Atmosphere(56)

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she said.

Vanessa looked at her. “Are you nervous?”

Joan calmed. “Yes!” she said. And it felt good to admit it. To just get to be nervous without the extra effort of hiding it. “Aren’t you nervous? What are we doing?”

Vanessa smiled. “I’m not nervous, no.”

Joan’s cheeks started to burn.

“I’m excited,” Vanessa said, closing the gap between them. “I want to take you everywhere. And do everything with you. And ask you every single question that’s been on my mind for months. And I want to know when you knew what was happening between us and I want to tell you when I knew. And I want to hold your hand in a quiet corner and I want to lie in bed and hear your heartbeat through your chest. I want to bring you coffee in bed. And I want to hear you tell me anything you’ve always wanted to tell someone. Because you know that you’ve met someone who desperately wants to listen.”

Joan’s heart was in her throat, and she could not swallow it down. “No one has ever . . . said anything that wonderful to me before,” she said, trying to keep her voice level and failing.

Vanessa took the bra and underwear out of her hand. She placed them gently in the top drawer of Joan’s side of the dresser. And then she stood in front of Joan and kissed her.

“Good. So finish unpacking and take me on a date tonight,” Vanessa said.


Vanessa wanted to swim laps.

“It will be nice to spend time in a pool when I’m not wearing a three-hundred-pound suit, practicing fixing a latch with a ratchet wrench.”

“That’s a great idea,” Joan said. “Why don’t you bring a bag and shower in the locker room, and we can meet in the lobby at eight?”

“Like a real date?”

“Like a real date.”

“See you then,” Vanessa said. She grabbed her things and kissed Joan goodbye. The kiss was so small. So quick. It was a peck, really, a formality. But when Vanessa shut the door behind herself, it took Joan a moment to recover.

And then she went to the phone and called down to the concierge to make a dinner reservation.

When she was done, she put on her navy blue dress that tied at the waist. It had a lower neckline than her other dresses, and she liked how she looked in it.

She went over to the mirror and opened her sparse makeup bag. That night, for the first time, Joan picked up the mascara wand and took it to her eyelashes not just to fit in, but with the hope that someone might notice. When she was done, she breathed in and looked at herself. Did she look like Ingrid Bergman? The cheekbones and the lips . . . maybe. Maybe she did.

When Joan got down to the lobby, Vanessa was leaning against a column, wearing faded Levi’s and a black belt, with a crisp white button-front shirt, the sleeves rolled up on her forearms. Her hair was still drying around her face.

She was the most beautiful person Joan had ever seen in her life.

Joan wanted to kiss her as she made her way to her. But she didn’t. She just smiled. And this time, she was able to let the secret that existed between them live lower in her body, deeper under her skin.

Vanessa smirked, and Joan bit her lip to hold back too big a smile.

Joan had never felt this way about a man, so she’d never stood with one in public and held his hand. And maybe, if that had been available to her with Vanessa, she would have enjoyed it.

But for now, Joan could think of nothing sweeter than what she had.

“I’m going to drive,” Joan said.

Vanessa raised her eyebrows. “Lead the way.”

When they got to Joan’s car, Vanessa took Joan’s right hand in hers before Joan could even put the key in the ignition. She brought Joan’s hand up to her lips and she kissed the underside of Joan’s wrist.

No one had ever touched Joan so delicately there, and Joan knew that, while she could not predict what would happen to them, for the rest of her life she would think of that area of her body as belonging only to Vanessa.


Halfway through dinner, Joan was talking about how badly she wanted to help NASA develop a solar probe when she noticed that Vanessa was staring at her.

“Did I do something wrong?” Joan asked.

“No, of course not.”

“Then what is it?”

“I love hearing you talk,” Vanessa said, smiling at her.

Could you burn up from a gaze this bright upon you? “Oh.”

“You’re the first woman I’ve ever met who I feel like understands things about me before I even say them.”

“Really?” Joan said. “How do you mean?”

Vanessa considered the question. Then she looked Joan in the eye. “How did you feel when you saw the moon landing on TV?”

Joan laughed. “Really?”

“Really. How did you feel? Because I felt something so intense, and I’ve never been able to explain it.”

“I . . .” Joan tried to find the words to convey something that lived so deep in her chest. “I felt . . . left out,” she said finally. “In this way that burned me up. Like I had been fine until humans touched the moon. But once somebody had, I had to, too.”

“And now?” Vanessa asked.

“Now I will settle for the stars.”

Vanessa laughed. “I knew you knew. I knew you knew it even better than me. For so long, almost no one understood how I’ve felt. Why I wanted to do this. I mean, they were impressed, don’t get me wrong. But trying to explain that fire I feel to leave the planet, the one you’re talking about? It is like trying to describe the color blue to someone who has never seen it. And then you come along and it’s like you are describing the color blue to me and I feel such . . . relief. I’d have followed you anywhere just for that.”