Page 40 of Atmosphere

The pea rolled toward the quarters.

“It rolls.”

“It’s being pulled,” Joan said. “Right.”

“So the quarters are the Earth, and we are the pea,” Barbara said.

Joan nodded. “Yep, the pea is all of us and all the trees and all the dust and all the dirt and every animal and all the—”

“We get it.”

“Okay, sure,” Joan said. “So right now, we’re the pea right here. If I get chosen to go up into space one day, I’ll be the pea here.”

She put it back on the flat plane of the mattress. “Nothing will be pulling me down, at least not at the rate that Earth can. So if I’m not being pulled toward the Earth, what’s going to happen?”

“You’re gonna float,” Frances said.

“I’m gonna float.”

—

They called it the VomitComet—a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker. It was designed as a refueler, but at NASA, it had a much different job. It was a cargo plane—with no seats, only padding—used to simulate weightlessness.

With the ASCANs as passengers, the pilot would fly a series of parabolas that would lift the ASCANs into the air with extra gravitational forces, then lower them back down, allowing them to enter free fall. In between these moments of intense lift and fall, there were pockets of time—less than a minute—in which the ASCANs would float in midair.

The parabolas, when executed properly, simulated microgravity.

They also made a lot of people sick. Especially Joan.

On the KC-135 with Lydia, Hank, Teddy, and Jimmy, Joan seemed to be the only one calculating how quickly she could grab the barf bag from her pocket.

It was her first time on the plane, and they were approaching the third moment of weightlessness. The first two times, she had barely kept her food down. Putting on her blue flight suit that morning, she had felt like an astronaut. But now, as she lay flat on the floor of the aircraft as it ascended again, she felt like a child.

“Maybe we should land so Joan can get off.” Lydia was seated in the corner, her knees drawn up to her chest. “She seems a little pale.”

Joan wanted so badly to understand Lydia. She always corrected everyone, always had some way to cut Joan or Donna or Vanessa down. But even if it was a competitive strategy, there was no need forit. Lydia was already a clear favorite of Antonio’s—Donna and Joan had seen Antonio out with Lydia and Griff for dinner more than once. And she was picking up every class lesson quickly, not just those in her field of study. If anyone was pulling ahead of the class, it was Lydia.

“I am fine, Lydia, thank you,” Joan said.

Jimmy huffed. “She’ll have to be a big girl.”

“I said, I’ve got it,” Joan said.

Jimmy put his hands up as if she were about to shoot.

She tried not to roll her eyes, or he’d make a comment about that, too. But he didn’t have to say anything else. The subtext was clear:This is why women don’t belong on the shuttle.Last week, he’d asked Lydia if she was going to be bitchy if she got her period in space. Lydia had laughed, and Joan had had to clench her jaw to keep it shut.

“I almost puked my first time,” Hank said to Joan. “No shame in it.”

Joan closed her eyes. Bless Hank for trying. But she did not need to be consoled, either. She just needed everyone to shut up.

As the plane began to rise once more, Joan felt the air gain heft underneath her, and her stomach somersaulted.

Her body rose into the air. As she lifted farther, Joan closed her eyes like she had all of the other times. She’d thought that weightlessness would feel like floating in a pool. But to her, it felt more like being thrashed around in the ocean. She braced against it, but that didn’t work. She tried to think of it differently, to remember the times she’d swum past the breakers and felt the ocean lift her briefly as the waves surged and then gently brought her back down. She thought of being in the ocean with Barbara as a kid, the way Barbara had clung to her, and Joan would tell her she was okay.

Her stomach began to roil.

Joan gave up on that idea and opened her eyes. She looked at her legs and pulled them into her chest. Her stomach calmed.

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