Page 47 of The Launch

Their tour guide, a bespectacled young man named Philip Powers, greets them and gives a long list of easily digestible instructions—most of which are along the lines of what Miss Black has already told them: keep their hands to themselves; stay in a group; voices low; and save up their questions for a moment when they can stop in a quiet spot to talk.

“Ready?” Philip Powers asks, clutching his clipboard to his chest as he pushes his thick, black frames up his nose.

Bill brings up the rear as they wind their way through the West Wing. The children whisper to one another in hushed awe. Bill looks at the oil paintings that line the walls: portraits of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin. He feels appropriately reverent walking through these halls of greatness, and as the kids follow Philip Powers down a hallway, Bill lingers. He stands beneath a painting of Lincoln, looking up at the proud tilt of the former president’s chin.

“That one is my favorite,” a woman’s voice whispers from behind Bill. He turns, assuming that Miss Black has stayed behind with him. Only it isn’t Miss Black, and the look on the woman’s face is one of amusement.

It’s Jackie Kennedy. She winks at him. “Lincoln just had a way about him, didn’t he?”

Bill nods, pulling his jaw off the floor. “Yes, ma’am,” he agrees, because who would argue with the First Lady? “He most certainly did have a way.”

“It’s lovely of you to join the children,” she says, glancing down the hallway at the backs of the kids as they turn a corner, listening to Philip Powers droning on about the Executive Branch of the government and the checks and balances provided by having three branches. “I heard we were having special guests today.” She looks at his name, which is embroidered right over his heart, beneath the NASA insignia. “Mr. Booker,” she adds with a smile. “Or is it Cosmonaut Booker?” She frowns prettily as she laughs. “I’m sorry I don’t have that down—it’s unlike me not to know a detail like that.”

Bill stands up straighter. “Actually, it’s Lieutenant Colonel William Booker, United States Air Force, ma’am,” he says proudly. “And currently of NASA. I’m not assigned to a mission yet, so just Bill is fine.” His face cracks into a goofy smile as the realization that he’s standing in a hallway trading banter with the First Lady really hits him.

“Okay, Just Bill,” she says cheekily. “I should probably let you get back to the tour before they lose you entirely. It was lovely to meet you.” Jackie offers a hand for him to shake, and Bill takes it in his. He will surely forget the finer details of this entire moment once it’s over. It’s almost too much for the mind to process and retain. “Thank you for your service to our country,” Mrs. Kennedy says, “and also for your willingness to explore the universe.”

It seems so grand, so outrageous, that Jackie Kennedy has just thanked him for wanting to explore the universe, but Bill grins widely. His cheeks are already starting to hurt. “It was an honor to meet you, ma’am,” he says.

When Bill rejoins the group, he can’t stop smiling. Weirdly, being in the Oval Office seems almost anticlimactic after having a one-on-one with the First Lady. He stands to the side, hands clasped behind his back as he watches the kids trying not to burst at the seams with their own bottled-up excitement. Withinminutes, an advisor ushers President Kennedy into the room, and the kids go dead silent. Their faces fall into the serious masks of young adults. Even Trager, Young, and Jameson are silent, standing at attention like the military men they all are. This is their Commander in Chief, and they treat this moment with all the respect that it deserves.

“Hello there,” President Kennedy says to the young girl standing closest to him. He holds out a hand for her, and she looks at it nervously before shaking it. “Who are you?”

“Emily,” she says in a near whisper.

“Would you like to sit in my chair, Emily? See what it’s like to be in charge of the country?”

As Bill watches, he sees a familiar look cross Emily’s face—it was the one that he remembers seeing on his own kids after waiting in line to meet Santa Claus as small children: unmitigated excitement mixed with sheer terror.

Miss Black steps in and walks Emily over to the desk, pointing at the chair. Once the seal is broken and Emily has had her turn sitting there, her hands folded on the desk blotter as a White House photographer snaps a photo of her smiling shyly, every other kid wants a turn. President Kennedy laughs and smiles, asking each child for their name, and adding something charming as they sit at his desk, from “What do you think about that fancy pen?” to “If you were sitting at that desk, would you invite the New York Yankees or the Beatles to visit you at the White House?”—a question which he aims at Jimmy Booker.

“I’d invite Joe DiMaggio,” Jimmy says definitively as he sits squarely in President Kennedy’s chair. The American flag hangs just so on a stand behind him, and he clasps his hands on the desk, looking right into the lens of the camera for his photo. The shutter snaps, and Jimmy turns back to the President. “I’d invite him to play catch out there on the lawn.”

President Kennedy throws his head back, laughing heartily at this and showing all of his square, white teeth. “Oh, that’s beautiful, son,” he says, reaching over and placing a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder. “We’re on eighteen acres here, so you’d find a spot to toss a ball around with Joe for sure.” He looks right at the photographer, holding up the hand that’s not resting on Jimmy’s shoulder and snapping his fingers lightly. “Mind getting a photo of me with this young guy?” he asks with a half-smile, putting his free hand into the pocket of his pants and posing with Jimmy.

The shutter snaps again, and Bill feels a thrill of pride: President Kennedy has singled out his son for a photo. Without moving, Kennedy looks over at Bill and motions to him. “Join us for a photo?” he asks Bill, who crosses the office without hesitation and stands behind Jimmy, putting his hand on his son’s other shoulder.

He can’t wait to call Jo that night from the hotel and tell her everything—every single detail. Even if this is all entirely orchestrated and planned out for maximum positive exposure for NASA, or for the White House, or both, Bill can’t think of another time he’s felt so happy and excited. So proud to be an American.

“Thank you, sir,” he says, turning to Kennedy.

Kennedy holds out a hand to him. “Thank you to you, Lieutenant Colonel Booker,” Kennedy says with a nod. He’s clearly been briefed on who everyone is, and Bill is flattered and surprised to hear his own name pass through the President’s lips.

Bill trails the group through the rest of the White House tour and then all around D.C., making sure everyone crosses the busy streets safely and gets their photo taken in front of the major landmarks. But there’s a soundtrack playing in his mind the entire time as they move through the city. As they gather around the Washington Monument, looking up at thetall, narrow obelisk, Bill hears “Save the Last Dance for Me” by The Drifters. When they visit The Smithsonian, all he can hear in his head is “Sleepwalk” by Santo & Johnny. And as the early fall sun dances on the Potomac and he leans against the side of the boat that’s bobbing along, allowing the kids to see the sights from the water, Bill hears “It’s Now or Never” by Elvis Presley. It’s not unpleasant to have his own personal jukebox in his head as they move around the city, and it allows Bill to smile and to watch his son enjoying the trip, while still letting him entertain his own thoughts.

It’s only as they board the buses late on the third day to turn around and head south again that Bill realizes how much of the movie that’s been playing in his head has been about his past life with Margaret and all of the “what ifs” that surround his truncated first marriage. Some of it is sad, and some is bittersweet, but it’s all there nonetheless. Of course he imagines telling Jo about everything and sharing the stories about the President and First Lady, but an amazing amount of his daydreaming on this trip has involved him sharing all the details with Jeanie Florence, or simply of sitting with her in the sunlit break room at Port Canaveral, sharing an afternoon cup of coffee. A few of his mental scenarios involve bumping into Jeanie at the Black Hole with “My Boyfriend’s Back” by The Angels spinning on the jukebox as they drink cold beer and trade stories, though this daydream leaves a stain of guilt behind every time it comes up.

The inappropriateness of this train of thought is not lost on Bill. He chooses a seat in the center of the bus, intentionally taking up the whole seat so that no one sits next to him, and then he spends part of the trip back to Florida trying to convince himself that imagining a coffee date with a coworker is possibly the tamest thing a man has ever daydreamed about. The rest of the trip is spent forcing himself to drag his mind back to thatnight on the roof of the house in Stardust Beach with Jo. He watches the highway whizzing past his window, the miles piling up behind them while he pushes Jeanie from his mind, instead picturing what it was like to kiss his wife under the stars.

And it isn’t that he didn’t love that night on the roof with Jo, but for some reason, he just can’t keep his brain there. For some reason, no matter how hard he tries, his mind keeps traveling back to Jeanie Florence and her long hair, her glasses, her freckles. He can’t get her face out of his head.

Bill does not like this.

TWENTY

jo

It’sthe weekend before Halloween, and the women of the neighborhood have gathered to put on a tag sale that will hopefully raise enough money to pay the medical bills of a family Jo has come to know at the hospital. Little Adam Shepherd had been admitted to Stardust General at the end of September with a heart defect. The toddler has struggled to make it through the fall, and he might not make it much further without the surgery that he so desperately needs.

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