Page 14 of Atmosphere

“You don’t like the Beatles?”

“I am…indifferent to the Beatles.”

Vanessa’s eyes went wide.

“Oh, it’s not that big a deal,” Joan said.

“It’s…an illegal opinion to have.”

Joan laughed. “The melodies are good, obviously. It’s good music. But…it was a little simplistic, don’t you think? I don’t understand why it worked so well.”

“Why what worked so well?”

“The pandering. To what little girls think love is like. It was just a bit much. ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ and ‘All You Need Is Love.’ ‘Blackbird’ is a great song. And ‘Eleanor Rigby.’ But the cheesy stuff just struck me as, well, cheesy.”

Vanessa finished her steak. “You are a curious one, Joan.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, it’s all very interesting.”

Joan wasn’t sure if Vanessa was making fun of her. But her gut said she wasn’t.

“So, obviously, you like the Beatles,” Joan said.

“I liked the Beatles when I was a young girl, hopelessly in love…. They explained it better than I could.”

Joan looked away and sipped her water. What was she thinking, going on and on like this? Was it really that intoxicating, being asked about herself?

“So, we aren’t going to have to compete,” Joan said, changing the subject. “Me and you. You and me, I mean.”

“Well, look, anything’s possible. But they want us for different purposes, if I had to guess. They’ll want you for designing and running experiments in space. They’ll want me to help build the payloads. They aren’t going to be measuring you against me, or vice versa.”

Joan nodded. “I like that theory.”

Vanessa nodded and then looked Joan in the eye. “Did it kind of kill you today?” she asked. “To be so close to it all? It killed me. I want to get up there almost as much as I want to breathe.”

Something about the openness of Vanessa’s face made Joan realize that, sitting on her barstool, her feet didn’t touch the floor.

Joan blinked. “Yeah,” she said. “I think it did kill me a little.”

“I want to fly the fucking thing,” Vanessa said. “Though God knows, since I’ve only flown privately, and not as a military pilot, it’s going to be an uphill battle. But I want to go somewhere so few people have ever gone that you could name them all—and when people do name them, I want them to name me.”

“I understand that,” Joan said. “I understand that completely.”

Vanessa looked at her, her gaze intense. “You do?”

“Absolutely. To do something so few people have ever done? No one will ever be able to take that away from us. If we do it, if we leave the planet, we will carry that with us into every room we enter for the rest of our lives.”

Vanessa’s shoulders relaxed. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, that’s…” She shook her head and exhaled. “That’s exactly it.” She grew more animated by the second. “Every time Antonio talks about the program, I can feel this ache in my chest. Like I’d die to get that chance. Like nothing on Earth will ever matter to me as much as getting up there. It’s what I was born to do.”

Vanessa was so lit up that Joan forgot for a moment that she was right there next to her, that Vanessa was not onstage in a play or on a TV show.

“I want to make my niece proud,” Joan said when she remembered herself. “I want her to know that she can do anything.”

“See, even if I did want to screw you over to get assigned before you, I certainly can’t now. You’re too noble,” Vanessa said.

Joan laughed. “No, please, I insist you take the opportunity if it presents itself.”

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