About the Author
Also by Addison Jones (writing as Cynthia Rogerson)
A note from the publisher
To anyone who wonders if they married the wrong person
‘It is never easy to make marriage a lovely thing.’
Dr Marie Stopes 1918
BILLIE MAKES COFFEE FOR JACKO
Friday February 12 1950
San Francisco 12:10pm
The way Billie looks at it, there are two kinds of lives. The kind you’re born and raised to live and the kind you’re not. Which is virtually any other life, anywhere, with anyone. Or no one.
(She’s typing while she’s thinking. She can type eighty words a minute without looking at the keys.)
She was raised to live in the valley, somewhere like her hometown of Redding. Like their mother, marry young – a farmer or a brewery man or a trucker. Hang on to him if she could. Eat a million Sunday dinners at her in-laws, have lots of babies, look after her mother as she got older, and sometime later, get fat, play golf and die. Not very terrible, not at all. You could get up in the morning and know pretty much how the day would pan out, and all the years ahead, as clear as a straight valley road. Instead she’s living the other kind of life here in San Francisco. Not safe, not known, and no guarantee about how she’ll end up. A wild, crumbling, twisting cliff track. She can almost see the bridge she’s burned. She can smell it. A thrilling, charred smell.
Billie’s still typing, meanwhile. She yanks the letter from the typewriter, slips it in the out tray and inserts another piece of paper. Recommences typing. Her cherry red lips press with concentration. Now she’s thinking about her date tonight. Will he be the one? Terry. No, Timmy. Tonight, anything is possible. He very well might be the one, who knows? She enjoys the fact of her own unknown future. Like having a ticket to a foreign country, an exotic place she’s only seen on postcards, sent by people who scribble indecipherable messages. Tragedy? Ecstasy? She’s never had a passport, never even seen one, but she pictures it tucked away in her purse anyway. Poised for departure, her heart aching for the big unknown.
Jacko leaves the building for lunch. He’s peeked at the cafeteria and decided it’s lousy. Old people, fat and ugly people, and it stinks of cabbage. In fact, now he thinks of it, the whole set up is a little stuffy. The furniture, the clothes, the job itself – call it anything you like, the bottom line is writing stupid lies about stupid products for the benefit of stupid buyers. Nothing and nobody with any taste at all. Not a soul he’d like to drink beer with. Oh sure, it’s good money, but for crying out loud, what’s a man like himself to do? Bury himself in a place like this for years? He’s walking swiftly, feeling lighter with every step he takes away from Perkins Petroleum Products. Maybe he won’t go back.
Mr Tidmarsh comes round after lunch. Introduces himself to Jacko. Slaps him on the back, asks him how he’s coping.
‘Great to have you on board, soldier!’
Jacko bets he always gives the ex-servicemen the backslap, never the other men.
Then he says: ‘You’ve met Billie, yeah? No?’
‘No.’
‘Billie, come shake hands with Jack MacAlister,’ he shouts across the room to her. ‘Fresh out of college. First day copywriting. The new boy, eh, Jack?’
Another backslap, followed by an arm punch. Jacko flinches. His dad was Jack; he is not, and never will be, his dad. He is way more than Jack, goddammit. At least another syllable. But the correction can wait till Monday.
‘Find a nice place to eat lunch, Jack?’
‘Yeah.’
And finally, over comes Billie from her desk, and she says, ‘Hey.’
‘Hi,’ says Jacko.
They don’t shake hands. Hardly look at each other. Both look, instead, at Mr Tidmarsh.
‘Billie, make Jack a coffee, will you honey?’
‘Oh, I don’t want a coffee. Thanks anyway,’ says Jacko.
‘I don’t mind,’ says Billie coldly.
‘Okay then,’ he says. If she’s not going to even smile, then she can damn well make him a cup of coffee. ‘Black, with sugar.’
There’s a line at the coffee maker and Mr Tidmarsh is gone when she gets back with Jacko’s coffee.
‘Thanks.’
‘Okay.’
She returns to her desk slowly, with a wriggle in her walk he decides is for his benefit. He looks at her the way he looks at almost every girl. Checks her out. Just the right height. Small hands and feet, medium tits, darling legs with sweet knees peeking out when she sits. Interesting eyebrows. He didn’t know eyebrows could be sexy. And hair, swear to God, just like Marilyn Monroe. That same butter yellow, that same way of falling over half her face. Her voice too: little-girl whispery. Then he goes about his business again. Arranges the pencils neatly, the pad with the lists of products. His ashtray, his Zippo lighter. Lights up a Viceroy and goes back to the minuscule photographs of the products in the catalogue. It’s a huge volume with thin pages, like a phone book – as he flicks through, he sees artificial legs, toilet seats, shower curtains, Hula Hoops. Tries to visualise them individually, be interested in them. Think of ways they could sound more enticing. It’s hard because forcing himself to care is exhausting. Caring eventually trickles in, but then, ironically, for the sweet-kneed Billie he pretends it’s old hat. Yawns loudly and stretches between bouts of concentration, and of course, this results in genuine boredom again.
He’s young and single; there’s a girl with sexy eyebrows on the other side of the room. Caring about petroleum products would be unnatural. He makes a list of questions he needs to ask someone, which soon dwindles into a to-do list, then some sketches of the desk he wants to build this weekend, and finally, in the margin, a doodle of Lizbeth’s breasts. They are anatomically accurate, though based on imagination only. She’d always teased him, then giggled like mad when he started unbuttoning or unzipping. Strangely this never made him fall out of love. Or perhaps, not so strangely. Bared breasts might have killed it. Anyway, Lizbeth is in Paris and it’s over. Though suddenly, now, sitting in his new office, he doesn’t believe it will ever be over. Even if he never sees her again.
There sits Jacko, feeling a bit old at twenty-four, in a cloud of his own smoke, his mouth dry and his energy wilting. Life is not turning out the way he’d anticipated.
Billie’s considered and dismissed half a dozen boys she knows, and she’s still typing. Clickety clack, clickety clack. None of them will do for a serious boyfriend, much less a husband. How about that new boy, Jack MacAlister? Cocky, that’s for sure. Actually, he reminds her a little of James Dean. Dangerous, even though he looks about twelve. Had she smelled beer? Bit daring, drinking at lunch on the first day of work. And no real smile for her. Just a smug look that said: Oh yeah, I know. You want me.
Not likely, thinks Billie Mae Molinelli. She’s never had to chase a boy, there’s always been a line of them just waiting for a chance with her. But he has nice eyes, blue and smart, and the cutest cowlicks. One on the crown of his head and one just above his forehead. (Not dark with cheap oil, thank goodness. Oily hair is what valley boys have.) She can’t remember why, but Billie has always had a soft spot for boys with unruly hair. And is Jack’s V-neck cashmere? It looks so soft hanging over the back of his chair, and as yellow as…well, as the Butterfinger sitting inside her bag right now. Gee whiz, she’s hungry.
The rest of the afternoon passes, with Billie typing and Jacko scribbling. Suddenly, it’s five o’clock.
