12. Jo
CHAPTER 12
Jo
"Tell me everything you feel like you can tell me," Frankie says. She and Jo are on a late evening walk in the middle of July, and they're strolling through the humidity at a snail's pace. Frankie hands her cigarette to Jo, but for once, Jo waves it away.
"It's too hot to smoke," she says resignedly. "I'm not in the mood."
Frankie shrugs. "Suit yourself. Now tell me what's been going on."
Jo takes a long, deep breath. "Bill has been talking to Desert Sage, which is where Margaret has lived for the past thirteen or fourteen years. It's been kind of overwhelming for him. I think he blames himself."
"Wait. Back up." Frankie stops walking and Jo does the same. "We haven't really talked since the Fourth, so give me a play-by-play."
It's so hot that even walking feels like too much work. Instead, they sit on a patch of green grass at the edge of someone's yard and tuck their legs up beneath themselves criss-cross style. Jo pulls a few blades of grass and lays them across her bare knee.
"So they called and told me Margaret was dead, and you saw what happened when I went outside to tell Bill." They're silent for a moment, both picturing Jo's husband as he crumpled to his knees next to the barbecue. A nearly inhuman wail had emanated from him that had stopped even the children's raucous playing.
"Yeah," Frankie says. She's stubbed out the cigarette at this point, and she joins Jo in plucking blades of grass. "I saw. And I understand that he was upset, given the circumstances, but how could he possibly feel that any of it is his fault?"
Jo screws up her face for a moment and then relaxes it. "I always felt like he regretted putting her into a facility. Not that it wasn't necessary," she adds hurriedly, "but he regretted that he wasn't the thing that could 'fix' her, so to speak. And we were paying quite a bit of money out of our own pockets each month to keep her safe, so I think he's also mad that this happened in the first place. Like, how can a place that you're paying to watch over someone every minute of the day have turned their backs long enough for this to happen?"
"It is tragic," Frankie agrees.
A man comes out of the house behind them and the women scramble to get up because they realize they’re sitting in the yard of a neighbor they don’t even know.
“We’re sorry!” Jo says, brushing the grass off her legs as she stands.
“Ladies,” the man says, lifting a hand to stop them. “You’re fine. I’m not a huge fan of other people’s dogs using my grass as they please, but I don’t mind beautiful women taking a rest here.”
Frankie laughs and brushes the hair away from her face in a manner that’s almost coquettish. “Thank you. It’s just so hot, and we were out walking, and it looked so inviting.”
“Sit, sit,” he says, waving a hand as he gets into the driver’s seat of a brand new, cherry red 1964 Mustang convertible. “My wife is inside if you get thirsty and need a glass of water.”
Jo laughs as he starts the car and backs down the driveway. “Thank you,” she calls out to him, sinking back down onto the grass.
“Have a good evening, ladies,” the man says, giving them a small salute as he puts the car in drive and presses the gas lightly.
“So,” Frankie says, sitting down again. “Let’s get back to the matter at hand: Bill is upset he paid these people a lot of money to watch over his ex-wife, and they didn’t do a good enough job.”
Jo hems and haws. “Well…kind of. I think partially, at least. Sure, there’s a part of him that feels like they didn’t do what they were supposed to do, and then I think there’s a part of him that…”
“What?”
“Well, I’m worried that I’m projecting my own feelings onto him, but maybe he’s a little relieved? Maybe we both are. I don’t know—would that be wrong?”
Frankie looks at her long and hard before answering. “Are you asking me whether it’s wrong for you to feel relieved that your husband’s first wife is dead?”
“Maybe?” Jo squints her eyes, feeling the shame wash over her.
“I don’t think that’s wrong at all,” Frankie says simply. “In fact, I’d question you if you said that you didn’t feel that way.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. What woman enjoys the thought of a first wife out there roaming around, much less a first wife who needs her husband to still be involved, and to make expensive monthly payments for her upkeep?”
“Frankie,” Jo says gravely. “I need you to understand that this isn’t about the money. Not at all. I would have gladly gone on paying that than to have Margaret end her own life.” She blanches at the mere suggestion that she might intentionally wish for Margaret to be dead. But she does wish that it didn’t feel so wrong to be a bit relieved about that chapter of Bill’s life closing for good.
A car full of teenagers drives past, and one of the boys in the front seat shouts out the open window at Jo and Frankie. “You two gorgeous ladies looking for a lift?”
The women stop talking and look at the boys, who are all of sixteen or seventeen. “Sure,” Frankie calls back. “Give me a lift to your house so that I can tell your mother that you’re being disrespectful to a couple of grown women in their thirties.”
One of the other boys howls with laughter, and the driver hits the accelerator and races off down the road, the taillights of the car glowing like two red beacons in the near darkness.
“Like that was an offer we couldn’t refuse,” Frankie says with an eye roll. She turns her attention back to Jo. “Okay, so as for you feeling like you need to be sorry that you’re not one hundred percent remorseful about Margaret’s passing, I say get over it, Joey-girl.” Frankie reaches over and pats Jo’s knee a few times for emphasis. “You’ve got to toughen up. Life is full of twists and turns, and at some point, this was always going to happen—if not exactly this way, then in some other way. Some other trauma. Some other tragedy. Stuff like this just jumps up and bites you when you least expect it.”
Jo leans back on her elbows in the grass, stretching her legs out in front of her. The living room light of the house whose lawn they’re lounging on goes on, casting a yellow glow in the blue dusk.
“I suppose it kind of does,” Jo agrees, chewing on the inside of her cheek.
“Now, you’re dealing with this—I assume Bill might have to travel to Arizona again? To…close things out?” Frankie asks delicately, clearly indicating the claiming of a body or some such final details.
“Desert Sage has agreed with Bill that a cremation would be the best course of action, and then yes, I think he’ll go there and claim the remains.” Jo winces. Admittedly, the idea of Margaret’s final resting place being on top of her mantel has been haunting her dreams, but she hasn’t had the heart yet to bring it up with Bill and to insist that they consider scattering the ashes or perhaps burying them somewhere in Florida. Truth be told, Jo has no idea how to approach that. At thirty-three, she hasn’t yet had much interaction with loss and death, and she’s finding it all a bit heavier than she would have anticipated, particularly in this situation, where Bill’s feelings are so much more complicated than hers.
“Mmm,” Frankie says, nodding. “That makes sense.”
They sit there as two more cars pass with their headlights on. Finally, Frankie nudges Jo’s foot with her own. “So what happened with whatshername?”
Jo frowns. “Who?” All she’s had on her mind of late is Bill, Margaret’s demise, and the logistics of handling the practical and emotional fallout of that.
“You know—Jeanie. She came to the Fourth of July with that stale Cape Cookie, and I wanted to know how you felt about her after really getting to meet her.”
“Frankie!” Jo says with disapproval. “You can’t call Vicki ‘stale’ just because she’s over forty.” She shakes her head, shooting her friend a look. “She was…full of personality.”
“Oh, is that what you’d call it?” Frankie lowers her chin and gives Jo a knowing look right back. “I swear she would have ended up in the lap of one of the men if that party hadn’t broken up.”
“I don’t know about that,” Jo counters. “She seemed like she just wanted to have a good time.”
“Yes, with one of our men,” Frankie intones as she swipes at a bug that’s landed on her shin. “But anyway, we digress.”
“Yes, we do,” Jo says with more than a little sarcasm. “As for Jeanie, I quite liked her. She was sweet, and there was something almost innocent about her. I’m not sure if that’s the right word.” Jo flails around, searching for a more apt description. “I mean, I know she’s an engineer in her late twenties, but somehow she also comes across as the teenaged babysitter who refers to you as Mrs. So-and-so and bakes cookies with the kids while you’re out, you know?”
“That’s called a ‘minx,’ honey,” Frankie says as she wags a finger at Jo knowingly. “She’ll sweet talk her way in, and then she’ll close the deal with your husband.”
“Frankie, what has gotten into you tonight?” Jo is half-laughing, and half-shocked by Frankie’s outbursts. “I really believe she’s just a nice woman who hasn’t made many friends here yet. And that would be hard, being childless amongst all these women who have kids—“ Jo cuts herself off as the mortification over what’s coming out of her own mouth creeps up her spine and starts to tickle her scalp. “Oh, Frankie. I didn’t mean?—”
“No, no,” Frankie says, shaking her head firmly. “I know what you meant. She’s single with no children, and that’s a different world than us old married gals.” Frankie puts a hand on top of Jo’s to reassure her. “Being married—with kids or without—is the great divide.”
Jo feels somewhat mollified that her friend didn’t take her words with any offense, but it still pains Jo to know that she’d so casually said something to Frankie that could have truly hurt her.
“Let’s keep walking,” Frankie says, standing up and offering Jo a hand. She pulls her to her feet and Jo swipes at her backside to brush off any stray blades of grass.
The women stop at every corner, look both ways, and then cross the streets together, still talking about Jeanie and Vicki.
“They stayed after the party and cleaned up my entire backyard, you know,” Jo says, feeling as though she’s trying to build a case in Jeanie’s favor so that Frankie will see the younger woman as harmless and not at all minx-like. “I thought that was really nice of them.”
“It was,” Frankie agrees, looping her arm through Jo’s as they stride up the sidewalk together. They stop in front of Jo’s house. “That was very thoughtful, given the circumstances.”
Jo stands at the foot of her driveway, dragging her toe across the concrete. “I just want everything to feel normal again,” she admits to Frankie. “And I know that’s going to take time—for me and for Bill. I’d gotten to where I could pretty much pretend that Margaret didn’t exist, but of course her death puts her front and center in our lives. It’s almost like she—or her ghost—has moved right into our house. Even the kids are acting strangely.”
“They’re just worried about Bill,” Frankie assures her. “He’s acting differently than normal, and the kids are picking up on that. Trust me.”
Jo nods with a grim smile. “You’re probably right,” she says, looking at the front door of her house and the way the porch light spreads a pool of yellow illumination onto the walkway. “I’m sure things will calm down here soon.”
“They will,” Frankie says. “But in the meantime, how are you going to cope with it? You’re not a big drinker, you say it’s too hot to smoke, and we only get out for a walk about once a week now. So what is Jo going to do for Jo?” Frankie asks, poking her friend in the chest lightly to make her point.
Jo thinks about this for a long moment, letting her eyes rove across the yard, up the trunk of the palm tree that’s growing taller with each passing day, and to the first stars of the evening.
“I think I’m going to write about it,” Jo says, nodding affirmatively. “Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to write.”