June 1981
The whole group of ASCANs traveled to the National Space Technology Laboratories in Mississippi. On the way back, they opted to spend the night in New Orleans.
Joan had wanted to get back to Houston to see if she could pick Frances up from school on Monday, but she had been outvoted. She called Barbara from a pay phone in the lobby of the hotel to let her know.
“I swear, Joan,” Barbara said. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”
Joan sighed. “C’mon. Because I’m staying an extra night on a work trip?
Don’t you think you’re overstating it?” She looked at the buttons on the phone, the deep grime of the numbers, the one and the zero worn down more than the others. “Just let Frances know I’ll pick her up Tuesday, okay?”
“I mean, fine. But she’s struggling, Joan. I know she doesn’t say it, but she misses you. She’s been very crabby lately, a little rude, honestly.”
“Okay,” Joan said. “Well, I will see her Tuesday. Please tell her when she gets home from school.”
When Joan walked away from the pay phone, Vanessa was standing in the lobby.
“You’re coming with us to Bourbon Street,” Vanessa said.
“Do I have to?”
“That’s the spirit,” Vanessa said. “Donna wants to go shopping before we go out. And specifically requested our attendance.”
Joan considered this.
“You think I want to go look at dresses?” Vanessa said. “But we can’t leave her with Lydia. You’re coming.”
Joan stood in the Esprit store—looking in the full-length mirror at herself in the blue floral dress Donna had insisted she try on—completely taken aback.
“Joan?” Donna called from the other side of the fitting room door.
“Yeah?”
“How does it look?”
“I don’t know.”
“Show me.”
Joan looked at herself one more time and then came out of the dressing
room.
Donna gasped. “Jesus jumped-up Christ.”
When she was off the clock, Donna had taken to teasing her hair so it was big and voluminous. She was wearing a red denim skirt with a high slit and a white-and-yellow strapless top. She’d put it on in the dressing room, then handed the saleslady the tags and asked her to bag up her old clothes. “You have to buy that,” Donna said.
“I do?” Joan looked at the price tag. She could just hear her father’s outrage at the audacity.
“Have you had those tits this whole time, Joan? My God.”
“Stop it. Please stop that.”
“You have to buy it! Wear it out of the store like I am. Let’s have fun!
We’re only in New Orleans for one night.”
Joan looked down at the way the dress hit her body. The hem was so short.
She could feel herself curving inward. “It’s too much,” she said. “It’s so
flashy.”
“You’re buying the goddamn dress.”
Donna grabbed her arm and led her out past the other fitting rooms. She
ripped the tag off the dress.
“Donna!” Joan said.
“I’ll pay for it if I have to.”
Lydia walked over, trying on a jean jacket. “Joan, you look really pretty.”
“Wow,” Donna said under her breath. “Hot enough to melt the ice queen.”
Vanessa was at the front, looking at men’s striped shirts. She glanced up, scanning the store, and saw them. When her eyes landed on Joan, Joan flushed. She put her hands to her opposite shoulders, as if she could cover up the blush of her skin. Vanessa shook her head and smiled. And then caught Joan’s eye and mouthed, “You look great.”
“Excuse me, miss?” Donna said to the saleslady.
When the woman turned to them, it was Joan who spoke up: “I’ll take this.”
The air was sticky, and the light pollution on Bourbon Street was so terrible that you could barely see a star in the sky. Joan was sweating on her upper lip and at the base of her collarbone.
Duke and Hank had each bought her a beer earlier. Harrison bought her a fruity drink that tasted like candy. She’d never had this much attention from them, and she’d had more to drink tonight than she’d ever had in her life.
Griff bought her a flower, and she took it and laughed.
Vanessa and Harrison were up ahead, trying to talk Donna out of getting a tarot reading. She imagined Donna asking questions about her future, as if the answers weren’t obvious. Joan saw it all: she was going to marry Hank, and be the second astronaut in that marriage.
“Astronauts shouldn’t fall in love with each other,” Joan said aloud and then looked around and realized she was walking side by side with Griff.
When had that happened?
“What?” Griff said.
“We all have bizarre priorities and, let’s be honest, probably God complexes,” Joan said. “There should only be one of us in a relationship. The other person has to make up for all the other things we lack. No, it’s a bad idea to fall in love with one of us. If you’re one of us.”
“I don’t know about that,” Griff said, smiling at her in a way she’d forgotten she didn’t like. They walked past Donna, Vanessa, and Harrison.
“No, I’m right about this,” Joan said. “I think about it a lot.”
“You think about it a lot, huh?” Griff pushed his shoulder into hers. “I think you’re wrong. Who else would put up with us except each other? Who else is going to understand why we might have to miss our kid’s recital or can’t be home on Christmas, or why we’re risking our lives?”
Joan looked at him, considering. She could not ever miss Christmas with
Frances. Not ever.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because people never fall in love with who they should. This whole world
is full of stories of people falling in love with exactly who they weren’t supposed to.”
“I had no idea you were such a romantic,” Griff said.
Joan rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe in love,” she said. “For me. So how can I be a romantic?”
Griff considered her. “What do you mean?”
Up ahead, Lydia was waving everyone over. Duke, Hank, Marty, Teddy, and Jimmy were all walking into a club. Donna ran past Joan and Griff.
Joan felt a hand on her shoulder before she heard Vanessa’s voice. “What are you two talking about?”
“Ford, don’t you think that Joan might just be a secret romantic?”
“I want to stop talking about this,” Joan said.
Vanessa looked at her with a smile Joan couldn’t decipher. “I think Joan still has a lot of things to figure out.”
Joan tightened her jaw. “You can be very condescending,” she said finally.
“Has anyone ever told you that?”
Vanessa laughed. “No, actually.”
Griff stopped in place suddenly. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
Joan looked up at the sign, which said, “CONTINUOUS ALL GIRL SHOWS.”
There were neon outlines of half-naked women all over the storefront.
“Everyone went into a strip club?” Joan asked.
“Joan’s not going to a strip club,” Vanessa said.
Donna pulled at them. “Come on, everybody, it’s only fun if we all do it.”
Joan looked at the club door. The hairs on the back of her neck started to
rise.
“I’ll do it,” Joan said.
“What?” Vanessa and Griff said at the same time.
But before anyone could say anything else, Joan walked through the front door.
Joan had seen women naked in locker rooms.
But she’d never seen this.
There were six or seven women all dancing on the stages. Some with bras on, some without. Some teasingly pulling on the string of their bikini bottoms.
At first, Joan had not known where to look. But now, whether it was the drinks or watching Donna and Lydia put dollars in the strippers’ G-strings, something in her was settling. Her body was becoming softer, her muscles
liquid, her belly warm.
And she began to watch.
She watched the way they moved. The way they curved and flowed.
Just watching them, Joan liked her own body more. As she saw Duke tip a topless waitress, Joan made so much more sense to herself for one crystal- clear moment. Of course men were uninteresting to her. They were
fundamentally uninteresting.
We are interesting.
Joan’s eye drifted onstage to a woman to her right, who called herself Raven, no doubt a reference to her dark curly hair.
Raven rolled her hips in front of Joan and Joan knew she was staring but could not stop. Joan watched Raven as she took her bikini top off. She felt a rush of something as she saw Raven topless. Joan kept watching as Raven smiled at her and began to play to her, writhing in front of her.
The world clicked into place for Joan then: why men were so obsessed with women’s bodies, why they made so many mistakes just to get closer to
one.
“Here,” Donna said.
“What?”
Joan looked over to see that Donna was handing her a dollar bill. “Put it in her bikini to tip her!” Donna shouted. “It’s fun!”
“Oh.” Joan took the dollar bill and looked back at Raven. There was something so gentle about Raven’s smile. So peaceful it was dangerous.
“Hi,” Raven said as she turned her hip toward Joan. Joan leaned over and slipped the dollar into the string of her bikini. Her skin was so soft. How could Joan get her skin that soft? How could Joan move within her body the way Raven did? How could Joan be just like her? Had Joan ever held that
much power in her whole life?
As Joan looked around, everyone was starting to leave. So she got up and nodded at Raven and waved goodbye. It took her a second to remember how to put one foot in front of the other. How to pretend to be normal.
How to act like she hadn’t just found something everyone else had discovered long ago.
When her eyes hit the neon signs of Bourbon Street, Joan could feel the lightness in her head that would feel heavy tomorrow. She knew she should call it a night. But instead, she said, “Where’s Vanessa?”
“She went back to the hotel after, like, two minutes in there,” Lydia said.
“Oh,” Joan said. “I should head back, too.”
“Do you want me to walk back with you?” Griff asked.
Joan looked at him. He was so handsome. And kind. And patient.
“You don’t have to,” she said.
“At least let me put you in a cab,” he said.
The next thing Joan knew, they were walking arm in arm away from the crowd.
When they were out of sight of the others, Griff took her hand for a moment. Joan loved the warmth of his skin on hers, the feeling of another hand entangled with her own. “It’s been a wild night,” he said.
“Yeah. Pretty crazy.”
Griff smiled at her. “You’re drunk.”
“Not really.” But even she didn’t buy it.
He looked at her. His eyes were light brown, so soft. Why couldn’t she love him? Maybe she could. She leaned toward him, giving in—to what she did not know.
But he pulled away from her. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for months now,”
he said.
Joan opened her eyes.
“But not when you’re drunk.”
“But I want to,” Joan said. “Right now, I want to. And I may not want to tomorrow.”
Griff smiled, but his eyes were sad. She could see that.
“Then we shouldn’t,” Griff said.
Joan had seen enough movies to know what to do. She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him toward her, pulled him against her, her body pressed against the brick wall behind her.
He gave in to her then, put his hands on the wall and pushed against her.
He kissed her back.
He tasted like rum, and she wanted to gag. The roughness of his chin. The smell of him. She hated it as much as she’d known she would.
She pushed him away—she had to.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said. “I don’t think we are . . . like this.”
He frowned, but she felt such relief. She had finally said it. He could stop trying to love her now. Because she did not want him. She wanted something, she wanted it so badly. In her bones and her legs. But she did not want him at all.
He backed away a step, and then he laughed to himself in a way that wasn’t funny. “It’s okay,” he said. “I had a feeling this would happen. It’s why I haven’t made a move.”
“I’m sorry, Griff,” she said. “It’s just . . . it’s complicated.”
Griff nodded. “I thought it might be. I thought you might be.”
Joan did not want to know what he meant.
A taxi came down their side of the road. Griff hailed it and opened the door for Joan. He put her in the backseat and gave the driver the name of the hotel.
“Thank you,” Joan said, her hand on the edge of the open window. She was overwhelmed with love for him. Love in the sense that she trusted him, and saw all the good in his heart, and cared about him and wanted only good things to ever happen to him. Love in the sense that she would always be on his side, even if he was wrong, in the sense that he was one of the people on this Earth she believed in. And in that moment, the swelling in her heart was
unbearable. Absolutely unbearable.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, don’t be. I’ll be okay. Give me a little while and
I’ll be just fine.”
She nodded.
“You looked gorgeous tonight, Joan,” he said. And then he tapped the cab’s roof. And off she went.
As the cab drove away, Joan touched her lips. Her lipstick was smeared.
And her lips felt as if they were tender, buzzing not with satisfaction but with longing.
That night, Joan dreamt of things she’d never dreamt of before.
She woke up to the fog of morning. The bright sun coming through the window was a shock to her cloudy vision. She reached for her sunglasses on the nightstand and put them on. A loud pounding on her door forced her to finally get out of bed.
She was naked, which surprised her. She grabbed a robe from the closet and then turned to see that the bed was covered in sketches. She’d used up the entire hotel stationery pad. Joan looked at them, trying to remember
drawing them.
Every single sketch was of Raven.
Raven smiling at her. Raven dancing. Raven with her top off. Raven’s hips and her stomach.
Joan gathered them all up frantically as the pounding continued. “Be right there!”
“Open up, Joan! You’re late for the bus.” Vanessa.
“I’m coming!” Joan stuffed all of the sketches in the nightstand.
“Everyone can’t wait to see what you look like hungover,” Vanessa said loudly out in the hall.
Joan cringed. “Please be quiet until I get to the door!”
Finally, she opened it.
Vanessa turned to see her and only then did Joan realize she had not yet looked in the mirror. She glanced down. Her robe was loose, a deep V showing the borders of her chest. Vanessa looked at it and then back up at Joan’s face. Joan pulled her robe tighter.
“It’s worse than I thought,” Vanessa said, smirking.
Joan smoothed her hair down and let her in.
“Oh, your hair’s not the half of it,” Vanessa said as she followed Joan into
the room. Joan started throwing her things into her suitcase. Vanessa began helping her.
“Everyone decided to go grab breakfast while we wait for you. Donna and Jimmy really wanted grits anyway.”
Joan tossed her new dress into her bag. “This is so embarrassing.”
Vanessa shook her head. “Everyone’s charmed. Joan Goodwin cut loose.”
“Everyone bought me too many drinks!” she said.
“It happens to pretty girls a lot. I’m surprised you’re not used to it.”
Joan looked up at her, but Vanessa was already walking to the bathroom.
When she came out, she handed Joan a toothbrush with toothpaste already on
it.
“Here you go, slugger.”
Joan took it and brushed her teeth. “I feel like I might vomit,” she said through the foam of the toothpaste.
Vanessa nodded. “You’ve been hungover before. It will pass.”
Joan headed into the bathroom, Vanessa following her. “I’ve had a headache before. This is . . . disgusting.”
Vanessa nodded again as Joan spit the toothpaste out. “Yeah, that’s because you usually drink wine or beer. Last night, you drank those hurricanes everyone was buying. Donna already puked this morning.”
Joan’s stomach turned. Vanessa wet a washcloth and then put a little bit of Vaseline on it. “Your face looks like a Jackson Pollock. Come here.”
Joan held her hand out for the washcloth. But Vanessa either didn’t notice or ignored her. “Close your eyes.”
Joan looked at her for a moment and then slowly complied. She swallowed hard.
Vanessa put the washcloth on Joan’s cheekbone. She rubbed gently, and with her other hand she held Joan’s chin. The washcloth was so warm that Joan could have fallen asleep right there. And she was once again so close to Vanessa that she could smell the soft, sweet scent of baby powder.
Vanessa started in on Joan’s eyes, her hand gentle but firm. Joan could feel her skin getting cleaner under Vanessa’s touch, her stomach settling.
Vanessa rubbed Joan’s eyebrows, and then her forehead and down her
jawline. And then she stopped.
Joan opened her eyes.
“You’re . . . um, you should probably do your lips,” she said, handing Joan the cloth.
“Oh, okay, thanks,” Joan said. She took the cloth and wiped the lipstick off as quickly as she could. “Good?”
Vanessa nodded. “Yeah, you look like yourself again.”
“I didn’t look like myself last night?”
“I don’t know, Jo. I’m still trying to figure out if you know who you are.”
“Do you know who I am?” Joan asked her. It came out with an edge, but Joan desperately hoped she’d say yes.
Vanessa shook her head. “I’m hoping I do. Only you can say for sure.”
Joan could feel the space between them grow thicker.
“I kissed Griff last night,” Joan said. “After the strip club.” She studied Vanessa’s face for any reaction. It showed nothing.
“You seemed to be having quite a nice time at that club,” Vanessa said.
“I didn’t enjoy it,” Joan told her. “Kissing Griff.”
Vanessa nodded. “No, I had suspected you wouldn’t.”
“I liked the club, though.”
Vanessa was quiet, but she held Joan’s gaze. Then she looked away and nodded again, this time with a little smirk. “Yeah, I suspected you would.”
“Did you enjoy it?” Joan asked. “The club?”
“What do you think?” Vanessa said.
“I don’t know. You left early. I couldn’t tell.”
Vanessa didn’t say anything.
“You say I don’t know who I am, but do you know who you are?” Joan
asked her.
Vanessa laughed. Joan cringed.
“Yes, Joan, I do. And you know who I am, too. If you’re honest with yourself.”
Oh, they were much too close to the sun.
“I think we should . . . I mean . . . we’re already so late! Can you grab my
sunglasses? I’ll get dressed.”
Vanessa looked at her for a moment longer and then said, “Okay.”
Joan shut the bathroom door and put on her clothes. She fixed her hair.
When she came out, Vanessa was holding her sunglasses and her wallet. She was standing right by the nightstand. Joan’s cheeks grew hot, as she worried Vanessa had opened the drawer. But she showed no signs of having seen anything.
Vanessa started to walk past the bed, toward Joan and the door, but then she stopped and leaned over. “Oh, looks like you left something,” she said as she grabbed a piece of paper, half-buried in the sheets.
“It’s nothing,” Joan said. “Don’t look at it. You don’t need to.”
But Vanessa did look at it, and then she smiled. “Oh, I do know you,” she said. “I know you so well. I know you exactly, Joan Goodwin.”
Joan could feel her cheeks warming. She was on the thinnest edge of something. But, somehow, she knew she was okay.
“All right, Ford,” she said. “Let’s go.”
The following weekend, Joan had made plans to pick Frances up on Sunday morning at ten, but she woke up almost half an hour late.
She’d been doing that lately. Unable to sleep, then unable to wake up, her mind scattered, her body falling behind. She called the house but no one answered, so she threw on a dress and got in the car. She made up some of the time by cutting through corner gas stations to avoid red lights—painfully aware that the maneuver was illegal.
When she pulled into Barbara’s driveway, Frances was outside sitting on the stoop. She was in cream overalls, her hair in two braids she’d clearly done herself.
“Hey, babe,” Joan said. “Sorry I’m late.”
It was eleven minutes after ten.
“It’s okay,” Frances said, getting up.
“Where’s your mom?”
“With Scott.”
Joan did not know who Scott was, but she could figure well enough.
Frances walked toward Joan’s car, but Joan stood on the lawn for a
moment.
“Your mom’s not home?”
“No, she left about a half hour ago, to go pick him up. She said to wait out
here until you came.”
“Why not in the house?” Joan said.
Frances shrugged. “She locked the door when she left.”
Joan could not tell if this was as big a deal as it seemed to her.
“Are we going out to breakfast?” Frances said as she got into the front seat.
“I already had Lucky Charms, but I’m still hungry.”
Joan opened her own car door and got in.
“If you want to, sure.”
Joan drove them to the diner by her apartment building and they got a table. When the food arrived, Frances scarfed down both her pancakes in about three minutes flat.
“Franny, c’mon, eat your eggs,” Joan said.
“I really don’t want to,” Frances said.
“You promised that you would,” Joan reminded her.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” Frances said.
This worked with Barbara. Joan was sure of it. “Eating an egg is not going to kill you,” she said, entirely unamused. “I don’t want you to get all hopped up on sugar and no protein.”
Frances frowned, but then she picked up her fork and began eating.
“What are we doing today?” Joan asked. “Movies or shopping?”
Frances considered her options. “How much money will I get for shopping?”
“The exact cost of a movie ticket—you know that.”
Frances nodded. “What if I said I wanted to see a movie tonight, would you take me?”
“Of course, my love. If it is okay with your mom.”
“But those tickets are more expensive.”
“Right, but that’s fine.”
“So if we go shopping now, can I have the same price as an evening movie ticket?”
Joan laughed just as Frances did. “You little trickster,” Joan said.
Frances’s eyes crinkled and she curled her shoulders up, so pleased with herself. “You did say . . .”
“Okay,” Joan said, pointing at her. “That trick will work this time. I’ll give you the money because I admire your moxie. But next time, I’ll be on to you.”
Frances shrugged. “It’s okay,” she said. “I want to go see a movie anyway.”
Joan laughed. “You’re going to be a lawyer when you grow up,” she said.
“Or a hostage negotiator.”
“What’s a hostage negotiator?”
“Don’t worry about it. All right,” Joan said. “Which is it? Great Muppet Caper or Superman II?”
Joan did not hear Frances’s answer because she was distracted by Griff walking into the diner, headed for the counter.
He was picking up a takeout order. He saw her the moment she saw him, and he smiled at her, albeit forlornly. She wanted to go up and talk to him.
But he’d been keeping his distance, walking over to JSC on his own even when they had the same schedule, declining dinner invitations from the group. She did wonder when things would go back to normal, but as she looked at him at the counter, he waved to her with such a sweet curtness that
she understood it wasn’t normal yet.
“Joanie?”
“Hm?”
“I said I want to see The Great Muppet Caper.”
“Okay, babe,” Joan said. “Finish your plate and let’s head out.”
“Do I really have to?”
Joan wondered why she couldn’t be the cool aunt who let Frances eat chocolate cake with whipped cream for breakfast and stay up late and learn all the swear words. She didn’t know if that was her fault or Barbara’s fault.
Or maybe it had always been inevitable.
“Yes,” Joan said. “You have to.”
That afternoon, Joan pulled into the driveway to bring Frances home, as planned. Joan had rebraided her hair, but otherwise, Frances was worse for wear, with maple syrup on her overall bib and popcorn butter on her pants.
“Can I spend the night at your house?” Frances said before she got out of the car.
Joan turned off the engine. “I don’t know about that, babe,” Joan said.
“You have day camp tomorrow.”
“But you could take me,” Frances said. “I was thinking if you would take me to camp, or even school, in the morning sometimes, I could stay at your place more often.”
Joan nodded. “Why don’t we talk about it with your mom at some point?” she said. “But not tonight, okay?”
Frances nodded. “But you know she’s going to say yes,” she said. “She doesn’t care if I’m here.”
“Of course she does,” Joan said. “Your mother wants you with her all the time.”
Frances looked at Joan with a disappointed frown.
When they got to the front door, Barbara was cleaning the kitchen and there was music coming from the record player. Joan could hear a man’s voice in the backyard and smell the smoke of the grill.
“Hello, family,” Barbara said. She walked over to the front door and pulled Frances close to her. “Joan, do you want to stay for dinner? Scott is making ribs.”
“I can’t,” Joan said. “But can we talk for a moment?”
“Can I go watch TV?” Frances asked.
“Sure, honey,” Barbara said. “Go ahead.”
Even with Frances gone, Joan whispered as low as she could. “Why did you leave Frances outside by herself this morning?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You shut her outside and left.”
“You were picking her up.”
“She was alone outside by herself for more than a half hour.”
“Well, it’s not my fault you weren’t here on time. I assumed she’d only be there for a few minutes. And anyway, she’s fine, isn’t she?”
“Barbara, she’s seven years old.”
“I know how old my daughter is, thank you very much.”
“I’m just saying, maybe don’t lock her out. What if I hadn’t shown up?”
“I’d have been back in an hour. I just went to pick up Scott,” she said.
“She’s a smart kid. She would have gone around to the backyard and played
until we got here.”
“Barbara—”
“You consistently underestimate how smart and capable she is. You baby her.”
“I don’t baby her. I watch out for her.”
“Oh, screw you, Joan. Screw you. And don’t look at me like that.”
Joan was not sure how she was looking at her, but already the confusion was settling in.
Barbara often accused Joan of thinking things, claiming that Joan didn’t
even have to speak, because of how clear her disdain was from her body language.
And the fact was that yes, sometimes Joan worried that Barbara was careless. Sometimes Joan was concerned about Barbara’s inability to consider other people, to think things through from any perspective other than her own.
But Joan worked so hard to stay on Barbara’s side.
Still, Joan was often snapped at for things she’d never said, accused of taking positions she had not yet even committed to within her own mind.
Was Barbara being unfair? Or was Joan indeed judgmental? And maybe her sister was the only person close enough to confront her about it? Joan wasn’t sure, knew that she might not ever be sure.
“I’m not looking at you like anything,” Joan said finally.
“Yes, you are—you think I’m a bad mother.”
“No, I don’t.”
“But you don’t know the first thing about being someone’s mother, Joan.”
“I know that.”
“And certainly not how hard it is to do it by myself. With no one helping me.”
Joan nodded, unsure what to say to that.
“So mind your own business.”
Joan looked past Barbara to where Frances was watching TV and playing with two of her dolls. She was laughing. She was completely fine. Right?
“I’m sorry,” Joan said. “You’re right.”
“Thank you,” Barbara said. “That’s very big of you. Thank you.”
Joan kissed Frances’s forehead on the way out. “I’ll see you soon. Okay, sweetheart?”
Frances nodded and said, “Yep. Bye, Joanie.”