Page 54 of I'm Not Yours
“Don’t bring any of your sewing needles with you, is all,” Leoni said, wringing her hands. “Figuratively or literally.”
“We’re going to the emergency room. That’s it. I’m not going to poke him with needles or give him a shot.”
Estelle threw her hands in the air. “You have a date! You had to almost drown to get one, but you have a date!”
“When are you coming back?” Leoni asked. “Don’t rush. You need to savor the sweetness and sparkle of the date.”
“It might not happen again for years,” Estelle said, crossing her arms. “Years. Maybe even this millennium.”
“I won’t be gone long. As you both know, we’re swamped in work and I don’t even have time to go to the emergency room.”
“Go anyhow!” Leoni said as she cupped her hands into a heart shape. “No matter what they do to you, even if they give you an enema, it’ll be worth it!”
“Don’t screw this up, June,” Estelle said. “When you’re my age, you take romance where you can get it and be grateful for it. Take life by the horns and swing it around and dance with it, that’s what I always say.”
I turned to head down the hallway. I stopped at the photo of my family’s VW van, with all of the MacKenzies in front of it. There were purple peace signs painted on the sides. We were in Montana then. I’d taken an old photograph and blown it up to a three-foot-by-four-foot canvas.
I held two fingers up. Peace.
On my way down the hallway, I ran into an astronaut.
“Hi, Morgan,” I said. Morgan is Leoni’s seven-year-old daughter.
“Hi, June,” she said through her white NASA astronaut’s helmet. It wasn’t an authentic NASA helmet, obviously. It was an oversized, battered white motorcycle helmet that she’d stuck a NASA sticker to. She wore a white astronaut jumpsuit, an ex-Halloween outfit, in red and blue, and carried a clipboard and pen. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to the emergency room.”
Through the eye shade I could see her confusion. “Are you dying?”
“No. A wave got me.”
“Oh.” She wrapped her arms around me. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” I hugged her back. Downstairs Hercules was waiting.
“Good. Do you know about astronauts’ toilets on their space shuttles?”
“No, I don’t.”
“There’s a vacuum for solids and there’s a hose for liquids. There are two bars that hold your thighs down because there’s no gravity up in space and you don’t want to float away from the toilet doing your private business.”
“No, that would be a mess. Sweets, I have to go.” The chariot was here!
“I met that man downstairs.”
“Oh, ah. Good.”
“He’s tall. I think he’s smart enough to be an astronaut.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I asked him if he understood why NASA astronauts need spacesuits and he told me why. We discussed why I need a camera on my suit, a headlamp for seeing outside of the shuttle, an oxygen tank, and a battery and water supply for a life-support system.”
“Wow. I’m impressed.” Aha! He was kind to kids!
“Yeah, me, too. Is that your boyfriend? My mom doesn’t have a boyfriend. I’m going to go upstairs and study my astronaut books.” She tilted her spacesuit helmet up at me. “He’s going to be proud of me, you know.”
My stomach clenched. “Morgan, I’m proud of you already. So is Estelle and your mom and your teachers, who all say you’re bangup smart. You know more about space shuttles and astronauts, the galaxy and astronomy, than almost anyone on the planet and you’re only seven.”
