The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(36)
There was a letter from Hershel, which I put aside to answer over the weekend. If I tried now, he’d get nothing but a string of numbers and symbols. Electric bill. Phone bill. Those went in another stack to pay tonight.
A heavy white envelope, which fairly screamed invitation, caught my eye. We got a lot of those from different people wanting to have The Doctor York at their soiree. He was front and center at every press conference explaining trajectories and mission parameters in ways that anyone could understand. Doing the same thing at a dinner party was just tiring.
But … but this invitation had Senator Wargin’s return address. I knew his wife: Nicole Wargin had been a pilot with the WASPs during the war. And Senator Wargin was a vocal supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I was hoping that the combination of his progressive politics and his wife’s interests would make him sympathetic to my own hobbyhorse.
I opened the envelope, sliding out the heavy white card.
S ENATOR AND M RS. K ENNETH T. W ARGIN
R EQUEST THE PLEASURE OF
D R. AND M RS. Y ORK’S COMPANY
A T A DINNER PARTY AT HALF PAST SIX O’CLOCK
O N THE SEVENTH OF A UGUST.
“Nathaniel?” I turned in my chair.
He had his shirtsleeves rolled up and was rubbing a potato with oil. “Hm?”
“Senator Wargin and his wife have invited us to a dinner on the seventh. Shall I say yes?”
He shook his head, setting the potato on the counter. “That’s only a week before the next launch. I’ll be exhausted.”
I stood and leaned against the counter next to him. “That’s your natural state.”
“Yours too.” He grabbed the other potato and rubbed oil over its surface. The muscles in his forearms rippled with the motion. Oil had splashed just above his left wrist and glistened with each movement.
“True…” I set my finger in the streak of oil and drew it farther up the inside of his arm. “This way, someone else will cook dinner for us.”
“And I’ll have to make witty conversation.”
“Oh no. No one expects witty from you.”
He laughed, and leaned down to kiss me. “Why this one?”
“I used to fly with Nicole Wargin.” I slipped around to stand behind Nathaniel. Running my hands around his ribcage, I leaned into him. “And … and I’m hoping that the senator might have thoughts about the need for women in the colony.”
“Ah-ha.” He turned in my arms, still holding the potato. Keeping his oily hands away from my clothes, he kissed me on the cheek, then at the base of my jaw, then nibbled a trail down my neck.
Between gasps, I managed to squeak out, “And you could use the same time to argue for the need to get off planet.”
“Well … I’m still going to be exhausted.”
“I could make it worth your while?”
“These potatoes still need to go into the oven.”
Laughing, I released my hold on his waist and stepped back. “Fine. Far be it from me to distract you.”
He bent down to open the oven door, giving me a look at his well-tailored trousers. Have I mentioned recently how fortunate I am to be married to Nathaniel? The warm air from the oven stirred a strand of his hair, and the light caught on that glinting oil again as he set both potatoes directly on the wire rack. He stood and kicked the oven door closed with his heel.
The heat from the oven seemed to warm the entire apartment. Nathaniel lifted a hand still glossy with oil. “I figure…” He traced a line down my throat. “It’ll take about an hour before those are ready.”
“Is that so?” My breathing was fast and heated. “Do I have time to make my argument for going to the dinner party?”
His finger continued its path, gliding along the collar of my shirt until he reached the top button. “As long as I get to make an argument for staying in.”
“Counterargument, confirmed.”
THIRTEEN
SPACE RECORD SET BY LEBOURGEOIS
Colonies in Space Would Aid Humanity
By HENRY TANNER
Special to The National Times.
KANSAS CITY, KS, Saturday, April 13, 1956—Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Paul Lebourgeois has given the International Aerospace Coalition another space record by staying in orbit more than four days. With this advancement, the IAC has demonstrated that working and sleeping in space is possible, a necessary step for the space program.
Nicole Wargin perched on the arm of the sofa in her living room, her glass filled with pre-Meteor champagne. The diamonds around her throat glittered above a glorious peacock green dress. Around us, the living room was filled with the cream of society in tuxedos and rich jewel-toned evening gowns, enjoying the kind of food that a ration book wouldn’t get you. If you couldn’t hear what Nicole was saying, she might have been any society maven.
Thank God she was more interesting than that.
“So the mechanic had sworn that the Hellcat was flightworthy, but I was at six thousand feet and my fuel gauge suddenly bottomed out.”
“Over the ocean?” Mrs. Hieber clasped a hand over her bosom in dismay. Earlier she had regaled us with stories of how she’d saved her prize roses from the Meteor winter through heroic use of glass and steam. Too bad she wasn’t interested in growing vegetables. I’d saved us by prompting Nicole to tell war stories. That I had another agenda was beside the point. At the moment, we weren’t hearing about aphid invasions.