The Space Between (Stardust Beach #3)

Prologue

NOVEMBER 1949

"You know why her dad never came home from the war?" Carol Fairchild was a girl of the blonde, button-nosed, steely-eyed variety. Her voice made her sound years older than the other twelve-year-olds at Elmwood Country Day School as she asked this question tauntingly.

The other girls stood around, eyes narrowed in Jeanie's direction as they waited for Carol to spit out the punchline. Mary Dillard blew a bubble with her gum and then chewed it loudly as she stared at Jeanie, clearly hoping for a reaction.

"He never came home," Carol said, folding her arms across her flat chest and bony ribcage, "because he was ashamed to have such an idiot for a daughter." No one laughed at this because it wasn't meant to be funny. Carol stared Jeanie down with her flinty gaze. "Did your dad know how dumb you were before he left you and your mom for good?"

Jeanie’s chest tightened and her limbs stiffened like she'd just been hit by the fist of a champion heavyweight boxer, which—in a sense—she had. Carol Fairchild was the queen of insults, and her barbs were launched with purpose and intention, hitting their marks squarely on the bullseye nine times out of ten. When it came to Jeanie Florence, they landed ten times out of ten.

"Come on, Jeanie. I'm just kidding," Carol said in a tone that was decidedly not a teasing one. "Everyone knows that your dad disappearing meant that your mom could finally marry Mr. Macklin and start having his babies." Carol smiled cruelly. "She was just waiting for that, wasn't she?”

There had been plenty of rumors and conjecture about Melva Florence taking up with Wendell Macklin a few years after her husband died in the war. Wendell Macklin was the girls’ science teacher at Elmwood Country Day, and therefore Jeanie’s mother marrying him and quickly getting pregnant with twins had been a hot topic of conversation amongst the students.

Jeanie was sitting on a cold metal bench on the playground, coat buttoned up to her chin, hands shoved into her pockets. Her back was against the brick wall behind her, and she kept her eyes focused on the yellow-painted lines of the concrete outdoor play area. November in Chicago meant cold air and gray skies, and with no leaves left on the trees that surrounded the lush green grass of the school's fields, the whole playground felt barren. Hopeless. Jeanie sighed.

"Come on, Carol," Mary Dillard said, trying half-heartedly to end the bloodshed. "Just leave her alone. She's too dumb to respond," she added, eyes still glued to Jeanie as she sat on the bench like a pitiful lump. Her school uniform, which consisted of a pleated navy skirt, knee-high socks, and a thin white cotton shirt beneath her woolen pea coat, wasn't enough to keep her warm as this group of mean girls surrounded her, and all she could hope for was that they'd grow bored with her silence soon and leave.

“You’ll never be anything,” Carol said plainly, as if she’d just realized this. “You won’t even be Mr. Macklin’s real daughter, and the rest of your siblings will actually have two parents.”

This was the final straw for Jeanie; she’d taken all she could from Carol Fairchild, and she wasn’t going to listen to her talk this way anymore. She stood up, hands in the pockets of her coat. Her breath puffed out in front of her in the cold air.

“I have two parents,” Jeanie said. “My dad didn’t come home because he died a war hero. And my mom loves Mr. Macklin—he’s a nice man.” The other girls looked shocked that actual words were coming out of Jeanie’s mouth. “I don’t care if he’s not my real dad, so I don’t know why you do.”

Carol blinked at her, but had no comeback.

“Mr. Macklin is nice,” Emily Finch said, speaking up for the first time. She looked at the ground.

Carol’s head whipped around to glare at her as if she’d broken ranks. “Mr. Macklin married a desperate widow,” Carol spat. “At least that’s what my mother says.”

Jeanie’s blood ran cold. “You know who is actually dumb?” she asked, feeling braver than she ever had. “You, Carol. You’re dumb. And no one cares what you think.”

That was obviously not true, as Carol had plenty of disciples to follow her around and back up whatever mean things came out of her stupid mouth, but it was true enough for Jeanie at that moment. She stalked away from the little group of girls, head held high.

For the next two years, Jeanie made a point of shooting Carol a hard look any time she caught the girl looking her way, and Carol said nothing else to Jeanie’s face. It was safe to say that they were sworn enemies, but they went about it silently and without further confrontation.

At least until the day that Jeanie found out why Carol really was the way she was.

* * *

February 1951

Eighth grade wasn’t Jeanie’s favorite year. Her little brother and sister were three, and they were always getting into her things. Her mother made her ride to school with her stepfather rather than letting her ride the bus with the other kids, and she started her period, which seemed like an unfair and unjust part of womanhood.

On Valentine’s Day that year, when Jeanie was fourteen, she’d started bleeding in the middle of gym class. Her teacher had instructed her to get dressed and go to the health room, so she sat there outside the nurse’s closed door, slumped down in a chair with her arms folded across her chest. Her cramps were painful, and her humiliation was complete. How was she supposed to go to her next class after the other girls had all seen her red face as she explained to Mrs. Blakely that she needed a sanitary napkin? She hoped that by playing up her pain, the nurse might call her mother to get her and she’d be allowed to go home early for the day.

When the door opened, Jeanie conjured a pained expression and made a tiny moan. But instead of the nurse coming out to get her, Carol Fairchild emerged with a tear-stained face. She was holding an ice pack to her stomach, and she looked at Jeanie with annoyance.

In an instant, Jeanie forgot all about her ploy to get sent home. All she could do was wonder what in the world had happened to Carol.

“Have a seat, Miss Fairchild,” the nurse said, emerging in a white uniform. Her hands were clasped in front of her, and her face was serious. “Miss Florence,” she said to Jeanie, “can I help you? Are you unwell?”

Jeanie stood up, but her eyes were still on Carol. “I…” she said, forgetting her Oscar-worthy performance and her desire to be picked up for the day. She looked at the nurse and lowered both her eyes and her voice. “I need a napkin.”

The nurse pursed her lips and waved Jeanie into her exam room, where she opened a drawer and pointed at a stash of feminine products. Jeanie took what she needed and slipped it into her book bag, which she immediately zipped.

“Thank you,” Jeanie said in a hurry, turning to go. She’d assumed she’d need to rush to catch up with Carol and ask her what was wrong, but as she walked out the door, she realized that Carol had taken the seat Jeanie had been sitting in.

“Hi,” Jeanie said to her. “Are you okay?”

Carol’s face was stony. She moved her pack of ice around on her ribcage with a wince. “I’m fine,” she said, not meeting Jeanie’s eye.

“You don’t look fine.” Jeanie stood there, forgetting for a moment about the fact that the only thing standing between her and certain disaster was a wad of toilet paper shoved into her underwear. “Do you want to talk?”

Carol exhaled, sounding exasperated. “Why would I talk to you? We haven’t spoken a word to one another since sixth grade.”

“So.” Jeanie shifted her book bag from one shoulder to the other. “No one said we weren’t allowed to speak to each other. Just because we don’t doesn’t mean that we can’t.”

Carol considered this. “That’s true.”

Jeanie sat in the empty chair next to Carol’s. “Then tell me what’s wrong. I’m a good listener, and I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”

Carol cast a glance at the nurse’s open door. “Stuff at home.” She shrugged.

Jeanie stood up and held out a hand to Carol. “Come on.”

Carol frowned at her hand. “Where?”

“Excuse me, Nurse Heller?” Jeanie took Carol’s hand and pulled her to a standing position. “We’re going to the restroom.”

Nurse Heller was on the phone and she simply waved a hand at them, so Jeanie led Carol down the hall to the girls’ room.

Inside, she held a finger to her lips and then looked under the stall doors. Seeing that there were no feet, she finally spoke. “What’s going on at home?”

Carol turned to face the long mirror over the sinks. She stared into her own blue eyes absently, leaning forward so that her nose was nearly touching her own reflection. She sighed deeply. “My mother,” she said.

“Your mother…is she okay?”

This time, instead of sighing, Carol huffed angrily. “She’s fine. I’m not.” She removed the pack of ice she’d been holding to her ribs and then lifted the bottom of her sweater. There, across her skin, was a deep purple bruise.

Jeanie recoiled. “What happened?”

Carol let her sweater fall. “My mother kicked me. That’s what happens at my house when you don’t do what you’re supposed to do.”

Jeanie wasn’t sure what to say to this. She’d never been hit or kicked by anyone in her life. Her mother was as patient as the day was long, and her stepfather was somehow both distant and jovial. He talked to Jeanie and her sister and brother like they were all adult colleagues, and other than the twins’ squabbles or excited shouts, their house was almost entirely absent of any type of yelling. Certainly, there was no strife.

Carol made a face like she was deeply regretting their entire interaction. “What happens at your house when you don’t listen? Does Mr. Macklin make you write out the periodic table one hundred times?” She sneered, but seemed to lose the energy for it, and her face fell. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s fine,” Jeanie said. They were quiet for a moment. “It’s not okay, Carol. No one should be hurting you like that—especially your mom.”

“Yeah, well.”

The only sound in the bathroom was of one of the three sinks, which dripped endlessly from the faucet into the porcelain.

“Anyway, I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone, and I won’t. Unless you want me to, and then I will.”

Carol reached out a hand and grabbed onto Jeanie’s wrist urgently. “No. Don’t. Please.”

Instead of letting go of Jeanie’s arm, Carol’s hand lingered, and Jeanie took her sworn enemy’s fingers in her own, holding her hand as they looked into one another’s eyes.

“Okay,” Jeanie said. “I won’t.”

And just like that, Jeanie Florence learned firsthand that sometimes the dogs with the meanest bites only snap at people to protect themselves. Later in life, she’d hear the phrase “Hurt people hurt people,” and she would remember this day in the girls’ bathroom, recalling how mean Carol had been, and how much she must have been hurting on the inside. But right then, all Jeanie was sure about was the fact that she no longer hated Carol Fairchild.

* * *

May 1954

Jeanie had been daydreaming about Leonard Pickles for months. Even when she was engrossed in her astronomy books, or as she was carefully writing out answers to her homework, she was thinking of him. As a grown woman she would chuckle at the fact that she’d once loved a boy named Leonard Pickles so much that she’d doodled “Jeanie Pickles” all over her diary at home, but in May 1954, Leo Pickles was the apple of her eye and she’d told no one—not even her best friend Carol Fairchild.

In English class, Leo raised his long arm in the air and held up one finger to get the teacher’s attention. “I believe that Fitzgerald used Jay Gatsby to help readers understand that the American Dream was attainable for anyone.”

“Okay, let’s use that as a jumping off point for this discussion,” Miss Chambers said, turning to the chalkboard to write something in her neat, looping penmanship.

But Jeanie’s attention was elsewhere: it was on the back of Leo’s long neck. It was on his softly curved ears. It was on the way his shoulder blades were visible through the back of his cotton uniform shirt. And it was definitely on the strong bulge of his biceps as he leaned over to pull a book from the bag that rested at his feet.

In grade school, Leo had been a quiet kid with big ears. He was good at sports and nice to everyone. But by age seventeen, he’d become the tall, athletic, smart, kind boy who had grown into his ears—and everything else. And he made Jeanie swoon.

So sure was she that they would go to the junior prom together that Jeanie had picked out the dress she wanted to wear to the dance on a trip into Chicago one weekend with her mother and her six-year-old brother and sister. There it was in the window of Macy’s on State Street: a gorgeous sky blue confection with shimmering flecks of glitter sprinkled all over the tulle skirt. Beside her, in his tuxedo, Jeanie knew that Leo Pickles would be the most handsome escort at the prom. Together, they would stop traffic.

In the weeks leading up to prom, Jeanie did everything she could to make sure that Leonard noticed her: she was there after school, holding her books in her arms when he played a pickup game of basketball with the other boys, and she was standing around in the hall, re-shelving the same books in her locker over and over as she waited for him to come out of his classes. When he finally talked to her one day and offered to walk her home, Jeanie was beside herself with joy. Finally, Leonard Pickles had realized that they were meant to be together.

As they walked down the tree-lined streets on that early day in May, Leo bounced his basketball on the sidewalk, asking Jeanie questions and waiting for each of her answers like he really cared about what she had to say. By the time she got home, Jeanie's heart was full, and she was bubbling over with excitement.

Leonard Pickles. Leonard Pickles. Leonard Pickles. Her brain played his name on repeat as she helped her mother set the table for dinner. His face was burned into her mind’s eye as she washed her face before bed. The long lope of his walk made her smile as she climbed into bed each night. No other boy had ever featured larger in her mind than the science books she loved, and never had she spent so much time just dreaming about a boy. For the first time in her life, Jeanie Florence was smitten.

If she’d dared to tell anyone, she might have even said she was in love.

"How was school today, my friends?" Wendell Macklin asked as he spooned peas onto his plate and passed the bowl to Jeanie's little sister.

Jeanie stayed quiet and let her siblings answer the question, because her mind was far too busy imagining what she and Leonard would look like as they walked into the gym together on the night of the junior prom. Lately, this was all she did when she was at home: stay quiet, and daydream about Leo.

In the weeks that followed, Jeanie and Leo spent more time together. Nothing official—no dates—but they walked home, met up in the halls, and asked each other how things were going. It all seemed to Jeanie like the build-up to some sort of great and momentous romance, and she had nearly worked up the nerve to ask her mother to take her back into the city to see if the dress was still in the window at Macy's on the day she walked out the side door of the school building and into the bright afternoon sunshine.

There, beneath a tree, stood Carol Fairchild. She had her back pressed against the rough bark of the tree trunk, and her textbooks were clutched to her chest. She was laughing and looking up at a boy who stood almost uncomfortably close to her, and as Jeanie stopped in her tracks to watch, she realized that boy was none other than Leonard Pickles. Carol and Leo were gazing into one another’s eyes in a way that sent a jolt through Jeanie’s entire body.

Jeanie's heart stopped in her chest as she watched the dappled sunlight fall onto Carol's blonde hair. The wind lifted the edge of Carol's calf-length skirt as her joyous laughter rang out across the courtyard. Leo reached out and put a hand to the end of Carol's hair, extracting a single green leaf that had landed there.

Jeanie stood there, barely breathing. She couldn't make her legs move, and she couldn't stop watching them. At that moment, there was no question in her mind that Carol would be going to the prom with Leo. That they'd hold each other close on the dance floor in the gym that night, swaying to a love song as metallic stars swung on long bits of string overhead. By the end of the night, Leo would have kissed Carol, and Jeanie's future would be cemented: she would live the rest of her life without ever becoming Mrs. Leonard Pickles.

But the look on Carol’s face was enough for Jeanie; after all that Carol had been through, seeing her smile like that and hearing her laughter did something to Jeanie that felt like someone was wringing water out of her heart. Her friend, who had spent most of her life angry and protecting herself from her mother’s harsh treatment, looked happy. Really and truly happy. Despite Carol’s good looks, Jeanie had never seen her with a boy (although boys were always looking in Carol’s direction, always clocking her whereabouts), and seeing Carol now with Leo was just…right. They looked like they belonged together.

Jeanie harbored a deep sense of disappointment and loss, but she accepted this fate almost instantaneously. Soon, Carol would come to her gushing about Leonard Pickles and telling her that Leo had invited her to the prom, and she, Jeanie Florence, would be happy for her friend. She had to be, because that’s how real friends behaved.

Jeanie wanted to escape as quickly as possible without either Leo or Carol seeing her, so she turned around and walked back towards the double doors, yanking at the handle roughly. It wouldn't budge; Jeanie was locked out. She rattled the door as tears sprang to her eyes and panic welled up in her chest. She was in no condition to speak to Leo or Carol, nor did she want to be seen.

She was about to give up on the locked door when suddenly it opened from within: Miss Chambers had heard the rattling from inside her classroom and come to see what the ruckus was all about.

“Thank you,” Jeanie whispered as she rushed past Miss Chambers, books held firmly to her chest. She hurried down the shiny floors of the empty hallway, past lockers, past both open and closed classroom doors, and straight for the other side of the building.

When she reached the doors that led to the parking lot, she burst through them without slowing down.

From that day forward, Jeanie wouldn’t let herself be distracted by a boy again. Or by anything else.