Amanda Page couldn't suppress a smile. "Very damn funny, missy," Page said, but he allowed a smile through the gruffness. He leaned over his daughter. "Big deal, Spaceman — oh, I'm sorry, Spaceperson. Well, you're not so fancy your old man can't still pop you one."
Ann held up her fists in mock-defense as the other navy men cheered her on. As the action on the field resumed, however, her father ruled himself the winner and ordered Ann to get him another beer.
On her way back from the skybox wet bar, sixteen-ounce beer in hand, Ann caught a glimpse of her mother gloomily leaning on the concourse railing. "Mom? Everything okay?"
"Of course, sure, dear," Amanda Page said, the tone of her voice denying the words.
Ann moved closer to her mother, who was staring out beyond the Coliseum Auditorium and across to San Francisco Bay and the hazy San Francisco skyline. Ann followed her gaze. One of the hundreds of towers, cranes, buildings, and other structures along the waterfront, Ann knew, was the massive gray steel superstructure of the USS California, secured at the Oakland-Alameda Naval Station. The eleven thousand ton nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser was the main escort ship in the fifteen-ship carrier battle group of the USS Nimitz, which would pass under the Golden Gate Bridge in four days to begin an eight-month cruise to the Indian Ocean.
Ann touched her mother's arm. "You still have three days with him…"
Amanda shook her head. "He's already gone, Ann. He's been gone for a week now. "
She turned to her daughter. "Can't you see it? You've been home for a week now. He may be on terra firma but his mind, his heart, has been on the bridge of the California for days. That skybox is the ship's wardroom. Officer's country. He's listening to the game on Armed Forces Radio or on the TV rebroadcast from Manila, surrounded by his senior officers." She managed a strained laugh. "I don't know why it should bother me so. After all, I've been a navy wife for twenty-one years. This is your father's twelfth cruise. It's just… well, all that news about Iran, the counterrevolution business, the Persian Gulf—"
"Dad isn't going to the Persian Gulf, he's going to the Philippines. "
"I don't think so," Amanda said quietly. I overheard a conversation last week. I think they might be sending the Nimitz to the Persian Gulf."
"If all these rumors were true, Mom, the Persian Gulf would be clogged with U.S. ships. You can't make yourself crazy over Officer's Wives Club gossip."
"That's not it." She paused, looking for the words. "It's just that… it's different this time. It's not only your father leaving … it's you, too… "
"Me? Mom, I haven't been home in eleven years. You've been by yourself—"
"For too damn long, for too damn long. But that's not the problem. You've been away but at least I've known where you were — Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Houston. I knew if something… happened to your father that you'd be back and we'd be together no matter how far away you were." She turned back to the railing. "I can look out there and see your father's ship and I know that he's surrounded and protected by the best men and the best equipment in the world. But when I think of where you're going and the risks you'll be taking, well, it's hard for me even to comprehend it. I don't think I've ever felt this scared before. I admit it…"
Ann didn't have an answer, and now it was Amanda trying to reassure her daughter, which she did by giving her a quick hug. "I'm sorry, Mom. I guess I've been so wrapped up in this thing, so preoccupied with my research that I never thought about how it would affect you."
Amanda shook her head. "Nor should you. You're like your father. He's said how sorry he is to be leaving me alone hundreds of times but it would take the guns of all his battleships to keep him from going. I admire you both so much; I wish I had more of your drive… I wish there was more time for the dime of us to be together. Years pass quicker than any of us realize, you know. It's easy to take things for granted-not to mention feel sorry for myself. I'm sorry…"
Ann held her mother close, then lifted the cup of beer she was holding in her hands. "The captain will be getting powerfully parched," she said.
Her mother gave her a knowing smile. "I heard some more Officer's Wives Club gossip," she said as they walked past two young boys selling Oakland A's pennants. "About that space station, Silver Tower… and how the Russians hate it. And how vulnerable it is. But I suppose I'm being an alarmist about that, too?"
Ann was about to reply but stopped abruptly. What could she say that would really help? As a diversion, a welcome one, she pointed to a man with a portable video camera standing in front of the officers in the skybox. She guided her mother back to the box, where they took their seats at either side of Captain Page. "Smile," the cameraman said. "You're on Diamond Vision!"
The family surrounded by the other men and their families waved at the camera. As they did, Ann glanced at the huge scoreboard in center field: Her father's image was flashed, displaying his gold-trimmed hat with the words "CGN-36 USS CALIFORNIA" on the peak and his Oakland A's T-shirt. A caption under his picture on the full-color scoreboard screen read "Captain Matt Page, Commander, USS California." Ann's picture was on the screen too: "Dr. Ann Page, Mission Specialist, Space Shuttle Enterprise," the legend underneath it read. A ripple of applause came from the crowd. "We're famous, babe!" Matt Page said to his wife, hugging her close. Amanda Page looked at her daughter, forced a smile, waving with restraint into the camera.
It turned out the only possible way to stay clear of the dozens of sailors tramping in and out of the bridge of the USS California was to stand behind the captain's high-backed seat, which was what Ann Page found herself doing one week after the baseball game. On the bridge was sheer bedlam: volleys of shouted orders, ringing phones, and a hodgepodge of engine and equipment sounds.
Through it all, Ann noticed, Captain Page was very much in control. No comparison to the overaged boy at the ballgame.
It was actually exhilarating to watch. He seemed to know just when a man would be in arm's reach or earshot when he needed him. The phone mystically stopped ringing when he needed to use it. His coffee mug never grew cold or was less than half full — in spite of the activity, a steward would somehow make his way to the captain's chair to refill the short, stubby mug labeled "The Boss of the Boat," and of course it never dared slide down a table or spill one drop onto the boss' plywood-starched khakis. "Are you sure it's okay for me to be here?" Ann asked at a relatively quiet moment. Her father waved his coffee mug around the bridge. "Of course it is." He turned to a young officer. "Dammit, Cogley, out of the way, if you please. I'm trying to talk to my daughter… No, I'm glad you wanted to come aboard. Your mother, as you know, doesn't feel right coming on board before a cruise. She never has, not in all our years of marriage. Not once. She stays on the dock until the ship passes under the Golden Gate or wherever, but she never comes on board."
"Yes, I know." Half her response was blocked out by a thick clipboard of papers that Cogley had thrust between her and the captain, every sheet of which Page impatiently initialed at the corner. "Okay, now weigh anchor, Cogley… I'm sorry, Ann. No, your mother doesn't seem to like it on board the California. "
Ann tried to tell him he must know why, but a horn blaring from just outside the bridge drowned out her words, followed by "All ashore, all guests ashore."
"I've got to go, Dad," Ann said, but he didn't hear, his attention elsewhere. She followed the outstretched arm of a gray-and-blue-uniformed Marine escort and headed for the exit.
She had just reached the top of the steel ladder that led down to the main deck when she felt a hand on her shoulder, turned and found her father standing in front of her. "You weren't going to leave without saying good-bye, were you?"