Wish Upon a Star

‘Epcot sucks,’ said Marie One. ‘I was never so bored in my life.’

Speaking of bored, Claire could barely stand it. She was suddenly so tired of these tedious repetitions of the obvious that she was ready to throw down her sandwich – or possibly throw it up. Then, oddly, the conversation became riveting.

‘Mr Crayden, Senior is spending the next month in London doing some new business deal,’ Marie Two announced. ‘He may take Abigail with him.’ Abigail Samuels was Mr Crayden’s secretary of almost thirty years. Unmarried, tall and ultra-efficient, she was an office wife and handled every detail of Mr Crayden’s business, as well as a significant part of his social plans. She never lunched with any of the other secretaries. She was a haughty white-haired patrician with better things to do. Claire had seen her, once or twice, eating lunch alone in local coffee shops reading Balzac in the original French. Claire was impressed and awed by her.

‘Lucky Abigail,’ said Michelle sarcastically. ‘She gets to travel. Too bad she doesn’t have a husband or a life.’

Marie Two ignored Michelle, as she often did. ‘Well, Mr Crayden, Junior may also go for part of that time, and if he does, guess who’s invited?’ A series of surprised coos and ooohs circulated the table.

‘Your husband would shit a brick,’ Marie One said.

‘Like that matters,’ Marie Two said. ‘Crayden asks, I go. I never been there.’

Claire felt the hair on the back of her neck rise. She had never traveled much, but if she could go to London! If she had to go to London, so that she wouldn’t be nervous or tempted to cancel. If she were going there to work, so there would be some people she knew, some familiarity … well, she would never get the chance. Analysts were not invited to London.

Tina put down her pastrami sandwich and raised her heavily penciled brows. ‘Hey, maybe that’s got something to do with Michael Wainwright going,’ Tina said. ‘I just booked him a couple of tickets for next Thursday.’

‘You goin’ too?’ Marie One asked.

‘Nah. He’s only stayin’ till the end of the weekend. And he’s taking Katherine. His new one.’

Claire forced herself to take the last bite of her egg salad sandwich, wiped her mouth with a paper napkin and put it and the other trash in her lunch bag. ‘I have to run out to Duane Reade,’ she said. ‘Does anybody need anything?’ Nobody did, but Joan was quick to remind her she only had twenty minutes until she was due back in the department. Claire nodded, and freed herself.

She didn’t need to shop. She just needed some air. She walked up to City Hall and paced the small park in front of it. What was she doing? Why did she spend her days in a windowless room, and her nights at home alone reading? She had sequestered herself from life; she may as well have been cloistered. But the fact was she knew she was nothing like a nun. She wanted to travel. She wanted an exciting job. She wanted to do new things and meet new people. She just didn’t know how. She sat, for a moment, on a bench. It had turned cold, but in the sun, with her coat wrapped tightly around her, she managed not to shiver. The thought of going back to Crayden Smithers and Joan made her shudder. Even out here, wind from the harbor on her face, she felt as if she were jailed.

Manhattan was clearly the answer but it intimidated her. How could she manage to afford it and would she find a roommate? Other people did it, she reminded herself, but she didn’t feel like other people. In fact, she’d always felt different from everyone she had known. Worse yet, as best she could objectively see, everyone else agreed with her. No wonder she felt so lonely.

I could sign up for a trip, some kind of tour group she told herself. I could go to Europe, if I had a guide. Then the idea of traveling with a bunch of strangers, winding up with Marie One and Michelle – or their equivalent – traipsing through Paris seemed ridiculous.

Perhaps, she told herself, there might be an Abigail Samuels or even a well-read man. She had read all of The Human Comedy, and Jean Rhys and Collette. She felt as if she had already been to France and couldn’t bear to go for real as a stupid tourist, unable to speak the language, wearing the wrong clothes and going to the wrong places.

The fact was, she was not only a coward but she was also a snob. A secret snob, the worst kind. She sat at lunch and felt superior to and amused by everyone. But who was she to feel that way? At least Michelle and Tina and the Maries – and even Joan – went places and did things and slept with men. She would have to change, she decided, and stood up. She would have to change because not doing so, living as she was living, had become impossible.

Claire looked at her watch. She would be late getting back to work and Joan would punish her by giving her the most onerous jobs for the rest of the afternoon. She wouldn’t mind because she had decided something important. She wasn’t sure if she could transform into a butterfly, but she’d transform herself into something. She had a new resolve: despite the obstacles, she was going to change.

The problem was she didn’t know what she was going to change into.

SIX (#ulink_463e7dcc-211b-5117-887c-7620996c2dac)

The next day the women were sitting, as usual, at lunch and gossiping the usual gossip – the television of the night before, or the latest movie – when Tina came charging into the room all excited. ‘You’re not going to believe what just happened!’ She looked around the table to make sure she had everyone’s attention. ‘A minute ago, Katherine walks right past me into his office. I mean, I try to stop her but it’s like I’m totally invisible. He’s on the phone, but when he sees her, he’s like “gotta go”. Once he hangs up she says, “I don’t know who you think you are but I’m sure as hell not who you think I am!”’

‘She goes!’ said Marie One.

Tina nodded. ‘She goes, but she ain’t goin’.’

‘Goin’ where?’ Michelle asked.

‘To London. She blew the trip.’

‘No shit,’ Marie Two said. Then she paused. ‘Did she tell him to stuff the trip up his ass or did he tell her that?’

‘No ass-stuffing was involved,’ Tina sniffed. ‘They didn’t swear once. She called him “a narcissistic self-parody” and he …’ she narrowed her eyes as if trying to remember Mr Not-So-Wonderful’s exact phraseology. ‘I think he asked her to keep her psychological profiles to herself until he requested one. Then Michael came out to me and ordered me to hold the second airline ticket.’

Then without a beat, Tina moved on to drop a new conversational grenade about a confrontation – almost a scene – in the outer office, between two of the other traders.

‘Well, I think a “go fuck yourself” wouldn’t have been inappropriate,’ Michelle said. Just then Abigail Samuels walked in, in time to hear the vulgarity. Claire hung her head. She was in the company of these people and surely perceived as one of them by everyone but herself. Still, she wished she hadn’t been there when the remote, educated Abigail – who was probably a virgin – heard the conversation.

Abigail, however, moved serenely by them to the refrigerator, took out a yogurt and turned to go. At the door, as a kind of after-thought, she turned back to the now-silent group. ‘Claire,’ she said. ‘Would you be free to photocopy some important documents for me?’

Every eye at the table turned from Abigail Samuels to Claire. Claire looked first to Abigail, then to Joan. Joan shrugged and nodded. ‘She can do it,’ Joan said.

‘We know she can,’ Abigail Samuels said, and Claire, most probably, was the only one who realized Joan’s grammar was being corrected. ‘The question I asked was if she was available.’

‘She’s available,’ Joan said after a moment’s pause. Claire stood up and wordlessly followed Abigail out of the lunch room.

They were along the row of executive offices, almost to Michael Wainwright’s, when Abigail turned to Claire. ‘You seem like a girl who keeps herself to herself,’ she said. ‘This is a job that I want to be kept exactly where it belongs.’

Claire nodded, and Abigail seemed to feel that was enough. They reached her office outside of Mr Crayden’s. ‘You’ll use the photocopier in the executive supply room.’ She lifted a pile of documents and handed them to Claire. ‘I’d prefer you don’t read them, but I don’t insist.’

Claire was shown through a door she had never noticed. The room was small but paneled, and leather-jacketed pads of paper, engraved personal letterhead and all manner of high-end office supplies were carefully placed on shelves behind glass cabinet doors. A photocopier, a shredder and a fax were built into mahogany cabinetry as well.

‘Do you know how the machine works?’ Abigail asked. Claire nodded. ‘It doesn’t have a collator and I’ll need two copies of everything. Can you keep them in order?’

‘Yes,’ Claire managed.

‘I thought you could.’ Abigail smiled. ‘If you have any questions, just call.’

Claire began the work. It was dull, but it made a break in her usual day. Anything that kept her away from Joan was a good thing, but she had a feeling that, just like in high school, there would be a price to pay for being singled out.

Feeding the first page in, she only glanced at the contents to make sure she wasn’t going to be a participant in grand larceny or fraud. Crayden Smithers was one of the few firms that hadn’t been involved in a nineties stock scandal but you couldn’t be too careful. Once she realized that the work was only employment contracts, and sensitive because of the salaries and bonuses involved, she didn’t look any further and simply did the job.

There was a certain repetitive comfort in lifting the flap of the copier, placing each page just so and removing the two copies and separating them. It was a task that required no thinking, but after she had organized it and gotten used to the robotic rhythm she had set for herself, having time to think was not necessarily a good thing. She didn’t want to remember the conversation at lunch, nor think about Michael Wainwright’s business trips or the companions he took on them. She wanted to get her work done, look out at the skyline on her ferry ride home and then finish her cable sweater. That idea pleased her. It was going to be a lovely garment and, though the purchase of the cashmere had been extravagant, she was glad she had done it. She was also glad that she was going to keep it for herself.

The small room was getting warm. Claire tucked her hair behind her ears and bent over the machine. She felt her face flush from the heat. She wondered if there was a fan, though she doubted anyone often used the room for this volume of copying. The noise of the machine and her concentration on the task kept her from hearing the door open and close behind her.

SEVEN (#ulink_a2f23412-87bc-5e9a-9505-961d5f7a3f99)

‘Hi, Claire,’ Mr Wonderful said.

‘Hello.’ Claire jerked her head up, trying to keep her surprise from showing and her tone cordial but nothing more.

‘I didn’t know you were in here.’ He looked her up and down and gave her an oddly shy smile. She didn’t know how becoming the color in her face and the new haircut looked. She was glad she had worn her mother’s dress again today, and hoped it wasn’t too tight across her backside. Then she told herself sternly that it didn’t matter how she looked. If she had any pride at all she would be, if not nasty, at least abrupt with him.

‘Why would you?’ Claire asked.

Michael Wainwright paused for a moment then shrugged. ‘No reason, I guess.’ He looked down at the paper he was carrying. ‘I have to fax these to Catwallider, Wickersham, and Taft right away.’

Claire looked at him calmly and didn’t offer to help. Abigail’s work for Mr Crayden, Senior out-ranked Michael Wainwright’s work. Not offering gave Claire a tiny bit of satisfaction. He moved over to the fax and, in passing her, had to sidle around her. She steeled herself to feel nothing, but she couldn’t help listening to him as he fumbled with punching in the fax number before loading the document he wanted to send. The machine whistled, asking for the start button to be pushed but he didn’t push it. Claire, though she knew what he needed to do, didn’t offer any guidance.