12. Jude
CHAPTER 12
Jude
It works for most of the day—usually. Jude wakes up, dresses quickly and drinks three cups of coffee as she gets the girls up, fed, and off to school. She then does everything around the house that needs to be done, and she drums up all the willpower she can muster to keep her mind focused on anything other than the thought of having a drink.
There have been plenty of days over the years when Jude has gotten to the lunch hour and then poured a stiff drink to enjoy on her patio while she reads a book and eats a sandwich. So it’s hard not to indulge in that little bit of pleasure. It’s incredibly difficult to tell herself that iced tea is as good as a cocktail. That staying clearheaded for the girls is what she needs to do. She’s gotten so good at convincing herself that there is absolutely nothing wrong with a little relaxing, and that she’s never been too drunk to take care of the kids. And just when she gets that thought in her head, she remembers: the pool.
The day she fell into the pool had been a bad one. She'd been thinking about her mother a lot, and Jude wanted nothing more than to reach out to Keiko, to tell her she missed her, and to see how she was, but she knew that was impossible. After the trip to Los Angeles on the boat there had been letters for a solid year, maybe more, and then nothing. No word of Keiko, or her whereabouts. No contact whatsoever. Jude had missed her mother terribly and she still does, but she’s gotten to the point where she understands that perhaps Keiko had disappeared from her life for reasons that were out of her hands. Jude isn’t even sure she wants the answers anymore.
But the day of the pool incident had been hard. She’d started drinking early, just sipping on and off as the girls played, and by lunchtime, she’d gotten so sloppy that all she could do was make toast for the girls before she went outside to pick up the Barbies and toys that Hope and Faith had left all over the place. Normally she’d make the girls do it as one of their chores, but they’d eaten their toast and gone to their bedroom to play a board game, so Jude had just done it herself. And that’s the last thing she remembers, truly. She’d woken up in the hospital with concerned people all around her: doctors, nurses, Vance, and—as she volunteered there several days a week—Jo Booker. The horror of it all had hit her in waves, and when she thinks of it now, it still feels like a fresh wound.
Jude puts a hand to her head involuntarily, touching the spot she’d hit on the cement of the pool deck. According to her neighbor, Ken Smithers, who has since moved back to Houston with his family, he’d been up on a ladder cleaning his gutters when he’d seen Jude fall and roll into the pool, and he’d gotten in through her side gate as quickly as possible to pull her out. The whole thing had been terribly shocking for Vance, who really hadn’t known how to address it or what he should do to help her, and they’d hidden as much of it as possible from the girls.
Seeing Ken Smithers once she’d gotten home from the hospital had been hard on Jude; she’d felt embarrassed and ashamed of herself, but even with those feelings looming over her, she’d continued on with her drinking. All it took was too much thinking about her mom, about her childhood, about feeling shunned by Alice, about losing Catherine’s friendship, and Jude would pour herself a drink. Always just one, which led to another, and another, and…
She shakes her head now, letting her hand fall away from the small scar on her temple where she’d needed stitches. Talking to Harrison Watts about finding Catherine has infused her life with a new sense of purpose, and Jude has to admit to herself that she has no idea what she’ll do with the information if Mr. Watts does call to let her know that he’s tracked down her old friend. Will she call her? If Catherine lives close enough, will she go to her? Surprise her? She truly has no idea, but for some reason, the search for Catherine has become her one mission, her one reason for staying sober and focused.
And if that’s all she has (and, God, she should be doing it for her daughters! Or her husband! Or herself!), then she’ll take it. Sobriety is going to be an uphill battle, and she’ll use whatever tools she can find in her arsenal to fight against the forces inside of her that want to hide in the bottom of an empty bottle. She has to. Jude cannot afford to end up slumped over in a pool again, or having to show her face and swallow her shame in front of friends and neighbors who find her at her lowest point.
She has girls to raise, and unlike her own mother, she needs to have the chance to be here for them.
* * *
Catherine had a singing voice like a songbird crossed with a bewitching fairy. She would lounge in the bathtub for hours, her voice echoing in the tiled room and trickling down the hallway as she sang a haunting rendition of “I Don’t Want To Set the World On Fire” by the Ink Spots. Jude could hear the splash of water as Catherine flipped around, refilling the tub with bubbles and hot water, and she would stop whatever she was doing to listen as Catherine hummed to herself and switched to “You Always Hurt the One You Love” by the Mills Brothers.
Sometimes, as she sat at her chipped vanity table in the light of a pink-shaded lamp, putting cold cream on her smooth skin, Catherine would talk to Frank Sinatra—that dumb white cat—telling him all about her day, about the movie stars she’d seen on set, and about the way the director or the other actors had treated her.
“And can you believe that man came up to me and asked me what size brassiere I wear? Can you even stand the audacity, Frank Sinatra?”
Jude walked past the bedroom and saw her friend sitting on the bench seat, looking down at the cat on the carpet at her feet.
“He’s not in the costume department, and he’s not even in charge of the film—he just wanted to talk about my breasts!”
Jude paused that time, leaning against the doorframe as she watched Catherine reach out a long, elegant arm, letting her thin wrist dangle as she brushed her fingers over Frank Sinatra’s upturned head.
“Men,” Catherine had said, shaking her head. “So silly. So predictable.”
“Aren’t they, though?” The words were out of Jude’s mouth before she could stop them.
Catherine turned in surprise. “Judy! I didn’t hear you there.”
Jude stepped into the bedroom and perched on the edge of the bed, with its satin coverlet and the marabou feather slippers placed side-by-side for Catherine to step into. She may not have been a starlet yet, but she certainly subscribed to the notion that a woman needed to act the part regardless. Jude loved this about her.
“Sorry,” Jude said, putting her hands between her knees and rounding her shoulders as she yawned. “I didn’t mean to creep up on you. I just heard you talking, and I didn’t know that old Frank was here.”
Catherine glanced at the window sash, which had been pushed open. Outside, against the dark night sky, the leaves and branches of a lemon tree were visible.
“Frank knocks politely until I let him in, don’t you, Mr. Sinatra?” Catherine looked at him again, and he sat there, perfectly still, looking up at her. It was a mutual admiration society, for sure.
“A man really said that to you?” Jude asked, leaning back on the bed so that she was propped up on her elbows.
Catherine spun around on the bench seat until she was facing Jude, and she tightened the satin sash of her robe as she crossed her legs at the knee, revealing about a mile of bare thigh. “He did,” Catherine said with a pretty pout. “And I would have smacked him on the nose, but he’s the brother-in-law of the film’s producer, so I bit my tongue until it bled.”
“Nepotism,” Jude said with a roll of her eyes.
“Asshole-ism,” Catherine barked back.
The women laughed, and then fell quiet. Outside, crickets chirped noisily in the dark night.
“Do you really think you’ll make it?” Jude asked, still braced on her elbows as she looked at Catherine. “Do you think you’ll stay in Hollywood until you end up famous?”
Catherine blew out a breath like the question was a big one that needed contemplating. “Well,” she said, reaching down to scoop up Frank Sinatra. “I think I will stay. I mean, what else would I do, Judy? Go back to Missoula and marry a man who owns a farm?”
Jude shrugged. “Doesn’t sound too bad—if you like that sort of thing.”
Catherine stood then, cradling Frank Sinatra in her arms as she walked over to the open window. “Well, I don’t mind a man on a horse, but I’d rather ride him myself.”
“The man or the horse?” Jude rolled over onto one elbow, watching Catherine move in the light from the lamp.
Catherine reached up to the open window and set Frank on the sill gently, urging him to jump down and go home. They weren’t one hundred percent sure, but they assumed that Frank actually belonged to Mrs. LaJolla, the old widow who lived behind them. Either that, or he was an opportunist who made his way into every yard and every home on the block.
Once the cat had gone, Catherine turned back to Jude. “I guess neither,” she said. Catherine crossed the room, her satin robe billowing behind her. She sat on the edge of the bed next to Jude, but since Jude was lounging on an elbow, Catherine had to look down at her. She reached out a hand and let her long fingers comb through Jude’s dark hair. “I’ve never fallen hard for a man at all—or a horse, for that matter.”
Jude smiled up at her, feeling uncertain. Unsettled. Finally, she sat up, only when she did, she realized that their faces were far too close together.
“You’ve never been in love?” Jude asked, feeling breathless. “Never?”
Catherine tossed her long, honeyed hair over one shoulder. “I wouldn’t say never , but I would say that I’ve never been willing to throw away my own dreams for a man. I’ve never felt that urge to give up my life and devote myself to helping some guy find his own happiness. I haven’t wanted to raise anyone’s children, or do anything conventional for that matter.”
“So…you’d call yourself unconventional, then?” Jude knew she was pushing, but there was something deep inside of her that made her feel rather unconventional herself. And no matter how hard she tried, Jude couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
“Sure,” Catherine said casually. “I would say that’s true enough. How about you?”
It was Jude’s turn, and she knew that honesty was her only real option here. “I think I’m…different. I don’t think I’m normal.”
This made Catherine laugh. “Okay, let’s not get carried away, Judy. No one is calling you abnormal. You’re not weird or anything.”
Jude bit her lower lip. “I think I am. I grew up without a mother for most of my life. And I never told anyone about this, but remember how I told you about when I came over on the boat from Japan? How I was with that woman and her son, Chester? Well, he did things to me. We were just kids, though,” Jude added hurriedly. “So it wasn’t like I understood. I didn’t like it or anything ? —“
“Jude,” Catherine said softly. She reached out and took Jude’s hand in hers. “You don’t need to explain. I think most of us had some neighbor boy or a creepy cousin who tried things with us when we were young. You’re not alone.”
Jude blinked. This was the first time it had occurred to her that the same things might have happened to other girls. “Really?”
“Of course. My older sister’s boyfriend cornered me in the bathroom when I was twelve and made me touch it.”
“It?” Jude repeated. “How old was he?”
“Seventeen.” Catherine laced her fingers through Jude’s. “He told me that if I ever said a word about it to my sister or to my parents or anyone else, he’d drive his car off a cliff with my sister in it. I believed him.”
“What happened? Did she eventually break things off with him?”
Catherine laughed, though it lacked any joy. “Not quite. He left her when she got pregnant with my niece at eighteen.”
“God,” Jude said. She shook her head. “Men.”
“Boys,” Catherine corrected. “But I haven’t had any amazing experiences with any of them—boys or men. I don’t hate them or anything,” she clarified, “I just don’t think I get them. And I’m not sure that I want to.” Catherine shrugged and stood up, sliding her bare feet into the marabou feather slippers and walking over to close and lock her bedroom window.
With Catherine, there was no need to get to the bottom of these feelings; she seemed to simply accept things as they came to her, and she generally let things pass without judgment, which was something that Jude both admired and feared about her. A woman without judgment felt confusing to Jude: did she truly not care, or was she playing at some sort of zen state that wasn’t truly possible to ever reach?
“You mean you don’t want to fall in love and get married and really understand your husband?” Jude frowned. She thought this was ultimately what every woman wanted. In fact, she assumed it was what she herself wanted, though the image of her settled down, married, and entrenched in a life that she shared with a man seemed as foreign as another country.
Catherine was gathering discarded dresses and blouses from around the room, and as she stopped at a chair in the corner and picked up a pair of nylons still attached to garters, she looked right at Jude.
“No, Judith,” she said, a smile dancing in her eyes. “What I want is to take as many lovers as I please, and to live in Hollywood forever. I want a pool, and a bar cart with little tongs to pick up ice cubes, and I want a yellow convertible, and three cats. I want to hire a cook to make my dinner every night, and I want to see my face on a billboard. What I do not want is to be someone’s little wife. I am not washing a man’s laundry, listening to him talk about work, and I’m definitely not interested in raising his children. And if you pictured me doing all those things, then we don’t really know each other at all.” Catherine walks into her tiny closet and tugs the cord that turns on the overhead light. “What about you, Judy? Is it in the cards for you—marriage, kids, the whole shebang?”
Jude could hear Catherine but not see her as she moved around inside the small walk-in closet, and this gave her a sense of boldness that she didn’t normally have. The words she’d been holding in for months were right on the tip of her tongue, and the thoughts she had about her and Catherine suddenly didn’t seem far-fetched at all. “I’m not sure that’s ever in the cards for girls like us,” Jude said seriously. “Maybe we’re just built differently.”
The movement inside the closet ceased, but the light stayed on. Jude held her breath.
When Catherine finally appeared in the doorway of the closet, it was with a look on her face that Jude couldn’t quite name. It was a wildness and a questioning; it was a hunger and an answer.
“Maybe we are,” Catherine said. She was nearly breathless, and Jude swore she could see Catherine’s heart beating as it pulsed rapidly in her neck. “Maybe girls like us aren’t a dime a dozen.” She reached up and pulled the cord, turning off the light in the closet so that she was standing in darkness. “Maybe we just need something a little different than the other girls do.”
Jude felt lightheaded as she waited for Catherine to step out of the closet and into the light. Instead, she stayed there, halfway hidden in the shadows. She stayed that way for so long that Jude wasn’t sure what to do, and so she stood and brushed the front of her robe, smoothing the wrinkles from it.
This was enough for one night, and so she walked to the door of the bedroom, turning back to see Catherine leaning against the closet door.
“Goodnight, Judy,” she whispered.