Page 30 of Supernova

Frankie shrugs. “I’m just saying.”

Jo looks at herself in the rearview mirror, fluffing her hair with her fingers. “Do you think I’m being crazy?”

“Yes and no,” Frankie says honestly, watching as two handsome men in suits walk past their car and stride right for the front doors of Cape Kennedy’s main building. “I mean, men are men, which is what makes women act like women. So…I think you have every right to want to see this girl.”

“Will you come with me?”

Frankie shoots her a look. “Jojo, Ed is in Seattle. It would look weird if I showed up here when my husband will clearly not be here.”

Jo nods at this. “You’re right. Okay, I’ve got this.”

“Of course you do,” Frankie says. She unrolls the passenger side window and then lets her arm hang out in the sun. She leans her head back against the seat and closes her eyes. “Go get em, tiger. Show that girl who’s the boss!”

Jo gives a sigh of exasperation and pulls the small picnic basket she’s packed out of the car. She suddenly feels foolish. She’s put on her favorite dress, done her hair and makeup, and packed Bill a special lunch of cold fried chicken, potato salad, and buttermilk biscuits. She’d cooked all morning, and now here she is, standing in the shadow of a rather intimidating building,and hoping that the man who knows her better than anyone else in the world won’t see right through her little scheme.

“Bill Booker, please,” Jo says at the front counter. The woman behind it is so gorgeous she could stop traffic, and Jo’s words nearly catch in her throat.

“Oh,” the secretary says in a breathy voice. “Of course. Let me try to call Lieutenant Colonel Booker’s desk,” she says as she eyes Jo with the tiniest arch of her brow. The woman has dyed blonde hair, red lips, and a thin cardigan wrapped around her narrow shoulders. Her bust is enormous, and Jo forces herself to keep her eyes on the secretary’s face as she dials the phone.

It rings and rings. Jo can hear it. After several seconds, the woman hangs up. “He’s not at his desk. Would you like to leave him a message?”

Jo hadn’t bargained on not being able to track him down. “Oh,” she says, thinking on her feet. “I’m his wife. I brought him a special lunch because it’s our anniversary. It’s a surprise,” she adds, smiling widely for good measure.

“Your anniversary!” The secretary’s smile brightens. She glances around. “Okay, then let’s get you back there,” she says in a whisper.

Jo’s heart leaps in her chest; she’s about to go back into the belly of the building, and she suddenly isn’t sure that she wants to. “Uhhh,” she says, fiddling with the wicker handle of her picnic basket. “Actually, maybe I’ll just save it for dinner. I was hoping it would be an easy drop-off, but I don’t want to bother him.”

“Nonsense!” the secretary says with a huge, friendly smile. “I’ll take you right back.”

But Jo knows Bill: he will sense immediately that she’s up to something, and there’s no way that she wants to alert him to the fact that she’s feeling jealous. It will be much safer just to abortthis mission right now and pretend she’d never been driven to doing something as silly as stalking her husband’s place of work.

“No, no,” Jo says, grabbing her basket and giving the woman a hasty, uncertain smile. “Thank you for your time. If you could please not mention that I was here, then I’ll just surprise him with this for dinner.” She walks towards the glass doors that lead to the parking lot, calling back over her shoulder, “Have a good day!”

Frankie sits up abruptly as Jo swings the door open and slides in, shoving the picnic basket at Frankie. “Let’s go.”

“What happened?” Frankie slides off her cat-eye sunglasses and sits up straight. “Did you see her? Is she gorgeous?”

Jo cranks the engine over and backs up quickly. “No, I changed my mind. It seemed too risky.”

This makes Frankie laugh. “Risky? Like you were going to get recruited to go to space if you walked through the doors?”

“No,” Jo says, looking both ways as she pulls onto the long road that leads off the NASA property. “Risky like my husband was going to see my stupid face and me holding a picnic basket and lying to the secretary about it being our anniversary, and he was going to know immediately that I was up to no good.”

“Ohhh,” Frankie says, nodding. “Thatkind of risky. Got it.”

They drive in silence all the way to the beach, where Jo parks in a spot that faces the ocean. She turns to Frankie. “How do you feel about fried chicken and biscuits?”

“All I’ve done since Ed left is eat, so what’s one more big meal?” She opens her car door and puts one foot on the ground. “Let’s eat at that picnic table over there, yeah?”

Jo follows her, wicker basket in hand. The table in question is a bit lopsided because of the sand it sits on, but it faces the water. The women sit side-by-side on one bench, and Jo pulls out the feast that she’d made for her husband under dubious pretenses.

“This would have never worked,” she mutters to herself, feeling a laugh bubble up inside of her as she imagines Bill’s face had she tried to hand him a picnic basket. “It was a terrible idea.”

Frankie chuckles. “Yeah,” she agrees. “Terrible, but understandable. Any woman would want to see who was calling her man late in the evening.”

“But remember,” Jo says, holding up one finger, “it wasn’t the call, it was the way he jumped out of his chair.”

“Precisely.” Frankie takes the small container of chicken from Jo and opens it carefully, trying to preserve her red nail polish. “I think it’s always wise to keep tabs on the women who are spending time around your husband. It’s completely normal to want to know who we’re up against.”

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