Page 94 of Atmosphere

Frances laughed. “A sandwich in a milkshake?”

“Don’t knock it until you try it.”

Frances took the piece of sandwich and dipped it in her chocolate shake. She made a face like she thought it was just okay.

“I should have been clearer,” Vanessa said. “A strawberry milkshake is what you need for a peanut butter and jelly.”

She took another piece and dipped it in her own milkshake and handed it to Frances.

When Frances tried it, her eyes went wide. Joan could barely make out the words coming out of her full mouth. They were something along the lines of “Wow, that’s really good.”

Vanessa dipped hers and did the same thing. “See?”

“All right,” Joan said. “Somebody let me try.”

She grabbed a piece and dipped it in Vanessa’s milkshake.

“See, Joanie?” Frances said.

Vanessa handed Frances the last piece of the sandwich and Frances took it. She dipped it and stuffed it in her mouth. “Next time, I’m going to order this. And I’m going to call it ‘the Vanessa.’ ”

Vanessa laughed and turned to Joan. “What a legacy to leave behind.”

Joan laughed, too, but these were the moments of legacy she found the most compelling: the chance to share something of the past with a person who could bring it further into the future. She knew most of the world was focused on bigger triumphs—scientific discoveries, great works of art—but a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a strawberry milkshake seemed to Joan, at that very moment, a grand thing to carry forward.

Summer 1982

Joan and Vanessa had gottenin the habit of talking on the phone before bed on the days they could not see each other. Those days were coming more and more often as they got more and more busy.

Vanessa had been working as a Cape Crusader—one of the members on the Astronaut Support Personnel team for the missions. They prepped the shuttle, assisted the crew with getting strapped into their seats, and helped close out the shuttle after the mission was over. It meant spending a lot of time on Cape Canaveral.

Which meant that time together was harder to come by lately. Joan would go whole weeks with just these stolen phone calls, whispering over the line to Florida.

But right now, they were both in Houston and Joan was grateful for it. Joan was setting the table at Vanessa’s house as Vanessa came in the side door with the grilled kebabs.

Vanessa set the plate down and told Joan she had a question. “Hank says that if he changes his schedule, he can take me up in the T-38 tomorrow,” she said. “But that means you’d have to find someone else to take you up on Wednesday. I’m really sorry to ask, but he says he’ll let me take the controls the whole time. And I haven’t beenable to get up there much this month. Is it okay? If it’s not, I swear I will back out. I don’t want to leave you in the lurch.”

“No,” Joan said, shaking her head and taking a seat. “I mean, that’s fine. Duke had said he could take me up sometime. I can just ask him, but…”

“But what?”

“But we both had the afternoon off tomorrow, remember? And you said you wanted to drive to that Tex-Mex place in the city before you take off for KSC again?”

Tomorrow was supposed to be their last chance to see each other before Vanessa headed out.

“Oh, right,” Vanessa said. “No, I do want to do that. But…”

“You want to fly the T-38 even more.”

Vanessa paused and then said, “I mean, yeah.”

Joan had known Vanessa for over two years by then, had kissed her for the first time almost a year ago, had waded further and further into this intimacy.

Joan had given in to Vanessa in a way that still surprised her. Joan had not lost herself to Vanessa, but found herself in her. She had not cut off parts of herself to fit so much as learned to make room for someone other than herself.

Joan would so happily, even if she were a vegetarian, make Vanessa a meatloaf.

This surrender had not always been easy—it had shocked Joan just how much physical pain there was in loving someone like this.

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