Chapter Four #2
“I’m not dressed for a party,” Vivian protested, the little round mirror in their entryway confirming that she did indeed look exhausted, her skin pale, dark circles forming under her eyes.
Whatever makeup she had put on when she went to work had worn off.
Normally, she wouldn’t care too much, but coupled with the fact that her mind felt hazy from lack of sleep, a party hardly seemed like the best idea.
“Nonsense. You look beautiful like you always do.” Polly’s gaze narrowed speculatively. “I’ll help you fix your hair. And I have the perfect dress for you. I couldn’t decide if I should wear it or this one. Besides, Frank is coming. You always like him. He’s bringing his friend Joe, too.”
Later, in the privacy of her room, Vivian would dissect why that fact was salient, and why it had her asking—
“Is the dress also space-themed?”
“It’s the color of the surface of the Moon,” Polly replied with a wink.
Vivian hesitated, her heart pounding. “Well, in that case, how can I refuse?”
Polly grinned. “I was hoping you would say that. Let’s get you ready.”
—
Polly flipped on CBS News and the group crowded around the little television in their living room, the stand another item Vivian had rescued and refurbished until the wood gleamed.
She’d never considered herself particularly crafty or handy, but after a childhood spent drifting from apartment to apartment, never staying anywhere long enough to put down roots, there was something immensely satisfying about building a home that was all her own.
Most of the guests were strangers to Vivian, friends of Polly’s from the hospital and the athletic club she liked to frequent.
It didn’t bother Vivian, though. Maybe it was the same trait that had propelled her toward journalism, but she liked being in a room surrounded by people she didn’t know.
You were under no obligation to perform that way, could simply fade into the background and drift from group to group with casual ease.
You got the measure of people by watching them in settings like these, seeing how they interacted with others, in the way they carried themselves.
There was something comforting in learning what made them tick.
Once again, Vivian’s gaze drifted toward the wall, where Joe stood in conversation with Frank.
Polly and Frank had been inseparable since the night they met, and Frank had become a frequent visitor to the apartment. Vivian liked him a great deal. He was straightforward, honest, and clearly enamored of her roommate.
Today he’d brought Joe along as well. Joe’s sling was gone, and it looked like whatever injuries he’d sustained from his motorcycle accident had mostly healed. Vivian barely had a chance to exchange more than a quick hello with Joe before he was swept up in another group.
Walter Cronkite’s voice filled the room as he reported on the launch from Cape Canaveral, and Vivian’s attention shifted from Joe to the legendary news anchor.
You could hear the gravitas in Cronkite’s tone, but today there was something else there—an excitement that mirrored that of everyone in the room.
For all the influential stories he’d covered in his illustrious career, it was clear that Cronkite understood the magnitude and importance of the moment before him.
No one watching or listening to the launch could doubt that history was being made, and for all of Vivian’s skepticism about the enormous cost of the space program, the enthusiasm was infectious.
How much were their lives about to change because of this space exploration?
“Everything looks good,” Frank murmured more to himself than anyone else in the room as they went through the final checks, ten minutes to liftoff. His body moved from side to side, his gaze riveted on the television.
Polly stood beside him, her arm wrapped around his elbow, holding him steady, as though keeping him from leaping into the television and inserting himself in the scene occurring before them by sheer force of will.
Vivian’s gaze drifted from Polly and Frank, to Joe. He’d moved from where he’d been standing in conversation with the couple to a spot in the corner where he was now largely alone.
As active as his friend was, Joe was still, his focus wholly on the scene playing before him.
Vivian wasn’t sure she’d ever seen anyone look as alone as he did in that moment, and it was silly, of course—she barely knew the man—but she took a step forward, had to catch herself from walking over to him.
There was something that tugged at her—perhaps it was the contrast between the man she had seen holding court at the bar a few weeks ago, the man who had seemed so confident, so at-home in his skin, the man who seemed to crave social interaction, and the man who looked so very alone now, as though there were a wall erected around him that kept everyone else at bay.
“T-minus six minutes and counting,” the reporter announced.
A few gasps and exclamations erupted through the group, a dozen people swelling to the sensation of many more, thanks to the energy emanating like a ripple that carried its way through the room.
Polly gripped Frank’s arm more tightly.
Vivian glanced back at the television, focusing on the Redstone rocket that would propel Alan Shepard on his suborbital flight.
It looked so small on television; it was hard to imagine someone willingly putting their body in such an object and hurtling through space.
The claustrophobia alone would terrify her.
But she supposed if you’d spent your career as a fighter pilot or a test pilot, as all the astronauts had, then you were used to such things whether it was air or space.
Her gaze traveled to Joe once more.
Their conversation came back to her, the way he had spoken about flying, about the space program.
And now—he looked at that rocket carrying an astronaut into space with something akin to the deepest longing, and she knew with a certainty that resided in her bones that if she asked him at this very moment what he wanted more than anything in this world, his answer would be to be strapped into that rocket, heading for space.
“Liftoff.”
There were cheers all around her, the relief of a crowd who had spent the last three weeks and scrubbed launches wondering if they were going to ever be able to catch up to the Soviets after Yuri Gagarin had beat them to it. She hadn’t realized how badly the nation had needed this until now.
Once again, her gaze drifted to Joe. He stood there quietly, somehow removed from the proceedings, his mouth slightly agape as he watched the rocket soar through the sky. He rocked back on his heels for a moment as though he were experiencing the thrust himself, and then he turned his head.
The longing in his eyes—
Their gazes connected, and that feeling tumbled through her again—the one she couldn’t describe and wasn’t sure she wanted to try—and Vivian felt as though she’d been knocked back on her heels as well.
The moment stretched on, past the kind of polite gaze that could be expected at a gathering such as this one until Vivian couldn’t take it anymore, and she glanced away, her attention returning to the broadcast, her heart pounding madly, her skin surely flushed.
She’d thought about him more than she cared to admit in the weeks since they’d met, snippets of their conversation in the bar sneaking up on her in the most unpredictable moments.
The fact that she’d spent more time dissecting their conversation than they’d actually spoken wasn’t something she was particularly proud of.
She couldn’t explain it. Any of it. He couldn’t have been further from her type.
And the sinking, dropping feeling in her stomach that she got when she was around him—the one that reminded her of riding a roller coaster on a trip to Coney Island—was singularly unpleasant.
And yet, here she was, wearing Polly’s Moon-colored dress, her hair freshly coiffed, makeup on her face, palms slightly damp, her nerves pinging around the room so much that she finally took a glass of champagne solely for the fact that it gave her something to occupy her hands with.
“Can you imagine what it must be like?” one of the guests asked. “That has to be the most amazing feeling.”
“He’s on top of the world right now,” another guest quipped, laughter rippling through their little group.
When Vivian was in college, the world was introduced to the “Mercury Seven,” the seven astronauts who were to take Americans to space. The astronauts had seemed so confident—cocky, even—when they spoke of the mission, when they addressed the dangers associated with it.
At the same time, their wives were launched onto the world stage, becoming instant celebrities, and Vivian had wondered what sort of woman would choose a life like that, how they would possibly navigate both the danger of their husband’s job and the fact that they were supposed to do so while caring for their families and appearing as though it were all effortless on magazine covers and during press conferences.
What was it like for Alan’s wife, Louise, left behind on the ground? How could she stand there knowing the inherent danger that awaited him and wondering if her husband was about to perish while the whole world watched?
The entire room seemingly held its collective breath for the fifteen-minute space flight, nerves frayed as Shepard navigated reentry, and ultimately, splashdown.
For the woman who loved him, fifteen minutes must feel like an eternity.
And then it was over—and everyone was toasting with champagne even though it wasn’t yet ten o’clock in the morning.
Polly embraced Vivian, clinking their champagne flutes together with an ebullient “cheers.”
“Thank you,” Polly whispered in Vivian’s ear. “I know how tired you are from work, but thanks for going along with this. It was fun, right?”
“It was fun. I’m glad you suggested it.” Vivian hesitated, more than a little embarrassed. “Have you seen Joe?”