CAPE KENNEDY, FLORIDA, 1969
It was in the aquatic green light of the simulator that their old lives returned to them, slipping right on like something tailored.
Only that once had they spoken the word, her name, the sound like one your body made, though it had been clear, when Anderson had asked—Hey, weren’t you two at Edwards at the same time?—that their nods yes had been a thought of her, Rusty of some act she’d denied him, Vincent of some closing conversation she had never granted. That he should share his trip to the moon with Rusty, Vincent thought, was a good play on the part of fate, vicious but not without its humor.
Through the two triangular windows of the lunar module simulator, a televised image of the moon grew clearer in detail. He stood with his hand light and alert on the toggle that controlled the speed and cant of their descent, his glutes taut, his knees bent imperceptibly inside his full suit.
The lunar module—they called it the lem—would fly facedown, their bodies parallel to the lunar surface, 3,800 miles an hour, as Vincent observed the craters and boulders and gentle concavities. When he saw it, when he identified the place that was smooth and clean and would gracefully receive them, he would right the contraption, with its three spindly legs, and begin to float moonward. He spent every red light and hot shower and commercial break considering it, reviewed the procedure while lathering his face with shaving cream, during staccato sex with his faraway wife.
The second man on the moon was not the honorific Rusty had imagined. It was clear in every gesture that he wanted his hands on the controls, not his voice feeding information to the people on earth. It was especially vivid today, the way Rusty bit off the numbers, altitude one hundred eighteen, inclination thirty-three point five, the way he kept his eyes on the button that read LUNAR CONTACT, which would light up blue if all went as planned. When Vincent felt the thruster stick, saw the image of the moon begin to warp and tremble like something in a county fair fun house, he simultaneously knew what was expected of him and that he would not do it.
“Kahn, hit abort,” Rusty said, and then he began hissing it. “Hit abort, hit abort, hit abort.” But Vincent wanted the chance to try, to see what could be done, to watch all the warning lights go on. Because in the communications between moon and earth there would be a delay of one and a third of a second, and because he knew they had replicated that in this simulation, he stole that time to strategize, to consider what had prompted the angry whirl and what would unmake it. When the image of the landing site froze, the Sea of Tranquility before them, when they were meant to imagine the lem had crashed and they would die on the moon, Rusty put his mouth to his right hand, the plane between his thumb and his index finger’s first knuckle, and he bit. Vincent leaned back and closed his eyes and thought of his first contact with space, the X-15 over Edwards, the bend of the horizon against a black as he had never seen: total, and certain, and very briefly his.
THE CREW QUARTERS WHERE THEY spent their days before the launch were spare, practical, built, like everything else NASA had, by experts in a hurry. A dining nook fit four, though there would only ever be three on an Apollo crew, and the vinyl booths were padded but anemically, one of many reminders that comfort was not the objective. Cabinets ran above it on either side, stocked with canned goods approved by the on-site physician, and to the right was a refrigerator filled with steak and with eggs and carbonated drinks donated by companies seeking an astronaut’s endorsement. On the opposite wall of the main room sat a couch, hospital-gown green with teak legs, which was as tasteful and uninviting as all else in that room.
Eugene, who’d insisted on Jeanie from the beginning, tried to save dinner. He had been the obvious choice for the position—to orbit the moon while Vincent and Rusty stepped onto its surface, to wait like no one else had ever waited. Affable, inquisitive, he painted marshy landscapes in his free time, showed up with dabs of browns and greens on his hands, brought their wives pale roses clipped from his own garden. Jokes and stories he kept like they were cherished gemstones or heirlooms, things he knew well and pulled out when the time was right.
Tonight, over the plates of chicken baked in mushroom soup that had been waiting for them in the oven, over the sounds of the forks moving as quickly as possible, Jeanie tried. They hadn’t spoken since the simulator except to say bathroom’s all yours, phone for you, press briefing on the table there.
“So there’s this drunk who approaches a police officer, and he’s wobbling, weaving. Says officer, some fucker has stolen my goddamn car. Officer says, where’djou see it last? The drunk brings up his hand, where he’s been holding something real tight. It was right on the end of this key, the drunk says. Officer says listen, buddy, why don’t you go home, get some rest, sober up. Your car’s still missing in the morning, you come into the station and file a report.”
Jeanie paused, trying to bring the table to him, his palms spread and clean, trying to bring them toward each other, his face lit up by the glow of his cheeks. There was no sound in the room save the tines on the ceramic.
“Listen, the officer says, while you’re at it, pal, for goodness’ sake zip up your pants. Your business is as exposed as a weather vane. And the drunk goes, oh shit—”
Jeanie paused, a fork held aloft now, a scepter.
“They got my girl, too.”
Rusty performed a loud laugh, bringing up a bottle of beer and tilting it in Jeanie’s direction. Vincent scooted out of the booth, a triangle of napkin on his mouth as he stood. He left them without a nod, washed his face without looking in the mirror.
“Must be nice,” he heard Rusty say, “to be the only person who’s ever known anything.”
He waited until his skin was dry to answer, the towel refolded.
“I guess you’ll never know for sure.” He heard Jeanie laugh, then stop himself. The bottle opener again.
He fell asleep thinking of the simulator, his hands curled as they had been on the controls.
In the week before the mission, he dreamt of next to nothing, a room that was nearly blue, a voice he could almost hear.