Atmosphere: A Love Story By Taylor Jenkins Reid - 38
For the next few months, Joan’s training for her mission became so intense that she was not always able to see Frances. Meanwhile, Vanessa’s parallel training had her in the dunk tank in Alabama so often that she and Joan would go weeks without seeing each other. But Joan threw herself into it. She ...
For the next few months, Joan’s training for her mission became so intense that she was not always able to see Frances. Meanwhile, Vanessa’s parallel training had her in the dunk tank in Alabama so often that she and Joan would go weeks without seeing each other.
But Joan threw herself into it.
She was running simulations with the crew, going through various physical tests, and preparing Spacelab to run the solar experiments. Joan sometimes hit the bed at night like she’d been knocked out, sleeping heavy and hard, the morning feeling more like coming to than waking up.
Still.
As stretched thin as she was, she walked into Antonio’s office and asked for more.
“I’d like to be assigned time in Mission Control,” Joan said, once she sat down.
Antonio appeared surprised.
“You’ve had someone on each crew do it for the past few missions,” Joan said. “And I see immense benefit in that. We all need to know how best to communicate with Mission Control, and having at least one of us actually having worked the job is the best training. I think I should be that person.”
All of that was true.
The thing she didn’t tell Antonio was that lately, she ached to be in that seat.
As they had run their simulations the past few months, Joan found herself drawn to the lone voice on the other side of the speaker. It reminded her of being in college, listening to the teacher but also unable to resist imagining herself teaching one day. What would it be like to be that steady voice for someone?
“I will consider it,” Antonio said. “I’m not sure it is necessary for you, specifically.”
“Respectfully, sir,” Joan said, leaning forward, “I am exactly who you need.”
“And why is that?” Antonio asked. He seemed neither impressed nor doubtful.
Joan inhaled. She’d prepared all of her arguments in the shower that morning.
“Because out of everyone on the crew, I am the most unflappable. Look at my heart rate and blood pressure stats during our sims—you can even go back and look at my stats from the initial assessments four years ago. I am also the person on the crew with the most consistent relationships throughout the astronaut corps. I am friendly and on good terms with everyone. From pilots like Hank and Duke to mission specialists like Lydia. And I can think on my feet. You’ve seen it yourself in our simulations. You saw it yourself in our assessments when we applied. And I will do what needs to be done for the team. I follow orders. I have always displayed that here.
“In that CAPCOM chair, you need someone who is trusted, can remain calm, think quickly, and do what they are told. That’s me.”
“People think you’re so easygoing,” Vanessa said when Joan told her that Antonio had agreed. “But you’re surprisingly intense about things. Nobody sees you coming.”
“I don’t give up,” Joan said. “When I want something.”
Vanessa nodded. “Persistence. Highly underrated in women. Overrated in men, but underrated in women.”
Joan laughed.
One Friday afternoon, Joan picked Frances up from camp and took her to the mall. They stopped at the food court and split an order of french fries.
Which was when Frances asked if she could spend the whole weekend at Joan’s place.
“The whole weekend?” Joan said.
Already the impossibilities of it were piling up. There was a barbecue at Antonio’s that she was expected at on Saturday night that kids weren’t invited to. She had told Harrison she’d get lunch with him on Sunday to discuss what was going wrong during the sims. Jack, the flight director she got along with best, had offered to have her in on Monday to observe. But the biggest issue was that there was no way to have Frances at her house and still be close with Vanessa. The two things were incompatible.
“We can make a plan for that in the future, but probably not this weekend. Aren’t you excited about your new room?”
Daniel had brought home paint chip samples from the hardware store, and Frances had chosen a lavender gray. Barbara had picked out a matching bedroom set from Macy’s. A full bed, a nice dresser. It was a beautiful room.
“Not really,” Frances said. “My bedroom is boring. I just read books alone in there. Mom and Daniel are never home, Joanie.”
“What?”
“They are never home. They go out to dinner every single night. Mom feeds me a grilled cheese and then tells me to get ready for bed and I do, and then they leave. I don’t see them again until the morning.”
“Oh,” Joan said. Frances was ten years old, having just finished the fifth grade. Joan tried to remember how old she’d been when her parents left her at home and in charge of Barbara. She had been older, certainly. But maybe it wasn’t the same.
After they finished eating, Joan took Frances to get a birthday present for her new friend, Rebecca.
After that, Joan was supposed to bring Frances home, but instead, she took Frances’s hand and said, “Should we see a movie while we are here?”
Frances jumped up and down. Joan called Barbara from a pay phone.
“I was wondering if I could keep her tonight,” she said. “Bring her back in the morning.”
“Oh, please do,” Barbara said. “She’s killing me.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean? She’s terrible, Joan! She’s rude to Daniel. She’s crying all the time for no reason. I’ve been very clear—Daniel’s been very clear—that we expect respect in this house. ‘Yes, sir,’ ‘No, thank you,’ simple stuff. And she won’t listen!
“Last night, he called home and offered to bring her dessert from the restaurant we were at and she said she’d ‘rather die’ than take anything from him. This, to the man who made sure she had the perfect bedroom. And has opened his home to her. Do you know he has been planning on buying her a stereo? Not even for her birthday, just to be nice. But I’m not sure she deserves it now. I swear I raised her better than this. Do you remember when she was little? She was a dream.”
“Do you think maybe she’s just feeling left out? Of your new life?”
Barbara was silent for such a long pause that Joan thought the line had disconnected. “Hello?”
“She’s ten years old,” Barbara said. “She’s not part of my adult life.”
“Okay,” Joan said. “I’ll try to talk to her.”
“Thank you. I really need to make this work.”
Joan shook her head and got off the phone. “Okay, your mom said she will miss you, but she’s okay with it,” Joan said. “Ice cream, movie, dinner, you sleep at my place—what do you think?”
“Can Vanessa join?” Frances asked.
Joan smiled. “I’ll call her right now.”
Joan did not know how to have Frances with her all weekend and still be with Vanessa. But this, tonight, would work beautifully.
“It was Frances’s idea,” Joan said as Vanessa considered it.
“Well, I do what Frances Emerson Goodwin asks,” Vanessa said. “I’ll meet you at the movie theater in twenty.”
The three of them saw The NeverEnding Story. When they came out of the theater, Frances and Vanessa were teary.
“You two are a bunch of softies,” Joan said, smiling.
“You’re like Atreyu,” Frances said to Vanessa.
“I am?”
“Yeah, you’re just like him.”
“How is Vanessa like Atreyu?” Joan asked.
“Because,” Frances said, looking at Vanessa, “you are the sort of person who would do anything to save the kingdom.” And then: “Don’t you think, Joanie?”
Joan looked at Vanessa and smiled.
“Can I have change for the gumball machine?”
When Joan gave her a coin, Frances ran ahead.
“Good God,” Vanessa said. “Kids can just knock the wind right out of you, huh?”
Joan laughed. “They just tell the truth without any agenda, that’s all.”
“Well, I’m not sure it’s the truth but . . .”
“But what?”
Vanessa shook her head. “It would just be nice to be the person she thinks I am. That’s all.”
Afterward, the three of them went out for Italian food. And Frances again brought up how much she liked being with Joan and Vanessa, and how little she wanted to be at home.
Joan wasn’t sure what to say, but Vanessa spoke up first: “Listen to me, kiddo. For some people, childhood is the best part of their lives, and later, all they are trying to do is go back to it. But for people like us, it’s different. The good part hasn’t started yet. But it’s coming. It’s just ahead, when your life is in your own hands and, listen to me, you are going to soar.”
Frances leaned forward. “You really think so?”
“I know so,” Vanessa said. “I can see it in you.”
“Do you think I could be an astronaut?” Frances asked.
“If you want, baby girl,” Vanessa said. “You may just land on the moon.”
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