“Paz-Viveiros and Cleary, you’ll be happy to know that the simulator has been repaired, so you can resume your mission prep.” Clemons peered at his agenda. “Malouf, you did a good job with the issue with the hatch seal, but it revealed some problem areas with the mission, and I want to do some reassignments. I’m reassigning you from the CM on this lunar mission to commanding the second one.”
I winced for him. That had to be tough, but with Parker back, I guess they were assuming he’d be fit enough for launch. Parker’s brows went up and he sat forward, head held at a rigid angle. “Sir, I’m not going to be ready for flight for another year.”
“I know.” Clemons waved his cigar at him. “York’s the new CM.”
Air roared past my ears as if I were suddenly feeling all 1,040 miles per hour of the Earth’s rotation. I shook my head, trying to clear it. The CM. The command module. That wasn’t just being a computer—that was also piloting the craft that would orbit the moon while the lander went to the surface.
Someone said my name. More than one person. Pressure and sound came back into focus as Nicole squeezed me into a hug. Malouf came up from behind and wrapped his long arms around me. He said something kind. I don’t know what.
Across the table, Parker smoldered. He put his hand flat on the table. “May I ask a question.”
No. No—I hadn’t said anything. I gripped my hands into fists until the nails bit into my palms, then forced myself to breathe. My stomach had knotted into a ball so tight it hurt.
3.1415 …
“Go ahead.”
“Why York?”
“It has been made abundantly clear to me that the moon mission isn’t going to succeed without a computer on board. The CM will be out of contact with the Earth every time it flies into the moon’s dark side.” Clemons slid a sheet of paper toward me. “This is a list of the computers that work for the IAC. I want you to go through it and identify anyone that can be trained as a pilot.”
I didn’t need the list to know whose name belonged at the top. “Helen Liu. Already a pilot, and has jet experience.” But I took the list. “I’ll work on the rest.”
“I’d like to help York with that.” Parker gave an earnest smile.
He wanted to help? Help me? “What kind of pain medicine are you on?”
“You’d like some, wouldn’t you?” His smile was casual—all joking between colleagues, but I could see the threat that lay underneath it. Toe the line, he’d said. And he had to see me getting the first lunar landing instead of him as jumping the line. “It’s important to think about the temperament of the candidate as well. York’s got the expertise to talk about the computing side, and I trust her as a pilot, but space is a different thing and she hasn’t been up there. Besides, I’d like to feel like I’m of some use.”
He sounded so reasonable. He’d even slipped a compliment in there. But I’d seen him use that earnest smile as a weapon before. The paper with the computers’ names rattled in my grip.
Clemons nodded along. “Good. Good. I’m going to use you as CAPCOM on a couple of missions, but this shouldn’t interfere.”
“Actually, maybe we should take advantage of having some of the other ladies here to talk through what attributes we’re looking for in a candidate, since the computers are all women.” He held up his hand. “But I don’t want to mess with your agenda on my first day back. I’m just so eager to get back to work.”
I swallowed my fear and tried to take control of the conversation. “That’s a great idea, Parker. Why don’t you and I come up with an initial list, and then we can vet it with the group later. That’ll give the director time to get it on the agenda.”
“Absolutely.” There was his shit-eating grin. “And there are some easy points that we can establish right up front. For instance, the candidates need to be emotionally stable. So it would be an obvious black mark if any of them were, say, taking Miltown.”
1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11—
Nicole gave her debutante laugh. “Don’t be foolish. That would disqualify half of the United States.”
Oh. No. Nicole, don’t. Don’t sacrifice your own chance in space …
… 13, 17, 23 … I somehow managed to match her laugh. “Right. I mean, for heaven’s sake. I take it.”
Parker’s brows went up so fast that you might almost have thought I’d surprised him. “Is that—oh. Is that what’s been affecting your reaction times in testing?”
Malouf snorted. “If this is York when she’s thinking slowly, then I’d be terrified of her at full speed.”
Next to him, Cleary nodded. “She had the trajectory calculated, in her head, in less than ten minutes, then ran it again on paper for safety.” He held up his hands and shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Parker couldn’t join the nodding because of his neck brace, but he leaned forward in his chair. “And thank God for that.” There was that earnest shrug of his. “I just worry what she’ll do in space if she’s in a high-pressure situation and can’t get the Miltown.”
I kept trying to find words to stop him, but my tongue latched itself down, as if it wanted to prove him right.
And then Benkoski cleared his throat.
He steepled his fingers and gave Parker a solemn stare. “Look. We all know that you don’t like her. And we all know why. And we also know what would have happened to Malouf and me if she hadn’t been on duty that night.” He jabbed a finger at Parker, and I ground my teeth into the inside of my cheek to keep from bursting into tears. “You’re telling me that saving our lives wasn’t a high-pressure situation?”
“All I’m saying is that the floor of Mission Control is completely different from space.”
Terrazas spoke up from his place near the rear of the room. “Just as point of data, the flight surgeon offered me Miltown when we came back to Earth. I turned him down, because I was worried it would get me grounded. So, I would like to volunteer my services to review the right ‘temperament’ to be an astronaut. But I’ll tell you this: York has it.”
Parker drew breath, and Clemons held up his hand, cut ting him off. “You weren’t there, Parker. I’ve got no questions about York’s fitness, and that’s not the topic of discussion. All we’re concerned with is which computers to add to the list.”
“Of course.” Parker gave a little shrug and glanced at Betty for just a bare moment. “I’d be happy to work with York on that.”
Drawing a line through something on the agenda, Clemons said, “Terrazas, you help York with sorting the list. You’ll be working together on moon prep anyway.”
By all that was holy … I was going to the moon. Parker had tried to ground me and failed. I was going to the goddamned moon.
Nathaniel and I were going to have such a good rocket launch.
THIRTY-EIGHT
ENGINEER’S PLAN FOR TRIP TO MARS
Jan. 8, 1958—In a book entitled Das Marsprojekt, published in Germany, Dr. Wernher von Braun has developed a plan for a journey to Mars, which he has presented frequently in lectures and in popular magazines of large circulation here. He is convinced that it is technically possible to organize and send out an expedition of seventy to Mars.
As soon as the Monday-morning meeting let out, Nicole grabbed my arm and pulled me into the ladies’ room. A moment later, Jacira and Sabiha followed us in. Sabiha leaned against the door, as if any of the male astronauts would be caught dead in the ladies’ room.
Or, maybe it wasn’t to keep the men out. Betty and Violette weren’t here. Nicole leaned me against the sink as if I were a delicate flower that needed to be propped up. She glanced at Sabiha and Jacira. “Did you see the way Parker was looking at Betty?”
My heart, which had begun to slow down, ramped back up again. “I did.”
Jacira nodded as well. “I think she’s going to run the Miltown story straight to Life.”
Thank God Nicole had given me the sink to lean against, because my knees might have buckled right then. In her dri
ve to advance her career, Betty had already tossed me to the reporters once. That was not nearly as juicy a story as this. If the fact that one of the lady astronauts needed to take a tranquilizer hit the paper, that would make things more difficult for all of us, so I needed to tell Clemons that I couldn’t go, and get him to pick someone else. Helen—Helen had the same math skills I did, and—
A tiny rational part of my brain screamed from way down deep inside: You are panicking.
I gripped the edge of the sink until the Formica bit into the flesh of my fingers. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 … Nicole’s, Sabiha’s, and Jacira’s voices came at me through a vat of tar. 11, 13, 17, 19 … There had to be something I—we—could do. This wasn’t something I could face on my own. It would affect Nicole as well, if anyone started really digging into our medical records. I turned my head to them and clawed my throat open. “Betty.”
“What?” Nicole broke off in mid-sentence and turned to face me.
“I need to talk to Betty. Parker won’t go to the press on his own, because if it ever got out that he’d leaked the news, that would tarnish his reputation.” If I knew nothing else about Stetson Parker at this point, it was that he valued the idea of his own legacy. He also, I think, genuinely cared about the space program. I didn’t like the way that manifested, but it was real. “If I can convince Betty not to run it…”
Sabiha shoved off from her place by the door. “Be right back.”
“You’ll want backup.” Jacira followed her out of the bathroom, ponytail swinging in an arc with her turn.
By my side, Nicole pulled some paper towels from the wall dispenser and wet them. “You okay?”
My head dropped forward so that my chin rested on my chest. “Yes?”
“Wash your face.” She handed me the wad of damp towels. “You’ll feel better.”
“You sound like my mother.” But I took the towels, because Mama had always been right about that. The cool paper blotted some of the heat from my cheeks and forehead. “How did we get here?”
“By being good.”
“No—I mean, I used to be friends with Betty, and now…” I shrugged. “I shouldn’t have gotten so mad with her about the Girl Scout thing.”
Nicole snorted. “Please. She made that bed.”
“I helped.”
“Maybe, but—”
The door to the bathroom opened. Jacira pulled Betty in, with Sabiha close on her heels. She let Betty go and positioned herself with Sabiha by the door, arms crossed over her chest. Betty glanced over her shoulder and then back at me.
“Well … I feel like I’m back in high school again.” Her lips curled in a sardonic smile. “Going to accuse me of being a slut?”
I still had the damp towel in my hand and set it down on the counter. “I was going to apologize.”
“Was.”
“Am. I’m sorry for being so angry about the Girl Scout thing. I’ve treated you badly.” I took a breath and wiped my hands on my trousers. “And I wanted to ask for a favor.”
“It’s not really an apology if it comes with a price tag.”
“True. Fair.”
“But then, I wouldn’t expect a Jew to give something away for free.”
Through the white heat of my rage, I saw Nicole push off from the sink. “I find that offensive.”
“Oh. Are you a Jewess now?”
“I don’t have to be to recognize offensive language.” She crossed the room and glared at Betty. “You were a WASP. Have you forgotten why we fought the war?”
“It’s okay.” It wasn’t, but I needed to pretend it was, so I stepped away from the sink. Our intervention wasn’t helping and might even make things worse. “Betty, I’m sorry. May I … I just wanted to talk to you. May we?”
She pursed her lips for a moment, then gave a cursory nod. “Go ahead.”
“Could you—could you not tell Life that I take Miltown?” Tension locked my ribs into a knot. “Please.”
She shook her head slowly. “Look … I’m sorry. This is my career.”
“Ours too.” I gestured to the five of us crowded into the bathroom. “Women in the space program are already on shaky ground. How do you think it will look if one of them is on tranquilizers?”
“If you don’t get to go into space, you can go back to the computer department. You have a husband who’s in the program. It is a colony effort, so it will just be a matter of time before they let you go up, even if I run the article tomorrow. Me … they’re never going to let me go. I don’t have another career. All I’ve got is this job with Life magazine.” Betty rested her hands on her hips and stared at the floor. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
Jacira cocked her head. “Do even you want to go into space?”
“Yes!” Betty’s voice cracked, and she balled her hands into fists. “Jesus. Why does everyone think that I don’t care? Parker keeps saying I’m not a pilot, but I am, and—forget it.”
“I’ll teach you math.” The offer came out before my brain caught up with me.
“What?”
“I used to tutor at university. Not just arithmetic, but the higher-level stuff.” This was like Parker offering to certify me on the T-38 if I didn’t tell anyone about the weakness in his left leg. Had he felt this gripping desperation wrapping itself around his middle when he’d been talking to me? I sighed, letting my ego out so I could keep going. “They want more computers. I can teach you to be one.”
“And if I say no?”
Behind me, Nicole shifted and sighed. “Then we go back to high school. I know about Parker. And I know about his wife.”
Betty’s face went pale. I’d thought that she might be sleeping with Parker, but whatever was going on with his wife was outside my awareness. And it didn’t matter. I wasn’t Parker.
“No.” I turned to face Nicole. “We’re not going to play that game. If Betty doesn’t want to help us, then that’s her call. We’ll respect that, and I’ll figure out something else.”
Nicole’s jaw set, as if she were about to argue with me. In the mirror over the sink I could see Betty, brows drawn together, leaning back on her heels as if she would flee if she could. Behind her, Jacira and Sabiha guarded the door. All of them watched me.
And in the mirror, I could see who I could become. I could become Parker, pushing with everything I had to get into space.
I let my breath out, counting through a Fibonacci sequence. “I’m sorry, Betty. I’m sorry I’ve treated you badly. And I’m sorry I tried to bully you into changing your story.” Turning, I rubbed my forehead. “The offer to tutor you in math still stands.”
She blinked at me and then, surprising everyone—including herself, I think—Betty burst into tears. For a moment, we all stood there, shocked. I don’t know who moved first. Maybe Nicole. Maybe Jacira. Maybe me. But in a moment, we all had her surrounded and held.
And that—that was when I knew that we really had something. We were Lady Astronauts. All of us. And, goddamn it, we were all going to go into space.
* * *
I was not the first woman in space. Nor would I be the first woman on the moon. My role was to fly the command module while my male colleagues went to the surface.
The night before we all went into isolation—it wouldn’t do to get ill during the eight days we were in space—Nathaniel and I threw a party. Nicole let us borrow her house, since our apartment was too tiny.
It is a strange thing, knowing that, in a little over a week, you will be strapped to a four-megaton bomb and hurled into airless space. Every time I spoke to someone, I couldn’t help but think, This might be the last time.
But I’d been given a second chance with Aunt Esther, hadn’t I? She sat next to me on the sofa in Nicole’s living room with a rum and Coke perched on her knee. The party might have been in my honor, but she was the life of it.
“The worst of it was that I’d lost Mama’s union card under the roller coaster! There I was, on the horns of a dilemma…”
Eugene L
indholm knelt on one knee to listen to Aunt Esther, while Myrtle perched on the arm of the sofa. He seemed to find my aunt endlessly charming. “What did you do, ma’am?”
I’d been a little concerned when I introduced her to the Lindholms. What would this old Southern woman think about our black friends? I needn’t have worried.
She laid her hand on Eugene’s arm. “Well, I’m glad you asked. I knew that if I didn’t find the card, Mama would know that I’d snuck out to the carnival, and worse, she wouldn’t be able to work … so Rose and I snuck behind the roller coaster, then I hitched my skirt up to my thighs and crawled under it. If Mama had known how much leg I was exposing, she would have been more upset by that than the loss of her card! But I got it back. Yes I did.”
Hershel sat in the chair to my right, his crutches propped against its side. He leaned over to me and gestured to Aunt Esther. “It’s like this at home. If we can get her telling stories from when she was a kid, there’s no end to them. What she had for breakfast? Not so much.”
“But it’s working out?”
He smiled. “It’s perfect. Well, all right, not perfect, but the kids love her, and she’s able to help Doris with cooking, so it’s pretty good. Speaking of kids … Tommy!”
“Now, I’ve been talking so much I haven’t had a drop to drink. Why don’t you tell me about yourself, young man?” Aunt Esther took a sip of her rum and Coke, bright eyes shining at Eugene.
I had to admire how skillfully Aunt Esther dodged the fact that she couldn’t remember Eugene’s name. I made a note to try that line next time I was “in the barrel” on a press junket.
Tommy arrived at his father’s side. “Yes, sir?”
“Go get the present we brought Aunt Elma.”
He nodded and ran off again, all long legs. I shook my head. “I swear he’s a foot taller than last year.”
“We can’t keep him in clothes.”
The Calculating Stars Page 35