilot memoir, but brightened when we all agreed on Dove, the true tale of Robin Graham, whose story was featured in National Geographic. My Grisham selection got nixed too, but the group voted for my second offering, Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods.
We also agreed that the Paperback Girl who’d chosen the book had to be the one who came up with the adventure we would reenact from its pages.
“Within reason.” Kailyn shot a warning look at the more adventurous girls in the room. “Anything involving bungee jumping or polar bears is off limits.”
Paige, who’d chosen the nonfiction French Women Don’t Get Fat, offered to teach us the little she knew about French cooking, wrapping up her lesson with a five-course dinner at her home. “If you’ve never eaten escargot, it can be quite an adventure.”
“I have an even better idea!” Becca jumped up. “Why don’t we take a couple French cooking classes from an actual French chef in” — another dramatic pause — “Paris?”
“Paris? Are you crazy?” I stared at her.
We all did.
“Who in the world could afford to go to Paris?” Kailyn asked.
“We could — if we start saving now.” Becca said, her entire body pulsing with excitement. “Since we take December off for the holidays, if we make French Women our last book, that would be next January. And I’ve seen cheap off-season fares in the paper for less than four hundred bucks from San Francisco to Paris.” She looked at Tess. “Right, travel agent?”
“I found round-trip tickets for a honeymoon couple for only $299 apiece.” Tess looked at me, stricken, when she realized she’d said the H-word.
“It’s okay,” I said with what I hoped was a wan smile. “I got my honeymoon.”
There was an awkward silence that Annette hurried to fill. “You’re better off without him, honey,” she advised. “Better to have found out now rather than later when you’re married. You wouldn’t have wanted it to end in divorce.”
“No you wouldn’t,” said Paige, who’d gone through an unwanted divorce two years earlier.
It was Annette’s turn to look stricken. “I’m sorry Paige, I didn’t mean — ”
“I know you didn’t. Don’t worry about it,” Paige said, turning to me with a sympathetic look. “I know how much it hurts when the man you love leaves, Chloe, and the last thing I want to do is suggest that your pain isn’t as real just because you hadn’t yet said ‘I do.’ ” She rubbed her ringless finger. “I will say, though, that breaking those vows is really hard.”
“But you didn’t break them,” Annette said. “He did when he ran off.”
“Creep.”
“Jerk.”
“Swine.” I slammed my book down. “Why are men such creeps?”
“Not all.” Annette fidgeted with her wedding band.
“She’s right. Mom and Dad have a great marriage,” Kailyn said. “Problem is they’ve spoiled me for settling for anything less, which makes it hard on the dating scene.”
“That’s ’cause all the good ones are taken.”
“Tell me about it. They’re all married, in a long-term relationship, or gay.”
“Not all of them,” Annette said. “There are some nice guys in your singles group.”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind wimps who still live with their mother, guys just coming off their third divorce, or dumb jocks who never take their head out of their big-screen TV.”
Becca exchanged a knowing look with me.
“We’re just living in the wrong era,” Paige said. “We need to go back in time when men were more romantic. Like Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice. Or, be still my heart, Hugh Jack-man in Kate and Leopold.”
“Getting off track again, girls,” Tess said.
“This club isn’t about movie stars or Hollywood or men,” Becca said. “It’s about books and reading and learning and an amazing group of adventurous women who can do anything we set our minds to. Right?”
“Right!” they chorused.
“Right,” I echoed faintly.
Becca asked Tess if she could get us an idea of the cost for airfare, hotel, and other expenses, including cooking lessons. “I read on the Internet where this guy surprised his wife during their anniversary trip to Paris with two days of lessons from a French chef, and it wasn’t all that expensive,” she said.
“C’est fait.”
“Huh?”
“Consider it done,” Tess said. “Better check out some French language tapes, missy.” She nodded at me.
“Mais oui.”
And don’t freak out about the whole flying over the ocean thing. This is just another one of Becca’s wild and crazy ideas that will probably never come to pass.
“So what’s our Emma adventure going to be?” Becca asked. “Going on a picnic? Dressing up and going to a ball? Sitting around making droll comments?”
Annette offered up a serene smile. “You’ll just have to wait and see.”
When I got home from book club that night, my answering machine was blinking.
Maybe it’s Chris, and he’s having second thoughts about the break-up.
I held my breath in anticipation as I pushed play. “Hi, Chloe, it’s your big sister. Are you there?” There was a pause, and then Julia continued. “I just wanted to see how you were doing and to let you know that if you ever want to talk, I’m here. Also, Mom and I are hosting a craft night — Cheryl Cummings is going to teach us all how to knit, and I thought you might want to join us. I know sewing’s not your thing, but knitting is completely different.”
Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen.
I deleted the message.
Part 2
6
Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.
Emma
A week later, Becca and I were kicked back reading on either end of the comfy, sage green couch I’d gotten for a song through Craigslist and finishing off the last of the smoked salmon from the newlywed basket.
“How are you coming on Emma?”
“I’m not. Talk about boring.” Becca plucked some crackers from the plate on the pine coffee table we’d picked up along with the couch. I’d been able to return the glass table and sectional for a full refund, and although I stuck most of the money back into savings, I used some of it to buy the replacements, as well as a rug and two comfortably squashy chairs from my favorite thrift store.
“I’m kind of bored too.” I scarfed up the last sliver of salmon before Becca could pounce on it. “Tess tells me it’s because our generation has a short attention span.”
“Or it could be — and I know it’s sacrilege for me to utter this — but maybe Jane Austen’s just a boring writer?”
“Better not let Tess hear you say that! Or your boss. She’d be appalled. The whole rest of the world can’t be wrong. Her books are classics. And to be classics, by definition, means they’ve stood the test of time.”
“Well, it’s not going to take anymore of my time.” Becca tossed her paperback on the coffee table. “I’m just going to order the movie from Netflix and be done with it. Life’s too short to waste on books I don’t like.”
I flipped through my Emma pages. “I wonder what adventure Annette will have concocted for us from this? An afternoon tea, maybe?”
“Yeah. Like that’s really adventurous.�
�
“Have you ever been to one? The tea selections alone come from every corner of the globe and it can be quite an adventure choosing the precise one you want. And learning to crook your pinkie while holding a fragile teacup without spilling is a major acrobatic feat.”
Becca stuck her nose in the air. “Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”
“Well la-di-da. Where’s that from?”
“Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.”
“Wait. You think Jane Austen is boring but not Henry James?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t think he was boring too — I just remember the opening line from when we studied him in class.”
Most people our age quoted from movies and TV shows, but Becca was always quoting from books. Maybe by living with her, I’d soak up some of her bibliophile brilliance and be able to impress everyone at work with a new party trick.
Work was becoming a little less awkward these days, much to my relief. When I returned the first Monday after my Mexican cruise, my supervisor, Bob Jefferson, a middle-aged father of three daughters, was concerned and solicitous. As was everyone else — except a couple women from personnel who just pretended to be.
(Becca was always asking me what it was that I did exactly at my job. Everyone did. Okay, so maybe analyzing bills and regulations for the Department of Health Services wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but it was a good, steady job with great benefits, including three weeks of paid vacation a year. How could I complain?)
I’d arrived a little early the day after the cruise so I could put my lunch in the break room fridge without being seen by the hordes of coffee drinkers who clustered around the caffeine machine at the start of the work day. But Bob was already there, filling his World’s Greatest Dad cup.
“Chloe.” He enfolded me in a bear hug. “How are you?” He released me and gave me a searching look.
“I’m fine.”
Bob raised a bushy eyebrow over his bifocals.
“All right, I’ve been better. But I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute. And if you don’t mind my saying so, you’re better off without him. You deserve someone better. I always thought so.”
Then why didn’t you say so? Give me a little heads-up, maybe?
As I thought back though, I remembered that Bob had diplomatically voiced concerns on one or two occasions after seeing the two of us together.
I just refused to hear.
Stubborn much?
“Oh well. Life goes on. Right?” I opened a packet of Splenda and shook a little into my coffee mug. “And so does work, so guess I’d better get back to — ”
“Chloe!” Michelle, one half of the dynamic gossip duo from personnel, rushed up to me, eyes glittering in hopes of getting the full scoop. “You poor thing! You must be so devastated and humiliated. I can only imagine how you must be feeling. Would you like to talk?”
To you? In what universe?
“Sorry, Michelle. Chloe needs to get to work.” Bob glanced meaningfully at the clock on the wall. “We all do.”
She flushed and gave my shoulder a fake sympathy pat. “Okay, but if you want to talk or just need a shoulder to cry on, you know where to find me.”
I nodded and hurried after Bob, nearly running into Carol, Michelle’s other middle-aged-gossip half, on my way out.
“Oh, Chloe! How awful,” Carol said. “How are you?”
Carol was just the second in a constant parade of concerned or curious coworkers stopping by my desk that first day, all offering up sympathy and platitudes or stories of their own.
“Chloe, I’m so sorry! Chloe, is there anything I can do? Did you know the same thing happened to my cousin? Blah, blah, blah.” By the mid-morning break, I couldn’t stand any more and fled to the ladies room to hide until the coast was clear.
I was in the midst of composing a mental list of one hundred and one ways to torture and humiliate Chris if he ever showed his sorry face again when from inside my metal stall, I heard the restroom door open.
Noiselessly, I pulled my leather mules up to rest on the commode.
“I chipped in ten bucks for that shower gift,” Betty Jo, our department receptionist, whined. “Guess I’ll never see that again.”
“Tell me about it,” Michelle’s nasal voice joined in. “I don’t know why we had to buy such expensive towels from Nord-strom anyway. Wal-Mart would have been just fine.”
“Or Target,” Betty Jo said. “But you know miss executive secretary who thinks she’s all that had to be in charge of the whole shower. She’s probably never even set foot in a Target or Wal-Mart.”
“I’ll bet she did when she was still a lowly peon like us,” Michelle said. “Before she got her big promotion, I mean.” Michelle gave a loud sniff. “And we all know how she got — ”
The bathroom door squeaked open, hushing the women.
“Oh, Carol, it’s just you.” I could hear the relief in Michelle’s voice. “We were just saying how we’d probably all be stiffed for Chloe’s shower gift.”
“Never mind about that.” Carol giggled. “Do you know what I heard?”
“No. What?” they chorused.
Now what? How could this get any worse?
“I heard that he dumped her by text message! Can you even imagine?”
“No! Really? How humiliating.”
“But delicious.”
They all left, cackling together.
I stayed in the stall, legs still hunched in front of me, tingling with hundreds of little pin-pricks from the uncomfortable position.
One of my shoes fell off and landed on the floor with a plop.
I don’t know how I made it through the rest of that day. But on my way home I drove through McDonald’s and ordered a Big Mac, a McFlurry, and a large fries.
Sometimes all a girl can do is supersize it.
Two weeks after the Little Women meeting, when I got home from work on a Monday evening, I pulled two thick creamy vellum envelopes from the mailbox along with the usual assortment of junk mail. One envelope had my name handwritten on the front in beautiful calligraphy, while the other was addressed to Becca, and both had Annette’s return address on the back.
Eager to learn what our first book club adventure would be, I tore open my envelope in the elevator. A small piece of paper fluttered out. I caught it in mid-air and read. “Dress casual but not sloppy. Skirts, slacks, or dress jeans, neatly pressed. No baggy, faded pants with rips or tears.”
I smiled. Annette’s Southern, middle-aged, Air Force tendencies always reared their pressed-and-pleated head. She couldn’t stand wrinkled, shredded, or torn jeans. And the baggy hip-hop gangsta-style pants with three inches of boxers peeking up over the top?
Not in her universe.
“But Mom, it’s the fashion,” Kailyn would patiently explain whenever her mother complained about her low-slung, ripped, or frayed jeans.
“It may be the fashion, baby girl,” Annette said, “but not when you’re with me.”
As I let myself into the apartment, I pulled out the creamy cardstock invitation. “The honor of your presence is requested this Saturday evening at six o’clock at the home of Annette Hunt, 5927 Kensington Lane. R.S.V.P.” I could hardly wait until Becca got home and saw her invitation. Maybe if we put our heads together, we could figure out what Annette had cooked up for us. I’d expected it would be some kind of formal English tea or something, but I couldn’t imagine Annette allowing jeans at such an event — pressed or not.
Pulling a frozen pizza from the fridge, I popped it in the oven, then changed into sweats and settled in with Emma again on the couch. Now that we’d seen the movie version, I understood the book so much better and surprised myself by really liking it. Jane Austen was funny — brilliant, actually.
The front door flew open and Becca bounded in.
She dropped her bookbag on the
floor with a dramatic thud and flung her coat over one of the chairs as she headed to the kitchen. “Oy! What a day I had today.” I heard the refrigerator door open and close, a little rustling, and then she was back. She sank into a chair and held up a pen-shaped plastic-wrapped package. “String cheese?”
“No thanks.”
Becca tore open the plastic and took such a vicious bite that if she had bitten off her own finger with it, I don’t think she would have noticed. “You won’t believe it! We had a book signing with this local author who was totally obnoxious. First, she shows up with six ginormous posters of herself that were obviously taken about twenty years and two facelifts ago. And she wants me to display these pictures all around the store, including in front of the restrooms.” Becca jumped up, sucked in her cheeks, and fluttered her eyelashes at me. “That way we can get them both coming and going, dear,” she trilled in a high falsetto.
“Then she wants to know why we hadn’t ordered more than twenty copies of her self-published book — an awful self-published book, I might add, with about a hundred misspellings and typos per page — and why we didn’t have her first book in stock to sell to the huge crowd that was going to materialize. Yadda-yadda.” Becca shoved her hand through her spiky black hair. “Of course, nobody showed up except her mother, grandmother, and one of her neighbors. And only one of them bought a book. So then she blamed me for not publicizing the event more.”
She dropped back down into her chair, sprawling her legs out in front of her. “Some of these authors are so high maintenance.” Then she noticed the formal envelope with her name and snatched it up. “What’s this?”
“Open it and see.” I flapped my creamy vellum at her. “I got one too.”
Becca groaned when she read the clothing instructions. “What’s up with that? Why’s Annette insisting we get all dressed up for this deal?”
“All dressed up? She said we could wear jeans — they just have to be pressed.”
“Nuh-uh. Look.” She handed me her small slip of paper.
Daring Chloe Page 6
