8. Jeanie
CHAPTER 8
Jeanie
Office talk. Water cooler gossip. Lunch time conversation . Jeanie has never wanted to be the star of any of these scenarios, and yet she finds herself in that position anyway. It's uncomfortable for her; being in the spotlight has never interested her one bit, and she's finding that the heat of it is almost unbearable.
She walks through the halls of Cape Kennedy holding her folders, delivering information to the various departments, and making her way to different meetings as her mind churns through all the whispered things she's overheard lately: that Marta from mission support supposedly knows someone who knows someone who saw Bill and Jeanie kissing in the stairwell (the very thought terrifies Jeanie). That Jeanie and Bill were caught drunkenly necking in the backseat of his car outside of The Black Hole (a blatant lie). That Bill got into the fight on New Year's Eve defending Jeanie's honor, and effectively putting his own chances to go to the moon on the line (this does sound like something Bill would do, but Jeanie certainly hopes it's not true).
At night, Vicki is either on her way out with a gentleman friend, always inviting Jeanie to join them for a drink or two, or staying in and playing domestic goddess as she sips a glass of cold Chardonnay and spins The Everly Brothers on the turntable.
"Okay, princess," Vicki says one evening as Jeanie walks through the door. "Lay it on me."
Vicki is smoking a cigarette over a blue glass ashtray, setting it in the notch to hold it in place as she goes back to cooking--or a close approximation of cooking, anyway.
Jeanie drops her purse on the table by the door of their shared apartment and kicks off her shoes, letting them fall over on their sides carelessly as she stretches her toes with a grateful moan. "Oh, my feet," she says, walking into the kitchen to peer at the pot on the stove. It's ground hamburger, and Vicki is slowly adding in some sort of marinara sauce with chunks of onion and mushroom.
"Pasta." Vicki stirs the meat and sauce mixture as she picks up the wineglass that sits on the counter and takes a swig. "Ahhh," she says. She sets it back down and then turns to look at Jeanie. "Okay, I'm cooking, so pour yourself a glass of wine and start talking."
Jeanie does as she's told, but only fills her glass halfway before leaning against the counter and rubbing one foot on top of the other. She watches Vicki for a moment and thinks of her own mother in the kitchen. Jeanie suddenly misses her mom in a way that feels ridiculous for a woman who is as close to thirty as she is.
"It was a long day," Jeanie finally says, swirling the wine around in her glass as she stretches her neck from one side to the other. "And everywhere I go, I feel like people are watching me."
"Did you overhear anything else? Are any of those floozies spreading gossip about you?"
Jeanie smiles at the protective note in Vicki's voice. As her aunt's best friend, Vicki is certainly old enough to be Jeanie's mother, and she's really become a sort of de facto maternal figure over the couple of years that they've shared this apartment and shared their lives with one another.
"I think the gossip is spreading itself." Jeanie is forlorn; this is the kind of news that people love to chew over and pass around, and she hates it. "I just want to know who saw us."
"You know," Vicki says, pouring pasta into the pot of boiling water on the stove. "I once worked at a government office in Chicago, and they had these cameras stationed around--for security. Maybe they have those?"
Jeanie frowns. "You mean… video cameras?"
Vicki turns her head to glance at Jeanie over her shoulder. "Yeah, of course. Video. NASA is a top-secret type of place, princess. They have technology there worth millions of dollars, not to mention things they'd like to keep secret as they work on them. Right?"
Jeanie feels her limbs turn to concrete as realization dawns. "You're right. Of course you're right." She slaps a palm to her forehead and leaves the heel of her hand pressed there, just over the bridge of her nose as she squints her eyes to make the image go away. "That means that no one slipped into the stairwell, saw us, and spread eyewitness rumors. What it means is that it's on video somewhere, and there's actual proof of the whole thing. God, I am dumb ."
"Oh, you're not dumb." Vicki pulls a serrated bread knife from the butcher block of knives and places it on the counter next to Jeanie. "Here, cut the French bread, will you?"
Jeanie sets her wineglass down and turns her attention to the loaf of bread in paper wrapping. She sets to work slicing off pieces as Vicki goes on.
"You're just a kid with a crush--you can't fault yourself too much. Especially since this guy was complicit." Vicki is bent over in front of the refrigerator, digging through the crisper for a head of lettuce, which she produces with relish. "Aha! We're having a little salad as well. Cut this too." She sets the lettuce near Jeanie and bustles around, pulling out tomatoes, an onion, and some radishes.
"I can't use being a kid as an excuse forever," Jeanie says. Her eyes are on the sharp knife as it slides through the crispy bread crust. "I'm not even that young."
"Sure, sure." Vicki waves this away with her tone. "But you are inexperienced--and I mean that in the nicest of ways."
Jeanie almost laughs. "I'll take it in the nicest of ways--believe me." She's never been one who wanted to sample every man out there, and now that she's the age she is, it actually feels pretty good to have played her cards close to the vest all these years. "But at some point I should know what I'm doing, you know?"
Vicki has paused her food prep to take a long drag on her cigarette, which she's holding between two fingers with her elbow propped on her hip as she watches Jeanie cut the French bread. "Oh, I'm not saying you didn't know what you were doing, honey, just that you didn't play through the consequences in your mind before doing it. That's inexperience--not the lack of sexual conquests."
Jeanie sets the knife down and turns to Vicki. "Have you been in this position before?"
"Knowingly kissing a married man?" Vicki looks around nonchalantly. "Sure, I've kissed a few frogs who I knew were toads."
"That's a rather indirect answer."
"Okay, I once kissed my sister's husband at Thanksgiving."
Jeanie makes a gagging face. "What?! Like a goodbye peck on the cheek?"
Vicki blinks at her. "No, baby girl, like we were both shithoused on Tanqueray and I always thought he was a silver fox, so I cornered him in the tiny bathroom under the stairs and shoved my tongue in his mouth."
"Vicki!" Jeanie could not be more stunned than she is by this revelation. "What happened after that?"
Vicki shrugs. "Nothing. He straightened his tie, and we walked back out into the kitchen. Never mentioned it again, and my sister still has no clue. It meant nothing.”
"Are they still married?"
"Eh, he died." Vicki turns back to the stove to stir the boiling pasta noodles. "Heart attack. He was fifteen years older than her--that's why I said he was a bit of a silver fox." She shrugs and carries the pot over to the sink, where she dumps it all slowly into a colander. "Anyhow, yeah, we do some things that we know are wrong--even in the moment--and then we decide how to live with those things."
"Ugh...I could never kiss my sister's husband!" Jeanie is imagining it in her head and the thought is completely outrageous.
"Well, if memory serves, your sister is only about nineteen, and her fiancé has to be the same age, give or take. So unless you're into kissing teenagers, then no, I suppose you wouldn't."
Jeanie has abandoned the bread cutting and ignored the lettuce entirely. She's holding both temples with the tips of her fingers as she processes everything. "You really aren't judging me for this, are you?" It's clear that Vicki is far more open-minded than anyone else Jeanie knows, but it still surprises her not to have gotten a lecture from the older woman.
Vicki turns off the stove and moves the sauce to a cold burner as she gives it one more stir, dips her finger into it, and tastes it. "More salt," she says. "And no, I'm not. I hope my little Thanksgiving story proved to you once and for all that I am a woman who is in no position to judge at all. But even if I were, why pass judgment? You're living your life the best way you know how, and I'm living mine. I like to think that everyone is."
"That sounds so simple."
"And yet, sometimes things really are that simple."
"Occam's Razor," Jeanie says.
"Come again?"
Jeanie shakes her head. "It's just a well-known principle that suggests that the simplest answer is usually the right one."
Vicki gives her a look. "Sure, then yes." She pulls two plates from a cabinet and hands one to Jeanie. "Skip the salad, dish up your pasta, and slap some butter on your bread, princess. I'm grabbing the wine, and we'll eat out on the balcony, okay?"
Jeanie takes the plate. "Sounds good to me. And Vicki?"
Vicki stops in the doorway with the bottle of wine in hand. She turns back to look at Jeanie.
"Thanks for being like my mom when I need one. Actually, you're like my mom, but you're cooler."
At this, Vicki gives a throaty laugh and tips her head back, lifting one bare foot off the floor behind her theatrically. "Baby," she says with a wink. "I'm the coolest."