Now that Landon had been cleared for the mission, she enjoyed some well-earned downtime. For Landon downtime tended not to involve anything a normal person might consider relaxing. But she was on a mission that did not involve the space shuttle. She spent our last few days in Houston sequestered in the library, immersed in satellite photos at the LandSat Images terminal. She could cover so much more ground so much faster than she could flying the Beaver. She was actually mad at herself for never having thought to research this angle before. I reminded her that being an official astronaut granted her privileges not accorded to average citizens, let alone to reclusive doctor bush pilots living on a remote wilderness lake in the wilds of Canada.
I brought her coffee and sandwiches. I used a second terminal to explore the terrain just beyond the potential flight range of Hugh Percival’s Beaver, just in case. Several times we found a grouping of trees that were standing one day and lying flat the next. They could have been hit by a plane, but further investigation dashed the theory. In each case when we looked at the same site the day after, more trees were down. It was loggers cutting down trees, not a Beaver knocking down trees. The librarian was sympathetic and let us stay well past closing time. But the hours of searching still yielded nothing, beyond cramped legs and a tender tush.
Eight weeks and three days after arriving in Houston, Landon, Eugene, Kelly Bradstreet, and I boarded a flight for Orlando. We were headed for the Kennedy Space Center, the shuttle’s launch and landing site. It was real. This was actually going to happen. In a few days, Landon Percival was going to blast into space and orbit the Earth aboard the International Space Station for more than a week and then land back at Kennedy. When I’d first concocted the idea of putting citizens in space, I was just trying to survive my first day in a new career. I never dreamed it might actually happen. I looked over at Landon in the window seat. She looked every one of her seventy-one years, until she smiled. Then she looked about eighty-three as the smile animated her face, revealing smaller creases nestled into their larger host wrinkles. It was a veritable wrinkle-fest. But she just beamed all the time. I glanced at Eugene, sitting on the aisle. He had come a long way in eight weeks, too. He’d started out as an arrogant, right-wing, conceited jerk who viewed Landon, and everything about her, with undisguised disdain bordering on contempt. Now, as the launch approached, he seemed to have evolved into an arrogant, right-wing, conceited jerk who had come to accept, respect, and even enjoy Landon, largely through her own generosity towards him. I still thought he was an ass, but Landon would hear none of it.
I’d met regularly with Kelly Bradstreet throughout the eight weeks, and we always seemed to be on the same wavelength. I thought very highly of her and had actually grown quite fond of her. She was tough, intelligent, and committed, and had little time for politics and game-playing. The Citizen Astronaut program would never have flown without her dedication and patience. NASA would not have touched this idea with a ten-foot booster rocket without her formidable powers of persuasion. Lately, she’d taken to calling me DS. I’d never had a nickname, other than Dorkpants back in public school, and it kind of made me feel like a big shot (the DS I mean, not Dorkpants).
As I sat on the plane flanked by Landon and Eugene, my thoughts eventually turned to Amanda. She’d been on my mind a lot, recently. Yes, we’d gotten off on the wrong foot on that first day in the boardroom, for which I felt responsible. But we were now well past first impressions. We “liaised” professionally nearly every day, ostensibly to coordinate the ongoing media relations and social media programs. But in the last few weeks, we seemed to have moved beyond “liaising” to actually talking, like normal human beings. Our conversations had grown longer and longer, and further and further away from the Citizen Astronaut program. We were no longer two PR professionals “liaising” about work. We seemed to have become just two friends yakking with one another about whatever was on our minds. It happened so gradually that I barely noticed. I wondered if she had. It had all become so comfortable. I chatted to Landon about it all, and she listened patiently as I tried to work out if something was, you know, going on. She posed a few questions that helped focus my thinking, but I really wasn’t very good at picking up on signs and interpreting signals. Given my limited experience in matters of the heart, apart from a few short-lived romances in Ottawa, I missed everything subtler than a two-by-four to the forehead.
We broke below the cloud cover and Orlando bloomed below. Without warning, Landon knocked me out of my romantic reverie with a hard elbow jab to my chest, nearly winding me.
“Wake up!” she said. “We are T-minus three minutes to touchdown.”
“And I am T-minus two minutes to normal respiration,” I wheezed, rubbing my ribs.
“Come on, I barely touched you.”
As soon as we reached the Kennedy Space Center, Landon and Eugene joined Commander Hainsworth, Martine Juneau, and the rest of the crew of the Space Shuttle Aeres, and my responsibilities as Landon’s chaperone effectively ended. It felt weird. I’d been attached to her for more than two months. Now she was gone, off with her fancy new astronaut friends, and I was all alone, kicked to the sidelines. I felt a little bereft. I know. I’m pathetic. I knew it was going to happen, and intellectually, it all made sense. They grow up so fast. But it did feel strange to be on my own as the launch loomed.
The next afternoon, Kelly Bradstreet stood at the podium and introduced each mission crew member as they filed in and took their places along the table at the front. Their official mission crest served as the backdrop. The news conference was set up like every other pre-launch mission briefing, except this time, two civilians were up on the risers as full members of the Aeres crew. The room was packed with reporters and camera crews. Many of the networks had sent their heavyweight reporters and even a few anchors to cover the news conference and subsequent launch. Kelly introduced Scott Chandler, and the aging rocket jockey mounted the steps and stood at the microphone.
“Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming,” he began. “As you can see, our crew for this important mission, under Lee Hainsworth’s command, has a slightly different composition from our typical lineup. I am very pleased to announce formally what you probably already know. Both of our citizen astronauts, Mr. Eugene Crank from Wilkers, Texas, and Dr. Landon Percival from Cigar Lake, Canada, have successfully completed our training program and have been officially cleared for the mission. They have not had an easy ride. The training program is challenging, demanding, and at times even gruelling. I’m impressed with their tenacity, their energy and enthusiasm, and their dedication to the mission. As one of the original Apollo astronauts, I freely admit that I was skeptical that civilians could be, or even should be, trained to the required level to fly such a mission as this. Mr. Crank and Dr. Percival have altered my view. I wish them well on their once-in-a-lifetime voyage. And it should be noted for history’s sake that tomorrow, Dr. Landon Percival will become the oldest woman and the second-oldest human being ever to venture into space. Godspeed.”
Landon’s eyes were glistening but she was calm and still smiling. On instinct, I started to applaud. Eventually, Kelly, the mission crew, and one reporter joined in. I felt like a bit of an idiot. Journalists don’t attend news conferences to clap. It wasn’t a pep rally or an awards show.
Kelly bounded back up to the mike as Scott Chandler stepped down and took a seat in the front row.
“We’ll hear now from the mission crew,” she announced.
In turn, each member of the Aeres crew pulled the table mike in front of them closer and said a few words. The real astronauts all spoke beautifully about what the mission meant to them. Martine Juneau delivered part of her remarks in French. I thought the Radio-Canada camera operator at the back was going to have some kind of an excitement-induced seizure. French was rarely spoken at NASA pre-launch briefings. Then Landon spoke.
“I have a few more miles on me than my crew mates, so I am just so grateful for the rare chance to fly this mission and fulfil what has been a lifelong dream. I’ve been a pilot since I was thriteen years old. I learned how to fly from my father, Dr. Hugh Percival. He often called me ‘Sky’ because I was seldom looking anywhere else. To this day, whenever I fly my float plane through the remote reaches of British Columbia, I want to fly higher. Tomorrow it looks like I will. And I expect it will be the single greatest moment in what has been so far a wonderful and rewarding life, with few regrets.
“I want to thank Scott Chandler, Kelly Bradstreet, and NASA for putting up with an old broad in orange coveralls, and for having the courage to train and clear me for this mission. They certainly did not take the easy way out. And I like to think I know a thing or two about rejecting the path of least resistance. But I know they chose the right path. I’m sorry if it put several NASA lawyers on stress leave, but they’ll be fine when we’re back safely on the ground in nine days. I’d also like to thank my friend and shadow, David Stewart, who, for some reason, had faith in me, almost from the very start. I don’t think I’d be sitting here this afternoon were it not for him.
“I think I’ve taxed your time enough. May I just say that I’ve really enjoyed working so closely with my friend and fellow traveller, Eugene Crank. And I am more grateful than I can ever express to be warming a seat on the Aeres alongside such an impressive group of men and women.”
On her closing line, she reached over and grabbed Eugene’s hand, lifted it up in the air, and gave it a little shake. I withdraw my earlier statement that reporters don’t clap at news conferences. It seems they do sometimes.
When the room settled, it was Eugene’s turn. He pulled the mike so close to him you’d think he’d mistaken it for an ice cream cone. Then he blew into it to make sure it was on. The screaming feedback from his mouth-to-mike resuscitation answered his question and he pushed it back a bit until the squeal was squelched. Poor guy.
“Um. Hi, y’all. I just wanted to say that other than getting shot at by some punk robbing a gas station in ’07, this is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. The training wasn’t that tough but there were a couple of rough patches. Sometimes you get surprised by who helps you out. Um, I guess I’ll see y’all on the other side … I mean when we land.”
He eagerly pushed the mike away from him. Landon patted his hand. Kelly then opened the floor for questions. No one asked Eugene anything. A few reporters asked the mission commander about the launch and the work they’d be doing on the space station. But most of the questions were for Landon. Even though I’d warned her, I’m not sure she was expecting to be the focus on attention. But she handled it all like a pro. I wondered again how someone who had lived alone for most of her life could seem so at ease and be so articulate. When I asked her later, she wasn’t really sure but credited her daily one-sided conversations with her missing father, and her love of reading. She also reminded me that she had briefly practised medicine in Vancouver in the late sixties and so had daily contact with lots of patients. Right. The late sixties, when she was not yet thirty years old. Right. I just figured it was an innate gift.
Kelly called for a final question and pointed to CNN’S Ali Velshi. He rose.
“Dr. Percival, in your comments earlier you said you’d lived, and I quote, ‘a wonderful and rewarding life, with few regrets.’ What are those regrets?”
Landon’s near-permanent smile seemed to me to turn wistful, and she nodded her head almost imperceptibly.
“Well, I don’t have many,” she responded. “It’s simple, really. The regrets I carry revolve around people I’m missing. And I’ll just leave it at that.”
Commander Hainsworth and the rest of his crew were whisked out. Landon looked my way but I was on the other side of a very crowded room. She smiled and waved. I waved and mouthed “Good luck” in return. She gave me a thumbs-up and was out the door, dwarfed by Eugene Crank walking in front of her.
I helped Kelly mop up from the newser, providing background info to a few reporters still in the room as they pieced their stories together.
“Nice job, Kelly,” I said when the reporters had all left. “Who wrote Chandler’s remarks?”
“Who do you think wrote them?” she said, grinning.
“They were nice words and he read them well. He almost sounded as if he meant it.”
“Thank you. I worked hard on them. They were even better before he toned some of it down,” she replied. “You did a nice job on Landon’s.”
“I take no credit for her words. They were all hers, and extemporaneous too, I think.”
Kelly smiled and shook her head. She looked over my shoulder towards the door.
“Gotta go. Have a good time tonight,” she said with a wink and a wave, as she hustled to catch up with the crew for a final communications briefing. Good time?
The technicians were almost finished their tear-down, coiling cords and stowing microphones.
“Well, I guess my work here is done,” I said to no one in particular. I grabbed my papers and turned for the door.
“Hello, stranger,” she said, standing in the doorway. Her smile was one I hadn’t seen before. Of course I’d often seen her smile, but this one was somehow different.
“Amanda! What are you doing here? How did you get here? Is anything wrong?” I spewed.
“Whoa. You got to read me my rights before the interrogation.”
She was still smiling.
“Sorry. I’m just shocked, and, um, and happy, to see you,” I sputtered, which was a small step up from spewing.
“I figured after what you’ve been through for the last couple of months, you deserved some company for the launch,” she explained. “Diane suggested I come down to lend a hand. So, I just landed, dumped my stuff in my room, and here I am, a hand ready to lend.”
“Well, this is great. It’s really nice to see you, and to have you here,” I rambled, another step up from sputtering. “And your timing is impeccable. We’re off the clock now. With the crew finally all together, the NASA communications team takes over. I’ll be in Launch Control in the morning in case Landon has any last-second issues, which she won’t. But other than that, we’re done. I can see if I can get you into Launch Control, too.”
“I already spoke to Kelly. No dice. We’re lucky to have one person in there. But she got me a spot in the VIP viewing box outside.”
“I’m envious. You’ll get a better view from there. In fact, you’ll actually be able to feel the launch from there. I’ll be watching it on a computer monitor in a windowless room in what kind of looks like a concrete bunker.”
“Yeah, but not many people can say they’ve done that.”
“So, how about dinner?” I asked, wondering if I sounded like a work colleague.
Without a rental car, our dining options were limited at the Kennedy Space Center. We rejected the G-Force Grill, Space Dots, and the Moon Rock Café (I kid you not), and opted for the nicest of the bunch, the Orbit Café. There were lots of tourists and school tours still milling about when we headed in for an early dinner. I briefly worried that the entrées might come in squeeze tubes. They didn’t. Actually the menu wasn’t bad. But I really don’t remember much about the food. Amanda and I just started talking again as we had almost every night for the past month. Except, this time she was sitting directly across from me, not sitting on the phone thirteen hundred miles away. Being able to look at her as we chatted was nice. Very nice. We talked and laughed, then talked and laughed some more. We covered a broad range of topics from Canadian politics to cooking, world travel to favourite comedians, the skin-shedding habits of the albino leopard gecko to Sherlock Holmes. The three and a half hours we spent in the Orbit Café passed in a blur. The next ten hours we spent in my room passed a little more slowly.
I barely noticed the first knock. But I heard the second. It was still dark outside. I pulled on a pair of sweat pants and padded to the door.
“ ‘The game is afoot,’ ” whispered Landon.
“ ‘The Adventure of the Abbey Grange,’ ” I mumbled, still getting my bearings.
“Good boy,” she replied. “Even half asleep you’ve still got it.”
The light from the corridor spilled into my room. She looked past me and saw a head of blonde hair spilled across the pillow. My pillow.
“Is that Amanda?” Landon asked.
“Yes, I guess it is,” I answered a little sheepishly.
“Wonderful, David! See, you were right!”
She actually punched me in the arm like a teenage roommate might.
I looked at the digital clock on the nightstand and it suddenly dawned on me that Landon was not supposed to be standing at my door at 5:45 in the morning.
“You can’t be here now, you’re supposed to be in pre-launch prep,” I hissed.
“Don’t fret. I’ve been there already and I’m heading back there now. Martine is in the getaway car in the parking lot,” explained Landon. “I simply could not suit up and climb aboard the Aeres without thanking you for all you’ve done to put me there. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t worked your magic at the beginning and held my hand through all of this. Without you, some other Canadian would be on board the shuttle this morning, and I’d be moping around with Hector back at the lake. Whatever else happens, I’ll never ever forget what you’ve done for me.”
She hugged me for a long time and I was actually tearing up as she pulled away and trotted back down the corridor. I think she was, too. In the dimness, she looked like a twelve-year-old running off to play, not a seventy-one-year-old bush pilot doctor from Cigar Lake bound for the space station in Earth orbit.
The first faint inkling of morning light glowed in the eastern sky. Amanda slept. I just stood there for a while, too content to move.
Launch Control at the Kennedy Space Center was housed in a low-rise white building. Inside action central, banks of monitors and computers were arrayed on a white tile floor. About thirty or so members of the Aeres launch team huddled at their respective stations. The launch director sat nearly at the centre of it all, but he was supported by many others, including the flow director, the tank/booster test conductor, the payload test conductor, the launch processing system coordinator, the shuttle project engineer, and the ground launch sequencer engineer, among many more impressive people, each with their own impressive titles. I was stationed at a very small console at the very back of the room. My job was to stay out of the way and watch the monitor in front of me. If Landon had any problems, I was there to help. I kind of wanted a cool complicated title that no one could decipher, just like everyone else in the room. But it was not forthcoming. Besides, I knew I was very lucky just to have been given a seat in Launch Control. I kept my eyes open and my yap shut.
My monitor had a split screen. One shot showed the inside of the shuttle cabin and the other was the standard NASA outside video feed of the launch pad. The clock said T-minus 36 minutes to launch. On my screen, I could see Landon in her seat. She sat perfectly still. I couldn’t see Eugene, as he was not seated on the flight deck, but below. I pulled on the headset plugged into my console and could then hear the standard pre-launch exchanges between Aeres and Launch Control. I watched and listened. All seemed well.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. I pulled off the headset and turned to face a man in white coveralls and white hat that made him look a little like a short-order fry cook. I recognized him from the suit-up drills.
“You David Stewart?”
“The one and only,” I replied.
“Dr. Percival tried to smuggle this on board in her suit, but we caught it,” he said. “You’re not supposed to bring anything bigger than a rabbit’s foot on the shuttle, and even then, it has to be approved first. We had to take it from her. She was not pleased, but she insisted I give it to you to hold onto until she’s back.”
He handed me a whitish opaque plastic bag. I took it and nodded. After he’d gone, I opened the bag and pulled out the soft leather notebook that served as Dr. Hugh Percival’s diary and flight log. I held it in my hands feeling the years, the flights, and the mystery within. I opened it, turned the well-thumbed pages, and re-read his last entry.
At T-minus 15 minutes to launch, a young woman sat down in the seat next to me and started working the buttons and switches on her console. Her screen flickered to life with what looked like weather maps. I leaned over.
“I’m David Stewart, I’m the pest control coordinator.”
She had the grace to chuckle.
“I know who you are,” she replied. “Sandra Evans, launch meteorology.”
I looked at her monitor and thought I understood what was playing out on the screen.
“So you’re in charge of scrubbing the mission if there’s lightning in the area?”
“I guess you could say that. But we’re good to go today. Skies are clear and the winds are light.”
I saw “SWW” flashing on her screen with a number beside it.
“What does that mean?” I asked and pointed.
“Southwest winds,” she replied.
“Right.”
I watched her work a little longer and was just about to turn back to my own screen when the SWW changed to SW. It had a familiarity about it. And there it was. It arrived like a speeding freight train. Suddenly, I knew. I was certain. I yanked open the leather notebook and re-read Hugh Percival’s final entry again, and then once more. We were five minutes from launch. I grabbed my BlackBerry and scrolled through my contacts. I found the name I was seeking and wrote an email to a guy I knew who worked at Environment Canada. I asked him a very simple question, and then hit Send. I was calm. Somehow, I was sure.
I put my headphones back on for the big show. On my screen, they had started the shower of sparks directly beneath the gaping mouths of the shuttle’s main engines. For years I’d thought this was how they fired up the engines. It seemed a rather primitive technique. I did the same thing whenever I hit the starter button on my gas barbecue, and I had the singed eyebrows to prove it. In fact, I learned that the spark shower was merely there to burn off any stray gases beneath the engine nozzles. We were at T-minus one minute, 25 seconds. My thoughts turned to Amanda, then to Landon, then to her father’s notebook, and then back to Amanda. Landon now.
The always sedate voice of Launch Control brought me back. It was time.
“Sound suppression water system has been armed,” I heard in my headset.
“We have a go for auto-sequence start.”
“Aeres computers have primary control.”
I couldn’t sit for this. I stood up, turning my headset into a floorset. By the time I picked it up and pulled it back on, we were in the final seconds. My whole body was rigid with excitement. I hugged myself and bent over, my eyes glued to the monitor. At T minus 15 seconds, I watched the screen as Martine Juneau offered her gloved hand to Landon. She held it briefly in an “all for one, one for all” kind of moment.
“11, 10, 9, we are go for main engine start, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, booster ignition and lift-off of the Space Shuttle Aeres carrying two intrepid citizen astronauts on an unforgettable ride to space.”
This was not the slow lumbering lift-off of the old Apollo Saturn V rocket. Aeres practically leapt into the air. Soon I could hear the roar outside as the sound of the shuttle thundered across the land from the launch pad. On the monitor, I could see Landon and her crew mates shaking in their seats with the massive power of the launch.
“Houston now has control.”
Suddenly everybody relaxed in Launch Control. Their job was now done. As soon as the shuttle cleared the tower, Mission Control in Houston took over. I watched as people pulled back just slightly from their consoles, but their eyes remained fixed on their screens. The Aeres commander and Mission Control continued their dialogue in unaccountably calm voices.
“Roll program go.”
“Good roll program confirmed.”
I watched on the screen as the shuttle rolled, orienting itself for the eight-and-a-half-minute flight to orbit. Landon was still vibrating in her seat. Then again, she’d been shaking with excitement for the previous week.
“Engines throttling down now, at 95 per cent.”
“Engines now at 65 per cent.”
I knew the sequence, what was supposed to happen, and when. I waited to hear the fateful words. They came at about the one-minute mark. I watched Landon as I heard them, but there was no discernable reaction.
“Aeres, Houston, go at throttle up.”
“Roger, go at throttle up.”
No space buff can hear those words without wincing and waiting. It was very shortly after “throttle up” that the Challenger exploded over the Atlantic back in ’86, losing the crew, including a teacher from New Hampshire. It was the only time an “average citizen” had flown on a shuttle, until today. I winced and waited. All was well. Everyone was calm as Aeres streaked across the sky.
Thanks to the camera mounted on the external fuel tank, I watched as the solid rocket boosters were jettisoned, arcing away from Aeres on either side.
“SRB separation. You are clear.”
“Copy that, Houston. SRB separation and clear.”
“Aeres, Houston. Negative return.”
“Houston, we copy, Negative return.”
That meant the shuttle could no longer make the dead-stick glide back to the Kennedy Space Center. They were headed into orbit.
At 8:31 into the flight, the thrill of the launch was all but over.
“Aeres, Houston, go for main engine cut-off.”
“Copy that, Houston. Main engine cut-off confirmed.”
“External tank separation. Clear.”
“Confirmed, Houston. External tank separation and clear.”
“Aeres, Houston, you are confirmed in orbit, right where you’re supposed to be. A picture-perfect flight and parking job.”
After rocketing into outer space and coasting to exactly the right position in Earth orbit, it somehow seemed inadequate to have the feat acknowledged with a simple “Copy that, Houston.”
I should have given Commander Hainsworth another few seconds before passing judgment.
“Houston, you’ve got a grateful crew up here. Thanks for the ride.”
A few minutes passed, then the Aeres crew started disembarking from their pressurized space suits. It was fun watching this process. It would be hard in zero-G to wriggle out of gym shorts. It was a Herculean challenge to extricate oneself from the clumsy orange space suits. While the flight deck only seated four astronauts, Eugene floated up into view from his seat below. He kept crashing into the walls, ceiling, seats, and other crew members as he jerked and wiggled his way free. I made a note to upload that sequence to YouTube, perhaps accompanied by the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. You could certainly tell the experienced astronauts from the rookies. Martine very quickly, and without even seeming to move, slipped out of her suit and stowed it. Landon, who had watched as Eugene had flown aimlessly and helplessly around the cabin, wisely anchored herself in her seat while she doffed her suit. Underneath, the crew wore light pants and short-sleeved shirts of a tan colour.
So it was done. I’d watched dozens of shuttle launches but none held my attention quite like the Aeres launch. I glanced at Landon still strapped in. She wasn’t moving much, but neither was anyone else. I knew her mind and heart would be racing. She was in space. The fulfilment of a dream. And it was just starting.
I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I wouldn’t be able to speak to Landon for several hours yet. NASA had granted us two short windows each day where I could talk to her after they docked with, and were safely aboard, the International Space Station. I didn’t feel my usual self. I was so pumped up from everything. I felt like punching the air and shouting at the top of my lungs, but I restrained myself. If anyone had paid any attention to my hopping and prancing around, I probably would have been escorted from the building straight into the office of the onsite psychiatrist. My vibrating BlackBerry brought me back. I looked at the screen, then punched the green button.
“Minister, what a surprise.”
“David, I just had to call. I expected to get your voicemail, so it’s wonderful to catch you. You must be tickled. She made it. She’s there. She’s really in space,” the Minister of Science and Technology said. “We watched the whole thing live here in the office. It was thrilling.”
“It’s even better witnessing it from here in the crucible. It was astonishing. And Minister, thanks so much for your call to Landon yesterday. It meant a lot to her.”
“Well, thank you for suggesting it. I was delighted to wish her bon voyage.”
We chatted for a few more minutes, but then she had to go.
I hung up, and then dialled Amanda.
“Hey. How was it from outside?” I asked.
“Hey, David. Hi. I’m still trembling. It was unbelievable. My whole body is still shaking.”
“It’s kind of you to say, but I’m not really asking about last night,” I said. “I meant the launch.”
She laughed.
“Oh, you meant the launch. Right,” Amanda played along. “Well, the launch was almost as exciting. You can actually feel it when the sound wave finally hits you. And the noise was fearsome. I wish you’d been here to see it.”
“Well, I wish I’d been there, too. But it was pretty cool being inside Launch Control for the lift-off,” I replied. “So, um, how are you feeling now about everything in the harsh light of day?”
Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. But I heard every word even as I held my breath.
“Are we back to last night, now?” she asked.
“Well, yes, I guess we are,” I said, noticing how hard it is to speak when you’re holding your breath.
“Just making sure. Well then, David, I’m happy to report that I feel great. I really do. It all feels right to me. No second thoughts. No reservations. Nothing but good feelings.”
“What a coincidence. Me too. I’m tired but I feel wonderful,” I replied, feeling warm and giddy. “And the Aeres launch wasn’t bad either.”
“Yeah, the launch was amazing. And all those people who went to lunch instead are nutbars.”