Page 46 of Across the Universe

“No.” Jo shrugs. “He’s always somewhere else. He lives in his head. The most we talk about it stuff that comes up about the kids.”

“It wasn’t always like this, was it? When you guys still lived in Minnesota?”

Jo looks incredulous. “God. No. Bill was a different man. We laughed all the time. He was fully present, and he loved spending time with me and the kids.” She drops the cigarette butt on the pavement and grinds it out. “Don’t get me wrong—I know he’s under a lot of pressure and stress, but have things really changed so much? I’m still the same woman. The kids are the same, but they’re growing up fast and changing in their own ways… I don’t want him to miss everything.”

Frankie is looking at her with a probing stare. “And there are things you don’t want to miss, either, right?”

Jo blinks at her as she folds her bare arms across her chest. “Yeah,” she finally admits, feeling exposed. “I don’t want to miss what’s going on right under my nose. I don't want to lose my husband while I’m looking the other way. No amount of hospital volunteering and no amount of writing accolades are worth losing Bill.”

Frankie puts a hand on Jo’s arm and holds her gaze. “Keep trying,” she says gently. “I’ve been there.” Her eyes search Jo’s. “I’ve been in the place where you think you’re losing everything and like you can’t get it back, but you can. You just have to stay the course.”

Jo sighs heavily, looking up at the first stars in the evening sky. “I know,” she says, sounding as defeated as she feels. “But I really need him to make it worth the effort of hanging on when it gets hard. I need to see a glimpse of the old Bill and not have any more dinner dates where I storm out of a restaurant and start walking home.”

Frankie winces at the memory of this. “Tell him that,” she urges Jo. “Tell him how you feel.”

They start the walk back to Jo’s house, where Frankie says goodbye at the edge of the driveway as she always does. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Joey-girl,” she says, blowing a kiss as she walks on. “Go in there and talk to him, okay?” she says encouragingly.

Jo nods and waves back. And she does mean to go inside and talk to Bill. She checks each of the kids’ rooms and finds them in their beds, but Bill is nowhere to be found.

Puzzled, Jo opens the door from the kitchen to the garage, flipping on the light.

The garage is empty; Bill’s car is gone.

CHAPTER16

Bill

What he does not need isthe third degree from Jo. Bill doesn’t need her coming into their bedroom and trying to peel back the layers of what’s eating him; he gets enough of that from Dr. Sheinbaum. He does not need her leaving him at home with the kids while she goes out with Frankie Maxwell on one of their evening walks, smoking and strolling as they nitpick their husbands’ behaviors. He definitely doesn’t need that.

Bill is driving along the darkened streets of Stardust Beach with the top down on his convertible. The lights overhead barely illuminate the sidewalk on one side of the street, and on the other, the sand and the sea spill out into the blackness of night. He pushes down the accelerator and drives faster. It’s nearly eight o’clock, and most of the people he knows will be gone from The Black Hole at that hour—after work drinks take place from about five-fifteen to six-thirty—but he needs to sit at the bar alone and nurse a drink. He needs to be alone with his thoughts. He needs to be away from Jo for a while.

At the bar, Bill parks his car in the lot and pockets the keys. The open-air bar beckons from its spot on a slightly elevated plot of land, the loud sounds from the jukebox rolling out into the evening air. The colorful lights strung up around the wooden bar make everything look like Christmas, and Bill can already feel the soothing sensation of a good glass of whiskey making its way down the back of his throat. He steps aside and lets a couple of pilots spill out of the bar, their laughter lingering in the air as they stumble out to the lot.

Inside, the bar is populated with unfamiliar faces, which suits Bill just fine. He sits right at the bar, which is something he never does when he and the NASA crew make their way there after work.

“What can I get for you, chief?” asks a female bartender in skin-tight white capri pants and a red top sprinkled with white polka dots. Her hair is in a neat ponytail, and she has flat Keds on her feet. She smiles at him and places a cocktail napkin on the bar in front of Bill as she waits.

“Whiskey, neat,” he says.

The bartender nods, turns to the bottles on the shelves behind her, and chooses one, pouring the amber liquid right into a tumbler and passing it his way. “Let me know when you’re due for a refill,” she says firmly, setting the bottle back on the shelf and moving on to another customer.

Bill sips and blocks out most of what’s going on around him, which is pretty much just pilots who are passing through town and hoping to take a girl back to their hotel rooms for the night. He glances at the telltale white strip of skin where a wedding band should be on the man next to him. This guy—a mustachioed pilot who hasn’t even bothered to take off his work uniform—is smiling lazily at a busty blonde who has clearly had too many drinks. Every time the girl laughs, the pilot moves an inch closer. Before Bill knows it, the woman will be in his lap. Or vice versa. He picks up his whiskey, swirls the rest of the liquid around in the glass, and knocks it back.

“Could I get another?” he says to the bartender, lifting a hand. “I’ll be right back. I need to use the payphone.”

Bill slides off his stool as she refills his glass, and he makes his way to the hallway where the restrooms are tucked behind two mahogany doors. On one wall of the hallway is a payphone. Bill slips a dime into the slot and dials the number he has stored in one corner of his brain.

“Hello?”

“Jeanie?” Bill coils the silver cord around his finger as he stares at the coin return slot.

“This is she,” Jeanie says, sounding puzzled.

“Hey, sorry to call so late,” Bill says, hoping that he sounds nonchalant. “Actually, I’m sorry to call your house at all without asking first whether it was okay?—“

“Bill?” She cuts him off. “Is that you?”

“Yes, sorry for that, too. This is Bill,” he says, hoping that his voice doesn’t sound like he’s already one whiskey into the evening.

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