Page 73 of Space Junk: Houston, We Have a Hottie
“Hey! Watch it,” Rose ducks her head and wipes her milk mustache off with the back of her hand. “I still have that just-been-arrested look. It’s hard to fake. Gotta make the most out of the real thing.” She smirks before ripping open the bag of cookies.
“Whatever, Rose,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“Don’t forget to call Jackie,” she says, mouth full of cookie. “We had a near miss earlier.”
“What do you mean? When Beth and Jackie talked at the bar?” I take a sip of soda. “Beth told me what they talked about.” I shrug. “Or at least Beth’s version of it.”
“Uh, yeah. I wouldn’t go believing anything that bitch says.” She shakes her head. “I was talking about when Jackie came back after the cops arrived.”
I set the can carefully on the island. “She came back?”
“Yeah. She was all set to go look for you but I knew you were with Beth, so I steered her back out to her car.” She shoves another cookie in her mouth. “Good thing I got her out of there. The last thing Jackie needed was to see you and your crazy-ass ex huddled together inside at the bar. Beth may be batshit crazy and the devil besides, but she’s hot. No girl wants to think their man hit that.”
I stand very still. “We weren’t at the bar, Rose.”
“What are you talking about?” Rose mumbles around the cookie. “That’s where you went when the cops came.”
“Until the manager asked us to take it outside because Beth was being too loud. We were in the parking lot.”
We stare at each other. Rose gulps.
“Jackie would’ve said something if she saw you. Right?” Rose asks, eyes watering as she chokes down the cookie. She picks up her glass of milk, trying to wash it down.
I replay that part of the day, back to caging Beth against the wall just to keep her from running her mouth off to the cops. From the parking lot that would not have looked good. I check my phone. “She hasn’t answered my text or calls from earlier.”
“She’s at work. Big NASA emergency, remember?” Rose’s voice sounds unsure, which is when I know I’m in trouble.
Again, I mentally run through my interaction with Beth. No one called out my name, I didn’t so much as glimpse wild blond hair walking up the porch steps from where I’d been standing. But then it hits me. My mind stalls on the one thing that had distracted me from isolating Beth.
That silver car.
“Wait, how did she even get to the bar? Her car is in my garage,” I say, praying I’m wrong.
“Ian’s Tesla.”
“Fuck.”
* * *
I’ve never been soglad for my astronomic cable bill. I have to pay for a huge number of channels to get all the specialty channels that deal with vintage restorations and racing. But along with that expensive bundle is NASA TV. There was no way I could get on site with all the security and no badge. I’m pretty sure making a scene at the gate would not endear me to Jackie. But Jackie had mentioned NASA TV once, so I flip through until I find it.
Apparently, NASA TV provides live coverage of launches, spacewalks and other mission events, as well as the latest news briefings and video files. What I’m interested in at the moment is the live footage from Mission Control. The channel shows a bunch of desks with multiple computers stacked on top. Each long desk is manned by two or three people. Then there are the people standing in the center of the room.
There are three of them. One of them is Jackie.
Beside her are two men, one in a suit and one in khakis and a polo. For some reason, Jackie is in an oversized T-shirt and gym shorts. She also has a headset on and is gesturing to one of the men. There isn’t much sound. A bunch of murmurs, and typing sounds, but that’s it.
It feels really weird being able to see her, what she is doing, and her not know I’m watching.
Rose perches on the edge of my couch with her laptop on her knees, following the current news feeds as well as NASA TV. Turns out while I was busy having a white trash family brawl, Jackie had been trying to save the International Space Station and its crew. Talk about perspective.
I don’t think she has her phone on her, but I pull mine out and text her good luck anyway. Just in case.
I’m surprised when I see Jackie’s head swivel to one of the desks. She picks up a cell phone, looking at the screen. A frown mars her face before she slaps the phone back on the table, screen side down. Her expression clears when Ian waves her over to another desk. She walks over to him, leaving her phone and my text behind.
Not good.
* * *
