Things Change

Dillards department store. Beaufort, South Carolina.

"Mama? Isn't that Jackie Frances or whatever her married name is?"

Her mother stopped talking when her daughter grabbed her arm and looked.

"Oh, my heavenly days! Yes, it is. I haven't seen her in ages!"

"Same here, and just look at her! She's as beautiful as ever."

"Let's go say 'hi', okay?"

The two women moved closer then waited for this other women to look their way.

"Jackie?"

The woman stood there staring for a second or two then looked at the other woman and finally smiled.

"Oh, my goodness! Joan?" she said, a look of disbelief on her face.

"Yes! Hi! And you remember my mother, Verna Mae, right?"

"I do. Hi, Mrs. Thomas! It's been so long!"

The mother-daughter pair took turns hugging their long lost friend then agreed it had been a very long time.

"So how have you been, Jackie? And just how long has it been?" Joan asked.

"Oh, gosh. I'd say...ten years? Seems like you'd just graduated from high school as I recall."

Joan smiled and said, "Yes! That's right! You and Kenny came to my graduation, and I still have the gold pin you gave me."

"That's right! I'd forgotten about the pin. We were always struggling with money, and that was the best I could do."

"I loved it and still do," Joan told her.

"Speaking of Kenny, how is he, Jackie?" Verna Mae asked.

Very politely, 'Jackie' said, "I go by Jaclyn now, and well, Kenny and I...we divorced."

"Oh. I'm so sorry," Joan told her with genuine sympathy.

"I can't say I'm surprised," Verna Mae said without thinking as she did all too often. Her internal governor was broken and failed to filter comments that regularly came spilling out.

"Mama! Shame on you!" her daughter said, the embarrassment showing through.

"No, it's okay," Jaclyn said with a smile.

"He was such a shit. Sorry. He was just a good for nothing man!" Verna Mae insisted after getting some support.

"And a controlling..."

Jaclyn looked around to see whom she might offend before quietly saying, "Bastard," which got an 'amen' from Verna Mae.

"It's none of my business, but he used to hit you, didn't he?" Verna Mae asked as though she knew it for a fact. She'd seen bruises more than once and felt sure her husband had done it.

"He was a very angry man," Jaclyn replied, a look of sadness in her eyes.

Somehow she'd believed for the longest time that no one actually knew. She always made up some lame story about where the latest bruise came from, but she didn't fool anyone who didn't want to believe the unbelievable.

"We didn't mean to get personal," Joan said, as she gently touched her old friend's forearm.

"No, it's fine. People who haven't seen one another in a long time catch up. It's just how things are," Jaclyn said as a way of being supportive.

Jaclyn smiled again, and while it was obvious she'd aged, Joan felt a wave of envy wash over her as she realized Jaclyn looked more beautiful than she did even though she thought she was many years older than her.

"You look amazing!" Joan, who hated to admit she was vain, forced herself to say along with a forced smile.

"You are too kind," Jaclyn replied very modestly. "But I think getting away from Kenny and taking up running and healthy eating has made a huge difference."

"Oh, my. My boyfriend would love you!" Joan told her with a laugh. "He's a runner and a health nut...sorry. He's careful about what he eats, too."

Jaclyn laughed and told Joan she wasn't offended at all.

They chatted for another minute or two before Verna Mae invited her to join them for dinner on Sunday.

"I don't want to intrude," Jaclyn said.

"Nonsense! You're not intruding and we insist!" Verna Mae said, even as her daughter cut her eyes her way to let her know 'we' didn't include her. "Don't we, Joanie?"

"Mama? Jared's coming over, too. Remember?"

Undaunted, her mother looked right past her daughter and said, "The more the merrier! You remember where we live, right?"

"Yes. Of course. If you're still on Hickory Street."

"That's us!" Verna Mae said with too much enthusiasm for her daughter. "We eat around 4 on Sundays, so just bring your appetite, okay?"

Jaclyn sensed Joan's mood and tried to bow out, but Verna Mae wasn't having it.

"Okay, then. I'll see you on Sunday," she finally said almost apologetically.

"And if you're seeing someone, bring him along!" the 59-year old woman said.

"No. I'm definitely not seeing anyone," Jaclyn replied as though she was embarrassed about that. But the truth was she'd never felt freer. At some point, she wanted to love again, and above all else, she wanted to be loved back for once. Not owned or controlled but really and truly loved. And that was something she was willing to wait for.

"Well, Joanie's got herself a very handsome young man," Verna Mae also just blurted out.

She saw her daughter give her another look, but that didn't stop her.

"He's a little bit younger than Joan."

"A little bit? Mama, he's three and a half years younger than me!" Joan said as though that was something awful.

Joan looked at Jaclyn, shook her head, then said, "I honestly don't know what I was thinking, and I'm the one who asked him out first."

"She was thinking he's gorgeous!" Verna Mae said making things worse.

Jaclyn was now very uncomfortable, but smiled before saying she really needed to finish shopping and get home even though there was no one there to get home to.

They all hugged again then said goodbye.

Just seconds later, Joan lit into her mother.

"Mama? What in the world is wrong with you?"

"Now what do you mean by that?" her very petite mother asked as if this was the first, rather than the the hundredth time they were having this little talk. "What did I say that was so wrong?"

"Why did you have to mention the age difference? You know that drives me crazy!"

Her mother shook her head then said, "Oh, for the life of me. I will never understand you! You're 28 and you've been married twice and divorced both times, and now you have this wonderful man in your life, and you're still complaining! For the life of me I don't understand you!"

Joan Thomas was 28, attractive but not beautiful, and when it came to men—extremely picky. She denied that but knew it was true. In fact, both of her now ex-husbands were never good enough to satisfy her and she'd driven them off with her endless nitpicking and demands. She justified it by claiming she knew what she wanted and further saying she knew what they wanted. They just needed someone to...show them.

"I have very high standards," she'd always added whenever anyone dared mention that she was...pushy. She was that and a lot more, and although she'd made herculean efforts to hide it for as long as she could, her current boyfriend was seeing the real Joan begin to emerge.

Jared Quinn was a Marine stationed at MCAS Beaufort, where those letters stood for Marine Corps Air Station. He was an aviation ordnance man, military occupational specialty or MOS 6541, who repaired ejection racks and missile launchers. He'd been on active duty for a little over three years and was every bit as attractive as Verna Mae had said. Joan had noticed him at church the first time he showed up, and she'd made her move just minutes after the pastor said the final 'amen'.

After introducing herself, she let the handsome young Marine know there was a Christmas party at the church that Wednesday evening, and she'd demurely asked him to go with her.

Joan had lived in Beaufort all her life, and while she had nothing against Marines, she'd never dated one and had vowed (privately) that she never would. She used 'moving around too much' as her excuse, but the truth was she hated the short hair that marked every Marine in the city. In addition to the air station there were also tons of Marines from Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island which was located just across town in a little city called Port Royal running around everywhere in their high and tights.

And as a registered nurse with a college degree, the thought of dating a serviceman with a mere high school diploma was something else she couldn't tolerate. Until she met Jared.

He was different. He was so handsome she was able to overlook the white sidewalls and his choice of careers and his lack of a college degree. She'd even blushed when she introduced herself, but he was very nice about it and said he hadn't noticed when she felt her cheeks flaming on. She later learned that he'd gone to college for three years before enlisting, but that only bothered her more because she saw him as some kind of quitter, which was how she saw her first husband who dropped out of college to support them when they got married at 19.

Early on, she managed to bite her tongue and not voice her opinions very often. But now, just one month later, she was finding fault with things Jared said or did, and to make matters worse, she'd begun bringing up the age difference nearly every time they were together.

Jared had ignored it the first couple of times, then when she brought it up in front of some friends a third time, he tried making a joke out of it.

"It just kills me! When I turn 30, Jared will still be 26! Twenty-six! Can you imagine?" a very animated Joan said as she looked for sympathy but got only blank stares as no one else could understand or relate.

"Hey. I'll be 26...and a half," Jared said, drawing a chuckle from the others but an icy stare from Joan.

She still hadn't really exposed her true self at that point, and although he wasn't in love with her or anything close to it, Jared thought she was a nice girl who was also reasonably attractive. And up to then she'd been reasonably pleasant, and he'd enjoyed spending time with her.

But as of late, he was fast realizing there were two Joan Thomases. One was a sweet Southern Belle. The other was...not. This other Joan didn't quite ride a broom, but Jared was now able to picture her mounting one every now and then. And while he hadn't yet told her, he'd decided that if this was the new normal for her, then he was going to end things very soon.

Joan bristled at her mother's comment, but her mom was the one person who could handle her, and she knew there was no way she was going to convince her she was wrong. After all, as she'd reminded Joan many times, she'd known her daughter all her life.

But her mother got one more lick in before giving it a rest.

"Jared is the nicest, kindest man you've ever dated, and if you don't get your act together, he's gonna leave you, too!"

Joan didn't let the hurt show, but that remark stung. Bad. It stung because it was true, but Joan was unable to stop being herself, and a part of her knew this latest relationship would soon go down in flames just like her marriages had. Worst of all, she felt powerless to stop it, and was still trying to find a way to justify her behavior to her mother. But she'd known her mom all of her life, too, so she threw in the towel. For the time being.

On their ride home, Verna Mae unintentionally poured salt into the wound when she tried to get her daughter to talk.

"Did you notice how smooth Jackie's skin is?"

Joan glared at her mother then said in an icy tone, "It's Jaclyn, Mama. Not Jackie. Jaclyn."

She hesitated for a moment then snapped, "And yes, I noticed."

"Well, excuse me!" her mom said as she turned away and raised her chin.

Jaclyn had lived much of her life in Beaufort where her father had once been a Marine drill instructor at Parris Island. He was an aviation maintenance man, and after his three-year tour was up at 'PI' as the locals called it, he moved over the air station where he remained until being selected for the rank of first sergeant. Their family moved away for three years only to return once her father had been selected for sergeant major.

Two of the years she didn't spend in Beaufort were in Columbia, the capitol of South Carolina. Kenny broke down one day after she told him she couldn't put up with any more of his drinking and abuse and promised to do better.

And for a few months after the move, he did. He got a decent job doing construction, and he hadn't had a drink since they left Beaufort. But as she found out the hard way, old habits really do die hard. Fear had kept her with him before, and once he started drinking again, fear kept her with him in Columbia. Fear of him and the fear of being alone.

That was true until one morning when she woke up with a black eye and a swollen lip. It was as though something snapped, and from that moment on she was no longer afraid. She sat up in bed and looked at her husband who'd passed out drunk the night before as he'd done more times than she could count and for the first time thought, "I'd rather die than live like this one more day."

So before he woke up, she packed as much as she could in two suitcases and returned home to Beaufort, moving back in with her parents who wouldn't let Kenny get near her when he came around drunk a few days later.

She couldn't help but laugh when her daddy pulled out their 12-gauge shotgun and stuck it in his face the first and only time Kenny came looking for her and said, "You can leave with or without your face, Ken."

Jaclyn hadn't seen or heard from him since except for the two times he showed up in court during the divorce process. Mercifully, there were no children to worry about, and after just six months, Jaclyn went back to her maiden name of Frances and began starting over. She'd gained a ton of weight over the last three years of her marriage, and she was bound and determined to get back to the size 6 she'd been all of her adult life prior to that.

She was now running 5k and 10k races and had a decent job in town and had just gotten her own place. During the time she spent back home she was thankful both for her parents' hospitality and that there'd been no children's lives to ruin. But Jaclyn was now 37 years old and wanted nothing more than a loving husband and a baby of their own. That said, she was adamant about one thing. She really would rather live alone than ever get involved with another man like Kenny.

*****

"You still seeing that Joan chick?" Jared's roommate and fellow Marine sergeant named Bill Sampson asked.

"Yeah," came the very unenthusiastic reply.

"She's kinda hot. For a skinny girl," his fellow 'ordie' said.

"Yeah. She's uh, she's great," Jared replied almost absentmindedly as he mulled over how to go about extricating himself from the mess he'd gotten mired in as he ran a comb through his thick, dark hair that was just under three inches on top, the maximum allowed for male Marines.

"You hit that yet?"

"What?" Jared asked as he put the comb away.

"Joan. You guys done it yet?"

The stare told his friend it was none of his business.

"Okay. Just wondering. I mean, she was married before, so she's gotta, you know...want it."

"And that, my friend, is why you are doomed to bachelorhood for life," Jared told him as he pulled on a pair of decent shoes.

"I'll drink to that!" his roommate said as he opened another bottle of Budweiser.

"And I'm gonna be late."

"For supper, right?"

Jared laughed then said, "Ha! You remembered. Yeah, down here it's 'supper'."

"How do you deal with that southern drawl of hers, man? I mean, she's cute, but damn! That'd drive me crazy!"

"And that's just one more reason why..."

His roommate threw the bottle cap at Jared and told him he got it. And to have fun.

"Yeah. Fun," Jared said in that same flat tone of voice.

As he drove along Jared tried saying things out loud to see how they sounded.

"Joan? It isn't you. It's me."

That made him laugh because it was so cliche, and it really was her.

"You're a really great girl. We're just not..."

But she wasn't great. She was...controlling. And insufferable.

As he pulled into the driveway, he told himself he'd find the right words. In the meantime, he put on a smile, grabbed the bottle of wine he'd brought with him, and headed to the front porch.

Seconds later, Joan opened it and invited him inside. The look on her face was almost hostile, and Jared wondered if perhaps she'd come to the same conclusion. But once he was inside, he realized that wasn't the case.

"I see you've once again chosen not wear one of the monogrammed shirts I bought you," Joan said coldly.

She'd purchased three of them for him right after Christmas, all with French cuffs as well as a pair of gold cufflinks he assumed were fairly expensive. It was one of the first hints of her need to control him, and he'd only worn one of the shirts once, and after that he got rid of them. He just hadn't gotten around to telling her that yet.

"Um, no. It's not cold enough yet to wear long sleeves," he politely replied even though it was only 48 degrees outside.

"But it's always the right time to look your best," Joan shot back without looking at him.

"You mean...your best," Jared said with the same level of politeness, causing Joan to turn and glare at him.

"Fine. Do what you want," she told him before turning away with a dismissive wave of the hand.

Verna Mae saw him and rescued him just in time.

"Jared! How's my favorite Marine?" she asked before kissing him on the cheek.

"Verna Mae. Don't you look lovely!"

"I guess I must not," Jared heard Joan say as she gave him another icy look along with the dig.

Verna Mae took the bottle of wine after thanking him for it, and just as she turned away, the doorbell rang.

"Joanie? Can you put the bottle on the table, please?" she asked before going to answer the door.

Partly out of curiosity, and partly due to not wanting to deal with Joan, Jared turned around and took a couple of steps back toward the door just as Verna Mae opened it.

"Jackie! Hello! I'm so glad you could join us!" she said before hugging the younger woman who was also holding what appeared to be a homemade pumpkin pie.

"You shouldn't have!" Verna Mae told her.

"Sorry. I just couldn't show up empty handed," the very attractive woman said with a beautiful smile that caught Jared's attention.

"Come in! I want to introduce you to someone."

Verna Mae took her arm, and as she led Jaclyn over to Jared, their eyes met for the first time. Jared knew he was staring but couldn't stop. The older, beautiful woman with the shoulder-length, dark hair smiled at him and he unconsciously smiled back.

"Jackie? This is Jared Quinn. Jared works on F-18s for the Marine Corps. Jared? This is an old friend, Jackie..."

"Frances," the attractive woman said. "I went back to my maiden name after the divorce."

"It's...it's a pleasure to meet you," Jared said, not extending his hand unless she did so first. When she did, he took it, and just the touch of her small hand and the soft, smooth skin created a stirring. He didn't bother mentioning that he'd never actually worked on an F-18 but only on the equipment that held bombs, rockets, and missiles.

"Thank you for your service," she told him as they shook.

"Oh. Um...my pleasure," he said just as Joan moved alongside him and hooked her arm through his.

"Oh, okay. This must be your boyfriend," Jaclyn said, putting two and two together.

"My very young boyfriend," she replied, a fake smile plastered on her face.

Jared only raised his eyebrows indicating he was uncomfortable but not willing to create a scene as Verna Mae suggested they go sit down and maybe open the bottle of wine.

Before, during, and after dinner, neither Jared nor Jaclyn said much to each other. They sat and listened to the things the other person said during the conversation and let everyone else respond. Jared learned that in addition to being divorced, that Jaclyn had stayed in a terrible marriage for too many years, and that, like him, she loved to run. He had the very strong impression that she was a kind, caring woman, but he'd once thought that about Joan, too, so he withheld judgment for now. Then again, it was unlikely he'd ever see her again, so it seemed like a moot point. Last but not least, she was clearly a lot older than him in spite of her extremely smooth skin, beautiful hair, tight, firm body, and gorgeous face.