Spring 1981
Joan was standing on top of the launch control center at Kennedy Space Center with her aviator sunglasses on and her bomber jacket unzipped, revealing her blue polo shirt and khakis. It was Sunday, April 12, and while it would grow warmer during the day, it was not yet seven in the morning and there was still a chill in the air.
STS-1, the inaugural mission of the space shuttle program, was about to launch. Almost all of the astronauts had been assigned some role that day, like flying chase or search and rescue. Others had been made available for interviews with TV and radio news anchors. But Joan and the majority of the Group 9 ASCANs were there just to observe.
There were so many people at Cape Canaveral that morning that the surrounding beaches were packed. The launch was being broadcast on multiple channels.
It felt as if the whole world were watching.
Frances would be watching on TV, too. And Joan kept thinking of her as she looked over at the Columbia shuttle: a monumental bright white symbol of progress. The orbiter was positioned with its nose in the air, twin solid rocket boosters, one on either side of the external tank. Any minute now, the main engines would ignite, and everyone would watch liftoff.
If Joan had thought Barbara would listen to her, she would have told her
not to let Frances watch.
“Joan, I’m nervous,” Vanessa said.
Joan looked around, to see if any of the many astronauts, ASCANs, NASA officials, or admins on that rooftop with them were listening.
“It’s going to be fine,” Joan said.
Vanessa looked at her. “You’re not nervous?”
“I didn’t say that. I just said it is going to be fine.”
Vanessa lightened up slightly.
“Goodwin,” Griff said as he approached Joan, not seeing Vanessa on the other side of her. “Want to grab breakfast after this?”
Joan’s stomach churned. “Yes, sure.”
Griff nodded and walked away.
“He’s got a thing for you,” Vanessa said.
“Stop it. People don’t understand that men and women can be friends,”
Joan said.
“Or maybe you don’t understand when someone is giving you signals that they’re interested.”
Joan looked at Vanessa. “You are nervous about the launch, and it’s making you edgy,” she said. “Shake it out.”
“Shake it out?” Vanessa said, smiling out of the corner of her mouth.
“Yeah,” Joan said. Joan shimmied her shoulders, shook her hands and
arms.
“You look ridiculous.”
“Well, the tightness is gone from my shoulders, and I’m feeling better about this launch already, but if you’re too cool for it, be my guest. That is
kind of your thing.”
“You think I’m cool?”
Joan squinted at her. “Now you’re pretending you don’t try to act cool?”
“I just didn’t know you thought I was cool.”
Joan rolled her eyes. “Stop fishing for compliments.”
Vanessa smiled just as the crowd quieted and a low buzz overtook Joan’s body.
“T minus five minutes and counting,” the flight controller said.
Joan turned her attention to the Columbia. She pictured John Young and Bob Crippen strapped into their chairs, lying back, parallel to the ground.
Were they as scared as she was? Or was it like a hurricane? Those outside of it were caught up in the chaos, but inside—right in the eye of it—there was calm.
All around the country, little boys were dreaming of their futures today.
Little boys who, when asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, would proudly declare, “Astronaut!” and would dress up as one for Halloween.
She wondered if, soon, there might be a woman up there. Joan hadn’t
needed to see a woman in that ship in order to believe in herself enough to apply. But she had also never dressed up as an astronaut for Halloween. Not once. For some reason, this made her acutely furious.
“T minus three minutes and forty-five seconds and counting.”
Joan looked at Vanessa, whose eyes were focused on the shuttle. She wanted to tell Vanessa that she knew she would fly it one day. That if any of them got up there, it would be her. But she wasn’t sure about anything after this moment.
There were now plumes of white smoke coming out of the engines.
“T minus one minute and ten seconds and counting.”
Joan prayed that Barbara hadn’t turned on the TV.
“T minus twenty-seven seconds.”
Joan took a breath. She and Vanessa exchanged a look.
And then: “Seven . . . six . . . five . . .” Joan had heard the flight controller count down before, but it had never felt like this. “We’ve gone for main engine start. We have main engine start.”
Joan reached out, unaware of herself, filled with terror, to grab Vanessa’s hand. And Vanessa clutched hers tightly in return, as if her hand had been searching for Joan’s just the same.
The rockets lit up. Fire and smoke emanated from the bottom of the shuttle. Joan felt the bone-crushing pressure of Vanessa’s fingers around hers. The billow of smoke was so big that Joan thought for a moment something had gone wrong. But just as quickly as the smoke arrived, the startlingly bright fire underneath the shuttle erupted into a blaze and the whole thing began to move.
“We have liftoff of America’s first space shuttle, and the shuttle has cleared the tower!”
Joan’s eyes followed the blaze up into the air. She could no longer hear the flight controller or the countdown. All she could hear was the burning of that fire as it rose higher into the sky, the shuttle getting smaller with every passing moment.
At one hundred and thirty-two seconds after launch, the two rocket boosters fell away. Joan took a breath. By now the Columbia had likely reached over seventeen thousand miles an hour. Soon it would hit main
engine cutoff. The external tank would fall away, too. As Joan waited for that moment, she realized she was still holding on to Vanessa.
She took her hand away.
“Sorry,” she said. “Got a little more scared there than I anticipated.”
Vanessa nodded and said nothing. Joan could not bring herself to look at her. Instead, she looked up again at the sky. She could barely see the shuttle anymore. Success was a white dot getting smaller and smaller.
They’d done it. They’d launched up into orbit.
There was nothing to be afraid of.
She felt so silly.
Joan was coming home with a bag of groceries—almost entirely cereals for Frances to try that weekend—when she saw Vanessa and Griff talking in the parking lot.
Vanessa was laughing at a joke Griff must have made. Joan was starting to wonder if Vanessa laughed that way with everyone.
“Hi,” she said.
They both turned and looked at her. “Hey,” Vanessa said. “I came by looking for you.”
Griff headed toward his car but pointed at Joan. “Are we still headed to
Frenchie’s for dinner later?”
“Yeah, I’ll find you,” Joan said.
And then he was gone.
“You’re going to dinner together?” Vanessa asked.
Joan started walking toward the building, and Vanessa followed her.
“Yeah, why don’t you come?” Joan said.
Vanessa held the building door open for her. “No, thanks.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s that mean?” Vanessa had a smile on her face that Joan didn’t care for. “Uh-huh.”
“It means I knew you wouldn’t come,” Joan said, walking into her apartment. “But you really should. We’d have fun.”
“I wouldn’t want to interrupt your date,” Vanessa said, following her in.
“You know it’s not a date,” Joan said. “And you know calling it a date will get me nervous that he thinks it’s a date. You know exactly what you’re doing.”
“Are we fighting right now? Are you mad at me?” Vanessa asked, as if it thrilled her.
“Of course not.” Joan started putting the cereal boxes—all bright and covered in cartoon characters—into the cupboard. Vanessa reached into the bag and loaded the milk and fruit into the refrigerator. Joan watched as she paused to look at the sketch of Frances hanging on the refrigerator door.
Vanessa took the magnet off it and held it for a moment.
“Is this Frances?”
Joan nodded.
“She’s beautiful.”
“She really is.”
Vanessa put the sketch back. “Griff does have a crush on you, though,” she
said as she shut the refrigerator door.
“Would you stop it?”
“It’s obvious,” she said. “And why wouldn’t he? You’re smart and gorgeous and about ten other things.”
“So are you. Does he have a crush on you?”
“Joan, c’mon.”
Joan looked at her but did not say anything. Vanessa reached out and touched Joan’s shoulder. “Hey, I’m sorry I called it a date, okay?”
Joan looked away. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m sensitive.”
Vanessa jumped up and sat on the counter. “I’m probably looking to pick a fight.”
“Why? What happened?” Joan said, leaning against the opposite countertop.
Vanessa sighed. “Antonio’s going to tell us tomorrow that Lydia is being sent to Toronto to be the first of us to study the RMS.” This was the robotic arm that could be manipulated from inside the orbiter to deploy and control payloads. Operating it was one of the most important skills a mission
specialist could be assigned.
“How do you know that?”
“Because he told Lydia last night,” Vanessa said. “And you know that smug little shit can’t keep anything a secret.”
“She probably looked quite self-satisfied.”
“She pretended she ‘hated to break it to me.’ I cannot stand her. I truly cannot stand her.”
“Well, look, we knew she was the favorite, right? And she’s not as bad as you’re making it out.”
“You’re the only one she’s halfway nice to.”
“I’m the only one who tries with her.”
“How am I supposed to try? If I caught fire, Lydia would consider whether she could use me to warm her hands before deciding to put the flames out.”
Joan laughed. “Well, you got me there . . . I think that’s probably true,” she admitted.
Vanessa laughed, her head thrown back. And Joan wished she hadn’t seen her laugh like that with other people. So that she could take more pride in eliciting the response now.
“But I do think,” Joan said, “that if we included her more she’d put your fire out faster.”
Vanessa squinted at her. “Are your parents divorced?”
“What? No, you know that.”
“I’m just wondering when you became a peacemaker.”
Joan frowned. “Maybe I’m just a nice person,” she said.
Vanessa shook her head. “No, I bet it was because of all the drama with Barbara.”
Joan blinked. “Would you like me to psychoanalyze you?”
“It would be too easy—I’m too rich a subject.”
“Well, don’t do it to me.”
“Fine. What time is it?”
Joan looked at her watch. “A little after five.”
“Blow off Griff and come get a beer with me.”
“Why won’t you just join us?”
“Because I just want to get a beer with you.”
Joan considered this. “I don’t know . . .”
“Doesn’t seem like that big a deal to me to just leave a note on his door saying you need a rain check,” Vanessa said.
Joan bit her lip, unsure. “Okay,” she said finally, with the spirited verve of someone agreeing to break the law.
Vanessa popped down off the counter and pulled Joan toward the door.
“I’m driving.”
Vanessa took Joan to a dive bar outside the city with a dirt parking lot, sticky
tables, and dollar bills pinned to the ceiling. Someone was feeding coins to the jukebox to keep it playing Willie Nelson.
They’d been there a couple of hours and had had a few beers. Which was why Joan was tipsy enough to tell Vanessa about Adam Hawkins, the neighborhood boy who wanted to marry her.
“He was good-looking?” Vanessa asked.
“Yeah.” Joan shrugged. “I guess. I don’t know. Barbara always thought he was cute. We went out on dates here and there, to the movies and some
parties together. He was fine.”
“Did you like him?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t tell. Which I think means no.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“Oh, my gosh, no.”
“But the two of you kissed?”
“Sometimes, sure.”
“So he was your boyfriend.”
“I don’t know about that. He was a boy I dated, and it was clear our parents wanted us to get married. And he did, too.”
“How is that not a boyfriend?”
“I think of a boyfriend as someone you love. I never loved him. I would
know if I’d fallen in love.”
“Have you ever?”
“What?”
“Have you ever fallen in love?”
Joan glanced down at her fingernails. “No,” she said, looking back up.
Vanessa nodded, absorbing it all. “Because you haven’t met the right person?”
“I don’t know. Or . . . maybe it’s just not my thing.”
“What’s not your thing?”
“Falling in love, getting married.”
Vanessa cocked her head and finished her beer. “So there’s this nice, handsome guy, and your family liked him. And he asks if you could see
yourself marrying him and you said no?”
“Yes?”
“If a different boy had asked, would your answer have been the same?”
“I think so.”
“I’m impressed, Joan Goodwin.”
“What? Why?”
“It puts you in a different context, that’s all,” she said. She wasn’t slurring her words, but there was a laziness to her mouth.
The table was a mess. The empty beer pitcher—the foam drying along the sides—hadn’t been cleared. What was left of their burgers sat off to the side.
The air smelled acrid. The bar was quiet for a moment as the song changed over. When a new one started, Joan recognized it as “Mamas Don’t Let Your
Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.”
Vanessa started humming along.
Joan realized she was sweating. “What context does it add?” she asked.
“You could have married a nice handsome guy and had some kids. Happily ever after and all that. It would have been easier than all this,” she said, gesturing to the restaurant around her as if it were NASA itself. “But you
didn’t go that route.”
“Neither did you.”
“Well, right, but . . . I never could have. Whereas it seems like you had the option.”
Joan gazed down at the remains of her meal. “You’re making a lot of assumptions.”
Vanessa looked at her, inviting her to explain.
“Marrying Adam Hawkins and being a wife? Waiting at home and making dinner every night? My mom is so good at that stuff, but I never looked at her and saw myself. I know that hurt her feelings. I know that me choosing a different life didn’t quite make sense to her at first. But I think choosing that other life, her life, would have been very hard. I think it would have been one of the hardest things I’d had to do. I chose the only life I knew how to choose.”
“I was trying to compliment you,” Vanessa said. “But you look insulted.”
Joan shook her head. “No, I just . . . Don’t make it out like life in the suburbs is easy. Life’s not easy for anybody, first of all. And second of all, I’ve never fit in there. That life, in particular, would not have been natural for me at all.”
Joan could feel Vanessa studying her face. But then Vanessa pulled back and put her arm on the back of her chair. She sat slumped ever so slightly, with her knees apart. When she sat like this in bars or buses, Joan cringed a bit.
“Sometimes I think you and I are having one conversation and then I realize we’ve been having an entirely different one the whole time, you know that?” Vanessa asked.
“No,” Joan said. “I think we’re on the same page.”
Vanessa considered this. “I admire you,” she said finally.
Joan scoffed. “That’s a little silly.”
“Why is that silly?”
“Because you’re just as accomplished as me. In some ways more so.”
Vanessa leaned forward. “I can fly a plane better than you. Fix a plane
better than you.”
“See? There you go.”
“But I can’t play the piano the way you do.”
Joan waved her off.
“You can try to deny it, but I’ve heard you play,” she said.
Joan caught her eye and then looked away.
“And I don’t know the history of the stars. Or how to take care of a kid— stock my kitchen with food they’d like and say all the right things, like you do with Frances. Lord knows, I can’t draw at all,” she said.
“Yeah, how terribly accomplished of me. I doodle.”
“Why are you calling them doodles? Why are you doing that? All I’m trying to tell you is that I’ve only ever really loved one thing. Being in the sky. But I look at you, and you are so curious about everything. Not just about the planets and galaxies and the stars. But Earth. About the people on
it. That’s what I admire.”
“My curiosity?”
“Your commitment to the world around you. How much you care. You are so thoughtful. About everything.”
Joan suspected that liking the view of herself through Vanessa’s eyes was dangerous. She just wasn’t sure how.
“Why are you telling me this?” Joan said.
“Because I understand why it isn’t me who is in the lead for the first mission of our group,” she said. “But I don’t know why it isn’t you.”
“I think sometimes you . . .”
“Sometimes I what?” Vanessa said, leaning forward, daring her to finish.
“I’m not as great as you think I am,” Joan said.
Vanessa smiled. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t kill my dream. Let me think you’re the best astronaut in the class.
Can you give me that? Let me think that right now, the wrong woman won, okay? Let the world be as I see it for just tonight. Without too many gray areas and caveats. Where I know I’m mortal but I’m not sure that you’re not a god,” she said. And then her voice got barely above a whisper as she leaned
in. “Can you do that for me?”
And what escaped Joan’s lips was “Yes.”