25. Debrief
TWENTY-FIVE
DEbrIEF
Jackie
“Holy Mercury!” Rose whoops and hollers, laughing at my expense. “I mean really, girl, that’s what you say after you find out you’re going to be an astronaut?” More laughter.
Rose and I are sitting at the bar in Big Texas, on either side of the corner, while Trish serves drinks from the other side.
Rose has an honest-to-God newspaper laid out on the bar in front of us.
And not just any paper, the paper with the headline “Holy Mercury” splashed on the front page in big old letters.
Journalists are killing me right now. Just killing me.
And I’m not too fond of McAllister, who gave them that quote. I’d been prepared to take that to the grave. Stupid Astronaut Chief.
“I didn’t mean to say it out loud, you know,” I mumble around my straw. Rose just keeps laughing.
“It’s okay, sugar. It just seems to have endeared you more to the public.
” Trish pats my arm like a child. Seeing as how she is not tall by any means, the fact that she can so easily reach me means she has to be rocking some seriously high heels in order to see and serve over the bar.
I’m grateful for my height, as I don’t really need heels.
The wide heels of my cowboy boots seem to be all I can handle. And as much as I love them, the memory of Flynn kneeling before me to strip the boots off before we made love made me toss them into the back corner of my closet.
So I’m wearing a new set of Chucks to the bar tonight.
Rose gave them to me. I don’t know how she managed it, but she’d gotten someone to decorate over the Converse patch on the side with a sequined NASA symbol.
I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to use the NASA symbol like this without permission, but they’re too freaking cool for me not to wear them.
Trish has just served me my third drink, so I’m feeling slightly more awesome than I usually feel about myself. I think drinking may have something in common with G-Force. After the initial shock to the system everything starts to feel pretty good.
I’m back in jeans too. Rose argued that jeans were not for going out unless they had rhinestones, but the look I gave her must have shut her up, ‘cause she didn’t push me.
Especially when I agreed to let her burn my old jeans in favor of me wearing the new fitted ones she bought me.
I may be wearing shoes with rhinestones, but I draw the line at a bedazzled butt.
Trish finishes filling drink orders and props an elbow up on her side of the bar.
“What’d I miss?” she asks.
“I think it is time for a debriefing,” I declare, drink in hand.
Trish leans forward to hear. “A what?”
“Is that when you pants someone?” Rose asks.
She’s stone cold serious, and I love her for it.
“No, you nut,” I say, shoving her shoulder. “It’s after an operation or mission has been conducted. The people involved sit down and discuss the purpose of the experiment and the positives or negatives of its outcome.”
“Wait, what experiment?” Rose asks. “Was I drunk when this happened? The last time I experimented when drunk I nearly woke up married to a woman.” She smiles and sighs. “Ahh, Vegas.”
Trish’s mouth falls open. “Oh. My. Gosh. No, just no.”
Rose and I laugh at Trish’s shocked expression.
“Wait!” Trish says, recovering and waving her perfectly manicured hands. “I remember—Operation Social Life.” She winks at me. “Always knew you’d be my most interesting customer, sugar.”
Rose straightens on her bar stool. “How did I not know this?”
“Probably because you were crumpled on the floor drunk,” Trish replies with a smirk.
“Oh. Yes. Well. That makes sense.” Rose stops pouting and salutes us with her drink.
I take a sip of my own. “After each operation, it’s good to review what happened so that future operations can be more successful.”
“I’m in on the next operation. I don’t want to miss out again,” Rose says.
“You were a pretty big part of this one,” I tell her. “Even if you didn’t know it.”
“Damn straight.” She nods.
“Well, you met us,” Trish starts. “So that’s a success.” She raises her beer bottle toward us.
“Hear, hear!” Rose shouts and we all clink glasses before knocking them back. “And you stood up to that douche-hat Hampson,” she continues after we lower our glasses.
“Yes, there was that. Don’t think I ever would’ve had the confidence to do that if it weren’t for you guys and Fly—” My breath catches. I cough and take another sip of my drink, trying to play it off.
Seeing the look Trish and Rose give each other, I have a feeling I’m not fooling anyone.
But surprisingly, Rose doesn’t jump on my Flynn slip-up.
Instead she squeals and shouts, “And now you’re an ASTRONAUT!
” She throws her head back on the last word, her voice ringing out over the music.
People stop and stare. Rose stares right back, then balances her heels on the last rung of her stool, standing up.
Hurriedly I grab her hips, steadying her.
“Did you hear that, Big Texas? My girl here is a freaking astronaut!”
People cheer and raise their glasses in my direction. A couple of young men catcall Rose and she blows them a kiss.
Laughter ensues, and Trish grabs Rose’s drink out of her hand before she spills it as she retakes her seat. Well, spill it any more than she already has, at least.
Then we drink to the success of Operation Social Life the rest of the night. Every time our glasses clink I feel triumphant.
I don’t count the time I spend scanning the crowd for Flynn. I pretend my heart doesn’t lurch each time I see a couple revolving on the dance floor. And I refuse to acknowledge how often I glance at my phone.
Roughly eighty percent of the mass of the universe is made up of material that scientists can not directly observe, which they call dark matter.
It does not emit light or energy. Though the concept is pretty much accepted, there’s no solid evidence to support dark matter’s existence.
Flynn is my dark matter. Therefore, I feel no guilt not including Flynn in my operation success chart.
I search the faces in the bar once more. Nope, no guilt at all.
I wake up with a hard length pressed up against my back. For a moment, I smile thinking of Flynn. But when the rest of my body spasms in pain, I realize it’s the metal bar from the pull-out couch.
Hazy memories of line dancing to David Bowie’s Space Oddity and saying the lift-off countdown to each shot we did come to mind as I smack my lips together, trying to find moisture. I’ve been hungover more this month than I have in my entire life.
I hear someone moving around and open my eyes a millimeter. Long, dark hair. Trish.
“Please tell me you don’t sleep on this thing with any regularity,” I mumble.
“Hey, that couch was free, I’ll have you know,” she chirps, far too awake-sounding after the night we had. “Found it on the side of the road.”
“What?” I jack-knife off the mattress, whacking my head on something above me.
Trish laughs so hard I barely hear her gulp out the word ‘kidding.’
“That was seriously a horrible thing to do to a friend,” I admonish.
“I don’t know, that was pretty freaking funny,” she says, wiping her eyes.
“If I had known what a cruel person you were I never would have agreed to crash here.” I rub my head and search for my glasses. “Why did I agree to crash here again?”
“When Rose found out you’d never been to a slumber party, she felt we needed to correct that childhood slight.” Trish leans against her galley kitchen counter and takes a sip of coffee. “I guess she forgot that my home is a trailer.”
Rose flings open the narrow bathroom door, adjacent to the kitchen. “Don’t go in there,” she says, closing the door behind her. “For at least five to ten minutes.”
“Gross,” Trish says, scrunching her nose.
“Hey, I grew up with two boys,” Rose says. “Blame them for my ladylike ways.”
I find my glasses on the floor next to me and slide them on, blinking as things come into focus.
The couch is against one side of the trailer with a mounted TV across from me, the kitchen and dining area to the left and a bathroom and bedroom to the right.
There’s a twin-sized Murphy bed pulled down over the couch I slept on, essentially making bunk beds.
That explains the large egg-shaped bump I’m now sporting on my forehead.
I see Trish glance my way. She’s biting her lip and I realize she’s nervous about what I think of her place.
“This is really cool,” I say to her, noting the rounded shape of the ceiling. “Is this one of those silver Airstreams?”
“Yep.”
“That’s so awesome. They look like spaceships.”
Trish smiles into her mug.
“Can you just pick up and go whenever you want?” I ask.
“That’s the idea.” Trish fills another mug from the coffee pot. “Beats having to apartment hunt whenever I move, I guess.”
“Wait, you move a lot?” Rose asks. “‘Cause that doesn’t fit into my plans. You’re just going to have to hang around Clear Lake, honey.”
“Your plans, huh?” Trish smirks at Rose and then holds out the mug to me.
“Oh, I don’t drink coffee. Sorry.”
“That’s okay, hon.” Trish puts the mug on the counter. “I have juice if you want.” She waves at a dorm-size fridge.
I start to get up, but Rose waves me back down. “I love you, but I don’t need your boobs in my back as we all stand in the kitchen.” She bends and opens the fridge. “I’ll get you some juice.”
I stay seated on the pull-out, as there really isn’t room to maneuver around two people to get to the small dinette set at the other end of the trailer. Thankfully Trish walks over the few steps to me and pushes the top bunk back up against the wall so I can sit up straight.
Rose pours a glass of orange juice and hands it to Trish, who hands it to me. After putting the bottle away, she glances into Trish’s mug. “Only weirdos drink black coffee, Trish.” Rose takes the mug I refused off the counter. “You don’t even put sugar in it. That’s not right.”
“When you grow up without money for sugar or milk, you get used to it,” Trish says with a shrug.
We’re quiet for a beat. It suddenly hits me that that is the most personal thing Trish has ever volunteered about herself.
“Well, that put me in my place,” Rose mumbles.
Trish sticks her tongue out at Rose and the tension passes.
“Okay, so I’m the pampered pussy who puts both milk and sugar in her coffee,” Rose says, proceeding to pour a generous helping of milk into her mug.
In fact, she has to pour some coffee out into the sink to make room for all her milk.
“Jackie makes do without and Trish, the apparent badass of the group, takes it black.” She finishes preparing her coffee with a spoonful of sugar and takes a sip.
“Who knew coffee could be so fucking metaphorical?”
Trish snorts. “I don’t know whether to laugh at the fact that you’re the pussy of the group or be in awe that you know what metaphorical means.”
“Hey—I know shit.”
“Yes, you know... shit,” I say. “That sounds about right.”
Rose’s mouth hangs open for a second. “Was that a non-science related joke?” She looks at Trish, then back to me. “And did you curse?” She salutes me with her cup. “I knew I’d be a good influence on you.”
“Good Lord.” Trish rolls her eyes.
“Hey!” I get up from the couch, carefully this time and squeeze past Rose and Trish to an open shelf on the other side of the kitchen. “Are these Audrey Cole’s books?” I pull one down to confirm it.
“Uh, yeah.” Trish blushes.
“This is great,” I say. “Now I have at least one friend who can’t make fun of me for my romance collection.” I turn the book for Rose to see. “I love Audrey Cole. She’s one of my favorites.”
“Holy shit. No wonder,” Rose says, looking over the cover. “If the book is as hot as that model I need to start reading bodice rippers too.”
“They aren’t bodice rippers. They’re romance,” Trish says, pouting.
“Whatever. That cowboy has a twelve pack.” Rose gestures to the guy on the cover who’s straddling a horse and holding a thick length of rope. “I’d like to know what else he’s packing.”
“You find out on page fifty-six,” I say.
“Get out!” Rose yanks the book out of my hand and starts flipping through the pages. “You dirty, dirty bitches. I knew there was a reason I liked you two.”