Page 19 of The Launch

Bill squashes an amused grin. “I’m trying not to find this funny,” he says. “But for some reason I do. Just the idea that there’s a dossier on the Booker family from Minnesota. And that you’ll somehow be raising our profile by changing bedpans in a hospital.”

“Why?” Anger rises in Jo’s chest, and she puts her arms over the top of the blanket and sheets, hugging the covers tightly against her body. “Why is it so funny to you that I want to reach for some sort of self-actualization,William Booker?”

Bill’s eyebrows shoot up and the amused smile on his face vanishes. “Oh? We’re going with the full name now? Okay. Then let’s talk. Your self-actualization is important to me,Josephine, but so is the happiness of my family, and the success of my career, which—by the way—is why we’re in Florida in the first place.”

Jo turns her gaze back to the popcorn ceiling and pulls her arms across her body even more tightly. “Oh, believe me—I’m well aware of why we’re here. And Iamsupportive, Bill. I always am. But there was little to no discussion about uprooting our lives and moving across the country. No one asked if this was okay with me, and I know that the kids are just children and therefore they go where we go, but no one asked them either.”

Bill sits up and fluffs his pillow with angry punches before flopping back onto it again and reaching for the switch on his lamp to turn it off. “This discussion is ridiculous and fruitless,” he says with finality. “We are here to live the kind of dream that almost any family in America would kill to live, Jo, and all you do is complain about it.”

Unlike Bill, Jo sits up abruptly, knocking the blankets away. She looks at him in disbelief. “All I do is complain about it? Are you kidding me, Bill? I have made friends, I have the kids doing activities and meeting playmates, and I have been working on the house to make it nice for you,” Jo says, ticking each itemoff on her fingers. “I took Barbie’s advice and got a decorator to come in and make some suggestions—did you even notice the fabric swatches on the kitchen counter? I’m choosing new furniture on my own, because you don’t seem to care about anything but rocketing off to the damn moon.”

It’s Bill’s turn to sit up and turn to Jo incredulously. He’s looking at her with wide, uncomprehending eyes. “Do not swear at me, Josephine,” he says, his eyes flashing at her. “I have more important things to occupy my mind with than whether we choose avocado suede or turquoise leather for the loveseat and barstools.”

Jo huffs, folding her arms across her chest as she stares right back at Bill. “You’re absent, Bill. Even when you’re home with us, you’re not really here. I can see it, and I think the kids can, too. It’s not good.”

“That’s whyyouare here,” he says, using his hands for emphasis. “And it’s why you aren’t a secretary in a dentist’s office anymore, or volunteering at some hospital. You’re here for our kids when I can’t be.”

Jo’s eyes fill with hot tears; he’s not hearing her at all.

“I know that. I love being a mother. Nothing makes me happier. And I love that you do things like swim with them, play catch with Jimmy, and let the girls chatter at you after a long day. But Bill, sometimes I need more, too. You leave the house all day and live this whole life that has nothing to do with us. All I’m asking for is a few hours a week where I push a cart from room to room in the maternity ward, offering magazines and snacks to new moms. I just want to be useful to people who I’m notobligatedto be useful to.”

Bill is quiet for a long moment as he assesses his wife’s demeanor. Finally, he gives a single nod. “I hear you, Jo. I think you’re probably reading too much of that Betsy Friendly,”he says, raising his chin in the direction of the book on her nightstand. “But I’m trying to listen to what you’re saying.”

“Betty Friedan,” Jo corrects him.

“Right. I think you’re probably getting too much crazy talk from that book about how horrible women have it, but I respect the idea that you want to do something that you feel will make you more a part of the community. And, besides that,” he says sheepishly, “itwilllook good on our ‘family resume,’ as you call it.”

Jo says nothing, but keeps her eyes on Bill’s face.

“So,” he says with a sigh, turning his palms to the ceiling. “I guess if it makes you happy to be a candy striper, then I say go for it.” He falls back onto his pillow again and flips onto his side so that his back is to Jo, as if the conversation is finished. “But no more than five or six hours a week, alright?” he adds.

Jo reaches over and turns off the lamp reluctantly, re-situating herself on her pillow in the darkness. Through the slit between their heavy, brocaded curtains, an inch of moonlight pours into the bedroom and falls across the gold carpet.

Jo says nothing more to Bill, but she focuses on the light of the moon as she lets her mind wander. Soon enough, Bill’s heavy breathing fills the room, and Jo drops into her own world of dreams.

“Well, hotdog, girl,” Frankie says, exhaling a stream of smoke into the air. She’s watching Jo from a seat at the kitchen table as Jo stands at her ironing board, smoothing the wrinkles from Bill’s work shirts and hanging each one up on a rack when she’s done. “Are you going to wear a little striped apron and cap?”

“I think that’s for high school girls who volunteer, isn’t it?” Jo says with a laugh.

“No, those are the Blue Teens.” Frankie shakes her head. “They wear those cute blue pinafores. I think we’d actually be Gray Ladies now. My mom was a Gray Lady when I was a kid.” Frankie takes a drag as her eyes follow Jo around the kitchen.

“Well, I’ll wear whatever they want me to wear,” Jo says as she picks up another wrinkled white shirt and spreads it across her trusty ironing board. Doing the laundry and filling Bill’s closet with freshly pressed clothing each week has been one of her favorite rituals for the entirety of their marriage. There is no doubt in Jo’s mind that she is a woman who enjoys domesticity and caring for her family, but the idea that her sense of purpose is now expanding excites her in a way that she can’t quite express. “I’m just looking forward to doing something outside the house.”

Frankie lays her cigarette at an angle in the heavy green glass ashtray that Jo’s placed on the table for her. “I’m impressed, Joey-girl. I am.”

“Hey, maybe you should join me? I bet they could use a few more volunteers at Stardust General.”

Frankie lifts an eyebrow as she crosses her legs beneath the table. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for bedpans and bedsores, honey.” She looks at Jo from under her penciled eyebrows. “I’m more of the ‘organizing luncheons for charity’ type of gal. So keep me in mind for something like that.”

Jo nods as she presses the steam button on her iron and a puff of hot air hits the cotton shirt. “Noted.”

“What are the kids going to do while you stripe the candy? Is there a daycare at the hospital or something?”

Jo frowns. “That’s the rub. I’m still thinking that through. If I work a few afternoons a week, I can probably leave Nancy and Jimmy in charge of Kate. I don’t know how much Bill will likethat, though…” She walks over to find a hanger for the shirt she’s just finished pressing. The whole ironing process is making the kitchen warmer than it should be, and Jo wipes the back of her hand across her sweaty brow.

“Hey,” Frankie says, picking up her cigarette again and holding it in the air. “I might live to regret this, but why don’t you let me watch them once a week? Let’s just try it out,” she says, amending her words quickly. “We’ll give it a go, and if they like their old Aunt Frankie, then maybe we can keep it up.”

Jo stops in the middle of the kitchen and stares at Frankie. One of the things she’s come to love most about her new friend is the way Frankie approaches everything with zeal and amusement, but she has never really imagined “Aunt Frankie” as the babysitting type.

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