13. Jo
CHAPTER 13
Jo
Word comes from Martin Snell on a Friday in May. Jo has answered the telephone in the kitchen with a smile on her face, thinking that perhaps it will be her mother returning her call, and so she unclips her earring and sets it on the counter as she puts the receiver to her ear.
“Booker residence,” she says expectantly.
“Mrs. Josephine Booker?” a woman asks.
“Yes, this is she.” Jo’s smile falters slightly as she waits to hear who is on the other end of the line.
“Mrs. Booker, this is Sheila in Martin Snell’s office. He’s asked me to get you on the line. Are you available to speak to him?”
Jo’s heart races. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I am.”
Martin Snell comes on the line. “Josephine?” he asks, his voice booming and friendly. “Martin Snell here.”
“Mr. Snell,” Jo says breathlessly. “Hello.”
“Call me Marty—please.” Martin Snell pauses and Jo can hear the smile in his voice. “I have good news for you.”
“Oh?”
“I’d like to offer you literary representation. I read what you sent, and I loved it. Truly loved it. The time travel element, the fish-out-of-water take, the big city girl trapped on a farm… not to mention the romance. I can really feel Henry and Adeline falling for one another, and as a reader, I want more.”
“You do?” Jo is stunned. She nearly laughs out loud at how surprised she must sound. “I mean, that’s wonderful.”
“I think there are women out there who would love to read this book, and I want to see it through. Let’s get this written, edited, and packaged, and I’m sure we can sell it.”
“You are?” Jo shakes her head at herself; she needs to stop sounding so uncertain. “Thank you, Mr. Snell. Marty.” Jo taps the heel of her hand against the countertop lightly. She’d love the opportunity to start this entire conversation over from scratch with the foresight of knowing who was on the other line when she picked up the phone.
“I am sure, to answer your question. I think that at least one or two of the major publishing houses will be interested in this, and the success you had with your serial story in True Romance is a great way to get our foot in the door. You have a track record now of writing things that your target demographic loves, and that’s extremely important, Josephine.”
Jo opens her mouth and closes it again, regrouping. “I’m so sorry,” she finally says, grateful because Martin Snell can hear her, but not see her reddened cheeks. “You’ve just caught me off guard here so completely that I’m not saying anything the way I want to.”
Martin Snell laughs. “It’s okay. You’re fine. Trust me, I get a lot of people who don’t know quite how to respond when you tell them they have what it takes to be successful at this thing that they really want to do. And, Josephine, listen to me here.”
“I am,” she says, feeling breathless.
“You have what it takes. So I need you to get back to it, finish this book, and send me the completed manuscript as soon as you can, alright?”
Jo nods, then realizes he has no clue that she’s agreeing with him. “Yes,” she says quickly. “I’m already working on it, and I’ll have something for you as soon as I can.”
“Perfect.”
They end the call and Jo stands there in her kitchen, still only wearing one earring as she looks out the window at the bright blue afternoon sky.
Someone wants to represent me as a writer , she tells herself. Someone thinks I’m talented and that I can make money at this thing . The very idea leaves her awestruck, and the first thing she wants to do is call Bill at his desk to talk about it. But she doesn’t reach for the phone again.
Instead, Jo clips her earring back on her ear, gathers her purse and keys, and leaves the house like a woman on a mission.
* * *
“And one, two, three, four,” Frankie is saying, standing at the front of the dance studio she runs on Stardust Beach. Mia Perla , the little dance school, is home to ballerinas and would-be dancers of all ages. Right now, Frankie is leading a group of four-and-five-year-old girls through a series of pliés and lunges. “Make sure you do ballet arms, girls!” she says over the scratchy classical music coming from her turntable. “Graceful like swans, ladies!”
Jo stands in the doorway, watching them all with amusement. Now that her kids are all getting older, seeing little ones with that distinctive roundness to their bellies and the touch of innocence in their eyes is enough to tug at her heartstrings.
“Hi,” Frankie says, crossing the room as she pauses to tweak a little girl’s stance. She stops to run her hand along the spine of another to show her how to stand up even straighter. “How are you? Everything okay?” she asks Jo.
The tiny girls continue to dance and lunge and twirl, some with abandon and with little regard to balletic form as they realize that Frankie’s back is turned.
“Yes, everything is good,” Jo says. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your class here, I just needed to tell someone my good news. But I can wait. What time is class over?”
“Tell me now!” Frankie insists, putting a hand on her hip as she stares at Jo. She’s just getting a tiny swell to her belly, though it would be unnoticeable to anyone who doesn’t know that she’s expecting.
Jo glances at the clock over the wall of mirrors. “How much longer is this class? Do you have a break after?”
Frankie looks at the narrow gold Bulova watch on her wrist. “Ten more minutes, and then I have an hour until my pre-teens show up for tap class.”
“Can you meet me at the coffee shop next door when you’re done here?” Jo watches the row of moms standing along one side of the room; more than one is looking impatient at this interruption to the class that will undoubtedly turn their little girls into future Sugar Plum Fairies.
“Sure, I’ll come over as soon as I can,” Frankie says, turning back to the class. “Ladies, line up at the barre, please!” A gaggle of ponytailed little girls scurries to the barre and finds spots to do whatever their teacher tells them to. Jo gives them all one last smile and then steps back out onto the sidewalk to head into the coffee shop.
“Okay,” Frankie says, when she walks in fifteen minutes later. She’s wearing a wrap skirt over her leotard, and on her feet are flat shoes instead of Capezios. She quickly asks the waitress for a cup of herbal tea, and then puts her elbows on the table as she and Jo sit by the window that looks out at the street. “Tell me everything.”
“I got a call,” Jo says, suddenly feeling shy. She looks down into the cup of coffee she’s been nursing for fifteen minutes, reaching for another packet of sugar to stir into it. “I got a call from New York—from the literary agent who asked for my new story.”
Frankie’s face goes slack with anticipation, and she doesn’t even acknowledge the cup of tea that materializes in front of her. Her eyes never leave Jo’s face. “Is it good?” she asks, sounding anxious.
Jo nods eagerly. “It’s great. He offered to represent me and help me sell my book. He thinks we can do it.”
Frankie whoops loudly as she slaps both hands on the table, making their coffee and tea slosh around perilously as the ceramic cups jangle on their saucers. Jo laughs at the jubilant response of her best friend. She reaches for a napkin to wipe up some of Frankie’s spilled hot water from the table.
“I still need to write the rest,” she says in a cautious tone, “but he thinks people loved what I wrote in True Romance enough that this will be a relatively straightforward thing to sell.”
“Oh, Joey-girl,” Frankie gushes, forgetting all about her tea as she reaches across the table and takes both of Jo’s hands in hers. “Things are really coming up roses, aren't they?”
Jo exhales as she holds Frankie’s hands. She nods, but is unconvinced. There is at least a small part of her that feels as though things are good, but there are still so many things that could go wrong. She doesn’t want to feel that way, but she does.
“Things are definitely good, Frankie,” she says, meaning that the things going on with Frankie are all good. “And I think there are exciting things on the horizon.”
Frankie is watching her with the kind of narrowed eyes that mean she’s assessing her best friend’s demeanor. She shakes Jo’s hands across the table but doesn’t let go of them. “What’s not sitting right with you, Jo? It’s something.”
Jo tries to shake her head and shrug her shoulders at the same time. “No, nothing. Really. I’m so excited for you and Ed, and I can’t wait to meet this baby.” Jo’s eyes mist over as she glances toward Frankie’s stomach. “I want to babysit and take him or her on evening walks with us… I’m just over the moon for you, Frank.”
“I’m over the moon for me, too,” Frankie says with a half-smile. “But I’m also excited about you and your news. And I really want to know what’s holding you back from being excited.”
Jo pushes out a loud breath. “Bill,” she says flatly. “Bill is holding me back.”
Frankie frowns. “He’s not as excited about the book news as you wanted him to be?”
Jo looks at the table. “I haven’t even told him. My first instinct after the phone call was to grab my things, get in the car, and come to tell you.”
“Ohhh,” Frankie says knowingly. “Okay. Well, I bet when you tell him he’ll be so happy for you, Jo. He will. He’s got to be incredibly proud to have such an accomplished wife.”
Jo lifts her eyes and looks into Frankie’s. They’ve never talked about the night that Frankie and Ed picked her up on the side of the road as they were driving home with Jo’s children, and though the kids had asked her a couple of times why she was walking home alone, they’d quickly come to realize that it wasn’t a question that had a satisfying answer, and so they’d dropped it.
“He’s wrapped up in his own world,” Jo says glumly. “It’s just work, therapy, and working on himself. And that’s all fine and good,” she says firmly, “but I think we might need to work on us, too. If we don’t… I don’t know. It just feels like we’re headed for disaster.”
“I can understand that.” Frankie picks up her tea and takes a sip now that it’s cooled. “I’ve felt that between me and Ed at various points, but thankfully we’re on firm ground right now, which is good news, especially because we’re going to be parents before the year is out.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Jo says. “I agree wholeheartedly. Now is the time to be on the same page and to be sure that you’ve ironed out any misunderstandings. And I wish Bill and I had something that felt like we were working towards a common goal, you know? That might make it easier for us to team up rather than to face off, which is how things feel lately.”
“Honey,” Frankie says, as she sets her teacup down on the saucer. “I’m so sorry. And I didn’t mean to rub it in that things are going well for me and Ed at the moment.”
“No!” Jo shakes her head vehemently. “Don’t you be sorry for that. I’m thrilled about everything that’s happening in your life, and I don’t want you to feel bad about it or to stop telling me good things because you think I’m not in the mood to hear them. I am. Always.”
Frankie smiles at her sadly and then glances at her watch. “Sorry to drink and run,” she says, taking one last swig of her tea. “But I locked up the studio to come next door, and I have my next group arriving here soon for the tap class.”
“Go, go,” Jo assures her, waving a hand. “Thanks for coming over to listen to my news. I appreciate you.”
Frankie pauses next to Jo’s chair, looking down at her friend fondly. “I’m really proud of you, Joey-girl. You’re doing good things.” Without warning, Frankie leans down and puts a kiss on top of Jo’s head before she walks back out onto the sidewalk, leaving a tinkling doorbell in her wake.
Jo looks out at the street as cars drive past slowly, pulling up to the curb to park as people go inside the butcher, drop kids off at Mia Perla for the upcoming tap class, or as women gather their things and head into the Stardust Salon for wash-and-sets. She lifts her coffee cup with both hands, holding it in front of her chest and smiling distractedly at the waitress as she buses the other tables nearby.
Jo is happy for Frankie—she most definitely is—but there’s a part of her that aches for the time when her own life was full of happiness and promise. Full of unborn babies, making holiday plans with extended family, and rife with decisions about things like what color to paint nurseries or where to vacation in the summer. Things now are… decidedly more sedate. The kids are becoming more and more self-sufficient with every passing day, and since they live in a vacation paradise, they rarely need to go anywhere else. There are no more babies to be had, and her family gathers for the holidays back in Minnesota without her.
All of this hits Jo as she sits there in the cafe alone, watching people go about their own lives on the street outside. She sips her coffee as she thinks all these thoughts, sips and feels sorry for herself. But just a little sorry, because she still knows how good she has it: her kids are healthy, her husband is on the way to living his dreams, and she herself is on a path towards personal success and fulfillment.
She just wishes that she was also on a path to happiness in her marriage.
* * *
“Josephine Booker?”
Jo stops in the cereal and oatmeal aisle at Publix, her hands on the cart as she turns her head to see who has called out her name. It takes a moment, but she quickly realizes exactly who it is: Vicki, the woman who came to the Fourth of July party at her house the previous summer with Jeanie Florence.
Jo’s smile falters almost imperceptibly, but then she brings it back in full force, turning her entire body to face Vicki.
“Hi, there,” Jo says. “Vicki, right?”
“The one and only,” Vicki says, one hand resting on her own cart as she lets her body coil into a slinky pose that is surely a killer one when she’s talking to an available man, but is lost entirely on Jo. “How are you?”
Jo glances into the basket of her cart: a head of lettuce; a package of chicken drumsticks; two gallons of orange juice, which her kids drink like water; a loaf of fresh bread; two wedges of cheese. Her eyes flick back to Vicki.
“I’m great,” Jo says with false confidence. “Just doing a little shopping here while the kids are at school. How are you?”
Vicki rests an elbow on her cart handle and casts a glance up and down the aisle like she’s about to impart some great confidence to Jo. “Well,” she says in a lowered voice. “I’ve been dating a pilot, and girl, let me tell you that he is a firecracker .”
“I thought the guys were trying to set you up with one of their coworkers?” She frowns, remembering this topic being bantered around in her backyard the summer before. “One of the older, single astronauts?” She immediately cringes at her own choice of words; calling a potential date for a woman ‘older’ is a surefire way to let the woman know that you think she is, in fact, also old. But Vicki doesn’t visibly react to the unintentional slight.
Vicki waves a hand and laughs knowingly. “Dated him and discarded him.” She shoots Jo a knowing look. “At a certain point in a man’s life, if he’s still single, there is a reason , honey. And I discovered the reason.” She pulls a disgusted face.
“Oh,” Jo says. She isn’t terribly curious what that reason is and is about to steer the conversation in another direction, but Vicki goes on.
“He hates women,” Vicki says as she inspects the manicured nails on her own right hand. “I’ve never had a man treat me so badly.”
“That’s terrible…” Jo is awed by this admission; she’s been lucky in love, and has never once been treated terribly by a man. “I’m so sorry.”
Vicki turns her attention away from her nails and waves the hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. We had some fun while it lasted, but you should never leave a man’s house in the morning with bruises—unless that’s your thing.” She winks.
Jo is completely taken aback by this; what kind of woman would want to be bruised by a man? Her mind is reeling at this thought, but she doesn’t formulate a thought or a question before Vicki moves on.
“Anyhow,” Vicki says, reaching for a box of corn flakes on the shelf as she raises her heels and arches her back. She tosses the cereal into her basket and pivots back towards Jo. “My pilot is just the thing to keep me on my toes, and I’m still living with Jeanie, so life is pretty good.”
“How is Jeanie?” Jo asks, the single crease between her brows folding in slightly as she watches Vicki for a reaction.
A seasoned pro, Vicki does not let even a hint of emotion pass over her face. “Oh, she’s fine. Just dandy. Works a lot for a young gal—can’t be good for the skin, you know?” She reaches out and taps Jo’s bare upper arm with the back of her hand like they’re two old pals, just joshing around. “But she seems happy. Goes to work. Stops off at The Black Hole on her way home for a beer with her coworkers… you know the drill.”
“Mmm,” Jo says noncommittally. “Sure.” She bites on the inside of her cheek. “Right.”
“Well, shoot,” Vicki says, pulling herself into an upright position and out of her screen siren pose against the shopping cart. “Your husband is one of her coworkers; maybe I should be asking you how my roommate is! I bet he comes home with all kinds of stories about the single people on staff and how they meet up at bars and dance the evenings away. She never gives me any of the details.”
Jo feels a rising sense of panic, and though she’s surrounded by shelves of non-perishable goods in the middle of a brightly-lit grocery store, she suddenly feels as though she’s locked in a cage. Involuntarily, she takes a step back, tripping slightly on the heel of her own shoe. She catches herself by grabbing her cart with both hands. A look of concern passes over Vicki’s face.
“You okay, hon?” Vicki asks, reaching out a hand to steady Jo.
“I’m fine.” Jo pulls her cart backwards, attempting to turn it around and head the other direction. “I just realized I need to hurry up and check out here so I can get home to meet the school bus.”
“Right.” Vicki holds up a hand as if to apologize for holding Jo hostage. “I’ve been there. My son is grown now, but I had plenty of years of being an on-duty mom, so you go ahead there, Josephine. Good chatting with you.”
“You too,” Jo says hurriedly, already pushing her cart away.
“See you around, Mrs. Booker,” Vicki calls out in a way that lands on Jo like a heavy brick. Instead of turning back, Jo lifts a hand over her shoulder in farewell and then picks up her pace.