15. Jeanie
CHAPTER 15
Jeanie
It’s August, and Chicago is only marginally less unpleasant than Florida. Jeanie has flown up for a long weekend to attend the eighteenth birthday party of her younger siblings, Patrick and Angela. Being in the house she’d grown up in immediately restructures Jeanie’s sense of self, and without warning, she forgets that she’s a grown, capable woman who has been hired to work as an engineer for NASA, and instead finds herself saying “Yes, Mama,” to her mother’s every request, sleeping in the twin bed she’d occupied for most of her life in the same room as her sister, and asking permission to borrow the family car to make a quick trip to the pharmacy for aspirin.
“Just drink some water, sweetheart. You’ll be fine,” her mother says, swatting away the idea of buying aspirin.
“Mom, I’ve got a headache and cramps, and I really need aspirin. Water isn’t going to cut it,” Jeanie says, standing there with a hand out, waiting for the keys. She’s finally reached her limit for obedience and daughterly behavior, and that limit happens to be menstrual cramps.
Melva Macklin blushes at her daughter’s mention of cramps and wipes her hands on the front of the apron she’s wearing as she bakes her twins a birthday cake.
“Okay, Jeanie,” Melva says. She ducks her head as she walks over to the drawer where the car keys are kept. “Here you go. Be careful.”
As Jeanie drives through the lushly treed streets of their neighborhood, she thinks about her mother. Melva Macklin is truly a product of her time. Born in 1914, she’d grown up during the Great Depression and lived through both world wars. In Melva’s framework of understanding, a woman needed a husband, because she was born to have children, to raise them, and to make a good home for her family. Her interests were demure ones: baking, knitting, possibly reading light fiction if—and only if—her other tasks had been completed. Her idea of a good life is Jeanie’s idea of a simple, incomplete life, and the more time that Jeanie spends away from Chicago, the more she realizes that she’s never going to be able to live the life that her mother expects her to live.
At the pharmacy, Jeanie browses the aisles, looking at the lipsticks and the cough syrups, and finally choosing a bottle of aspirin that she takes to the counter. When she realizes that the man in front of her, who is perhaps thirty, is trying to discreetly ask for a box of the prophylactics that are stored behind the counter, she pretends to busy herself with digging through her purse, searching for her wallet.
In addition to giving the man a bit of privacy, she is also trying to mask her own reddening cheeks, because for some reason, the mention of condoms has brought Bill to mind, and this makes Jeanie wildly uncomfortable. Why is it that the brain brings thoughts forward at the most inopportune times? And the things that one should be thinking about least become the things that highjack all thoughts and reason, refusing to let go?
By the time she’s paid for her aspirin and gotten back into the car, Jeanie has wrenched control of her mind again, but not before wondering idly whether Bill and his wife rely on male prophylactics, which of course means that she’s now thought of Bill in the nude, and—oh God—Jeanie places both hands on the steering wheel of her mother’s station wagon and lets her forehead fall against it lightly as she squeezes her eyes shut and tries to forget this entire train of thought.
Jeanie lifts her head from the steering wheel and starts the engine. “Birthday cake,” she chants to herself. “Ice cream and balloons and music and grandparents,” she says, turning the car out of the lot and merging into traffic. “Birthday cake, birthday cake, birthday cake,” she tries again, watching for cars as she crosses through an intersection.
And the afternoon is filled with everything Jeanie has imagined: her mother frosts the cake with bright orange icing and sticks thirty-six small candles into the spongy dessert—eighteen for Patrick, and eighteen for Angela. Wendell’s parents, who are actual grandparents to the twins and de facto ones for Jeanie, are there, and they ask her with appropriate interest and awe all about her job, her condo in Florida, and what it’s like to work with people who fancy the idea of going to space.
“It’s wonderful,” Jeanie says, holding her plate in one hand and her fork in the other as she takes small bites of the orange frosted cake. Patrick has put on a Beatles album, and Angela is sitting on the floor near a stack of vinyl records, sorting through them as she chooses the next one. “The idea of traveling to the moon is so inspiring.” She looks out the window dreamily as she says this, but realizes quickly that Wendell Macklin’s parents, who had been born in the late 1800s, most likely view the entire prospect of space travel as so fantastic, as such complete science fiction, that they can only smile with amusement at the very notion. After all, these are people who first saw the automobile when they were in their thirties, and for whom Lincoln’s assassination and the Titanic’s catastrophic voyage are anything but ancient history.
“Well, Jeanette,” Mrs. Macklin says, patting her gray hair, which is pulled back in a bun. “Life is a wonder and a mystery. We’re so proud of you.”
“Thank you, Grandma Macklin,” she says, using the moniker that Wendell’s mother had insisted she use the moment her son had married Jeanie’s mother. They’ve always been so good to her, and Jeanie loves them both, just as she loves Wendell. She looks over at her mother and Wendell now, and they’re standing proudly in the center of the room, talking to Wendell’s brother and his wife, who have come to town from Milwaukie for the occasion.
These people are my family , Jeanie thinks. And they’re good people. Maybe none of them understand what I do, and maybe most of them don’t approve of a woman doing the job that I do, or maybe they don’t support a woman who wants to go to space at all, but they’re still my family .
After she helps her mother get the entire house back in order following the party, Jeanie flops down on the couch between her brother and sister.
“What’s going on with you two?” she asks them, folding her hands across her overly-full stomach. In addition to the cake, she’d eaten more than her fair share of spaghetti and garlic bread.
“We’re eighteen,” Patrick says dully. “In case you hadn’t heard.”
“Oh, I heard, smarty-pants,” Jeanie says, reaching over to swat his thigh. “And I’m still your big sister even though you’re a grown up now, so show some respect.”
Angela laughs. “Honestly. He should show everyone more respect.”
Jeanie can feel some friction between the twins, but they are and have always been a closed unit, so she glances back and forth between them, unsure what might have caused Angela to deliver this particular directive.
“Let’s go out,” Jeanie says, slapping the couch with both hands and then pushing herself up so that she's standing. “Let’s get a drink.”
“We’re only eighteen, Jean,” Angela says with a sigh. “Remember—they changed the drinking age last year from eighteen to twenty-one.”
Patrick runs a hand through his short hair. “Dumb,” he proclaims. “Everyone drinks anyway.”
“Oh. Right. The drinking age—of course. Let’s go out and get a Coke then. I want to take my brother and sister out on the town.”
Patrick huffs a laugh. “Is getting a Coke considered going ‘out on the town’ in Florida?”
“Get your stuff, Patch,” Jeanie says, using the nickname she’d given her little brother as a baby. “You too, Angelina,” she adds, throwing in Angela’s nickname for good measure.
The summer night is hot, and it took some convincing for Melva to let the kids take the car out, but now they’re driving with the windows down and the radio blaring, and Jeanie happily sits in the passenger seat, letting her brother drive.
“So,” Patrick says, one arm hanging lazily out the driver’s side window. “How do you like it down there, Jean? Is it good?”
Jeanie looks ahead at the cars on the road, watching their red taillights. “It is good,” she says. “I live in a condo where everyone is over seventy except for me and Vicki, who is Aunt Penny’s best friend?—“
“We met her once,” Angela says from the backseat. “She wears a ton of makeup and talks about men a lot, doesn’t she?”
This makes Jeanie smile. “Sounds like her.” She points at a diner on the corner. “Let’s go there.”
They carry on the conversation as they slide into a booth next to a window that looks out at the busy street. “Anyway,” Jeanie continues, “Florida is interesting. It’s so humid that it feels like you could cut the air with a knife in summer, and it’s totally flat. All you can see for miles is the line of trees—no mountains, no hills. And the beaches are amazing. White sand and warm water…sometimes it feels like paradise.”
“But don’t you miss Chicago?” Patrick asks.
They pause to order Cokes and a basket of fries to share, and as they’re handing their menus back to a tired-looking waitress, Jeanie laces her fingers together and puts her elbows on the table, resting her chin on her hands.
“Yeah, I miss it. There are big cities in Florida, of course, but even Miami doesn’t hold a candle to Chicago. I miss snow in winter, and being able to go into a city where you have choices between museums, theaters, and parks. But my job makes it worthwhile. I love NASA.”
Angela’s eyes widen. “Do they let you do the same things that the men do there?”
Jeanie’s gaze travels to her sister’s face and she searches it for a moment. Angela has always been sweet. She is the quietest of Melva’s three children, and she has never once done or said anything that would alarm anyone. Sometimes Jeanie wants to shake her and ask her if she knows that there’s more out there. The world is so big, and the opportunities endless, and she doesn’t want her baby sister to pigeonhole herself so early in life.
“Have you always wanted to be a teacher?” Jeanie asks instead of giving a straight answer.
Angela shrugs. “Yeah. I always played school with my dolls, remember?”
“I do,” Jeanie agrees. “But you know women can be more than teachers or nurses, right? There are so many choices, Angelina.”
Angela’s forehead creases slightly, in the way that smooth, unlined eighteen-year-old foreheads do when their owners are mildly puzzled or chagrined. “I didn’t even know women could work for NASA until you did it.”
Jeanie draws in a breath and holds it. She releases and puts her palms flat on the cold tabletop. “Look, Angelina, the world is not fully ready yet for all the things that women can do, but it’s opening up to us. Think of how much it’s changed since Mom was young. When my dad died, she was a woman with a child, and she’d never been to college. She had no work skills. Her choices were really limited.”
“So she only married Dad because she couldn’t do anything for herself?” Patrick asks, sounding offended.
“No!” Jeanie turns to look at her brother, who is seated next to her in the booth. “Oh, Patrick—no. She met your dad when I was in his class, and right away it was clear that they loved each other very much. That has never been in question.” Jeanie pauses here. This is all true; she knows that, in fact, her mother had fallen hard for Wendell Macklin straight away, but privately she’s always thought that a need to survive and care for her only child might have sped things along. She will not, however, share that thought with her siblings. “Your mom and dad are very much in love and happy.”
“So you don’t think I should be a teacher?” Angela presses. “You think I should do something else—maybe leave Chicago?”
This is not going the way Jeanie had expected, and when the waitress drops off their sodas and fries, she reaches into the basket to grab one, grateful for a distraction.
"That's not what I'm saying at all, Angela. I just want you to know that you can dream bigger. Picture other things than a life here where you marry and settle down at twenty."
Angela blinks at her as if she's speaking a foreign language. "You don't think I should marry Andy? I mean..." She suddenly looks panicked, and she hasn't even touched the Coke in front of her. "We've been together for two years, Jeanie. We want to get married. I've worked hard to keep this relationship going, but now I feel like you're telling me that I'm limiting myself if I marry Andy and become a teacher here in Chicago."
For once Patrick is quiet as a mouse, nibbling on the fries as he looks back and forth between his twin and his older sister.
"That's not what I'm saying at all!" Jeanie nearly shouts. She glances around to see if she's disrupted anyone else, then lowers her voice. "Please, you're taking this the wrong way. I just want you to have the option to think through what you want out of life. That's all."
"I have thought it through," Angela says with passion as she balls up her napkin and tosses it on the table. "And I want to marry Andy. I like my life, and I like my plans." She stands up, looking down at Jeanie as she fumes next to the table. "I just wish you were proud of me, too."
Jeanie's mouth gapes open like a fish as she watches her baby sister walk through the diner like she's on a mission. With a shove, she pushes open the door to the ladies' room and disappears inside.
"Well, you pissed her off," Patrick says with a shake of his head. "Good luck coming back from that." He gives Jeanie a knowing smirk as he glances at the basket of fries between them. "Hey, you gonna eat those?"
Jeanie pays the check at the diner after Angela rejoins them. It's awkward, to be sure, but she does her best to redirect the conversation, and Angela plays along, mercifully, catching her big sister up on what's been going on in her absence. Her best friend is engaged, two of her classmates have enlisted in the military, and one of the teachers at Elmwood Country Day just found out that she has cancer.
It's completely dark out when they slip into the car, and Jeanie is exhausted by the long, hot day. The party had been nice, but she'd ended up making small talk for hours, and now she's mildly frazzled by the way she'd gone into this talk with her siblings thinking that her sister might feel empowered but instead ended up angry. She's getting settled into her seat when Patrick slips a flask from under the front seat of the car, takes a swig, and recaps it, and he's tucked it away completely by the time Jeanie turns to look at him.
"Shall I escort you ladies home before I head out for the evening?" he asks, turning the key and causing the engine to rumble to life.
"You're going out after this? Is Mom okay with that?" Jeanie holds her purse in her lap. She sincerely doubted that at eighteen, her mother would have been thrilled with her starting her evening at nine-thirty p.m., and she'd bet dollars to donuts that Angela isn't allowed to head out with friends this late, either.
Patrick shifts gears on the steering wheel, backing out of the spot with one long, strong arm resting on the back of the seat as he turns to look behind him. "Of course," he says, shifting into drive and pulling forward. "I'm a man, sis. I can come and go as I please."
And it's this, this right here , that infuriates Jeanie. She turns to look out the window as they drive. They’ve left the busier city streets of their suburban enclave and are now winding through less traveled roads, speeding along on their way back to the house. Jeanie glances at her brother’s profile in the darkness; he’s a young man now. He’s growing up and finding his way, and no one but her has bothered to question Patrick being allowed to come and go as he pleases—which, she might point out, is the way that he's been able to carouse and get into trouble with his friends—and by the same token, no one has bothered to sit Angela down and talk to her about what she might truly want for herself.
This bothers Jeanie.
"You know," Jeanie says, once the feelings of injustice have bubbled up inside of her to the point that they boil over. She’s worried about her siblings, but she wants them to know it all comes from a place of love. “I really hate how?—"
But she never has the chance to tell her brother and sister what she’s thinking, and she never gets to lecture her brother about the choices he's making. Furthermore, Jeanie never sees the flask that Patrick has tucked between his thighs, because what she sees instead is the stop sign that he blows through, one arm still hanging casually out the open window as he turns to look at Jeanie. Patrick never sees the giant pickup truck that has also, against all odds, barreled through the stop sign that should have given its driver pause, and so the two vehicles collide at full speed in a sharp, screeching crash of metal.
The last thing Jeanie sees as she lays in the field where she's been thrown is the blinking light of the flipped truck's turn signal, which flickers methodically in the darkness, illuminating Angela's broken and bent body as it lies just feet from Jeanie.