6. Jo
SIX
jo
The entrance to the Launch Operations Center at Port Canaveral is cavernous and filled with light. Giant windows allow the Florida sun to spill onto the polished concrete floors, and a twenty-foot tall replica of Explorer 1 sits in the center of the oversized foyer. All ten of the newest NASA astronauts’ children are trying their hardest to be on good behavior, but the mothers know that the clock is ticking down towards tears, hunger, or boredom, so they’re working overtime to make sure the boys’ hair is spit-smoothed, and that the girls keep their dresses from getting wrinkled.
“Ladies,” a man with square glasses and a camera around his neck says, clapping as he walks into the giant room. His claps echo throughout the space, and the children stop chattering and poking at one another to see who has gotten their attention. “Or should I say, ladies and gentlemen ,” the photographer amends, smiling at the little boys in that way that adults do when they think they’re in on the joke with kids.
“Jimmy, Nancy, Kate,” Jo whispers to her three, motioning with her hand to bring them all into line in front of her. They obey without question.
“Welcome to the Launch Operations Center,” the man says, holding his camera in one hand as he scans their faces. “We’re so happy to have you here. We have a lot to accomplish this morning. My name is David Huggins, and I’m the official Port Canaveral photographer, so we’ll be getting to know one another a lot better in the coming months as I record your lives for posterity.”
Jo takes a deep breath; being photographed isn’t her favorite thing, but she knows how important this is for Bill’s career. She’s even purchased a new dress for the occasion, forgoing the ones she’s sewn that would suffice for any other occasion. The kids are all in clean, pressed clothing, and she fed them a big breakfast right before they left the house. They’ve been warned under threat of no pool time for a week to keep away from any sort of shenanigans—even if the other children in their group are engaging in nonsense.
“I’d like to get some shots of each of the mothers with their children, then some of the entire group of women in front of Explorer 1 there,” he says, motioning at the replica of the rocket. “At some point the dads will come out and join us, and then we’ll get a combination of shots of the dads with their families, the men and the women together, and then the entire group. Sound good?”
Just then, baby Huck starts to wail and Barbie splits away from the group, hushing him as she walks back and forth across the concrete floors.
“I know that things can get dicey with little ones,” Dave Huggins says, “so let’s get this show on the road. How about for our first configuration we do each mother with her own children right over here…”
For the next hour, Dave arranges and rearranges the women and the children, and at some point the men file out of a door at one end of the room, walking across the floors as the heels of their dress shoes click on the concrete. The children all wave excitedly at their dads; a few kids can’t resist running over and jumping into the strong arms of their fathers, including Kate.
Bill makes his way over to Jo as Kate grips his hand, looking up at him with starry eyes. “How you doing, Jojo?” he asks her, looking at her intently. “You holding up alright?”
Jo puts a brave smile on her face, though she feels more out of place than she wants to let on. Frankie, however, has stolen the show. Like the former Rockette that she is, she grins and poses every time the camera is trained on her, taking direction like a pro whenever Dave asks her to do something different. But as Jo watches Frankie, she notices just a flicker of self-consciousness behind her eyes every time Dave Huggins calls for the women to do something with their own children. It’s almost imperceptible, but Frankie looks like a woman wearing a dress without pockets, only rather than just having no place to put her hands, she looks like a woman with nowhere to put herself .
“I’m okay,” Jo says to Bill quietly, putting her hands on Kate’s shoulders as she gathers the kids around her. “You know how stiff I am in photos—I always want to look natural, but I come across looking like a deer in headlights.”
“Oh, you do not,” Bill says, setting his own hand on Jimmy’s shoulder as he leans his head towards his wife. “You look stunning. And I like that dress a lot,” he says, giving her an admiring glance. “It reminds me of the day I met you at the dentist’s office.”
Jo flushes and tries to hide the private smile that tugs at the corners of her mouth. She’d picked the dress out with that specific thought in mind: if this was the color she’d been wearing when Bill had fallen for her, then it should make him proud to pose next to her in these official photos looking as much like that girl as she could possibly look twelve years and three children later. It gives her a shiver of pride to bask in the warmth of his desirous gaze.
“Okay, Booker family!” Dave Huggins says, cupping his mouth so that his words can be heard over the loud echoes of the families chit-chatting with one another in the big, open space. “Let’s get Lieutenant Colonel Booker to stand right here,” Dave says, pointing at a potted palm tree next to one of the tall windows. The light is coming in at a flattering, warm angle, and the yellow sunshine falls across Jo and her family. The photographs will have a dreamy, softened quality. This relaxes her, knowing that they’ll be captured in good light.
“Come closer,” Bill says softly, putting an arm around Jo’s waist and pulling her to him as the children line up from tallest to shortest in front of them. “Let me show off my wife and children,” he says with his lips pressed together like a ventriloquist, smiling at Dave as he squints at them through the lens of the camera. “This is the most exciting time of our lives, Jo, and I want to look back on these photos and remember how it felt to be on top of the world.”
Jo’s smile falters at his words, but she quickly turns up the wattage and looks directly into the camera. She may not feel the same way her husband does, but she’ll be damned if she looks back at these photographs some day and sees her own trepidation and misgivings written all over her face. Come hell or high water, when Jo flips through this photo album in her old age, she’ll land on this page and all she’ll see is a supportive wife, well-behaved children, and her proud, successful husband.
For the next ten minutes, Jo channels Frankie’s confidence as much as she can. She wants the world to look at the Booker family and see the future of space travel. The future of a happy family. The future of America.
“These kids were amazing today!” Barbie says as the women load the children into their cars in the parking lot under a blazing sun. “I need to put Huck down for a nap, but how about if you all come over after lunch for an afternoon swim at our house?”
The women all sigh gratefully, spared from the necessity of finding a way to spend a hot summer afternoon indoors with their children.
“See you about 1:00?” Barbie says, climbing behind the wheel of her station wagon with all three of her boys lined up in the back. “Wear your bathing suits, girls!” she shouts as she turns on the engine.
The women wave and drive away in their own cars, eager to get their kids out of dress clothes and to give them lunch so that they can while away the afternoon in the cool water of Barbie’s pool.
Jo doesn’t have to do any convincing as she puts triangle-cut cheese sandwiches on the table with a bowl of strawberries and three glasses of milk. In short order, all three kids come running into the kitchen wearing swimsuits under their shorts and shirts, and Jo sets them to work on their lunches while she preps dinner and then goes to change into a bathing suit herself.
Standing in her closet, she pulls open a drawer and picks up the orange bikini with its pointy bra cups and white floral pattern. It’s daring, and she’d bought it two summers ago at Sally and Genevieve’s urging to wear to the lake in Minnesota, but in the end, she’d chickened out and chosen a simple black one-piece for that trip instead. However, something about posing in front of the camera all morning and doing her best to convince herself that she’s beginning to embrace this new life is emboldening Jo; she suddenly feels like maybe she is the kind of woman who throws on an orange bikini for an afternoon in a friend’s pool.
With the bikini on, she stands before the full-length mirror on the back of her closet door, turning this way and that. She’s barely over thirty, she reminds herself—not nearly old enough to feel like she can’t pull off a two-piece suit. For most of her life, she’d listened to her own mother go on and on about having wide hips and a stretched-out belly, and she knows just looking at herself that she still has years to go before she feels the urge to cover everything up. Jo smooths her hands over the faint silvery lines on her stomach that are reminders of her three pregnancies, proof that she’d been able to deliver and carry three healthy babies. Any scars or reminders that remain are blessings, not curses.
At Barbie’s house, Jo shepherds her flock through the front door, instructing them to kick off their shoes near the entryway, as everyone who has arrived before them has done. Jo slides off her own sandals and sets her tote bag next to them.
“Welcome, welcome!” Barbie calls out, striding through the kitchen in a ruby red one-piece suit with a black sarong tied around her waist. “Forgive me if I don’t shake and shimmy in the pool like the rest of you,” she says, motioning at her mostly covered body. “But I’ve still got a lot of baby weight to lose before I strut around in just my suit!”
Jo looks at her and sees nothing to hide. It’s funny that she herself has just been staring in the mirror and taking stock of her own physical state, only to find that Barbie has been doing the same. Are they all like this—hyper-aware of what they see as their own shortcomings? Does any woman just accept herself at face value, without feeling the need to apologize to the rest of the world in some way?
“You look gorgeous,” Carrie says, munching on an apple slice as she walks out of the kitchen. Carrie, for one, looks completely uninterested in whether anyone else thinks she looks good in her bikini. She smiles widely at Jo. “Hi, Jo,” she says. “Marcus and Christina are out back, kids—go join them in the pool!”
Jo’s three need no more invitation than that, and they dart through the sliding door like convicts escaping from prison. Within seconds, their shorts and shirts have been discarded, and the happy laughter of five kids romping in the water like slippery seals fills the air.
“Should I quiet mine down a bit so Huck can sleep?” Jo asks with her hands on her hips.
Barbie waves this thought away. “Oh, heavens, no. Huck can sleep through a freight train. With two other boys in the house, it’s impossible to keep things quiet, and I don’t believe in that anyway. Babies and kids need to adapt to us, not the other way around.”
“Is Frankie here yet?” Jo asks, following Barbie and Carrie out to the pool.
“No, she called and said she wasn’t feeling well,” Barbie says as she pulls out a chair and sits down, sliding her oversized sunglasses onto her face. “But maybe the idea of all these kids in the pool was too much. Can’t say that I blame her.” She says it with a smile and it’s not at all meant unkindly, but Jo feels a zing in her heart as she realizes that perhaps that’s precisely why Frankie hasn’t come.
“Hi, all.” Jude walks out the door with Hope and Faith in tow. The twins are wearing matching pink swimsuits, their heads covered by swimming caps covered in daisies. Without further ado, they jump feet-first into the pool and start squealing along with the other children.
There is an open seat next to Jo, and Jude takes it. She’s wearing a long shift dress with no sleeves and her feet are bare, but unlike the other women, she doesn’t seem to have a swimsuit on.
“So, Jude,” Jo says, turning to her. “We haven’t gotten to chat much.” Barbie and Carrie turn towards one another and start a side conversation of their own, which gives Jo the freedom to talk to Jude one-on-one. “Where did you all live before coming to Stardust Beach?”
“Texas,” Jude says drowsily as she pulls her knitting from her bag. “Hot as hell and flat as a pancake. Not much different from Florida, if I’m being honest.”
Jo nods politely; she senses that Jude doesn’t necessarily want to talk, but something is propelling her forward anyway. She needs to know more. “We came from Minnesota,” Jo says without prompting. “It’s pretty much the polar opposite of Florida.” She frowns. “Except maybe for Alaska—I guess that’s the furthest thing from Florida that I can imagine.”
Jude is already back to her knitting, but she nods along as Jo speaks. “Sometimes different is good,” Jude says mildly. “The sameness of life can be suffocating.”
“That’s so true,” Jo says, accepting a glass of water with lemon in it from Barbie, who has gone into the kitchen, poured the glasses, and come back to hand them around. “Thanks, Barbie,” she says as she takes a big, grateful sip. She turns back to Jude. “But there’s comfort in the familiar. I miss knowing that I’ll wake up and go the same places I’ve always gone. I miss the friends and family I saw all the time. I miss the traditions and the rituals of life in a place where you’ve lived for ages, you know? I still think it’s weird to go to the grocery store knowing that there’s no way I’ll run into my mom’s best friend from church, or the girl who played the flute with me in the high school band.”
Jude stops knitting and looks right at Jo from beneath the brim of her hat. She’s not wearing sunglasses, so her piercing green eyes look right into Jo’s. “I’ve been a military wife for a decade, and I was a military brat for the rest of my life before that. Moving and change are all I know, Jo. I meet people, I lose people, I get on with it.” She starts to knit again, more furiously this time. “As long as my kids and my husband are happy, then I’m happy.”
This proclamation shuts Jo up for the moment. She lets the words sit between them like a leaf floating on the surface of the pool. Finally, Jo speaks. “I think you should be happy, too,” she says gently, not looking away from the lemon in her glass as it bobs in the glass. “I think we’re more than just wives and mothers, don’t you? Or, at least I think we can be.”
Jude doesn’t miss a beat with her knitting needles and she doesn’t look up at Jo as she considers this. “I wasn’t raised to be anything other than a wife and a mother, Jo, and I’d bet dollars to donuts that you weren’t either.”
Jo can hear the rush of blood in her ears as she takes in this statement. I’d bet dollars to donuts that you weren’t either… But is this true? Is it true of all women? Jo chews on her lip and smiles distractedly as Nancy calls out to watch her dive into the pool. She waves at her children and takes a few deep breaths. She’s rattled by the straightforward way that Jude has just deconstructed womanhood in one simple sentence.
There’s probably some truth to it, but it still bothers Jo to hear it. The idea that wanting more, or that having an opinion on where her family lives is something that’s frowned upon nags at her. As she watches her girls playing happily for the rest of the afternoon, Jo can’t help but hear Jude’s words in her head over and over on a loop.
She decides right then and there that she wants more for Nancy and Kate than these outdated notions of womanhood. Sure, she’d love for them to experience the joys of marriage and motherhood, but what if they want more out of life? What if Nancy wants to be a novelist and live in Los Angeles with her cat and a much-younger Portuguese lover for a companion? What if Kate wants to be a doctor or a fashion designer or an architect and let a nanny help her to raise her children?
Going forward, Jo will do what she needs to do in order to be a supportive wife for Bill because she loves him, she believes in him, and she believes in his career, but she’ll also take a bigger piece of the pie for herself, because no matter what the world says about her station in life, her daughters are watching her every move. They’re watching her actions and choices, they’re taking notes, and she wants them to live exactly the lives they want to, not the lives that everyone else chooses for them.
And she’ll bet dollars to donuts that they’ll thank her for it someday.