Page 50 of The Space Between

One of Barbie’s blonde eyebrows lifts slightly. “Oh,” she says in a breathy voice. “Right.”

Irene narrows her eyes at Barbie. “Barbara Roman, mother of three. Wife of Todd Roman. Daughter of Senator Hal Mackey of Connecticut.”

Barbie laughs, and it echoes throughout the hangar. “Wow! You came up with all of that quickly.” She looks around at the other wives. “Do we have our own trading cards or something?”

“Dave,” Irene says as Dave Huggins walks in with a camera around his neck. “Could you please get some photographs of Josephine before things get started?” Dave nods and sets up his lights as Irene turns back to Barbie. “And we don’t have trading cards of you ladies yet, but that’s a fabulous idea, Mrs. Roman. I’m adding that to my mental list of possibilities.” Irene taps her temple with one manicured finger. “It’s all filed away up here, girls!”

Before she knows it, Jo has been stationed at the table so that Dave can take photos of her signing magazines, and real guests have begun to stream in. She looks at her watch: five-thirty, and still no sign of Bill. She knows that he’s tied up with all things Gemini, and while she’s hoped and prayed that the test mission comes off without a hitch and that it all happens in a timely manner, she’s still nervous about whether Bill will be able to make it from wherever they’re doing the mission so that he can be there to support her.

“Any sign of Bill?” Jo asks Frankie with an edge to her voice. They’d intentionally timed the mission to start with only about two hours left of daylight (why, Jo did not know), so things had to be winding down. “I was really hoping he’d be able to stop by.”

Frankie smiles at the people gathering around the table who want to talk about the story and get an autograph, then takes Jo by the elbow and steers her aside.

“Listen, Jojo, I don’t want to upset you,” Frankie says through a forced smile. “But there was a little delay with the mission, and I just heard that they were set back a full hour.”

“An hour?” Jo says, trying not to sound whiny. She needs to pull it together, and she knows it. Whether Bill shows or not, she’s going to get up behind that podium, read some of her work aloud, and smile and make small talk with every woman who approaches her.

“Okay, so he might miss it,” Frankie says with a wave of her hand, “but you need to put your game face on, girl. You wrote these stories, and you got all these ladies to show up here based on your talent alone. So enjoy this moment, and just know that I’m right here to cheer you on, even if Bill gets tied up somewhere else. Got it?”

Jo takes a long, deep breath and nods as she spots Dave Huggins from the corner of her eye. He’s on one knee, snapping photos of women holding champagne flutes as they talk in smallgroups. “Got it,” she says to Frankie. She smiles and turns back to the ladies gathered at the table.

“Hi,” she says to the next woman in line. “I’m Josephine Booker. I’m so glad you could make it tonight.”

CHAPTER 24

Bill

There isno part of Bill’s brain that is nagging him about Jo’s reading event. None whatsoever. He’s completely forgotten it. In fact, every fiber of his being is completely focused on the task at hand, so much so that if someone interrupted his thought process, he most likely wouldn’t even be able to name his children in order, or answer basic questions about who he is and where he comes from.

“Booker, this is urgent,” one of the engineers says, rushing in with a memo that he hands off to Bill. Bill skims it quickly and then balls up the memo and tosses it halfheartedly.

He’s behind the controls at mission headquarters, monitoring a half-dozen screens that are spread out on the console in front of him. Bill stands up and puts his hands on his hips as he frowns at the television screen overhead that shows the three-man orbital spacecraft as it sits on a launch pad. He has a stopwatch on a string looped around his neck and tucked into the breast pocket of his short-sleeved shirt, and a sharpened pencil tucked behind one ear.

“You think this is a go, or do we scrap it?” Bill turns to Arvin North, who is sitting in a chair nearby, one ankle crossedover his knee, arms folded over his chest. He’s also monitoring the screens and data, and he’s acting as Bill’s second-in-command, though they both know that North has the final say on everything.

Bill does not want to scrap this. He absolutely does not. This is his mission to lead from the ground (even though the spacecraft won’t be launching into the atmosphere on this particular mission, the astronauts are still fully suited up and prepared the same way they would be for a launch). He wants to show everyone that he’s done his work and that he’s fully prepared for this mission to be a success, but he doesn’t want to make stupid mistakes because of his own bravado. A line of sweat beads on his forehead and Bill resists the urge to brush it away.

“We’ve already been pushed back an hour,” Arvin North says gruffly, turning to look at Bill. “And we’re losing daylight here.”

Bill pauses as he considers his next words carefully. “There’s been some talk about this particular spacecraft. It’s clunky. It’s kind of barebones, and there are some things about it that I think we could see as flaws. It might be in our best interest to?—“

“Clunky?” Arvin North repeats with a sharp laugh. “You want me to call off a mission because you think the technology is inelegant, Booker?”

Bill’s eyes shift to the side for a moment and then he drags them back to North and holds them there. “Yes,” he finally says with a nod. “I think that’s exactly what we should do. Running a mission of any sort—even one that doesn’t involve actual space travel—when you’re unconvinced about the technology is a bad idea. It just is.”

The screens around them beep and chirp. There are voices from other parts of the floor as various engineers carry on conversations and take turns pointing at the windows, the monitors, and at Bill. He looks around at everyone; they’reclearly waiting for him to make a call, but something is really bothering him, and he knows he should have spoken up to Arvin North sooner—much sooner than the day of the mission.

With a conviction that he pulls together from everything he knows and feels about this particular mission, Bill stares at Arvin North. “I don’t feel comfortable with this,” he says in a low, firm voice. “I think we should postpone.”

Arvin North holds Bill’s gaze for what feels like an eternity, then he stands up slowly, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. Conversation slows to a trickle and then stops. “I’ve considered all the elements here, including the delay we’ve already encountered, and I’ve decided that this mission is a go,” North says.

The faces around the room remain mostly placid, save for a few men who show the slightest flickers of disapproval. Still, no one speaks up.

“We’ve got our men suited, and ready to board Gemini. I’ve heard all the issues and I’ve considered the factors, and we’re going to run this mission tonight. Right here, right now. I want everyone in their places. We’ll begin countdown in—“ North glances up at the giant clock on the wall of mission control, watching its sweeping hands for a moment, “—twenty minutes. If we don’t, we lose our window for today, and for the foreseeable future due to projected weather conditions. Am I clear?”

No one says a word.

“Fabulous,” North says. “We have twenty minutes.” He strides over to the side of the room and pours himself a paper cup of black coffee from a silver urn, sipping it calmly.

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