Starry Eyes(9)

“We’d love to have you. Let me know what you decide.” He raises two fingers to his forehead and gives me a loose salute before reminding us to be safe getting home tonight.

“You’re going, right?” Avani whispers excitedly as he walks away.

My mind is aflutter. So is my stomach. “God, I really want to.”

“Then come,” she says. “Meet me at Condor Peak. Promise me, Zorie.”

“I’ll try,” I say, not completely sure, but hopeful.

“Star party, here we come,” she tells me, and for a moment, it feels like old times between us.

But after we leave the auditorium and she walks me to the parking lot, I remember what awaits me at home.

I push away the dread and concentrate on enjoying the drive as I leave the hilltop observatory and descend into town. It’s a perfect summer night, and stars blanket the sky. My stars. Every winking point of white light belongs to me. They are wonderful, the town is quiet and dark, and I’m just fine.

Only I’m not.

Normally, I love driving my mom’s car, even though it’s several years old and smells faintly of patchouli. The stereo speakers are bass-heavy, and I relish taking the long way home, cruising the road between the freeway and the dark blue water, with San Francisco twinkling in the distance. Except for the occasional run to the grocery store, this is the only time I really drive. But, hey. At least my mom trusts me with her sedan, unlike my dad, who won’t let me near his vintage sports car. It’s worth too much.

But now I can’t stop thinking about that whole “one of many” line in that letter, and I wonder if my dad has driven other women around in his stupid car. Just how many others have there been? I’ve always thought my dad was a decent person, if not a little plastic and fake when he’s in full-on Diamond Dan mode, but now I’m picturing him dressed like Hugh Hefner with two curvy women on his arms.

It makes me want to vomit.

Dark silhouettes of skinny palm trees greet me as I turn into our cul-de-sac and park the car behind my dad’s Corvette in the narrow driveway next to our building. The clinic is dark, so no one’s working late. Hesitantly, I hike the steps of the connecting house and warily open the front door of our apartment.

A ball of white fur pads across the open living area to greet me. Andromeda is getting old, but she’s still sweet and pretty. No one can resist her dual-colored brown and blue husky eyes. I stick my fingers under her collar and give her a good scratch while kissing the top of her head.

“Hey, sweet thing,” my mom says. She’s stretched out on the couch under a blanket, reading a magazine under a dim lamp while the mute TV flashes a commercial in background. “How was astronomy club?”

“Fine.” I hand her the car keys. “Where’s Dad?”

She nods toward the balcony off the kitchen, where I spot a dark shape. “On the phone.”

My gut twists when I hear his voice, too low for me to make out what he’s saying. He’s always on the phone, and those phone calls usually are taken behind closed doors after he steps away. I assumed he was just being polite; my mom is old-school about people talking on cell phones in public.

Now I wonder who’s on the other end of the line.

Hoping she doesn’t notice my anxiety, I briefly tell Mom about Dr. Viramontes’s invitation to the star party while she’s flipping magazine pages. She’s mmm-hmm-ing me, completely distracted. I see her glance toward the balcony door, and a little line appears in the middle of her forehead.

Or maybe that’s my imagination.

All I know is that I can’t fake a convincing smile around my father, so after feigning weariness, I kiss Joy good night and make an escape upstairs, Andromeda at my heels.

My bedroom is in a converted attic space. My parents’ master bedroom is downstairs, so I have the entire upstairs to myself. Just me, an ancient bathroom without a shower, and a storage room filled with overflow supplies from the clinic.

Embarrassingly, my room hasn’t changed a lot since I was a kid. The ceiling is still covered with glow-in-the-dark stars—the “glow” ran out years ago—painstakingly arranged to match constellations. Pegasus lost the stars that make up his leg during a minor earthquake. The only decorative room additions from the last couple of years are my oversize handmade wall calendars, or “blueprints”—I have one for each season of the year, and they are all systematically color-coded—and my galaxy photos. I’ve had my best ones printed and framed. My Orion Nebula is particularly beautiful. I took it at the observatory with a special equatorial mount borrowed from Dr. Viramontes, and tweaked its purple luminance with stacking software.

After locking my door, I move past framed star charts and duck beneath a mobile of the solar system that hangs over my desk. I stashed the photo book in a deep desk drawer earlier, and when I double-check, it’s still there, under a neat stack of graph-lined planning journals and a rainbow bin of highlighters, gel pens, and rolls of washi tape. My parents don’t touch my stuff—it’s all carefully organized—so I’m not sure why I’m so worried. I guess I just feel guilty.

Best not to think about it. “Until I can figure out what to do, it’s our little secret,” I tell Andromeda. She jumps up on my bed and curls into a ball. She’s an excellent secret keeper.

The only window in my room has a Juliet balcony that overlooks the cul-de-sac. There’s not room enough for me to stand outside, but it’s wide enough for my telescope, Nancy Grace Roman—named after the first woman to hold an executive position at NASA. I open the balcony doors and take the telescope from its black carrying case to set it up. I actually have two telescopes—this one, and a smaller portable model. I haven’t really used the portable one much, but now I’m daydreaming about taking it to that star party on Condor Peak.