Atmosphere

Winter 1982

It was eleven o’clock at night and Vanessa and Joan were at Joan’s apartment, lying on the floor, listening to records. Tonight, Vanessa said, was about Joan learning to fall in love with David Bowie.

“If you love me, you have to love this one thing I love,” Vanessa said. “I can’t be flexible about it at all.”

“I told you I like Hunky Dory. ”

“Of course you like Hunky Dory ! I couldn’t be with a woman who didn’t like Hunky Dory ! But you still have a lot to learn. Starting with the entire Berlin Trilogy.”

Joan laughed. “Okay, but I didn’t act this way when you told me you’d never listened to Ladies of the Canyon. ”

“And I listened to every Joni Mitchell album you have, did I not?”

Joan nodded. “Yes, you did. Go ahead and play it.”

“Thank you.”

This was how they spent a lot of their nights together—with an ease and comfort Joan had never known alongside another person.

Whether they were seeing one of Vanessa’s favorite black-and-white movies at an old theater miles outside of town, or the two of them were reading their books together on the couch, or Joan had convinced Vanessa to watch the evening news with her, it was always with a peacefulness that Joan had never experienced.

It was late January, and they had been together for almost six months, but Joan didn’t want to mention it. She didn’t want to feel like she was counting the days, even though she was. And she didn’t want to feel like this could ever end, even though she understood that some love affairs did. Or, rather, that all of them did, eventually. Just the act of falling in love was to agree to a broken heart.

“Steve’s not been around as much,” Vanessa said.

“Because he’s training for his mission?”

“Yeah, but that means I can’t fly with him,” Vanessa said. “I can go up with Duke. But he doesn’t let me fly from the backseat.”

“I mean, none of them do very much,” Joan said.

“But I’m a pilot,” Vanessa said, her voice carrying an edge Joan had not heard before. “And Steve sees that. And he lets me fly the T-38 as a backseater.”

“Taking off and landing, too?”

“Yes! Of course. I know what I’m doing. It’s the only thing I’ve ever truly been great at.”

“I don’t doubt it—I’m just surprised.”

“Steve gets what I can do.”

“Good,” Joan said. “You deserve that.”

“But now…”

“But now you’re stuck with Duke.”

“Yes,” Vanessa said. “Do you know how frustrating it is? To have to get permission to do something I’ve been doing on my own my entire adult life? It’s insulting. It would be like if someone said you could only use a telescope under supervision.”

“I’m sorry,” Joan said. “It’s not right. And NASA should have accounted for the gap in military opportunities for women long before now.”

Vanessa squinted at her. “Say more things like that—I’m feeling better.”

“They’re wrong, you’re right,” Joan said.

“Oh, wow, now I’m feeling almost entirely pacified.”

“And you will be the first woman to pilot the shuttle,” Joan said.

“I don’t care about being the first, I just want to do it,” Vanessa said.

“Yes, I know,” Joan said, moving closer to her. “But we need someone undeniable in order for them to realize they can’t deny it.”

“And that’s me?” Vanessa said.

“That’s you.”

Vanessa tried not to smile. “Well, okay! I am here to serve.”

The two of them started laughing, then stopped when the doorbell rang.

“Maybe it’s Griff?” Joan whispered.

As Joan lifted the needle from the record, Vanessa got up and slipped into the bathroom.

“Joan, open up, it’s me.”

Joan had heard that voice so many times through her bedroom door as a child: Barbara always trying to convince her of something. To hide some gift from a boy or lend her money.

“I’m coming,” Joan said. When she opened the door, Frances was in Barbara’s arms, her legs dangling down at Barbara’s waist, her arms down Barbara’s sides, her head on Barbara’s shoulder. Sleeping. Frances was seven and a half now, so big, and so independent, but in moments like this, Joan was relieved at how young she still seemed.

“What’s going on?” Joan said.

Barbara walked right into Joan’s bedroom and put Frances in Joan’s bed.

“Barb, what are you doing?”

“Shhh,” she said, shutting the door behind herself. “I have to go, and I need you to watch her this weekend.”

“Go where? What are you talking about?”

“There’s this guy,” she said.

Joan inhaled. “The new guy? Frank?”

“No, not Frank. Frank is terrible. Do you know that man expected me to start splitting the check? Every time? When he invited me out?”

“Well, he never struck me as that much of a stand-up guy, Barb.”

Barbara glared at Joan and then moved past it. “I met someone. Someone very, very special. His name is Daniel.”

“Okay, but why does that mean you need to leave Franny here?”

“I hate when you call her Franny.”

“Just continue, please.”

“Well, something amazing happened. Daniel called and asked me to go with him to New York for the weekend. We’re staying at the Four Seasons, and he’s taking me to a Broadway show. Anything I want to see. He’ll get us floor seats. And he says he can get us a reservation at Le Cirque.”

“I…don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a restaurant, Joan. Read a magazine.”

Joan frowned at her. Then there was a thud from the bathroom, and Joan tensed up.

“Look, I just really need this favor,” Barbara said. “I know this is a lot to ask. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t really, really need it. I like him. We’ve been on a few dates and it’s going very well. And he’s very successful and he has made it clear that he’s looking to get married. This could really be it for me. This could be the chance to get my life together in a new way. For me and for Frances. This could be my do-over, Joan.”

“A do-over?”

“To fix things.”

“Are things so bad they need to be fixed?”

Barbara frowned at her. “Joan, really.”

“I’m serious.”

“You think I don’t know how my life looks to people? Frances has no father. I’m barely making ends meet as a secretary working mothers’ hours, borrowing money from Mom and Dad. This isn’t how it was supposed to go for me.”

Joan didn’t know Barbara had been borrowing money from their parents, and she felt stupid for not realizing it. Of course she was.

“Joan, please. I really think this guy could be the one. And I don’t say that often, do I?” Barbara didn’t wait for a response. “Daniel’s a contract lawyer, he comes from a prominent Houston family. Frances and I would have money. I just need some time. To show him that I can make him happy.”

Joan shrugged. “I don’t know why I’m even fighting you on this—I’d love to have her.”

Barbara exhaled. “Thank you. You were taking her all day Sunday, anyway, remember? So it’s really just tonight and tomorrow in addition, and I’ll pick her up from school Monday afternoon.”

“Okay, go, have fun.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Joan. Thank you.”

“Yeah, not a problem.”

“I love you!”

“I love you, too.”

“You are the best sister in the whole wide world, and the best aunt in the world, too.”

“All right,” Joan said. “I’ll get her to school on Monday, and you will pick her up.”

“Thank you, I love you.”

And then she was gone.

Before Joan could think about much else, she went and opened the bathroom door. Vanessa was sitting on the closed toilet lid, reading the ingredients on the back of the shampoo bottle.

“How do you think you pronounce j-o-j-o-b-a?” she said.

Joan told her. “Frances is sleeping here tonight. She’s with me all weekend.”

Vanessa put the shampoo back in the shower. “Yeah, I heard. I’ll get my stuff and get out of here.”

“Thank you, I’m sorry.”

Vanessa kissed her on the temple. “Please do not worry about it. Frances comes first.”

Vanessa started packing her things up. Joan watched her.

“Frances and I will have fun this weekend. I just…I don’t understand my sister.”

“Well, not to overstep by agreeing too quickly, but from what I just heard, I don’t understand her, either,” Vanessa said. She put her arms around Joan, and Joan sank into her. “But it seems like Frances is very lucky to have you. To have someone as incredible as you to love her as much as you do.”

Joan nodded, although she was tempted to shake her head. Frances wasn’t the lucky one. Joan was. It felt so good to love Frances. Joan’s love for her had not been Joan’s gift to Frances, but Frances’s gift to Joan.

“So do I take Barb at face value?” Joan asked. “That she’s dropping Frances off with me because she’s trying to make their lives better in the long term?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’ll only know in time. But I can sit here with you, until you want to go to sleep. And I can rub your feet.”

Joan chuckled. “I mean, it would help. ”

“C’mon,” Vanessa said. Joan sat down on the couch and Vanessa rubbed her feet, and soon, Joan felt the world go fuzzy and she could feel Vanessa putting a blanket on her.

—

In the morning, Joan woke up to see that Vanessa was gone and Frances was standing in front of her, her hair sticking straight up in the back.

“Joanie, what am I doing here? Where is Mom?”

“I asked your mom if I could have you for the weekend,” Joan said, her vision still blurry.

Frances jumped on top of Joan and startled her, Frances’s knees hitting her in the ribs. Who cared? Who cared what hurt when Frances was this happy?

“Thank you, Joanie! Thank you!”

—

That Monday, Joan dropped Frances off at school and then headed straight to the all-astronauts meeting. After that, she worked with one of the investigators on Spacelab through lunch. She’d need to get to the airfield by three—Hank had offered to let her fly with him that afternoon, and Joan was behind on her hours.

She went home to change and then head to the airfield, but just as she was about to leave—with her bomber jacket on, her aviator sunglasses in her pocket, her keys in her hand—the phone rang.

Joan almost ignored it. But she looked at the time and instantly knew exactly who it must be on the other end of that line.

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Rhonda, the secretary at Olive Elementary. Is this Joan Goodwin? Frances Goodwin’s aunt?”

“This is she.”

“Are you able to come pick up Frances?” the woman asked. “School let out forty minutes ago and, unfortunately, her mother is not here. I tried the home phone but there was no answer.”

Joan inhaled sharply. “Absolutely, give me twenty minutes.”

“She’s here in the principal’s office with me,” Rhonda said.

“Is there somewhere else she can go?” Joan asked. “Maybe I can grab her from the library? I don’t want her to feel like she’s in trouble.”

“I understand, ma’am. But Frances and I have a good time when she’s here. She helps me with my crossword puzzles, and she’s really good.”

Joan closed her eyes and took a breath. “Okay, please tell her I’ll be right there and I’m excited to spend the afternoon with her.”

Joan called over to the airfield and let Hank know she had to bail.

“All right, well, I’ll see if Donna or Griff wants to join me.”

“I appreciate it, Hank, I’m sorry.”

“No, ma’am, nothing to worry about. Just don’t have time later this week, and I know you’re running into the end of the month.”

“It’s okay, I will figure it out. Thank you.”

When Joan walked into the principal’s office not long after that, Frances somehow looked older to her. She was wearing the same Wrangler jeans and baseball tee that Joan had sent her to school in. But her hair had been redone at some point in the day—Joan suspected by Rhonda—and was now in a low ponytail. She was cheering because she had just beaten Rhonda at tic-tac-toe.

“All right, come on, babe,” Joan said. “We have a fun afternoon planned.”

Frances said goodbye to Rhonda, and they walked to Joan’s car. When Joan got in the driver’s seat next to Frances and the two of them put on their seatbelts, Frances looked at Joan as if seeing her for the first time and said, “Wow, cool jacket.”

Joan leaned over and kissed her on the top of her head. “How are you doing?”

“Stop that,” Frances said. “I’m seven and a half now.”

Joan nodded. “Noted.”

Joan brought Frances to Barbara’s house, and they headed into the kitchen, where Frances sat at the counter to finish her homework.

“Will you make Rice Krispies treats?” Frances asked. “Mom promised me last week she’d do it this afternoon. I was thinking about it all day.”

Joan looked through the cupboards. There was a box of cereal right next to a bag of marshmallows in the baking cabinet, among the chocolate chips and sprinkles.

“Sure thing,” Joan said.

She read the back of the box and then melted the butter and marshmallows. As she mixed the cereal in, she tried to piece together how, exactly, she was making dessert right now instead of doing an aerial flip in a jet.

When the treats had cooled, Joan cut them up and gave one to Frances as she finished her homework.

Frances looked at them. “Mom puts chocolate chips in them.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that.”

“Can you put them in now?”

“Um…” Joan looked at the treats, considering. “I can try to put some on top, or sort of push a few in?”

“No!” Frances said, growing angry. “I don’t want them on top. I want them all throughout, like my mom makes.”

“Franny, I can’t put the chocolate chips in now,” Joan said. “They’ve already set.”

“Why did you do that?” Frances yelled. “Why would you ruin them?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Joan said. “You know that.”

“You just don’t want me to have them!”

“I do want you to have them, babe. But there’s nothing I can do.”

“Make them again, then!”

“Frances, please calm down.”

“I can’t calm down! I don’t want to calm down! I want you to put the chocolate chips in them!”

And then Frances swung her foot from the stool she was on at the kitchen counter, directly into Joan’s shin.

“Frances!”

Frances did it again.

Joan stared at her, completely shocked. Frances burst into tears.

At NASA, Joan’s job was preparing for every single possibility. It was a system built to eliminate unknown variables. In her work life, she had never felt more prepared and ready to face disaster.

But all Frances had to do was kick her in the shin, and Joan had no idea what to do.

She bent down to Frances’s eye level as Frances continued to scream.

“I want my mom! She knows how to do it! You don’t know anything!” Frances began to flail her arms around and shoved her homework folder onto the floor.

Joan did not know what to do except lean over and put her arms around Frances, holding her tight against her body.

“Stop it!” Frances screamed at her. “Let me go.”

Joan didn’t. She held Frances as Frances thrashed against her. Joan was quiet and steady. Eventually, Frances relaxed into Joan and stopped yelling. She began to cry into Joan’s shoulder. When she finally stopped, Joan pulled back and looked at her tears.

Frances’s face was flushed, her eyelids swollen. But when Frances turned her gaze up from the floor, it was her eyes that gripped Joan.

Supposedly, children are resilient. But Joan suspected this was merely something we tell ourselves because we are terrified they are just as delicate as we are.

Joan put her thumb to Frances’s cheek and softly wiped her tears away.

Frances did not say much after that. She never ate the Rice Krispies treats. But the two of them watched TV together until it was time for Frances to go to bed.

Frances got into the shower and bathed on her own.

Joan lay down on Frances’s bed. As the shower ran, she looked up at the plastic stars on Frances’s ceiling. They were disorderly, those stars. They had no relation to the actual night sky.

There was nothing she knew to do except take every single star down off that ceiling.

When Frances came out of the bathroom in an oversized T-shirt, her hair wet, Joan was still on the stepladder.

“What are you doing?” she asked Joan.

Joan got down. “Turn off the light,” she said.

Frances did, and the stars began to glow. She looked up at the ceiling. “Did you move them?”

“Come here,” Joan said, patting a spot on the bed. Frances got in. Joan tucked her in and then lay down next to her.

“Do you see those stars in a line there, right above you? And how it looks like there’s a big basket at the bottom?”

“The Big Dipper,” Frances said.

Joan smiled. “Exactly right.”

“Part of Major Ursa,” Frances said.

“Ursa Major. That’s right—you’ve been listening. What’s the one across from it? That looks similar but upside down?” Joan pointed just to the right of where they had been looking.

“The Little Dipper. Ursa…Minor?”

Joan kissed her forehead. “Smart kid.”

“Show me the others,” Frances said. And so Joan showed her the other two she had managed to arrange during Frances’s shower, Cassiopeia and Lyra.

“I love it,” Frances said. “Thank you.”

And then Joan tried to say good night.

“Please don’t go,” Frances said. “Please just stay all night.”

“I’ll be here. I’ll be right downstairs.”

Joan heard the front door open then and relaxed, knowing Barb was finally home. She didn’t say anything to Frances.

Frances shook her head. “No, I mean will you please stay here with me until I fall asleep.”

“Okay, you got it,” Joan said, laying her head down on Frances’s pillow.

As she did, Frances moved her arm underneath Joan’s neck, pulling Joan toward her with a confidence and authority that startled Joan. As if Joan were the child, and Frances the adult. And Frances kissed Joan’s forehead, just as Joan had done to her. “I’m sorry for what I did, Joanie,” Frances said as she began to drift.

“It’s okay, honey. I know.”

And then Frances was asleep.

When Joan got downstairs, Barbara was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a glass of wine. She looked absolutely gorgeous. Her dark hair blown out, her blue dress cinched at her waist. Her lipstick was a little faded but deep red. Joan could see that Frances was going to grow up to look a lot like her. That Frances would have that same glamour to her one day.

“Where the hell have you been?” Joan asked her.

“Oh, don’t even get me started,” Barbara said. “After the day I’ve had.”

“The day you’ve had?”

“I called you ten different times from LaGuardia Airport, Joan,” she said. “I missed my flight. What did you want me to do? I had to get on the four o’clock.”

“I want you to make sure your kid isn’t abandoned at school,” Joan said, trying to keep her voice down.

“Well, maybe you should hook up the goddamn answering machine I bought you for Christmas!”

“The school secretary is on a first-name basis with Frances, did you know that? They have gotten into the habit of doing crossword puzzles together because of how often Frances is left there.”

Barbara shook her head. “Here we go again, gearing up to recite the litany of ways you and Frances are both better than me—”

“I’m not—”

“No, please, do enlighten me. It’s not enough that you were so perfect our entire childhood that if I made a single mistake, I looked like a screwup. And now our parents can tell everyone you’re an astronaut and I’m nothing. Apparently, you also know better than me how to be a mom. Lovely. Please, tell me. I’m desperate to learn from Saint Joan.”

Joan grabbed her jacket.

“She’s hurting, Barbara,” Joan said. “She misses you.”

“She’s fine,” Barbara said. “Frances is special. Even though I’m sure you can’t see that.”

“Of course I see that.”

“Mom says she’s an old soul. She’s capable of handling more than most girls her age.”

Joan shook her head. “Good night, Barb. Do not do this again. I’m behind on my flying hours as it is. I can’t be blowing off entire afternoons.”

“Sorry,” she said. “Here I was thinking family is the most important thing. I’ll remember that’s not true for you, next time.”

Joan slammed the door and then instantly regretted it, worried she’d woken Frances up. She walked to her car, calming herself down as best she could, but then jamming her foot on the gas to peel away from the curb.

When she got home, she was up past midnight installing her answering machine.