Page 19 of The Space Between

It's on the tip of Jo's tongue to tell the younger woman that she had, in fact, hired a designer to decorate the house when they'd first moved to Florida, but for some reason she holdsthat information under her tongue. "Well, thank you," Jo says, turning to take the covered dish that Jeanie hands her.

"I brought Waldorf salad," Jeanie says, keeping her gaze on the dish and avoiding the eyes of all the other women in the kitchen. Vicki has stopped short right behind Jeanie, and she looks around at the other ladies with open curiosity.

"Jeanie," Jo says, setting the bowl of Waldorf salad on the kitchen table with everything else. "I'd like to introduce you to Carrie Reed, Jude Majors, Barbie Roman, and I think you already know Frankie Maxwell, since it was her house where you and I met for the first time." Jeanie nods at each woman in turn, smiling hopefully. Behind her, Vicki gives a small cough.

"It's wonderful to meet you all. This is my roommate, Victoria Swanson," Jeanie says.

"Vicki," Vicki says, stepping all the way into the kitchen. "Thanks for letting an old gal like me crash your shindig here," Vicki says, still holding the champagne out like she's about to pop the cork and get the party started. "I came with bubbly, and I just got a Polaroid camera recently, so I thought I'd take a few snaps for posterity."

The women are nervous; Jo can feel it. Barbie is looking at Carrie, and Frankie is looking at Jo. Jude is eyeing the champagne.

"We're thrilled to have you--both of you," Jo says. "Please, make yourselves at home. We have drinks in here, and also in the cooler out back. Bill will be barbecuing soon, and there are kids everywhere you look, so just let one of us know if they're being too wild and splashing pool water on you."

"Oh, kids are wonderful," Vicki says, setting the bottle on the table and flashing about a mile of cleavage in the process. The women all avert their eyes politely, and Jo can already sense that they're getting an impression of Jeanie and Vicki without reallytalking to them. Weirdly, Jo feels a little protective of Jeanie and doesn't want the women to lump her in with party girl Vicki.

"Do you have children?" Barbie asks Vicki politely.

"Or grandchildren?" Frankie asks with a touch of sweetness that Jo knows is a put-on.

Vicki laughs and shakes her head; she is clearly not the least bit offended by the women's questions. "I do have a son--Steven--he's a junior at Tulane. I'd love it if he were a few years older so that I could set him up with this gorgeous, brilliant lady." She hooks her thumb in Jeanie's direction and Jeanie's cheeks bloom red. "But I think she's into slightly older men, aren't you, princess?"

Jeanie's mouth opens and closes before she finally responds. "Not...really. No. I'm pretty focused on work at the moment."

"You should have seen her at The Hungry Pelican," Vicki says as she laughs. "She had men dragging her onto the dance floor left and right!"

Jeanie looks mortified. "It was just one guy, actually," she says, though she clearly isn't keen on explaining. "My mother always told me that I should say yes if a man asks me to dance—that accepting just one dance is polite."

"Good advice," Jo says, feeling the need to side with Jeanie, or at least to let her know she's not hanging out here alone and defending herself in front of a bunch of women she doesn't know.

"Hey, let's get drinks for you ladies," Frankie says, barging into the conversation and steering it another direction. "Can I fix you something specific?"

"Could I do something simple like a screwdriver?" Jeanie asks, glancing at the sweating glasses in the other women's hands. "Or I can just have whatever the rest of you are drinking."

Frankie pulls the vodka out of the freezer and grabs a glass from the table.

"I think I'll head out back and get a beer from that cooler," Vicki says, pointing through the glass door to where Bill is bent over and extracting another bottle of beer from the container full of ice. "I think I'll make nice with those men out there and see if any of them know a nice, single astronaut they can set me up with." She wiggles her shoulders playfully and opens the sliding door carefully, making sure not to break her long, red nails in the process.

"Thanks again for inviting us both," Jeanie says with a clear apology in her voice. "Vicki is...she's a lot of fun," she adds, though her words sound like they're wilting. "She's a friend of my aunt's, and we've been living together since the beginning of the year." Jeanie pauses and accepts the screwdriver from Frankie with a smile. "Actually, I'm going to be honest: Vicki is forty-five, divorced, and loves to be the life of the party, but I can promise you, she's all heart."

Jo can tell that Jeanie feels like she needs to make excuses for her friend given the fact that Vicki is outside drinking beer with their husbands, but Jo wants her to know that it's all okay.

"Hey, she's fine," Jo says gently. "She seems like a fun lady, and you never know--maybe one of the guys knows someone single from work who they can set her up with. It's a party, and we're going to have a good time." She puts an arm around Jeanie's narrow shoulders and gives her a light squeeze.

"Let's get the kids set up with food," Barbie says. "I think Bill and Todd are putting burgers on the grill as we speak."

The women start to corral the kids and wrap their wet little bodies in towels so that they can file them through the makeshift buffet on the kitchen table.

By the time everyone has plates of food in hand and has found spots to eat--in the grass or on the pool deck or at the picnic table--Jeanie has made her way over to where Vicki is sitting with the men and Jo sees her laughing reservedly atsomething that Vance is saying to everyone as he stands at one end of the picnic table, gesturing wildly.

“So?” Frankie asks as she stands next to Jo near the sliding door. She’s standing so close that Jo can feel the heat emanating off her skin, and she’s smoking, her cigarette held in the hand farthest from Jo, so that the smoke curls up and away from them. “What do we think?”

For a split second, Jo considers feigning innocence. But this is Frankie; Frankie knows her. Jo pretends to watch the kids cannon balling into the pool. “She’s a sympathetic character,” Jo says.

“A ‘sympathetic character?’ What, are you writing her into one of your stories, Joey-girl? She’s not a character, she’s the woman who sits shoulder-to-shoulder with our husbands all day, and she’s fresh-faced and pretty.”

“Okay, that’s true,” Jo says, trying to be objective. “But when I look at her, I don’t see a woman out to poach our men. I see someone kind of…nice. She seems inexperienced and like she’s just trying to figure out life as she goes.”

Frankie lowers her chin and drops the hand holding her cigarette so that it’s dangling next to her thigh. She turns to Jo. “Listen,” she says seriously. “That’s the most dangerous kind of woman. She’s smart, she’s charming, and she is absolutely unaware of how appealing she is. She’s like a beautiful lump of clay, just waiting for a more mature man to mold her?—“

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