‘I’m sure.’
They both got back in the car and Jack turned back on the highway. Billie felt good now, but couldn’t trace the source at first. Her daughter’s carsickness? Why would that lift her heart? But there was something about the familiarity of what had just occurred. The way it instantly dissolved tension between herself and Jack. They seemed to nip at each other all the time now; it was background music. Bickering and then noticing an absence of bickering. When had the habit started? She reflected, not for the first time, that if they hadn’t married so quickly, so romantically, if they’d waited till they’d really known each other, they might never have married. Maybe the whole point of marriage was to make those promises before you really knew the other person. Maybe marriage had to be undertaken while sedated with lust.
Well! So be it. Probably every new wife woke up one day and suddenly noticed her husband didn’t much resemble the man she married. That he was really very annoying, that he farted loudly and all the time, and slurped his cereal repulsively. And this was where married love really came into its own, she thought. Love, while he farted long and loud and accused you of bad driving again. While your daughter tried and failed to vomit by the roadside again. Not getting dizzy, while going round and round the same old circles.
Billie half smiled, not at Jack, but out the side window.
She felt wise. And superior to her sister, who just last week had said about her husband: ‘I’m not saying I’m leaving him today, I’m just saying – I ain’t waiting till the cows come home to do it. Every day I wake up and feel ready to roll, then I go to the grocery store instead. I’m going stir crazy.’ Clearly Loulou did not have sticking power, and was never going to discover what Billie had discovered. That a veteran marriage could be hell, but it could also have shiny moments like this.
‘Mom.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘She’s not about to throw up, is she?’ asked Jack.
‘Do you feel sick again, Elisabeth?’
‘No. Yes. A little.’
‘We’ll stop at the next rest area. Ten miles,’ said Jack. ‘Can you wait ten minutes, honey?’
She nodded and closed her eyes.
‘Don’t close your eyes. Look straight ahead and – oh my God. Stop the car, Jack.’
‘Goddammit.’ More cars honking. ‘Did she do it in the bag?’
‘No.’
‘Why not – oh Christ, it’s everywhere.’
‘I didn’t have a bag. Sorry.’
‘Why didn’t she have a bag, Billie?’
‘Because she didn’t, that’s why. Just shut up and give her your handkerchief.’
‘Jesus, why am I always the only one to ever have a handkerchief in this family?’
‘Because you’re so darn perfect, of course.’
Aside from the car overheating twice in the afternoon, and Sam being caught cheating on naming the states by looking at the out of state licence plates, the rest of the trip passed uneventfully. It took eight hours instead of six, but so what. Jack and Billie had used all the usual words with each other and subsided into dulled silence. Sam half-read an Archie comic, while Elisabeth half-stared at the road. All day she’d kept some distance from Sam, but now she was splayed out so her legs rested against his. The ghost, or idea, of their missing brother skirted round the edges of Billie’s thoughts, but not theirs. No one talked to them about Charlie anymore.
By five o’clock, it was not a lot cooler but it was not as glaringly bright and everyone felt more human. Jack especially felt good. He kept thinking about his new twenty-foot sailboat, and wondered which varnish to buy for the decking – the cheap one or the expensive one. And what to call it. Dream Come True? No, that was corny. How about something classier like Nora, from Ulysses? Or Epiphany. God, he loved James Joyce. He’d call his boat Epiphany. You couldn’t get more Joycean than Epiphany, and anyone who didn’t get it, well, that’d be their problem. And he’d get the expensive varnish. Home seemed very far away and the world had shrunk up to the size of his family and thoughts about varnish brands. The drive, which always seemed interminable, now had an end in sight. On the horizon were the minuscule buildings of his mother-in-law’s town.
‘At last,’ said Billie, brushing her hair.
‘At last,’ echoed Sam. ‘I can’t wait.’
‘Huh,’ grunted Elisabeth, stretching her arms above her head. ‘Well, I can. I can wait just fine. I kind of like this right now.’
‘You numbskull,’ said Sam. ‘You just puked your guts out, and now you’re saying you want to keep going?’
‘Well, yeah.’
Jack looked at his daughter in the rear-view mirror. She caught his eyes, stared blankly, then abruptly smiled. He smiled back, and it felt as if there was an adult secret between them.
‘I don’t get you,’ mumbled Sam. ‘You’re nuts.’
‘Ah, leave her alone,’ said Jack, because all of a sudden he felt the same way she did. That actually, he could wait too. The wheels of the car were bumping over the heat cracks in the highway and the air rushing in his window smelled of exhaust fumes and overripe fruit. For the first time this spring, he noticed the poppies; they dotted the verges along the highway, humble wisps of orange. It was good to see them again. His family was safe and near him and quiet, and soon he’d teach them all how to sail. Ernie had been showing him; it was easy. His body felt relaxed and alert now, the same way he’d felt after that first day sailing. Tension and nausea, then a wonderful loosening and energy. Behind him was home, the office, daily commuting, friends; ahead lay white bread salami sandwiches with the crusts cut off like Billie never made them, Easter Sunday Mass, endless sports on television, his mother-in-law bringing him cold beer and the house full of those marshmallow eggs no one ever ate. But right now, just driving the car at dusk, just letting his thoughts float in the haze and not arriving yet, well – this would feel fine for ever.
BILLIE AND JACKIE
TWO YEARS EARLIER
Oct 2nd 1963
Sacramento 10:29am
After the kids had gone to school, Billie sat at the kitchen table and made a list. Making lists was something Jacko had taught her to do. At first she hadn’t seen the point, but now she was addicted. At the top, in big loopy letters, she neatly wrote:
Things Me & Jackie Kennedy Have in Common
(Then underlined it.)
Things Me & Jackie Kennedy Have in Common
Names – 2 syllables. Both names end in eee sound. Billeee. Jackeee.
