Atmosphere

July 1981

At the one-year mark of the ASCANs’ training, there was a camping trip at the lake. Astronauts, instructors, and the ASCANs and their families were all invited.

Joan had invited Frances to join her. When Joan arrived to pick her up, Frances was standing in the front yard with Barbara. She was wearing a fisherman’s vest and an adult-sized camping backpack.

Joan tried not to laugh as Frances’s body sank under the weight of it all.

“I can carry that, babe,” she said, taking the backpack off.

“I didn’t know what she’d need for camping,” Barbara said.

Joan held back a smile. “You did great. I’ve borrowed a tent from Harrison, who can’t go. And I have sleeping bags from when we would lie out under the stars at Brazos. So we are all set. But all of this is helpful, too.”

“It’s too much!” Frances exclaimed as she took off her vest and got into Joan’s front seat.

Barbara whispered so low that Joan had to lean in to hear her: “This is the sort of stuff I worry about. She doesn’t know how to camp. She doesn’t know any of this stuff. Without a father around.”

Joan was unsure of the details, but apparently Scott was already out of the picture. She’d heard as much from Frances.

“Oh, Barbara, she’ll be fine. Really.”

“I just don’t want her to miss out on anything, or feel left behind,” Barbara said.

“Hey, you and me, we got her, all right?” Joan said. “We always have, always will.”

Barbara nodded. “Yeah, and maybe Dad should fly out more, spend more time with her.”

“I think that’s a great idea—I think both Mom and Dad would love that.”

Barbara waved goodbye to Frances and then made her put down her window so she could give her a kiss. “Don’t roll your eyes,” Barbara said. “I have given up my entire life to raise you. You can give me one damn kiss.”

“Sorry, Mom,” Frances said. She kissed Barbara on the cheek and then said, to both Barbara and Joan, “Can we go now?”

—

Donna and Joan set up Joan’s tent while Lydia set up her own. Most of the kids were playing nearby, while others were on the fishing dock. Frances had already run off with Duke and Kris’s oldest daughter, Julie, and Steve and Helene’s eleven-year-old, Patty. Patty was teaching the younger girls how to stain rocks by crushing flower petals on them.

As Joan pressed a stake into the ground, she tried to pretend she didn’t hear Vanessa’s voice behind her, coming up from the parking lot. Vanessa was with Steve, unloading food from the back of Duke’s truck. Joan could not bring herself to turn and look at her. For the past few weeks, Joan had not been able to look Vanessa in the eye.

“You need to shove that stake in more or this whole thing’s gonna blow over with a fart,” Donna said.

Joan rolled her eyes and stomped on the stake, driving it farther into the ground.

“Thanks for the tip.”

“You’re lucky I love you and put up with all your half-assed tent making,” Donna said.

“You’re lucky I love you and put up with your foul mouth.”

Donna considered Joan’s comment. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

They finished just as Lydia’s tent fell over.

“Come on,” Joan said.

Donna sighed. “Do I have to help her?”

“Yes.”

“Even though she lobbied for more time on the RMS so badly that they pulled me off to give it to her?”

“If you’re not gonna help her, I’ll do it myself.”

“Well, you aren’t gonna do shit,” Donna said, marching ahead of her. “You barely put up your own.”

When they approached Lydia, she said, “I’ve got it. Don’t touch it!”

Donna shot a look at Joan.

“Lydia, let us help you,” Joan said.

“Just give me some space to move—jeez.”

“Hey, how many chicks does it take to pitch a tent?” Marty said. Jimmy was with him, already laughing before Marty even delivered the punch line.

Joan closed her eyes, her chest rising. Donna shook her head.

“Doesn’t matter! Any of you can pitch my tent!” Marty said.

Lydia cracked up and gave Marty a low five.

“Just fuck off, Marty,” Donna said.

Jimmy muttered, “So touchy,” and then he and Marty walked on.

When they were out of earshot, Joan turned to Lydia. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Laugh at those stupid jokes. I hate it when you encourage them.”

“I think maybe you just need to lighten up.”

“You sound like them,” Donna said.

“Well, isn’t that sort of the point?” Lydia said, dropping the center of the tent onto the ground and giving up. “If you’d just go with the flow, they’d stop eventually. And see that we’re just like them.”

“I don’t want to be like them,” Joan said.

“We have to be like them,” Lydia said. “That’s why they are letting women into the program. Because we have finally convinced them we are just as good as them.”

“She has a point,” Donna said, sighing. “No one at NASA is thinking, ‘Let’s see how women do it.’ They’re thinking, ‘Maybe we should give them a chance to prove they are just like us.’?”

“I mean, it’s 1981, Joan,” Lydia said. “It’s time to stop getting upset at stupid jokes and start getting stuff done.”

“I would say the exact opposite to you,” Joan countered, her breathing shallow. “It’s 1981, and I’m done pretending sexist jokes are funny just so men will give me a chance at something I’m probably better at than they are.”

Lydia shook her head. “You just don’t get it. It infuriates me sometimes. Before Group 8, there wasn’t a single woman in this program. All men, and every man who’s been assigned a mission has been white.”

“I obviously know that.”

“Group 8 they let in six white women, three Black men, and an Asian man. The rest of the thirty-five? All white men.”

“I know that, too,” Joan said.

“She’s saying we’re outnumbered,” Donna said. Joan looked at her. “NASA is run primarily by men. If we want to go up there, we have to convince a man to choose us. We have to be somebody the men here want to work with. We have to be smart.”

Studying Donna, Joan realized that she was actually fully aware of how people saw her. That Donna knew they all knew she was dating Hank. And that her coyness about it, her complete denial of it in front of any of them, was her only shot at self-preservation. It was Donna, then, who was keeping it a secret. Not Hank.

And if Donna was smart enough to know that seeing Hank would hurt her career and did it anyway, well, Donna must really love him.

“I will never be Jimmy,” Joan said. “Or Marty. Or Teddy. I don’t want to tell jokes at other people’s expense, and pretend I’m never afraid, and refuse to ask for help. I don’t want to hold in how I feel, or hide it if I’ve been hurt, or try to prove to anyone that I don’t cry. Because I do cry sometimes.”

“Oh, me too, hon,” Donna said. “But you know we can’t show that.”

“We can never, ever show that,” Lydia said.

“I…” Joan shook her head. “I don’t want to prove I can be like them. I don’t want to be like them. I’m not going to do it.”

“But what you do affects all of us,” Lydia said. “Because they are looking at every woman here. There aren’t enough of us in this program yet for us to only represent ourselves. You cry in front of them and they are going to say, ‘Women can’t handle being in the hot seat.’ And then I get screwed over. You’re not just here for you, Joan—we all succeed or fail together.”

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Joan said.

“It is true,” Donna said. “I don’t know exactly what to do about it. But it is true.”

“So, we let them say crude things about us and we don’t push back?”

“I mean, I tell them to fuck off,” Donna said. “You should try it.”

“But Lydia laughs like it’s funny.”

“Sometimes it is funny,” Lydia said.

“The only reason you think it’s funny is because we’ve been told our whole lives it’s okay to make fun of us,” Joan said. “But I’m not doing it. You want to talk about how it reflects on all of us the way one of us behaves? You laughing at those jokes makes them think it’s okay to keep doing it.”

Lydia sighed. “I don’t want to keep talking about this,” she said.

“Well, me neither.”

Joan thought of Vanessa then, still talking to Steve. She wondered if Vanessa would agree with her. And whether she would see that Joan wasn’t being a peacemaker now.

“All right, let’s dust it off,” Donna said. “We all agree on the root problem here. We just don’t know how to solve it.”

“There is no one way to solve it,” Joan said.

Lydia nodded. “No, you’re right about that.”

“But me fighting with you certainly isn’t it,” Joan admitted.

“Yeah,” Lydia said.

“I’m so annoyed,” Joan said.

“At me?” Lydia asked, with such a childlike vulnerability that it softened Joan’s heart.

“No, at them. It’s their fault we are fighting at all. I am actually mad at them, but instead I’m blaming you.”

“Well, as you know,” Lydia said, smiling, “women can be very irrational.”

Joan laughed, despite herself.

“Lydia Danes, as I live and breathe,” Donna said. “Did you just make a good joke?”

“I can be funny, you know.”

“No,” Donna said. “Nobody knew that.”

—

After dinner, Kris waved Joan over to one of the tents and showed her that Frances had fallen asleep with Julie in Julie’s sleeping bag. They were still in their day clothes, covered in dirt. Frances’s hair was in knots, chocolate on her cheeks.

Joan watched Frances snore with her mouth open, her little hand holding Julie’s as they slept. It passed through her mind that she wasn’t sure how often Frances got to see her friends outside of school.

“Do you want me to carry her over to your tent?” a voice said softly, from behind her.

Joan turned to see Griff.

“They’re okay,” Kris said. “Let her sleep. Julie does this all the time with her cousin Linda. She thinks she’s being sneaky, but it’s the only time she puts herself to bed.”

Joan laughed. “Okay, you sure? You want to come get me in the morning when she wakes up?”

“They’ll be fine,” Kris said.

Griff nodded toward the lakefront, and Joan followed him. The night air was warm, but there was an easy breeze. The sky was clear, the tops of Cygnus and Aquila straight ahead of them, behind the trees.

In the distance, Joan watched Vanessa, on the edge of the dock, having a beer with Steve. Joan felt like a moth that knew what a flame could do to it.

When Joan turned away from the sight of Vanessa, she saw Griff watching her.

He was quiet until they were farther away from the group.

“I wanted to tell you that it’s okay. I’m good, you don’t need to give me space anymore,” Griff said.

“Are you sure?” Joan asked. “I’ll do anything you need.”

Griff nodded, appreciatively. “Have you ever been in love?” he asked.

Joan could not look at him. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, it’s like a bad cold: it’s miserable and then, one day, it’s gone.”

Joan laughed.

“All I’m saying is, let’s put it behind us.”

“Put what behind us?” Joan said, smiling.

Griff laughed. “Thank you.”

“You really are the best guy I’ve ever known,” Joan said.

“Well, let’s not start with that,” Griff said.

“No, I just mean…” Joan said. “There aren’t many men in my life, really. Aside from my father and the rest of…these guys. But you are good. You’re a good one.”

“Well, I try to be.”

“I know you do. And I’m honored to be your friend. I really mean that. I’m honored to work with you.”

“I feel the same.”

“So can we go back to walking over to JSC together?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

“And we can get dinner?”

Griff raised his palm up. “One thing at a time, Goodwin.”

Joan smiled when she heard him call her that. But she did recognize that something had been lost between them that would never come back.

They walked on, farther from the campsite, before eventually heading back.

“Can I say one more thing?” Griff asked, just before they approached the camp. “That is not my place to say?”

“Of course.”

“I’m not going to pretend to know what’s in your heart. But you’ve said a few things, here and there, and I’ve…sensed a few things, maybe…and…”

He stopped and turned toward her. “If you do have feelings for someone—if that’s something that’s on your mind…I worry that you’re in a tough spot. Because as wrong as I think their position is, there are some things NASA doesn’t officially condone for astronauts. From what I’ve heard.”

Joan couldn’t breathe for a full second, her body forgetting how to let the air out of her lungs.

“You okay?” he said.

She nodded. “Thank you, Griff. For looking out. But I…I’m not sure what any of that has to do with me.”

“Okay,” he said. “I just…I will go to bat for you. If you need it. I just wanted you to know that. Regardless of you completely decimating my ego back in New Orleans…” he added, laughing.

“Would you stop?”

He kept laughing. “I’m just saying…my wounded pride wouldn’t affect what I believe to be right. Everyone should be free to live their lives, love anyone they choose. I’ve got your back, Goodwin. Okay? That’s what I’m trying to say.”

“Thank you, Griff, really,” Joan said. “But I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

—

Joan went back to her tent but, finding herself all alone in there without Frances, she couldn’t sleep. She could not quiet her mind—but also could not ignore the small splashes she kept hearing from time to time, some fish or bird out there in the lake. With a huff of frustration, she got out of her sleeping bag, unzipped her tent, and stood up.

There, on the dock, was Vanessa. She was skipping stones across the lake’s surface.

Joan looked up at the sky. Just based on where Vega hung, Joan suspected it was earlier than two a.m.

She could have returned to her tent and tried to fall asleep again. But the back of Vanessa’s body was lit by the brightness of the moon, and Joan walked to her.

Vanessa must have heard her footsteps, because she turned and, upon seeing Joan, smiled big and wide. Vanessa’s smile was so beautiful, the way it was lopsided, but the rest of her face was always perfectly symmetrical. The curls of her hair were the most gorgeous thing Joan had ever seen in her life, and she wanted to reach out and run her hand through them. To pull her closer.

“Look,” Vanessa said, pointing up toward the western edge of the sky. “Hercules.”

Joan did not speak.

“The whole sky makes sense to me now,” Vanessa said. “Because of you.”

And Joan thought, Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.