20. Jo
TWENTY
jo
It’s the weekend before Halloween, and the women of the neighborhood have gathered to put on a tag sale that will hopefully raise enough money to pay the medical bills of a family Jo has come to know at the hospital. Little Adam Shepherd had been admitted to Stardust General at the end of September with a heart defect. The toddler has struggled to make it through the fall, and he might not make it much further without the surgery that he so desperately needs.
“Should I put this here?” Carrie asks, placing a big, lacquered box covered in orchids on a long table. “Jay brought this back from a trip to Japan, and it is lovely, but it doesn’t really suit my style at all.” She leans in to Jo and drops her voice to a whisper. “Please don’t tell him. It’s been in the back of my closet for years, so I’m assuming he won’t even miss it. I figured it might bring in some money for the Shepherds.”
Jo brushes her hair off her forehead and assesses the box. They can probably sell the piece for close to twenty dollars if they hold firm. It’s large and really quite beautiful. “Thanks, Carrie,” she says. “Your secret is safe with me.”
The sale runs the length of the street that leads into the neighborhood, and everyone who lives on a cul-de-sac has gamely brought their donations out and found places along the tables and driveways on the main drag to display their items. Because all the money is going to the Shepherds, no one minds their belongings mingling with other people’s things for sale, and there’s no need to track who sells what.
“This is a fabulous idea, Josephine,” Maxine Trager says, pulling a red Radio Flyer wagon full of dishes along behind her. “I’m donating my wedding china because my mother-in-law picked it out, and frankly, I hate it.”
Jo stifles a laugh as she bends over to peer into the boxes. The china, patterned with birds and a lacy design of ivy leaves, looks exactly like something that a meddling mother-in-law would choose. “This will sell. No question.” Jo takes a tag off her clipboard, writes a figure on it, and sticks it to the biggest box. “Thank you for your donation!”
The sun is high in the sky and the weather has cooled noticeably since summer. Late October on the Space Coast is pleasant: the high is about eighty degrees, and the breezes occasionally blow things around. The women are dressed comfortably in skirts and capri pants and blouses, relieved to finally not be sweating through their clothing all day long.
Adam Shepherd has quickly become a huge part of Jo’s life at the hospital, and she probably spends as much time visiting him and his family as she does visiting Mr. Dandridge. Watching Adam struggle to survive and seeing the poor little boy look so confused by his confinement to a bed and a tangle of tubes and wires is terrible. It breaks Jo’s heart every time she walks into the room, and her days at the hospital are now tinged with a palpable sense of loss, and a dwindling of hope on all fronts. But if anything she can do will get Adam closer to the surgery he so desperately needs, then she’ll do it; hence her idea to put together a giant neighborhood tag sale and to donate all the profits to the Shepherds’ surgery fund.
“This is really impressive, Joey-girl,” Frankie says from the lawn chair she’s sitting in next to Jo. Frankie is holding a parasol over her head with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other. She turns her face up to Jo and smiles from behind her cat-eye sunglasses. “You really brought this neighborhood together for a cause, sister.”
Jo feels a rush of pride at the compliment, but to her, she’s only doing what needs to be done. Back home, if anyone in her community needed something, she was the first person to roll up her sleeves and quietly help. In her mind, it’s just what you do.
“It’s a worthy cause,” Jo says, as if anyone is questioning the veracity of Adam’s need for the surgery. “And the Shepherds are truly wonderful people. Did I mention that Adam’s mother is pregnant again? She just told me yesterday.”
Frankie looks down the street and puts her cigarette to her lips again. “You did not mention that, no. But I completely understand your desire to help.” Frankie gets to her feet so quickly that it startles Jo. “Oh,” she says, handing her parasol to Jo. “Hold this, will you? I’m going to go and help Jude with her boxes.”
Jo takes the flowered parasol and presses the button to close it so that she can lay it across the lawn chair and get back to tagging items with her price stickers. From the corner of her eye, she watches Frankie reach for the big box that Jude is carrying, and the women walk side by side over to a table, where Frankie sets it down carefully. Hope and Faith are trailing the women, wearing matching yellow sundresses. Jo waves at the girls and they wave back.
Ever since Jude’s fall into the pool, everyone has been solicitous and worried about her health. Jo hasn’t recounted her conversation with Vance in her driveway to any of the other women, so it’s still just her private guess that Jude might have a drinking problem, and she worries about it every time she sees the woman, wondering how it affects her family and—most importantly—her children.
“Are you taking art work?” A blonde woman with a baby in a stroller asks Jo, handing her three small, framed paintings. “I’ve had these on my wall for years, and you know what?” she says, cocking her head and putting one fist on her narrow hip. “I don’t even like them.”
Jo inspects the paintings: they’re of three different varieties of flowers, bold in color, and decent in execution. The frames are nice.
“We’d love to take them,” Jo says with a smile, already writing out a sticker to put on the back of one of the frames. “I’ll sell them as a trio. Thank you very much for your donation.”
The woman smiles, satisfied that she’s contributed, and pushes the baby on down the road.
Jo turns back to Jude and Frankie. Frankie is doing a lot of talking, while Jude just appears to be listening. Has Jude been more vacant since the accident, or is she pretty much the way she’s always been ? Jo wonders, trying to compare the pre-fall Jude to the one who is standing before her now. Sure, there have been times when Jude appeared to drift off mid-stitch in her knitting, and there have been other times when she’s gotten her own twins confused, but come on! They’re identical, for crying out loud ! Jo runs through the list of things she’s observed, playing devil’s advocate as she goes. But then there was that time when she actually seemed drunk at noon, which was so preposterous that none of the other women seemed to even consider the possibility. It’s just as likely to them that she’s still suffering from the after-effects of the fall and the time she’d spent in the water.
Jo certainly has her hands full with her own children, her home, her marriage, Margaret, the work she’s doing at the hospital, and everything else in life, but Jude is not entirely off her radar; she’ll keep her eye on her friend and make sure that anything worth noting gets tucked away for further investigation. The idea that a woman she spends time with might need someone to help her and that her own busy life might obscure that need just doesn’t sit right with Jo. She vows to do better and to check in on Jude more.
“How much for this?” A woman who has parked her blue car down the street is clutching a handbag as she bends over, admiring a necklace made of thick amber beads that Carrie has donated to the tag sale.
Jo lifts the necklace and holds it up for the woman to inspect. “This is four dollars,” she says with a pleased smile. The necklace is lovely, and she can imagine the older woman standing before her wearing it against a nice dress in brown or yellow.
The woman glances up at Jo. “This is the fundraiser for the sweet little baby in the hospital, right? I saw an advertisement for this sale posted in the window at Publix.”
“Yes, you found the right sale,” Jo confirms.
The woman unsnaps her handbag and takes out her wallet. “Then I’ll tell you what,” the woman says, “I’ll give you five dollars.”
Jo trades the necklace for the cash, which she puts into a metal box on the table, and watches the woman move down the table, admiring the other goods.
Jo looks up at the sky as an airplane passes overhead, leaving a long contrail across the infinite blue backdrop. A breeze picks up, blowing the palm fronds around and lifting a lock of Jo’s hair. A pack of kids on bikes ride by, shouting cheerfully as a mother tells them to stay out of the road and to watch for cars.
Jo closes her eyes, and for a moment she can’t tell whether she’s in Minnesota or Florida.
It’s a really good feeling.
“Mom! Is my costume done?” Jimmy is standing over Jo, looking down at her worriedly. “All the guys are going to meet at six-thirty on the corner to trick-or-treat.”
Jo wipes her forehead but doesn’t speak, as she has a mouthful of straight pins. She looks up at her son, her beautiful boy, who is growing so fast. He’s shot up so much in height over the past six months that he’s now almost at eye-level with his mother when they’re both standing. Jo spits the pins into her hand.
“Almost done, sweetheart. How are your sisters?”
Jo has made two different dresses for her girls: Nancy wants to go trick-or-treating dressed as Cleopatra (which earned a lifted eyebrow from Bill, who still has misgivings about Frankie having taken the kids to see the movie), and Kate wants to be a fairy princess. Jimmy, however, has proven somewhat easier, as he just wants to go as a cowboy, which allowed Jo to leave the sewing of his Western shirt for last.
“They’re fine. Kate wants to wear lipstick.” Jimmy is still looking down at his mom as she kneels on the floor of the front room, sewing on the individual snap buttons down the front of his shirt.
“Well that’s not going to happen. I’m almost done here, Jimmy. Go and put your jeans on and get your cowboy hat, okay?” As Jo goes back to sewing buttons, their doorbell chimes for the first time that evening. “Bill?” she calls out. “Can you answer that? The bowl of candy for the kids is right there by the door.”
Jo finishes the shirt as Jimmy waits impatiently, and a steady stream of police officers, princesses, hobos, ghosts, and firemen all take turns knocking on the door and opening their pillowcases to be filled with candy at each house along the street.
“Here we are, my little pumpkins,” Jo says once she has all three kids lined up and waiting for her to snap a photo of them standing by the front door.
“Mommmm,” Jimmy says, barely containing his displeasure at being referred to as a little pumpkin . “Can we go now?”
Jo takes one shot of the three kids standing in a line, then lowers her Instamatic and shoos them away. “Okay. Go and get the candy, goblins. Have fun,” she calls, standing in the open front door with her camera still in hand. Jimmy hits the end of the driveway and starts to run. “Don’t forget about your sisters, James!” Jo says, cupping her mouth with one hand.
“Trick or treat!” A little girl dressed like a cat is standing in front of Jo, and she pulls her attention back to her own front porch.
“Well, Happy Halloween to you,” Jo says, stepping inside and trading her camera for the bowl of treats. She tosses one piece of candy into the pillowcase of each child who walks up her driveway. As she does, the sun sinks lower in the sky, and a crescent moon ascends, looking down on the neighborhood with its bright porch lights, its plethora of witches and pirates hauling sugary treats, and its carved, candle-lit pumpkins sitting on nearly every front porch.
“Hiya, Jo,” Barbie says, holding baby Huck to her chest as she waits for Heath and Henry, who are both dressed like tiny ghosts in white sheets with cutout eye holes. “How are things going here?”
Jo tosses candy in each boy’s bag and reaches over to squeeze Huck’s bare foot. The baby is now five months old and getting chunkier every day. He turns his head and gives Jo a gummy smile. “Things are good,” Jo says. “I got my three out the door, and Bill is inside with a glass of whiskey.” She inhales deeply, hugging the bowl of candy to her stomach. “Ah, I love fall so much. Halloween is the start of the best time of the year.”
Barbie nods as Heath and Henry dance around in the driveway, spinning in their bedsheets and nearly spilling candy everywhere. “Oh, I know. Don’t you just love the cooler weather? I get so excited for shorter days, and the start of the holiday season.” Barbie reaches out and grabs Jo’s hand. “Maybe this year we can start a new tradition of doing Thanksgiving with everyone.” Her face quickly falls. “Except I bet some of us will have family come to town, and others might leave Stardust Beach for the holiday.” Barbie’s smile comes back slowly as she thinks. “Or maybe we can do a big Christmas party in the middle of December—or maybe a New Year’s Eve party!”
Jo can’t help but smile at her friend’s enthusiasm. “Sure, Barb. I bet we can make that happen.”
“Okay,” Barbie says, eyeing her boys, who have taken their sheets off, tossed them onto the driveway, and are now wrestling in Jo’s front yard. “I better get these guys moving. Come on, boys,” she says to them, pointing at the sheets. “Turn yourselves back into ghosts so we can go scare up a little more candy.”
Jo waves them off as she laughs at the sight of petite Barbie holding an already hefty Huck while racing after the older boys.
“Jojo?” Bill calls through the open front door. She’s standing in the puddle of light on the porch and she turns to see him there on the couch. He’s got one leg crossed over the other as he reads the paper, whiskey in hand. Bill folds the newspaper and sets it aside as he locks eyes on his wife. “You got any Tootsie Rolls in that candy dish?”
Jo walks inside and closes the door. She shakes her head. “You want Tootsie Rolls with your whiskey?” she asks, amused.
Bill reaches for her hip as she comes closer. She digs through her bowl of candy for the telltale brown wrapper. Bill grabs her by the waist and pulls her down next to him as she yelps.
“I definitely want something sweet with my whiskey,” he says playfully, nuzzling his face into Jo’s neck.
She’s caught off guard by this unexpected display of affection, but she definitely likes it. “Bill,” Jo says knowingly, letting him kiss her under her jawline as she closes her eyes in pleasure.
Just then, the doorbell chimes. Jo groans. She pushes herself up from the couch, taking the bowl with her.
“Saved by the bell, Mrs. Booker,” Bill says as he reaches out and swats her behind. “You better go and give those little monsters what they want. I’ll get what I want later.”