Page 34 of The Space Between

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.

---