13. Jo
CHAPTER 13
Jo
“Josephine! Hey, Josephine!”
Jo stops in her tracks. She’s in the middle of her shift at Stardust Beach General, where she’s been volunteering now for a year and a half, and Dr. Chavez is gaining ground behind her. She stops and turns, pretending like she hadn’t seen him standing at the nurses’ station.
“Oh, Dr. Chavez,” Jo says with a big smile. “How are you?”
He catches up to her with a puzzled look on his face. “I waved at you as you walked by—you didn’t see me?”
Jo shoots him an apologetic smile. “Sorry, I was lost in thought there. That happens to me sometimes when I’m thinking of my next story.”
She starts walking again and he falls in place next to her, striding down the shiny linoleum floors towards the pediatric wing.
“That’s actually why I wanted to talk to you,” Dr. Chavez says, slipping his ballpoint pen into the pocket of his white lab coat. “I read your stories—all of them.”
Jo is stunned into speechlessness. She almost laughs, but catches herself. “You read all of them?” The idea of Dr. Chavez shopping at the grocery store for his meals and plucking a True Romance magazine off the shelf to pay for at the register tickles her funny bone. “I’m flattered.”
“And amused,” he says with a wink. “Which is understandable. A lot of the stories in the magazine were a bit on the frilly side—at least for my taste.”
Jo puts her fingertips to her lips like she can hide her smile. “Frilly?” she repeats.
Dr. Chavez shrugs and it comes across as boyish, almost shy. “Definitely from the female perspective. But yours—yours were special. The way you set a scene is really deft.”
“Huh.” Jo puts her hands into the pockets of her gray skirt and leans one shoulder on the wall as they stop at the double doors to the next wing. “Deft.” It’s not really the kind of flattering term a writer dreams of, or at least Jo has never dreamed of being deft. Romantic? Yes. Talented? Of course. But deft? Deft sounds like a compliment for someone who fells a tree, or herds cattle.
Dr. Chavez’s cheeks dimple as he smiles. He dips his chin, and looks up at Jo almost bashfully. “Sorry, I’m not in the business of verbally critiquing talented authors. I meant to say that the world you built in your stories is a vivid one. I feel like I know the characters, and like I understand their motivations and emotions. I really feel for Maxine, you know?” He holds up a hand as he talks, which is charming to Jo. “I can see her trying her hardest to get Winston’s attention, and how disappointed she must feel when she sees him standing outside a bar with another woman.” He shakes his head. “It all feels so real.”
Nurse Edwina, the head nurse and Jo’s direct boss, swishes by on her soft-soled shoes, shooting Jo a knowing look as she does. Jo locks eyes with her for a second and then looks away.
“Thank you,” Jo says. “There is no higher compliment than to tell an author that her words and her characters feel real.”
“They do. You made an old bachelor feel like a giddy young girl in love.”
Jo throws back her head and laughs. “Like a giddy young girl in love?” She giggles even harder. “Dr. Chavez. I can’t even picture that. And you’re hardly old .”
He shrugs. “Hey, I’m just telling it like it is.”
A page rings out on the intercom: “Dr. Chavez to pediatrics. Dr. Chavez to pediatrics.”
Jo is about to say something else when he points at the speaker with one finger. “They’re playing my song,” he says with a smile. He reaches over and touches her elbow lightly. “Keep writing, Jo. I think I accidentally signed up for a lifetime subscription to True Romance , so I want to make sure I’ll be seeing your byline in there every month.”
“I’ll try,” Jo says, the laughter dying down as she wipes the corners of her eyes. “I’ll do my best.”
Dr. Chavez lifts a hand in farewell as he punches the button that swings open the double doors to pediatrics, and Jo is left standing there, leaning against the wall with one shoulder.
She’s got to keep writing. If someone like Dr. Chavez—someone she holds in such high esteem—is encouraging her to keep going, then she has to. But Bill still hasn’t said anything about the stories, and she’s afraid to ask him whether he’s read them or not. In fact, she’s kind of hoping that he hasn’t. If Bill forgets about the stories, then she can just switch to a new plot. New characters. A whole new storyline. Sure, people love reading about Maxine and Winston and the space program, but she can wrap up the trajectory of their love story and find new inspiration somewhere else. Maybe a good doctor and nurse romance? People love those, too.
"Josephine," Nurse Edwina says as she comes squeaking down the hallway in her orthopedic shoes. "You gonna just lounge there all day looking dreamy, or are you going to deliver some cheer to the pregnant ladies in the maternity ward?"
Jo knows Edwina is teasing her--the older woman is all bark and no bite--so she smiles and pushes away from the wall.
"I'll make the rounds," Jo says. "That way I can hit all the rooms you've already been to and make up for your lack of cheer.”
“Oooh,” Edwina says, pushing open the double doors with her rear end and shaking her head at Jo. “She’s a sassy one, isn’t she?”
Jo’s never been called sassy. She kind of likes it.
* * *
By the time Bill gets home that evening, Jo has convinced herself that her writing is truly something special. She’s hummed her way around the kitchen, making a pot of spaghetti and tossing a salad for dinner, and as she worked, she heard Dr. Chavez’s words in her head over and over, telling her that her stories were strong enough to capture his attention.
Bill’s car door slams outside and Kate comes rushing out from her bedroom to greet him. It must happen in every family, but it’s been bittersweet for Jo to watch her kids grow up and lose some of their innocent, childlike tendencies. The children used to all rush out when Bill arrived home at the end of a long day, excited to see their father and eager to have someone other than Jo to chatter to, but over the years, it slowly became just Nancy and Kate, as Jimmy started to run off with friends to play catch or make little boy mischief, and then Nancy was suddenly too busy reading a book most days to come out of it and greet her father at the door. Now it’s just Kate, and sometimes Jo feels like her youngest only comes to the door to greet Bill because no one else does.
“Hi, Daddy,” Kate says, leaning into him for a quick hug. She’s got a doll in one hand, and she’s looking into the kitchen with interest. “I think Mommy is making spaghetti.”
Bill kisses the top of his youngest child’s head absently and then ruffles her hair. “I think she is,” he says. “You can go play for a bit. We’ll call you for dinner.”
It’s his tone; Jo can hear it and sense that something is up with Bill. She stirs the spaghetti with one hand on her hip, keeping a side-eye turned towards her husband.
“I read your stories,” he says when they’re alone. Bill opens his briefcase, pulls out the magazines, and lets them land on the kitchen table with a slap that's almost accusatory. At the sound, Jo nearly drops the wooden spoon in her hand. “I don’t know what you were thinking, Josephine.” Bill’s voice is quiet, but his tone is grave. “That entire story is about us.”
Jo turns her back to the stove, leaning against the counter. “Bill…”
He holds up a hand and lowers his gaze. They stand there like that for what feels like an eternity. “Do you understand how invasive that is for me?” Bill puts one hand on the back of a kitchen chair and leans on it like his back is hurting him. He shakes his head before looking right at his wife. “I opened that story only to find that you’d written about us up on the roof of the house on that hot summer night. That was ours , Jo. That’s our story.”
“Of course it is. I know it is,” Jo says, her eyes welling with tears. “It’s our private story, Bill. And I shouldn’t have written about the roof. You are so right. I’m sorry.” She searches his face and waits to see what more he’ll say.
“And the rest of it…my job. The things I go through as an astronaut and as a man…” Bill’s words trail off and he stands there, looking forlorn. “I can’t stand knowing that women all over this country have read our story and that they know about how I feel.”
Jo is tempted to tell him that, most likely, the women who read her story aren’t all that interested in the day-to-day inner workings of an astronaut’s job, and that they’re far more interested in what happens between Maxine and Winston, but she realizes that this isn’t the time to interrupt. Instead, she nods. “I’m sorry, Bill,” Jo whispers. “I’m so sorry. I just felt like us coming here was such a changing, formative thing for me—for us—and it really inspired me. I just started writing, and that’s what came out. I couldn’t help it.”
“But you could,” Bill says firmly, finally raising his voice.
Nancy comes out of her room then, book in hand. “Hi, Daddy,” she says, looking back and forth between her parents. “How was your day?”
Bill puts a hand to the back of his neck and rubs it before answering. “It was fine, Nance. Your mom and I are talking now, sweetheart. Would you mind giving us a few minutes before dinner?”
“Actually,” Jo says, untying the apron that’s around her waist. She lifts the neck loop over her head and passes the apron to Nancy. “Honey, I want you to keep stirring the pasta sauce, okay? Your dad and I will be outside.”
Jo motions at the sliding door to the pool deck, and they walk out, closing it behind them. She folds her arms across her chest, watching through the window as Nancy props up her book on the kitchen counter, puts the apron over her head and ties it at the waist, and begins to stir the pasta sauce absentmindedly while keeping her eyes on the book she’s reading.
“Okay,” Jo says, sitting on the edge of a pool chair. She looks at Bill and waits for him to go on. He’s the one who has things to say here, not her.
Bill throws his hands in the air and turns around, pacing in the grass towards the fence line. “Well, I can’t ask for a retraction, Jo. There’s nothing to be done now, but I’m currently under a microscope at work. Everything I do is up for scrutiny, and having this story out there feels damn near humiliating.”
Jo is gobsmacked. “Bill…how? How is it humiliating to have people read a story about a person who feels real? Whose troubles are real ones? Nowhere in it does it say that the story is about you, and I don’t even use my married name when I write.”
“Oh, believe me, I know. You think I didn’t notice that you went by Josephine White instead of Josephine Booker? I noticed.” Bill jabs a finger at his own chest. “I noticed.”
Jo sighs heavily. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. I understand that you’re upset, and I wish I could do something to make you feel better, but I think it’s obvious that you want to be mad at me.”
“That I want to be mad at you? Jo,” Bill says, walking in circles as he puts his hands to both temples. “Why would I want to be mad at you? You’re my wife. My partner. The mother of my children. I want us to be on the same page, and I definitely don’t want us to be on opposite sides of the fence. But if you’re going to disclose the most personal parts of my life—of our life together—then I feel like I can’t trust you.”
This hits Jo like a blow to the chest. “You can’t…trust me?” She blinks repeatedly, trying to hold the tears at bay. Trust is everything in a marriage, and until now, it’s never been in question—for either of them.
Bill looks at her with wounded eyes. “You know what a private person I am. You know that I don’t share things about myself with just anyone. The idea that you were letting strangers read the most private parts of my life just bothers me on a deep level, Jo. Can’t you see that? I feel exposed. I feel like you’ve shared me without my permission. I had no say in this, and that bothers me most of all.”
Jo swallows hard and holds back her tears. Betraying Bill has never been her intention, and she takes the accusation seriously. Very seriously. “I never meant to share things about you, Bill. I just started writing and it felt so good, so cathartic. It helped me to work through some of the things I was feeling to just be able to open up—even on the page, even to people I didn’t know—and to put some of my thoughts and emotions out there. I know that’s selfish, but sometimes I need to talk about things, and baby, I have to tell you,” Jo says, shaking her head as she sits on the edge of the chair, looking up at her husband, “you aren’t always much of a talker. That’s hard for me. I can’t approach you, and I can’t talk about you with you. I needed to think and write and process the parts of our life that are difficult for me. Can you see that?” she pleads, one hand pressed to her chest.
Inside the house, Nancy flips on the kitchen light, which illuminates the dining room area. Jo looks at Bill as he turns his back to her, folding his arms over his chest.
“I don’t like it, Jo. I feel betrayed. I can’t help it, and I know that’s extreme and maybe feels a bit dramatic,” he says, turning halfway around so that he can glance at his wife, “but I feel hurt by this. I have a lot going on at work, and a lot of people thinking that maybe I’m not fit to do my job, and to feel like my own wife doesn’t think I’m approachable or that I’m someone she can talk to…that really hurts me.”
Jo stands slowly, walking up behind Bill like she’s approaching a horse that might spook. He turns back to the fence, and Jo slides in behind him, putting her hands on his waist and letting them move around so that she’s holding him around his midsection. She puts her cheek to his strong back and tightens her embrace.
“Bill. I never meant to hurt you, or betray your confidence, or make you feel like I couldn’t talk to you. I just have some things in my heart that are bothering me, and they came out on the page.”
Bill is silent, but Jo can feel him breathing. When he finally speaks, it’s calm, and he sounds almost fearful.
“You know what really bothers me, Jo?”
“What?” Jo closes her eyes, keeping her cheek pressed to his back. “What bothers you most?”
“The way you wrote all this under a different name. It’s like you were trying to hide it from me. Like you wanted to get away with something and that I’d never find out.”
Jo pulls away but stays behind him, her arms loosely holding his torso. “No, that’s not why I used my maiden name, Bill. It’s not. I just wasn’t sure about you having a wife in the public eye at all. I didn’t know if that would be something that could fall back on you, and this seemed like a fun hobby. A lark. I thought I might write a few short stories and make a few bucks and that would be it.”
“Then why didn’t you just sit me down and explain all of that. Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing and let me decide for myself how I felt about it? By hiding it and not talking about it, you basically told me that I wasn’t fit to come to my own conclusions. To feel the way I felt. You took that away from me, and it feels deceptive. Deceiving the person you love is like stripping them of their dignity, Jo. I’m a grown man, and I need to know that the woman I’m married to has my back and will always be up front with me.”
“Bill, I will. I swear.” Jo pulls all the way back from him and walks around Bill so that they’re face to face. “But I’ve been writing for almost a year now, and you never asked to read any of it. It was like you didn’t care.” She looks up at him desperately. “I didn’t ever set out to hide things from you or to do something that would upset you, but I do feel like you had every opportunity to read my work. To ask me what was going on with my stories. I even did a reading at NASA, for God’s sake. Almost all the women you work with have read my stories. I just…I feel bad that you feel bad, but you really pulled away from me. You showed no interest in my writing. Zero.”
“I’ve been busy, Jo.” Bill puts his hands on both of her shoulders and looks deep into her eyes. “We came here with a goal—a big one—and I needed to put as much of my focus on this as I possibly could. That’s why I struggled at first with you taking the volunteer position at the hospital. I needed you to be my partner first and foremost.”
“But I am .”
“I know you are, but can you see how I felt like you were pulling away from me? How it seemed like you wanted to go off and do your own things rather than focus on the family? And then to take up writing on top of that…”
Jo hears what he’s saying, and she understands the expectations on her as a wife and mother, but she can’t help feeling like Bill is wrong. He’s wrong in thinking that Jo giving her time to the hospital, or staying up late to write and be creative, are ways that she’s pulling away from him and the children. Instead, she sees those as very distinct ways that she’s becoming more for them, not less .
Jo drops her gaze as Bill’s hands gently knead her shoulders. “Bill,” she says, shaking her head. Her voice is so low that it’s almost a whisper. “I’m not pulling away from you. I’m just trying to find me. I want to know who I’m supposed to be, and I think doing that will set a wonderful example for the kids—the girls in particular.”
She bites her lower lip and feels the burn of tears, but they aren’t tears of sadness. Instead, Jo feels almost angry that she has to defend herself, that she has to make Bill understand her desire to be her own person. He’s never once had to explain to her why he wants to go to the moon or why he needs to stop at the Black Hole for beers with his coworkers at the end of the day.
When Jo looks up at Bill, he’s watching her with a curious gaze. “You think the girls need to see their mother giving her time away for free at the hospital and writing stories under a pen name?” His tone is gentle, but the sarcasm is sharp and heavy to Jo’s ear.
She takes his words in, holds them, and then lets out her thoughts with her breath. “I do,” she says. “I think they need to see that women have a lot to offer the world. If they both become wives and mothers then that’s wonderful and a blessing to us, but if either of them wants to do something else, something?—“
“Say it, Jo. Something more.”
She shakes her head emphatically. “That wasn’t what I meant, but okay. If they want to do something more, then at least they know it’s possible.”
Bill pulls back even further; he can’t meet her eye. “I never knew you were unhappy with your life. With our life.”
Jo has taken all she can take from him in that moment. She cannot listen to any more from him without speaking her mind.
“You know what? I never knew you were unhappy, either.”
Bill’s eyes flash with fire. “I’m not.”
“Oh? Then why did I drive by The Black Hole and see you outside in the parking lot with Jeanie Florence?” she says in a voice that comes out sounding like an angry, accusatory hiss. “When you turn your affections to another woman, you make a fool out of me . Out of our marriage.”
“Jo.” Bill looks incredulous. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You do.” She is firm in this. “You know.”
Bill has the good sense to look confused. “How would I know what kind of scenarios you’ve cooked up in your head? Other than reading them on the page,” he shoots back, turning the focus of the conversation back to what he sees as Jo’s crimes.
“That wasn’t a scenario I cooked up, Bill. That happened. I drove by one day on my way home from the hospital, and you were standing there with her, talking in a way that looked…intimate. It looked wrong. It felt wrong.”
“And then, rather than talking about it with me, you wrote about it. You turned something innocent into fodder for the public to read about, and you made me look like a bad guy.”
Nancy slides open the patio door then, Jo’s apron hanging down past her knees in a way that makes her look like a little girl dressed up in her mother’s clothing. “I think the sauce is ready, Mommy.”
Jo turns to her daughter. “Okay, sweetheart. Can you take it off the burner and put on a pot of water to boil for the pasta?”
Nancy nods and slides the door closed between them slowly. Her eyes are wide with wonder and concern as she watches her parents’ faces.
Jo spins back around to face Bill. “I’m done having this discussion for now. I wrote what I wrote, and I know I saw what I saw. I will give you my word that, in wrapping up this ongoing story between Maxine and Winston, I won’t include anything that is happening or has happened in our actual lives. But I need to write another installment to end things. Are you fine with that?”
Bill spreads his hands wide and gives her a look as if to say “Do I have a choice?”
“I’m giving you my word, Bill.”
He exhales loudly and scratches at his neck with an agitation that leaves red marks where his nails scrape skin. “Fine. Finish the damn story. And then I never want to read anything personal about myself, about our marriage, or about this family in a women’s magazine again, am I making myself clear?”
Jo lifts her chin just a fraction of an inch—it’s her way of being defiant without being overt. “You’re being very clear,” she says in clipped tones. “I got your message.”
“Fine. Then let’s eat dinner.”
He throws the sliding door open with the kind of force that makes Jo cringe. The last thing they need is a patio full of shattered glass, and a houseful of startled children.
For tonight, anyway, she will make peace.
* * *
Jo’s determination to make peace lasts all of twenty-four hours, because the next day she comes home to find a letter in the mailbox from an agent in New York City, and it’s addressed to her.
Irene Powers, the head of PR at NASA, had asked Jo for permission to share her story with an agent she knew, and Jo had agreed. But she’s never imagined opening her mailbox to actually find a letter there from Martin Snell of Snell & Banks Literary.
Jo slips her finger beneath the flap of the envelope and opens it slowly, pulling the letter out with care. Her hands are shaking, and she looks up and down her street as if someone might be observing her.
She clears her throat and focuses on the letter.
Mrs. Booker,
I have received and read your writing sample, forwarded by my close friend, Irene Powers. She has enclosed a letter explaining that you have a unique voice and some interesting insight, and I cannot disagree. I have enjoyed reading your short work on Maxine and Winston’s relationship, and would very much like to read more from you. If you could possibly forward me the first fifty pages of whatever you’re working on at the moment, I will read them at my earliest convenience and get back to you.
Thank you so much for sharing your work with Irene—and thank you to her for sharing it with me. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Sincerely,
Martin Snell
Snell & Banks Literary
Jo reads the letter three more times and then rushes into the house. Fifty pages?! She doesn’t have fifty pages. What she has is her work cut out for her.
For the rest of the day, as she moves through her chores and takes care of the house and the children, Jo begins to plot her next story.