Atmosphere

June 1981

The whole group of ASCANs traveled to the National Space Technology Laboratories in Mississippi. On the way back, they opted to spend the night in New Orleans.

Joan had wanted to get back to Houston to see if she could pick Frances up from school on Monday, but she had been outvoted. She called Barbara from a pay phone in the lobby of the hotel to let her know.

“I swear, Joan,” Barbara said. “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore.”

Joan sighed. “C’mon. Because I’m staying an extra night on a work trip? Don’t you think you’re overstating it?” She looked at the buttons on the phone, the deep grime of the numbers, the one and the zero worn down more than the others. “Just let Frances know I’ll pick her up Tuesday, okay?”

“I mean, fine. But she’s struggling, Joan. I know she doesn’t say it, but she misses you. She’s been very crabby lately, a little rude, honestly.”

“Okay,” Joan said. “Well, I will see her Tuesday. Please tell her when she gets home from school.”

When Joan walked away from the pay phone, Vanessa was standing in the lobby.

“You’re coming with us to Bourbon Street,” Vanessa said.

“Do I have to?”

“That’s the spirit,” Vanessa said. “Donna wants to go shopping before we go out. And specifically requested our attendance.”

Joan considered this.

“You think I want to go look at dresses?” Vanessa said. “But we can’t leave her with Lydia. You’re coming.”

—

Joan stood in the Esprit store—looking in the full-length mirror at herself in the blue floral dress Donna had insisted she try on—completely taken aback.

“Joan?” Donna called from the other side of the fitting room door.

“Yeah?”

“How does it look?”

“I don’t know.”

“Show me.”

Joan looked at herself one more time and then came out of the dressing room.

Donna gasped. “Jesus jumped-up Christ.”

When she was off the clock, Donna had taken to teasing her hair so it was big and voluminous. She was wearing a red denim skirt with a high slit and a white-and-yellow strapless top. She’d put it on in the dressing room, then handed the saleslady the tags and asked her to bag up her old clothes. “You have to buy that,” Donna said.

“I do?” Joan looked at the price tag. She could just hear her father’s outrage at the audacity.

“Have you had those tits this whole time, Joan? My God.”

“Stop it. Please stop that.”

“You have to buy it! Wear it out of the store like I am. Let’s have fun! We’re only in New Orleans for one night.”

Joan looked down at the way the dress hit her body. The hem was so short. She could feel herself curving inward. “It’s too much,” she said. “It’s so flashy.”

“You’re buying the goddamn dress.”

Donna grabbed her arm and led her out past the other fitting rooms. She ripped the tag off the dress.

“Donna!” Joan said.

“ I’ll pay for it if I have to.”

Lydia walked over, trying on a jean jacket. “Joan, you look really pretty.”

“Wow,” Donna said under her breath. “Hot enough to melt the ice queen.”

Vanessa was at the front, looking at men’s striped shirts. She glanced up, scanning the store, and saw them. When her eyes landed on Joan, Joan flushed. She put her hands to her opposite shoulders, as if she could cover up the blush of her skin. Vanessa shook her head and smiled. And then caught Joan’s eye and mouthed, “You look great.”

“Excuse me, miss?” Donna said to the saleslady.

When the woman turned to them, it was Joan who spoke up: “I’ll take this.”

—

The air was sticky, and the light pollution on Bourbon Street was so terrible that you could barely see a star in the sky. Joan was sweating on her upper lip and at the base of her collarbone.

Duke and Hank had each bought her a beer earlier. Harrison bought her a fruity drink that tasted like candy. She’d never had this much attention from them, and she’d had more to drink tonight than she’d ever had in her life. Griff bought her a flower, and she took it and laughed.

Vanessa and Harrison were up ahead, trying to talk Donna out of getting a tarot reading. She imagined Donna asking questions about her future, as if the answers weren’t obvious. Joan saw it all: she was going to marry Hank, and be the second astronaut in that marriage.

“Astronauts shouldn’t fall in love with each other,” Joan said aloud and then looked around and realized she was walking side by side with Griff. When had that happened?

“What?” Griff said.

“We all have bizarre priorities and, let’s be honest, probably God complexes,” Joan said. “There should only be one of us in a relationship. The other person has to make up for all the other things we lack. No, it’s a bad idea to fall in love with one of us. If you’re one of us.”

“I don’t know about that,” Griff said, smiling at her in a way she’d forgotten she didn’t like. They walked past Donna, Vanessa, and Harrison.

“No, I’m right about this,” Joan said. “I think about it a lot.”

“You think about it a lot, huh?” Griff pushed his shoulder into hers. “I think you’re wrong. Who else would put up with us except each other? Who else is going to understand why we might have to miss our kid’s recital or can’t be home on Christmas, or why we’re risking our lives?”

Joan looked at him, considering. She could not ever miss Christmas with Frances. Not ever.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because people never fall in love with who they should. This whole world is full of stories of people falling in love with exactly who they weren’t supposed to.”

“I had no idea you were such a romantic,” Griff said.

Joan rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe in love,” she said. “For me. So how can I be a romantic?”

Griff considered her. “What do you mean?”

Up ahead, Lydia was waving everyone over. Duke, Hank, Marty, Teddy, and Jimmy were all walking into a club. Donna ran past Joan and Griff.

Joan felt a hand on her shoulder before she heard Vanessa’s voice. “What are you two talking about?”

“Ford, don’t you think that Joan might just be a secret romantic?”

“I want to stop talking about this,” Joan said.

Vanessa looked at her with a smile Joan couldn’t decipher. “I think Joan still has a lot of things to figure out.”

Joan tightened her jaw. “You can be very condescending,” she said finally. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

Vanessa laughed. “No, actually.”

Griff stopped in place suddenly. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

Joan looked up at the sign, which said, “ Continuous All Girl Shows .” There were neon outlines of half-naked women all over the storefront.

“Everyone went into a strip club?” Joan asked.

“Joan’s not going to a strip club,” Vanessa said.

Donna pulled at them. “Come on, everybody, it’s only fun if we all do it.”

Joan looked at the club door. The hairs on the back of her neck started to rise.

“I’ll do it,” Joan said.

“What?” Vanessa and Griff said at the same time.

But before anyone could say anything else, Joan walked through the front door.

—

Joan had seen women naked in locker rooms.

But she’d never seen this.

There were six or seven women all dancing on the stages. Some with bras on, some without. Some teasingly pulling on the string of their bikini bottoms.

At first, Joan had not known where to look. But now, whether it was the drinks or watching Donna and Lydia put dollars in the strippers’ G-strings, something in her was settling. Her body was becoming softer, her muscles liquid, her belly warm.

And she began to watch.

She watched the way they moved. The way they curved and flowed.

Just watching them, Joan liked her own body more. As she saw Duke tip a topless waitress, Joan made so much more sense to herself for one crystal-clear moment. Of course men were uninteresting to her. They were fundamentally uninteresting.

We are interesting.

Joan’s eye drifted onstage to a woman to her right, who called herself Raven, no doubt a reference to her dark curly hair.

Raven rolled her hips in front of Joan and Joan knew she was staring but could not stop. Joan watched Raven as she took her bikini top off. She felt a rush of something as she saw Raven topless. Joan kept watching as Raven smiled at her and began to play to her, writhing in front of her.

The world clicked into place for Joan then: why men were so obsessed with women’s bodies, why they made so many mistakes just to get closer to one.

“Here,” Donna said.

“What?”

Joan looked over to see that Donna was handing her a dollar bill. “Put it in her bikini to tip her!” Donna shouted. “It’s fun!”

“Oh.” Joan took the dollar bill and looked back at Raven. There was something so gentle about Raven’s smile. So peaceful it was dangerous.

“Hi,” Raven said as she turned her hip toward Joan. Joan leaned over and slipped the dollar into the string of her bikini. Her skin was so soft. How could Joan get her skin that soft? How could Joan move within her body the way Raven did? How could Joan be just like her? Had Joan ever held that much power in her whole life?

As Joan looked around, everyone was starting to leave. So she got up and nodded at Raven and waved goodbye. It took her a second to remember how to put one foot in front of the other. How to pretend to be normal.

How to act like she hadn’t just found something everyone else had discovered long ago.

When her eyes hit the neon signs of Bourbon Street, Joan could feel the lightness in her head that would feel heavy tomorrow. She knew she should call it a night. But instead, she said, “Where’s Vanessa?”

“She went back to the hotel after, like, two minutes in there,” Lydia said.

“Oh,” Joan said. “I should head back, too.”

“Do you want me to walk back with you?” Griff asked.

Joan looked at him. He was so handsome. And kind. And patient.

“You don’t have to,” she said.

“At least let me put you in a cab,” he said.

The next thing Joan knew, they were walking arm in arm away from the crowd.

When they were out of sight of the others, Griff took her hand for a moment. Joan loved the warmth of his skin on hers, the feeling of another hand entangled with her own. “It’s been a wild night,” he said.

“Yeah. Pretty crazy.”

Griff smiled at her. “You’re drunk.”

“Not really.” But even she didn’t buy it.

He looked at her. His eyes were light brown, so soft. Why couldn’t she love him? Maybe she could. She leaned toward him, giving in—to what she did not know.

But he pulled away from her. “I’ve wanted to kiss you for months now,” he said.

Joan opened her eyes.

“But not when you’re drunk.”

“But I want to,” Joan said. “Right now, I want to. And I may not want to tomorrow.”

Griff smiled, but his eyes were sad. She could see that.

“Then we shouldn’t,” Griff said.

Joan had seen enough movies to know what to do. She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him toward her, pulled him against her, her body pressed against the brick wall behind her.

He gave in to her then, put his hands on the wall and pushed against her. He kissed her back.

He tasted like rum, and she wanted to gag. The roughness of his chin. The smell of him. She hated it as much as she’d known she would.

She pushed him away—she had to.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said. “I don’t think we are…like this.”

He frowned, but she felt such relief. She had finally said it. He could stop trying to love her now. Because she did not want him. She wanted something, she wanted it so badly. In her bones and her legs. But she did not want him at all.

He backed away a step, and then he laughed to himself in a way that wasn’t funny. “It’s okay,” he said. “I had a feeling this would happen. It’s why I haven’t made a move.”

“I’m sorry, Griff,” she said. “It’s just…it’s complicated.”

Griff nodded. “I thought it might be. I thought you might be.”

Joan did not want to know what he meant.

A taxi came down their side of the road. Griff hailed it and opened the door for Joan. He put her in the backseat and gave the driver the name of the hotel.

“Thank you,” Joan said, her hand on the edge of the open window. She was overwhelmed with love for him. Love in the sense that she trusted him, and saw all the good in his heart, and cared about him and wanted only good things to ever happen to him. Love in the sense that she would always be on his side, even if he was wrong, in the sense that he was one of the people on this Earth she believed in. And in that moment, the swelling in her heart was unbearable. Absolutely unbearable.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

He shook his head. “No, don’t be. I’ll be okay. Give me a little while and I’ll be just fine.”

She nodded.

“You looked gorgeous tonight, Joan,” he said. And then he tapped the cab’s roof. And off she went.

As the cab drove away, Joan touched her lips. Her lipstick was smeared. And her lips felt as if they were tender, buzzing not with satisfaction but with longing.

That night, Joan dreamt of things she’d never dreamt of before.

—

She woke up to the fog of morning. The bright sun coming through the window was a shock to her cloudy vision. She reached for her sunglasses on the nightstand and put them on. A loud pounding on her door forced her to finally get out of bed.

She was naked, which surprised her. She grabbed a robe from the closet and then turned to see that the bed was covered in sketches. She’d used up the entire hotel stationery pad. Joan looked at them, trying to remember drawing them.

Every single sketch was of Raven.

Raven smiling at her. Raven dancing. Raven with her top off. Raven’s hips and her stomach.

Joan gathered them all up frantically as the pounding continued. “Be right there!”

“Open up, Joan! You’re late for the bus.” Vanessa.

“I’m coming!” Joan stuffed all of the sketches in the nightstand.

“Everyone can’t wait to see what you look like hungover,” Vanessa said loudly out in the hall.

Joan cringed. “Please be quiet until I get to the door!”

Finally, she opened it.

Vanessa turned to see her and only then did Joan realize she had not yet looked in the mirror. She glanced down. Her robe was loose, a deep V showing the borders of her chest. Vanessa looked at it and then back up at Joan’s face. Joan pulled her robe tighter.

“It’s worse than I thought,” Vanessa said, smirking.

Joan smoothed her hair down and let her in.

“Oh, your hair’s not the half of it,” Vanessa said as she followed Joan into the room. Joan started throwing her things into her suitcase. Vanessa began helping her.

“Everyone decided to go grab breakfast while we wait for you. Donna and Jimmy really wanted grits anyway.”

Joan tossed her new dress into her bag. “This is so embarrassing.”

Vanessa shook her head. “Everyone’s charmed. Joan Goodwin cut loose.”

“Everyone bought me too many drinks!” she said.

“It happens to pretty girls a lot. I’m surprised you’re not used toit.”

Joan looked up at her, but Vanessa was already walking to the bathroom. When she came out, she handed Joan a toothbrush with toothpaste already on it.

“Here you go, slugger.”

Joan took it and brushed her teeth. “I feel like I might vomit,” she said through the foam of the toothpaste.

Vanessa nodded. “You’ve been hungover before. It will pass.”

Joan headed into the bathroom, Vanessa following her. “I’ve had a headache before. This is…disgusting.”

Vanessa nodded again as Joan spit the toothpaste out. “Yeah, that’s because you usually drink wine or beer. Last night, you drank those hurricanes everyone was buying. Donna already puked this morning.”

Joan’s stomach turned. Vanessa wet a washcloth and then put a little bit of Vaseline on it. “Your face looks like a Jackson Pollock. Come here.”

Joan held her hand out for the washcloth. But Vanessa either didn’t notice or ignored her. “Close your eyes.”

Joan looked at her for a moment and then slowly complied. She swallowed hard.

Vanessa put the washcloth on Joan’s cheekbone. She rubbed gently, and with her other hand she held Joan’s chin. The washcloth was so warm that Joan could have fallen asleep right there. And she was once again so close to Vanessa that she could smell the soft, sweet scent of baby powder.

Vanessa started in on Joan’s eyes, her hand gentle but firm. Joan could feel her skin getting cleaner under Vanessa’s touch, her stomach settling.

Vanessa rubbed Joan’s eyebrows, and then her forehead and down her jawline. And then she stopped.

Joan opened her eyes.

“You’re…um, you should probably do your lips,” she said, handing Joan the cloth.

“Oh, okay, thanks,” Joan said. She took the cloth and wiped the lipstick off as quickly as she could. “Good?”

Vanessa nodded. “Yeah, you look like yourself again.”

“I didn’t look like myself last night?”

“I don’t know, Jo. I’m still trying to figure out if you know who you are.”

“Do you know who I am?” Joan asked her. It came out with an edge, but Joan desperately hoped she’d say yes.

Vanessa shook her head. “I’m hoping I do. Only you can say for sure.”

Joan could feel the space between them grow thicker.

“I kissed Griff last night,” Joan said. “After the strip club.” She studied Vanessa’s face for any reaction. It showed nothing.

“You seemed to be having quite a nice time at that club,” Vanessa said.

“I didn’t enjoy it,” Joan told her. “Kissing Griff.”

Vanessa nodded. “No, I had suspected you wouldn’t.”

“I liked the club, though.”

Vanessa was quiet, but she held Joan’s gaze. Then she looked away and nodded again, this time with a little smirk. “Yeah, I suspected you would.”

“Did you enjoy it?” Joan asked. “The club?”

“What do you think?” Vanessa said.

“I don’t know. You left early. I couldn’t tell.”

Vanessa didn’t say anything.

“You say I don’t know who I am, but do you know who you are?” Joan asked her.

Vanessa laughed. Joan cringed.

“Yes, Joan, I do. And you know who I am, too. If you’re honest with yourself.”

Oh, they were much too close to the sun.

“I think we should…I mean…we’re already so late! Can you grab my sunglasses? I’ll get dressed.”

Vanessa looked at her for a moment longer and then said, “Okay.”

Joan shut the bathroom door and put on her clothes. She fixed her hair. When she came out, Vanessa was holding her sunglasses and her wallet. She was standing right by the nightstand. Joan’s cheeks grew hot, as she worried Vanessa had opened the drawer. But she showed no signs of having seen anything.

Vanessa started to walk past the bed, toward Joan and the door, but then she stopped and leaned over. “Oh, looks like you left something,” she said as she grabbed a piece of paper, half-buried in the sheets.

“It’s nothing,” Joan said. “Don’t look at it. You don’t need to.”

But Vanessa did look at it, and then she smiled. “Oh, I do know you,” she said. “I know you so well. I know you exactly, Joan Goodwin.”

Joan could feel her cheeks warming. She was on the thinnest edge of something. But, somehow, she knew she was okay.

“All right, Ford,” she said. “Let’s go.”