Page 36 of Across the Universe

“So, how are things with you?” Bill asks, sounding absent.

“You already asked me that.”

This snaps Bill out of his thoughts, and he laughs. “Sorry, you’re right. I guess I did.”

Jeanie stops walking, and it takes Bill a few steps to realize that she’s not there next to him. He pauses and turns. “You okay?”

Jeanie’s mother raised her to say yes to most things, and to always be okay—at least publicly. After all, her mother, widowed young and left to raise Jeanie alone, was always okay. Jeanie comes from tough stock, and people expect her to be fine. Always.

But instead of giving Bill what he wants, she shakes her head. “No. I’m not.”

Bill looks around furtively and rushes back to her. “What is it?” His tone is urgent. He looks her over as if she might be bleeding from a gash on her head.

“We need to resolve this, Bill. This—this—thingbetween us. And maybe I’m the only one who feels it. I’m not even sure anymore. But every time I’m around you, I get… I feel…”

Bill is watching Jeanie with concern, and he grabs her gently by the elbow and steers her away from where their coworkers are pulling into the lot, parking, and ambling into the building with their own thermoses and lunchboxes in hand.

“Let’s walk,” Bill says, guiding Jeanie toward the front of the building and then veering right so they’re walking through a side lot that’s only populated with the short, squat, Jeep-like carts that NASA workers drive around all day. The sun is still rising over the horizon, and the day’s heat hasn’t yet reached its full capacity, but Jeanie can already feel her armpits sweating through the cotton of her cap-sleeved summer dress.

“But I have all my things,” Jeanie protests as they walk, her purse swinging against her side.

Bill pauses, finds a spot near the wall of the building, and sets his own things down. He takes hers from her—except for her purse—and sets her lunch and thermos down too. “There,” he says. “Now let’s keep walking.”

They stroll in the direction of a large barn-like structure with the doors rolled wide open, and as tired-looking men begin their day there—setting things up, moving around busily—Bill and Jeanie walk on quietly.

“Look.” Bill finally breaks the silence between them. “I feel things too, Jeanie. I feel a lot of things.” He stops talking briefly and they walk on, looking out at the tree line in the distance. “I think you know full well that you’re not the only one who has a hang-up here.”

Jeanie stops walking again. “A hang-up? Bill…” She looks at him imploringly. “It’s been a year and a half since the night we kissed, and I still can’t get over it. I’m not even dating. I think that’s more than a hang-up.”

His eyes look at her with a mixture of sympathy and satisfaction. Surely he gets a tiny kick of pleasure from knowing that she can’t stop thinking of him—not even long enough to let another guy take her to dinner or to squire her around town.

“I’m in therapy, Jeanie,” Bill says, sounding strangled by this admission. “It’s hard, and it’s rewarding, but it’s forcing me to really look at myself. And when I do, I see someone who is flawed, but who is trying to do right. And one thing I haven’t done right is… this.”

Jeanie feels tears of frustration and shame burning her eyes. “I see. I’m sorry you feel that I’m wrong.”

“Not you,” he says quickly, holding up a hand. “You’re not wrong, but kissing you was, and we both know that. Come on,” Bill says gently. “You know that as well as I do.”

Jeanie turns her head, so she’s not looking at Bill, but at the shuttle launch pad in the distance instead. The infrastructure of such a massive, important structure is intricate, and sometimes when she’s in the office early in the morning or late in the evening, she’ll stand at the window and look out at it simply to remind herself that the world, and this job, is bigger than she is. It’s so much bigger than little Jeanie Florence and her problems. She sniffs and hopes that Bill doesn’t catch on to the fact that she’s holding back tears.

“I know it was wrong and that we shouldn’t have done it. I need to find someone who isn’t married with children,” she says, turning her head back so she’s looking right at him again. “But that doesn’t make it any easier, you know?”

“I know,” he says gently. “For me either. Talking to you is always amazing. We have so many common interests, and you’re so… smart,” he says, swallowing visibly. “And beautiful. And under different circumstances, well, this would be something.” A man in an open-topped Jeep whisks by them, holding up a large, square hand in greeting. Bill waves back and then returns his gaze to Jeanie. “But I’m trying to learn about myself, and to own my problems, and one of my problems right now is…” He sighs. “One of my problems is my marriage. Jo and I have had some real difficulties since moving here, and right now… yeah, this is a hard time.”

Jeanie watches him with sympathy as he visibly struggles with his words and his emotions. “I’m sorry,” she says, taken aback. A feeling overtakes Jeanie then—it’s like a giant pair of hands has grabbed her by the shoulders and given her a hard shake—and she realizes that what she’s doing, what she’s feeling, are things that are detrimental to not only herself and to Bill, but to poor Jo, who has been nothing but lovely to her on the occasions when they’ve met and interacted.

Jeanie takes a step back from Bill and swipes under her eyes with the tips of her fingers. She has mascara on, so she pats gently to make sure she isn’t smearing her makeup.

“Hey, no need to be,” Bill says, reaching a hand out to her.

Jeanie waves it away. “No, I am,” she says, shaking her head. “I needed to hear all this from you. I did.”

“Jeanie,” Bill protests, clearly unhappy with the way things are ending. He follows her as she walks away.

“No, just let me get my things. I need to figure out how to work with you and not feel anything,” Jeanie says, forcing her face to smile as her heart aches. “I’m a grown woman, not a teenage girl. I can do this.”

She turns back to the entrance of the building, forgetting entirely about her lunch and her thermos, which Bill has set next to the wall on the east side of the complex.

Jeanie gets all the way to her desk before she remembers her discarded things, but instead of going out there right away, she puts her purse in her desk drawer and goes to the ladies’ room to fix her face and to splash cold water on her cheeks and the back of her neck. She needs to pull herself together, and she needs to do it now.

---