Page 45 of Atmosphere

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 theColumbia. 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 grabVanessa’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!”

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