Space in His Heart (27 page)

He flipped on
the TV to a cable sports wrap-up to get his mind off the day’s
events. Was it only yesterday he was lounging at home counting toes
instead of touchdowns?

He tried to
focus on the scores and not dwell on the enormous task ahead of
him, but it was impossible.

His body
and brain could easily handle the eighteen-hour days. It was his
spirit that needed preparation… and the rest of the crew’s as well.
Even with Mac’s problems, they had revered the former commander,
and slipping into
the other man’s
slot wasn’t going to be easy
for
Deke
.

The necessity
of getting to the space station on time and the frustration of
being yanked from the satisfying affair he’d begun with Jessica
made it even more aggravating. Even with the demands on him, he
couldn’t stop thinking about her.

He wanted to
erase their last conversation. He wanted another chance. Just to
talk to her. To hear her voice. He looked at the phone next to him
on the end table, then to the clock. With the time difference, it
was too late to call.

He kicked off
his shoes, slumped back on the cushions and stared at the TV. But
all he could see was the skeptical stares from his fellow crew
members or the guilty fear on Skip Bowker’s face during their final
conversation at the OPF on Sunday night. And, of course, the look
in Jessie’s eyes when she said goodbye.

Aw, hell.

She answered on
the first ring. A jolt of pleasure kicked him at the sound of her
voice.

“I thought you
might be asleep,” he said huskily.

He heard
her suck in a surprised breath. “Stockard. Why aren’t you floating
around in a pool somewhere
practicing your weightless
skills?
”

“You know I
like it when you’re a smart-ass. It doesn’t deter me at all.”

“So few things
do.”

He smiled at
the truth of it. The question that hung in the back of his mind
tumbled out. “So, are you packed? Flight booked back to
Beantown?”

He heard her
sigh and imagined her slipping deeper under her comforter, her hair
falling around her shoulders, her face scrubbed clean. “Not
exactly.”

The vague reply
gave him hope. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve been, uh,
convinced to stay for the launch. NASA needs PR support.”

Hope melted
into relief. She wasn’t going home. Not yet, anyway.

“Don’t worry,”
she insisted before he could talk. “They just want as many people
as possible geared up to handle the international attention on this
mission. No fluff. No spin for you. I’ll leave you alone.”

Don’t do that, Jessie
.

“To be honest,”
she continued, “I didn’t plan on staying. I didn’t expect all of
this crisis control… or any of this…” She paused and he held his
breath. “This other stuff.”

“This other
stuff being me, I take it?” He wanted to hear her talk about it.
About them.

He heard her
soft moan of admission. “Yeah. That’d be the stuff.”

“I miss you
already, honey.” He had no real control over his words. He needed
to say them.

“Don’t do
this.”

“I need to. I
need to talk to you. I can’t be here, isolated and away from you. I
want to call you and know I can talk to you.” His gut twisted with
the confession as he waited for her response.

All he heard
was the gentle static of long distance. Then she spoke so softly,
he hardly heard her. “I guess it can’t hurt to talk to you.”

He closed his
eyes at the reprieve and realized the sound he heard was the
beating of his own heart.

“So, how are
they treating you at Johnson?”

He flicked the
remote to turn off his TV. In the dim light of the apartment, he
leaned back on the sofa, ready to unload his troubles. “Mac was
God. I’m Poster Boy. Use your imagination.”

She laughed
softly.

“And we had
another bitch of a landing today.”

“Tell me about
it.”

She meant
it. He knew that. She relieved all the pressure on his brain
and
,
in the process,
lightened his very soul. She listened and laughed and understood.
He couldn’t believe an hour had passed when she yawned and reminded
him of the time difference.

“Sorry if I cut
into your beauty sleep, Jess. But hell, you don’t need it
anyway.”

“
You’re
sweet. You can call and compliment me anytime.” The sincerity in
her voice touched him. “Now, get some rest, Stockard. You
do
need it.”

“I know. But I
needed this, too.”

He needed
her
. She
had no idea how much.

* * *

Jessica let the
warmth of his goodbye soothe the ache that had been in her heart
all day. It was no solution, one phone call in the night. Just a
truce. Just a stopgap until… until what?

With her feet
dangling off the bed, she stared into the darkness, replaying every
word, every nuance of their conversation. Suddenly, she reached for
the lamp and bathed the room in soft light. She slipped her bare
feet onto the cool tile floor. Opening the top dresser drawer, she
reached into the corner. There, among some lingerie, she found what
she wanted.

She took out
the neatly folded Navy-issue handkerchief she had intended to
return to him. Holding it, she tiptoed back to her bed and turned
off the light.

Then she
unfolded the soft piece of cotton and smoothed it over her
pillowcase, laying her cheek on it with a soft sigh. She only
wanted to fall asleep with the man she loved.

Chapter
Twenty-one

As the next two
weeks passed, the focus of Jessica’s life shifted entirely. During
the day, she worked as any other employee of the Public Affairs
staff, handling media requests and positioning the messages NASA
delivered. At night, she waited for Deke’s call and the hour of
secret bliss it gave her.

All the
interview requests for Deke were declined, with the one exception
of Paul Zimmerman of
Newsweek
. Jessica quietly continued negotiations for a cover story.
This would be the definitive NASA story. Not about Deke, but a
chance to remind America that the men and women who risked their
lives were true heroes—twenty-first-century pioneers who made a
profound difference to humanity.

That was
the feature story she wanted, but Paul continued to dig for dirt.
A
Newsweek
cover
on NASA would be a coup for her, but more importantly, a turning
point for the space program.

Jessica
confided her strategy to Tony Palermo the first time they spoke
since the harsh conversation instructing her to stay at the Cape.
She wanted to open communication with him again, hoping for some
answers.

“
It’s a
gamble, Jess,” Tony warned her when she told him about
Newsweek
.
“Without Stockard as the centerpiece of that story, you have to
keep the focus on NASA’s successes and not safety issues or the
danger that cosmonaut is in. We don’t want another
Today
s
how debacle.”

“We certainly
don’t,” she agreed. If Carla Drake would stay out if it, things
should be fine. But she didn’t mention the other vice president’s
name. Moot point, she decided.

“On the other
hand, if you pull it off, I suspect our budget for next year would
more than double on the NASA account,” Tony mused. She could count
on Tony to get to the heart of what mattered to the agency.
Profits.

She took a deep
breath. “We need to talk about my role when I return.”

“I’ve been
carefully examining the management structure in Boston. I
personally like the idea of you heading up ET, but I know you
don’t.”

“No, I don’t.
It’s not what I want to do.”

“I understand.
However, it makes sense to me.” He paused, and she didn’t dare
interrupt but visualized the corner she was being backed into.

“I’m prepared
to offer the position to you with a twenty percent salary
increase.”

Not such a dark
corner. She wished the money mattered, but it didn’t.

“What about my
staff?”

“You can keep
most of your staff, not everyone. I’m not sending you to Silicon
Valley. And you know that’s where this job ought to be.”

So this was it.
He offered a partial staff, a twenty percent increase, and a
promise not to relocate her away from Boston. Take it or leave it.
Damn, this wasn’t fair.

She wanted the
GM job so badly and deserved it so much that she could scream. But
what option did she have? Another agency? No, that’s not what she
wanted.

“I hear you.
I’ll do it.” She kept all enthusiasm out of her voice. “But,
please, don’t announce it until I’m home.”

“You got it,
Jess. Keep up the good work down there.”

Yeah, sure. It really made a difference
. “You bet.”

Jess pushed her
chair back with the sudden and urgent desire to leave the stuffy
little office. Without even taking her purse, she bolted into the
hallway and headed for the lobby. She needed air. She needed to
think.

Thrusting the
glass doors open, she stepped outside and inhaled, gazing into the
vivid azure of Florida’s winter sky. Days like this occurred about
five times a year in Boston and everyone took two-hour lunches or
called in sick to celebrate and treasure the beauty. Here, perfect
days were the norm.

Maybe it wasn’t
the worst place on earth.

Silently
blessing her choice of flat loafers that morning, she walked the
winding paths of the Space Center and before long she arrived at
the entrance of the Visitors
’
Center. Most weekdays were quiet at that end of the
complex, with a few school field trips and a smattering of
international tourists. It seemed like a safe escape from the
problems that plagued her.

Flashing the
Kennedy Space Center employee badge that hung around her neck, she
skipped the ticketing process and crossed the main entrance without
the slightest idea of where she wanted to go. Slowly passing
exhibits and gift shops, she stepped into the courtyard.

She followed
the intended flow of the Center, wandering through the Rocket
Garden, an expansive outdoor exhibit of giant fuel-burning
cylinders that had thrust men and monkeys into space.

Lingering at
the base of the towering rockets, she realized that the more she
learned about space, the more it amazed and inspired her.
Astronauts were a magnificent breed of human beings. Hungry for
knowledge, curious, and driven to push the boundaries of earth. It
humbled her.

She
found
Enterprise
, a
retired orbiter, at the far end of the Visitors
’
Center. In about four weeks, Deke would
get in a space ship exactly like it and trust technology to take
him so far off this earth that he would not even feel the most
fundamental pull of nature… gravity. Why?

Because the
son of a bitch flies seventeen thousand miles an hour.

He’d lied to
her. His reasons were far nobler than the appeal of speed and risk.
He just didn’t want to admit it.

Climbing
the metal stairs that took tourists inside the cargo bay of
Enterprise
, she
peered into the cockpit where the commander and pilot sat to fly
the shuttle. Jessica stood directly behind the glass to study the
gauges, switches, dials and controls that swam before her.
How did he know
what to press?

She
leaned her forehead against the glass, feeling the distinct weight
of embarrassment and shame. What difference did it make if
she
was g
eneral
m
anager or nothing? Her job
seemed so insignificant, so frivolous in the face of his
world-altering challenge.

She had no
desire to rush back to work. Leaving the exhibit, she took the
inclined path that led to the only area she hadn’t yet seen at the
Visitor’s Center. For some reason, the drama of the Astronaut
Memorial finally drew her in.

At the
top of a slope, a black onyx monolith, nearly a hundred feet wide
and tall, balanced on a slowly rotating platform that followed the
sun. It reflected a mirror image of the sky in its glistening ebony
surface. Carved
i
nto the
stone were the names of the men and women who had died in their
efforts to expand man’s horizons, giving the appearance that they
were floating forever. Each one forever destined to touch the
sky.

The impact was
heart stopping.

Taking a seat
on the single bench in front of the Memorial, Jessica paused to
appreciate the perfect and changing replication of the clouds
against the sparkling surface. She read the twenty or so names,
some so familiar, some she had never heard.

In one
cluster
were
the seven
astronauts of
Challenger
, now
etched into her memory from the day she’d watched the accident
repeatedly in her college dorm. The teacher, Christa McAuliffe. The
teacher that America had fallen in love with. Gone.

To the
right of the
Challenger
names, the astronauts of Apollo
-1
who had become little more than a lesson in her
grade-school education. Gus Grissom. Roger Chafee. Edward White.
All colleagues of Deke’s namesake, Deke Slayton. All
gone.

She stared at
the etched names. Others could, and would, be added. No stranger
this time. No two-dimensional photograph in a history book. But a
real and loved human being. He could be gone, too.