The Lunch Club

By Sandra Bruney

Harriet, Melody, Beth, and Jane Anne have been friends since their kids were in kindergarten. So far their friendship has been limited to bragging about their kids and then their grandkids. But with life comes change, and now none of them wants to admit that she is struggling with a personal crisis.
Then Melody announces that she was scammed by the handsome rascal she met on an Internet dating site.
Seeing Melody's humiliation, Harriet concocts a scheme to track the con artist down. Beth and Jane Anne are skeptical, but their search takes their minds off their own problems.
Working together, the four women learn what friendship really means.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandra Bruney
• Release date: May 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310439889

Sandra Bruney

I am a writer living in North Carolina. I enjoy reading, crafting, gardening, and obeying the whims of my rescue cats.

Book preview

The Lunch Club

by

Sandra Z. Bruney

Published by Smashwords

The Lunch Club

Copyright © 2012 by Sandra Z. Bruney.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

Any resemblance to actual people and events is purely coincidental. This is a work of fiction.

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the memory of

Linda Evans

Author, Mentor, and Friend

Acknowledgments

Authors like to say that writing is a solitary pursuit. I beg to differ. When I write, an entire village stands at my shoulder, praising and criticizing, encouraging and questioning. They are my family and my friends...those whose lives I share and those who live on in memory. They are people met in passing who touched my life in ways of which I am not aware until my fingers hit the keyboard and begin creating my stories. They are strangers from whom I borrowed a phrase or a gesture. They are the readers I will never meet. All of these inhabit my mind, guiding and directing my progress.

I want to acknowledge all of these who unwittingly found a place in the worlds I create.

And those who read my books and were so gracious as to tell me they liked them.

And asked me if I was going to write another.

Thank you all.

Thanks to my critique group: Lila Pinord, Arthur Levine, Karen MacMurray, Tami Stout, and the late Linda Evans, whose loss still resounds.

Thanks to the members of my writing groups, Carolina Romance Writers and the Anson County Writers’ Club, for their encouragement and willingness to share their expertise.

Thank you to James Morris for allowing me to set a scene in his high-tech restaurant.

And most of all, thanks to my husband, Jim, for his unfailing patience. It isn’t easy to be married to someone whose mind is often in another world. Without his telling me the light had changed, I would still be at an intersection, writing dialogue in my mind.

Cover Art by Rob Stuart

Chapter One

Beth Kranz came home to find her husband, Dan, missing. She thought she knew where he had gone, but hoped she was wrong up until she heard the Porsche’s car door slam. She looked out the window and when she saw him haul his golf clubs out of the trunk her faint hope winked out light a candle flame in a draft. Determined not to start another argument, she swallowed hard, pasted a smile on her face, and opened the door.

Dan brushed past her. How was lunch? he greeted her on his way to the bar. The question was a throw-away line, tossed over his shoulder.

Beth followed him to the den where he busied himself mixing a gin and tonic. He grimaced at the Gordon’s label and put the bottle back under the bar as if afraid someone would see it. The empty Tanguerey bottle, however, was allowed to remain on the counter.

Fine. How was yours? She winced at the sharp edge to her words, but it was too late to take them back.

Uh-oh, guess I recognize that tone of voice. Dan’s tone was jovial, and she knew this drink was not his first of the day.

I thought you were going to quit going to the club, she said, trying to sound casual and not accusing.

You went out for lunch with your friends, so why shouldn’t I? he countered. He carried his drink to his recliner and sat, placing the drink on the side table without bothering with a coaster although one was within easy reach.

There’s a difference. I ordered a salad and water; the bill was less than five dollars. She didn’t mention that, her stomach clamoring for more, she had slipped Harriet’s untouched roll in her purse to eat on the way home. There isn’t a lunch at the club under fifteen. And, since it’s obvious you played golf, you have to add in the greens fee. And the bar bill, she didn’t add.

So? His eyes narrowed dangerously, but Beth plowed on.

So? Because we agreed not to run up any more tabs at the club, that’s why. We’re behind in our dues now. What possible reason—

I connected with a few friends who might have some contacts, if you need a reason. People who know people. I shouldn’t have to explain everything to you.

Your strategy would make more sense to me if you told them you were looking for a job, she said, exasperated. I don’t care how many people they know, if you don’t know them. What’s the point?

I hear things, he said. Little things I can follow up on. Like who’s hiring, or who left a position I could apply for.

So far nothing had come of these tidbits. Instead of further angering him by saying this, she changed course and said, The bank called again today.

I keep telling you not to worry about the bank. I’ll handle them, Dan said. He picked up the TV remote and clicked, effectively ending the conversation.

Beth prepared dinner, slamming the pots and pans with a little more force than necessary. Dan didn’t seem to notice, eating his pork chops and fried potatoes as if he hadn’t downed a huge lunch and a couple of beers only hours earlier. Beth ate sparingly, her appetite gone.

She took her time cleaning the kitchen, joining Dan after Wheel of Fortune had gone off with a smiling Vanna waving goodbye. He turned the channel to a detective show; she’d seen it before, but had forgotten the ending. The credits were rolling when the phone rang. The caller ID on the TV screen read Remount Community Hospital, where their daughter, Bobbi, supervised the emergency department. Bobbi rarely called from work, so Beth was on instant alert. She grabbed the phone on the second ring.

Mom? The Rescue Squad just brought Harriet Bechtel in. I thought you’d want to know.

What happened? Beth forgot her anger at Dan in her anxiety for her friend.

All I know is, she fell and they’re X-raying her hip.

Should I come? Beth asked her older daughter, her hand knotting the cord.

I doubt they’ll let you see her.

Bobbi could get in trouble for calling, Beth knew. Privacy laws. But Harriet had been her friend for more than thirty years. That had to count for something.

Instead of hanging up after Bobbi said a hasty goodbye, she hit speed dial for the Morrison’s. Jane Anne? It’s Beth. Bobbi called a few minutes ago and said they wheeled Harriet into the ER. They think she broke her hip.

I was going to call you and Melody tomorrow and see if we couldn’t go over to her house and convince her to do something about her hip, Jane Anne said, not sounding surprised at all.

She’s going to have to do something about it now, Beth answered.

Did anyone call Jimmy or Patty? Jane Anne asked of Harriet’s offspring, neither of whom lived in Remount. After a beat, she added, Do you think we should go to the hospital?

They surely must have, Beth said answering the questions in order. She carries the kids’ numbers in her wallet under her emergency contacts. But I don’t think it would do any good for us to go—Bobbi said they were going to take some X-rays. They won’t let us see her.

After talking a few minutes longer, Beth called the fourth member of their circle, Melody Daudy, before she replaced the receiver and returned to the den where Dan was watching CNN. The room was dark, the television’s flickering image the single source of light. The oversized furniture Dan had insisted on buying loomed like shadows of monsters hibernating in a dim cave. She turned on a lamp, and the shadows instantly became softer and less threatening.

All done? he asked, not taking his eyes from the screen although the sound was muted. It wasn’t like Dan to listen in on her conversations, but many things Dan did now weren’t like the old Dan. At least she didn’t have to explain a second time what had happened.

I talked to Jane Anne, but Melody didn’t pick up, Beth said. I left a message.

There’s nothing you can do now, you know, he said. I don’t know why Bobbi didn’t wait until tomorrow to call you.

Because she knows Harriet is my friend, Beth said. Now she leaned forward, trying to get Dan’s full attention. I just realized: if Bobbi didn’t work in the ER we might not have found out for days. Harriet wouldn’t think of calling any of us—she’d think she was being a bother.

Dan wasn’t listening. He’d turned up the sound; a pundit was droning on about the economic situation and the proposed government buyout. His gaze was rapt as he concentrated on the words, mistaking the messenger for a prophet. His curiosity satisfied, he’d tuned her out.

Beth went back into the kitchen to fix a glass of warm milk, but stood there in indecision. Her earlier anger, now fueled by Dan’s disinterest, had solidified into a large, hot knot in her chest. Any other Lunch Club day, she would have had glass of wine while he had his drink and relayed the gossip she had heard. But he had never given her a chance to tell him that Patty was pregnant at last and Harriet was over the moon at the prospect of another grandchild, or that Melody had started dating again after two years of widowhood.

She had to get away before she marched back into the living room and said something she couldn’t take back, so she grabbed her jacket and purse and went through the side door into the garage where her Mazda was parked. Although Dan had parked behind her, he’d left her room to maneuver her car onto the driveway. Within a few minutes she’d reached Remount Community Hospital.

Visiting hours were well over, so after checking with Bobbi she headed for the waiting room outside the ER. She hadn’t been there ten minutes when Melody walked in.

I got your message, she said, sitting down beside Beth. A man standing by the window looked over at them, then back at the television. The ten o’clock news was on; the meteorologist was giving the weather report.

Bobbi told me she’s waiting for them to get a room ready. She didn’t know what the X-rays showed. Beth studied her friend. She must have just gotten out of the shower—there was no trace of the artful makeup she usually wore, and her hair was carelessly tied back with a scrunchie. Melody was worried, too.

I knew this was going to happen, Melody said. Did you see how she grabbed on to every chair back when she came to our table today? She needs a cane to take her weight off that hip.

You tell her.

They both laughed, softly so as not to disturb anyone. Beth tried to relax her shoulders. I can’t believe we were eating lunch together only a few hours ago, and Jane Anne was trying to figure how many lunches it had been. Didn’t she say three hundred eighty-four? Doesn’t that sound like a lot?

Melody frowned delicately. Well, twelve times thirty-two... Her voice trailed off as she tried to multiply in her head.

Thirty-two?

We started thirty-two years ago, when our kids were in kindergarten. Longest-running playground committee in the school’s history.

We worked well together, Beth said, smothering a yawn. You know what? The school is talking about tearing it down and putting up a new one. The authorities, whoever they are, say it doesn’t meet the new safety regulations.

Things change. Melody touched Beth’s arm. I’m glad we’ve had each other all these years, aren’t you? When someone suggested we keep on meeting, even after the playground was built, it was the best idea ever.

We’ve been through a lot, Beth agreed.

Y’all were there for me when Charles died, Melody continued. I couldn’t have gotten through it without you.

Beth nodded. Without her realizing it, her earlier anger had dissipated. Melody had that effect on people, as if her calm aura spilled over and included them. Then Melody rose to her feet in one graceful movement and Beth understood she was leaving. I’m sorry you won’t get to see Harriet, she said.

I didn’t think we’d be allowed to see her. I returned your call and Dan said he thought you’d come here. I didn’t want you sitting here alone.

I’m all right, Beth said, touched. I don’t think I’ll wait much longer, just until Bobbi can tell me something.

Okay then. I have to work tomorrow and I need my beauty sleep. She kissed Beth’s cheek and left, leaving the scent of White Shoulders in her wake.

The man watching TV had left as well, although neither woman had noticed. Beth was alone. She stared unseeing at the muted set, Melody’s words echoing in her mind. She thought it might have been Harriet who first called their group the Lunch Club because the noon hour suited both the working and non- working committee members. They’d met at different restaurants and fast-food places before they somehow ended up meeting at Jake’s every third Thursday of the month. Jake’s was a meat-and two-vegetable kind of place, with a different special every day of the week.

The four friends accepted no excuse except childbirth for missing a lunch. Vacations were planned around the date, surgeries postponed, unexpected company left to fend for themselves. In retrospect, it was amazing their friendship had lasted so long. They were different in personality, looks, skills, and philosophies, yet somehow they had connected like quadruplets separated at birth.

There had been times when the Lunch Club was all that kept her going, Beth mused. God knows, she had been ready to quit many a time after they had moved to Remount, in the North Carolina piedmont. She’d been so terribly homesick for Buffalo. She didn’t understand the accent, she didn’t understand the social customs whereby an invitation to come see us didn’t mean exactly what it implied, and she didn’t understand why everyone she met asked what church she went to and then went strangely silent when she said she didn’t.

She had met Harriet at the bank—in fact, Harriet had opened their checking and savings accounts—and had learned that Harriet’s Patty and Jimmy were the same ages as her Bobbi and Tom. It was Harriet who insisted she come to PTA that first month of school and then somehow volunteered her for the playground committee. Months passed, and one day Beth realized she had made friends, and Bobbi and Tom had adjusted to their new school. Moreover, she no longer dreamed of taking the kids and going back to New York.

When Bobbi was a junior in high school and Tom a freshman, Beth discovered she was pregnant again. She had hesitated about having the baby at her age, and had confided in Harriet, thinking that of the three Lunch Club members she would be the most likely to forgive her doubts. Harriet’s flint-gray eyes had softened uncharacteristically when Beth asked her advice.

You were born to be a mother, Harriet had said, and then added, And besides, you’d never forgive yourself.

Dan had fussed at first when she told him, but a little later he began acting as if the whole thing was his idea. Beth never told Dan how close she had come to making a discreet visit to Charlotte. Susan became the light of their lives, and the other children, far from being embarrassed at this evidence of their parent’s sexuality, spoiled Susan terribly...and still did.

Harriet knew so many of her secrets, even more than Melody or Jane Anne. Tears rose unbidden to her eyes. What kind of friend had she been to Harriet? She’d noticed the limp for months, yet had unquestioningly accepted Harriet’s excuse of wanting to take an early retirement and travel. But Harriet hadn’t gone anywhere. She’d gotten worse and worse until the inevitable happened.

Mom? Bobbi stood before her in her white uniform and the pink sweater Beth had given her for her birthday thrown over her shoulders. She often complained about how cold the ER was.

Oh…any word?

They’ve taken her upstairs. I didn’t get you because she’s way out of it. Why don’t you go home and come back tomorrow?

Is it her hip? Did they say if it was fractured?

Didn’t tell me a thing. Go home, Mom.

Okay. If anything changes, call me.

It won’t. Go. Bobbi made shooing motions with her hands.

All right. But call me.

She left reluctantly, as if by being there she could ward off any disaster that threatened her friend. She knew it was ridiculous, but that’s how she felt anyway.

And, besides that, she really didn’t want to go home.

Dan was already in bed, snoring lightly. How he could fall asleep so easily in spite of their troubles mystified her. Beth watched him for a moment, his chest rising and falling in rhythm, then left the room. She wasn’t really angry any longer. She was too tired to be angry; it took too much effort. She went back downstairs to the kitchen and poured some milk in a cup and put it in the microwave. Back to Plan A. She smiled to herself.

Taking the warm drink to the table, she sat down before taking a sip, hoping her mind would stop churning. Thinking about the Lunch Club had gotten her remembering all the times they had confided in each other. Yet now, when she was in the worst situation of her life, she couldn’t confide in any of her friends, even Harriet. Well, especially Harriet right now. Harriet had her own problems. But still, it would be nice to talk to someone. Talking it out might help her understand how their perfect life had unraveled so quickly and catastrophically.

Dan had been recruited to lift Hadley’s Textile Machines from the brink of bankruptcy, and he had done exactly what they had asked him to do. A year after his starting date, the company had grown from less than eighty employees to over five hundred, running three shifts a day. The raises and bonuses allowed Beth to stay home and raise their children, making her an anomaly among her friends.

Then NAFTA was passed, and the production shifted first to South America and then to China. Textiles were among the first businesses to fall. The plant downsized from three shifts to two, then to one. Management was weeded out by attrition, but then one day Dan came home in the middle of the afternoon in shocked disbelief. His job had been terminated. The first thing he said after giving her the news was, And you aren’t to tell anyone, and by that I mean anyone. Especially your lunch biddies. Dan thought it was funny to call the women biddies instead of buddies, but he hadn’t smiled that day.

They had a little savings, but not much. The money had been earmarked for vacation, maybe a cruise this year, but they decided to use the cash to pay down their credit cards instead. And they still owed Susan’s tuition for her last year of college. On the plus side, the cars were paid for—Dan had been talking of trading his Porsche in for a newer model—and there was a pension Dan could draw on, since he was over sixty. For a few months they were able to meet their bills, although there wasn’t much left over.

Then the company went bankrupt. The business collapsed like a giant sink hole, sucking Dan’s pension down with it.

At first Dan was in denial. Someone had made a mistake that would soon be rectified. Only when the bills piled up did he realize he needed to get a job, and soon. He couldn’t apply for Social Security for twenty more months. What neither of them had realized was how few jobs were out there.

Beth would have liked to confide in her friends. She needed the sympathy, a shoulder to cry on.

You’ve got to deal from strength, Dan repeated every time she said anything. If people know you’re out of work, the doors slam shut. Same as if you ask for a loan at the bank: if they know you need it, you can’t get it. So he continued to play golf and ignored the past-due letters from the club president.

And all the other past-due notices.

Beth finished her milk and took the cup to the sink where she rinsed it out. She checked the lock on the back door and turned off the lights. The milk didn’t help much, though, for as soon as she climbed into bed she was wide awake; her mind skipping from one thing to another like some imp had a remote control and was zapping her brain. Dan snored beside her, a little bubbling sound punctuating each breath. She was horrified by a momentary urge to put her pillow over his face. What was the matter with her? Dan said he would take care of things, so why was she worried? He certainly wasn’t.

Chapter Two

Dawn arrived at last and Beth rose, feeling every one of her fifty-nine years. She crept down the stairs and put the coffee on. At least they still got the newspaper; they’d paid for a year’s subscription last January. She got The Charlotte Observer from the box by the road and trudged back to the house, certain no one would see her in her royal blue robe and matching slippers at this early hour.

She finished the national news and was reaching for the local section when Dan strode into the kitchen. She looked up in surprise. You’re looking mighty good this morning. Instead of khakis and polo shirt, he was wearing a slate-gray pinstripe suit with the yellow tie Bobbi had given him for Christmas.

I have an appointment with an employment agency in Charlotte, he said in an annoyed voice, as if she should have known. Beth was certain he hadn’t told her, but let it go. She watched him pour his coffee; then make a show of checking his Rolex. Dan, she decided, looked exactly like what he was, a sixty-year-old businessman. A tall man, he carried his few excess pounds well except for a small bulge around his waist. His hairline had receded to a fringe around his ears and his bald head was tanned from the sun. But what most people noticed was his easy air of authority. Dan was used to being in charge and his confidence showed in his stride and his expression. If he had an aura, it would be colored executive.

How about breakfast? she said, folding the newspaper in half for him to read later.

Don’t bother. I’ll stop at BK for a biscuit, he said. What’s on your agenda today?

First, go see Harriet. Then, I don’t know. Clean the house, I suppose. They had let the cleaning lady go weeks ago.

Dan wasn’t listening. "I’d better go. I asked for the first

appointment in the morning, and it’s seven-thirty now."

He left before she could decide whether or not to wish him luck. You never knew with Dan, lately. He might interpret her good wishes as a lack of confidence. She climbed the stairs to their bedroom and opened her closet, selecting matching dark navy slacks and tunic. The latter was embroidered with tiny white and yellow daisies. She brushed her hair and fluffed the dark blonde strands around her face, then added shadow and liner to her eyes with a careful hand. Foundation, blush, a little powder and lipstick and a half-hour later she was ready for the day. When your looks were nondescript, you needed all the help you could get. By emphasizing her luminous brown eyes, her best feature, she hoped people would fail to notice her snub nose and wide cheekbones.

Beth found a parking place in the hospital’s lot without any trouble, although she knew later on in the day a free space would be all but impossible to secure. She entered the redbrick building and stopped at the information desk.

Harriet Bechtel?

Room 204. The sign behind the volunteer receptionist said visiting hours were from ten in the morning until eight in the

Reviews for The Lunch Club

[marshel1969 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Awesome.