Two spacesuit techs fussed over me in the Suit Room, pulling and adjusting and snapping, until I looked bulky and bright. The room smelled fresh and new, though each piece of reupholstered furniture was its nostalgic, meaningful self. Despite pressure from Sparks and some other space sultans, The Talent—the astronauts—insisted on keeping everything as simple as ever, the rooms a step up from college dorms, the doors and halls this side of industrial, the conference and meeting rooms corporate but casual.
“Possum’s Fargo?” Randi said. He looked at me with those empty wells.
“You betcha,” Betty Waldo said. “Randi won’t let us leave without it.”
A card game like poker, Possum’s Fargo was a pre-launch tradition, I learned, but usually with more crew to play. Betty gave me the basics. The techs, crew concierge, Randi, and I shuffled and dealt. Betty looked at all the hands.
“Three of a kind. Looks like Randi won,” she announced. And everyone capitulated. With a full house, I looked at her.
“You want the face?” she whispered.
A few more hands went the same way. “The luck of the A. Irish,” I quipped.
“I am gonna remember that,” Betty said.
After hugs and well-wishes from the crew quarters staff, Betty, the crew concierge and a camerawoman accompanied Randi and I to the elevator, down the corridor, and toward the Operation and Check (O & C) building’s famous double doors. Betty put a pair of dark sunglasses on Randi “for obvious reasons,” she said. He tried to stop her and take them off.
“Randi,” she admonished. “He hates them,” she told me. “But tough titty.”
“What am I gonna do without you?” I asked.
“You’ll be just fine.”
Randi in front, we walked outside and it hit me. Sunshine, press, my family, my team, behind a low barricade, cheering, waving, selfie-snapping, thumbs upping. I stopped, waved back, smiled, lingered. Randi got well ahead of me, waving too, looking oddly cool in his shades.
“Jennifer,” the crew concierge nudged. “There’s like twenty thousand people out there. Can’t keep your fans waiting.” Let alone the scheduled launch.
I walked alongside the AstroVan, a vintage 1983 Air Stream motor home, saw a few dents, original chrome, and new logos. At its door, I lingered too long again. But this time my prodders had mercy. I saw Jeri next to David and Ron; Malachi with his parents and sitter (he would not be watching the launch, I was sure); Lexi and her folks, actually standing together. Nathaniel Hawthorn, talking to Dr. Marcum and grinning. Dr. Cooper did a long-distance fist bump. Next to Parada, Dr. Levitt blew me a kiss. I gave a final wave and turned and entered the first leg of my journey. The Astro Van smelled clean and new, but simple, original, and calm.
“Hopefully, that’s the only space walk you’ll have to do,” Betty said at the door. “Oh—you got a message.” She took a slip of paper out of her pocket and handed it to me. “Old fashioned, but when you can’t have a cell phone—”
“Shine, Shock Diamond, shine,” it read. “I Love You! Mom.” Of all the things and people I’d had on my mind, she was at the top. I love you, too.
Betty shut the door and a squadron of squad cars and escort vehicles started moving in front of us. I looked out the window at a sign, “We’re Behind You, Deep Space Gateway!” where a slender banner crossed the last three words with “Jennifer!” We passed cheering, flag-waving crowds, some holding Crimsy renditions that ranged from bad to bold, hundreds of people lining the roads. By the time we got to ICBM Road, named for the missiles tested here decades ago, the crowds had disappeared. It was a barren expanse, a lonely final farewell before we passed the Mercury 7 monument, in honor of John Glenn and crew. We passed Glenn’s parking spot and through the gates to the Complex 14 launch pad. I’d been here for a rehearsal, but decided to save discussing it for the real thing.
More fussing, more directions, so much help I barely needed to do anything myself. The Space Chaise was in its launch and upright position, on top of the rocket and booster instead of alongside, a huge safety boost over the old Space Shuttle design. Randi went ahead of me to the tower and up, across steely corridors and causeways, past steam jets and dry ice, packed so thickly on coolant pipes you could grab handfuls of it like snow. I looked across Canaveral’s waters and saw the crowds and knew that at the press site, my fam and team were gathering. I ducked through the shuttle hatch and gazed at the perfectly-positioned, expertly-secured jigsaw puzzle before me: our equipment, other supplies, not a centimeter to spare. More checks and re-checks and secure seat-belting and people on radios with Mission Control. I looked over at Randi, who didn’t need a helmet. He took off his shades and looked at me with those empty pools and I turned away and rolled my eyes.
“Ready?” he said.
“I hope.”
“Hang on.”
Hang the fuck on, you mean. “Cleared for launch,” I heard.
The countdown commenced, the rockets flared, we started rising, and then we TOOK OFF. It was the scariest, most exhilarating, most amazing, inner space-jarring thing I knew I would ever experience. It felt like not just my teeth but my entire face was plastered against the back of my head. I tried to restrain saying anything, worried about triggering The Face. But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t, and I held forth with the loudest, longest “Holy Shit” ever (at least, on Earth). Randi remained ironically calm. The launch went on forever. I mean that. I thought it would never end. Then when it did with a whimper, I was still so petrified I couldn’t even think, as voices through my helmet speakers rattled off next steps.
“First stage, methane booster, separate.”
Just words, had no idea what the hell they meant in my rattled state of mind. The shuttle slowed, I felt something going on behind us, then whatever was dragging dropped. I looked out the window and saw the edges of the rocket we left behind.
“Want to watch it head back?” Randi said. He did something with the controls and Space Chaise turned, bringing the separated rocket into view, maneuvering, rotating, adjusting, on its way back to Canaveral, intact and reusable. The Space Chaise returned to its course.
“Hang on,” Randi said.
The second stage rocket accelerated us forward, plastering my body against the seat. As the thrust mellowed, I looked out the window, bathing my senses in that beautiful blue and white orb filling our horizon. The pictures, they told us in training, never do it justice. What an understatement.
Another countdown started in my helmet. “Five, four, three...second stage...separation—” and other technical jargon announcing the end of the fuel in our second, smaller rocket, which would also use auxiliary tanks to return home for reuse.
“Everything’s reusable,” the mantra of the space sultans. I looked at Randi and wondered if he was reusable, recyclable, whatever. I wondered when we humans would be, too. We felt lighter again—can’t describe it any other way. I didn’t see the second stage rocket depart.
“Hang on,” Randi said.
Those two words were taking on countdown-style significance. The twin rear rocket engines ignited with a roar, propelling us forward and smashing me into the seat again, which armrests I grabbed for dear life, trying to smile through gritted teeth, trying to be mom’s shining Shock Diamond and Ali’s safe friend. One thing I noticed, and it meant a lot—my ears weren’t bothering me. Other than being scared shit-less and knowing my life was over and my falling star would scatter in the sky, I felt great.
“You want music?” Randi said.
Music?
“Look at the screen,” he said. I looked at my visor where the Top 40 started scrolling: Fabulous Baker Girls, Sloopy, Houndstooth, The Afterburners (apropos, that), Nete Freke, Jess Two, She Rex, The PomCats, Winnie Bagel, Gilmore Guys...Genesis?
My grandma’s favorite band. Never a pop groupie, I said it reflexively.
“Sounds good,” Randi said. I looked out the window, at Earth’s transcendent blue.
A guitar riff I’d heard on our car trips. Old-school synthesizer. A bounding kettle drum. Home by the Sea. Home by the Sea.
“Will be there when song is over,” Randi said.
I don’t know. Guess I wasn’t thinking. But I asked, “Where?”
“Home.”
I closed my eyes and tried to relax, darkness in front of me, brightness behind. I never went to sleep, just skittered the edges. Noticed Randi tapping his hands to the song. I felt the ship decelerate and that’s what prompted me to open my eyes. They adjusted to the dark. I blinked. Sat up, as far as the seat restraints let me. Sat up, and fixed my gaze.
“Oh...my...God.” So cliché, but…
“Deep Space Gateway,” Randi said.
I turned to him. “Already?”
“Fast trip.”
The gravity wheel, five or six football fields high; the crew modules; the Canadarms; the solar collectors, cast in spectacular, brilliant glory against Earthen blue, Solar gold, and the magnifying effect of my helmet shield.
“Hang on,” Randi said.
I grabbed the armrests. Were we gonna crash?
“Just kidding,” he said.
The chaise gradually, delicately slowed. I felt a mild acceleration as it turned a one eighty, and again, as it backed into its docking port. The engines shut down, Genesis faded to a synthesized twinkle. I heard the airlocks engage, which meant we—I—could breathe on my own. Randi released his restraints and I released mine.
“Ooh, whoa!” I floated up and hit the ceiling.
He grabbed my leg and pulled me back into my seat. I unlocked my helmet and took it off while he held me. Then I saw him looking at me—if you can call it that—in a strange way.
“Welcome to Deep Space Gateway, Jennifer,” Captain Hightower said on the intercom. “And Replicated Artificial—”
“Don’t call me that,” Randi interrupted.
The fun was fixin’ to continue.