Page 7 of Across the Universe

“Todd Roman’s wife, Barbara. The other wives call her Barbie,” he adds. “Anyway, Barbie is Ted Mackey’s sister.”

Jeanie still looks confused. “The senator’s son? The guy I was dancing with?”

“Yeah, that one.” Bill takes a deep breath in through his nose and holds it before releasing it all in one exasperated go. “He’s a jerk.”

Jeanie rolls her eyes. “You can say that again.”

“Why?” Anger rises in Bill that feels like a roaring fire. He’s ready to swing on Ted Mackey for even the slightest impropriety. Even if he’d simply abandoned Jeanie on the dance floor mid-song, Bill feels like he’ll track the man down and give him the beating of his life.

Jeanie glances around, shame pinkening her cheeks. “He touched me,” she says.

“Excuse me?” Bill rears back. “He did what? In what way?”

“Look, it was nothing.” Jeanie waves her hands back and forth and leans over to pick up her black gloves and her small purse from a table nearby. “I should go. Pretend I said nothing.”

Bill tugs at the bow tie around his neck. His blood is pumping furiously. “He touched you how?”

“Bill,” Jeanie pleads. “I don’t want to say. It was just something I didn’t ask for, and when I told him I didn’t like it, he called me?—“

“He called you what?” Bill nearly shouts.

“A tease. A whore.”

Bill lurches away and then turns back to Jeanie. Not knowing which way to go, he turns away again and then pauses, trying to still the urge inside of himself to punch Ted Mackey’s lights out. “I’ll be back,” Bill finally says to Jeanie, his decision made.

The quest to find Arvin North has been suspended as Bill hunts the crowd and looks for Ted Mackey. He will find Mackey, and he will set the man straight on multiple counts, but he needs to find him soon or this anger will multiply and make any sort of confrontation even more dangerous.

Of course, right now is when Arvin North steps into Bill’s line of vision. “Booker,” he says gruffly, one hand in the pocket of his pants. “You look like a man on a mission.”

Bill halts. He runs a hand through his hair, wiping away the sweat that’s accumulated on his brow. “I am,” he says, clearing his throat. He’s got Mackey on his mind, but now that he’s run into North, he realizes there’s no time like the present.

“And speaking of missions, I want to talk to you.”

A loud roar goes up from the crowd as the band, now in its fifth hour of playing, launches into a fast, upbeat song. People throw their arms in the air, and more than one woman has kicked off her heels and is dancing with abandon.

“Let’s step in here,” North says, gesturing at the swinging doors that lead to the kitchen area. The two doors have high, round windows, and as they approach, Bill can see waiters and chefs in uniform bustling around with purpose. “We’ll find a quiet corner,” he assures Bill.

Once in the kitchen, North leads Bill to a tiled room right off the main hub of activity.

“Okay, what do you have?” North folds his arms over his chest and stares at Bill, who is clearly disrupting his New Year’s Eve with something work-related.

Bill has plenty that he wants to say, but he swipes a hand over his face again, taking a moment to regroup. “Ted Mackey,” he finally says, letting the man’s name sit between them.

“What about him?”

Bill gestures wildly. “Why is he walking around like God’s gift to planet Earth, telling anyone who will listen that I’m going to the moon? Does he know something I don’t know? Because last I heard, there were still plenty of missions left between now and the end of the decade. Nothing has been decided, nothing is set in stone.”

Arvin North gives Bill a look of confused amusement. “Would that be a bad thing, Booker? Would going to the moon not fit in with your life plans?”

Bill is exasperated by this question, and by North’s tone. “Of course it would. You know that any one of us would sell our souls to be on that mission. But my issue is with some senator’s kid acting like he knows more about my life and my future than I do. Not to mention the implication that he could have some hand in how our space program runs. The thought of Ted Mackey?—“

“Did someone summon me?” Mackey appears in the open doorway of the little room and it takes everything in Bill not to close his eyes and let his head loll back on his neck. “I walk in here because someone told me I’d find you in the kitchen, and lo and behold, you’re saying my name.”

Bill nearly lunges at him.

“Mackey, now is not a good time,” Arvin North says, holding up a hand as if this will intercept any sort of showdown between the two men. “Can I talk to you next week?”

“Now is a good time for me,” Bill says angrily. “In fact, there’s no better time than right now. I want to understand your level of involvement in our space program, and to hear how you know more about my future than I do.” As he’s saying the words, Bill hears himself and understands that he sounds petulant. Childish. Demanding. The rational part of him knows that Arvin North would probably bench him for the rest of the season if they were high school basketball players, but of course there is more at stake here.

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