Chapter 16
Near the end of August, Martha goes into labor.
Claire has been prepared for this eventuality. She agreed when Martha first got pregnant to check in on the house for the few days Martha will be at the hospital, and she has every intention of upholding her promise even with the strangeness between them lately.
Even so, Claire finds herself taking advantage of Martha’s absence. While she’s at the hospital welcoming her little bundle of joy, Claire sees Jackie every single day.
Keeping their friendship from Pete is now imperative.
Jackie is too important to lose. Maybe Jackie is a bad influence—she encourages Claire to speak her mind, after all.
She gives Claire a taste of freedom during her stagnant days.
Jackie bought her the first outfit she’s ever felt truly comfortable in, just because she could.
That fact—the fact that Jackie bought it for her, the fact that Claire feels comfortable wearing it even if she’s terrified of being seen in it—is what drives Claire to put the outfit on and go over to Jackie’s house in broad daylight.
Sure, she runs there as fast as her legs can take her, but the delight on Jackie’s face when she opens the door makes it worth it.
“Claire!” Jackie says, quickly moving aside to let Claire in. Her eyes widen as Claire passes, fully taking in Claire’s clothes. “Goodness, you—you look fantastic.”
Claire gets a unique thrill every time Jackie pays her a compliment, but this one feels different.
Jackie isn’t her cool, collected self—she trails behind Claire on the way to the kitchen, her eyes wide, and Claire feels exposed by the clothes.
Like without the protective shell of a skirt, Jackie will somehow see whatever strange force has been twisting at the apex of her thighs lately.
It brings to mind that moment with the laundry basket. Something twinges behind her zipper, and Claire clasps her hands over her lap when she sits in the breakfast nook.
“You’re here early today,” Jackie remarks, setting the kettle on to boil. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, of course. And in such stunning duds.” Jackie says it jauntily, winking on the last word, but her cheeks are rather pink.
“I have some things to do for Martha later today. She’s off having the baby,” Claire says. She presses her hands to her thighs—the texture of corduroy is strange, as is the shape of her own legs. “She’ll be at the hospital for a few days.”
“That’s nice of you,” Jackie says. She keeps glancing at Claire as she lays out mugs and teabags, and the warmth of her attention is better than a hot bath.
“It means I don’t have to worry about her peeping through the curtains every time I leave my house.”
“Now it’s just dear Mr. Davis that you need to worry about,” Jackie says. There’s a hint of bitterness to it that Claire finds herself sharing.
“Oh, Mr. Davis can stuff it,” Claire huffs.
Jackie laughs abruptly. She looks shocked by Claire’s candor, and Claire is honestly rather surprised at herself. Though these kinds of thoughts have been building up in her for some time, it’s not often that she voices it. The freedom of it loosens something in her chest.
“Claire, what was your maiden name again?” Jackie asks, suddenly demanding as she slides into the booth across from Claire. “Not your husband’s name. Your real name. Anita said it when we visited her shop.”
“When I married, my name was Fields,” Claire says. It feels unfamiliar on her tongue. “Claire Fields.”
“Claire Fields,” Jackie says. Her mouth forms the name slowly, smiling around it as if she’s tasting it and finding it satisfying. “I like that. It’s nice to meet you, Claire Fields.”
Jackie holds out her hand. It’s oddly reminiscent of their first meeting, but Claire feels as if an entirely different person is shaking Jackie’s hand this time. Being Jackie’s friend has shifted something that Claire isn’t sure she ever wants to shift back.
Their hands don’t part until the kettle whistles.
Jackie jumps up, taking it off the burner with a too-quick motion. She grabs the kettle a bit too far down on the handle, and hisses as she drops it back onto the burner. “Ah! Damn.”
Claire is out of her seat in a blink. She grabs Jackie’s hand, examining the burn—a thin red strip across the palm of her hand, but it doesn’t look like it will blister. “Careful! Are you all right?”
Jackie pulls her hand back abruptly. “I’m fine. I forgot my brain today. Don’t worry about me.” Jackie’s laugh is a little strained. She must be hurt, and not want to show it—she busies herself with pouring tea.
“You should put something on it, at least,” Claire says. She leans against the counter, and folds her arms across her chest.
Jackie swears again as she pours hot water all over the countertop.
“Shit. Goddamn, fucking—kettle,” Jackie mutters, chucking the kettle into the sink. It steams quietly, and Jackie takes a deep breath as spilled water drips down her lower cabinets. “Sorry. I’m sorry, Claire. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
“Nothing is wrong with you,” Claire says firmly.
Jackie throws a tea towel onto the counter, soaking up the scalding water. “You don’t know how untrue that is.”
The towel darkens slowly. Jackie throws it into the sink along with the kettle, and after a moment of consideration, she opens a drawer to pull out a pack of Marlboro Lights.
“You don’t mind, do you?” Jackie says, rifling in another drawer to produce her lighter. “I need to settle my nerves. It’s either this, or make a martini at nine in the morning.”
Claire blinks. Jackie is already pulling out a cigarette. “You smoke?”
“Used to. I quit two years ago.”
Jackie doesn’t wait for an affirmative. She disappears towards the living room, and by the time Claire has followed Jackie is draped over the couch taking her first deep drag.
Claire sits gingerly on the edge of a cushion.
Jackie’s gaze flickers towards her, and then back to her cigarette.
“You seem unsettled,” Claire says quietly. “Did I do something wrong?”
Jackie sighs. It comes with a cloud of smoke. “No, darling. You haven’t done anything,” Jackie says. The pet-name makes Claire feel a little better. “I’m just at the end of a very trying week.”
“What happened?”
“I learned that I need to change my phone number,” Jackie drawls.
She takes another drag of her smoke; Claire hates the smell of cigarettes, but she doesn’t hate the way Jackie’s lips form around it.
The sharp, almost rough way she breathes it in and out.
It’s different from the slow, lazy way she’d smoked marijuana.
It’s angrier. Like she resents herself for doing it.
Claire gets more comfortable on the couch. Though she’s wearing pants, she still sits primly with her legs folded. “Was it your mother?”
“No. I think she got the message last time when I called her a wretched money-grubbing hag.”
“Goodness,” Claire says mildly.
Jackie laughs. Again, there’s a harsh bitterness to it. “Trust me, she’s called me worse.”
“Was it…that man you told me about, then?” Claire says hesitantly. “The married one?”
Jackie taps her cigarette on the ashtray. She sits back against the couch and sucks at her teeth, taking another long drag. The ash glows orange.
“Apparently I give the impression that I’m a total sucker who will come running back the moment someone snaps their fingers,” Jackie finally says.
“No, you don’t,” Claire says. “If he thinks you’re like that, he’s—he’s an ass.”
Jackie’s head snaps to her. She smiles, and then laughs quietly. The weight of her sudden mood seems to lift.
Claire did that. She made Jackie happier, when this mystery man made her so sad.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear,” Jackie says. She sets the cigarette down, instead picking up the instant camera sitting on the coffee table. “Hold still—I need to document this moment.”
As she usually does when a camera is pointed her way, Claire squirms out of the lens frame. Instead, she snatches the camera from Jackie’s hands, turning it around and snapping a single quick photo of her own before Jackie can protest.
“You’re the photographer now, are you?” Jackie says, her smile wide and genuine now. The cigarette lies forgotten in the ashtray.
“Better than being the photographed,” Claire says, taking the photo from the slot. She can just barely see the outline of Jackie emerging from the white square.
“You know, I hardly saw a single photo of you in your whole house besides your wedding portrait,” Jackie says. “The rest are of Pete and his family.”
Claire waves the photo in front of her face like a fan. “I don’t really like having my picture taken.”
“What if it was me taking it?” Jackie’s posture is relaxed, but her leg is bouncing rapidly.
“You want to photograph me?” Claire says. “Why?”
“I think you should have at least one photo of yourself that you like,” Jackie says, grabbing the camera back from Claire. “A picture of the real Claire Fields.”
Claire has been gazing in wonder at Jackie’s photographs for almost as long as they’ve known each other.
Lately she’s been caught up on how Jackie takes them—since the party, it’s become more apparent how detached Jackie is from her subject.
Capturing the untouchable. Now Jackie wants to capture Claire, up close and personal.
The thought makes her a bit sweaty.
“Are you sure?” Claire says. “I don’t think I’ll measure up to the models you’re used to.”
“Measure up? Jackie says, pulling Claire to her feet and starting to tug the pins from her hair. Her smile is soft. “You’ll blow them out of the water.”
Jackie sits her on the ottoman, loosing Claire’s hair from its coif and arranging the curls around her shoulders.
Claire sits stiffly at first, waiting for Jackie to pose her, but Jackie’s brief instruction of ‘do whatever feels natural’ as she fusses with the light levels in the room leaves Claire at a loss.
Jackie starts out distant, taking pictures of Claire’s stiff posture from the other side of the couch.
Claire is sure that she’s absolutely failing at being a model, but as the minutes wear on Jackie keeps giving encouraging comments.
She makes little jokes to make Claire giggle.
She assures Claire of her handsomeness, and for maybe the first time in her life, Claire starts to believe it.
Jackie’s attention is addictive. Claire has never been looked at this way, with such interest.
In a bold move, she uncrosses her legs and leans forward with her elbows on her knees.
Jackie’s eyes light up.
Under Jackie’s intense focus, Claire opens up like a flower in full bloom.
She’s becoming something greater. Her forearms look different, braced against her thighs like this—they look lean, strong, and for the first time that seems like a good thing.
Claire can feel the defined line of her shoulders pressing against her new shirt as Jackie’s eyes drift across it.
Her legs feel articulated from her body, not trapped under her usual stiff skirts, and Claire spreads them and relaxes with a lack of shame that surprises her.
For the first time, she’s completely unframed.
Jackie is seeing all her edges, all the parts of herself she usually tucks away, and she seems to like each one.
Claire feels, once again, rather like the woman in the photo that’s so fascinated her since the day Jackie hung it. She glances at it—it’s across the room, so she can’t see the details, but she committed them to memory a long time ago.
Under the flash of Jackie’s camera Claire wonders what it would feel like to have Jackie leaning against her arm like the other woman in the picture.
Claire can almost feel the buzz of the alcohol; though she has never in her life considered smoking, she can definitely smell the cigarette Jackie would be lighting.
Something inside Claire is glowing like that ashy ember, and Jackie’s brown eyes are stoking it.
Jackie snaps picture after picture, each one a closer shot than the last, and when she runs out of film in her fancy camera she switches to the instant-print. When the first few of those fully develop, Claire can hardly believe it.
“It doesn’t even look like me,” Claire says quietly, looking back and forth between two shots.
Jackie takes them from her, and hands her a few newly developed ones. “It does. Look closer. This is how I see you, Claire. You’re…fascinating.” Jackie’s voice is so quiet on the last word that Claire almost can’t hear it.
The person looking back at her, the person Jackie apparently sees, is a stranger to Claire.
And yet she’s somehow intimately familiar—she’s something close to who Claire was once, before time and expectations changed her.
It’s the person she never thought she could be.
Jackie is sitting close to her, all heat and distraction, and Claire never wants to move away.
Jackie is such a good friend. She’s such a good friend that it makes Claire’s chest ache, like pressing on a bruise.
Claire goes home with three photos. Jackie gives her two of them—one is one of Claire, sitting on the ottoman with a wry smile and looking more confident than she’s ever felt.
The other is of both of them, taken close up and slightly off-kilter.
Jackie had held the camera up and out as far as she could, snapping it blindly.
Jackie is laughing, and Claire is looking at her with that emotion she can’t explain.
She wonders if that’s always how she looks, when she looks at Jackie. If anyone else can see it. If Jackie can.
The third photo is one Claire slips into her pocket before she goes back to her own house to get started on making some casseroles for Martha.
It’s the one she took of Jackie, before their impromptu photoshoot.
She’s smiling at Claire with a cigarette between her fingers.
Her eyes are soft. Her hair is tucked behind one ear, but there’s a stray piece of it falling across her forehead.
Claire puts the photos in her bedside drawer, pressed like flower petals between the pages of her favorite book.