Page 36 of Supernova

It is everything that Jo needs to hear and she smiles as she squeezes his hand lightly. “Thank you,” she whispers, letting her tears fall freely down both cheeks. “Thank you for saying so.”

SEVENTEEN

ed

February in Floridahas been glorious after spending January in rainy Seattle.

"It's been good having you back on the team, man!" Jay Reed says as he walks by Ed's desk. He claps him on the shoulder and pauses. "Black Hole tonight after work?" Ed gives him a thumbs-up and Jay keeps walking.

All five of the astronauts who had started around the same time the previous May have retained a strong bond, and they regularly stop for a beer on their way home after a long day at Cape Kennedy. Ed is particularly fond of Jay, and of Todd Roman, who reminds him of an overgrown frat boy with really good manners, but he looks up to Bill Booker (the elder statesman of their group), and also to Vance Majors, who always gives the impression that he's got a lot on his plate both in and out of work. Ed and Todd have made it a habit of discussing every major sporting event the morning after it occurs, and he and Jay have an easy rapport that makes coming to work pleasant enough.

But this time he's just spent in Seattle has been formative for Ed, and it's really opened his eyes up to the possibilities and ways that he can use his expertise at NASA. Having been a partof creating the SERE program for the Air Force gave him a leg up and allowed him to spend the time at Boeing, and through that opportunity, Ed really got to see a different angle of preparing for space travel. There are so many ways he can contribute, and now more than ever he's really questioning whether pursuing a trip to space and leaving Frankie here alone is the best idea.

The office is buzzing all around Ed as he uses a protractor and a pencil and a calculator to figure and refigure the rate of speed of travel to Mars. It's been a favorite game of his for years, choosing a planet and figuring out how long it would take to get there at varying rates of speed. As he does this, he's thinking of his wife, imagining her here on Earth without him. And a part of him can see her dancing in her new studio, spinning across the room in time to music, no thoughts of him to slow her down. He can picture Frankie sitting by the pool with Jo, laughing as she smokes a cigarette and talking about whatever things women like to gossip about. But would she miss him? Would she hope for him to come back soon? Ed isn't sure. There are times when he catches her looking at him in this faraway manner--almost as if she's watching him through the wrong end of a telescope--and in those moments he isn't sure that they even know each other at all.

But then there are other times when he sees her and she isn't aware that she's being observed, and that's when he remembers how beautiful and sweet Frankie is, how much it had broken his heart that day in New York when he'd wanted to propose and she'd tried to break things off with him instead. How could she ever think that he wouldn't love her? How could she feel that she wasn't enough and could never give him enough, when all he really wants is her?

Ed turns the page he's writing on over and starts a new calculation on the back: the distance from Mercury to Neptune, traveling at only one hundred miles per hour. It's nonsense andnot at all a part of what he should be working on, but Ed's mind is racing as he sits there at his desk, thinking about his career, his marriage, his future. Sometimes a man just needs a few minutes to himself to get lost in thought, and if the way he gets those minutes is to look terribly busy when he's not, well, then so be it.

Later that day at the Black Hole, Ed is still thinking about his own place in the space program when Todd plops down in the chair across from his, setting two bottles of beer on the table. "Got you one, buddy," Todd says, lifting his bottle and clinking it against Ed's. "You look like you could use it."

Rather than responding, Ed lifts the beer in thanks and takes a sip. He sets it on the table before he speaks. "That obvious, huh?"

"What's eating you?" Todd leans back in his chair and keeps his eyes on his friend. "Did you find out all the scary stuff in Seattle? Do our organs collapse like we're in a black hole if we don't get enough oxygen? Will our faces melt off first if a space capsule bursts into flames?"

Ed holds up a hand to stop him. "God, that's terrible," he says, making a face as he swallows a sip of beer. "I mean, sure, horrible things would happen in either of those scenarios, but it's not that."

Two women with teased and flipped hairdos stop at the table to flirt with Todd, but he politely smiles and with a few meaningless words, sends them on their way feeling as though they've gotten a bit of his attention when he's really given them nothing. It's a gift he has that Ed has picked up on many times as they drink together at the Black Hole: he can come off like a perfectly likable guy when he's shutting women down cold, which he always does. Every time. It's honestly pretty admirable the way Todd only seems to have eyes for his wife, Barbara.

"Okay," Todd says, picking up the thread of their conversation as if they hadn't just been interrupted. "Then what is it?"

Ed stares off into the distance, watching as a guy he recognizes from NASA chooses a song on the jukebox. The bar is open-air and hung with colorful flags and lanterns that blow in off the breeze from the water, and it’s full of men who are clearly former military, current pilots, and aspiring astronauts. The women are all young, beautiful, and looking for a certain kind of man. When Ed looks back at Todd, he’s still waiting. Ed sighs heavily.

“Well,” he says, “I think I might be better suited to working on the issues in space from down here.”

Todd’s brow creases. “Meaning that you don’t want to get chosen for a mission?”

Ed holds a long pause here. “I’m not sure. And I have some misgivings about leaving my wife, which would make her mad to hear, but it’s true.”

Todd listens to this and nods, but shows no surprise on his face. “Is it because she’d be alone? The no kids thing? And sorry if that hits a nerve,” Todd says, holding up a hand. “I know that’s personal business.”

“No, you’re fine,” Ed assures him. He looks around to make sure the other guys at their table are otherwise occupied before he answers. “I mean, yeah—having kids would make it easier on her, I think, but sometimes I feel like Frankie is…a little unstable.”

Todd lifts an eyebrow just a centimeter or two, but it’s visible. “Okay,” he says, nodding. He’s a good listener, Todd Roman. An all-around good guy.

“Not in a scary way,” Ed rushes to clarify. “She’s not going to drive off a cliff or anything, but do you ever feel like your wife is just…” Ed looks away again, his eyes landing on a woman sidlingup to a pilot still in uniform. “Do you ever feel like she’s a total mystery?”

Todd smacks his lips with a loud "Ahhhh," after taking a sip of his beer. "Buddy," Todd says, setting his beer on the table firmly. "I feel like I'll walk on the moon before I ever even come close to understanding my wife. Women are meant to be mysterious. It's why we listen to them and don't do crazy things like jump off of buildings and run away with every cute girl we see. They know stuff and we need that stuff. The mystery is that they dole it out to us over time, so we sit at their feet and just wait for that wisdom."

This makes Ed roar with laughter, and the other men at the table stop talking about sports for a minute to turn their way. "What are we missing?" Bill Booker asks, setting a glass of whiskey on the table and leaning in their direction.

"Todd is just telling me why we need women, and why they're so mysterious."

Vance gives a long, low whistle. "He should write a book if he knows all that. Man will be a millionaire." Vance lifts his glass in Todd's direction and turns back to Jay to keep talking, but Bill is watching them closely.

"They're a mystery because we're not," Bill says to the two men. He's only about five years older than they are, but for some reason, he always feels like a much older brother or a sage uncle. "Todd knows what he's talking about, so heed his words. We don't understand them fully because we can't--we aren't built the way they are. And thank god for that, because most houses only have enough room for one wise old sage, and fellas, it ain't us."

Every man at the table catches this last bit and raises his drink to Bill.

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