The Gravity of Us

by Phil Stamper

  “The thought of someone not knowing what they want to do with their life makes my palms sweat. It literally gets hard to breathe when I think of you not knowing anything about your future, and not having any urge to find out. And I recognize that’s so not chill, and probably not very enlightened,” I say. “Okay, definitely not enlightened. But I’m a planner. Plans can change, I’m cool with that, but not having a plan at all? It terrifies me.”

  “I’ve been going back to the open gyms. Every week, sometimes twice a week. And for once, I’m doing what I want to do. I just kept thinking about what you said, how I needed to channel that kid doing somersaults, and I have.”

  “Leon, that’s actually amazing.”

  “And I met a trainer there, who—”

  I cut in. “But you just said you were only doing it for fun?”

  “… who offered me a job teaching their five- to seven-year-olds early gymnastics skills. And I realized that every day I work there would be somersault day. I’m sure I’ll have to deal with the intense parents—like mine—but it’s the perfect side job. And without StarWatch around, I feel like I can just be myself.”

  “I’m so happy for you.” I throw my arms around him. “And … what about college?”

  “Look, you have to trust that I’ll figure it out,” Leon says. “Maybe not today, maybe not when I graduate high school, but someday I will.”

  “Okay,” I say, and I mean it. “I’ll support you, in whatever you choose to do and whenever you choose to do it.”

  “I need you to support me now. I need you to be okay with how I am now, and not think of me as someone who is broken.”

  I grab his hands and nod. Not to fix him, or to make him feel better, but to show him that I can support him. That I’m trying, and learning, and will do whatever I can to be there for him.

  “I told my parents,” he says. “How they made me feel. I tried to help them understand my depression, and they seemed to be listening. We talked about you a lot. They really like you, and … and us.”

  A smile comes over his face, and it’s so perfect I subconsciously reach out and hold his cheek. My eyes scan his face—his chin, his hair, his ears. He looks so beautiful in this moment, and I never want to forget this. How he looks. How I feel.

  “I love you,” I say. Not because he needs to hear it, but because I need to say it. “I love you so much, Leon.”

  He leans in to kiss me so fast that suddenly my back is flat against the pavement. I pull him close, and we kiss. We kiss. We kiss like we never have before—an ebb and flow of tender and rough, heavy and light, deep and shallow. My hands are all over his body, and his mine, and there’s a small part of me that never wants this to end, but an even larger part of me that can’t wait for what comes next.

  I, Calvin Lewis Jr., have no idea what is coming next. And I couldn’t be happier.

  CHAPTER 31

  As it turns out, I should have kept my visitor’s badge. NASA’s doing their best to fix their mess of a communications and social media campaign, but they asked me to keep covering the launches and keep interviewing scientists. Sure, it’ll give my résumé some credibility to be so connected to NASA, but I won’t be doing this for long. It’s time for me to chase new stories, and interview different people—find my voice again while sticking to my FlashFame roots.

  Slowly but surely, Brendan’s gaining the following that NASA can use to take my place after I’m gone. His daily check-ins and weekly updates with different scientists on the mission have started to get some massive views. At least I’m not leaving them high and dry.

  I’m sitting on my dad’s desk in the open work space the alternates share, and I’ve got my feet propped up on a chair. As I wait until they’re ready for me to start the video, I scroll through my feed, smiling when Deb’s video pops up. I click it and watch as she walks backward through the West Village.

  “I’m Deb Meister—the Debmeister, if you will. You won’t? Okay. Never mind. Anyway, welcome to my NYC update. I know what you’re thinking: New York’s all murders and Amber Alerts, and none of this shit is changing. WRONG. I’m here to show you ten fantastic, fun, and freaky things you could be doing with your Saturday, starting with number one—”

  She makes me laugh so hard throughout her bastardized version of my update that I almost choke. I text her after and remind her that she has a lot of journalistic integrity to uphold, and she replies with a middle finger emoji. Nice. But she’s on her way to ten thousand followers, and her updates are fantastic, fun, and, yes, they’re freaky too. She’s getting donations to help her make rent, and her parents have started sending her some money to fill in the gaps, to make up for all the money they had to take over the past year.

  I couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to take your kid’s money, even if she was the only one with a steady income. But since her mom and dad are back on their feet, they don’t let money ruin everything anymore.

  She’s really happy. I can see it in the videos, and I can hear it in her voice. And maybe one day we’ll actually get to be roommates in a shitty Coney Island apartment, bitching about how long it takes to get to Manhattan. I comment, saying I love her videos almost as much as I love her—because I’m feeling extra cheesy right now—when my dad waves me over.

  Carmela is directing Dad into the cockpit, and Grace has me set up the camera somewhere where I can easily pan between the simulation chamber and the open desks. I hit record.

  “This one’s new,” I say to her. “You’ve got two simulation chambers now?”

  “This one’s for six,” she says.

  I lower the camera. “What do you mean?”

  “Orpheus VI. It comes after V, dear?”

  A smile is plastered on my face as I watch my dad get into the cockpit. His cockpit. He tests out a few of the levers and buttons, probably noting the differences between the two spacecraft. Grace puts her hand on my shoulder and leans in.

  “I think she’s taking out one of the thrusters this time,” she says. “Calvin will flip, just watch.”

  The simulation starts. It’s a landing sim, where he’s staring at a screen that resembles the patch of Martian soil Orpheus VI will land on. The site’s been triangulated and is meant to have the perfect conditions for landing. Smooth, level, with firm dirt. It’s clear that everyone in the room is waiting for something to go wrong in the simulation. But the ground is coming up closer and closer in the view.

  I zoom in and catch a bead of sweat dripping down Dad’s brow. He’s jamming the control to the right, harder than the craft would normally take. His breaths become pants; his gaze becomes a laser. He’s in a state of total concentration.

  “We’re pitching,” he says. “Left thruster is dead, bringing up backup.”

  A few moments pass.

  “Backup is dead—prepare for a rough landing.”

  His voice is calm and even, and he reaches for buttons I didn’t even know existed. His motions are fluid.

  And it really hits me, after all this time: my dad’s a fucking astronaut.

  Touchdown.

  “We have a touchdown,” Dad says. “How many oxen did I lose in the river?”

  “Brilliant, Calvin, just brilliant. Your crew might have a few bumps on the head, but that’s all. Bravo!” Carmela says. “See, what did I tell you? Your dad is impossible to stump. He’s going to keep everyone very safe in a couple years.”

  “And you’re going to keep trying to kill me until then.”

  “Sir, that is my job,” she says, and we all laugh.

  I end the video and watch it get shared and viewed thousands of times within minutes. News sites instantly pick up my videos now, and the hunger for information about the Orpheus program is insatiable. StarWatch is long gone, and everyone’s trying to be the news source to replace it.

  I spend the rest of the day taking video of more scientists and astronauts in their natural habitat, and I save those videos for later. My follower count is almost at real cel
ebrity levels, but people have started to leave me alone. All my press inquiries go right to NASA, and on principle, I don’t give any interviews. “I’m the interviewer,” I usually say. “Not the other way around.”

  While Leon still hasn’t made a decision about college or the real world—I’m really okay with it, really I am (really I’m not, but I am trying)—I’ve got a list of ten schools with programs to apply to. At the top of my list are New York University, obviously, Columbia University, and Ohio University. But I’ll be applying to schools in Texas, California, and all over the East Coast. Leon’s helping me be more impulsive, and it’s making me keep my options open. I’m flexible. Cool and breezy.

  Okay, maybe not.

  Maybe I’ll never be breezy, but that’s just me. Most important, I’m starting to realize when it holds me back. To be so laser focused on one city, or one specific future, could hurt me in the end. So I’ll leave the breeziness to someone else.

  After we’re done, around five thirty, Dad and I get into the car and he takes the country roads back. He hasn’t gotten off this early in weeks, basically since NASA decided to keep the launch on schedule. I roll down the windows, and the cool air floods the cabin. Fall is just around the corner, and I’m mostly excited to be able to use my sweater collection. I’ve made peace with the fact that I’ll never have to bring my peacoat out because of the ever-present heat, but it’s almost sixty today, which in my book is cause for a celebratory sweater party.

  “Cal,” my dad says, “thanks for everything. I know I made a lot of this about me—I mean, I got overwhelmed with the new job and didn’t really have time to think about how everyone was taking it. I didn’t even ask if you would be willing to move down here.”

  “I would’ve said no if you gave me the choice. If you gave me any other option than coming here, I’d have taken it immediately.” I scratch the back of my neck. “But it would’ve been the worst mistake I’d ever made.”

  CHAPTER 32

  When we pull into the driveway outside our house, Dad motions for me to stay in the car. I pause with the seat belt in my hand, and I give him a confused look. He shakes his head in reply.

  “Let’s go out to dinner tonight,” he says. “You know, we haven’t actually gotten to just hang out and talk, the three of us, since everything went down. Actually, since we moved. I’m going to go see if Mom is okay with it.”

  “It’s okay if she isn’t,” I say quickly. “Spontaneity isn’t really her thing.”

  Mine either, I think.

  “I know,” he says. “If she doesn’t want to, that’s fine. We’ll figure something else out.”

  That’s what sits oddly with me. Not in a bad way, but more in a … peculiar way. Something as minor as this would have set off a fight back when we lived in Brooklyn. Is he starting to actually understand my mom?

  While Dad’s inside, I cross my legs in the car and start to text Leon, like I have been doing for basically any downtime in the past week. When you’re an unemployed FlashFame star who is no longer trying to save humanity with his videos, turns out you have a lot of downtime.

  “Want to come over tonight?” he asks. After literally no thought at all, I decide that I do very much want to come over tonight. We meet at his house more often, mostly because his bedroom’s way bigger than mine. We have to keep the door open when we’re in there—again, the obliviousness of his parents is nothing short of adorable—but I’ve barely talked to my parents about Leon, though they obviously know (they’re not blind). To invite him over would mean having that talk. Would mean my mom being super awkward and inviting him to stay for dinner, where things would continue to be awkward until the end of time.

  His place is much better. I text back: “I’m having dinner with my parents, maybe? But I’ll call after.”

  There’s something so pleasing in the mundane way that our conversations have gone lately. Something right about how easy things are now. Sure, when I see him, everything is fire and passion and kissing and touching, but there’s an old grandma side of me that just loves hanging out with him and watching a movie, or whatever we end up doing.

  Dad comes back, and I assume he’ll just wave me inside after a failed attempt to be spontaneous. But he keeps walking. And Mom follows him out and comes to the car. I get out and slide into the back seat, and we take a drive together for the first time since we moved here.

  “Tex-Mex?” Dad asks.

  We nod our assent, and within minutes we’re at the nearest restaurant with a giant margarita in front of Dad and an equally large basket of chips in front of me.

  “This is nice,” Mom says for probably the fourth time.

  I sit up straighter, and my gaze darts between my parents. “What’s this about?” I ask warily.

  “You know how I have that therapist who I meet online?” Mom asks. I nod. “Well, we, meaning me and Dad, found one who specifically works on … relationship issues.”

  “Oh. Um. What’s wrong with your relationship?” I ask, though I kind of know the answer.

  “I think you know,” Dad says. “We’re learning—about sixteen years later than we should’ve—how to deal with conflict between each other. See, your mom and I are different. We react to things differently, and we are trying to understand our differences, I guess.”

  “Yes,” I say with a smile. “You two are very different.”

  “Very,” Mom says before sneaking a sip of Dad’s margarita. “And we started to realize how much this was affecting you. You were usually closed off in your room or downstairs with Deb, listening to music or posting Flash videos. We thought that you could ignore it.”

  “I could have told you it bothered me, I guess.”

  “We should have known,” Mom says. “What’s going on with us is not your responsibility to make better. It’s ours, and we’re going to start treating it that way. Thanks to a little help.”

  I come around the table and squeeze them both in a big hug. I know how hard it is to seek help, from when Mom first started managing her anxiety. But I also know how much better she feels because of it.

  People aren’t broken, and therapists couldn’t fix them if they were. But maybe someone can make things a little better, or help them be a little happier.

  “I love you guys. And I’m glad you’re talking to someone.”

  I take my seat and resume my overeating of chips, when I see a little cassette get slid to me.

  “What’s this?” I ask.

  “After our first date, your dad made me this cassette. This was the late nineties, so while I was thrilled—none of my high school boyfriends had ever given me one—I didn’t have a cassette player anymore.”

  “The quality is probably terrible. I recorded them off the radio—you used to be able to do that back in the day—but we wanted you to have it.”

  I open the case and see a simple white cassette with a heart on it. It makes me melt, and the gift makes me need to see Leon.

  “Maybe giving a cassette to someone you like is a good sign,” Mom says, her grin growing wider by the moment. “If you get my hint.”

  “So, want to talk to us about Leon?” Dad says.

  “You know—we should have him over for dinner. What kind of food does he like?”

  “Oh my god,” I say. “Stop! You guys are embarrassing.”

  “It’s kind of our job,” Mom says as she hooks her arm in Dad’s.

  After dinner, Mom and Dad decide to go to a movie. I decline, explaining that I planned on going over to hang out with Kat and Leon tonight. So after we’re all overstuffed on enchiladas, they drop me off outside their place.

  I stand on the other side of the Tuckers’ front door and wait for the Corolla’s taillights to disappear down the street. My heart races as I pull out my phone and give him a call.

  “Hey, you on your way?” Leon asks.

  “No,” I say, staring at his front door. “I’m outside your house. And I have a proposition.”

  The chill of t
he night creeps under my cable-knit sweater, and I welcome it. It’s been far too long since I’ve been chilly.

  “My parents just went to see a movie.” A pause, where the silence on the other end of the phone is deafening. “Meaning, my house is empty.”

  “I know what you meant. Come around back. I’ll slip out.”

  Excitement charges through my body, and every part of me, of this, feels right. When I get to the backyard, he’s there, the bright moon softening his skin.

  He puts his arm around me as we wind around the wooded path that connects our houses. I think about how he snuck me away from reporters on the first day, how cute he was sitting on the swing next to mine, how foreign and scary everything felt.

  I slip my arm around his waist. There’s a moment when we struggle to fall in line with each other’s gait, and it’s a little awkward, but we figure it out eventually.

  “I can’t believe it’s only been a few months since you moved here,” Leon says.

  “I know. It feels like only yesterday I was single-handedly saving all of NASA.”

  He glares at me. “Okay, I had a little help.”

  He plants a kiss on my cheek, and I actually blush. Embarrassing.

  “I should have been there more to help you,” he says. “Sorry, babe. I was so in my head about everything.”

  I lean my weight into him and momentarily forget how to make words when I breathe him in.

  “Can we stop apologizing? I love NASA, and I’m so glad we are still here, but I’m ready to move on. Talk about new things. Think about next steps.”

  “Next steps?” he says with a laugh. “Always the planner.”

  “Seriously. No more apologies about this. I love you.”

  “And I love you.”

  “And that’s all,” I say. “That’s all that matters.”

  We stop outside the door to my empty house. He faces me and places his hands on either side of my head. Our lips meet, again and again, until it gets hard to separate whose tongue is whose, whose breath belongs to who.