Star Dust (23 page)

They were a united front of well-honed mom shame.

After several seconds, Anne-Marie rolled her eyes. “He said Robbie was sick and Joe was out. He asked the kids to watch Bucky. The end.”

Margie extended the glass. “That’s a start. You’ve earned this.”

Anne-Marie took it and tossed half the drink down in a single gulp. Her throat seized. She coughed and then wheezed. She had no idea what Margie had made, but it was certainly very strong.

She pounded on her chest a few times and looked from Margie to Betty. Had she earned a reprieve along with her firewater?

“Now that you’ve scalded the inside of your body—never instruct Margie to make a drink strong—tell us the rest,” Betty said.

Apparently not. Anne-Marie played with the glass in her hand. She could of course spill out the entire sordid tale. She’d been mad Kit wanted to tell people, then mad he hadn’t, which didn’t make sense. She could rectify that wrong.

But it seemed unconsidered to share it without checking in with him, particularly not with two of the biggest gossips at ASD. On the other hand, it had also been unconsidered to make her want him and then to tell her she was a distraction. And Betty and Margie were her friends.

“I mean, I don’t know precisely what you think is between us, but if you think it’s romantic in nature… you aren’t wrong,” she said after a few beats.

Margie’s mouth quirked. “Oh, we rarely are.”

“Kit’s not just… he’s… Hell, you’ve seen the man.” It was amazing she’d resisted him for as long as she had.

Betty threw her head back and howled with laughter. “Moreover, we’ve seen how the man looks at you.”

“It’s a little indecent. You should at least try to hide it from the kids,” Margie said.

“Just tell us, is his reputation with women well deserved?” Betty asked.

“Oh, you can tell it is—look at her face.”

If their temperature was any indication, Anne-Marie’s cheeks were vermilion. But burning though she might be, she was not—she was not—going to talk about Kit’s reputation or his manly prowess or anything of that nature with Margie or Betty.

Anne-Marie smothered her face in her free hand. Her friends went on.

“But are his intentions serious, do you think?”

“They must be. He plays with her kids.”

“I don’t think that necessarily means anything…”

“But in this case?”

“Oh yes. She’s got him thinking both short and long-term.”

When the giggling died down, Anne-Marie looked up at them and bit her lip. “Please don’t tell Mitch or Greg. I don’t think there’s anything to tell, at any rate.”

Margie, appearing to be confident that the juiciest revelations were at an end, headed back to the bar. “Oh, I never tell Mitch anything. He has no sense of discretion—the man is like a sieve. At least he’s good at flying things.”

“I just…” Anne-Marie trailed off, then took another big sip of her drink. “Kit ended our… our romantic… thing.” That was one way of putting it.

“He what?” Betty gasped.

“When he came over yesterday to ask the kids to watch Bucky, he said he didn’t have time for distractions before the launch.”

Margie slammed the shaker down and gave Anne-Marie a serious look. Apparently they were done joking about sex. “He doesn’t.”

That wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. “But I’m not a distraction,” she insisted. She cared for him a lot—far more than she’d known or been willing to admit.

Betty smothered a smile. “Oh, I know, honey. But think about what he’s going to do in two days—”

“If the weather is good,” Margie interjected.

“—He’s going to pilot this rocket, that they’re only sort of convinced is safe, around the earth many times. One little mistake and he could blow up.”

“Literally.” Margie tossed cherries into several glasses.

Betty scooped Anne-Marie’s hand up. “Darling, he’s in the Navy. And Navy wives, well, they endure worse than being called distractions.”

“Korea was still going on when I married Mitch. I went to funerals as a newlywed, wiped the faces of women younger than me who’d lost husbands.”

“Before this is over, ASD may bury people.”

“You’re not helping,” Anne-Marie said. She didn’t want to think about all the things that could wrong—or, more like, all the things that had to go right. It was easier to be mad at him.

“It’s not like the fate of the world is in his hands,” Betty went on, “but maybe the future of US-Soviet relations. And certainly the future of ASD.”

“Whose side are you on?” The words had an edge, but Anne-Marie followed them with a laugh. Margie and Betty were right, but the look on his face when he’d called her a distraction? Her whole body hurt remembering it. She could either laugh or she could cry—and she’d prefer not to weep in front of them.

“We’re on your side,” Margie said without hesitation.

“It’s just that you haven’t had much time to get used to the idea. You’ve known Kit all of what—a few weeks?” Betty’s eyes were empathetic.

Anne-Marie didn’t want to think about how fast all of this had happened, so she finished her drink and Margie helpfully set down a tray of fresh, full glasses.

“We need Frances,” Betty said to Margie. “She’s the perfect Navy wife. She’s much better at advice than we are.”

“Let’s call her!” Margie grabbed a phone from a side table and moved it to the coffee table. She dialed Frances without hesitation. Margie knew the number by heart? How many times a day did she call the astronaut wives? This truly was her vocation: managing everyone, smoothing things over, and explaining. Anne-Marie should have told her eons ago. Maybe Margie could have helped her avoid the entire mess.

“How’s Robbie?” Margie asked when Frances answered.

The conversation went on for a while. Anne-Marie turned to Betty when it reached the level of changing bandages and how to tell a good nurse. “Do you think I’m being sensitive?”

Betty shook her head, but her expression was thoughtful. “I don’t think Kit has made you feel very confident.”

He’d made her feel like she was on fire. He’d made her feel like she wanted to be in a relationship again. But he didn’t make her feel anything as solid, as tepid, as confident.

“No,” she agreed.

“They”—presumably Betty meant the astronauts—“do need to focus. And whatever you two share, it probably isn’t conducive with what he needs to do in the next few days.”

Anne-Marie looked away and rubbed at her eyes. They were clouded and damp suddenly. Silly eyes.

“So you see,” Margie was explaining to Frances, “Anne-Marie feels like Kit thinks she’s a distraction… I know, that’s what we told her.”

“Now I feel foolish,” Anne-Marie said to Betty.

Betty shook her head. “You’re not.”

Margie extended the phone to Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie wasn’t certain she wanted to talk to Frances. Actually, she wanted to run home and never see anyone connected to ASD ever again. But she took the receiver anyway.

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said to Frances.

“Not at all! Honestly, after everything with Robbie and Joe, I’m relieved for the distraction.”

Frances was ever gracious.

“Here’s what I can tell you, Anne-Marie. I’ve been married to a pilot since I was nineteen. And if you make it you or the job, the job will win. You have to know that you exist in a universe beyond the job. You’re never competing with it.”

“You’re right,” Anne-Marie said. And of course Frances was.

“Kit cares about you,” Frances went on. “I know he does. The decisions they have to make about family or ambitions, the pressures… I’m glad Joe didn’t have to face this early in his career.”

Meaning, presumably, before they’d had children. Because Kit’s decision wasn’t just about her, it extended to Freddie and Lisa too.

“Is Robbie going to be all right?” she asked softly. Joe Reynolds’s decision, after all, was to choose family.

“Yes, he’s fine now, thank you,” Frances said with a sigh of real relief. “He’s eaten about three gallons of ice cream—and proper nutrition is now my main concern about him.”

“And how’s Joe?”

“Ah, see, you understand this. Joe’s… he’ll be fine. Being an astronaut wife is about ego and ambition—yours and his. You’ve got to keep enough of yours and help him find his when he loses it.” Several beats passed. “Joe will be fine. And so will you.”

“Thank you, Frances.”

She handed the phone back to Margie and looked at Betty. “I’m an idiot.”

And she was. While she was still mad at Kit, the women had helped her beat it down to a manageable level. He’d given her what she’d wanted. He’d made her no promises. Now she’d have to ask him for what she wanted—which couldn’t be any harder than asking him to have an affair with her.

Betty shook her head. “You are nothing of the sort. You’re just metamorphosing.” As Anne-Marie chuckled, she added, “Hey, this week’s homework was all about frogs.”

“Are you saying I’m a tadpole?”

“Yes,
ribbit
.” Betty picked up a drink from the tray and handed it to her. “Drink this. And let’s figure out what you should wear when Kit comes back.”

Margie hung up with Frances and turned to them. “Feeling better?”

“Yes,” Anne-Marie said. “If Kit and I, that is, if we—” She wasn’t certain how to finish. If she forgave him, if he took her back, if they started dating, if things progressed…

“Get married?” Margie supplied.

Anne-Marie couldn’t use the word; she didn’t know if she wanted to. But she also knew that if everything became public, that pressure would be there. The kids, her mother, everyone in America would expect them to.

She swallowed. “Would my first marriage threaten Kit’s career?”

Margie picked up a glass. “We’ll protect you. We’ll hush up any gossip.”

Betty nodded. “And if things go well with the orbit, ASD won’t want to upset Kit. They’ll protect you too.”

That word
if
. She hated it. But today, if she cared for Kit, if she wanted him, she was going to have to live with it.

“Bottoms up,” Margie instructed.

They finished one round and then another, debating whether redheads were restricted to green or if something blue might be nice.

“The main thing is to remind him about your distractions. Maybe wear something that doesn’t need a girdle.” Betty gestured with her now-empty glass at Anne-Marie, who was fumbling with the buttons on her coat.

Margie nodded. “Just show off those curves and it won’t matter which color your choose.”

Anne-Marie giggled. “Hmm, I’ll let you know what I decide.”

“And tomorrow, I’m calling Parsons,” Margie said, pulling the door open.

“Whatever for?”

“You need updates during the flight, don’t you?”

She hadn’t thought of that. She’d assumed she could find out from the news, the radio, about takeoff and landing. But in between? She gurgled, half-agreement and half-nerves.

“I’ll take care of it.” Margie’s words were a vow.

Kit couldn’t move.

That was by design, of course—he was strapped into the seat of the capsule, pinioned like the science experiment he was.
 

He was strapped into the capsule and the capsule was strapped to a rocket: a neat symmetry. When that countdown hit zero, all that fuel sitting beneath him would ignite and send him hurtling toward the stars.

That was the plan, at least.

He couldn’t say that he was nervous. Anxious, perhaps, with a faint twisting in his gut, a slow, deep thrum in his blood. But nothing more than that.

Should he be feeling more? He was about to achieve the dream of a lifetime, after all—to make his nation proud, to stick it to the Soviets. He’d heard a rumor that Gagarin had fallen asleep while waiting for liftoff—and he’d be damned if a Soviet would beat him at coldness or fearlessness.

Kit didn’t feel like sleeping. Not that he’d been sleeping much lately anyway.

He’d left Bucky with Anne-Marie and the kids that night—the night he’d told her he couldn’t see her for the next three days—and headed for the Cape.

But he’d imagined them, going about their days. Preparing dinner, watching television, playing with Bucky. He missed them. Missed tossing the ball with Freddie, answering Lisa’s questions about the rocket design, scratching behind Bucky’s ears.

He missed Anne-Marie most of all. The tart things she said. The way she didn’t seem to like him until her lust flared to the surface. The floral scent of her skin. The way she flipped her curls out of her eyes. He was distracted by not having his distraction at his side, which had a grim kind of humor to it.

Was Anne-Marie watching the countdown? He knew Freddie and Lisa would be. He wanted to see their faces when the rockets ignited and slowly, slowly left the confines of gravity.

But he was on the rocket.

He’d wanted to spend the last few sleepless nights outside, gazing up at the night sky, but that wasn’t possible on the Cape. His every movement had been monitored. He’d considered explaining to his friendly guards, bribing them with beers perhaps, but they wouldn’t have seen the romance in it. Or worse, they would have leaked it to the press. And it would have cheapened it to turn it into a promotional thing.