Earth Bound (4 page)

“He made you fly all that way to tell you yes?”

“I guess he needed to look into my eyes first.”

Her mother made a disbelieving noise.
 

“It wasn’t like that at all,” Charlie explained. “He wanted to make sure I was serious, and I wasn’t going to run off and get married.”

“Sadly, there’s no risk of that. Who will you meet in Houston?”

Yes, well, she wasn’t going there to meet people. She was going to build extraordinary machines.

“I met Parsons.” She pinched her lips to keep from smiling.

“An engineer? Be serious, Charlotte.”

Exactly the reaction Charlie had aimed to produce—honestly, her mother was positively Newtonian in her predictability.

Although she wouldn’t admit it to Mother, she was being serious—Parsons did intrigue her, in a detached way. She wanted to observe him and draw up the schematic of how he ran.

In a week, she’d get the opportunity to do exactly that.

Charlie kicked off her black silk heels and climbed onto her desk. Her pencil skirt was almost too fitted for her to perform this maneuver, but luckily she was alone in the office. She carried a hammer in one hand and a box of nails in the other. There were tools with which she felt adept: a soldering iron, for example. When you got down to it, a soldering iron was a dainty thing capable of fine, delicate work.

In contrast, a hammer was blunt and obvious, but it was what she needed in order to hang her diplomas. She’d long ago discovered it helped to put her credentials where everyone could see them. Hiding one’s light under a basket never helped women in science. She’d have her CV tattooed on her face if she thought it would help.

But as she pounded the third nail into place, it wasn’t Hal Reed or any of her other male colleagues who stuck their heads in: It was two women, one in a feminine lemon-colored frock, the other in a sharp blue suit.

“Lord, how many of those things do you have?” the woman in yellow asked. Her russet-colored hair was arranged in a perfect pageboy and her lively brown eyes were fixed on Charlie. But her question had an edge that rendered it just shy of a demand.

Charlie blinked several times, trying to figure out how to respond. “Uh, I have one more.”

“Do you need any help?” the woman in navy asked. Her dark brown hair was coiled in a tight knot at the top of her head, which fit with her tight posture and her slim figure. She was beautiful, with high cheekbones, ochre-toned skin, and perfect brows that were arched skeptically. But again, something about her manner didn’t seem entirely kind. She wasn’t pleased with Charlie. “We can’t work with the racket.”

Oh hell. This wasn’t the way for Charlie to endear herself to the computing department staff. “I’m sorry,” Charlie said. She wasn’t sure who these women were, but she’d clearly ruined their mornings. “Can you hand those to me? I’ll get this last nail in, and I’ll be done.”

Once she’d hung them all, Charlie asked, “Do they look straight?”

“And darn impressive.”

She clambered off the desk—not her finest hour—and offered a hand to the woman closest to her. “I’m Charlie Eason. I’m the new deputy director.”

She hadn’t had the chance to introduce herself to anyone yet. Even now, in stockinged feet and having destroyed the early morning quiet, Charlie flushed with pride. She should be the director, not the deputy director, and her family thought she was throwing her life away, and oh, she had no idea if the men here would support her and if they’d ever be able to get the rockets
not
to blow up on the pad, but… details. Those were all details.

The woman in yellow gave her a firm handshake. “Dorothy Washington. Dot.”

“Beverly Fox. We’re computers.”
 

From the massive file that had been delivered to Charlie’s new house over the weekend, she knew most of the computers worked out of the ASD facility in Virginia, though there were some in Houston as well. They crunched numbers every day, in some cases performing as duplicates to the electronic computers, and in others doing jobs ASD either couldn’t or didn’t with the machines.

And most of the computers were women.

Charlie was relieved she wouldn’t be the only woman in the computing department. She’d been the only woman scientist for most of her career. It wasn’t her favorite position.

“I’ll rely on you to tell me about the state of affairs at ASD,” she told them.

Beverly cocked her head to the side. “You could start by telling us if you plan to lay us off.”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you going to fire us?”

So this was why they were so hostile. It wasn’t only that Charlie had been making a racket—they also believed their jobs were on the line.

Beverly’s question was offered smoothly, unemotionally, but Charlie could tell there was real concern under the words. There had been nothing in the file Charlie had read about firing Dot, Beverly, or anyone else. Charlie wasn’t even certain if she had any power over personnel—all she’d considered were the machines.

She didn’t want to manage a team. She’d become adept at handling men with power—really, nothing could be easier. But dealing with technicians and support staff and their likely very legitimate grievances with management? Maybe Charlie shouldn’t have left Smith.

In front of her, Dot and Beverly watched, wary. Charlie knew nothing about them, but they were here. In spite of all the things working against them, they’d made it into this room, and they wanted to know if they were going to be allowed to stay.

They all had quite a bit in common, then.

“No, I’m not,” Charlie said firmly. She quickly added, “I mean, I’m aware of no plan to fire anyone. But my first day doesn’t officially start until nine. For seven more minutes, I don’t have any information or power.”

Dot gave a bare smile at this. “Well, we can still be friends until then.”

“I’ll tell you—” Charlie glanced out the door to see if Hal or anyone else had come in. Confident they were still alone, she said, “I only really considered the electronic computers when I took this job, not the rest of it. Why do you think you’re going to be fired?”

Dot and Beverly exchanged a look. They weren’t sure yet if they trusted her, and they didn’t care if Charlie knew it.

She liked these women more and more all the time.

“Something we overheard,” Dot said at last.

So Charlie had walked into a minefield. This had been true at Smith, of course. Faculty politics were real and explosive. She knew industry could be worse—there were larger amounts of money involved. She hadn’t really expected ASD to be better, even as she’d hoped it would be.

Despite their cynicism about her, maybe it would behoove Charlie to do some fishing. “Can you tell me anything about Hal Reed? I’ve only met him briefly.”

Charlie looked out of her office door again, giving Dot and Beverly the space to decide what to say.

“He isn’t here,” Dot said. “Won’t be until after nine. Since it’s your first day, he’ll probably keep you waiting. Hal is… Well, he’s a manager first.”

Didn’t that sound neutral?

Beverly made a derisive snort. It mirrored what Charlie would have liked to do.

“What about Stan Jensen?” Charlie asked. “I haven’t met him.”

Beverly loosened up at this. As the director of the American Space Department, Mr. Jensen wasn’t their immediate boss, so this wasn’t as visceral a question. “I’ve seen him in the corridors. He has two modes, the first being glad-hander. You’ll see him with VIPs, giving them the rounds. He’ll bring them here and deliver a speech about what we’re doing and how it’s important and so on. ‘These girls make sure we don’t crash into the sea.’”

“Except of course the boys in propulsion can’t get us off the ground,” Dot put in.

They all laughed. Charlie suspected those notes of black humor were an important component of the work here.

Beverly went on, “But other times, you’ll see him stalking around all tightly wound and bleary eyed.”

Oh yes. Charlie had no trouble believing that. What if they failed? What if the Soviets won? What if one of those rockets exploded with an astronaut attached to it? No, Charlie had no problem imagining what might keep Stan Jensen up at night.

But as long as they were speaking of ASD’s men: “What about Eugene Parsons?”

This time, there was no hesitation. “Now, he’s demanding—”

“Every engineer in this place is afraid of him—”

“—even the astronauts get jumpy when he walks into the room—”

“—I’m not convinced he’s human. He might be a robot prototype.”

Dot and Beverly had spoken at once, but their meaning was the same. They confirmed everything Charlie had suspected when he’d interviewed her.

“Is he effective?” she asked.

“Everything that happens at ASD happens because of him,” Beverly said.

And that was why he intrigued Charlie so, but she didn’t know Dot and Beverly one-tenth well enough to admit her interest. They would misunderstand.

“Don’t take it personally when he yells, though,” Dot added.

“I never take anything personally.”

Before the computers had a chance to respond, the door of the department’s main office swung open, and Hal Reed strolled in. Charlie dashed over to her desk and put her heels on. It wouldn’t do for him to see her without her armor intact.

Right as she finished, Hal leaned in to her office. “Morning, ladies.” His tone was as sticky as spilled syrup.

This first phase was going to be enormously painful. Charlie hoped the rest of the job outweighed the hiccups.

“Good morning, Mr. Reed. I was unpacking a bit.” She gestured at her perfectly arranged office, complete with reference books, potted ficus, new chalk for the blackboard, and a large calendar for deadlines. She’d already been in for more than three hours.

“And I see you’ve met Dorothy and Betsy.”

Beverly winced.

“I have.” Charlie gave Beverly a quick look. She would have winked too, but she was afraid Hal might see.

“Before the senior staff meeting at ten, I want to take you to meet some of the guys.”

“Of course. Lead the way.”

With a nod to the computers, Charlie jumped into the deep end. It was a good thing she had learned to swim in the frigid waters of Lake Carnegie. She was going to master this challenge too—whatever it took.

Parsons drank the last sip of coffee from his mug and checked the clock on the kitchen wall. 6:03 a.m. Roy was likely back from feeding the stock and eating his breakfast. It was the perfect time to call.

Parsons punched the number into the kitchen phone and listened to the rings. There were only two before his brother answered.

“Parsons residence.”

Parsons would have known it was Roy on the line before he’d even spoken. His brother hated a ringing phone even more than he did.

“Happy birthday, big brother,” Parsons said.

“Hey, kid! Thank you. It’s good to hear from you.”

It was good to hear Roy’s voice too, in the drawling accent Parsons didn’t experience often in the halls of ASD. “How’s the day so far?”

“Got ham for breakfast instead of bacon, so pretty good. Biscuits too.”

“Daisy put on a spread, then.”

“Oh yeah. I guess she still likes me.”

Parsons couldn’t help but smile. God forbid either of them should admit they were crazy about each other—Roy and Daisy had been sweethearts since kindergarten.

“How’s Ma?”

A deep sigh from Roy. “Well enough. Daisy gets over there most days to help her.”

“Daisy’s a good daughter-in-law.” Ma had said that exact thing to Parsons two days ago, but he knew his mother would never tell Daisy so. That was how praise worked in the Parsons family—you never gave the praise to your intended target. No, that might feed their vanity, and vanity was the worst kind of sin. So you told someone else and relied on them to send on the praise and hope the person heard.

It was how Parsons knew his parents were dead proud of what he was doing. They told Roy, who told Daisy, who told Kevin, his nephew, and his nephew had told him.

“And Dad?” Parsons asked.

He wasn’t certain if his question was lost through the telephone line or if Roy simply didn’t want to answer, because his brother asked, “How’s work?”