15. Jude
CHAPTER 15
Jude
Jude has been worried about Maxine, but she’s got troubles of her own, so she does her best to go over or call every other day, just to check in on her friend. The rest of her energy is focused entirely on being a good and present mother, and on not drinking.
Most days she manages to get through the entire day without giving in to the urge to pour a Screwdriver in a tall glass, and instead she finishes dinner, the dishes, and bedtime with the girls before she allows herself one drink.
That’s her compromise: stay focused, stay alert, get one drink at the end of the day. And it’s been working so far. On two or three occasions she’s managed to make it to bed at night without a single drink, but thus far, Jude has felt as though she’s her most relaxed, happy self if she can just have one solitary drink in the evening.
Vance, for his part, has watched the whole thing with slightly removed interest. He’s made it clear that he wants what’s best for his wife, but he’s both unable and unwilling to police her and rip the bottle from her hands. And Jude knows that this is how it has to be: no person has ever quit drinking successfully by force. She has to want it, and after seeing herself drink to excess and forget to pick up her own girls, she knows that it’s what she needs to do.
When the phone rings on a Thursday morning, Jude answers, unclipping her earring and putting it in the pocket of her dress.
“Good morning, Majors residence,” she says, glancing at the pile of ironing in her kitchen distractedly.
“Mrs. Majors?”
“Yes, this is she.”
“This is Harrison Watts.”
Jude stands upright at the sound of the private investigator’s name. “Mr. Watts,” she says, feeling breathless. “How can I help you?”
“I’m calling to help you, Mrs. Majors,” he says gruffly. “I have a few more questions for you on Catherine Hamnett.”
Jude looks around the room anxiously, though she’s home alone. Finding Catherine had been Vance’s idea in the first place, but she’d decided not to tell him about driving to Daytona Beach to meet with Harrison Watts, or that she was looking for Catherine. To do so would mean talking about Catherine, and that isn’t something she feels like doing at the moment.
“Okay,” Jude says. “Shoot.”
“What was her relationship to a Mr. Edwin Gaines?”
Jude frowns. “Mr. Gaines? He was our neighbor. He worked in the industry, as most people in Hollywood did in those days, and he threw parties for the biggest stars you can imagine.” Jude twists the phone cord around her finger, remembering the way Mr. Gaines would stand on his front porch holding a tiny pair of stem-gripping rose pruners in hand. He wore thick-framed black glasses, and had his hair swept to one side. He would watch with a half-amused, half-curious smile every time Catherine or Jude walked up the path to their little bungalow. “I don’t think they had a relationship, other than a friendly one.”
“Mmm,” Mr. Watts says over the phone line. “I see. And do you know what her life was like immediately after you met Vance Majors? What I mean by that,” he adds, “is do you know whether she stayed in your shared dwelling once you’d left to marry Mr. Majors?”
Jude shakes her head. “I don’t know. That’s why I came to you. I left with Vance, and she never returned my letters. It was like she vanished.”
“And we never did see her on the big screen.”
“Well, no.” Jude has to admit this out loud, though she does still find herself hoping on occasion that one day she’ll be in a theater, and as the lights go down, Catherine’s face will appear. “No, I’ve never seen her in any film since then—not even in the background.”
“Right.” Harrison Watts is quiet for a moment, and Jude can imagine him sitting at the desk in his Daytona Beach office, sun streaming through the high window, as he scratches notes on a piece of paper. “Okay then. I have a few more ideas I can pursue.” He falls silent. “Mrs. Majors? I was wondering if I could ask a few things about you.”
“Me?” Jude is taken aback; this is supposed to be a fact-finding mission about Catherine, not about herself. “I suppose.”
“What can you tell me about your early childhood?”
Jude laughs in a way that sounds like a sharp “Ha!” She puts a fist to her mouth and swallows before answering. “You want to know about my childhood? Why?”
Harrison Watts waits before answering. “Well, I think there’s a story there.”
“Isn’t there always?”
“Of course. But some stories are more interesting than others. What can you tell me about the first ten years of your life?”
Jude sinks onto the stool near the phone and continues to wrap and re-wrap the cord around her fingers like a little girl playing cat’s cradle with a length of yarn.
“Well,” Jude says. “I can tell you about my trip back here from Japan when I was seven. It was the last time I ever saw my mother…”
* * *
The phone conversation with Harrison Watts plays through Jude’s mind all day as she runs the vacuum, checks the mailbox, and prepares an after-school snack for the girls. Talking about her mother, about the boat trip, and about her early life has made her want a drink—desperately—but she’s trying to stay focused on her daily tasks and to stay clear-headed so she can think over all the things she shared with Mr. Watts.
When the doorbell rings at one o’clock, Jude wipes her shaking hands on a dishtowel and goes to answer it. In her mind, she’s already calculating how many hours until she can have her one drink of the day (six hours and thirty minutes, to be precise), but she knows she can make it. She knows she can. She will never again fall, she will never again hit her head, she will never again land in the pool. She cannot.
“Jo!” Jude opens the door and peers out. Jo Booker is standing there, holding a pocketbook with a no nonsense look about her. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I didn’t call,” Jo says apologetically. “I was out and about, and I thought I’d see if you were home. May I come in?”
Jude steps away from the door. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. Of course, come in. Please.”
Jo follows her into the kitchen, where Jude finishes the snacks for the girls and puts them into the refrigerator.
“Can I make a pot of coffee?” Jude offers.
“That would be great.”
The women make small talk about the weather, the beach, and the children, as Jude prepares the coffee. When they’re finally seated together at the table, Jo takes a deep breath.
“We need to talk about Maxine.”
Jude is not surprised. Every time she goes next door to see Maxine, she’s got some new fact to share about the amount of money NASA is spending on space travel versus the fact that the military is shoring up to send Marines to Vietnam and no one is talking about that. So far, Jude has taken it all as the ravings of a distraught widow, but the look on Jo’s face is alarming.
“She’s been attending meetings with those protestors who stand outside the Cape.”
Jude keeps her face placid. Maxine is her friend, and she will not give away to Jo the fact that this alarms her. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Jo says tersely. “I know someone at the hospital whose sister has gotten involved, and she told me that the widow of the astronaut who died has been coming.”
Jude can’t say much to that; since Bob Young had no wife, that leaves only Maxine as the possible widow in attendance. “Why do you think she’s doing that?”
“I was hoping you might know.” Jo reaches for the coffee and pours a bit more into her cup, then stirs in a few teaspoons of sugar. “After all, you two are close.”
It’s the word “close” that throws Jude. She’s never truly been “close” to any of her female friends—not since Catherine, anyway. Her entire life has been her holding people at arm’s length, trying not to do or say anything or reveal any details about herself that might result in her being cast off, as she has been so many times in her life. But that’s not what this discussion is about.
“Maxine and I have become friends,” Jude allows. “But not so close that she’s told me about these meetings. I’m just as puzzled as you are.”
Jo sips her coffee but keeps her eyes trained on Jude. She sets the cup on the saucer with a clink and waits before speaking. “It’s dangerous, Jude. We need to convince her to stop attending these meetings. She has every right to be upset, and she has every right to question for herself and her children what might have happened to Derek, but she can’t take the things she knows about NASA and the space program to these people. She can’t make her grievances public.”
Jude’s eyes fall to the dark pool of liquid in her own cup. She looks into the coffee as if it might hold the answers of the universe. Or at least the answers about what Maxine Trager is up to.
“I don’t think she’s telling them anything she knows through Derek. She wouldn’t.”
Jo arches one eyebrow. “A grieving woman is unpredictable, Judith. You don’t know that she’s not talking about things Derek told her.”
Something prickles the back of Jude’s neck. Since she’s stopped numbing herself all day long with alcohol, she’s been more alert and aware of the things that go on around her. Even to the point that she can tell when someone is saying one thing, but meaning another. It had started with a trip to the grocery store where she’d run into another wife from the neighborhood who wouldn’t stop talking about the astronaut wives’ luncheon she’d just been to with a group of women, when what she’d clearly been saying is that she doesn’t think that Jude is actively involved enough. And now she can feel it with Jo. There’s something beneath the surface of this conversation.
“I know Maxine pretty well,” Jude counters. “She’s scared and she’s lost, but she’s not going to intentionally sabotage the space program or anything.” The way she says it almost feels like she’s confident in her next door neighbor, but in truth, Jude feels like she knows no one well enough to speak to what they will or won’t do. Still, Maxine is her friend, and she doesn’t want Jo Booker or any of the other women thinking that Maxine is losing her mind or putting their husbands' careers in jeopardy.
Jo nods. "Well." She purses her lips before making her next statement. "There's a rumor floating around that she's attending these meetings and talking about how Bill has something to do with a cover-up involving the accident, and I can't have that, Jude. Just like Vance, Bill has worked way too hard to get where he is, and he can't afford to have people saying things about him that are patently untrue. You would feel the same way about your husband, wouldn't you?"
A wave of nausea rolls through Jude as she realizes how right Jo is: she would feel the same way about Vance. He's always been so supportive of her, and so loving, even in the midst of her own problems. He worries for her and for the girls and he wants her to stop drinking to better herself and their family, but he is never unkind about it. In fact, there have been many nights when he's felt her quiet sobs shaking the bed, and rather than saying anything, he’s simply rolled over and edged up behind her, wrapping his arms around her gently and holding her. Vance has never asked her to give detail about any part of her life that she doesn't want to, and he seems to implicitly understand that she's a complicated person with plenty of things that she can't talk about.
Jude steels herself. "Of course. I would feel absolutely the same way about Vance," she says, neither agreeing nor disagreeing about whether Maxine is spreading this information around or not. "I'll make a point of talking to Maxine myself, okay?"
Jo takes a long last pull on her coffee and stands up. She brushes the front of her shift dress as if she has crumbs all over her, though she looks as impeccable to Jude's eyes as she always does.
"Thank you, Jude," Jo says with an efficient smile. "I appreciate that. And of course you'll let me know if there's anything I can do to help Maxine."
"Of course," Jude agrees, showing Jo to the door. "I'll let you know."
After seeing Jo off, she goes back to the kitchen, puts the creamer in the refrigerator, and then walks across her front lawn to knock on Maxine's door. She needs to get to the bottom of this.
* * *
Maxine is sitting in the middle of her living room when Jude knocks and opens the door. Rather than answering, Maxine has simply called out: "Come in!"
Jude looks around at the front rooms of the house that the women had spent so much energy cleaning: it's a shambles again. Piles of laundry--she can't tell whether dirty or clean--dot the room, and Maxine is wearing a pair of giant denim overalls that cover her enormous stomach. They must have belonged to Derek, and Jude tries not to appear alarmed at the way her friend looks, with her messy hair pulled back haphazardly, and her bare feet tucked beneath her.
Wendy plays with a tangle of dolls and clothing in one corner of the room, and she's still wearing pajamas.
"Hi, Max," Jude says softly, approaching her as she might a scared, lost puppy. "How are you?"
Maxine looks up at her with big eyes. "I'm fine, Jude," she says firmly. "I've never been better. Well, not never--obviously I was better on my wedding day or on the day my children were born--I've been better lots of days." She stops her train of thought and laughs, letting her head fall back with abandon. "But I'm good. I'm finding my sense of purpose again." With great effort, Maxine puts her hands on her knees and tries to push herself to standing.
Jude rushes over and offers both hands, then braces herself to help Maxine get into a standing position. Once Maxine is up, Jude looks around at the piles of signs and papers that cover the living room floor. They’re all for the protests. She sees anti-space sentiments, and facts and figures about the amount being spent by NASA.
“Maxine…” Jude puts her hands on her hips as she surveys the scene. She wants to admonish her, to ask her friend what in the world she’s thinking. She wants to remind her that Derek would have been heartbroken to see his wife going against everything he’d worked for and believed in, but she knows—in this moment—that it’s Maxine who is heartbroken and trying to find her footing again. For herself, for her two children, and for the baby on the way, Maxine is trying to make sense of the split-second tragedy that took her husband from her.
So instead of asking her how she can possibly be indulging in this protest, Jude looks right at Maxine. “How are you?” she asks simply. “Are you sleeping?”
Maxine’s back is swayed slightly as she pushes her belly forward, fists on her hips to match Jude’s stance. She exhales through her mouth loudly. “I’m not sleeping amazingly well, no. I have a whole human rolling and kicking me all night, and I’m in a bed alone that I’ve always shared with my husband. I have a two-year-old who asks me every single day when her Daddy is coming home, no matter how many times I try to explain that he’s not, and my teenage son has suddenly stopped talking to me. So I’m actually not doing all that great, Jude. Thanks for asking.” Her tone is plaintive, not sarcastic, and in it, Jude can hear desperation.
Jude wants to help her. She wants to reach across the divide and offer a hand to her friend, but if she’s honest with herself, the idea of taking on Maxine’s problems and emotions makes her want to pour a drink. It’s weak to even think that; it feels like giving in. But Jude can’t help thinking it in her head, acknowledging the desire, and then letting it go. Having a drink has always been the thing that smooths over the rough edges and the jagged feelings, the thing that helps her to put a smile on her face and to act like she belongs.
But now, now life is changing. Now she knows the true danger and cost of giving in to the desire for a drink. She understands what she has to lose, and what’s at stake is far greater than the need for alcohol. Her life is filling up with activities that push out the bad thoughts, and the people around her need things from her that keep her busy: her girls need a hands-on mother; her husband needs a wife who doesn’t drink so much that she falls into the swimming pool and nearly drowns; her friends need her to be present and accountable and able to pitch in on projects, on events, and just to be more social in general. And, right now, Maxine needs Jude to put her own garbage aside and focus on helping to pull her friend to the shore.
“Max,” Jude says, reaching out both of her hands and holding them there until Maxine realizes that she’s waiting to take her hands and hold them. She lets Jude, and they stand there, looking at one another over the swirling mass of signs and papers protesting the work that their husbands—and their friends’ husbands—have always believed in. “I’m here for you, okay? I want to help you. I know it’s hard to ask, so I’m just going to do things unless you tell me not to. I’m going to come by and look after Wendy so that you can nap, and I’m going to make food and bring it over.” Maxine looks like she’s about to protest, so Jude shakes her hands and forces Maxine to relax her shoulders so that her arms are loose like wet noodles. “Just take a deep breath. No one is saying you’re a bad mother or unable to care for yourself, but we can’t always do it on our own.”
Maxine’s eyes well with tears. She nods. “It’s hard to do it alone.”
“Of course it is! Any big thing we take on by ourselves can seem impossible, but getting from day to day right now is not impossible. We’ve got this. A person can do anything if they have friends and support, and I’m not going to leave you here to figure this out alone.”
Maxine is now crying openly. She’s still holding Jude’s hands, and she nods as tears run down her cheeks. This scene has gotten little Wendy’s attention, and from her spot on the floor, she says, “Mama? Mama cry?”
Maxine looks down at her blonde baby girl and nods, still holding Jude’s hands. “Yes,” she says to Wendy. “Mama is sad. Mama cry.”
Wendy’s face contorts into one of sympathy and concern. “No cry, Mama,” she says, getting to her feet and rushing over to her mother. She wraps her arms around Maxine’s legs and looks up at her with big eyes as she wedges herself between Jude and Maxine. “Daddy come home soon.”
At this, Maxine breaks into big, open sobs and reaches down to touch the top of Wendy’s head. Her eyes go to Jude’s, as if to say, “See?”
Instead of saying anything, Jude puts one of her hands on Wendy’s head as well, and they stand there, connected like that, three humans braced against the vastness of the universe.