7. Jo
CHAPTER 7
Jo
The women close the sliding door, leaving the men and children outside. “It’s too hot out there for me,” Barbie admits, fanning her face with her hand. “Truly.”
“I know. Maybe we can invent kitchen tasks to do all evening and keep ourselves in here where we’ve got air-conditioning,” Carrie Reed says. “There are enough of them out there to watch the kids anyway.”
“You don’t think the men will mind watching all the kids?” Barbie asks, peeking out the window to make sure that her older boys haven’t pushed the baby into the pool while the men talk sports and work.
“They’d better not,” Jo says with her head inside the refrigerator. She’s made potato salad and coleslaw for the barbecue, and she shoves them aside now looking for a bottle of Tab to open for poor, overheated Barbie. “It’s not like we got ourselves pregnant,” she adds drily. “Keeping an eye on the children twenty-four hours a day isn’t a job that rests solely on our shoulders.”
“It isn’t?” Jude Majors asks with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She grabs a carrot slice from the platter of veggies and crudités that Carrie has set on the kitchen table. It gives a loud snap as she bites into it. “Somebody better alert the men to that fact.”
“So,” Frankie Maxwell says as she leans her hip against Jo’s kitchen counter and looks out the back window. “We’ve got the lady engineers coming to this shindig?”
At the mention of it, Jo feels her stomach tighten. “Actually, just one. I met Jeanie Florence at your place, Frankie,” Jo says, trying to keep her tone light. “And I thought it might be nice to invite her, since she’s the only woman engineer on our guys’ team. She’s bringing her roommate.”
The women busy themselves with little tasks like dumping a jar of baby pickles into a serving dish, fanning out paper napkins on the table, and setting stacks of clean glasses out for people to use.
“When is she coming?” Frankie asks. She’s by far Jo’s closest friend of the bunch, and she watches Jo with narrowed eyes, as if she can guess what Jo is thinking or feeling.
“Soon,” Jo says noncommittally. “But so is Dave Huggins.”
“What?” Barbie nearly shrieks. “No one told me. I’m not ready to be photographed. My kids aren’t in the right clothes. I didn’t pick out anything for Todd. Jo, you should have warned us!” Barbie has gone from sorting utensils to spinning out of control in under thirty seconds.
“Honey,” Jo says to her, reaching out a hand and grabbing Barbie by the wrist. She shakes her arm lightly. “Dave has taken a million pictures of us already. We’ve done the formal thing; this is just a casual, real-life shoot for the Cape Kennedy newsletter. He wanted to get some shots of us as families, celebrating America—eating potato salad, watching fireworks. No big deal.”
Barbie puts out a hand like she’s trying to steady herself. “Okay, I just want to make sure we’re not going to show up in Life magazine looking like a bunch of sweaty women who don’t care that their children come out of the pool looking like drowned rats.”
“I think you’re taking this way too seriously,” Carrie says with an amused frown. “It’s Dave’s job to get pictures for NASA, and we don’t always have to look like we’ve been styled for a photo shoot, Barb. Sometimes he just wants to see us laughing and being ourselves. Maybe he’ll catch you eating a hot dog or something,” she jokes with a wink.
Barbie makes the sign of the cross. “Eating a hot dog! In a magazine! I will never?—“
“Sweetie,” Jo says, still holding Barbie’s wrist. “I promise I won’t let you anywhere near a hot dog, alright?”
Barbie nods gratefully.
“Let’s just be glad he wasn’t invited to that first party here,” Jude says as she shoves a cracker into her mouth. “Remember how your water broke over there,” she says, nodding at the front room. “And you almost had your baby on Jo’s new floors?”
Barbie’s face goes white at the very mention of America seeing her with amniotic fluid streaming down her thighs.
“Jude,” Jo says firmly, “stop scaring her.”
The doorbell rings then and Jo wipes her hands on a towel. “Keep her busy,” she says to Frankie with a glance at Barbie, who is tugging at the hem of her dress and smoothing her hair with both hands.
Jo walks to the door with a smile plastered on her face. It was her idea to invite Jeanie Florence, and she wants to be welcoming. She wants to get to know the girl who spends the entire work week with her husband, and to make a friend out of her. For some reason, this feels important to Jo: make a friend out of the woman who has slightly raised your hackles, and somehow avoid potential disaster. It's kind of like encountering a big, scary dog in the wild: make a friend before it turns into a foe, and perhaps it won't bite.
She puts her hand on the knob and takes a deep breath before opening the door.
"Hi!" says a woman in a low-cut top and a tight pair of capri pants. She's got frosted blonde hair that's curled and sprayed to within an inch of its life, and her lips are a glossy pale pink. Her tanned chest--and most of it is visible--is covered with sun spots and a tangle of thin gold chains. In one hand she's holding a bottle of champagne, and in the other, a Polaroid camera--the kind that spits out peel-apart black-and-white prints.
Jo is speechless. She knows she's looking as stunned as she feels, and she isn't even sure what to say to this middle-aged stranger.
"Oh! Jo!" a voice from the end of the driveway calls out to her. Jo looks that direction, relief flooding through her as Jeanie closes the door of her Volkswagen Bug and walks towards the door with a covered dish in her hands. "This is my roommate, Vicki."
"Hiya, doll!" Vicki says this time, still holding up the champagne and the Polaroid camera. "The party has arrived!"
Jeanie and Jo exchange a look, and then Jo gets her wits about her. "I'm so sorry, please--come in," Jo says, stepping aside to make way for Vicki and her champagne.
"Thank you so much for inviting us. Our only plan for the holiday was going to be watching fireworks with the retirees at our condo and having a picnic at the pool, so this is way more fun," Jeanie says in a rush. She follows Jo through the front room, looking around at everything as she does. "Your house is so beautiful, Jo. You have exquisite taste."
It's on the tip of Jo's tongue to tell the younger woman that she had, in fact, hired a designer to decorate the house when they'd first moved to Florida, but for some reason she holds that information under her tongue. "Well, thank you," Jo says, turning to take the covered dish that Jeanie hands her.
"I brought Waldorf salad," Jeanie says, keeping her gaze on the dish and avoiding the eyes of all the other women in the kitchen. Vicki has stopped short right behind Jeanie, and she looks around at the other ladies with open curiosity.
"Jeanie," Jo says, setting the bowl of Waldorf salad on the kitchen table with everything else. "I'd like to introduce you to Carrie Reed, Jude Majors, Barbie Roman, and I think you already know Frankie Maxwell, since it was her house where you and I met for the first time." Jeanie nods at each woman in turn, smiling hopefully. Behind her, Vicki gives a small cough.
"It's wonderful to meet you all. This is my roommate, Victoria Swanson," Jeanie says.
"Vicki," Vicki says, stepping all the way into the kitchen. "Thanks for letting an old gal like me crash your shindig here," Vicki says, still holding the champagne out like she's about to pop the cork and get the party started. "I came with bubbly, and I just got a Polaroid camera recently, so I thought I'd take a few snaps for posterity."
The women are nervous; Jo can feel it. Barbie is looking at Carrie, and Frankie is looking at Jo. Jude is eyeing the champagne.
"We're thrilled to have you--both of you," Jo says. "Please, make yourselves at home. We have drinks in here, and also in the cooler out back. Bill will be barbecuing soon, and there are kids everywhere you look, so just let one of us know if they're being too wild and splashing pool water on you."
"Oh, kids are wonderful," Vicki says, setting the bottle on the table and flashing about a mile of cleavage in the process. The women all avert their eyes politely, and Jo can already sense that they're getting an impression of Jeanie and Vicki without really talking to them. Weirdly, Jo feels a little protective of Jeanie and doesn't want the women to lump her in with party girl Vicki.
"Do you have children?" Barbie asks Vicki politely.
"Or grandchildren?" Frankie asks with a touch of sweetness that Jo knows is a put-on.
Vicki laughs and shakes her head; she is clearly not the least bit offended by the women's questions. "I do have a son--Steven--he's a junior at Tulane. I'd love it if he were a few years older so that I could set him up with this gorgeous, brilliant lady." She hooks her thumb in Jeanie's direction and Jeanie's cheeks bloom red. "But I think she's into slightly older men, aren't you, princess?"
Jeanie's mouth opens and closes before she finally responds. "Not...really. No. I'm pretty focused on work at the moment."
"You should have seen her at The Hungry Pelican," Vicki says as she laughs. "She had men dragging her onto the dance floor left and right!"
Jeanie looks mortified. "It was just one guy, actually," she says, though she clearly isn't keen on explaining. "My mother always told me that I should say yes if a man asks me to dance—that accepting just one dance is polite."
"Good advice," Jo says, feeling the need to side with Jeanie, or at least to let her know she's not hanging out here alone and defending herself in front of a bunch of women she doesn't know.
"Hey, let's get drinks for you ladies," Frankie says, barging into the conversation and steering it another direction. "Can I fix you something specific?"
"Could I do something simple like a screwdriver?" Jeanie asks, glancing at the sweating glasses in the other women's hands. "Or I can just have whatever the rest of you are drinking."
Frankie pulls the vodka out of the freezer and grabs a glass from the table.
"I think I'll head out back and get a beer from that cooler," Vicki says, pointing through the glass door to where Bill is bent over and extracting another bottle of beer from the container full of ice. "I think I'll make nice with those men out there and see if any of them know a nice, single astronaut they can set me up with." She wiggles her shoulders playfully and opens the sliding door carefully, making sure not to break her long, red nails in the process.
"Thanks again for inviting us both," Jeanie says with a clear apology in her voice. "Vicki is...she's a lot of fun," she adds, though her words sound like they're wilting. "She's a friend of my aunt's, and we've been living together since the beginning of the year." Jeanie pauses and accepts the screwdriver from Frankie with a smile. "Actually, I'm going to be honest: Vicki is forty-five, divorced, and loves to be the life of the party, but I can promise you, she's all heart."
Jo can tell that Jeanie feels like she needs to make excuses for her friend given the fact that Vicki is outside drinking beer with their husbands, but Jo wants her to know that it's all okay.
"Hey, she's fine," Jo says gently. "She seems like a fun lady, and you never know--maybe one of the guys knows someone single from work who they can set her up with. It's a party, and we're going to have a good time." She puts an arm around Jeanie's narrow shoulders and gives her a light squeeze.
"Let's get the kids set up with food," Barbie says. "I think Bill and Todd are putting burgers on the grill as we speak."
The women start to corral the kids and wrap their wet little bodies in towels so that they can file them through the makeshift buffet on the kitchen table.
By the time everyone has plates of food in hand and has found spots to eat--in the grass or on the pool deck or at the picnic table--Jeanie has made her way over to where Vicki is sitting with the men and Jo sees her laughing reservedly at something that Vance is saying to everyone as he stands at one end of the picnic table, gesturing wildly.
“So?” Frankie asks as she stands next to Jo near the sliding door. She’s standing so close that Jo can feel the heat emanating off her skin, and she’s smoking, her cigarette held in the hand farthest from Jo, so that the smoke curls up and away from them. “What do we think?”
For a split second, Jo considers feigning innocence. But this is Frankie; Frankie knows her. Jo pretends to watch the kids cannon balling into the pool. “She’s a sympathetic character,” Jo says.
“A ‘sympathetic character?’ What, are you writing her into one of your stories, Joey-girl? She’s not a character, she’s the woman who sits shoulder-to-shoulder with our husbands all day, and she’s fresh-faced and pretty.”
“Okay, that’s true,” Jo says, trying to be objective. “But when I look at her, I don’t see a woman out to poach our men. I see someone kind of…nice. She seems inexperienced and like she’s just trying to figure out life as she goes.”
Frankie lowers her chin and drops the hand holding her cigarette so that it’s dangling next to her thigh. She turns to Jo. “Listen,” she says seriously. “That’s the most dangerous kind of woman. She’s smart, she’s charming, and she is absolutely unaware of how appealing she is. She’s like a beautiful lump of clay, just waiting for a more mature man to mold her?—“
Jo cuts her off. “Frank, I don’t think so,” she says. “I mean, maybe men find her appealing—I can’t speak to that—but I think she’s just a nice girl. I like her.”
Frankie shrugs. “Well, go ahead like her if you want, but keep your eye on her. She’d look awfully cute next to an astronaut.” She lifts her cigarette to her lips and inhales. On an exhale, she tips her head at Vicki. “That one, though,” she says, “is nothing but trouble.”
Jo can’t argue with this. “I think she seems…” Jo trails off, looking for something nice to say about the older woman. “Okay, yeah, she seems like trouble.”
The women giggle together, and Frankie is leaning her sweat-slicked bare shoulder against Jo’s conspiratorially when Carrie comes over to them.
“What’s up, girls?” Carrie asks, sipping a glass of lemonade.
Jo takes Frankie’s cigarette from her and sneaks a quick puff; they generally have a cigarette or two while they’re on their evening walks, but Jo never smokes otherwise, and certainly not in the presence of her children.
“We’re clocking the competition,” Frankie says.
Carrie, a woman who is not given to any sort of artifice, turns to glance at them. “That Vicki is a hoot. She’s like a caricature of a middle-aged divorcee on the prowl. Fun though,” she adds nonchalantly. “And she’s got stories. Did you hear her talking about the time she accepted a date with a photographer in Chicago, fell asleep in his car, and woke up in Pittsburgh?”
Jo is stunned; this kind of behavior is entirely foreign to her. “I can’t even imagine it.”
Carrie clicks her unpolished nails against her glass. “I don’t judge,” she says firmly, lowering her voice. “Before I met Jay, I was dating a jazz musician and I can assure you, I saw some things whenever I went to his shows and then out with the band afterwards.”
It’s funny; Jo hasn’t really imagined her new friends’ lives before they’d arrived in Stardust Beach, and for some reason, it surprises her that Carrie had dated a musician. All she can see her as is Jay’s wife. As Marcus and Christina’s mom. She knows a fair amount about Frankie’s life, of course, but it’s easy to forget that they were all other people before they became wives and mothers.
The doorbell rings then and Jo lets Dave Huggins in. He's toting a camera and a flash. "I'll just nose around and grab the shots I want," he assures the women. "I want you to pretend I'm not even here, alright?"
"Done," Jo says. "And please help yourself to anything you want. We have plenty of food here--enough to feed a small army."
Dave lifts a hand and heads out into the yard. The women continue their conversation like there'd been no interruption.
“Hey,” Carrie says, looking at Frankie. “How are things at Mia Perla?”
Frankie had opened her own dance studio, Mia Perla, in downtown Stardust Beach earlier in the year, and now she stays busy nearly every day teaching tap, jazz, and ballet to the children in the area.
“You know,” Frankie says, leaning over to put out her cigarette in the ashtray that Jo has helpfully set on a small table on the patio. “It’s been incredible. I love seeing the kids come in excited to try something new. And Christina is quite the little ballerina,” she adds, glancing at Carrie’s six-year-old daughter as she plays with Jo’s youngest, Kate. “She’s good at taking direction.”
Carrie beams with pride. “Oh, thank you! She loves it. Every day she asks me, ‘Do I go to Miss Frankie’s today?’”
“That’s sweet,” Frankie says, folding her arms across her chest. “I love it. It’s given my life a whole new sense of purpose, if I’m being honest. And I’m starting two classes for adults, though of course I don’t have as many people signed up for those yet.”
“Ballet for grown ups?” Carrie asks, tilting her ear towards her shoulder. “I’m the most graceless person I know. Maybe I should join and work on my posture and movements. Do you think I’m too old to learn how to prance like a cat instead of stomp like an elephant?”
“Never,” Frankie says. “It’s never too late to start to learn about how you hold your body in the surrounding space, and to change how you move and breathe.”
“Breathe?” Carrie asks with a frown. “Am I breathing wrong?”
“Maybe,” Frankie says. “We work on breathing in and out slowly, and with intention. You might find that it helps you in other parts of your life, too. Like, when the kids are on your last nerve and you have a kitchen to clean, you can apply the slow, intentional breathing of a ballerina and bring yourself to an elevated place.”
“Whoa.” Carrie looks impressed. “Okay. Maybe I should try it.” She turns to Jo. “I’d beg you to join me for moral support, but between the hospital and your writing, I doubt you have a moment to spare!”
Jo is about to protest and say that, sure, she’d like to try grown up ballet too, but she realizes that Carrie is right. “At the moment, I do seem to have my hands pretty full.”
As if on cue, Kate jumps out of the pool and comes rushing towards Jo, dripping water all over the concrete as she does. “Mommy! Mommy!” she shouts. “Can Christina and I help the daddies set off fireworks?”
Frankie chuckles as Jo and Carrie swoop in to explain to their daughters why little girls aren’t allowed to play with explosives. Jo goes inside to find extra towels for the kids who have managed to get almost every single one sopping wet, and once the door closes behind her, she basks there in the silence for a moment, glad for the barrier between her and all the excitement outside.
As she stands there in her kitchen, looking at the half-eaten platters and bowls of food on her table, Jo feels a rush of joy. When they’d left Minnesota for Stardust Beach, she’d thought she was leaving behind friends and parties and true happiness forever; she’d been so sure that this new place would never feel like home. But now here she is, a year later, surrounded by people she likes and cares about. Her husband is happy, her kids are happy, and she feels happy. She’s really and truly happy.
The moment lasts for nearly a full minute as Jo puts lids on things and sets covers over open dishes to keep them fresh. The kids are laughing happily outside, and she can hear the muted chatter of the adults, who are obviously enjoying the party. She’s looking at everything with a small smile on her face, feeling pleased.
And then the phone rings.