4. Jeanie
CHAPTER 4
Jeanie
Kathryn Michelin’s baby shower is like being inside of a cone of cotton candy. There are pink and blue confections everywhere: tissue paper poofs hanging from the ceiling; fuzzy pillows in sweet pastel hues; miniature cupcakes frosted in both pink and blue; even two different kinds of cocktails—one pink, and one blue.
“Pink Lady, or sapphire martini?” asks a woman wearing a Pucci dress in swirls of—yep, you guessed it—pink and blue. She is clearly the grandmother-to-be, and with her clutch of pearls and matching pearl drop earrings, she is classy, refined, and as excited as a child on Christmas morning. “We’re drinking the cocktail that indicates our guess for the gender,” she explains breathlessly, reaching forward to clutch Jeanie’s forearm with a manicured hand.
“Oh,” Jeanie says. “Um, okay. Pink Lady, please.” She accepts the drink and then trails into the living room, where all the other women are gathered on couches and chairs, facing Kathryn and her enormous belly. Actually, she isn’t that gigantic yet, and Jeanie tries to assess her furtively as she sips her drink. She’s obviously known plenty of pregnant women, but in general, women stop working before they get too big, and so other than her mother when she was pregnant with the twins, Jeanie hasn’t really spent much time around a woman who is close to giving birth.
On second thought, Kathryn is most likely still a couple of months away, but she looks big to Jeanie’s eyes. How does the human body do that? How can it expand and grow a whole new person? Or two? Or three? It’s both magical and horrifying to Jeanie to consider as she listens to the other women laugh and tell stories about their own pregnancies and deliveries. All she can do is nod and smile politely.
“How about you, darling?” the grandmother-to-be says, taking a seat on the couch right next to Jeanie. “Children?” She glances at Jeanie’s bare ring finger and frowns. “Or not yet?”
“Not yet,” Jeanie says with a small smile.
“Mom,” Kathryn says, both hands absentmindedly rubbing her belly. “Jeanie is one of our female engineers at work. She doesn’t have time for men and babies!”
The women’s chatter quiets a few notches. All eyes turn to Jeanie.
“Oh, an engineer!” says a woman with a blonde bouffant and gold earrings. She blinks her eyes a few times like she’s interested, but her blue eyes are slightly vacant. “I bet you had to go to college for a long time to get a job like that.”
Jeanie nods and crosses her feet at the ankles. She smooths her skirt across her lap. “I did,” she agrees. “And I’m fairly new at NASA. I’m honored to be there.” She desperately wants the conversation to move on, but isn’t sure how to make that happen now that everyone is focused on her. “But, you know, maybe someday I’ll have kids,” she adds in a tone that is supposed to sound firm, but instead comes out as wistful.
The other women are nodding with interest and sympathy. “You’re so young,” Kathryn says. Kathryn has clearly realized that the attention of the room has shifted to Jeanie and that it’s making her uncomfortable. “There’s plenty of time for all that.” Her eyes move to the doorway. “Oh, here’s Rebecca, one of our other female engineers!”
Every eye in the room now swings towards Rebecca, a woman Jeanie knows and likes. Rebecca pauses where she is with her sapphire martini in hand, looking like a deer in headlights. Jeanie meets her eye and gives an apologetic shrug.
“We have all these brilliant women on staff now,” Kathryn explains, waving Rebecca into the room.
“Career women!” Kathryn’s mom says, standing up. “Here, darling, come sit next to Jeanie.” She gives her seat to a stunned Rebecca, who sinks down to the couch cushion with the alertness of prey amongst a herd of predators.
“What’s going on here?” Rebecca asks Jeanie from the side of her mouth as she shields it with the edge of her martini glass. “It’s like I walked into the room and suddenly there was a spotlight on me.”
Jeanie sighs. “There is. Apparently we’re the first women they’ve ever met who chose to go to college instead of jumping onto the conveyer belt and waiting for a man to pluck us off, marry us, and give us babies.”
Around them, the conversation has moved on to diapers, strollers, sleepless nights, and what Kathryn can expect from her husband in terms of help (short version: not much). Jeanie sips her disgustingly sweet drink and listens, wondering whether these are the highlights of motherhood, or the biggest gripes.
“Think you’ll ever jump on this bandwagon?” Jeanie asks Rebecca, turning to her. “Leave NASA to keep house and spend afternoons at the park with kids?”
Rebecca glances down at the hand in her lap and then raises it slowly, showing Jeanie the sparkling diamond on her ring finger. “I just got engaged a few weeks ago,” she admits sheepishly. “We’re having a winter wedding, and I’ll keep working until I get pregnant.”
Jeanie is stunned. She looks at the ring and then back at Rebecca’s face. The girl had gone to Stanford, for heaven’s sake! She’d devoted years to elbowing her way up the ranks and to earning the respect of her male peers at a top-notch university before landing the kind of job that most people dream of! And now she has a ring on her finger and a plan to leave it all behind for—for what? Jeanie looks around at the other women. For diapers and strollers and sleepless nights and no help from her husband?
Jeanie smiles widely at Rebecca and reaches for the hand with the ring, holding it so that she can turn it from side to side in the light and appreciate the glimmer. “It’s gorgeous,” Jeanie says, and she means it. “And congratulations. I hope he knows how lucky he is.”
They spend the afternoon playing games (Jeanie wins the one where you cut a piece of string that you think is the length of the pregnant woman’s stomach and then everyone takes turns wrapping their string around the giggling mother-to-be’s belly as they measure to see how close they got). She eats two cupcakes, one pink and one blue, and then watches as Kathryn opens piles of gifts that include cute little clothing items, handy things for the nursery, and a collection of bottles and blankets.
By the time Jeanie gets back to her apartment she’s exhausted. Her cat, Miranda, is waiting on the back of a chair with a view of the front door, and she meows impertinently at her mistress, as if to say, “And where have you been?”
“I’m home, I’m home,” Jeanie assures her, setting her purse on the counter and reaching for a can of cat food to put out for Miranda.
Vicki, her roommate, is noticeably absent—there is a stillness in the air as Jeanie moves through the quiet apartment, turning on the radio as she goes.
She didn’t mind living alone, and, in fact, had sometimes enjoyed the peace and quiet of having her own space after spending the day pretending to be an extrovert at work, but having another person around is sometimes nice, too. And Vicki is…interesting. She’s forty-five and divorced, with a grown son who lives in New Orleans and attends Tulane. Vicki and Jeanie’s aunt Penny, her mom’s younger sister, were friends back in Chicago, so when Vicki wanted to make the move to the Sunshine State, Penny asked her niece whether she might be interested in a roommate, and voila , now Jeanie is living with a woman who walks around the apartment in her underwear, hangs out at bars looking for younger men, and polishes her toes at the kitchen table.
Jeanie sets Miranda's dish on the little rubber mat she keeps on the kitchen floor, then slides her feet out of her shoes. It's Saturday afternoon, and she has nothing planned for the rest of the weekend. There's a mimeographed sheet stuck to her fridge with a magnet that lists all the activities on offer at the Sunny Tides Condominium Resort, and Jeanie skims it, landing on the block of the calendar for that weekend.
She glances at her watch: at two o'clock there's a canasta game in the Tidal Wave Meeting Room in the main building, and at four o'clock there's a cocktail hour by the pool. Jeanie blows out a long breath and stretches her bare toes against the cool tile. She isn't sure about playing canasta or drinking martinis with the mostly retired crowd at Sunny Tides, but in the absence of anything else to do with her afternoon, she considers it.
"Hi, hi!" comes Vicki's cheerful greeting as her key twists in the lock. "You home, princess?"
Jeanie smiles at this. Though she pretends to be neutral on the nickname, she actually kind of loves living with someone who acts as a bit of a maternal presence. A slightly tipsy, mouth-like-a-sailor, questionable advice-giving maternal presence--but still.
"Hi, Vicki," Jeanie calls back. She meets her roommate in the front room, which Miranda has already vacated in favor of her food in the kitchen. "How are you?"
Vicki drops the sandals she's been carrying by the straps, and it's then that Jeanie notices her beaded and spangled party dress and the remnants of makeup from the night before. Vicki flops on the couch; her legs are bare, and she tosses her evening bag onto the cushion next to her.
"Oh, doll," Vicki says with wonder. "I met the most divine man last night. Wow. He's a former fighter pilot who lives on a boat. Fancy that, right? I mean--can you imagine? Traveling the world by sea...showing up in whichever port you please, having a good time, and then setting sail again." Vicki reaches for her purse and unclasps it, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a gold-plated lighter. "What a night that was," she says in a scratchy voice as she flicks the lighter and holds it to the end of the cigarette that dangles between her lips.
Jeanie stands and carries a heavy blue glass ashtray over to the coffee table, setting it in front of Vicki.
"Thanks, princess. Now how about you? Any wild dates or anything?"
Jeanie sits down again. She's still wearing the white dress she'd worn to the baby shower. "Nope. Nothing like that. I went to a baby shower this morning, and I was considering going to the canasta game at the clubhouse meeting room.”
Vicki exhales and makes a face like she's been jabbed with a hot poker. "Why? I mean, come on." She waves a hand through the air, indicating Jeanie's general self. "Looking like that, why in the hell would you spend your Saturday afternoon hanging out in a clubhouse with a bunch of people who are just about to knock on God's front door?"
Jeanie coughs lightly and waves a hand; it's been well established that she prefers Vicki to smoke outside their apartment, but in spite of her pleas and reminders, Vicki continues to lounge around on the furniture, smoking one Pall Mall menthol after another.
“It sounded fun,” Jeanie says defensively. “I mean, kind of.”
Vicki stands up on her bare feet and her beaded dress swishes around her noisily. “Nonsense. Let me shower and drink a cup of coffee, and then we’ll go out and do something really fun.”
Jeanie looks up at her from the chair she’s sitting in, watching as Vicki smokes her cigarette and stretches her long, lean arms to the sky. Vicki has a kind of confidence that Jeanie isn’t sure she’ll ever have, and she isn’t even sure how to get it. For most of her life so far, she’s felt like the little girl whose father went to war and never came home, and now that she’s in her late twenties, it’s time to stop standing at the metaphorical screen door, watching and waiting. It’s time to realize that all the studying, all the job success, and all the achieving that she does will never bring her father home, and it will never be enough to fill her life.
It’s time to open up the door and walk out and join everyone else. To mingle in the fray of people; to say yes to life. Sitting home alone and protecting her heart doesn’t mean it will never get broken again, it will just mean that she never gets to put it to good use.
“Okay,” Jeanie says quickly, standing up. “I’ll make the coffee.”
Vicki gives a whoop of joy. “There we go, princess! We’re gonna live a little.” She stubs her cigarette out in the blue glass ashtray and assesses Jeanie through narrow eyes. “Okay, this dainty white number is sweet, but it’s far too virginal.” She sweeps a hand over Jeanie’s white cotton baby shower dress. “You’re always as cute as a bug’s ear, but do you have anything that’s a bit…sexier?”
Jeanie flushes at the words virginal and sexier , but she knows what Vicki means: she dresses for the library, not the bar.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s a cute joint down by the marina where the drinks are cold and the men are hot,” Vicki says with a shimmy of her hips that sets her beaded dress to clacking again. “Here, let me give you something out of my closet.” She grabs Jeanie’s hand and tugs her down the hallway, pointing at the foot of her unmade bed. Jeanie sits.
“Let’s see what sort of costume we can cook up for you, my love,” Vicki says, sliding open her mirrored closet door with a flourish. “Let Auntie Vicki get you dolled up and ready to rumble.”
The bar at the marina is made of weathered wood and glass bottles: the bar itself has more bottles of alcohol behind it than Jeanie has ever seen, and on each table are various glass jars in different sizes and colors holding silver forks, spoons, and knives. The windows are big and round to mimic portholes on a ship, and the place is air-conditioned and cool. In stark contrast to the rustic wood and the communal silverware jars are white linen napkins at each place setting, a baby grand piano in one corner, and waitresses in black cocktail dresses and red lipstick.
Jeanie stands in the doorway nervously, looking around. The men are all older—much older—than she is. And she feels conspicuous in the tight green dress that Vicki chose for her. It hugs her body and is a bit lower cut than Jeanie would choose for herself, and in order to make up for her lack of natural cleavage, Vicki had instructed her to go into her room and roll up two pairs of pantyhose to shove into her bra cups.
“Shhh, insider’s secret, princess,” Vicki had said, putting one finger to her lips. “If you ever find yourself in a compromising position with a man and you’ve got your falsies in, just excuse yourself to the restroom and pull them out.”
“Won’t he notice?”
Vicki had laughed—a deep, throaty chuckle. “Angel, once a man is horizontal, he wouldn’t notice if you left the room and came back with a whole new face. Trust me on this.”
So Jeanie had rolled up two pairs of suntan nylons and wedged them into the cups of her bra, knowing full well that she’d never find herself in a compromising position at The Hungry Pelican on a Saturday evening with a bunch of men who looked like they’d seen action in WWII. A couple of guys sitting at the bar might have even done tours in WWI.
“We’re going to get those two to buy us drinks,” Vicki says now, scanning the room. Her eyes have stopped on two tanned, middle-aged men in pastel polo shirts. One has a heavy gold ring on his pinky, and the other has a head of thick, wavy hair and a face like a newscaster. Vicki makes a beeline for their table.
“Are you two handsome men drinking alone?” Vicki asks as she sidles up to their table and leans one hip against the edge of it suggestively.
The man with the pinky ring drags his eyes up her body slowly, finally landing on her face. His friend is watching Jeanie, who hovers behind Vicki uncertainly.
“Look, she brought her daughter,” the newscaster says with amusement, tipping his head at Jeanie. “That’s cute.”
“Sit with us, ladies,” Pinky Ring says, standing up to pull out a chair for Vicki. Newscaster gets up and does the same for Jeanie, who sits down gingerly. Between the tight dress and the nylons stuffed into her bra, Jeanie feels like she’s acting in a play about a girl who dresses up like a woman. And she isn’t sure that her act is very convincing.
“What are you drinking?” Pinky Ring lifts a hand casually so that the waitress will come by.
“Sidecars, please,” Vicki says, setting her purse next to her elbow on the table. Jeanie watches her and follows suit.
"So are you actually mother and daughter?" Pinky Ring asks, his eyes grazing Vicki's ample cleavage.
"No, darling," Vicki says with mock scorn. "I'm not old enough to have a daughter this age. What kind of thing is that to suggest to a woman?"
"My apologies." Pinky Ring smirks at her. "I'm Patrick," he says. "And this is John."
"Victoria," Vicki says. "And this is Jeanette."
With the introductions made and the Sidecars ordered, Jeanie settles in, waiting to take her cues from Vicki.
"You gentlemen come here often?" Vicki asks, aiming her question at Patrick and his pinky ring.
"That's supposed to be my line," he says, sitting back as the waitress delivers the cocktails for the women. "'What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?' or something along those lines." He winks at Jeanie and holds her gaze. "Your big sister is a bit of a flirt, isn't she?"
Jeanie isn't sure what to say here; flirting and playing coy don't come naturally to her. In fact, far from it--she can't even remember the last time she went on a date, save for an ill-fated college romance, and so far during her time in Florida, she's been perfectly happy to work all day, come home to feed Miranda, and go for a swim in her condominium's pool before tucking in for the night with a good book.
Jeanie looks at Vicki quickly, and she sees an encouraging smile on her roommate's face. She glances back at Patrick. "She is," she says boldly. "An unapologetic flirt who flirts even harder with every drink you buy her."
There is a brief pause and then both men roar with laughter and John holds up his hand as if he's ready to order the next round.
"Oh, you're a little minx yourself," Patrick says, putting a hand encouragingly on Jeanie's shoulder. Under different circumstances it might have come across as lecherous, but in both of the men's faces Jeanie sees a little spark of fatherly amusement.
"I don't know about that," she counters, taking a small sip of her Sidecar. It's her second cocktail of the day, and something about a lunchtime drink followed by an evening drink feels...decadent. Worldly. It’s outside the bounds of Jeanie's usual sedate behavior. "I'm mostly here to keep this tigress under control." She tips her head towards Vicki. "You would be amazed at what she can get up to without supervision."
John looks at Vicki with fresh interest. “I bet this one can look out for herself.”
“This one can,” Vicki confirms, leaning in closer to John.
“How about a dance?” John offers, lifting an eyebrow as a man slides onto the piano bench and starts tinkling at the keys. He’s playing Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade.”
Vicki takes the hand that John offers, leaving her handbag on the table for Jeanie to watch as she lets this tall newscaster of a man lead her to the small dance floor.
“So,” Patrick says, picking up the tumbler of dark liquid in front of him. As he swirls the drink around, the lights catch on his chunky gold ring. He sips his drink, drawing out the moment. “You’re a lovely young lady, Jeanette.”
“Thank you,” she says shyly.
“It’s nice of you to come out for the evening to spend time with a bunch of old codgers here at The Hungry Pelican, when you’d probably be better off searching for viable prospects at a place like The Black Hole.”
Jeanie smiles at the mention of her coworkers’ favorite after-work haunt. The average age of the patrons there is decidedly younger than what she’s seeing here, and the music that blares from the jukebox doesn’t bring back wartime nostalgia.
“I’m not really looking for viable prospects,” she says, taking a drink of her Sidecar. “I’m just having fun.”
Patrick laughs lightly and shakes his head as he looks into his glass. “I don’t think a girl like you is cut out for just having fun. I can look at you and see that you’re made of more interesting stuff.”
Jeanie frowns; more interesting stuff ? She squares her shoulders and puts both elbows on the table as she leans in to listen. “I don’t seem like fun?”
“Oh no, that’s not what I said.” Patrick wags a finger at her. “You’re wonderful—at least from what I can tell. But you look like a woman with real desires.” Jeanie’s chest goes hot, and the sensation spreads up her neck to her cheeks. “And not just those kinds of desires,” Patrick clarifies. “I can see it in your eyes that you’re smart. You a college girl?”
“I graduated from Northwestern,” she says.
Patrick nods. “Right. So not secretarial school then.”
“No. I’m an engineer.”
Patrick laughs softly. He shakes his head again. “In my day, a beautiful woman engineer didn’t just stroll into a bar in a tight green dress. Have you found a job yet?”
Jeanie hesitates for a beat. “I work at NASA.”
Patrick lets out a low whistle. “No wonder you’re here.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, Jeanette. Perhaps you’ll agree with me based on your own experiences, but I’m guessing that men your age might be a little intimidated by a woman as successful as you. We don’t always handle it well when we’re not the smartest person in a relationship, and certainly when our jobs don’t hold a candle to yours.”
Jeanie considers this. “I actually don’t date much, so I’m not sure if that’s true.”
“Do you figure that’s why you don’t date much? Maybe the men at work see you and think, ‘Pretty, but not interested in slowing down and having a family.’”
“Could be,” Jeanie admits. “Yeah, that’s possible.” Her mind instantly goes to Bill and then, of course, to Jo, who—in Jeanie’s mind, anyway—does it all. She volunteers, writes stories, raises three amazing kids, and keeps the house for the family. Jeanie isn’t even sure that she could do all those things. Or that she wants to.
“I’m not saying you should lie about who you are in order to snag a man or anything like that,” Patrick says, holding up a hand like a stop sign. “But I am saying you should think outside the box. Maybe the man for you isn’t…what are you, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“Right. I’d say he’s a bit older and has his own list of accomplishments. Maybe he’s already had a family and is looking for a second wife. A guy who doesn’t necessarily want to travel the same route again.”
Jeanie’s smile fades and she clicks a fingernail against her glass as she listens. “You’re suggesting that I aim to be someone’s second wife?”
Patrick shrugs. “I’m suggesting that you consider something non-traditional. Like having a dance with an old geezer at The Hungry Pelican on a Saturday evening.” His smile turns into an impish smirk, and Jeanie can’t help but laugh with relief. She’d been taking his words as gospel, considering that an older man might know more about life than her, and that he was telling her she wasn’t marriage material. But really, he was just taking the long way around to ask her for a dance.
One dance? She can do that. Her mother always told her that she should say yes to a man who politely asks her to dance, because one dance with a man wouldn’t kill you, and it would do wonders for his self-esteem. She can do Patrick that kindness.
“Sure,” Jeanie says now, putting both her own bag and Vicki’s purse onto her chair and pushing it in so that she can leave them behind while they dance. “I can do that.”
With surprising fluidity, Patrick sweeps her into his arms and they start to sway together like Fred and Ginger--or maybe more like a very smooth grandfather and his lovely granddaughter at a family function. But either way, all Jeanie remembers at the end of the night when the cab drops her off in front of The Sunny Tides Condominium Resort is that she laughed a lot and had a very nice time.
Vicki, on the other hand, stays true to form by being out with John all night.
She stumbles in sometime just after sunrise, and Jeanie hears her whistling “Moonlight Serenade” softly as she washes off her makeup.