Star Dust (22 page)

“What’s your sister going to do?” she asked finally.

“I don’t know. She doesn’t know. And the reason I’m upset is that I can’t honestly say whether she should stay or go.”

Anne-Marie nodded in sympathy. That was the worst part of all. Without her parents’ support—late and hesitant though it was—Anne-Marie’s situation would have been a disaster. She wouldn’t have had money for a lawyer or a roof over her head. She could have asked Doug for a divorce, but he never would have relented if she hadn’t been able to leave. The only reason she’d been able to weather it was her dad’s money.

“The world is changing,” she offered. “Divorce isn’t the bane it once was.”

Roberta shook her head. “People are awful to you. I was awful to you.”

Anne-Marie certainly couldn’t argue with that.

They stood there for a long time, not talking. Roberta powdered her nose. Her eyes were red-rimmed and a touch puffy, but she looked otherwise normal—which was to say icy and lovely. She put her compact back in her purse, smoothed her blue-patterned skirt, and then looked up, locking eyes with Anne-Marie in the mirror.

“I’m sorry.”

When Freddie or Lisa had to apologize, Anne-Marie always made them say for what. She also made them promise not to do it again. Roberta notably did neither. But it was a start.

“It’s okay.” While Anne-Marie might have hoped for friendly colleagues at work, she hadn’t expected them. And with the support of Margie Dunsford, it would probably come eventually. When Anne-Marie had some more pieces, everything Roberta had said or done made sense. While Anne-Marie didn’t like it, she understood it.

And now her life was better. Terrific actually. She loved her house. She was forming friendships. She knew the kids were happy, rather than just hoping that they were.

And of course there was Kit. If things with them shifted from just an affair to dating and love and marriage… well, she wasn’t certain how it would go over. Would the press revile her or embrace her? Would she be forgiven or denounced?

The other woman crossed the bathroom and reached for the door. Before she opened it, she turned. “I’m glad you left,” she said. “More women should leave.”

She pulled the handle open and breezed out.

Kit had once told her about how he hated the attention of being an astronaut. How he hated the assumption his life was perfect and the interest everyone had in him. No one thought her life was perfect, but whether she’d known it or not, she’d become a kind of role model when she’d slammed the door on Doug.

She walked over to the sink and washed her hands. Then she glanced up at herself in the mirror. She was sallow in the fluorescent lights. Her hair was positively green in the mirror, her features plain except for her freckles. But she was herself. Her own woman.

Dark bags hung under her eyes—the result of her late night on Saturday with Kit. With him, she’d never be her own woman again. She wouldn’t be the woman who left—she’d be the one who’d snagged an astronaut.

She pushed the thought aside and went back to work.

Anne-Marie let herself into her house and dropped her pocketbook on the entry table. What a day. After her conversation with Roberta, she’d processed nine reservations, three of which were international. She didn’t want to be vain, but she was something of a travel agent assistant extraordinaire.

She hung her coat in the hall closet and glanced into the living room. It was empty, but muffled shouts echoed from the backyard. When she pushed aside a curtain, she could see her children and her mother talking on the patio with Kit, Bucky at his feet.

She stepped outside to join them, and Freddie gestured at her. “Now will you tell us?” he begged Kit.

What was Kit going to tell them? Oh goodness, was it about… them? On Saturday they’d agreed it wasn’t just an affair. She wanted more, and she knew he did too. But maybe they should talk about this first. Once they’d confessed to the kids, there was no going back.

She gave Kit a searching look and he returned it. His jaw was set but he was smiling. The crinkles around his eyes were a bit too tight, like a piecrust about to rip. Maybe he was nervous. She certainly was.

She rubbed her fingers together, trying to release the energy suddenly trapped there. “Hello, everyone. What’s Kit going to tell us? Some astronaut secret?”

He nodded slightly and inhaled. “Sort of. I… that is, Joe Reynolds isn’t going to fly the mission. Robbie’s sick.”

“Oh no!” She’d have to call Frances and check in.

“But, you see, well, I am.”

“You’re what?” she asked, her voice sharper than she’d intended.

“I’m going to space.” The tension evaporated from his face. The smile he gave her now was broad and guileless. It wasn’t
Life
’s “most charming smile in America”—it was nothing so self-conscious and practiced. Pure, boyish joy had cracked his façade open. He was radiant with it.

For one heady moment, her body bobbed toward him. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and share this with him. Lap it up. Lap him up. Of course she couldn’t—at least not in front of her kids and her mother. So she stopped herself.

She shook her head and became aware of them around her, shouting at Kit, excited and happy.

But something else held her back: she had wanted him to tell her family about them. She wanted everyone to know. Kit was going to do this thing—this great and scary thing—and she didn’t want to be only his neighbor when he did it. She didn’t want to be his… mistress either. She wanted. For the first time in forever, she
wanted
.

She took a deep breath and pressed a hand to her stomach. All she said was, “Oh.”

Kit reached down and ruffled Freddie’s hair. The boy vibrated with elation, and a stream of questions and exclamations poured out of his mouth. “What do you think dawn looks like in space? Do you think you can see the tides working? Or the Grand Canyon?”

Lisa bounced on her toes. “And the moon! How big do you think it looks up there? How close will you be to it?”

Kit never lifted his hand from Freddie’s head. But quietly, and with greater restraint, he said, “There’s more.”

“Oh?” Anne-Marie wondered if she’d ever manage anything beyond that one dumb syllable.

“They want me to be totally focused for the next three days until the launch. No… distractions.”

Her hand fisted in the fabric of her dress. She didn’t answer.

Kit looked up, right at her, and nodded in response to the question she hadn’t voiced. That meant her.

His hand passed through Freddie’s hair again. He cupped the back of the boy’s head in a gesture both tender and possessive. And then his hand fell at his side. “I was wondering if Bucky might be able to stay with you until I’m back.”

The kids immediately resumed their happy, affirmative routine. Anne-Marie was aware of her mother congratulating Kit again and then saying something about dinner before heading into the house. Anne-Marie still couldn’t bring herself to move or speak.

For several long beats, she and Kit held each other’s eyes.

She was a distraction.

These might be Kit’s final three days on earth. He might go away never to be seen again. He might blow up on that rocket of his—and he didn’t want to see her for the next three days.

She looked away. Blinked. Fought the urge to rub her eyes.

She shouldn’t be upset. How silly. She’d wanted to keep things light between them. She’d wanted an affair. And that was what she had gotten.

Oh well, she must have been mistaken Sunday night. It wouldn’t be the first time. He didn’t want more at all.

She sniffed and looked back up at him. “Of course we’ll watch Bucky. Freddie, can you go with…” She trailed off. She couldn’t quite say Kit’s name just now. When one had affairs with astronauts, well, one had to accept the possibility of being burnt. It was like looking at the sun too long. She felt a bit dizzy.

“—Get the dog’s things, will you?” she finished. “Lisa, can you go inside and set the table for your grandmother?”

She turned, needing not to look any more at a certain handsome astronaut—the one who had unexpectedly broken her heart.

“Good luck, Commander Campbell,” she called over her shoulder as she darted into the house—where she was absolutely not going to cry in the bathroom.

When Margie opened the door, Anne-Marie said without preamble, “I would like a drink, and I would like for it to be strong.”

Margie held out her hand for Anne-Marie’s coat and smiled coyly. “Does this have anything to do with a certain someone who headed out for the Cape today?”

Anne-Marie glared but didn’t respond. She hadn’t known that Kit had left for the Cape. She’d seen him put a suitcase and a duffel bag in his car when she’d glanced—just glanced—out the blinds this morning, but she hadn’t been certain he was leaving.

So he’d gone without saying goodbye, had he? Well, she wouldn’t want to
distract
him.

She handed her coat to Margie and headed into the living room. Betty was lounging on the couch and flipping through a catalog. The card table was folded against the wall; apparently they’d abandoned even the pretext of bridge—though if it was only the three of them, cards would be difficult.

“No Frances?” Anne-Marie asked, sitting next to Betty and pointing to a picture of an all-white kitchen loaded with built-in accessories. “It’s so… clinical.”

“Greg would have it covered in footprints in under ninety seconds.”

Kit had once told her that Greg Henkins was messy in an absent-minded professor way—and Anne-Marie winced at the memory of happier times, when she was still fooling herself about Kit.

Margie started fussing with things on the bar in the corner. “Robbie’s doing better. He came home from the hospital today, but Frances wasn’t ready to leave him yet.”

“How’s Joe doing?” Anne-Marie asked quietly.

As mad as she was at Kit—and more than twenty-four hours later, her rage remained an explosive thing—she was pleased for him. He’d been given the thing he wanted most in the universe. She didn’t have personal experience of getting the deepest desire of one’s heart, but it had to feel pretty good. However, she was certain he would have preferred if it hadn’t come at the expense of his friend. After all, going to space was the deepest desire of Joe Reynolds’s heart too.

Margie poured a shot of something into the cocktail shaker with a pharmacist’s practiced hand. “I can’t tell about Joe. Frances said he’s fine, but she also thinks he… Well, she had a lot to say about the ASD brass and their decision-making and family values.”

Betty flipped the page and snorted. “If Frances is actually deigning to complain, she must be livid.”

Frances did seem above sniping.

Anne-Marie looked away and played with the hem of her skirt. “How did the decision get made?”

“Who knows?” Margie shook the cocktail shaker vigorously and then strained the drink into a lowball glass over fresh ice. “Your guess is as good as mine. They threw darts at a picture of the boys. I called Parsons—”

“You called Parsons?” Betty asked with an incredulous glance.

“He’s the only one who knows anything. But of course he wouldn’t say. I was lucky to get him on the phone at all.” She gave Anne-Marie a level stare. “What did Kit say?”

“He didn’t say anything.”

Margie crossed the room, dangled the glass in front of Anne-Marie, and then drew it back. “No.” She stopped and held the drink too far for Anne-Marie to reach it. “I’m not giving it to you until you tell us what he said.”

Betty snapped the catalog shut. “Oh good, I was wondering how we were going to get her to talk.”

Margie waved her hand. “I always have a plan.”

Anne-Marie glared at them both in turn and lied. “It isn’t like that.”

“Like what?” Betty canted forward.

“He doesn’t tell me about the mission.”

Margie set a fist on her hip and frustratingly did not hand over the drink. She waited, brows up, as if Anne-Marie had something to confess. Anne-Marie turned to Betty for help, but Betty mimicked Margie’s expression.