Page 38 of Atmosphere

“You were lost.”

“I don’t think I was lost. I think I was trying to lose myself.”

Joan nodded.

“I’m assuming that’s where the heroin comes in?”

Vanessa laughed. “It’s not funny, but it is funny hearing it come out of your mouth.”

Joan threw her napkin at her.

“I think I just wanted to feel something other than sad,” Vanessa said.

Joan did not look away. “Did it work?”

Vanessa inhaled. “Yes, that’s the problem. If you find a way to make yourself absolutely terrified, there’s no room for any other feeling.”

Joan nodded. “Makes sense.”

Vanessa laughed. “You’re the first person to tell me I’m making sense.”

Joan laughed, too. “Well, maybe people aren’t listening. But it makes perfect sense to me. You make yourself afraid so you don’t feel sad. But the more you put yourself in terrifying situations, the braver you become. So you have to put yourself in more and more danger until…” Joan regarded Vanessa expectantly. “Until what? Tell me. How did you stop?”

Vanessa considered this. “I don’t know. My uncle Bill—my dad’s best friend from the navy—never gave up on me. I think that was part of it. I remember turning eight years old and asking for a model plane for my birthday. My mom didn’t get it for me. But that night, Bill came over with one. He used to take me out in his prop plane. My mom and I would be in some huge fight, and she’d call Bill and he’d come over and ask if I wanted to go flying. I think I was seventeen when he pushed me to fly by myself. And when I did, I just…” She laughed. “At first I thought I had just found something dangerous that was more fun than stealing or having sex…”

Joan blushed and looked at her hands.

“But that wasn’t it,” Vanessa said. “I think flying that plane, glancing at the ground below me, watching the horizon ahead…it was the first time I remember feeling…peace.”

Vanessa relaxed back on the blanket, her hair spread all around her, and looked up at the stars. Joan, after a moment, joined her.

“That’s Cygnus, right?” Vanessa said.

Joan moved closer, following her finger as she pointed to the sky. “Yeah, very good.”

“I only know it because of Deneb,” Vanessa said.

“Still, it’s harder to spot when there are so many stars in the sky, like tonight. Easier in the city,” Joan said. “There are a lot of storiesabout it, but my favorite is that Orpheus was transformed into a swan after he was murdered and placed next to his lyre, which is Lyra, right next to Cygnus.”

“I’m going to guess he was placed there by Zeus,” Vanessa said.

Joan laughed. “You know, I’m not sure. It could have been Apollo. But, yeah, I mean, for much of recorded history, humans have looked at the stars and believed there are gods up there.”

Joan did not believe there were gods up there, but she did believe that God was there. Was everywhere. The wonder of the night sky was as good a place to connect with it as the smell of a grapefruit or the warmth of a pocket of sun.

“Of course we look for the gods there,” Vanessa said. “And if we make it up there, we’re going to have to fight against that sneaking suspicion that we might just be gods ourselves.”

If Joan could have been pressed harder into the Earth, if gravity was variable, this would have flattened her.

Did Vanessa know that, on some level, Joan could not resist the idea that to go up there would be to touch God? That Joan could not help but wonder if, among the stars, there would be answers to questions no human had yet found?

It seemed so clear to Joan, as crazy as it might be, that the meaning of life had to be up there, somewhere.

Joan had rescheduled Frances’s sleepoversthe past few weeks because, for a short period of time during the training, all of the ASCANs had to hop into a fleet of T-38s and travel all over the United States, visiting NASA centers and contractors.

They visited the Kennedy Space Center to see the launchpads and Boeing to tour the facility and boost morale. They went to the Goddard Space Flight Center and Edwards Air Force Base. Soon they would tour Marshall, to check out the development of the shuttle rockets and payloads.

Joan began to see firsthand what being in the astronaut corps, even as candidates, meant in the eyes of the public. They gave talks at schools all over Houston and were met by reporters as they stepped off the bus. Every person they came in contact with seemed to stand a little straighter in their presence and regarded them with a respect that Joan had never received before. Most people’s smiles were a little more intense, when Joan shook their hand, than she had expected. It wasn’t personal. It was the aura of being an astronaut. It was the promise she held. That one day, anyone who shook her hand might be able to say with pride, “I met her.”

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