Chapter 10 #2
“Any fun plans for today?” Claire says. “Some high-fashion photoshoot you’re jetting off to?”
“I’m actually reading a cookbook.”
“Oh, dear,” Claire blurts.
Jackie burst into laughter on the other line, and Claire laughs with her—the last time she stopped by while Jackie was trying to cook a simple can of soup, Jackie had lit a kitchen towel on fire.
“I know,” Jackie says wryly. “I’m a menace in the kitchen, but I can only eat so many bowls of cereal.”
It strikes Claire as a terribly lonely image. Jackie alone in her breakfast nook on a beautiful day like today, eating a sad little bowl of cornflakes.
“Why don’t I give you the recipe for that chicken casserole you liked so much?” Claire says. She goes to the sink to look out the window at Jackie’s driveway, the phone cord trailing behind her. “It’s dead simple.”
“And risk me burning the neighborhood down?”
Claire laughs again. She laughs so much these days that it’s hard to remember what things were like before her foul moods could be solved by a simple phone call. She shifts the receiver to the other ear, drumming her fingers on the countertop.
Martha, Claire remembers suddenly, is at a prenatal appointment in Sacramento this morning. She complained just last week about Walter not being able to get the time off work to accompany her. For once, Martha won’t be behind the curtains to see Claire leaving the house. If there was ever a time…
“We could make it together?” Claire suggests.
Jackie pauses for a long moment. “Are you sure?”
“I think you can do it. With supervision, of course.”
Jackie agrees quickly. She has to run to the store to get some of the ingredients, but within the hour they’re in Jackie’s kitchen together with everything laid out on the countertop.
“All right,” Jackie says, picking up a block of cheese with a dubious expression. “Step one: make sure the fire extinguisher is handy.”
“No fires today,” Claire says, laughing as Jackie raises an eyebrow. “We hardly even need to use the stove. It’s mostly in the oven.”
“I think you’re underestimating my ability to ruin things.”
“With me here, you’ll be perfectly safe,” Claire says.
Jackie’s smile softens.
Jackie is a good student, though somewhat skittish.
It’s interesting to see her so out of her element—her usual confidence is reduced to nothing as she raptly follows Claire’s instructions, and yet the whole thing is so easy.
So smooth. Jackie listens to her, trusts her implicitly, and their conversation never pauses even over the sizzle of pans and the music from Jackie’s record player.
Claire can’t imagine what it would be like trying to teach Pete something like this. Or Martha, even. Pete would give up in frustration before they even began. Martha would probably have a hundred more efficient ways to do it and end up teaching Claire.
Claire hardly touches the casserole, simply pointing Jackie in the right direction instead.
Jackie chops broccoli and cooks chicken, checking in with Claire constantly on its doneness, and when the whole thing is assembled in Claire’s old casserole dish and bubbling away in the oven Jackie sits heavily in the breakfast nook with an exhausted groan.
“You do this every day?” Jackie says, her head lolling back against the bench as Claire slides into the opposite side with two cups of tea. “For every meal? And you clean, and garden. How do you ever have time to visit me with that much to do?”
“I’m not sure,” Claire says, shrugging. “Pete is the one who has a job. I just keep house. I don’t even have children to care for.”
“Do you want children?”
“No,” Claire says, without a single thought.
Jackie hardly reacts, but it hits Claire like the shockwave after a bomb.
Her mouth snaps closed. She’s never been asked that question so easily, so frankly, and in her comfort with Jackie she answered just as honestly. Though Jackie doesn’t look as horrified as she rightfully should, the shame is overwhelming.
“Not right now,” Claire corrects quickly, her tongue tied in knots. “I mean—I’m sure we’ll start a family soon. Pete wants to. He’s been bringing it up more since Martha got pregnant.”
The business card tucked behind the phone in her kitchen tugs at Claire’s conscience. She still hasn’t called the fertility clinic, and Pete has brought it up twice since he gave it to her.
“You shouldn’t have them if you don’t want to,” Jackie says softly.
Claire’s stomach lurches.
The whole wretched process makes her uneasy, from conception to pregnancy to motherhood.
It suits her about as well as her clothes do.
It all comes so naturally to Martha that Claire is positive she’ll be hearing about how she’s doing it wrong from the moment any of her children enter the world.
And nobody has ever assured her that how she feels is okay.
Not her mother, not Rita or Pete or Martha or even Dr. Martin.
Not one person has ever made her feel as if her hesitation is legitimate, until this moment.
“No, I will. I will,” Claire says. She makes a fist, pressing her nails into her palm. Pressing and pressing until she’s sure she’s made herself bleed again. “I will.”
She will. She’ll have to.
The record in Jackie’s player ended some time ago. As if she can sense that Claire needs a moment, Jackie gets up and rifles through her cabinet in the living room. Claire can hear her carefully removing the vinyl, putting it back in its case, and replacing it with something new.
The voice that fills the house is ethereal.
Claire recognizes it, now—it’s the same female singer that she heard from Jackie’s windows on the day she moved in.
Joni Mitchell, if Claire is remembering right.
Jackie has shown her lots of new music since they met, but she favors this album.
Claire has heard it more than once by now.
For some reason, it strikes her differently now than it ever has before. The simple instrumentation and the deep, haunting tones in the vocals. The lyrics, lamenting over love found and lost. Jackie’s quiet humming to match the song.
It’s poetry. It’s so different from the music Claire is used to, Pete’s old country albums or her own favorite cheerful pop songs. It makes Claire ache for something she didn’t know could exist.
“Jackie?” Claire says, as Jackie slides back into the booth. With some effort, she unclenches her fist and presses her palm against the tabletop. “Have you ever loved like that?”
Jackie takes a sip of her tea. It leaves a strip of moisture on the crest of her upper lip; she wipes it away, yet somehow keeps the perfect line of her lipstick. “Like what?”
“The way this woman sings. Like it’s in your blood,” Claire says.
The words just keep coming, an unstoppable flow now that she’s taken the cap off—she’s asking something deeply personal, but it feels as if she has to.
“Like your whole soul belongs to someone. Like you want them more than anything on earth.”
Jackie is silent for a while, tapping the side of her mug. The record plays, spinning and spinning just like Claire’s thoughts.
“I always thought that sort of thing was just for the movies,” Claire continues. She can’t bear to look up from the table, to see how Jackie is looking at her. “Real people don’t feel that way. But she makes it sound so sweet.”
“It can be,” Jackie says. It’s so low that it’s almost a whisper.
Claire exhales. She wants to cry, and yet she doesn’t want Jackie to see her like that. There’s so much going on inside her these days that she can’t even begin to label what she’s feeling. “What’s it like?”
“It’s…all-consuming. When it ends, it feels like you might die.
But when you’re in it…” Jackie swallows, so heavily that Claire can hear it.
She’s let go of her mug, and now she’s smoothing her thumb over the center of her own palm, like she once did to Claire’s.
It’s the only part of Jackie that Claire can look at right now. “It can be wonderful. Transcendent.”
“What happened to make it end, for you?”
“There’s only so long one can be in the middle of a marriage,” Jackie says.
Claire looks up. Jackie is chewing on her upper lip. Her lipstick has faded a bit, now.
“You were a mistress?” Claire says. She can hardly believe she’s heard it right. She’s defended Jackie from the ladies at book club, told them a dozen times that Jackie wouldn’t steal anyone’s husband, and now Jackie is telling her that’s exactly what she did.
Jackie makes a noise—like a laugh and a scoff at once. “I suppose you could call it that.”
“But that’s…that’s…”
“I know,” Jackie says. “You’re already looking at me differently.”
Claire tries to school her expression. “I’m not! I swear, I’m only…confused. Why would you do something like that?”
Jackie makes another noise that Claire can’t decipher. “I was in love. I was so in love that it made me nuts, I was…I was obsessed. I couldn’t see it as anything but a star-crossed romance. I kept convincing myself that if I just stuck it out, eventually…I would get what I wanted so badly.”
“Did you?” Claire says. “Get what you wanted, I mean?”
“No. After a few rounds of being assured the marriage was over before everything just went back to status quo, I realized it was never going to happen. I presented an ultimatum,” Jackie says heavily. “You can guess what the end result was.”
Claire looks down at Jackie’s hands again. Jackie won’t quite look at her, so they’re the best place to guess at her mood. “Is that why you moved here? Why you always avoid the subject when I ask?”