Grace—
No. Screw you.
Listen a minute, would you. This isn’t about you or flyin anymore. This is about them and us. Look at this, he said, picking up the newspaper and tossing it down. Look at it. We can’t afford to lose. This—all this—we’re at war. And we have to beat the Soviets. We have to dominate. We have to win. And I have to work.
Harrison sat at his desk and read through his memos. Rain hammered against the mottled glass window behind him. Deke had assigned each of the Nine an area of specialization. Harrison got Guidance and Navigation, which was better than Boosters or Recovery. McDonnell was falling behind building the Gemini spacecraft. Grissom had been directed to oversee the work full-time up at the McDonnell plant in St. Louis. The first unmanned flight was just thirteen months away, in December, sixty-three. Harrison doubted they could deliver on time. He sighed, lit a cigarette, sat back. He was tired. He’d slept badly. He thought back to the craziness of the previous day and then an unrelated thought, generated by some foreign part of his mind, appeared, and the thought was of Florence’s frail body in the ground.
Jesus! He sat up, coughing on the smoke in his lungs. His forehead pimpled with sweat. He shook his head, as if to physically dislodge the thought from his consciousness, but it wouldn’t shift. How could he think that? Jesus Christ. What the hell kind of person was he? He tried to think of something else, but couldn’t; it snapped back. It moved from thought to image; vague to detailed. Christ! He rubbed his face and cried out in horror. He stood up and walked around the room. His hands trembled. He sweated harder. There was a knock on his door.
Shit.
It was Lovell.
Yeah, Harrison said.
Hey, Jim, Lovell said. Do you—are you all right?
Huh?
You look awful.
Oh, yeah, thanks, I’m fine; just tired.
Listen, can I show you something? Lovell said.
Yeah, Jim, sure, Harrison said. Just—could you give me a minute?
Sure thing. Come find me.
Lovell left. Harrison wiped his brow. His gut felt liquid. He walked fast to the men’s room, locked himself in a cubicle, tried to focus on what Lovell might want with him.
When he got home that night he went straight upstairs and sat on the bed and loosened his tie. The rest of his day had passed without incident. Lovell’s interruption had been enough to knock him back to reality. His mind kept drifting back to what had happened, but he sensed danger in dwelling on the specifics, so he hauled it in and focused on the present. He went down to the kitchen.
Honey? he said.
Outside, she said from the patio.
What you doing out here? he said, joining her. It’s miserable.
Thinking, she said.
He took off his tie and sat down.
How you been? he said. Good day?
I went over to Sue Borman’s for coffee.
All the wives?
She nodded.
What’s the matter?
Ugh, it’s terrible, Jim, just … awful.
Awful?
It’s all so … phony. I hate it. I guess the relief of leaving flight test has worn off for everyone and been replaced with the holy terror of the launch. And the subsequent thought of three dead husbands circling the moon forever. No one will talk about it though. Not even with each other. I want to shake them and say, my God, who else are you gonna talk to? They do this stupid skit—Rene came up with it—she calls it the Squarely Stable routine. I guess it was meant to be funny, keep everyone’s spirits up from dealing with the press—and maybe it was the first time—but they do it every time and it’s driving me crazy.
Grace stood up and held her fist to her mouth, as though holding a microphone, and started acting out Rene Carpenter impersonating a television correspondent they called Nancy Whoever.
We’re here in front of the trim, modest suburban home of Squarely Stable, the famous astronaut, who has just completed his historic mission, and we have here with us his attractive wife, Primly Stable. Primly Stable, you must be happy and proud, and thankful at this moment.
Grace’s tone shifted slightly.
Yes, Nancy, that’s true. I’m happy, proud, and thankful at this moment.
Grace continued.
Tell us, Primly Stable—may I call you Primly?
Why, certainly, Nancy.
Tell us, Primly, tell us what you felt during the blastoff, at the very moment when your husband’s rocket began to rise from the Earth and take him on this historic journey.
Honey, Harrison said.
To tell you the truth, Nancy, I missed that part of it. I sort of dozed off, because I got up so early this morning and I’ve been rushing around taping the shades shut so the TV people wouldn’t come in the windows.
Okay, Harrison said. I get it.
Well, would you say you had a lump in your throat as big as a tennis ball?