Page 17 of The Light Year

She’ll be rinsing sand out of her nether regions for days to come at this rate, but as Huck hurries off again, all she can do is smile. Motherhood is a gift, and it’s one she refuses to take for granted.

jeanie

. . .

The kissby the fence had lit her on fire. Heat raged from Jeanie’s solar plexus and radiated out as Bill’s lips pressed against hers, his tongue searching her mouth right there at the Cape, where anyone could have seen, had they been looking.

This is getting too daring, she thinks, floating on her back in the pool of her condominium complex. She is the only person in the pool whose skin isn’t yet ravaged by wrinkles and sun, and also the only person born after 1900.

Two women in flowered swim caps and padded swimsuits drift by, waving liver-spotted hands at her when she turns her head in their direction. Jeanie smiles and waves back, but then turns her face to the sun again, the sound of everyone’s voices blissfully drowned out by the silence she hears underwater.

Bill kissed me. He didn’t even care who was watching. What does this mean? How do I feel about it?

The questions in her mind are unrelenting, but the answers don’t come easily. The day of the kiss, she’d come home to Vicki, intent on not telling her about it, but all it took was one look for her roommate to drop the magazine in her hands and pick up a cigarette.

“Spill it, princess,” Vicki had said around the cigarette as she touched it with the tip of a flame to light it. “You’ve got ‘just been kissed’ energy all around you.” Vicki blew the smoke out and put her bare feet on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankles.

Jeanie had laughed, still thinking she might be able to keep the kiss to herself. It took only moments for her to fold, sitting down across from Vicki with an air of defeat.

“I asked to talk to Bill outside today,” Jeanie admitted. “He met me at the fence and we just… we kissed. A lot.”

“Ooooh,” Vicki said, narrowing her eyes. “More, please.”

“He pushed me up against the fence and I completely forgot that we were in direct sight of the building. I have no idea if anyone saw us.”

“Are you doing it on purpose?” Vicki asked without hesitation. “Do you want to get caught?”

“No? I don’t think so?” Jeanie sounded as conflicted as she felt, and she knew it. “I think common sense would say that I want us to get caught so that it’s out there, but common sense would also say that I don’t want us to get caught because that will create so much trouble for Bill at home, and definitely for both of us at work.”

Vicki exhaled smoke as she nodded slowly. “Right. It would. But as we discussed, you two were caught on camera kissing—at least as far as we know. So it’s not likeno oneknows about you and Bill.”

Jeanie slumped forward, putting her forehead to her knees as she remembered the way people were already gossiping. “I know, I know,” she said, her words muffled as she talked into her legs. Vicki reached over and scratched her back lightly through her cotton dress, her long fingernails sending chills up and down Jeanie’s spine. Jeanie sat up and looked at Vicki with flushed cheeks. “Do you think I’m self-sabotaging?”

“That would be insane. You’ve worked way too hard for that.”

“I know. I have. But maybe I’m sabotaging Bill? Maybe I feel so angry at him for getting us into this situation—wait,” Jeanie stopped herself, waving both hands back and forth. “I can’t put this on him. I did this, too.”

“You did,” Vicki agreed with a single nod, tapping her cigarette into an ashtray. “You most definitely did. And you’re a grown woman, so let’s not take anything away from you by putting it all on him.”

Jeanie nodded. Her sigh was so heavy that it felt like it carried actual weight as it left her body. “I think I need to leave, Vic.”

Vicki’s eyebrows shot up. “Leave NASA?”

“Leave Florida,” Jeanie said sadly. “This is my dream job, but I’m turning it into a nightmare, and I can’t stop myself.”

Vicki ground the cigarette out in her ashtray. “Let’s just tap the brakes there, princess. I know you to be a tough, smart lady, and there’s no reason for you to run away with your tail between your legs. Maybe you just need to redirect your affections. Go out with other men.”

“I tried!” Jeanie protested, holding out a hand and ticking the men off on her fingers. “I went out with Peter Abernathy,” she said, referencing a fellow engineer whom she’d dated a year or two prior.

“Snooze,” Vicki said, rolling her eyes. “Never liked him.”

“And I went out with that guy you set me up with.”

“I apologized for that,” Vicki said, wagging a finger at her. “He looked different when I met him in a bar after two cocktails.”

“I’ve gone out with two or three other guys that I’ve been set up with since I moved here, and none of them took. There was no… spark.”

Vicki nodded wistfully. “There does have to be a spark.”

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