Page 52 of The Space Between

“I’m sorry. That put you in an awkward position.”

“It sure as hell did,” she says emphatically. “I sounded like a moron—and a liar—as I told him I had no boyfriend. He said you’d been so sure I did when he asked, so he’d just assumed.”

“And then he asked you out?”

“Well, he invited me to the party, and I went, and then we found out we both like golfing and swimming, and we’ve become somewhat…friendly.”

A dark cloud passes over Bill’s heart and he tries to ignore the way this makes him feel. The idea of Jeanie being “friendly” with a jackwad like Peter Abernathy is almost more than he can take. “I’m really sorry,” he says, trying to actually be sorry.

“Well, what’s done is done,” Jeanie says. She sounds tired. “It’s not a relationship or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she admits as she smooths her skirt over her thighs. “But it’s nice to have someone to go out with occasionally other than Vicki.”

This actually makes Bill smile—at least partially. “How is old Vicki?”

Jeanie laughs softly. “First of all, don’t let her hear you calling her ‘old’ anything,” she says with a wry smile. “But she’s fine. She’s dating a guy or two?—“

“Of course she is.”

“And she seems happy. She’s good company, and I’ll be honest, I’ve been glad to not be alone here while my brother and sister recuperate up in Chicago.”

“Oh, jeez,” Bill says, feeling ashamed of himself. “I haven’t even asked you how they are.”

“Yeah, well…you’ve been busy ignoring me.” Jeanie bumps him with her shoulder in a slightly more aggressive manner than is strictly necessary. “My brother is doing alright. He still hasn’t forgiven himself for the accident. And Angela still isn’t walking,but she can feel some sensation in one of her feet, and she’s the most optimistic person I know. She really is.”

“That’s great,” Bill says, feeling actual relief. The idea that two eighteen-year-old kids nearly lost their life—not to mention the fact that Jeanie could have lost hers—had troubled him immensely. “I’m so happy to hear that.”

Jeanie lifts one shoulder and tilts her head towards it shyly. “I’ve really struggled with all of it. My mom and stepdad have done the lion’s share of the work when it comes to Angela’s recovery, obviously, but I had some really dark moments.” She bites her lip and drops her shoulder. “I needed to confront the fact that my life is working out differently than anyone else I know, and that a part of me likes it this way.”

“What does that mean?” Bill frowns as he watches her profile.

Jeanie looks ahead at the scarred, vanilla-colored paint of the stairwell in the dim wattage of the lightbulbs that illuminate the space. “It means that, as a woman, I should be settling down by now. I’m twenty-seven, Bill. I have no romantic prospects on the horizon.”

“You have Peter.”

She turns to look at him pointedly. “I have no romantic prospects on the horizon,” Jeanie reiterates, “and I’m nowhere near getting married and having children. I mean, what if it never happens for me? What if the bulk of my life is spent working as an engineer and not as a mother?”

Bill has never had direct insight into a woman’s thought processes as they pertain to such things, and he isn’t sure what to say. For him—as he would imagine it is for most men—it was just another stepping stone on the long path of his life: get married. Have kids. Go back to work as the wife raises the kids. Carry on. But for Jeanie, as for all women, it’s a real “either/or” question, and the notion of whether they will or won’t findlove and marriage and family carries a very real and very heavy weight. Bill has never had a conversation with another man that’s laced with longing for these things. No man in his orbit has ever expressed worry that he might regretnothaving these things.

“I’m not sure, Jean,” he finally says. He feels for her, and as he watches the way her eyebrows knit together, he wants to put an arm around her shoulders and take some of the burden from her, to at least let her rest against him for a bit. But he doesn’t. “I really don’t know.”

“Yeah, there are no answers,” she says, standing again and brushing her skirt flat against her front. “But anyway.”

Bill looks up at her, noting the faux toughness in her voice. It’s definitely for show, and it pains him even more than her vulnerability. In order to give her something in return, he tells her the truth. “You caught me coming out of mission control after North took me off the mission.”

Jeanie sucks in air loudly. “What? Just now?”

Bill nods once and looks at his hands; he’s still sitting on the step and now Jeanie is looking down at him. “I disagreed with doing it today. I don’t think the spacecraft is right yet, and I had this feeling that we needed to push it out, but North felt otherwise.” Bill glances at his watch. “Countdown starts in about seven minutes. We should probably go and watch from the observation deck.”

“But Bill…” Jeanie shakes her head as she stares at him. “I’m so sorry. I think you did what was right in this case though, because you had some misgivings and you spoke up. Ultimately we’re reaching for the stars here, but we’re still accountable for our own instincts and gut feelings, and we’re still accountable to each other. I think you were right to say something.”

Bill laughs drily. “Well. We’ll see, I guess. In the end it might have been exactly the wrong thing, but I’m willing to stand by it.”

“Then I’m willing to stand by you,” Jeanie says with conviction.

All the emotions Bill has felt for the past several months come rushing back in one tidal wave that hits him now on the stairs and nearly knocks him down, metaphorically speaking.

“Now you’re willing to stand by me?” he asks, trying to squelch the angry tone in his voice. “Why now?”

Jeanie takes a step away from him, blinking in surprise. “What do you mean?”

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