17. Jude
CHAPTER 17
Jude
She's humming. Legitimately humming. Jude has woken up for the past few days with a feeling of dancing butterflies in her stomach that have nothing to do with anticipating or desiring a drink, and for the first time in years, she feels...excitement. Curiosity about where life might take her instead of dread. She feels hopeful and alive and fully present.
"Mom?" Hope is standing on the grass, looking up at Jude as she hangs a damp bedsheet on the line with clothespins. "Are we going to Kate's house today?"
Jude nods at her daughter instead of answering, as she has two clothespins clamped between her lips. Once she removes them and clips them to the line, she speaks. "We are. Mr. and Mrs. Booker have invited us for dinner, and we're going to take potato salad and a cake with us."
"And your wine?" Hope asks innocently.
The words send a chill through Jude's limbs. She'd taken to telling the girls that her drink--wherever she'd set it down--was called her "wine," and lately she hasn't been drinking in front of them at all, which makes it even more curious that Hope has mentioned it now.
"No, sweetheart," Jude says, sinking down onto the grass as her daughter sits down next to her. Behind them, the sheet hangs heavily, barely moving in the slight breeze. Hopefully by the time they get home from dinner, it will be dried and ready to iron. "Mommy's not taking any wine over there."
"But you like it, right?" Hope squints one eye tightly as she picks at the blades of grass beneath her legs.
Jude isn't even sure how to address this. She knows she must, but she hasn't expected her eight-year-old daughter to grill her over her consumption of alcohol on a Friday afternoon.
"Well," Jude begins. "I have enjoyed it in the past, and I think that sometimes we enjoy things so much that we let them become too important in our lives. So when that happens, it's a good idea to step back from that thing and decide whether it's something we really need, or if we just enjoy it out of habit."
Hope is busy piling the grass on her bare knees and she doesn't meet Jude's eye. "If you enjoy being a mom too much, will you stop doing that?"
Jude nearly laughs at the preposterousness of this question, but the sadness in it stops her cold. "Honey," she says. "No. Absolutely not." Jude reaches for her little girl's hand and takes it in her own. The piles of grass stay on Hope's knees. "I love being your mother more than anything in the world." She looks up at the few clouds that dot the blue sky and thinks of a better way to explain. "It's more like, when you do something that changes who you are, it's not always a good thing. But you start to count on that thing to make you feel like yourself. I think you come to believe that you are only yourself when you're doing that thing. And I know you don't understand how wine works, but it makes you feel stronger, and like the world is less scary."
Hope is watching her mother intently. She looks like she's trying to follow.
"I don't want that anymore, baby," Jude says, squeezing Hope's hand in hers. "I don't want to think that I can only handle the world with a glass of wine in my hand." Jude hates herself now for ever calling it wine; for the rest of her girls' lives, they'll associate wine, which can be very acceptable in small doses, with their mother roaming around the house drunk and being unavailable to them.
"You don't want to fall in the pool again?" Hope's eyes are big and she looks frightened at the possibility of such a thing happening.
A sob catches in Jude's throat and she puts her hand to her lips, covering her mouth. She shakes her head, but can't speak.
"Mommy?" Hope says, still holding Jude's hand. "It's okay. Mr. Smithers saw you and he pulled you out so you didn't die. You're okay."
Jude's head is still shaking back and forth; she cannot believe she put her girls through such a thing. She can’t even imagine how that must make them feel, and there is no part of her that ever wants to repeat that.
“I know, sweetheart,” Jude says, forcing herself to hold Hope’s gaze. “I didn’t die, but it was a dangerous thing I did, and drinking too much wine—or other adult drinks—can be very bad. And that’s why it’s something I’m not doing as much of. I want to be the best mommy I can, and being a good mommy means never falling down like that again. Okay?” She holds Hope’s hand between both of hers; she’s pleading with her baby girl to understand.
“Okay,” Hope says simply, glancing at the sliding glass door as Faith comes outside. “Hey, Faith,” she says, standing up and brushing the blades of grass from her knees. “Want to jump rope?”
Without missing a beat, the two identical girls head through the house to find their rope and take turns jumping in the driveway out front.
Jude exhales and closes her eyes. There’s a sensation deep in her chest that she almost can’t identify. But after taking a few good breaths, she realizes what it is: it’s determination. Jude is determined to do this for herself, for her marriage, and for her daughters. She’s ready to find out who the real Judith Majors is, and she’s going to do it sober.
Jude stands up and goes back to the kitchen to finish baking the cake that she’s taking to the Bookers’ house.
* * *
“Welcome!” Jo opens the door widely and ushers Vance, Jude, and the girls into the house. Jude has dressed the twins in matching pink dresses, and she watches them proudly as they stand there, smiling at Jo politely. “Do you girls want to go and play with Kate? She’s got her dolls spread out in the backyard.”
With a glance at their mother for permission, Hope and Faith rush through the house, which is nearly a carbon copy of their own in layout.
Jude looks around: she’s always been impressed by Jo’s chic taste in decor, though she heard recently that Jo had felt inferior when she’d first moved to Florida, and that she’d hired a decorator to help her find an aesthetic that's more beachy and less down-home. For some reason, this makes Jude feel better. Ever since she and Vance got married, Jude has always felt that she’s the wife in any group who has no taste, no class, no real personality. She knows this isn’t strictly true, but to find out that a woman as put together as Jo Booker might have those same inklings of inferiority makes her feel less alone.
"Let's chat in the kitchen while the men have a beer outside," Jo says, leading Jude towards the heart of the house.
The men drift outside without any further prompting, and Bill grabs bottles of beer from the fridge as they go.
"How are things going with you?" Jo asks as she turns her back to Jude and continues prepping things on the counter. "Are you doing alright? I feel like you've been busy with Maxine, and I haven't seen much of you lately."
Rather than sitting down, Jude leans against one edge of the counter with a hip and folds her arms across her chest. "Things have been busy," Jude says honestly. "I have spent a fair amount of time with Maxine, but I've been working on some other things, too."
A brief silence falls between the women; Jude remembers Jo walking in on her in Carrie Donovan's kitchen when they'd first met, pouring herself more vodka when she thought no one was looking. She also remembers that Jo was right there when she'd woken up in the hospital after her fall into the pool, and thus, she knows she can speak to Jo more frankly than she perhaps can to the other women.
Jude clears her throat. She feels nervous even saying the words. "I've been drinking less."
Jo turns her head just slightly, but keeps her back to Jude. "Oh?"
"It seemed like something I needed to do," Jude admits. "I drank too much one evening and forgot that I needed to pick up the girls from Frankie's dance studio, and it was sort of a wake-up call. Things were getting messy."
Rather than readily agreeing with the messiness, Jo simply nods and turns back to the food on the counter. "I think that's really wonderful, Jude. I do. I'm proud of you. I understand how difficult it can be to step back from something that's become a big part of your life."
Maybe it's the kindness of Jo’s tone, or possibly even the lack of judgment in her words, but Jude’s entire body relaxes. She holds her words in for a moment before speaking.
“Thank you. I never really understood how big of a problem it had become, but I’m trying to figure some things out.”
Jo stops what she’s doing, wipes her hands on a dishtowel, and walks over to where Jude is standing. She looks her in the eye. “Never forget that we all have things to work out, Judith. Life is a process of growing, learning, making mistakes, having regrets, and figuring out how to move on from the things that hurt us, or the things we do that hurt others.” Jo pauses and looks like she has something specific in mind. “Sometimes it’s hard to accept the ways we hurt one another—even the people we love—but as long as we can find a way to make things right, and as long as we learn something about ourselves in the process, then maybe it’s not all for nothing.”
Jude smiles and forces the tears in her eyes to recede. She looks up at the ceiling and blinks a few times; crying in front of people isn’t something she does because it feels like an extreme kind of vulnerability. Once she takes a deep, steadying breath, she nods.
“You’re right. And I’ve hurt plenty of people.”
“And been hurt, too, I would imagine.” Jo looks at her wisely.
It’s not in Jude’s nature to be overly revealing, but there’s something about Jo that makes it feel okay to share with her. “I have been hurt,” Jude whispers. “I’m lucky to be married to Vance and to have his love, and our girls are such a point of pride for me—pride and joy—but my childhood wasn’t great, Jo.”
At this point, the tears won’t be held back, and Jo opens her arms to Jude, pulling her close. “Hey, it’s okay,” Jo says soothingly. “Whatever happened when you were a child is not your fault, Jude.”
And Jude knows she’s right—she has to be right. Conventional wisdom of adulthood tells Jude that, certainly, the things that happened in her childhood were out of her hands—at least to a certain extent. The choices made by her parents were not things she could control, nor did she have a hand in Pearl Harbor, in Chester touching her inappropriately on the boat on the way from Japan to Los Angeles, or in the way people reacted to her throughout her life. At seven years old, she was not in charge of her relationship with her adult stepmother, nor could she control how Bea felt about the child her husband had fathered with another woman. It was not her decision not to see her own mother again after leaving Japan. She could not even fault herself for her feelings towards Catherine Hamnett, though she has most definitely tried to cast herself as the villain in that situation a number of times.
“You’re right,” Jude whispers into Jo’s shoulder as the other woman holds her. It’s not awkward, and Jo makes no move to let her go, but rather rubs Jude’s back in slow, comforting circles. “You are so right, Jo. I was a little girl, and I let all these things build up inside of me over the years, and I made them into things I needed to bury. I needed so badly to forget where I came from and the things that had happened, and in order to do that, I tried to drown myself in alcohol. And it worked for a while—it really did. I managed to float through my days in a haze and to block out the bad thoughts, but in the end, they always catch you, don’t they?”
“Sometimes,” Jo says. “Sometimes. And that’s okay. But you can’t give in to them permanently. You have to get up every day, just like you’re doing, and live your life with intention. I have my things too, you know. I have thoughts that are troubling to me and that really bother me, but I try to keep my mind and my body busy with other things.”
Jude can’t help herself—the curiosity wins out here. “What kinds of things trouble you, Jo? You’re so smart and successful.” Jude takes a step back from Jo and wipes her eyes with both hands. “You always seem so put together.”
Jo laughs disbelievingly. “Well, I’m not.” She turns to the kitchen counter and goes back to what she’d been doing. “I have my moments, you know. I feel uncertainty and I have insecurities. Everyone does.”
For some reason, this is groundbreaking to Jude. Even Jo Booker has moments where she feels insecure and uncertain. It feels to Jude like the kind of revelation that deserves reciprocation. She weighs the cost of sharing something extremely personal with Jo, and then decides that, in the past year and a half that she’s known Jo, she’s come to really like and trust her. Out of all the wives, Jo is the one Jude feels is the most down-to-earth and relatable.
“Vance had this idea,” Jude says carefully, watching Jo’s narrow shoulders as she works at the counter. “He thought I should try to find the woman who was my roommate when he and I met. I haven’t seen her since I married Vance, but she was someone important to me. Someone I cared about very much.”
“She sounds important,” Jo says. She walks over to her sink, turns on the water, and runs her hands beneath the stream as she watches the husbands and children outside for a moment. With a dishtowel in hand again, Jo turns back to Jude. “We should always hang onto the people who mean something to us, don’t you think?”
Jude is back to leaning against the counter, arms folded. She’s already said so much; she’s already allowed herself to cry, to be embraced by Jo Booker on a Friday evening like it’s something commonplace that she does—just hugging her friends.
Jude nods. “I agree. And there’s one other person I really want to find,” she adds. “It’s extremely important to me to find her.”
“Who is that?” Jo asks mildly as she plates the hamburger patties that she’s been shaping on the butcher block cutting board.
“My mother,” Jude whispers. “I haven’t seen my mother since 1941.”
Jo spins around. She doesn’t just turn, she spins . “Oh, Jude,” she says, her voice full of emotion. “You haven’t?”
Jude shakes her head. “She put me on the boat in Japan after Pearl Harbor because she thought I should be here with my father. America had declared war on Japan, and she thought I’d be safer here, with my father and his family. All I had to do was perfect my English and learn to blend in.”
“You don’t really look…” Jo trails off as she inspects Jude’s face.
“I know,” Jude says. “I don’t really look Japanese, which was a good thing when I arrived here. I look more like my mother now,” she adds with a wistful smile. “I have photos of her, and sometimes I look at them and think how much I’ve grown to resemble her.”
“She must have been a beautiful woman,” Jo says with sincerity. “I mean, I’m sure she still is.”
“If she’s alive. I don’t even know that.”
“Could you ask your father if he knows anything?”
Jude gives a shake of her head. “He passed away several years ago.”
“Oh, Jude.” Jo tilts her head to one side sympathetically. “You have been through so much. You’re such a strong woman.”
Jude can’t help it: a wry smile spreads over her face. “But you can see now why I drank so much?”
At first Jo looks appalled, but then she laughs. “Okay, I can see the temptation.”
The women laugh together guiltily, like two people who have just admitted something that they shouldn’t have.
“But,” Jo says, sobering quickly. “I am glad that you’re addressing these things. I think that’s brave and important, and your girls are going to notice how hard you’re working on yourself. Even if they don’t see it now, they’ll realize it when they’re older.”
Jude waves a hand. “Oh, I don’t know about that. And if they don’t, that’s fine. I just know I need to get my house in order, so to speak.”
“Well,” Jo says, lifting her chin at Bill as he raps at the glass door with his knuckles. He slides it open and she passes him the platter of hamburger patties. The door closes again. “I think it’s great that you’re searching for your friend, and I hope you find your mother, too.”
Jude inhales and shakes her hands, trying to pull herself together. “Thank you,” she says with a watery smile. “Thank you for listening, Jo. And for being so frank.”
Jo walks past her with a bowl of baked beans that she sets on the kitchen table for the time being. She wipes her hands down the front of her apron and smiles at Jude. “Of course,” she says. “That’s what friends are for.”
* * *
Jude wakes up that night in the middle of a nightmarish no-man’s land. She’s been tossing and turning in her sleep, and because of this, her sheets are tangled around her arms and legs. Vance is passed out next to her, sleeping like a corpse.
Jude wanders out to the front room in just her nightgown and slippers. She’s sweated through the silky fabric and she’s parched. She noticed that Jo hadn’t offered her a beer or a cocktail all evening, and Jude respects that. In fact, by the time they got home from the Bookers’ house and put the girls to bed, she’d decided to forgo a drink altogether that evening.
But now, at nearly two in the morning, Jude is pacing around the kitchen and looking at the clock. Anxiety is coursing through her. Even though talking to Jo had felt like a relief and a true release, something about the whole exchange reminded her of when she’d met Alice in high school, and the night she’d finally told her everything—with disastrous consequences.
Of course this won’t be the same thing at all. That’s impossible. Jo Booker is a grown woman with a lifetime of experience, not a wild teenage girl with no clue about the world, and there’s no way she’ll suddenly turn on Jude and hold things against her that are out of Jude’s control. But the feeling that she’s said too much is there. The feeling that she’s overshared has kept her in a fitful half-sleep all night so far.
Without thinking, Jude opens the cupboard and digs around behind the cans of soup and bottles of oil, vinegar, and corn syrup. She pulls out an unlabeled bottle that’s half-full of clear liquid and holds it up to the weak light that’s coming from the hood of the oven range.
It’s vodka. Without even opening the bottle, she can smell it. She can feel the way it burns her nostrils. She can taste it. Jude can imagine the sensation of vodka burning down the back of her throat and settling in her stomach, and she’s already anticipating the way it will ease her nerves and calm her brain.
All she needs to do is open it and put the bottle to her lips. Relief will be almost instantaneous.
Jude sits on the cool tile of the kitchen floor and puts her back against the cupboard as she holds the bottle. Rather than opening it and drinking, she holds it to her chest, feeling the cold glass against the skin between her breasts.
There had been a time, one morning when she and Catherine lived in that bungalow in Los Angeles, that she’d fallen asleep on the kitchen floor with an empty bottle in her hand. Catherine had come in around five in the morning after a night spent on a movie set, and Jude had awoken to the haze of the earliest morning sunlight, her eyes opening slowly to reveal a pair of feet and ankles that were blurry and out of focus.
“My god,” Catherine had said, dropping to her knees. She turned her head sideways, hands planted on the floor, as she looked into Jude’s eyes. “What happened here, Judy?”
Jude, who had always prided herself on her ability to keep her drinking under wraps, tried to lift her head from the floor. A severe pounding sensation curbed that desire and she laid her head back on the floor and closed her eyes. She moaned to herself.
“Judith,” Catherine said, putting a hand to her roommate’s shoulder and shaking her. “Hey, Judy. You have to wake up. You can’t just be here on this floor all day. There’s no way this is comfortable.”
Jude had given in then and done what she knew she had to, letting Catherine help her to a sitting position. Her head lolled slightly to one side as Catherine put an arm around her waist and slung Jude’s arm around her shoulders.
“Let’s get you to the tub,” Catherine said in short pants as she tried to heave her slightly larger friend up and around the house. She got Jude into the bathroom and then helped her sink carefully down to the floor so that she was sitting on the bathmat.
Catherine ran a hot bath and kept up a stream of conversation as the tub filled.
“Did you drink that whole bottle? Baby, you can’t do that. It’s not good for a woman to drink like that. It’s bad for your heart and your liver, not to mention your looks.” As she talked, Catherine gently pulled pieces of clothing off of Jude, leaving her sitting on the rug in just a pair of panties. Rather than covering her bare breasts with her arms, Jude had leaned her head back against the side of the porcelain tub and looked up at Catherine: glowing, angelic, beautiful Catherine, who was still wearing a full face of makeup, with her hair pinned into perfect waves.
“How come you didn’t go out last night and meet up with someone, Judy? Staying home and drinking alone is not good for a girl. If you’re feeling sad, you need to be around people.” Catherine got down to her knees again and looked right into Jude’s eyes. “I need you to take care of yourself. I care about you, and you should too.”
At these words, Jude felt her insides crumple. “I care about you too, Catherine. A lot.”
Catherine stood up and offered both hands, pulling Jude to her feet. She completely ignored the fact that her friend was naked once she peeled off her underwear, and instead put her hands on the back of Jude’s hips and guided her into the steaming bathtub.
“Step in, Judy. There you go. You’re going to get cleaned up here, and then I’ll get you into bed.” Catherine sat down next to the tub and reached for a chipped tea cup that she kept on the basin of the sink. She dipped it into the bathwater and poured it over Jude’s head, letting it stream over her temples as Jude slipped under the water and leaned back. “Let’s wash your hair and get you warmed up, and then you need to sleep this off,” Catherine said soothingly. “This needs to never happen again, do you hear me? It’s dangerous, and it’s not good for you.”
Jude let Catherine wash her hair gently, rubbing the shampoo into a lather. She kept her eyes closed as Catherine began to sing softly.
Once her hair was rinsed and her skin felt warm to the touch, Jude opened her eyes. Catherine was right there, leaning tiredly on the side of the tub as she sat next to it. Her eyes were open as she watched Jude.
“Thank you,” Jude whispered. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
Catherine smiled, but there was sadness in her soft eyes. “You’re welcome, Judy. I’d do anything for you—you know that.”
It was only when Jude was back in her own bed, wearing a cotton nightgown and tucked beneath her covers, that she could say what she really meant to say.
Catherine stood in the doorway, hand on the light switch. “Get some sleep, Judy,” she whispered as the birds began to chirp outside the window. “Close your eyes.”
“I love you, Catherine,” Jude whispered, feeling the wetness gather in the corners of her eyes. “I really love you.”
But she wasn’t sure whether Catherine heard her or not, as the door clicked shut and she didn’t say another word.
Jude is still sitting against the cabinet with her eyes closed now as she recalls that evening. She’s holding the unlabeled bottle in her hand and she finally opens it. Jude closes her eyes again and puts the bottle to her lips. The alcohol touches her tongue and then she spits it back into the bottle and stands up to dump the liquid down the sink and rinse out the empty container.
She’s come too far to let a single memory throw her. She’s worked too hard to let a little emotional vulnerability do her in.
Jude shuts off the kitchen light and goes back to bed.