Page 119 of Atmosphere

Fall 1984

Joan and Vanessa were atthe Outpost with Donna, who was going to have the baby any moment.

“How are you feeling about liftoff?” Donna asked Joan.

Joan downed half her beer. It was wild to think there was a time when she did not look forward to the taste of an ice-cold beer.

“Are you scared?” Donna said.

“Me?” Joan asked.

“Yeah. It’s only six weeks away. I know all the men say they aren’t scared to go up there, but I think they are lying. And I think you’ll tell me the truth.”

Over the past few weeks, Joan had become intensely aware of the fact that she was getting into a spacecraft attached to a massive fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters that were alarmingly delicate. If anything went wrong, she might never touch land again.

“Yeah,” she said. “I think I’m scared.”

“Being scared is…the rational response,” Vanessa said.

“I’m scared,” Donna said. “I don’t even have my assignment yet. But I’m scared.”

“I’m scared, too,” Vanessa said.

Vanessa’s mission had been scheduled for two days after Christmas. And as it got closer, her training had picked up rapidly. She and Joan were used to going weeks without seeing each other. Now sometimes they couldn’t even talk on the phone.

Joan found it hard to remember how to be that alone. Without Frances. Without Vanessa. She’d taken up running again. It had not been helping much.

“But I also feelready,” Vanessa added. “I guess I feel like I’m ready to face whatever it is. I’m ready to pay whatever price is asked of me. I’m scared, but I’m ready.”

“Courage,” Joan said. “You have courage.”

She looked at Joan and smiled. “I guess I do.”

Joan held her gaze for a moment too long, smiled a little too earnestly.

Donna stared at them. When they snapped out of it—when Joan finally saw Donna’s face—she could see that Donna was holding back a smile. Donna had a brightness in her eyes that Joan interpreted immediately.

Donnaknew.

Donna knew and she had, perhaps,long known.

And she didn’t care.

Donna sipped her club soda and bitters as she glanced at the two of them. Suddenly Joan felt as if her heart were so swollen it might burst open.

Donna knew! Donna would love Joananyway,would love Joanstill,maybe had even loved Joanbecause.

Joan was safe with her. Joan was okay.

God, Joan’s entire life she’d been asking that question, hadn’t she? Was she okay? She had been looking around every room she was in to survey the people around her, compare herself to the way she saw them, trying to gauge where she didn’t fit, trying to find where she could. Trying to see if she was okay.

And she was.

She was.

Joan wanted to say something—anything—but there was no air in her throat.

“You should be more scared of what’s happening to you and Hank,” Vanessa said, raising her eyebrows. “That gorgeous miserable bomb that’s going to blow up your life when it arrives, any minute.”

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