The Astronaut's Wife (11 page)

As she absentmindedly scanned a school calendar, something changed in her mind. The words vanished and all she could see was a street, a street unknown to her. It looked like New York City, but she couldn’t be sure. And she had no idea why the image had sprung, unbidden into her mind.

Jillian had no idea how long she had stood like that, transfixed by this image. She heard someone speaking to her.
“Jillian? Jillian?”
It did not break the spell.
“Jillian? Jillian? Earth to Jillian.” Then she slid out of it. Another teacher was peering at her curiously.
Jillian shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling foolish. “My mind was a million miles away.
_“
“At least,” said the other teacher.

The bright sunlight was gone and the dark sky did nothing to make Jillian feel any happier. It was getting later and later and still Spencer had not come home from work. She did not think about eating or anything else. Then, impulsively, she picked up the phone and called her sister Nan, back home in Florida.

Nan caught the nature of Jillian’s mood immediately. “Oh God, Jill,” she said, “you sound so sad.”
Jillian sighed and without thinking about it, reached out with her free hand and touched the radio.
“It’s just this city, Nan,” she said. “It... it just gets inside you. Under your skin.”
“Well, don’t let it get inside you,” said Nan firmly. “That’s how you got into trouble after Mom and Dad died. To be honest, you sound now the way you did then.”
Jillian did no answer. She realized that she was holding the radio and she stared at it.
“You know, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea,” Nan continued. “The two of you ‘moving up there to New York City. Maybe it’s too much. Culture shock; you know?”
Jillian looked away from the radio. “Spencer needed it,” she replied. “And I wanted to do it.”
“How is Spencer?” Nan asked archly. “Is he taking good care of you?”
Nan had always been slightly jealous of her sister and her apparently perfect relationship with her apparently perfect astronaut hero husband. She did her best to conceal her jealously, but both sisters knew it was there. By unspoken agreement they never talked about it, though Nan was not above making some sly jokes about it from time to time.
Jillian was silent for a moment. “Well.., you know, it’s not easy for him, either. A new job, so many new people. But you know him, Nan, he never complains.”
Nan laughed. “You want me to come up there and kick his ass?” Then she was silent a moment. “Oh, Jil1y,” she said sorrowfully, “you seem so sad.”
“No,” Jillian answered quickly, trying to force some the brightness she did not feel into her voice. “No, not at all. I’m okay, Nan. It’s just so different up here. It takes some getting to used to. I guess we underestimated how much.”
Nan appeared to believe this or decided to pretend that she did. “Have you found made any friends up there? Have you found someone to talk to yet, at least?”
“Oh yeah,” said Jillian. “The doorman is a real chatterbox. Can’t get him to shut up.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Nan replied, “and you know it. Have you found a doctor to talk to?”
“No... Not yet,” said Jillian slowly.
Nan sounded deadly serious now. “Promise me, Jill. If things get bad. If they get the way they were before, you have to promise me that you’ll find someone to talk to.”
Jillian turned as she heard Spencer’s keys sliding into the lock in the front door.
Nan was insistent. “July? I want you to promise me that? Okay? Promise?” Because if you don’t—”
Jillian cut off her sister. “I have to go. Can I call you tomorrow, Nan? I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
But Nan would not be put off so easily. She tried desperately to keep her sister on the phone. “No,
Jillian,” she said quickly, “don’t go, okay? We have to talk.”
Jillian looked down at the radio on the table, then toward the front door of the apartment.
“Jillian?” said Nan.
“I really have to go now, Nan,” said Jillian.
She heard the front door open and the tap of Spencer’s footsteps in the hallway.
“Jillian,” he called. “Where are you?”
Jillian put down the phone as Spencer walked into the room. “Spencer,” she said. “You’re so late... I was beginning to get worried about you.”
Spencer looked surprised. “Didn’t you get my message?” he asked. “I had a dinner meeting tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” Jillian replied. “I didn’t check the answering machine. I didn’t think of it.”
“My fault,” said Spencer. “I still haven’t got this corporate thing down yet.” He kissed her warmly on the lips. “I’m going to take a quick shower. Will you wait up for me?”
She nodded and he kissed her again. “I won’t be a minute,” he said, making for the bathroom.

Jillian lay in bed. The light in the bedroom was off, but the door to the bathroom was open. The light was on in there and clouds of steam rolled out from Spencer’s shower. Suddenly the water stopped pounding in the shower and Jillian could see her husband toweling off. He was a spectral form in the steam. As she looked into the bathroom, his shadow fell across the bed, across Jillian’s body.

Like a high school girl afraid of getting busted for smoking, the next morning, Jillian carefully checked every stall in the girls’ bathroom at school. To her great relief all of the stalls were empty and she chose the one farthest from the door, locking securely. She did what she had to do, then stood up and pulled up and rearranged her clothing. But Jillian did not leave the stall— rather, she stood there for a full five minutes, staring at the small plastic square she held in her hand. Gradually the few drops of urine she had managed to get into the specimen container were searched for something called HCG. If it could not be detected in a woman’s urine she was not pregnant and a big black minus sign would appear on the little plastic gizmo. A few minutes after taking the test’s the HCG was detected and the mark turned positive.

“Do you ever think of what if I had an F-15 in World War II? Or even a B-17 In World War I?” Jackson McClaren asked his dinner guests. “What if you had had a simple handgun in the Middle Ages? Think of the power you would have had. Did you ever think of something as simple as a technology out of time?”

Shelley McLaren replied first. “No’s Jackson,” she said. “The subject doesn’t come up all that often in the circles 1 move in. We tend to talk about other people.”
Jillian and Spencer laughed, but Jackson ignored his wife’s snide remark. He always did.
The McClarens were entertaining the Armacosts in the dining room of their Fifth Avenue apartment, an apartment so huge and palatially appointed and furnished that it made Spencer and Jillian’s apartment look like a mean and impoverished hovel by comparison.
Jillian could not tell how many servants the McLarens employed—she wasn’t sure if she had seen the same one twice—but they moved around the table serving each person, silently and faultlessly. It was almost as if they weren’t there at all. It was more that plates arrived and where whisked away by magic. The most astonishing thing to Jillian was how at ease the McLarens were with all this luxury. They took having servants in stride, as if that was the way things were meant to be, one human being serving another.
McLaren was still on his subject, warming to it as he expanded on it. “Think of having an F- 15 in
September of 1940. One airplane would win the Battle of Britain. And would do it in a matter of minutes. Think of it.”
“I did once think of what it might have been like if I had been a nun and lived an impoverished life in the service of others,” said Shelley McLaren. “The thought lasted about a minute and a half as I recall. Maybe less.”
Jackson ignored his wife once again. “What kind of ass could you kick with that type of advanced technology. It would be amazing, truly amazing.” The tycoon seemed particularly taken with Jillian and appeared to be talking directly to her.
“Tell me, Jackson,” said Shelley, “just how many kinds of ass are there?”
This time Jackson McLaren
did not
ignore his wife. He chose from the cluster of glasses in front of his plate, a rich red claret and took a deep swallow.
“There are many kinds of ass, love,” he said, “but on the modern battlefield they are all electronic.” He raised his glass to Spencer. “And the fighter this man helped us design can detect, sort, identify, and, believe it or not’s nullify anything electronic.”
McLaren leaned toward Jillian as if he was going to let her in on a great secret. “Jillian, dove, the modem battlefield is a blizzard, an invisible electronic blizzard. Tanks, missiles, computers, planes— all humming away’s their electronic brains adding to the blizzard.”
McLaren smiled slyly. “And into this storm flies our fighter. It doesn’t drop bombs, it doesn’t shoot
missiles. It just sends a signal. A signal like the voice of God. A signal like the Devil’s trumpet. A signal that over-fucking-whelms every fucking thing. A signal that turns everything
off!”
He slammed his hand on the table to emphasize his point and there was the tinkling sound of glass and cutlery being rattled on the table cloth.
“By the year 2013,” McLaren continued, “all four branches of the military will be flying our fighter. Three hundred units at 350 million dollars a pop. That’s 105 billion dollars.” McLaren got a faraway look in his eyes. “One hundred and five billion dollars.
Shelley McLaren giggled and looked over at Jillian. “It sounds so naughty when he talks about money, doesn’t it? The pornography of big numbers, you know.”
Jackson McLaren went back to his usual habit of ignoring his wife’s remarks. “You want to build a plane, ask a pilot. You want to build a plane that’s out of this world, ask an astronaut. So that’s what we did. And look what we got.”
Spencer smiled modestly.
“Recite the specs for us, Spencer,” said McLaren. It was almost—but not quite—an order, as if he was asking Spencer to more or less sing for his supper.
“Come on, Spencer,” McLaren urged with a laugh. “For me. Just once. It’s so beautiful when you say it. It’s like poetry or something. Hell, it’s better than poetry... and it sure as hell pays better. Don’t you think, Spencer.”
Spencer nodded. “Two McLaren engines pumping twenty-five thousand pounds of thrust,” he recited smoothly and ‘easily. “Ninety feet long. It stands thirty feet off the hardstand. It has a wingspan of seventy-five feet.”
“Fully extended,” Jackson McLaren put in, as if the two women were actually wondering about
it.
Spencer nodded, as if allowing himself to be corrected. “Fully extended. It will have a top speed of eighteen hundred miles per hour. A ceiling of fifty-five thousand feet. A range of three thousand miles. And a crew
_{.. .}
a crew of two
_{. . .“}
Jillian was staring intently at her husband. She was not mesmerized by this litany of facts and figures, but at the way Spencer reeled them off. It was as if she was not quite sure who he was, as if he had become a completely different person... a stranger to her.
“Just two?” Jillian asked.
This time Jackson ignored Spencer’s wife for a change. “But the best part’ the best part is that the computer system that runs the whole shebang is at least fifteen years down the road. It’s out there in the future somewhere but.., we start getting our dollars today.” Jackson McLaren smiled broadly. “Don’t you just love the way democracy works? God knows I do.” He guffawed heartily.
Shelley McLaren feigned innocence. “I’ve forgotten, Jackson,” she said, “who’s the enemy now that we need your marvelous new plane to defend us from?”
“The enemy?” McLaren replied without missing a beat. “At this moment? You are, my dear, you are.”
“That’s very funny,” said Shelley deadpan. “You just wait until I pitch my electronic blizzard...”
“And we don’t say ‘plane,’ sweet,” said McLaren. “We say ‘airborne electronic warfare platform.’ “
“How poetic.” Shelley and Jackson blew each other a kiss, just to show each other they were just kidding.
“Can I ask a question?” said Jillian diffidently. Something had just occurred to her.
“Of course,” said McLaren expansively. “Ask us anything you want.”
“The sound...” said Jillian. “The signal it sends out. What will it sound like?”
“Oh,” said Jackson, “humans can’t hear it, dove, humans can’t hear it at all.”
One of the McLaren servants entered and whispered something in Shelley’s ear. She stood up and gestured to her husband. “Come, Jackson,” he said. “Our darling daughter Augusta has summoned us to her bedside.”
Jackson stood up, too. “Ah, the goodnight kiss. After forking over her allowance, the most important moment of the day.” He started for the door with his wife. “Behold the glorious joys of parenthood,” he said sardonically.
Once they had left the room, Spencer leaned over, moving closer to his wife. He took one of her
hands in both of his and stroked it softly and gently.
“You are so far away tonight,” he said. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“I’m here,” said Jillian hesitantly.
Spencer moved his chair a little closer. “Come on, Jilly... I know you. There’s something... tell me. What is it? There’s something on your mind.”
Jillian shrugged. “I don’t understand any of this,” she said bleakly. “I don’t understand any of these people. I don’t understand anything they’re saying. It’s like they’re speaking in some kind of code I can’t break.”
“Even me?” Spencer asked.
Jillian looked sad as she nodded. “Yes... Spencer, I feel,” she shrugged as if not sure of what to say next.
“Lost?” He filled in the word for her. “I know. I do, too. But if we’re together we’re not lost, are we? We have each other, Jill. Always. You know that.”
“Why do you have to build that plane?” She could feel a bubble of anger burst inside her. “The way he talks about it, the way you talk about it. It’s not—”
“Not what?”
Jillian looked him square in the eye. “It’s not you, Spencer. It’s not you.”
This time it was Spencer who shrugged. “I’ve told you. It’s just business, Jilly.”
“You used to say you’d fly forever” she said sadly, as if mourning the Spencer she used to know.
“You used to say they
would have to bury you in the sky.”
“They almost did,” he replied. “I never want to be that far away from you. I never want to be away from you at all.” He moved closer to her and looked into her eyes, deep and searching.
“What are you looking for when you do that?” Jillian asked. “It’s like you’re trying to read something faint and far off.”
Spencer whispered, “What are you hiding?”
“How do you know I’m hiding anything?” Jillian shifted uncomfortably.
Spencer leaned forward and kissed her. “How do I know?” he said. “Because I know you.”
Slowly, Jillian took his hand and placed it on his belly. She did not have to say anything. Spencer’s dark eyes lit up.
“Yes?”
Jillian nodded. “Yes.”
Silently a waiter entered the room and began clearing the table. He was as unobtrusive as possible, but the spell between Jillian and Spencer was broken.
The waiter reached for Jillian’s plate and then stopped. Nothing on it had been eaten.
“Did you find your dish unsatisfactory, ma’am?” the servant asked diffidently.
“It was fine,” Jillian replied. “I just was not terribly hungry, thank you.”
Just then Jackson McLaren returned to the room in time to hear the exchange between Jillian and the waiter. His wife was right behind him.
“Are you sure, dove? Howard usually makes quite a cunning langoustino.”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
The waiter cleared the plate, the uneaten crustaceans staring up at her like big orange bugs.
“Brandy anyone?” Jackson asked. “Oh hell... let’s all have one, shall we?”
Shelley looked at Spencer and Jillian. They were still sitting close to one another, they were still hand in hand.
“Jackson,” Shelley said softly, “remember when we used to sit close like that?”
“No,” said Jackson.