Page 45 of Across the Universe

This finally gets a response from Bill. He lifts his head and turns it so that he’s looking at Jo with wounded eyes. “You want to know me? You want to know me, Josephine?”

Jo forces herself not to look away. “Yes,” she says. “I do. I sometimes feel like your coworkers know you better than I do.”

“Hardly,” Bill huffs.

Jo doesn’t take the bait. She holds firm. “So, if I picked up the phone and called Ed Maxwell right now and asked what happened today at the Cape, he wouldn’t be able to give me some clue as to why you were acting this way?”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Bill says in a clipped tone.

Jo softens her tone. “No, of course I wouldn’t! I’m just saying that I bet Ed knows more about what’s going on with you right now than I do. I’m making a point, which is that you share more with everyone else during your day than you do with me.” And therealpoint she’s making is that he shares more of his day withJeanie Florencethan he does with her, but the words won’t come out of her mouth, nor does she think they should.

Bill puts his head in his hands again. “Jo,” he says in a tight voice. “Of course they know more about my day than you do. Those are my coworkers. That’s my job. We have the same goals and missions, and wehaveto share the intricacies of our days and our work. When I come home, sometimes I don’t want to talk about anything.”

“What about now?” Jo presses. “What’s going on with you now? Why are you back here with the curtains closed?”

“Are you going to interrogate me every time I need to shut out the world for a little while?”

“No, but I’m going to ask questions if you’re going to a therapist but still isolating yourself in the dark without giving me any clue as to why.”

“Seeing a therapist isn’t like waving a magic wand over your life, Jo.”

She tries not to sound as hurt as she feels by Bill’s condescending tone. “I never thought it was. But I did think that we were making progress. Now I feel like maybe I was mistaken.”

Something about her words pushes Bill’s buttons, because he stands up quickly, startling Jo. She looks up at her angry, looming husband as he stands there in the darkened bedroom, his figure hulking and leering down at her.

“Any progress I make with Dr. Sheinbaum ismyprogress,” Bill says defensively, jabbing a finger at his own chest as he speaks. “The work I do there is forme, and if it ultimately benefits all of you, then great. But I’m the one who has to share my deepest, darkest feelings, and I’m the one who has to take directions from some woman I don’t even know.”

Jo is torn between staying small and shrunken there on the floor, and standing up to hold her head high and let Bill know that his quickly changing moods won’t intimidate her. She chooses the latter, pushing herself to her knees and then standing. Though he’s several inches taller than she is, Jo steps close to him and looks right up into her husband’s face.

“And I’m the one who has to tiptoe around here like you’re made of glass,” she says tersely, not letting her eyes shift away from him. “I’m the one who has to tell the kids that everything is okay with Daddy, and I’m the one who keeps a positive smile on the face of this family so that no one knows that you’re just as likely to come home and slam our bedroom door in my face as you are to sit in the kitchen and actually talk to me.” Jo takes a few steps toward the door of the bedroom and then stops, turning back to Bill. “Actually, that’s not true: you’re far more likely to shut me out than you are to talk to me.”

She holds his eyes for a long, meaningful moment and then walks the rest of the way to the door, yanking it open and then slamming it shut behind her as she heads back to the kitchen to finish making dinner.

Bill Booker can take his dark moods and go get stuffed, as far as Jo is concerned.

* * *

Frankie isn’t even hugely pregnant yet, but she’s already walking with a slight sway to her lower back, one hand rubbing her barely bulging belly.

“Wow,” she says, awed. “You really stormed out on him?”

Jo is the one smoking a cigarette on this evening walk; Frankie had handed her the pack and her lighter as soon as they’d met on the street, telling Jo that she didn’t have the stomach for it anymore. “The baby hates cigarettes,” she’d said, waving a hand in front of her face as she stuck out her tongue. “They’re all yours.”

Now, walking around the edge of the little park in their neighborhood, Jo’s cigarette tip glows orange in the encroaching darkness. She exhales. “I stormed right out,” she confirms, slipping her free hand into the pocket of her skirt. “I’m tired of it, Frank. I’m a patient woman, and I want to help my husband, but how much am I expected to tolerate, you know? He comes in and ignores me completely, then slams a door? Seriously?”

Frankie is watching Jo’s profile as they stroll at a slower pace than normal. “Well,” she says carefully. “There is a certain amount of tolerance that we have to have in order to make marriage work, right?”

“And do they have to exhibit the same amount of tolerance when it comes to us?” Jo asks, looking at Frankie with hot eyes. “Am I allowed to storm around the house like a teenage girl and just shut people out while he manages everything? If I acted like him, no one would get fed. Nothing would get done.”

Frankie nods as she examines the back of her upper arm, slapping at a mosquito and then scratching her tanned skin. “That’s true. And I am on your side here, Joey-girl—I’m always on your side—but the guysdohave fairly challenging jobs, you know.”

Jo stops walking. “OfcourseI know. I’m not allowed to live a single day without being reminded that Bill’s career is the most important thing in the world.”

“Ouch,” Frankie says, wincing at Jo’s sarcastic tone. “Your work is important, too.”

“Not to Bill.” Jo takes another drag on the cigarette. “You know, I never even bothered to tell him about the literary agent.”

“What? Are you kidding me?”

---