The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(53)
“This is our stop.”
The doors opened and I trotted down the steps to the street.
“First, please stop calling me that; I’m not an astronaut.”
“That’s what the public calls you.”
She hopped down next to me, coat pulled tight against the wind.
“Yes, but I haven’t been into space, and it’s disrespectful of the men who have.”
I pulled the address out of my purse and steered us down the street.
“Whoa.
Elma.”
Betty put up her hands in mock surrender.
“I thought you were the one who was all keen to get women into space.”
“I am, but that doesn’t mean I want a title I haven’t earned.”
We were meeting the Girl Scouts in the common room at a Catholic church in a newer part of Kansas City I didn’t usually visit.
The broad streets had modern buildings with narrow windows and low, thick walls.
Half of them probably had several stories below ground, in the fashion that had become popular right after the Meteor hit.
Idiots.
They were building for an impact that would never come.
At least the floors below ground would be fairly easy to cool.
The church itself was easy to spot from several blocks away from its redbrick facade and the thrust of its bell tower.
Given the number of cars parked outside, it clearly had some sort of event going on.
Likely a wedding, which was nice.
Right after the Meteor, there’d been a trend toward free love as a sort of reaction to Doomsday.
It was good that people were still getting married, since it meant that they weren’t as scared about the future.
On the other hand, if people were becoming complacent about the planet’s future, that was a different sort of problem.
“Don’t be mad.”
Betty grabbed my arm.
“Just smile.
You’ve got a great smile.”
“What are you—?”
The sidewalk next to the church was filled with reporters.
Sweat drenched my back and ran down my inner arms.
If Betty hadn’t had a hold of my arm, I would have probably made a run for it.
My stomach heaved and I had to swallow hard to keep from hurling on the spot.
“Smile, Elma.”
She kept her grip on my arm and spoke through a fixed smile of her own.
“We need this.”
“I didn’t even want a photographer, and you arranged
this?”
I wrenched my arm free, heart hitting my ribs like a punching bag.
Any moment now I was going to cry, and that was monumentally unfair.
I was angry, damn it.
I turned my back on the reporters.
“You can’t walk away.
Elma.
Elma … the little girls are coming out.
Elma, you can’t leave them.
There’s an astronaut’s daughter here, and her daddy is in—”
“Damn it.”
Mr. Lebourgeois’s daughter had asked me to come because her father was in space and she was scared.
“Goddamn it.”
So I turned to face the cameras, and all the expectations, and—and eight little girls, all wearing cardboard-and-tinfoil space helmets.
“Elma … please don’t be mad.”
Betty stayed by my side, talking through a smile.
“Please.
I knew you’d say no, and you’re so good on camera.
Please don’t be mad.”
I gave her my brightest, most Stetson-Parker smile.
“Well, bless your heart.
Why would I be mad?”
One little girl.
I was here for one little girl.
I tried my damnedest to block out the cameras and the men shouting for us to look at them and smile.
One little girl.
Her name was Claire Lebourgeois and her daddy was in space.
I could keep from throwing up for long enough to reassure her that he was coming home.
*
Fourteen days after they went into space, Lebourgeois, Cleary, and Malouf safely returned to the ground.
They hadn’t accomplished all of their objectives, but they’d
proven the main point that the lunar module would sustain life long enough for an exploratory moon mission.
That just left it up to us to get them there.