The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut, #1)(91)

Mrs. Rhode raised an eyebrow. “Medical background?”

“My mother was a doctor in the first war.” I held out my arm so she could wrap a rubber cord around it.

“That explains—oh!” She sprang up, moving past me to the woman on my other side.

The nurse attending the woman was trying to keep her from slumping to the ground. Mrs. Rhode grabbed her other arm. It was the woman who’d been standing behind me in the line. Her face was pale as a cloud bank, and almost that damp. They got her propped back up in the chair.

“I hadn’t even stuck her yet.” The other nurse shook her head, feeling for the woman’s pulse.

Mrs. Rhode shrugged. “Saves us time.” She turned and waved for an orderly to come over. “When she can stand, escort her to the waiting room and make sure she’s okay before discharging her.”

I shivered. Just like that. It wasn’t as if the astronauts needed to do blood draws in space, but that little bit of a weakness and she was out.

Maybe I should have taken a Miltown that morning. Or maybe it was best that I didn’t. I could second guess for days. All I knew was that I was not going to faint over a needle. At least I had that.

My nurse came back to me, brushing her hands off. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s quite all right.” I turned my chair so the woman who had fainted was outside my line of sight. She must be mortified. The least I could do was try to minimize her embarrassment by pretending not to have noticed.

Mrs. Rhode had good technique with the needle, and I barely felt it go in, past the initial sting. The glistening steel tube stuck out of my arm like someone had welded a fuselage to me.

Was it completely necessary for me to watch her? No. But I wanted to be sure she knew I wasn’t afraid. “You must be fatigued, with all of us to go through.”

She shrugged. “It’s better than the men. Ever tried taking a medical history from a pilot? They’ve apparently never been ill and were born through immaculate conception.”

I laughed. It was shockingly loud. “You know we’re all pilots, right?”

“Yeah.” She pulled the tube of blood off the needle and capped it. “But they were all indoctrinated with the fact that an illness would get them grounded.”

“Ah … the brass didn’t pay as much attention to the WASPs.” I took the gauze she handed me and pressed it against the crook of my elbow when she withdrew the needle. “So … what’s next?”

“Just a few questions.” She jotted my name on the vial of blood and stuck it in a tray. Picking up a clipboard from the low cart, she pulled a pen from her uniform pocket.

The questions were all standard and dull. My last period. History of illness. Pregnancies. Allergies.

“What medications are you currently taking?”

That one stopped me. I hadn’t taken a Miltown this morning, and even when I did, it wasn’t really for an illness. That’s what she was trying to find out about, right?

“Mrs. York?”

“Does aspirin count? Or vitamin C?” I chewed my lower lip, trying to make it look like I wasn’t being a Pilot with a capital P. But goddamn it, I wasn’t going to let my anxiety ground me. “And there’s Dristan when I can’t shake a cough.”

She shook her head. “I just need to know about things you take on a regular basis.”

“Oh. Well, there’s nothing, then.” And that was true. Right?

*

The second day, I wore a pants suit and tennis shoes. Entering the hospital lobby, it became clear that I was not the only one to change their wardrobe strategy. Once I checked in, the receptionist directed me to a lobby on the second floor.

This room had wooden chairs lining the walls and another row, back to back, down the center. A single ivy plant struggled in the corner near the window, as if it could escape the bland white walls. The chairs were occupied by more women in trousers than I’d previously seen in my life.

Nicole spotted me and waved me over. She sat with Betty and two other women I hadn’t met yet: Irene Leverton, a rancher’s daughter, and Sarah Gorelick, a mother of eight.

Sarah laughed at what must have been a priceless look on my face. “I get that all the time. The way I figure it, if I can survive eight children, space is nothing.”

Nicole leaned forward to put a hand on my arm. “Did you hear? They’ve eliminated three of us already.”

“I know one woman fainted.”

“Plus another for anemia, and … they say that Maggie had a heart murmur.” She arched an eyebrow suggestively.

Maggie, the only Chinese candidate, just “happened” to have a previously undiagnosed heart murmur. Ida would be livid when I told her tonight.

An orderly with a clipboard appeared at the entrance to the lobby. “York, Coleman, Hurrle, and Steadman.”

“See you later.” I waved the little group a cheery farewell and joined the other three women. The orderly led us down a hall and dropped us each off at a different room. Mine was a small room, with an examination chair, as if for an eye doctor.

It smelled of sweat, and a tinge of vomit. I suddenly became very glad that I’d spent the last month exercising to get ready for this. Which led me to wonder where Hershel was right now. He should be arriving in South Carolina to meet Aunt Esther soon.