Sick of Me

It had been a few days since Billie and I had gotten a little hot and heavy in the basement and I wasn't surprised that nothing had changed between us. Billie continued to ignore my existence and I was beginning to resent him. With the way things were I didn't see us making it to our eighth wedding anniversary. It was annoying to not know where we stood in our marriage, but apparently Billie couldn't care less.

"Grace, where's the mail?"

I was helping Jack take off his little black Chuck Taylor high tops in his room. The kids had been out in the back yard until the sun went down.

"Still out in the mailbox? I didn't get it…"

Billie stood in the doorway of Jack's room, watching my every move. Jack had his hands on my shoulders as I untied his shoes and pulled them off and set them to the side. I looked up into the little boy's bright emerald eyes, tickling his sides and making him shriek with laughter.

"I kind of need to see if any bills came today."

"You have legs, you can get the mail."

"Ooh, I want to go get the mail!" Rita peeked into the room from behind Billie, wanting to get in on our discussion.

Now that she was getting older she always tried to put in her two cents whenever she heard adults having conversations, but she was smart about it.

"Rita Mae, it's a long walk to the mail box. Don't go by yourself." I watched a look of protest cross her face that nearly mirrored Billie's.

"But I'm a big girl!"

"Come on, Reet. I'll go with you!" Billie put on a forced smile as he gently took her hand and led her down stairs as I shook my head.

Jack and I were snuggling on the couch in the living room when Billie and Rita came back inside.

"This one's for you." He dropped the envelope in my lap as he went into the kitchen while Rita Mae took a seat next to me.

"It's a note from Sarah about their wedding…" I read over the print on the nice card stock. It was an invite to their rehearsal dinner. Sarah and Mike never got back together, but she had moved to Monterey and met this Andrew guy. They were actually really great together.

"When is it again?" Billie feigned interest, looking over the other mail at the kitchen counter.

"It's in Napa Valley next weekend."

"Do we get to come?" Jack loved going places. He constantly asked Billie when he would get to go on tour with him and Billie kept telling him that he would when he was old enough.

I think this summer after Jack turns four Billie will think about it. Mike and Tre wanted to do a tour where they all bring their families, but they wanted the kids to all be old enough to at least remember it.

"Not this time, little man. It's for grown-ups. You get to go to grandma's for a weekend though!" Billie had come back into the living room and shot him down gently.

Ollie always wanted them to spend time with her, so she'd have no problem watching the two next weekend.

"Will you call Ollie and set that up with her or should I?"

It might be too difficult for him to dial a phone or go see his mother.

"I'll do it." His response was overly dramatic, but that's how he's been lately.

---

Thursday morning after Rita Mae was on the bus to school, Billie and I took Jack to Ollie's house. The amazing woman hadn't changed a bit and she was ready to chase her grandkids around for a few days.

We were on the way to Napa in Billie's sporty, black, convertible BMW and he was driving of course. He was very particular about that kind of thing. He drove his cars, I drove mine; we never switched. I simply stared out the window, listening to the radio.

"Are you ok?" Billie turned down the music and I looked over at him; he had both hands on the wheel and was staring straight ahead.

"Yeah, why?"

"Just wondering. You're pretty quiet."

"Oh. I just miss the kids." I shrugged even though he wasn't watching. It was a habit of mine.

"Don't worry. They're gonna have a blast with my mom."

"I know, but still. It's hard spending every day with them then being gone for four days." I must have hit a nerve by accident. Billie shot me a look and then sighed as he turned his gaze back to the road.

"It's even harder to go months without seeing them. Trust me."

"I get that. But it must get easier as the time passes, right?"

"Wrong. It's worse. When I came home it felt like I barely knew them. Jack is a little chatterbox now and he's singing and running around being ridiculous. I wasn't there to see Rita Mae start first grade. She reads those chapter books to me and I'm amazed. You get to see them grow, where I just get to hear all about it on the phone every few days." Billie was opening up to me more than he had in a really long time and I didn't know what to do.

"I called John the other day…" Billie kept our conversation going.

"What did he have to say?" John had gone back to Los Angeles a few days after we had hung out. He was busy filming something or another most likely.

"He thinks we should se a counselor."

"Oh?" I didn't want to give away my opinion before he got his out there.

"I told him he's a crazy bastard. We don't need some quack telling us how our marriage should be." I watched Billie's grasp on the wheel tighten then relax as he spoke.

"But we do have problems, Billie Joe."

"Like what?"

"Are you serious? I'm not going to go in-depth about our issues on our way to a wedding."

"What better time than now? It's a long drive." It was only an hour to Napa Valley. We needed much longer than that if we wanted to get anywhere.

"Forget it. I don't want to talk about it right now."

"Why not?" Billie was beginning to become annoyed and so was I.

"Because you seem to think that we don't have any problems whatsoever! Can you honestly say that we have the perfect relationship right now?" I finally snapped at him, turning my body so I could face him to the best of my ability, given my seatbelt.

"My only complaint is that you don't put out."

"Are you fucking joking right now? You don't even talk to me. Why should I assume that you would touch me?" I sat and stared at him in disbelief. This was just ridiculous.

"I saw the sexy lingerie you bought. Who have you been wearing it for, because it sure as hell isn't me." His face was now a shade of bright red, a clear sign of his annoyance. He must not have seen it in the bag that I packed for this trip.

"I haven't even taken the tags off. I was gonna return it. Why let such nice underwear go unappreciated?"

When Billie didn't reply, I turned away from him and went back to looking out the window.

---

We got to the hotel after a little more than an hour of driving and went to the first of what was to be many wine tastings at noon.

Billie and I somehow managed to play nice for that hour and a half. We pretended that we were the great couple everyone thought we were, but I knew that Sarah had seen right through it.

"What's going on with you two?" Sarah had pulled me away from Billie at the second tasting, making sure we were out of his ear shot.

"Nothing's going on, that's the problem." I took a large sip from the glass of wine I was holding onto.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Nope. I'm sick of whining about my Billie woes to other people. This is between me and him." I looked over and saw that he was watching me intently, most likely trying to figure out if I was talking about him.

"I'll see you at dinner, ok?" I nodded as Sarah went off to speak with her other guests then I went and joined Billie.

"What was that all about?" He seemed vaguely interested as he peered down into his glass, avoiding eye contact with me at all costs.

"Nothing. She wanted to know if we were having a good time." I don't think telling the truth would really make any difference now.

"Did you tell her that we're having a blast?" I merely nodded at his sarcasm, finishing off my glass of wine.

With a few hours before dinner, Billie and I were stuck in the hotel room so I called Ollie to check in.

"How are they doing?" I was sitting on the edge of the king sized bed, close to the phone so I didn't stretch the cord. I heard Billie let out a loud sigh from across the room; he was checking out the mini-fridge and apparently he just discovered that it was empty.

"They're just fine Grace. Jack is taking a nap and Rita Mae is helping me make cupcakes."

"Okay. Well, I'll let you get back to baking. Give them kisses for me.."

"Will do. Relax and have fun!"

I hung up the phone and got up, grabbing Billie's cheap cigarettes and Zippo off of the desk and stepping out onto the balcony. It had been years since I smoked anything, but if there was ever a time to have one it was now.

"What are you doing?" Billie was now on the balcony, watching me inhale and release a long trail of smoke.

"I'm knitting a scarf. What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?"

I wasn't in the mood to be lectured by the man that brought six packs of these cancer sticks in the first place. Billie sat in the other chair and lit one for himself, taking a long drag and breathing out slowly like I had been doing. We sat in silence for what seemed like hours but was really only five or six minutes.

"I want to take John's advice." My blatant statement caught Billie off guard.

"What?"

"I think we should see a counselor."

"You've got to be kidding me, Gray."

"I'm not though. Things are different between us, and not in a good way. I want to find out why and how we can fix it." I was laying down the law and Billie Joe didn't like it one bit.

"I'm not going."

"Jesus H. Christ. You're so fucking stubborn! You can't even admit to yourself that we have problems. You do know that Jack and Rita Mae pick up on it, right?" I ran a hand through my hair out of nervous habit.

"I guess I never really noticed. But yeah, I can see how they could." Billie nodded, looking out at our view of the vast layout of thousands of grape vines,

"Could? They do, Billie Joe. They've noticed every time you ignore me when we're in the same room. I hate lying to them about why.. But I couldn't explain it if I wanted to. I don't know why you choose to do it to me in the first place."

Before Billie even had the chance to reply, I took the last few drags of my cigarette and put it out in the ash tray.

"I'm gonna take a shower and get ready for dinner. It's at a nice restaurant, so I'd appreciate it if you wore a tie or something..." With that said I went into the room, leaving Billie to his thoughts.