Page 10 of Atmosphere

“Joanie?”

“Yes, Franny?”

“Wait! You’re the only one who calls me Franny!”

“And you’re the only one who calls me Joanie!”

Frances laughed. “When you get a new place to live, can I come visit?”

“She’s not getting a new place,” Barbara said.

—

That was the third thingJoan did. Days later, she stopped by Barbara’s with a pound cake from the bakery on the corner and explained to her sister one final time that she was, in fact, moving.

“Well, fine,” Barbara said. “But you still need to take Frances on the weekends. I can’t afford a babysitter.”

“I will see Frances on the weekends, just like I do now.”

“You’re really excited about this astronaut thing, huh?” Barbarasaid. She pushed the pound cake away, and Joan recognized this as her punishment.

“Yeah, I am. And I’m scared, but in a way I’ve never really been before. Which I think is good. It’s exciting.”

“You’re really lucky,” Barbara said, her voice lightening. “That you are free to do something like this. No kid or husband or anything holding you back. I always think about where I would go if I could. And I think London or Paris…but you’re going to the stars. You’re thinking so much bigger.”

Joan felt a swelling in her throat.

Later that week, Joan packed up her entire apartment. When the moving company arrived, they took all of her stuff and drove off. Less than an hour later, she opened the door to her new place. It smelled like fresh paint.

That night, she went out for a walk in her new neighborhood and ran into Donna Fitzgerald and John Griffin, two of the other mission specialists who were a part of Group 9. She recognized them from the day NASA had gathered them for a photo of the incoming class.

Donna had blue eyes and dark brown hair that was thick and bouncy, so much so that Joan thought she looked like she could be in an ad for shampoo. And John—with such an easy smile and eyes that crinkled—had the most soothing voice Joan had ever heard. It was low and gravelly and made Joan like him the moment she heard him speak.

“I guess we’re all predictable as shit, huh?” Donna said. “Join the astronaut corps and get a one-bedroom apartment by the campus the week before training starts.”

Joan laughed. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe John got a two-bedroom.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” he said. “It’s a one-bedroom, just like yours. Pretty sure Lydia Danes is in the building, too. I think I saw her.”

“Ah, well,” Joan said. “So much for being original.”

Joan would remember this moment for weeks to come. Because within days, Donna and Griff would come to feel like such close friends that she laughed to think she’d ever called Griff “John.”

The morning of the firstall-astronauts meeting, Joan, Donna, and Griff walked over to JSC together, already cracking up at their own inside jokes, overusing their new punch line:“But that’s not going to happen here.”

Griff had said it the first time a few days prior, talking about how he’d been the big man on campus at his New England prep school: valedictorian, class president, and captain of the lacrosse team.When Donna arched her eyebrows, implying that maybe he expected to be just as big a deal at NASA, he quickly added, “But that’s not going to happen here.” And all three of them laughed.

Donna then used the line not even a half hour later, when talking about her previously dramatic and volatile love life.

Then Joan told them about how she’d been considered an astronomy nerd by almost everyone she’d ever known and added, in a sarcastic tone that surprised her in how well she nailed the joke, “But I bet that’s not going to happen here.”

As they made their way onto campus that morning, they spotted Lydia Danes up ahead. She was slight—no taller than five-two, her body wiry—but to Joan there was something terrifyingly invincible about her. Perhaps it was the way she moved with such intense focus. As if enjoying the walk would threaten to waste her time.

The night before, Donna had asked Lydia if she wanted to walk over with them in the morning. Lydia had never given her an answer.

“There’s always one in a group who thinks their shit doesn’t stink,” Donna said.

“Oh, but Donna…” Griff said.

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