Page 23 of Across the Universe

"Come on, Booker. Women talk. And the women around this place..." Vance makes a low, whistling sound between his teeth as he puts a hand in one pocket of his pants and rocks back on his heels. "Word on the street is that you two were caught kissing on the night of the accident."

Bill is instantly reeling at this news. He'd been stunned when Todd Roman had mentioned something to this effect, but hearing Vance say it so boldly sends anxiety rocketing through his veins.

"Who caught us kissing?" Bill asks hotly, lifting his chin just an inch.Careful, Bill tells himself, trying to keep in mind that having a short temper and overreacting is what got him in trouble in the first place. "Who said that?"

Vance lifts one shoulder and lets it fall. He and Bill have certainly had their difficulties over the past few years, but Vance isn't someone Bill actively dislikes. In fact, he respects the man and even admires him. No need to shoot the messenger on this one.

"I guess I heard it from one of the secretaries from mission support. You know that one with the red hair that looks a little like Angie Dickinson inOcean's Eleven?"

Marta, Bill thinks. He knows exactly who Vance is referring to, as many of the men on staff like to talk about Marta over drinks at The Black Hole. In fact, he knows at least three guys who've dated her.

"I know who you're talking about," Bill says gruffly. "Why was she spreading rumors around like that? Did she just come up to you and tell you she saw something happening between me and Jeanie?"

Bill knows well that a denial to the accusation has not yet crossed his lips, but he's not in the mood to stammer through some sort of lie or to brush it aside; he wants the truth on this, and he wants it now.

"Hey, I'm just passing on the info, Booker. I'm not here to judge." Vance holds his coffee cup in front of his chest like a protective shield. "I have no idea why women talk about any of the things that they do, if I'm being honest."

The look on Vance's face is genuine; he is clearly just letting Bill know what's circulating around Cape Kennedy, not looking to dig for more dirt that he can share with others. At least Bill hopes that's the case.

"Look, I don't want to give any sort of momentum to that kind of talk by acknowledging or denying it. I think sometimes the best course of action is to just ignore gossip and let it die down."

"Heard and understood," Vance says, raising his coffee cup to Bill and then taking another drink. The look on his face shifts almost instantly and his brow furrows as they fall into step and walk out of the break room together. "So, hey, can we talk about the changes to the Gemini capsule? I have some questions on the improvements to the latch, and I thought maybe you could walk me through what you thought were the initial issues with it..."

The men change gears seamlessly as they walk and sip their coffee all the way back to their desks, and not for the first time, Bill notices and is grateful for the way men can back away from the hard topics and just switch to office talk, politics, or sports. In his experience, it’s never like that with women.

"Sure," Bill says, holding the door for Vance as they walk into the big, open office space where phones are ringing and desks are occupied with engineers, astronauts, and other members of their team. "Why don't you pull up a chair at my desk and we'll go over it together?”

And just like that, the topic of Jeanie Florence is dropped. But it's always running in the back of Bill's mind, day and night. He never forgets the precarious position he's put them both in, and the thought that Jo could hear about it somehow makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up, even when he's engrossed in talking about safety valves for liquid oxygen tanks, main engine nozzles, and the orbital maneuvering engines.

No matter what happens, Jocannot find out about that kiss.

CHAPTER8

Jeanie

Office talk.Water cooler gossip. Lunch time conversation. Jeanie has never wanted to be the star of any of these scenarios, and yet she finds herself in that position anyway. It's uncomfortable for her; being in the spotlight has never interested her one bit, and she's finding that the heat of it is almost unbearable.

She walks through the halls of Cape Kennedy holding her folders, delivering information to the various departments, and making her way to different meetings as her mind churns through all the whispered things she's overheard lately: that Marta from mission support supposedly knows someone who knows someone who saw Bill and Jeanie kissing in the stairwell (the very thought terrifies Jeanie). That Jeanie and Bill were caught drunkenly necking in the backseat of his car outside of The Black Hole (a blatant lie). That Bill got into the fight on New Year's Eve defending Jeanie's honor, and effectively putting his own chances to go to the moon on the line (this does sound like something Bill would do, but Jeanie certainly hopes it's not true).

At night, Vicki is either on her way out with a gentleman friend, always inviting Jeanie to join them for a drink or two, or staying in and playing domestic goddess as she sips a glass of cold Chardonnay and spins The Everly Brothers on the turntable.

"Okay, princess," Vicki says one evening as Jeanie walks through the door. "Lay it on me."

Vicki is smoking a cigarette over a blue glass ashtray, setting it in the notch to hold it in place as she goes back to cooking--or a close approximation of cooking, anyway.

Jeanie drops her purse on the table by the door of their shared apartment and kicks off her shoes, letting them fall over on their sides carelessly as she stretches her toes with a grateful moan. "Oh, my feet," she says, walking into the kitchen to peer at the pot on the stove. It's ground hamburger, and Vicki is slowly adding in some sort of marinara sauce with chunks of onion and mushroom.

"Pasta." Vicki stirs the meat and sauce mixture as she picks up the wineglass that sits on the counter and takes a swig. "Ahhh," she says. She sets it back down and then turns to look at Jeanie. "Okay, I'm cooking, so pour yourself a glass of wine and start talking."

Jeanie does as she's told, but only fills her glass halfway before leaning against the counter and rubbing one foot on top of the other. She watches Vicki for a moment and thinks of her own mother in the kitchen. Jeanie suddenly misses her mom in a way that feels ridiculous for a woman who is as close to thirty as she is.

"It was a long day," Jeanie finally says, swirling the wine around in her glass as she stretches her neck from one side to the other. "And everywhere I go, I feel like people are watching me."

"Did you overhear anything else? Are any of those floozies spreading gossip about you?"

Jeanie smiles at the protective note in Vicki's voice. As her aunt's best friend, Vicki is certainly old enough to be Jeanie's mother, and she's really become a sort of de facto maternal figure over the couple of years that they've shared this apartment and shared their lives with one another.

"I think the gossip is spreading itself." Jeanie is forlorn; this is the kind of news that people love to chew over and pass around, and she hates it. "I just want to know who saw us."

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