Atmosphere(75)

“You’re sure you’re okay with me going up there first?” Joan asked. “It would be okay if you were struggling with it.”

Vanessa shook her head. “Every day I don’t have an assignment, I’m on pins and needles waiting to hear,” she said. She pushed her body into Joan’s and took Joan’s face in her hands. “But that has nothing to do with you.”

She kissed her and then looked her in the eye.

“I fell for the coolest astronaut at NASA,” Vanessa said. “What did you think I thought would happen?”


The announcement about the flight crews was made the following Monday at the all-astronauts meeting.

Donna put her hands on Joan’s shoulders and squeezed them. Vanessa clapped softly while smiling at her. Lydia’s jaw tensed. She would not look at Joan. She just kept nodding, intensely, rapidly, in a way that was almost pathological.

Later, in the hallway, Joan chased Lydia down.

“Are you okay?”

Lydia turned to her. “I’m fine, Joan.”

“I know you wanted it to be you.”

“I’m fine, Joan. Congratulations.”

But three days later, at nine o’clock at night, when Joan was alone in her bedroom, there was a knock on her door.

Vanessa had gone to Alabama, where she was working in the dunk tank. Joan had been sketching, trying to draw Vanessa’s face. In all of their time together, Joan had not once captured it right. Every so often, Vanessa would ask Joan if she could see whatever Joan had come up with. Joan had yet to show her a single attempt.

This evening was no different. It wasn’t right. It was the hair—it was always the hair. How could you capture something like that with a pencil? The way it was always in motion? You couldn’t.

Before Joan could put the pad down, the person knocked again. She tucked her things in her nightstand and walked to the front door and answered it.

“Can I come in?” Lydia said.

“Uh, sure,” Joan said, opening the door wider.

Lydia looked at Joan’s apartment. Joan could now see it through her eyes: a little messy, a little lived in, a little quaint.

Lydia stood by the couch. “Can I sit?”

“Of course—do you want water or something?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

Lydia sat down. “You need a new couch,” Lydia said. “The springs are soft.”

“I like it just fine,” Joan said, as she sat in the chair opposite Lydia. “What’s on your mind?”

Lydia said nothing for a moment. There was an awkwardness to Lydia that some people found off-putting. But it did not unnerve Joan at all. Joan found it easier to be around Lydia one-on-one, when she did not have to contend with Donna’s or Vanessa’s discomfort around her.

Lydia put her elbows to her knees, looked down at the floor. When she looked back up at Joan, her eyes were soft, just a hint of glassiness to them. Joan could hardly return her gaze.

“Why wasn’t it me?” Lydia said.

Joan blew the air out of her lungs. “I don’t know.”

“It should have been me,” Lydia said, her voice breaking slightly.

“No, Lydia, that’s not true.”

“I understand you deserve it,” Lydia said. “I’m not saying you don’t.”

“Good,” Joan said.

“But I work harder than you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Well, I’m smarter than you.”

“No, you aren’t.”

Lydia considered this, looked down at the floor again.

“Why are you here, asking me this?” Joan said. “Instead of going to Harrison’s door and asking him why he got assigned before you?”

Lydia nodded and continued to stare at the floor. And then looked up at her. “I’m . . .” She hung her head again. And then quickly worked up her nerve again. “I’m not confronting you. I’m . . .” She looked Joan in the eye. “I’m asking your advice.”

Joan’s entire body softened. “Oh.”

“I want to go up there—” Lydia said.

“And you will,” Joan said.

“Stop—please let me finish.”

Joan backed off.

“I want to go up there first and, sure, that is part of why I’m upset. But, Joan, even more than that, I . . . I want to be good at this. Not just because I want the gold pin. I want to be good at it in the sense that I want to be helpful. I want to use what skills I have to be of service to this team. I want to be what NASA needs. I really want that.”

Joan nodded.

“They need you for Spacelab, and I get that. But also, if they wanted me, they would have just assigned Marty to Spacelab and given me Harrison’s spot. I have the most hours on the RMS of anyone from our group, so it doesn’t actually make sense to give it to Harrison first. There must be another reason. Something I didn’t get exactly right yet. Or there is something else I need to learn,” Lydia said. “So that I can be a great astronaut, someone Antonio knows he can trust.”

“I can’t speak for Antonio,” Joan said. “But I do think you’re already learning it.”

Lydia looked up at Joan, her eyes a little brighter. “Learning what?”