Grace sat on the sofa and read for an hour. She grew restless. Milo was asleep in the sun upstairs. She collared him, found her sunglasses and headed out again. She thought about calling on Marilyn Lovell next door. She liked Marilyn, and their husbands got along well. Not that either of them were ever around. Deke had been working them hard from the get-go. Wally—Jo Schirra’s husband—and the rest of the Mercury boys were concentrating on the next flight, scheduled to launch in a few weeks time, and the New Nine (she already hated the name) were learning as much as they could about Project Gemini. Jim would leave the house early and arrive home, exhausted, late. They were working out of rented offices in the Farnsworth-Chambers Building downtown, since the Manned Spacecraft Center was still being built. There was something about the speed that everything was happening at. It unsettled her.
Milo pulled on the leash. Grace felt sorry for him. He’d never had to wear one before. He wasn’t used to the cars, or the intricacies of a suburban neighborhood. He pulled her on. Maybe, she thought, she might bump into one of the other wives. Annie had been so sweet to her, and Pat kind. The others she wasn’t so sure about. She’d picked up on a strange hostility from the Original wives. Did they think she didn’t deserve to be in Timber Cove? That they weren’t entitled to their slice of the Life pie? Marge Slayton had organized a lunch for them not long after the Nine had arrived in Houston. It had been oddly tense. As though the Mercury wives resented these nine rookies and rankled at their attitude, like an older sister punishing her younger sibling for simply arriving and benefiting from her hard-earned privileges. Grace understood the pecking order. God knows she’d been a military wife for long enough. Unofficially, the wives rose in rank with their husbands. Living somewhere as remote and godforsaken as Muroc in the early days, it wasn’t something she’d really encountered. Hell, if you were living on some desert outpost to God knows what, who really gave a damn? But then, she knew she wasn’t like the others, and Jim was more than a cut above the pilots who’d been selected for the first monkey shots. The boys at Edwards were an elite few. And the other wives knew it. Marge was trying, with Susan Borman, to formulate the equivalent of the Officer’s Wives Club for them in Timber Cove.
Coffee, every month, Marge said. We’ll rotate homes. And we’ll call it the AWC.
None of the other wives needed to ask what the A stood for; like their husbands, nobody uttered the word itself. Grace had picked up on the code early on. It was always the men, or the boys, or the fellas. Grace had neither the time nor the patience for the kind of organized horseshit that came with the service. All the other wives wanted to talk about was Jackie’s wardrobe, or how Jackie wore her hair at such-and-such occasion. Grace didn’t give a damn. And over that first coffee, when she dropped cigarette ash on Marge’s new shag-pile rug and said, goddamn it, the others looked at her like she was trash. Jeez Louise, she’d thought. Was this really her world now? Jan was different though. Neil was a civilian and had been flying for NASA so they didn’t follow the same rules. She liked Jan. But Grace was used to being alone and that’s the way she wanted to keep it. She wasn’t planning on attending many of the AWC meetings.
At the corner of Shorewood and Whispering Oaks she paused and lit a cigarette. Then she walked back down to the edge of Clear Lake.
Grace sat opposite Marilyn at the Lovell kitchen counter drinking coffee. She hadn’t spent long at Clear Lake.
I promise, she said.
Marilyn was slender and tall with black hair that erupted from her head in dark curls twisted into a beehive. She tapped her cigarette into a glass ashtray on the countertop and leaned forward.
I’m pregnant, she said.
Pregnant? Grace said, putting down her mug. I—wow—that’s, uh—goodness, congratulations. Sorry. You just caught me by surprise.
You’re not the only one caught by surprise, Marilyn said.
That’s wonderful news, Grace said, it really is.
Yes, it is, she said, but with three monsters already—well, two; my eldest is practically—honey? Marilyn said, breaking off.
I’m sorry, Grace said.
It’s okay, Marilyn said, moving her coffee out of the way and reaching for Grace’s hands. What is it?
Oh, God, Grace said.
Come on, you can tell me, Marilyn said. Friends and neighbors.
It’s not right for me to come into your home and hear your wonderful news and— It’s fine, Marilyn said, really—I’m the wife of a test pilot. I’ve had to deal with much worse, believe me.
Grace laughed through her tears.
Have another cigarette, Marilyn said, offering her the pack. Grace took one and lit it and told her everything and when she was done Marilyn hugged her and told her she couldn’t imagine going through what she’d been through and Grace felt a little better.
What’s Jim been like? Marilyn said from the other side of the kitchen, putting another pot of coffee on.
Grace didn’t say anything.
Figured as much, Marilyn said.