3. Bill
CHAPTER 3
Bill
"And now here we are," Dr. Sheinbaum says, standing up from her desk and walking over to a plant on a shelf, which she inspects closely. "Needs water," she says absently, her back to Bill. "Just like a marriage."
Bill closes his eyes. Here we go , he thinks, preparing himself for some intrusive line of questioning or a lecture.
"Tell me about the day you met Josephine," Dr. Sheinbaum says, returning to her chair, which she sits in with an almost listless air. "Did you like one another right away?"
Today, Dr. Sheinbaum is wearing a floor-length dress in navy blue, and around her neck is a choker of thick, amber-colored beads. Her hair is swept into a neat bun, and she's wearing her tortoiseshell-framed glasses.
"Jo was working behind the front counter at my dentist's office, and I thought she was the picture of loveliness," Bill says, resting on one elbow against the chair's armrest. "She was wearing a pink dress with her hair pulled back off her face—the way yours is now." He points at the bun at Dr. Sheinbaum's neck.
"How did you show her you were interested in her?"
Bill laughs, remembering. "I came out of the exam room and my mouth was still numb from a filling I'd gotten, so when I asked her out, my lips didn't move right." He relaxes as the image of this memory floods his mind's eye. "But she understood me anyway. We both laughed, and she said yes, that she'd like to go out with me sometime. And then we did."
"Right," Dr. Sheinbaum says, and Bill can tell that she hasn't quite gotten what she wants from him yet. "But did she like you right away? Have you ever asked her?"
He shrugs. "She says she liked me, too. One time she told a story to her sister about how she'd offered to work late that day because she saw me on the schedule for the afternoon. Apparently she'd thought I was handsome the first time I came in." Bill nearly blushes as the words cross his lips; calling himself 'handsome' doesn't come naturally to Bill.
Dr. Sheinbaum leans back in her chair and crosses her legs at the knee. "So fast-forward to now, and you have three children and are living halfway across the country from her family. Do you ever think this life might overwhelm her? That she struggles to adjust to all these changes?" Dr. Sheinbaum spreads her hands wide, elbows on the armrests of her own chair. "Do you think that maybe she occasionally grapples with the idea that her own dreams are going unfulfilled?"
Bill is incredulous. So much so that he nearly stands up and walks out of the office, gets into his car, and drives away. Dr. Sheinbaum has got to be kidding. He scoots to the edge of his seat like he might stand, but then leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and staring right at the psychiatrist. Like, right at her—into her eyes, into her soul. She has to understand where he's coming from.
"Dr. Sheinbaum," Bill says carefully. “Jo is a wife and a mother, and I give her a wonderful life. I’m an astronaut. Out of the millions of people in this country, there are only a handful of us in the running to go to the moon.”
Dr. Sheinbaum’s eyes look slightly magnified behind her glasses and she blinks at Bill, but says nothing.
“Do you understand how rare it is to be in this position?” Bill puts the fingertips of both hands against his chest as he leans forward imploringly. “There’s a ton of pressure that comes with being in a job where there are so few of you. Everyone is watching, wondering if you can actually do it, waiting to see if you’ll choke. And there are many people who want you to choke. Can you even imagine what that feels like?”
It’s Dr. Sheinbaum’s turn to lean forward in her chair and to meet Bill’s gaze head-on. “Lieutenant Colonel Booker,” she says with force, putting an emphasis on her words. “I’m a woman in a man’s field. Do you know how few there are of me right now? Licensed female psychiatrists?” She sits back and folds her arms across her chest. “We aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, so, yes, I understand what that feels like—even the part where you know people are waiting to see if you’ll choke.”
In response, Bill sits back in his chair. He considers this before responding. It’s different—his situation and Dr. Sheinbaum’s—but maybe she does have some understanding of how he feels and the uniqueness of being an outlier. Bill changes tack.
“So, as a woman who has done something extraordinary?— “
Dr. Sheinbaum holds up a hand modestly. “Not extraordinary. It was just out of the norm for a woman to go into psychiatry and attend medical school a decade ago.”
“Fine, for you to be doing something out of the norm,” Bill agrees. “But as a woman in this position, do you really think that what you do compares to what a woman like Jo does?”
Dr. Sheinbaum’s face takes on a look that is both quizzical and displeased. “Do you think it doesn’t compare?”
“Well, no. Frankly, it doesn’t. You went through grueling years of medical school and you must encounter some sort of pushback from the men in your field, correct?”
“Sure.” Dr. Sheinbaum folds her hands together and sets them on her lap.
“But Jo, and so many other women like her, marry young, become mothers, and I guess you might call it an unpaid profession, but they enter into the work of womanhood, essentially. And they’re generally cared for by a man who goes out into the world to provide for the family.”
Dr. Sheinbaum tilts her head to one side, keeping her eyes on Bill. “But how do you know that’s what she wanted to do? When you were a little boy, did you only dream of growing up and becoming a father?”
Bill laughs in disbelief. “No. Of course not. I wanted to be a fireman and a cowboy and a doctor, just like every other young boy.”
The smile on Dr. Sheinbaum’s face is one of amusement. “And you don’t think that Jo ever dreamed of those things—or of their equivalents? You think, from childhood, all she ever wanted to do was grow up and wipe baby bottoms, or fold your laundry?”
Bill’s smile fades; when Dr. Sheinbaum boils it down like that, it makes it sound like he’s keeping Jo in a cage and forcing her to do labor. He’s not—he’s definitely not.
“Do you think that perhaps so many women go into the domestic field of motherhood and wifehood because it’s what’s expected of them? And that maybe that expectation crushes or minimizes their own dreams of being teachers, lawyers, world-travelers, or ballerinas? I mean, how many women do you know who grow up to be lawyers or ballerinas, versus the number of men you know who are firemen or doctors?”
Bill clamps his mouth shut. She’s right. He knows no ballerinas, and no female lawyers. Okay, well, he knows Frankie Maxwell, who had been a Rockette and who now owns the dance studio in town where so many little girls learn to be ballerinas… but will they come to realize sooner rather than later that “ballerina” isn’t a real profession within their reach? That what their families, friends, and society expect of them is that they’ll memorize at least one recipe for each day of the week, and that they’ll cheerfully wake up all night long with sick or colicky babies?
“Okay, point taken,” Bill says. He’s been reprimanded. “But what else could I have done to help Jo become something else if she was already being indoctrinated, so to speak, by the rest of the world?”
“Well,” Dr. Sheinbaum says, blowing out a long breath. “Maybe nothing. After all, these are long-held belief systems in play. But she’s your wife, and she’s a fully actualized human being, Bill. No doubt she has dreams of her own. Things she’d like to accomplish outside the kitchen. Unless she’s the next Julia Child,” she adds with a wry smile.
Bill’s lips quirk up involuntarily. “She’s a wonderful cook, but no, being the next famous chef is undoubtedly not in Jo’s future.” He pauses for a moment, picking at the seam of his slacks. “I know she wants to write. And when we first moved here three years ago, she started volunteering at Stardust General and made some mention of possibly being interested in nursing. Are you saying I should encourage her to go to nursing school?”
Dr. Sheinbaum makes a face that lets him know that, no, she had not meant that at all. “That’s open to your interpretation, Bill. What I am doing is trying to show you the possibility that your wife feels some sense of disillusionment about life. I think many women do, in fact. They realize, after doing all the things the world tells them they’re supposed to do, that they’ve somehow missed something.”
“I don’t want Jo to miss anything.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Bill,” Dr. Sheinbaum says, but her tone borders on indulgent. “And it’s worth considering that you might want to encourage Jo to think about activities that fulfill her. But I also want you to see that even listening to her talk about what she wants might be an avenue towards the closeness you’re currently missing with her.”
Bill nods. “I see.”
“And you have two daughters, correct?” Bill nods at her question. “How old?”
“Nancy is twelve—nearly thirteen—and Kate is about to turn ten.” He shakes his head. “Time is flying. You forget, don’t you?”
Dr. Sheinbaum gives him a closed-lip smile. “I don’t have children of my own, but I can imagine.”
“I’m sorry,” Bill says, then wonders whether that’s the right or wrong thing to say to a childless woman. He grimaces slightly.
“No need to be. I’m perfectly happy.” Dr. Sheinbaum lets a beat pass between them. “But I want you to consider the future for your daughters. If your youngest is ten in 1966, she’ll be thirty in 1986. The world might—and most likely will—be a very different place for her in that new era. Maybe it won’t be expected that she marry and be a homemaker.” She unfolds her hands and turns her palms to the ceiling. “Maybe she’ll have choices and avenues open to her that Jo and other women currently don’t.”
Bill thinks about this: 1986. They will have been to the moon by then, maybe more than once! (Of course his mind goes there first.) Music will change, fashion will change… maybe they’ll have flying cars or telephones with video images, like watching a television screen with the person you’re calling looking back at you.
Bill shakes his head in wonder. “Okay, I get your point. But how does all this pertain to what happened on New Year’s Eve? To me fighting with a senator’s son in the kitchen of the Stardust Beach Hilton and getting sent to see a shrink so that I don’t lose my job?”
Dr. Sheinbaum stares right at him. “How does it not pertain to that, Bill? A man who feels settled at home doesn’t swing on the son of a senator.” She holds up both hands to ward off his comeback. “I get that he made you angry, but was there something he said that you can trace back to your marriage—in any way?”
Bill is about to deny this hotly when he realizes that she’s right: Jeanie. Ted Mackey had danced with Jeanie. Touched Jeanie. Set off a firestorm in Bill’s heart… all because of Jeanie. And if things were right for him at home, there would be no Jeanie.
He holds his tongue and simply nods.
Dr. Sheinbaum nods in return. “Okay. Your homework for this week is to sit down with Jo and talk to her about her dreams. Either the ones she still has, the ones she thinks she’s achieved, or the ones she deferred when she became Mrs. Bill Booker. Maybe all three.”
This is a tall order, but Bill nods again. “Okay. I can do that.”
Dr. Sheinbaum stands. “Fabulous. And now my homework is to water my plants before they die,” she says, walking back over to the jade and the African violets. “I’ll see you next week, Bill.”
And with that, she turns her back on him, and Bill is dismissed.