5. Jo
CHAPTER 5
Jo
"Mom?" Nancy comes into the kitchen wearing a pair of lemon yellow shorts and a matching shirt that Jo whipped up for her on her Singer sewing machine. "I need to go to the library.”
Jo, who has already put the chicken cutlets in the refrigerator to marinate for dinner that night, looks up from the spiral notebook she's been writing in.
"Oh? What's up, nanny-goat?"
Nancy, ignoring the nickname she sometimes refuses to answer to, holds up a book for her mother to see. "Finished this one. And also all the others I checked out last time. So can we go?"
Jo sets her pen on the notepad and unfolds the leg that she's had tucked beneath her. "What are your brother and sister up to?"
Nancy rolls her eyes. "Kate is making her dolls talk to each other, and Jimmy...who knows." Nancy has not mentioned the incident that occurred the day Frankie had stayed with the kids, and Jo sure as heck isn't going to bring it up. But there is a slight edge to Nancy's tone when she says her brother's name that Jo picks up on.
"I see. Well, let's get them rounded up and we'll all go, okay?"
"Can we walk?" Nancy asks hopefully. She's Jo's little sun goddess, always ready to be outdoors swimming, playing, or just wandering aimlessly regardless of the heat and humidity.
"Oh, no, baby--too hot, too hot!" Jo says, making a pained face. "It's July 1st and you could fry an egg on the sidewalk in this heat."
"Can we try it?" Nancy asks, glancing at the refrigerator.
"Hmm." Jo considers it. She's not opposed to doing something interesting to entertain or teach her kids, but she isn't sure that it's actually much more than a saying or an urban myth. "Actually, you'd need something metal to work as a heat conductor. Like, you'd need to crack it into a pan and set it on the ground in direct sunlight, I think.”
"Well, can we do that?"
Jo stands up and opens the cupboard where all the frying pans are stacked neatly. "You could give it a shot. It's a science experiment that's worth one lost egg." She hands the pan to Nancy and then opens the refrigerator, taking out an egg that she hands to her older daughter.
"I'm going to put it out back," Nancy says. "And then can we go to the library while it cooks?”
Jo laughs. "Sure. I don't see why not."
Once the egg is cracked and cooking on high heat thanks to nature's broiler in the sky, Jo loads all three kids into the station wagon and backs down the driveway.
"I don't want any new books right now," Jimmy says, staring out the window. "I just wanted to stay home."
"It won't hurt you," Jo promises, glancing at her son in the rearview mirror. His profile is turned to her, and he's resting an elbow on the window ledge as he looks out. "You should be doing a bit more summer reading, anyway. Going into the seventh grade is a big deal, Jimmy."
"No it's not," he says glumly. "It's going to be just as dumb as sixth grade was."
"Jimmy." Nancy turns her head around from her spot in the front seat, as she'd claimed it before her brother and sister could. She lowers her chin slightly as she glares at him."You got to go and see the presiden t when you were in the sixth grade. Last year the best thing that happened to me was I got an award for reading the most books."
"I want an award!" Kate says. Her feet don't quite reach the floor of the car, and she's currently missing a front tooth.
"It was stupid," Nancy assures her. "They let me choose between a piece of candy and a pencil as a prize." She sniffs at the offense now, pursing her lips. "I read one hundred and forty-seven books last school year, and they wanted me to be excited about a piece of paper and a pencil ."
Nancy turns back to look out the front windshield, folding her arms across her chest as if she's made her point.
At the library, the kids scatter to their respective sections: Nancy to the young adult books; Kate to the children's area; Jimmy to sports. Jo finds a librarian and sets her purse on the counter as she waits for the woman to finish a phone call.
"Help you?"
"Maybe," Jo says, glancing around to make sure that no one is within earshot. "I'm actually looking for a book, but I don't have a title." She lowers her voice. "It's about romance."
The librarian suppresses a smile, lowering her own voice as she steps closer to the counter. "I think I know what books you're looking for, but we're not going to have them here, unfortunately. There's a bookshop in Orlando that carries them." The librarian takes a slip of paper and a short, stubby pencil from a box. She scribbles on the paper and slides it to Jo. "I particularly enjoyed Any Man Will Do and Lust Can't Hide ," she whispers.
Jo glances at the slip of paper and sees the name of a bookstore. "Oh," she says as embarrassment washes over her. "No, not this kind of book."
The librarian blinks at her. "No?"
"Well," Jo says, folding the paper in half. She doesn't want to insult the librarian, who has immediately taken her into her confidence, but she has something else in mind. "Actually, I'm writing romance, and I hoped that there were some books on how to write--how to write short stories, books…I don’t know. Something like that."
This obviously pleases the librarian. "A writer! I love that. And I'm intrigued." She comes out from behind her counter and crooks a finger for Jo to follow her. They walk back into the stacks as the librarian leads the way, chattering about her favorite books, her favorite authors, and how much she's always loved romance novels. When she comes to a stop, it's in front of a long stack.
"Any book about how to write will be found here in the 800s," she says, running her long fingers over the spines of the books. "You can find out more about how to write poetry, how to work on exposition, narrative craft, plot..." She trails off and then smiles at Jo. "And if you're really interested in writing, then you should consider taking an evening class at the college. One of my neighbors is a professor there, and he teaches creative writing. Just an idea!" she says cheerily, putting her hands into the pockets of the smock she wears over her dress. "And," the librarian nods at the slip of paper she'd given Jo with the name of the bookstore in Orlando, which Jo is still holding in one hand, "you might want to check that place out anyhow." She winks. "Just for inspiration."
Jo smiles and slips the piece of paper into her purse. "Thank you for all your help."
"Anytime!" the librarian says, walking away and leaving Jo in the stacks alone.
She's never considered writing anything like that —not that there's anything wrong with it, and she's quite sure that there's a time and place to read it—but the stories in her heart are definitely more about emotional feelings than physical ones. She selects a book about mood and tone, and another on plot pacing and then goes in search of her children.
When they arrive home that afternoon, much to the delight of the kids, the egg has indeed hardened in the pan outside in the sun, but Jo forbids them from taking a bite of it to find out whether it’s truly cooked all the way through.
She laughs to herself all afternoon at how easily amused they are by it being hot enough outside to fry an egg, and the kids regale Bill with the story all through dinner and up until bedtime.
Jo half listens, but her mind is already elsewhere as she thinks ahead to taking out her typewriter and getting down to business.
Winston put a hand to Maxine's cheek, cupping it gently as he looked into her eyes.
"I'm glad we're here," he said, his lips moving closer to hers. They were sitting on a blanket on the roof of their house, staring up at the nighttime sky together on a hot July evening. "I know it was a lot to uproot our lives, and I know you weren't happy here at first, but Maxine, you've given me the biggest gift: your faith. Your trust. Your support."
Maxine leaned her cheek into her husband's hand and let her eyes close, tears gathering on the fringe of her lashes as he pressed his warm lips to her forehead. "Home is wherever you are," Maxine whispered. "As long as you're happy and the children are happy, I can make a home anywhere."
Jo stops typing and picks up the book that's resting next to her typewriter. It's the one on plot and pacing, and she opens to a spot that's marked with a scrap of paper. She skims the paragraph and picks up a pencil, jotting down some ideas in her notebook.
It's late, and everyone else is sleeping, as usual. Jo is sipping ice water as she writes, and even with the air-conditioning on full blast, she's still sweating through the back of her knee-length, sleeveless satin nightie. She holds the cold, icy glass to one cheek, letting it cool her as she remembers the evening she and Bill had spent on the roof of this very house. She's trying not to simply recreate their lives together in her stories, but it's hard not to let the details of her own reality seep into her words. Winston and Maxine have two kids, and in the story, Jo has made Maxine a teacher who gives up her job in New Jersey to move south with her husband when he gets hired by NASA. And while Bill has an ex-wife who is in a full-time residential facility in Arizona, Winston has a wife who'd succumbed to cancer. It's all close to her life (close enough that Bill might not like it) but it's not exact.
Jo taps her pencil eraser on the page as she thinks. What can she do to make their story veer away from hers and Bill's? She knows he hasn't read any of her work and that he probably won't even ask questions, but if he ever did, she wouldn't want him to be mad. Or feel betrayed--after all, the details of their life together and of their marriage are sacred.
Jo stands and paces across the kitchen barefoot. Outside, the lights of the pool are on, giving the water an eerie glow. She stands in front of the sliding door, looking out at the water as it ripples ever so slightly.
An idea comes to her, and she rushes back over to the typewriter, gathering her nightgown around her as she sits and immediately gets back to typing.
"I have a question," Maxine said, pulling away from Winston and looking up at him. The stars behind him winked at her hopefully, though Maxine felt nothing but a pit in her stomach that wouldn't go away. "Who is that woman?" she asked, swallowing hard against the rising bile in her throat. "The one who called here for you."
Winston frowned as he looked at her, and Maxine could see a curtain fall behind his eyes. She knew her husband well enough to know when a lie was coming.
"She's no one," he said, shrugging and turning to watch as a car drove down the street below. "Just a data entry person in my department. I'd entered some numbers wrong, and they were trying to fix it."
"That late on a week night?" Maxine pushed, feeling as she did that what she was about to get was not an answer, but a stonewall.
Winston stood up and reached for Maxine's hand abruptly. "Here," he said, pulling her up. "Let's just go in."
The romance of the evening had been ruined; Maxine felt it, and from the way Winston snatched up the blanket and tossed it to the ground below, she knew that there was no hope of retrieving the same feeling that had been growing between them.
They went to sleep that night with an invisible divide between them, and Maxine was no closer to getting an answer to the one thing that was gnawing at her: who was that woman on the other end of the line? And why had she known, instinctively, that this faceless woman could cause her trouble?
Jo stops typing again, and this time when she looks out at the pool, she knows exactly what she's doing: she's using this story as a way to flesh out her own feelings and her own fears. She's introducing the worries and questions and dilemmas she faces in her own life, and using her characters like paper dolls to act out the story and help her to understand. Is that right or wrong? Is it something that other writers do? Jo doesn't have the answers to those questions, but she can see clearly that she's writing herself into a corner here—but she’s also writing herself out of her own personal confusion and misery.
Either way, she's going to have to reckon with the fallout of using her life as fodder for this story, and on the off-chance that Bill ever finds out what she's writing, she's going to need to come up with a damn good excuse for putting their lives on display.
The next day, Jo receives a manila envelope in her mailbox. She slides the flap open and pulls out a letter from the publishers of True Romance magazine asking her to commit to finishing the story of Winston and Maxine with installments that will run monthly. Along with the request on company letterhead is another, unsealed envelope. Jo pulls out a letter--it's fan mail. Her very first piece of fan mail, addressed to Josephine White, which is both her pen name and her maiden name.
Mrs. White--
Your stories have been thrilling me these last couple of months! The romance between Maxine and Winston is tangible, and how exciting it must be for her to be married to an astronaut--I can't even imagine!
Please keep writing this wonderful story, and I do hope that at some point I'll find a book in my library by Mrs. Josephine White!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Ingrid Nelson
Wichita, Kansas
Jo reads it and re-reads it, doing a little dance as she does and savoring the moment. It's not every day that a person gets actual fan mail, and it's a feeling she never wants to forget.
Jo takes it back to her bedroom and tucks the letter into an empty shoe box at the top of her closet, pushing the box back into place gently and then letting her hand linger on it.
Ten dollars per story might not be anything worth writing home about, but getting a letter from a fan? That’s priceless.