Edith ignored his explosion of brute force. "Looks pretty," she said, gazing out at the tranquil Gulf. "Between hurricanes, that is."
Grasping the railing beside her with both hands, Jamie tried to force his mind away from the pain and anger. "Ever seen the Pacific?"
"Just on tapes."
"The surf is incredible. This is a milk pond by comparison."
"You ever surf?"
"Not really," he said. "Never had the time for it."
"I like sailing. Got a friend with a Hobie Cat. They’re fun."
Jamie took a deep breath of salt air. "The first time I saw the ocean, I must have been four, five years old. My parents had just moved to Berkeley from New Mexico and I thought the Bay was all the water in the world. Then they took me to the beach and I saw the Pacific. Damned breakers scared the shit out of me."
"What’re y’all gonna do now?" Edith asked, forgetting her diction lessons.
Jamie kept his eyes on the calm water, the ripples of waves riding across the pastel green-blue water to foam briefly against the sand beach. From this height he could barely hear the hiss of the gentle surf.
"Look for a job, I guess."
"At the university or in private industry?"
"What the hell could I do in private industry that a kid ten years younger can’t?" he snapped, then immediately regretted it. More calmly, "University. But not here. I don’t want to be this close to the Mars mission. Not now."
"Up in Austin…?"
"Maybe. California might be better. More likely Albuquerque." He turned to her. "I don’t know. It’s too soon."
"But you’re gonna be leaving."
"Yes. I think so."
He realized that she was trying to hide the pain that she felt. Pulling her to him, Jamie held her tightly. Edith did not cry, but he could feel the tension constricting her body. He wished she would cry. He wished he could himself.
It was two in the morning when the phone call came.
The buzz of the phone jangled Jamie awake instantly, but for several blurry moments he did not know where he was. The phone shrilled again, insistently. He realized Edith was beside him, stirring now, mumbling into her pillow.
His eyes adjusting to the glow of the digital clock on the dresser, Jamie reached across her naked body and lifted the phone from its base.
"Hello."
"James Waterman?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Come now, Jamie, this is Antony Reed, in Star City. Do you have any idea how long it’s taken me to track you down?"
"Christ, it’s two in the morning here. What the hell do you want?"
"DiNardo’s in hospital. A gall bladder attack. He’ll need surgery."
Jamie sat up rigidly in the bed.
"What’s happening?" Edith asked, awake now.
"Did you hear me?" Reed asked. It was the first time that Jamie had ever heard the Englishman sound excited.
"Yes."
"There’s a godawful row going on upstairs. Brumado’s flying in from the States, from what I hear. He wants to meet with the selection board and Dr. Li."
"So Hoffman’s moved up to number one and I’ll be his backup?" Jamie asked, surprised at the tremor in his voice.
"Can’t be certain of anything right now," Reed answered. "The entire question is going to be reviewed this afternoon or Sunday."
"What is it?" Edith was excited now too. "Have they changed their minds?"
"Whatever you do," Reed was saying, "stay in close touch with Houston. You may have to fly out here on Monday. Or perhaps go straight up to the space station. We were supposed to start shipping up there tomorrow, but everything’s been put on hold temporarily."
"Okay," Jamie said shakily. "Thanks for letting me know."
"Nothing to it, old boy. Most of us would much rather have you aboard than that prig Hoffman."
"Thanks."
"Good luck!" The line clicked dead.
"What is it?" Edith asked, sitting up beside him.
Jamie realized his hands were trembling. "Father DiNardo’s been taken sick. He’s going into surgery. It looks like I’ll be going on the mission after all."
"Hot spit!" Edith dove out of the bed and began rummaging in her shoulder bag resting on the chair next to the curtained window. Jamie watched her slim naked figure as she bent over the bag, muttering to herself.
"Hah! Got it!"
She bounced back into the bed with a palm-sized tape recorder in her hand.
"What the hell?" Jamie wondered.
"This is an on-the-scene interview with geologist James Fox Waterman, who has just been informed that he has been selected to be on the team that flies to the planet Mars two months from now."
He laughed, but apparently Edith was completely serious.
"Dr. Waterman, how do you feel about being selected to be part of the first human expedition to the planet Mars?"
Jamie blurted, "Horny. Very horny."
He took the tape recorder from her hand and placed it on the night table beside her. The tape ran out long before they finished making love.
2
As the cab pulled up to the curb in front of his parents’ home Jamie realized for the first time how undistinguished the house was. Genteel poverty was the facade for university professors, even those who had inherited old money.
He had hitched a ride in the backseat of a T-18 jet with one of the NASA astronauts who was dashing home to the Bay area for a quick weekend. Now, as he paid the cab driver and got out onto the sidewalk, he felt almost as if he had stepped onto a movie set. Middle-class Americana. A quiet suburban street. Unpretentious little bungalows. Kids on bicycles. Lawn sprinklers cranking back and forth.
He went up the walk, nylon travel bag in one hand, feeling a little unreal. How would Norman Rockwell paint this scene? Hello, Mom, just dropped in for a few hours to tell you that I’m off to Mars.
Before he could reach the front door his mother was there waiting for him, a smile on her lips and the beginnings of tears in her eyes.
Lucille Monroe Waterman was a small woman, pert and beautiful, who had been born to the considerable wealth of an old New England family that dated itself back to the Mayflower. The first time her family had allowed her to venture west of the Hudson River was the summer she had spent on a dude ranch in the mountains of northern New Mexico. There she had met Jerome Waterman, a young Navaho fiercely intent on becoming a teacher of history. "Real history," Jerry Waterman told her. "The actual facts about the Native Americans and what the European invaders did to them."
They fell hopelessly, passionately in love with each other. So much so that Lucille, who had not given much thought to a career, entered the academic life too. So much so that they were married despite her parents’ obvious misgivings.
Jerry Waterman wrote his history of the Native Americans and it was eventually adopted as the definitive text by universities all across the nation. Success, marriage, the comfort of a dependable income, the insulated life of academia — all these mellowed him to the point where Lucille’s family could almost accept him as their daughter’s husband. And Jerry Waterman found that he wanted to be accepted. It was important to Lucille. It became important to him.
Lucille won her doctorate in English literature and then they had a baby: James Fox Waterman, the "Fox" being an ancient family name from Lucille’s mother’s side of the clan. Although he could not know it, Jamie was the grandson that brought about the true reconciliation of the New Englanders and their Navaho son-in-law.