Chapter Eleven
Eleven
After President Kennedy’s speech at Rice, Joe took her to a little restaurant near the university. They ordered drinks, their table garnering more than a few glances considering the dashing image Joe cut in his uniform.
Vivian grinned, a laugh escaping.
“What?” Joe asked her. “What’s so funny?”
“I was just remembering the night we met. Polly was trying to”—Vivian searched for the right words—“entice me to the prospect of a double date, and one of the things she mentioned was how handsome a man in uniform could be. At the time, I told her I wasn’t much for a military uniform.
It’s a little humbling to admit how wrong I was. ”
His eyes flashed with emotion, that Alan-Shepard-launching-into-space look again. “Viv.”
“I like when you say my name like that,” she replied, her voice low, a thrill sliding down her spine. “No one else calls me Viv.”
Joe reached across the table, taking her hand, linking their fingers together, and her heart thundered in her chest.
She glanced down at the place where they were joined, their hands resting on the old wooden table.
The waitress brought their drinks, giving Vivian a moment to collect herself, to marvel at the fact that she was sitting here across from Joe, holding his hand, that he had kissed her, that she wanted him to kiss her again.
“The Moon, huh?” she finally asked when they were alone once more.
He laughed. “Hopefully.”
“Does Frank know?”
“Frank is aiming for a shot himself,” Joe replied. “We thought it would be the perfect continuation of our careers—the fact that we learned to fly together and then might head to space together.”
Polly hadn’t mentioned this new development, but it seemed like there was a level of secrecy around recruiting the new astronauts, and she didn’t blame her friend for not saying anything.
Polly and Frank had moved on to an assignment in Florida, and while she and Polly exchanged letters frequently, Vivian missed her terribly.
“I hope you both get it.”
Joe inclined his head toward her, a question in his gaze. “You’ve never been much of a fan of the Space Race.”
Vivian laughed. “Someone once told me that there was nothing more romantic than space. Maybe I’m coming around to it.”
Joe leaned forward, kissing her so swiftly that it sent flutters racing through her, and she realized he understood what she was really saying, perhaps more than she did—
Maybe I’m coming around to more than just the Space Race.
They broke away long enough for the waitress to take their lunch order.
“I still can’t believe we’re here together,” Vivian said. “It seems—”
“Like it was meant to be?” he finished for her.
She laughed. “You forget—I’m the skeptic, remember? I’m not sure I believe in ‘meant to be.’ ”
“I thought we agreed that you were a romantic, too. Just in your own way.” Joe studied her across the table. “You don’t think the universe is trying to tell us something by sending us both to Houston, Texas, at the same time?”
She would have said “no” before today, but even she had to admit that she had felt something on that field at Rice University—an inevitability to the way she found herself gravitating toward him time and time again.
And still—
She couldn’t resist giving him a little bit of a hard time, because on some level she kind of thought he liked this back-and-forth they had between them.
Vivian arched a brow at him. “The universe?”
He laughed. “I think I love your skepticism most of all.”
Love.
He said it casually, jokingly, and she knew he didn’t mean the word seriously, not love, love, but still, it felt like a premonition of things to come, and she knew as she had from the beginning—certainly from the first conversation they’d had the night they met at the bar—that there would be nothing casual with him.
That if she was going to go down this path, she was going to have to be all-in.
The challenges presented by his lifestyle, the emotions ricocheting through her, all demanded it.
It would be a terrifying, exhilarating, wonderful thing to be loved by this man.
“Yes, the universe. Like maybe we were both meant to be here because we were meant to see each other again,” Joe replied.
“When I arrived at the field, I don’t know—” Joe shook his head.
“It felt like I was about to experience something important. I didn’t know what it was going to be—I figured it was the energy of the president’s speech and the promise of going to the Moon, but then I saw you and it was like something clicked—
“I’ve thought about you a lot since Polly and Frank’s engagement party.
Wondered when—if—I would see you again. I told myself that it was enough that you said you were happy, that I didn’t want to complicate that, but I guess I kept hoping like I did after test pilot school didn’t pan out that maybe something would change, and I’d have a shot with you. ”
Joe took a deep breath, his expression solemn as though her answer was deeply important to him.
“Do I have a shot with you?”
And even though it was wholly uncharacteristic for her, Vivian didn’t think before she answered him—
“Yes.”
—
“Visit me in Italy.”
Vivian stirred, rolling over in bed to face Joe.
“What time is it?” she asked him, pulling the sheet over her body as she sat up beside him.
“Just past six in the morning.”
Right. It made sense that he would be a morning person given the military career. Vivian loathed waking up early, which made working on the morning news a rough endeavor. But at least on her days off, she made a point to sleep in as much as she could to make up for it.
“My flight leaves this afternoon,” Joe added, his voice quiet.
They hadn’t talked about when they were both leaving, as though they hadn’t wanted to face the inevitable reality that they only had one night together before they had to return to their respective lives. Vivian’s own flight had her returning to D.C. in a few hours.
“Did you—”
“—ask you to come visit me in Italy?” Joe finished for her.
She nodded.
“I did. To be fair, though, I thought you were still asleep, so I was sort of testing it out. Seeing if it sounded as ludicrous as I worried that it did.”
“It didn’t sound ludicrous—”
Except that it sort of did. She’d never been outside of the United States. They had spent the sum of one evening together; they’d gone to bed together, but they hadn’t discussed what came next—were they a couple or something less defined?
A trip to Italy would be a way to figure it out, would provide clarity on their relationship.
And it would be fun. An adventure. And she hadn’t had an adventure in, what, a very long time—if ever?
So much of her life was so carefully laid out before her, plans neatly drawn, that she almost never took detours.
If there was anyone she was ready to change things up for, though, it was him.
Especially after last night.
She was beginning to appreciate just where all his confidence came from.
And more than anything, Vivian couldn’t deny the connection she felt with Joe, how when he’d fallen asleep with his arm wrapped around her, their fingers linked, she’d known with a certainty that settled deep in her bones that this was something she wasn’t ready to walk away from.
Decision made, she turned to face him, the smile on her face wide, beaming.
She was happy.
Unbelievably happy.
“I would love to come to visit you in Italy.”