Page 79 of Atmosphere

“Oh, now youhaveto tell me.”

Joan put the crook of her arm over her eyes. “It was my seventh birthday. My parents took me to Disneyland. And usually, even if it was my birthday, Barbara was the one who dictated what we would do. My parents were always saying, ‘Well, your sister might get upset if…’ But that day…well, I guess my dad knew someone who was in charge of scheduling the characters’ appearances, and he set it up so that I got to meet Minnie, Mickey, Donald, and Daisy all by myself. Just me. Even Barbara didn’t go.”

“And you broke into hives when you saw them?”

“I broke into hives walking over there. On the way across the park, I was walking just with my dad, and he explained where we were going and that it was a special thing, just for me and…I broke out into hives. And then I met them all, and I cried and could barely get up the courage to talk to them. I was just so happy. I remember it very clearly. That I could not believe I was talking to Minnie Mouse all by myself. That she was right there, and focused entirely on me. The hives went away later, after it was over. My parents called the doctor that night, and they said it was probably just excitement.”

“Excitement,” Vanessa said, with a small smile.

“Oh, it’s mortifying,” Joan said, just as the hives started to itch. She clasped her hands to stop herself from scratching her arms.

Vanessa got up and turned on the shower. She came back to the bed and put her hand out.

“Up you go,” Vanessa said. “The cold water will help.”

“But I’m so tired, I just want to fall asleep.”

“Can you fall asleep with those hives?”

“No.”

Vanessa tugged on Joan’s arm, pulling her body up out of the bed.

Joan breathed in deep. “Okay.”

Joan got into the shower and the cold water calmed her skin, cleaned the sweat off her. She turned off the shower and pulled the curtain open to see that Vanessa was standing there, leaning against the sink, smiling and shaking her head.

“What’s so funny?” Joan asked.

“This is dangerous,” Vanessa said as she handed Joan a towel. “Those hives of yours might just be the most romantic moment of my life.”

Fall 1981

Joan barely slept. Neither ofthem did. If the moon was out and the lights were low, they were together, wide awake in bed.

So many nights, Joan felt as if her heart might implode as she rubbed her leg against Vanessa’s, felt the softness and bone of her, the way her upper thighs were smooth, her knees knobby.

Joan had had no idea how quickly you could learn another’s body. How swiftly their legs become your legs, their arms your arms. She was no longer Joan, or no longeronlyJoan. She was also part of this larger body, this larger self. That could only exist when they were together.

And yet, when she wasonlyJoan, that had changed, too.

Joan’s body felt alive—an electric current running from her chest down her legs.

She felt it when Vanessa was close to her. She felt it when she was waiting for her. When she was thinking about her. When she was entirely alone.

Joan did not need Vanessa in order to feel this current. Because it now lived in her. It was hers.

On the nights when Joan fell asleep with Vanessa in her bed, shewas grateful for that charge. But on the nights when Joan fell asleep alone, feeling the soft sheets against the skin of her legs, grazing her own fingertips across her own belly, she was so grateful that she now possessed it. That it had possessed her.

From the outside, her life looked the same. She kept her dates with Frances. Neither she nor Vanessa were ever late to work, despite how tempted they were to stay in bed.

Joan said nothing to Barbara, nothing to her parents. When she hung out with Donna and Griff, she rarely mentioned Vanessa. When they were all at the Outpost together, Joan and Vanessa always sat at least one person away from each other. When they ran into eachother at JSC, they acted like they always had: two friends, catching up.

To everyone else except the two of them, nothing had changed.

Except on those perfect nights when, after saying goodbye at the bar or Frenchie’s or driving home separately from a barbecue, there would be a soft, perilous knock on Joan’s door an hour later.

God, that sound.The knowledge that the part of Joan’s day that was in black and white had ended, and color was about to bleed in and flood her night.

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