Wish Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

Although Lindsay’s standard for cleanliness was off the charts: they’d shared a Printer’s Row apartment during their last year at the Art Institute and it had almost ended their friendship.
    When she’d first met Lindsay, during the second week of classes, Jill had been walking through the lobby of the Sharp Building and Lindsay had stopped her, saying that since they were in the same Research Studio section they would probably end up friends. Jill’s immediate reaction had been to think,
probably not.
Lindsay had been so intense. But she’d had an earnestness about her, too, a kind of innocence, really, and a way of looking at you—as if she could see down to the core. In spite of Jill’s initial aversion, Lindsay had been right. They had ended up friends.
    Jill sighed and got to work making the bed. There might be no pleasing Lindsay, but she would make an attempt for the rest of them. She wanted to please them. Go figure. It was weird, this closeness she felt for these Book Club women. Jill still couldn’t understand it even after five years of being in Book Club. They were so not like her. Mara and Claudia were practically borderline nerds.
    It was no surprise that Claudia had been the one to bring Mara, the wife of one of her schoolteacher friends, into the group. Jill had always thought Mara was a strange addition. Initially, she had tried to explain it away as a result of Mara joining Book Club after they’d already been meeting for a year. But that wasn’t it. Now, Jill suspected it was because even though Mara was only a couple years older than the rest of them, she
seemed
so much older. It was as if she reveled in her dowdiness.
    Then there was Gail, who always seemed to have such potential. She was far from dowdy, and Jill suspected underneath it all Gail was a kindred soul. Regardless, when Lindsay had introduced them, Gail’s acceptance of her—and Claudia’s for that matter—had been instant. And warm, like
Any friend of Lindsay’s is a friend of ours.
Which Jill found even more weird.
    She finished making the bed and cleared off the nightstand, then removed the laundry mountains from the floor. The place was actually starting to look better.
    And all she had to do in the bathroom was make it
look
clean. Actually
getting
it clean, that was Loma’s job. She thought of canceling Loma for the next day. She was going to do the whole place tonight; why should she pay Loma to do it all over again tomorrow? And how could she be sure that Loma
really
cleaned anything in the first place? Instead of using the heavy-duty stuff, like Ajax or Soft Scrub and some elbow grease, Loma could very well be pouring measured amounts of cleaning products down the drain each week and running through the house with paper towels and spray cleaners, like Jill was doing now, just making it
look
clean.
    She looked down at the toilet next to her. No, she would continue to put her faith in Loma. It was going to be bad enough having to clean the outside of the bowl herself; she would be damned if she actually got in there and
cleaned
the inside as well.
    After she finished, Jill washed up, changed out of her cleaning clothes, and freshened her makeup. They would arrive in less than thirty minutes and she still had to get the food set up. She paused with her hand on the door to the refrigerator for a moment before changing her mind and opening the freezer. She pulled out a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and set it on the counter, her fingertips leaving five melted imprints on the frosted glass. She blew off using a shaker and mixed her martini right in the glass, scooping out the ice cubes with a fork.
    Jill sucked on an olive while she put all the veggie and finger-sandwich platters out. The caterer had delivered almost everything ready to go; all she had to do was pull off the shrink-wrap. One tray of hot hors d’oeuvres needed to go in the oven, which she started preheating.
    She scanned the apartment from the kitchen. If she