Page 5 of Supernova

The front windows are open as the sun sets in a lavender sky, and tall palm trees wave over the roofs of the neighborhood houses, which are ringed in colored Christmas lights. With their bare, tanned arms, the women aren’t dressed for any winter that Frankie has ever lived through, but she loves the way that nothing about Florida matches her life from before. Everything feels new and different, and new and different means that Frankie can start over. She can let go of the past and make herself into whoever she wants to be--all she has to do is try.

And so she starts to sing—just jokingly at first, shimmying along as she sings with the Ronettes—and then with feeling. The other women look surprised at how big and strong her voice is, but Frankie keeps going until Carrie, Barbie, Jude, and Jo join in with her, their voices braiding together, drifting out the open windows and into the night.

TWO

ed

They’ve renamed the port.And Ed is as patriotic as the next guy, but when President Johnson rechristened the space center as “Cape Kennedy” right on the heels of the assassination, he’d mostly felt numb. They’d lost their president in one inexplicable moment, and that forward momentum that everyone was feeling about the space program had dulled just the slightest bit. But it shouldn’t be that way, and Ed knows this: LBJ is a champion of the space race, and his words to the nation as he’d renamed Cape Kennedy had been words of promise, of encouragement, and of curiosity. He wants to put men on the moon just as badly as Kennedy ever had, and Ed needs to believe that the assassination of the president hasn’t derailed both the countryandthe space program. He’s far too invested now.

Ed flips over in bed, punching his pillow and trying not to wake Frankie. He looks at her narrow back, her spine visible through a thin satin nightgown, and the way her ribcage swoops down into the valley of her waist. Then the landscape changes, rounding upwards and over her well-formed hips. His wife is a gorgeous woman—she has always been a gorgeous woman. He’d met Frankie in New York City one afternoon as she’d hurried past him in a trench coat over nylons with seams down the back.Nothing sexier than a woman in nylons with seams that raced down her calves, tracing the path that his hands wanted to take.

“Taxi!” Frankie had called out, one long, narrow arm jutting into the air. Her hair had been done and sprayed, and her makeup was thick and theatrical. “Taxi!” She’d dropped her arm and stamped a foot lightly. “Dammit,” she said under her breath as Ed had approached her.

“Let me, miss,” Ed said. He’d held up one hand confidently and let out a loud, piercing whistle. A taxi swooshed over to them and braked hard as Ed opened the back door for her. “Your chariot.”

Frankie stopped in her tracks and looked at Ed, poised though she was to jump into the back of the cab and hurry off to wherever she was going. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I’ll put you on the guest list tonight at Radio City. Bring a friend, if you like.”

“Radio City?” Ed frowned, still holding the door.

“Rockettes,” Frankie said. She was still in a rush and slid into the taxi. With just her head, she leaned into the open doorway and peered up at him through thickened eyelashes. “What’s your name?”

“Ed Maxwell,” he said. “Yours?”

“Francesca.” She smiled at him in a way that made his heart skip a beat. “Be there by seven o’clock. Go to the box office.” And with that, she’d pulled the door shut and the taxi had jolted forward like a sprinter off the line.

In the end, Ed had been able to convince his buddy Rick to accompany him, and the guys had squeezed into their velvet-covered seats in Radio City Music Hall, watching with wide eyes as the gorgeous women moved across the stage in a sea of shapely legs and wide, white smiles.

“Which one is she?” Rick had whispered, leaning over and bumping Ed with his shoulder.

Ed scanned the women and his eyes landed instantly on Francesca, whose dark hair made her stand out amongst the icy cool blondes and honeyed brunettes. “That one,” he’d said, never taking his eyes off of her.

After the show, they’d waited for Frankie outside the stage door and she’d seemed completely unsurprised to see them standing there. But Ed was the opposite of a cool cucumber when she walked out the door, and the first thing he'd done was nearly lunge at her with the intention of shaking her hand. Or kissing it gallantly. He actually wasn't sure which, but he knew that he wanted to touch her.

“Is this your date?” Frankie smirked, hands tucked into her trench coat pockets as she eyed Rick with amusement.

Ed’s heart raced. “I needed proof that a bonafide goddess had invited me to watch her dance on stage,” he’d said, feeling the embarrassment of his gushing flattery as it crossed his lips. "So I begged Rick to come and confirm that I wasn't making the whole thing up."

His words had the desired effect on Frankie as she blushed and looked over his shoulder shyly. “Well,” she said, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I’d invite you gents to the after party, but this is our day job, so we come here and then just go home most nights.”

“How about if you give me your number instead?” Ed had tried, looking at her almost bashfully. There hadn’t been a woman in years who’d made him feel that much like a nervous young boy asking out a pretty girl for the first time.

Frankie paused for a beat as she thought about it. “Okay,” she said. “You got something to write on?”

Ed and Rick madly patted down their pockets, but they had nothing: no pens, no paper, and very quickly, the stage door area cleared out and there was no one else to ask either.“Shoot,” Ed said, dejected. “How about if you just tell me and I’ll remember?”

Frankie laughed, a big, bubbling, appreciative guffaw. “You’ll remember my number? Okay, soldier,” she said, eyeing his slicked hair and the way his shirt was tucked with military precision.

She’d told him the string of numbers and they’d said their goodbyes as Ed chanted the numbers over and over in his head. On the way home, every time Rick tried to talk, Ed would hold up a hand and repeat the numbers again out loud.

“You’re really gonna call her, aren’t you?” Rick asked, tapping one foot lightly as a misty rain started to fall over the city. They were in the back of a cab together and Rick was about to get out near his place.

“You bet,” Ed said, chanting the numbers one more time for good measure.

“Okay, well good luck with that.” Rick shook his hand. “Thanks for taking me to see a bunch of beauties on stage tonight. Much appreciated.” He hopped out and shut the door, holding up one hand in farewell.

Ed waved back, saying Frankie’s number to himself over and over as the cab pulled back into traffic.

But now, here in the dark of night, Ed looks at his wife in their bed and tries to remember the excitement of those first few dates. He can barely grasp at the memories. Over the past three years, they’ve gotten married, moved to Florida, and Frankie has grown more distant than he could have imagined. Just as things have gotten more exciting, and they've had more to be happy about, Frankie has gotten quieter. She spends time with the other ladies in their neighborhood, and she even watches Bill and Jo Booker’s kids once a week while Jo volunteers at the hospital, but there’s something about Frankie that feels…restless. She’s recently given up smoking (Ed harborsno illusions that this will truly last, and to be perfectly honest, his wife without a cigarette in one hand is a bit like the Statue of Liberty without her torch), and it's only added to the feeling that Frankie is always gazing out a window into the unknown, jiggling her leg impatiently, or wanting to walk out the front door and wander away. Sometimes Ed wants to shake her awake even when she's sitting right there next to him on the couch and they're watching television together.

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