Page 3 of The Light Year (Stardust Beach #6)

jo

. . .

"Sorry to call so early," Barbie says the moment Jo lifts up her ringing phone. "I figured you were awake."

"I am," Jo says in a hushed voice. She'd chosen not to tell the kids about the drama in space, in hopes that they might make it through the school day and get home without hearing anything.

In her mind, there was no reason to strike fear into their young hearts every time their father went to work, and while she knows they will hear about how close Bill had come to disaster, she just hopes that by the time they do, she's figured out how to mitigate the scariest details and make it sound more like a minor snafu.

"Todd is fine," Barbie says. Her voice breaks on the last syllable and she starts to sob. "He's okay, Jo."

"I know," Jo says, pulling the long phone cord so that it stretches across the kitchen and she can sit at the table. Steam curls up from the coffee she's just poured. "He'll be here in a couple of days."

The process following splashdown has been detailed for them repeatedly, but you never know until it's your husband who has gone into space and returned, just how long forty-eight hours can feel.

Still, Jo is well aware that they will have to be evaluated post-splashdown, will get on a plane in Okinawa, and then will be taken directly to Houston for a full check-up.

After that, they'll fly home and be reunited with their families as quickly as possible.

Of course, there's still the very real possibility that something happened to one of them in space that will need further medical intervention, but Jo's gut feeling is that both Bill and Todd will come through with flying colors, and will be back on the Cape as quickly as possible.

"Jo," Barbie says softly, in the kind of quiet, still voice that only comes out in the middle of the night or in the most dire of circumstances. "If anything had happened..."

"But it didn't," Jo says firmly. "You can't do that, Barb."

"I can't not do that."

The women are silent for a beat. "If you do that every time he leaves, you'll rip yourself to shreds, and you'll make it impossible for him to go."

"I know. And this is his dream."

Jo lifts her coffee cup and sips. "Has it always been?"

"His dream?" Barbie sighs, contemplating.

"I think so. Or something like it. Todd came to my private high school during our senior year, and he was so smart, Jo.

I could tell the first time we did our homework together that he was smarter than any other boy I'd ever known.

And he loved science. He couldn't get enough of Astronomy class or talking about the universe.

So I think so, in a way. Todd has been talking about going to space for several years now. "

Jo nods and holds the phone receiver between her ear and her shoulder as she wraps both hands around her warm mug of coffee.

"Bill, too. He's been a pilot for about twenty years now, and as soon as NASA said they were looking for astronauts, he got tunnel vision on this idea that it would be him.

His entire goal was to get to space." She smiles now, remembering the day he'd come home talking about space travel for the first time.

"It was like a kid with a new toy, and he seemed so enthusiastic about it that I couldn't help but be supportive.

It wasn't until he was actually halfway into the selection process that I really and truly realized how his dream would mean uprooting our lives and starting over. "

"Do you regret it?"

"Moving here?" Jo squints out at the moon, which is still visible even as the sky starts to show the faintest tinges of a summer morning dawning over Florida.

"I regretted it at first. It was so hard.

But the kids were young enough that they just settled in and made new friends, and I forced myself to get out there and find a way to make this home. "

"The hospital," Barbie says knowingly. "I so admire your work there."

"Not just that--but thank you. I think meeting you ladies and really forming a bond and a friendship went a long way towards me feeling like I was home again."

"It's the same for me," Barbie admits. "I got here from Connecticut, and suddenly it was just me at home, pregnant and with two little ones underfoot, and I wasn't sure how to do it all."

Jo remembers feeling the same way; her mother and her sisters had been her constant companions and her network back in Minnesota, with childcare duties shifting between all of them as they supported one another through the ups and downs of daily life.

“Did your family help you out a lot back home?" Jo asks, reaching for the coffee pot to top off her mug. She knows Barbie lost her mother before the kids had came along, but she isn’t sure whether there were aunts or cousins who maybe pitched in. ”Because my family was a lifesaver."

"No," Barbie says. "Not exactly." She's quiet on the other end of the line for a long moment. "I had help… nannies. And a maid."

Jo blinks a few times and resists the urge to laugh out loud. For a second, she thinks Barbie might be kidding, but it becomes apparent that she's not.

"Oh," Jo says. "Wow. Okay. I've never actually met anyone with a nanny or a maid.

But hey," she adds quickly, "your dad is a senator, so that makes sense.

" But does it? Jo isn't sure. She'd assumed that maybe Barbie's family had some kind of money to go along with the status, but the idea of having a staff person in her house to do the cooking, cleaning, and childcare is almost too mind-boggling to contemplate.

"I'm not even sure anymore that it does make sense," Barbie says, laughing at herself. "I grew up that way and most of the people I know had a household staff, but then I met Todd and my whole perspective shifted."

This intrigues Jo: Barbie has mentioned now that Todd went to private school on a scholarship, and also that being with him changed her outlook on things. Despite the exhaustion from waiting up all night to hear that Gemini 8 had landed safely, she wants to know more.

"Tell me more about Todd," Jo says, sipping her coffee.

"Oh, Todd is the sweetest human alive," Barbie says. "Truly. His parents are hardworking. His dad is a mechanic with his own shop, and his mom stayed at home with the kids. I love the Romans, but my parents weren’t terribly impressed by them.”

Jo makes an encouraging noise and then pulls the receiver away from her ear to listen to the noise in the hall. It’s early for the kids to be up, but she waits, and then hears nothing more. She puts the phone back to her ear.

“They sound like wonderful people,” Jo says. “And Todd is very impressive. They have to love him, right?”

“Well, the first time I brought him home to meet my family, my dad shook his hand and then looked at his nails to see if he had grease under them.”

“Ouch.” Jo winces.

“He laughed it off like it was a joke and launched right into a discussion about what Todd was planning on doing with his life, but I was mortified. I’d told them how Todd was at my school on a scholarship, and how smart he was, but it was like all they could see was that he didn’t come from money.

That his parents had no status for them to impress their friends with.

They couldn’t say, ‘Oh, Barbara is dating so-and-so’s son—don’t you know them?

’” she says in a mocking tone. “It drove a wedge between us, because once I fell for Todd, I wasn’t giving him up. ”

“How’d the wedding go?”

Barbie chuckles softly. “About how you’d imagine.

My parents paid for an enormous to-do, and I worked overtime to make sure his family and friends felt welcomed.

But it was gorgeous, Jo. I felt like a Kennedy.

I spent the day saying my new name to myself: Barbara Jean Roman .

I couldn’t get over the fact that Todd and I had actually made it.

So I raced around that reception, trying to make everyone happy, and then Todd and I climbed into the back of the car together to be whisked away for our wedding night, and I never looked back. ”

“Wow,” Jo says, impressed. “This is all so much more dramatic than my marrying Bill. Of course, my parents had questions about me marrying a divorced man, and they weren’t sure it was a great idea, what with his first wife being in a facility and all, but they got to know him, they asked a lot of questions, and then all those fears went away.

I think they were more excited about us moving down here than I was. ”

“I wish it had been that easy,” Barbie says wistfully.

“But, family is family, right? You don’t get to pick them.

” She goes quiet for a moment. “So being down here gives me a chance to step away from it all, but like I said, it was hard to get used to not having any help. And don’t get me wrong: my father will pay for me to hire people down here, but I thought this was a good time to make a clean break.

To start my life the way I wanted to live it. ”

“That’s brave.”

“Not really,” Barbie says wryly. “It’s just me trying to finally grow up. At thirty,” she adds with a laugh. “I think it’s time. And, you know, when my brother came down here for the holidays with his family, and he and Bill got into that whole?—“

“Oh, god,” Jo interrupts, shaking her head and closing her eyes. “Don’t even mention that. I’m so embarrassed.”

“What? That’s not your fault, Jo. I hope you know I saw that whole thing as having nothing to do with you and me or with our friendship.”

“I was hoping you didn’t hold it against me.”

“Are you kidding?” Barbie scoffs. “Jo, I know my brother. Ted has been Ted for my entire life. He’s entitled, and, frankly, kind of a prick.”

Jo barks a laugh of surprise. “Sorry,” she says. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Listen, I didn’t even bother to ask him what happened. I’m pretty sure he said something or did something to offend Bill, and I wouldn’t want to get in the middle of that. It has nothing to do with you and me.”

Jo smiles over her cup of coffee. “I appreciate that. And I agree.” Of course she isn’t completely sure what it was about Ted Mackey that had set Bill off on New Year’s Eve—most of that information had been reserved for Dr. Eve Sheinbaum and their therapy sessions—but she knows enough about Bill to put the puzzle pieces together.

“So, are we just staying awake until they get home?” Jo asks. The coffee’s effects are already waning, and she can feel a deep exhaustion setting in behind her eyes, manifesting as a throbbing headache.

“Oh, Jo, I can’t,” Barbie protests. “I’m so tired.”

“Then I say we both turn in here for a couple of hours, try to sleep before our kids wake up for the day, and do our best to make it till bedtime. What do you say?”

“I say, ‘goodnight,’” Barbie says.

“Goodnight, Barbara Jean Roman,” Jo says as she stands to hang up the phone on the wall. “Sweet dreams.”