Page 48 of The Launch

“Should I put this here?” Carrie asks, placing a big, lacquered box covered in orchids on a long table. “Jay brought this back from a trip to Japan, and itislovely, but it doesn’t really suit my style at all.” She leans in to Jo and drops her voice to a whisper. “Please don’t tell him. It’s been in the back of my closet for years, so I’m assuming he won’t even miss it. I figured it might bring in some money for the Shepherds.”

Jo brushes her hair off her forehead and assesses the box. They can probably sell the piece for close to twenty dollars if they hold firm. It’s large and really quite beautiful. “Thanks, Carrie,” she says. “Your secret is safe with me.”

The sale runs the length of the street that leads into the neighborhood, and everyone who lives on a cul-de-sac hasgamely brought their donations out and found places along the tables and driveways on the main drag to display their items. Because all the money is going to the Shepherds, no one minds their belongings mingling with other people’s things for sale, and there’s no need to track who sells what.

“This is a fabulous idea, Josephine,” Maxine Trager says, pulling a red Radio Flyer wagon full of dishes along behind her. “I’m donating my wedding china because my mother-in-law picked it out, and frankly, I hate it.”

Jo stifles a laugh as she bends over to peer into the boxes. The china, patterned with birds and a lacy design of ivy leaves, looks exactly like something that a meddling mother-in-law would choose. “This will sell. No question.” Jo takes a tag off her clipboard, writes a figure on it, and sticks it to the biggest box. “Thank you for your donation!”

The sun is high in the sky and the weather has cooled noticeably since summer. Late October on the Space Coast is pleasant: the high is about eighty degrees, and the breezes occasionally blow things around. The women are dressed comfortably in skirts and capri pants and blouses, relieved to finally not be sweating through their clothing all day long.

Adam Shepherd has quickly become a huge part of Jo’s life at the hospital, and she probably spends as much time visiting him and his family as she does visiting Mr. Dandridge. Watching Adam struggle to survive and seeing the poor little boy look so confused by his confinement to a bed and a tangle of tubes and wires is terrible. It breaks Jo’s heart every time she walks into the room, and her days at the hospital are now tinged with a palpable sense of loss, and a dwindling of hope on all fronts. But if anything she can do will get Adam closer to the surgery he so desperately needs, then she’ll do it; hence her idea to put together a giant neighborhood tag sale and to donate all the profits to the Shepherds’ surgery fund.

“This is really impressive, Joey-girl,” Frankie says from the lawn chair she’s sitting in next to Jo. Frankie is holding a parasol over her head with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other. She turns her face up to Jo and smiles from behind her cat-eye sunglasses. “You really brought this neighborhood together for a cause, sister.”

Jo feels a rush of pride at the compliment, but to her, she’s only doing what needs to be done. Back home, if anyone in her community needed something, she was the first person to roll up her sleeves and quietly help. In her mind, it’s just what you do.

“It’s a worthy cause,” Jo says, as if anyone is questioning the veracity of Adam’s need for the surgery. “And the Shepherds are truly wonderful people. Did I mention that Adam’s mother is pregnant again? She just told me yesterday.”

Frankie looks down the street and puts her cigarette to her lips again. “You did not mention that, no. But I completely understand your desire to help.” Frankie gets to her feet so quickly that it startles Jo. “Oh,” she says, handing her parasol to Jo. “Hold this, will you? I’m going to go and help Jude with her boxes.”

Jo takes the flowered parasol and presses the button to close it so that she can lay it across the lawn chair and get back to tagging items with her price stickers. From the corner of her eye, she watches Frankie reach for the big box that Jude is carrying, and the women walk side by side over to a table, where Frankie sets it down carefully. Hope and Faith are trailing the women, wearing matching yellow sundresses. Jo waves at the girls and they wave back.

Ever since Jude’s fall into the pool, everyone has been solicitous and worried about her health. Jo hasn’t recounted her conversation with Vance in her driveway to any of the other women, so it’s still just her private guess that Jude might have a drinking problem, and she worries about it every time shesees the woman, wondering how it affects her family and—most importantly—her children.

“Are you taking art work?” A blonde woman with a baby in a stroller asks Jo, handing her three small, framed paintings. “I’ve had these on my wall for years, and you know what?” she says, cocking her head and putting one fist on her narrow hip. “I don’t even like them.”

Jo inspects the paintings: they’re of three different varieties of flowers, bold in color, and decent in execution. The frames are nice.

“We’d love to take them,” Jo says with a smile, already writing out a sticker to put on the back of one of the frames. “I’ll sell them as a trio. Thank you very much for your donation.”

The woman smiles, satisfied that she’s contributed, and pushes the baby on down the road.

Jo turns back to Jude and Frankie. Frankie is doing a lot of talking, while Jude just appears to be listening.Has Jude been more vacant since the accident, or is she pretty much the way she’s always been? Jo wonders, trying to compare the pre-fall Jude to the one who is standing before her now.Sure, there have been times when Jude appeared to drift off mid-stitch in her knitting, and there have been other times when she’s gotten her own twins confused, but come on! They’re identical, for crying out loud! Jo runs through the list of things she’s observed, playing devil’s advocate as she goes.But then there was that time when she actually seemed drunk at noon, which was so preposterous that none of the other women seemed to even consider the possibility. It’s just as likely to them that she’s still suffering from the after-effects of the fall and the time she’d spent in the water.

Jo certainly has her hands full with her own children, her home, her marriage, Margaret, the work she’s doing at the hospital, and everything else in life, but Jude is not entirelyoff her radar; she’ll keep her eye on her friend and make sure that anything worth noting gets tucked away for further investigation. The idea that a woman she spends time with might need someone to help her and that her own busy life might obscure that need just doesn’t sit right with Jo. She vows to do better and to check in on Jude more.

“How much for this?” A woman who has parked her blue car down the street is clutching a handbag as she bends over, admiring a necklace made of thick amber beads that Carrie has donated to the tag sale.

Jo lifts the necklace and holds it up for the woman to inspect. “This is four dollars,” she says with a pleased smile. The necklace is lovely, and she can imagine the older woman standing before her wearing it against a nice dress in brown or yellow.

The woman glances up at Jo. “This is the fundraiser for the sweet little baby in the hospital, right? I saw an advertisement for this sale posted in the window at Publix.”

“Yes, you found the right sale,” Jo confirms.

The woman unsnaps her handbag and takes out her wallet. “Then I’ll tell you what,” the woman says, “I’ll give you five dollars.”

Jo trades the necklace for the cash, which she puts into a metal box on the table, and watches the woman move down the table, admiring the other goods.

Jo looks up at the sky as an airplane passes overhead, leaving a long contrail across the infinite blue backdrop. A breeze picks up, blowing the palm fronds around and lifting a lock of Jo’s hair. A pack of kids on bikes ride by, shouting cheerfully as a mother tells them to stay out of the road and to watch for cars.

Jo closes her eyes, and for a moment she can’t tell whether she’s in Minnesota or Florida.

It’s a really good feeling.

“Mom! Is my costume done?” Jimmy is standing over Jo, looking down at her worriedly. “All the guys are going to meet at six-thirty on the corner to trick-or-treat.”

Jo wipes her forehead but doesn’t speak, as she has a mouthful of straight pins. She looks up at her son, her beautiful boy, who is growing so fast. He’s shot up so much in height over the past six months that he’s now almost at eye-level with his mother when they’re both standing. Jo spits the pins into her hand.

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