The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(16)

All the ground-in dirt that no amount of washing could remove from my sweater grew to cover me. I must look homeless. Mama would be ashamed of me. I swallowed. I wanted to go back out to the car, but that would inconvenience Mrs. Lindholm, so I just stood, paralyzed, by the door.

Mrs. Lindholm gestured to me. “My friend was in the East yesterday.”

In the East. At the euphemism, the saleslady’s eyes widened and her brows peaked with pity. “Oh—you poor dear.” And then curiosity followed, like a predator drawn to blood. “Where were you?”

“The Poconos.”

Mrs. Lindholm pulled out a navy blue dress from the rack and held it up. “She doesn’t have anything except the clothes on her back.”

A middle-aged white woman appeared from between the racks of clothing. “You were really there? You saw the meteor?”

“Meteorite. A meteor breaks up before impact.” As if anyone cared about scientific accuracy. I think this might have been the last time I corrected someone. “Meteorite,” for whatever quirk of the English language, sounded almost cute. “But no, we were three hundred miles away.”

She stared at my face as if the cuts and bruises would give her a map to my specific location. “I have family back east.”

“So did I.” I snatched a dress from the rack and fled to the changing room. The louvered door shut behind me, shielding me from their view, but not from their hearing. I sank onto the little padded bench and pressed both hands over my mouth. Every breath hurt, fighting to be given sound. 3.14159265 …

“She and her husband flew in last night. Lost everyone except a brother, I understand.”

“That’s horrible.”

… 35897932384 … Everyone would know someone “back east.” I was not the only person who had lost family.

The saleslady said, “I heard on the news that we should expect a lot more meteor refugees, on account of Wright-Patterson.”

Meteor refugee. That’s what I was. It’s just that I was the first refugee that anyone had seen here. Of all the times for the tears to finally hit, it had to happen in a dress store?

“That’s what my husband was saying.” Mrs. Lindholm seemed to be just outside the door to my dressing room. “I’m going to go by the base hospital to volunteer later today.”

“That’s so good of you.”

Volunteer. I could do that. I could volunteer to fly refugees back from the East, or wrap bandages, or something. I’d done it during the war, and there was no reason not to pull myself together and do it again.

“Is that the CBS you’ve got on the radio now?”

I wiped my eyes and stood, reaching for the dress I’d snatched. It was a polka-dot number in a size better suited for a pencil than for me.

“Mm-hm … They were just saying that they’d found a surviving cabinet member. Let me turn it up, if you ladies don’t mind.”

In the mirror, it looked as though a ghoul had come to shop. I’d thought I looked homeless, but really, I looked as if I hadn’t truly survived the impact. Both of my eyes were blackened. I had tiny cuts all over my face and arms. Something had hit me, right below my hairline, and left a scrape. But I was alive.

“… and those tidal waves have also swamped the Caribbean, leaving many nations there without water or electricity. The devastation is said to number in the hundreds of thousands…”

I opened the door of the dressing room and tried to tune out the radio. “Silly me. It’s the wrong size.”

The saleslady came over to help me and we consulted on sizes and current fashion while the news continued in the background. It was like playing the fiddle while Rome burned around us.





SIX





INDIANS OFFER AID TO MRS. ROOSEVELT


Questions by Press Underscore the Growing Friendship for U.S.

The Times.

NEW DELHI, India, 4 March 1952—Questions put to Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt by Indian newspapermen at a Delhi press association luncheon for the former president’s widow today underscored the significant wide and growing devastation in the United States after a meteorite struck earlier this week. Initially intended as a hospitality meeting, talks focused on offers of aid for the United States.

The sky was a high, silver overcast, as Mrs. Lindholm dropped me off at HQ. “Are you sure you don’t want to go home and rest, dear?”

“Thank you, but I really do feel better when I’m active.”

Her mouth turned down in disappointment, but, to her credit, she didn’t argue with me anymore. “Well, I’ll be over at the base hospital, if you need me. Don’t forget to eat something.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I waved as she drove off. Shopping was all well and good—and, yes, I’ll grant that I felt better with clean clothes and makeup to hide the worst of the bruis ing, but I’d spent the entire time we were out feeling like I was playing make-believe. In every store, a radio or television had been tuned to the news. Delaware basically didn’t exist anymore, and the only surviving cabinet member they’d found so far was the secretary of agriculture.

But there were still refugees that needed to be transported. I knew how to fly. So, I brushed off my new polka-dotted navy blue dress, straightened its bright red belt, and headed inside to find Colonel Parker. He would not have been my first choice, mind you, but at least he knew my record of flying.