Page 14 of The Launch

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.” Frankie pulls her cigarettes out of the pocket of her shorts and puts the end of one in her mouth. She holds the pack out to Jo, who surprises herself again by taking one. She glances around furtively, as if someone might see her sneaking a smoke and have something to say about it. With one eyebrow raised in amusement, Frankie flicks her lighter and touches it to the end of both of their cigarettes. They each inhale and exhale into the night air before Frankie speaks again. “You’re kind of an everywoman, Jo, and there’s great appeal in that.”

They’re walking again, and the nicotine is working its magic on Jo, who gave up smoking as soon as she married Bill. “An everywoman? As in dull and workaday?”

Frankie shakes her head and waves a hand around. “No, no, no—you’ve got it all wrong. An everywoman in the sense that you sort of have it all. And you do it all—with ease.”

Jo barks out a laugh. She and Frankie hardly know one another. “You think I have it all? And I look like I do everything easily?”

“Yes,” Frankie says plainly. “I do. Am I wrong?”

This gives Jo pause. They pass by a house where a man is in the driveway, having a cigarette of his own. He nods at them and they smile politely in return, but don’t stop their slow, ambling walk. “I have a good family,” Jo says carefully. “A loving husband. Wonderful kids. But I get a lot of things wrong. There’s something I fail at every day.”

The hum of air conditioners working overtime to battle the heat of the evening fills the air as they wander by each house.

“I think you’re probably too hard on yourself,” Frankie says. She brings her cigarette to her lips and the tip glows orange as she inhales. Jo looks at the flower behind Frankie’s ear and the way it’s nestled against her dark hair. “I bet your kids think you’re amazing.”

Jo has plenty to say to this—she’s pretty sure that Nancy hates her for making her watch her little sister, that Jimmy thinks she’s a stick in the mud for forcing him to read in the summer, and that Kate feels ignored because she’s the baby and Jo has never had the time to just be a mom to her and to give Kate her full attention—but instead she just watches Frankie’s face as she squints her eyes and looks up at the sky.

“You gave up your whole life in Minnesota to come here for Bill. You uprooted your kids, and you’re trying to recreate your family’s comfort zone in a place that couldn’t be more different than the one you came from. That’s big stuff, Jo.”

Jo looks at the toes of her white Keds as she walks. “Thank you for saying that. I haven’t let myself pause long enough to appreciate the work it takes to keep things going every day. Sometimes it’s a lot.” Jo takes another drag on her cigarette. “I want to hear more about you, though.”

Frankie gives a throaty laugh. “What’s to tell? I met Ed in New York City four years ago and we got married in a whirlwind. And now here we are!” She’s clearly trying to sound breezy, but it falls flat. “I’m a city girl, and this feels like living in a quiet beach town, but at least it’s gorgeous here. And I can work on my tan.” Frankie nudges Jo with her elbow as they walk side by side.

Jo smiles, but she’s sensing a lot below the surface; there are plenty of things that Frankie isn’t saying. “What were you doing in New York when you met Ed?”

“I was a Rockette,” Frankie says, sounding wistful. “I went there to be an actress. All I ever wanted was to be on Broadway—I can sing, too.” Frankie turns to Jo and grabs her elbow so that they’re both standing still beneath a streetlight that’s just flickered on. “I had all these dreams, and I didn’t want to give them up, but meeting Ed changed things. I’d been struggling to get by, and he swooped in and saved me. I fell in love, sure, but I also saw an entirely different future when I met him. Something traditional; something real. I wanted to give it a shot, to be a wife, to finally grow up and make my parents proud, you know?”

Jo understands the desire to make other people happy and proud. It’s human nature to seek that approval, but sometimes it seems like a woman’s whole purpose in the world is to make everyone around her happy before claiming any of that happiness for herself.

“And were they proud when you married Ed?”

Frankie starts walking again, but so slowly that it’s almost like she doesn’t realize she’s doing it. She stares ahead into the distance. “Sure. Whowouldn’t be proud of their daughter marrying a military man who wants to be an astronaut? Remember: my parents are immigrants. They’ve worked hard to get to where they are in this country, and they want more for their kids than they had for themselves. But do they care about the fact that I gave up on a dream to please them?” Frankieturns her palms to the sky, her rapidly-dwindling cigarette held between two fingers. “I mean, probably not. And once we’re married, we spend so much time nurturing the dreams of our husbands, but who worries about us achievingourdreams?”

It’s a big question, and one that Jo doesn’t have an answer to. But they’ve wound their way through the neighborhood and ended up back in front of Jo’s driveway. There are no pool noises coming from the back of the house, so Jo can only assume that Bill has rounded the kids up and is moving them through the bedtime routine.

“Thanks for coming out with me, Joey-girl,” Frankie says, dropping her cigarette butt onto the asphalt and crushing it beneath her sandal. She gives Jo a wink and holds out one hand as if she wants to shake. “What do you say we take a vow of silence? Anything we say on our walks stays between us—deal?”

Jo looks at Frankie’s hand and then takes it in her own. She shakes. “Deal,” Jo says.

Frankie says nothing else, but slips her hands into the pockets of her shorts and walks away, her dark hair glinting under the streetlights as she goes.

Jo pulls the hibiscus from behind her ear and sets it on the hood of Bill’s car as she walks up the driveway. He won’t know where it came from, but she doesn’t care. She’s gotten a taste of freedom and friendship this evening, and it feels good.

But a question lingers in her mind as she turns one more time to see Frankie walking up the driveway to her own house:who worries about a woman’s dreams?

She doesn’t know. No one has ever bothered to ask Jo what she wants out of life, whether she’s happy, or if she wants to be anything other than what she is. She hugs herself and rubs her bare arms with her hands as if it were cold outside and she had a shiver.

But it isn’t a chill that overtakes Jo as goosebumps rise up on her bare skin—it’s excitement. It’s the thrill of possibility.

SIX

jo

The entranceto the Launch Operations Center at Port Canaveral is cavernous and filled with light. Giant windows allow the Florida sun to spill onto the polished concrete floors, and a twenty-foot tall replica of Explorer 1 sits in the center of the oversized foyer. All ten of the newest NASA astronauts’ children are trying their hardest to be on good behavior, but the mothers know that the clock is ticking down towards tears, hunger, or boredom, so they’re working overtime to make sure the boys’ hair is spit-smoothed, and that the girls keep their dresses from getting wrinkled.

“Ladies,” a man with square glasses and a camera around his neck says, clapping as he walks into the giant room. His claps echo throughout the space, and the children stop chattering and poking at one another to see who has gotten their attention. “Or should I say,ladies and gentlemen,” the photographer amends, smiling at the little boys in that way that adults do when they think they’re in on the joke with kids.

“Jimmy, Nancy, Kate,” Jo whispers to her three, motioning with her hand to bring them all into line in front of her. They obey without question.

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