Nathaniel traced a finger along the neckline of my nightgown. “I am happy to entertain your definition.”
“Well…” I reached the last button and tugged his shirt free of his trousers. “For instance. Let’s say that one learns something during a press conference that her husband really should have told her.”
Nathaniel’s hand paused at the strap of my nightgown. “Interesting example.” He slid the strap off and bent down to kiss my exposed shoulder. “I might need more specifics.”
I inhaled, breathing in muskiness from his aftershave, and the sweet earthiness of a fine cigar. “For instance, the fact that they are expanding the astronaut corps and removing the test pilot requirement.” With my face pressed into his hair, I found his belt by touch. The fabric beneath it was already strained out of shape.
My God, I loved a successful rocket launch. Nathaniel nibbled a path from my shoulder to the base of my neck, sending warm currents down to my toes. “Let’s say that expanding the astronaut corps was contingent on completion of a mission. Would withholding information about the expansion be considered evil, if the motivation was to keep someone’s hopes from rising?”
“Mm … rising hopes.” I released the zipper on his trousers, and Nathaniel’s hands tightened on my upper arms.
“And would that be further mitigated if, for instance, a certain briefcase contained an application? For someone who was, say, a World War II pilot, had logged the requisite flight time, and fit the right height and weight requirements? Ah—oh … oh God.” He cleared his throat, and his breath was hot against my neck. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Confirmed: evilness mitigated. But…” I slid back on the bed, pulling my nightgown off as I did. With my arms over my head and the cool night air bringing my breasts to full attention, I also commanded my husband’s … full attention. “It’s the action one would take to protect a child. Am I a child?”
“God. No.” He shrugged out of his dress shirt and peeled his undershirt off. The bedside lamp caressed the curve and flex of his abdomen. After the Meteor, Nathaniel had begun working out. He was not alone in that drive to be more prepared for “what if” scenarios, but, my heavens … did I ever appreciate the result.
I threw my nightgown to the side. His gaze stayed fixed on me, and his mouth hung a little open, as if his brain were trying to acquire extra oxygen to compensate for a redirected blood flow.
“So, I have to ask, why wouldn’t one tell an adult?” I regretted the question almost immediately, because this one made him pause. On the other hand, he paused in the act of sliding his trousers and underwear off in one motion, so I could appreciate the V of his abdomen as it joined his pelvis, and the dark hair at the base.
“Because they were going to cancel the entire program. If the launch had failed.” By “fail,” he meant: if Parker had died. Nathaniel slid his trousers the rest of the way off. “The snow. People think that the warming isn’t coming. So…”
I reached for him and he slid between my legs, pushing me back to lie on the bed with his warmth pressed against my full length. Wrapping one thigh around his leg, I pressed up into Nathaniel and his eyes fluttered closed. “Warming is definitely coming.”
“Yes.” He shifted so he could reach between us. His fingers found the bright bundle of delight between my legs and … sparked my ignition sequence. Everything else could wait.
“Oh … oh God. We are Go for launch.”
ELEVEN
IAC IS SPURRING ROCKET PROGRAM
75 to 105 Vehicles Will Be Fired in 3-Year Schedule, Chief Says
By BILL BECKER
Special to The National Times.
KANSAS CITY, KS, March 3, 1956—The International Aerospace Coalition plans to launch 75 to 105 major rockets in the next three years, thereby expecting to have a colony on the moon by 1960.
“Do you remember where you were when the Meteor struck?” At the front of the synagogue, our rabbi looked over the congregation.
I don’t know about anyone else, but my eyes instantly burned with the threat of tears. Of course I remembered.
Behind me, I heard another woman sniffle. I wondered where she had been four years ago on March 3rd, 1952. Had she been in bed with her husband? Had she been preparing breakfast for her children? Or had she been one of the millions of people who didn’t hear about it until later?
“I was counseling a young couple, newly engaged, who were facing all the joys of their upcoming marriage. My secretary knocked on the door—she never does this. She opened the door and she was weeping. You all know Mrs. Schwab. Have you ever seen her even without a smile? ‘The radio,’ she said.”
Rabbi Neuberger shrugged, but somehow still conveyed all the grief that followed. “I will always think about that moment as the threshold between Before and After.” He held up a finger. “If that young couple had not been in my office, I would have given way to grief. But they asked me if they should still get married. It seemed as if the world were ending. Should they marry?”
He leaned forward, and you could hear the held breath of every person in the tense silence around us.
“Yes. Marriage, too, is a threshold between Before and After. We have many of these, every day, which we do not recognize. The threshold is not the question. There will always be Befores and Afters. The question is: what do you do after you cross that threshold?”
I wiped under my eyes with the thumb of my glove, and it came away dark with mascara.
“You live. You remember. This is what our people have always done.”
Outside the synagogue, bells began to sound across the city. Probably across the country, and maybe across the planet. I didn’t have to look at my watch. 9:53 a.m.
I closed my eyes, and even in the darkness, even four year later, I could still see the light. Yes. I remembered where I was when the Meteor struck.
I did not even make the first cut.
I was consoling myself with a piece of carrot cake at the IAC cafeteria—and, as a sidenote, let me say that the best thing about the International part of the International Aerospace Coalition was that it meant the cafeteria had a French pastry chef. But I digress. So the carrot cake and I were sitting at a table with Helen, Basira, and Myrtle. When we’d been living with Myrtle, I’d had no idea she had worked as a computer during the war until she signed on with the IAC two years ago.
Basira, who had come to us from Algiers, made a face. “So, then he tried to show me how to use a slide rule!”
“No—for a differential equation?” Myrtle, the only other American in our group, covered her mouth and laughed until her cheeks turned red. “What a buffoon.”
“I know!” Basira put on a terrible American accent. “Weyaaaaahll, liddle lady, this here iz ah mighdy fine instrumen.”
Helen had her hands clapped over her mouth and was cackling like a Taiwanese banshee—if there were such a thing. “Tell them where he hold it!”
With a snort, Basira glanced around the cafeteria, but it was the end of the day shift, so it was largely empty. I lowered my fork, making a guess and—yep. She placed her hand in her lap, as if the slide rule were … well. Prepared for liftoff. “I ken show ya how ta uze it.”
I laughed, picturing Leroy Pluckett, with his wispy sideburns and loud ties, trying to come on to Basira. With her height and dark, smooth complexion, she had easily won Miss Outer Space at the company holiday party last winter. Plus, her accent was to die for.