Atmosphere(13)

Vanessa’s shoulders relaxed. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, that’s . . .” She shook her head and exhaled. “That’s exactly it.” She grew more animated by the second. “Every time Antonio talks about the program, I can feel this ache in my chest. Like I’d die to get that chance. Like nothing on Earth will ever matter to me as much as getting up there. It’s what I was born to do.”

Vanessa was so lit up that Joan forgot for a moment that she was right there next to her, that Vanessa was not onstage in a play or on a TV show.

“I want to make my niece proud,” Joan said when she remembered herself. “I want her to know that she can do anything.”

“See, even if I did want to screw you over to get assigned before you, I certainly can’t now. You’re too noble,” Vanessa said.

Joan laughed. “No, please, I insist you take the opportunity if it presents itself.”

Vanessa pretended to consider this. Then she said, “I mean, joking aside, if it does come down to you versus me, or me versus that guy Griff, or whatever—I hope I don’t do it with both elbows out, knocking everyone down. I hope I wait until I fully earn it instead of trying to steal the chance out from under someone. I want it bad, but still, I hope I do it right.”

“You know, my mom used to say something to me when I was a kid,” Joan said. “That you’re reminding me of.”

“What?”

“I always had the top grade in the class. And I would come home and brag about how I helped this boy who sat next to me who was struggling with times tables. Or I helped this girl with her spelling. Then one day, this boy joins our class and he’s really good at math. Not as good as me, but almost. And he asks me for help. And I told him I’d think about it. But . . . I didn’t want to. Bobby Simpson. I was so scared that he’d take the top score from me. I told my mom that I wasn’t going to help him, and my mom said that if I was going to be proud of myself for being generous, that I had to do it even when it meant I might lose something. She said, ‘You have to have something on the line, for it to be called character.’ ”

Vanessa looked at her. Joan shrugged. “Maybe that’s you. Character when it counts.”

“So I have character?” Vanessa said. “That’s a nice thought. Not sure I’ve been accused of that before.”

Joan smiled. “Well, let’s see what you do, then. Just how honorable you turn out to be.”

“What did you do?”

“Hm?”

“With Bobby Simpson.”

“Oh, I helped him,” Joan said.

“And did he beat you?”

Joan laughed. “No.” And then: “I am very, very good at math.”

Vanessa threw her head back and cackled, and Joan blushed at the attention it drew. But when Vanessa raised her hand to give her a high five, Joan laughed and returned it.


Two days later, Joan walked into the first class on the space shuttle’s design to see that Donna and Lydia were sitting at the front. Griff was talking to naval pilot Hank Redmond and mission specialist Harrison Moreau. There were more guys she didn’t know well yet, mingling in the center. Vanessa was seated in the back.

“This seat free?” Joan asked her.

Vanessa barely looked up as she opened her notebook and grabbed her pen. “Wide open. You’re my only friend so far, Goodwin, you know that.”

“Well, as your friend, don’t call me Goodwin.”

Vanessa glanced up at her. “Oh, c’mon.”

Joan sat down. “Goodwin feels like . . .” Joan said, trying to explain it. “I’m not sure.”

There was a part that Joan was going to have to play at NASA. She understood that. Wearing the navy polos and khaki chinos she and Donna had gone out and bought together to fit in. Going out drinking together most nights. Hanging with the guys. Entertaining the posturing from the military side. Fine. She could sense what was expected of her. She was ready for it. But for it to extend to what should be the more honest moments . . .

“It feels like I’m pretending to be somebody else. I call people by their first names. I’d be playacting calling you Ford,” she said. “When really, you’re a full person, with a first name.”

Vanessa put down her pen. “Are you always this earnest?”

Joan had not meant to be particularly earnest, but this was what she was like. “Yes, I believe so.”

Vanessa shook her head and laughed.

“Look, I’ll call you Ford when it’s appropriate,” Joan said. “I’m not entirely opposed to it. I just . . . you know, if we’re going to be friends, let’s be friends.”

“All right,” Vanessa said with a smile. “Fine, Jo, if that’s what you want, that’s what you got.”

Joan shook her head and rolled her eyes, ready to tell Vanessa that she didn’t go by Jo. That no one had ever called her Jo in her life. But she couldn’t quite make it come off her tongue.


There is a theater above Mission Control that looms over the flight center like a mezzanine hovering over an orchestra. And when Joan first walked in and saw, through the glass, the consoles lined up in rows along the floor and the telemetry up on the screens, she felt a great sense of occasion.

There had been a lot of thrilling firsts lately. The first time on the campus, the first night the entire group of ASCANs went to the Outpost Tavern together, the first time seeing the Saturn IV rocket and the space suits used during the Apollo program.