The Gravity of Us (21 page)

CHAPTER 27

I wake in the morning and check my phone right away. I actually did this on seven separate occasions through the night, almost once an hour. I can’t keep up with the notifications. Comments, shares, likes, views, all these numbers and words fly by my screen.

Social media is a weird space, so insulated by the followers that you have. But I have comments from my normal followers, plus the old grandma Facebook market, the geeky high schooler market, the college engineers, a staggering number of trolls, and everyone in between. It’s overwhelming, it’s beautiful, it’s … it’s national news.

Getting shared on Facebook by the
New York Times
is one thing, but waking up to a
Times
online feature is another: “Astrokid Calls on Americans to Save NASA From Clickbait Demise.”

I start to read the article, but my phone is taken over when
I get a call. I answer the phone, and her voice pierces my eardrum with her excited shouting.

“You are famous!” Deb says. “Like, REALLY famous this time.”

“I don’t think that’s true. NASA is famous still; my account is just attached to the shares.”

“It’s not just your ‘account’—your face is staring at me on
Page Six
right now. They’re talking about your FlashFame account. It’s everything you’ve ever wanted. Do you know how easy it is going to be to turn this into a real career?”

I laugh. “We’ll see. I’d settle for getting my BuzzFeed internship back right now.”

“They’ll have to fight for you. God, Cal, if you save this mission—you could literally alter the course of history.”

That sentence makes my body scramble up in bed. I’m a seventeen-year-old guy in bright yellow shorts and a Dolly Parton T-shirt with major bedhead. I don’t think I’m capable of altering anything.

“Okay, Deb. This is overwhelming for me. Can we talk about something else?”

“SOMETHING ELSE?”

I want to bring up our last call and the fight that ended with her hanging up on me, the knot in my chest that never really resolved … but I don’t. I was selfish and self-centered and made everything about me.

“Literally anything. Let’s pretend I haven’t just altered the course of humanity.” So I talk about her. “How’s living with your cousin?”

“Fine.” She grunts in defeat. “It’s not bad. My parents are still pissed that I split, but we’ve started talking on the phone every once in a while, so I guess not all is lost. My cousin’s roommate moves out in a few weeks, and I’m trying to make sure I have the money to make rent. My job’s been cutting my hours, but I’m still okay.” She sighs. “Okay, better than okay.”

An idea pops into my head, and I feel a rush of excitement pulse through me. It’s the perfect way to give Deb a part of myself.

“Wait!” I say. “Why don’t you have a FlashFame account? You could activate the donations tab or something; maybe you could make videos and that would help you make rent?”

“I’m not exactly a media personality like the great Calvin—oh, right, we’re pretending you’re a very ordinary human right now, sorry.” She laughs. “Anyway, I actually do have an account. I just never use it.”

“Well, let me know if you do. I know my NYC followers are annoyed that I don’t ever have weekend updates anymore. And you helped me find a lot of that stuff anyway.”

She hesitates, and I hear her giving this some real consideration, even though I know how averse she is to getting on camera. I know it’s not because she’s so desperate for money or attention, but maybe a part of her has changed with this big move.

“I almost drove up to see you,” I admit. “Like, hijacked Dad’s car and almost got out of Texas before I realized how incredibly stupid it was. I’m so sorry about how I acted earlier.”

I hear her laugh filter through the phone. “I miss you too. But you don’t have to worry about me. Things with us will always be good, whether your ridiculous plan to save the entire future of spaceflight works or fails spectacularly. Whether you stay in Texas forever or come back to Brooklyn where you belong and fit in.”

“I fit in here too. Surprisingly.”

There’s a pause.

“Oh my god, you wore that giant hat out in public, didn’t you?”

“No comment.”

“Calvin, I swear. John Mayer couldn’t pull it off, and neither can you.”

“No comment.”

“Wow. Okay, go back to your fame and saving of the country. I’m going to sit here and shake my head for a while.”

“No comment.” I pause for effect. “Love you, Deb.”

“Yeah, yeah. Love you too.”

We hang up, and I feel entirely normal for the first time in the past twenty-four hours. I listen to the Heart album again, and the thought of Leon and Kat arguing about stopping at a random yard sale to rummage for cassettes of bands he’s never heard of makes me almost laugh out loud.

I keep the panic out of my chest by unplugging my headphones and walking around the room. My future is a question mark right now. And I think that’s okay. But god, I want to stay. This is all the agony of final exams, election day, and a dentist’s appointment wrapped into one.

I’m starting to get texts from numbers I don’t know, and some I do—old family members who once criticized all the time I spent on my phone congratulating me on the mention in the
New York Times
. Requests from journalists have steadily been pouring into my inbox. I want to respond to them, but the sheer volume of everything is wigging me out.

I leave my bedroom and find my mom in the living room. Sitting down next to her, I take a deep breath and release it.

“I think I’m famous.”

“I think you are too.” She laughs. “Dad and I watched your show. I still don’t really get FlashFame—or maybe the kids just call it Flash?—but it looked like a lot of people liked what you had to say.”

“I’m overwhelmed. I have all these media inquiries that I should get back to, and all these acquaintances are coming out of the woodwork to congratulate me. My face is in
Page Six
, apparently? Why do people care about me so much?”

She puts down her game and pats my shin. “Honey, don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s not so much you they care about. It’s everything you’re fighting for. It’s NASA, and exploration, and science. You’re the face they can put to the cause, so you might as well let them. You’re the mockingjay.”

I nod along with her words. It kind of makes sense. It’s not me, it’s the mission. It’s also kind of me, but maybe I can ignore that for now.

“And about your media inquiries, NASA has a whole team of communications people who would love to respond for you.
Why don’t you ask them for help?” The ache in my chest gets a little more manageable.

“Did Dad get a ride with Grace today?”

“Yeah, do you need to use the car?”

I take my space center visitor’s badge out of my wallet—the one that helped me build support for the Orpheus project and allowed so many brilliant scientists to finally have a voice. “I think it’s time I drop in and see if NASA wants to fix their awful communications campaign.”

People can’t be fixed. But awful communications campaigns? I can fix that.

I jump in the shower, and then dress up for the occasion. Dark brown pants and boots, a muted green-and-brown-plaid shirt, with a bright orange knit tie. I leave the hat at home.

CHAPTER 28

I’ve spent the full fifteen-minute drive to NASA breathing in with my diaphragm, then hissing out the air until my lungs are depleted. The more I do it, the more in control I feel of this situation. The more I think—despite that I dragged NASA’s public affairs team last night—I can help them carry the momentum forward.

I hand my visitor’s badge over to the guard, and he lets me in after a long look at my face. He stares at me for an extra beat, but I’m out before I can read too much into it. I find a spot near the back. So many people are in the office today—I’ve never seen the lot so full.

As I’m walking in, I see a large news van at the entrance. Only, it’s not the news. It’s StarWatch.

The realization makes me stop in my tracks. I consider hiding in my car until they’re gone, but maybe this needs to happen. Maybe I need to confront them for the last time, compare
viewers, and chew Kiara out for secretly videotaping me and making my relationship seem like a ploy to get a leg up in this business.

As I’m about to go through the front doors, I see movement from behind the van. A swath of unnaturally black hair blows in the breeze as Kiara throws a heavy suitcase in the van. I give my legs the command to run toward her. To get this over with.

“Kiara.” I stand a safe distance from the van, from the girl who’s still leaning in the back.

She freezes there for a second, then smoothly lifts her shoulders. As always, I’m caught off guard by her style—oversized denim shirt over a sheer tee with a deep V-neck.

We make eye contact, and I feel nine hundred times less confident. Her smile is easy and calm, and I wonder how she can get off on being such an awful person and not be fazed by it. My fists clench, and I take the opportunity to speak first.

“You shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t know I was on camera.”

“Babe, you’re always on camera with me, so I’d be careful with what you say.”

I laugh. “You can use all the sound bites you want of
this
conversation. Or is this enough drama for your show? Maybe you can manufacture more or make it seem like I’m trying to use it to boost my career.”

“Welp,” she says with a shrug. “Your career certainly looks bright now, mister eight-point-five million views. And don’t worry, kid. You win. Believe me. My boss is up there getting
taken off the Orpheus V mission as we speak, and we’re trying to line up our next assignment.”

“Flocking to JET-EX?” I ask.

“No, no. They’re siding with NASA. They’re even talking about helping fund a new satellite and launch. So we’re out of a job.”

“I’m trying to feel sorry for you,” I say. “But it’s really, really hard.”

“You know, I graduated top of my class in college as a journo major. I had so much experience, such solid writing examples. I was naive, like you.”

I stay silent, because I can’t tell if she’s trying to get a rise out of me or if she really means it.

“I get this feeling,” Kiara says. “That you’re too good for StarWatch, or gossip sites, or blogs, or whatever’s going on in your mind right now. You’ll understand someday.”

She slams the side door and jumps into the driver’s seat.

“Even if I end up working on a show like StarWatch,” I shout over the rumbling of the engine, though I don’t know if she can hear me, “I’ll always treat the people I interview like
people
.”

And I guess that’s it.

My feet take me away from the van, and I hate how unresolved everything feels. But maybe that’s what real life is like. Unlike when you’re stuck with family or friends for so long you have to make amends. You can end working relationships on a dissonant chord, one that leaves you feeling gross and wrong all over.

I pass Josh Farrow when I go inside, and he doesn’t even notice me. If this were a movie, he’d catch my eye as he walks down the hallway, and maybe he’d give me a knowing nod, or a sneering headshake. But he just looks down at his phone, with a long frown tugging at his lips. Probably already working out the details of his next project that will ruin peoples’ lives.

When I walk into Donna Szleifer’s office, everyone kind of freezes. Todd Collins, director of public affairs, is in there, and an empty seat is pulled out, where Josh must have just been sitting.

“Oh, Calvin,” Donna says, a stunned look dawning on her face. “Come in, come in.”

“We were, um, just talking about you.” Todd shuts the door behind me, and they both look at me expectantly.

“Have you been tracking the press hits from my video series?” I ask.

“Yes, we have. We also got the Associated Press to distribute a press release we made.”

“And … what does that mean?” I ask.

“Right, sorry,” Todd says. “AP is a kind of service where local and national news orgs can either repurpose or post full stories. It’s a good way to get a lot of local press, and AP was all over it. We have about six hundred local news networks with local stories, and we included video clips, so it’s possible some of the broadcast stations will pick it up too.”

“Socially,” Donna cuts in, “you’ve got some of the world’s most famous scientist personalities—we call them influencers—sharing the videos.”

“Donna,” I say with a laugh, “I know what influencers are.”

She continues as if I’ve said nothing. “A lot of traffic is coming from news sites, especially sites for teens, who are obviously more familiar with the FlashFame platform.”

“Is this going to save the mission?” I ask, and I expect them to laugh at me or treat me like a kid who doesn’t get the complicated goings-on.

“Well, maybe.” Todd scratches his head. “It’s not so cut-and-dried. The House of Representatives already delayed the vote to this evening so they can sort through all the voice mails and emails that came pouring in last night. The timing is good, and we have a lot of people on board.”

“That said,” Donna says, “we have a board meeting tonight, where they could also shut down the Orpheus project. A lot of people think the risks are too high.”

“Anything could happen,” Todd replies.

I sigh. It seems to run counter to the very idea of NASA. Risk is exactly what spaceflight is about—or, hell, any exploration. But I nod along anyway, knowing that there are a lot of people who need to weigh a lot of variables, and I am not one of those people. I did my part.

Now I wait.

“When’s your meeting?” I ask.

“Three hours.”

“Okay, here’s my suggestion: I have about seventy-five interview requests in my inbox now. I can take some of them if I need to, but I don’t even know what half of these publications are. Can I send them to you? I can interview, but I think
this is something NASA should handle. I don’t want to be the story. The science is the story. It’s
always
been the story.”

Donna looks so pleased she could burst. Her hands are clasped together like she’s in the middle of an intense prayer, and maybe she is—this is Texas, after all.

“Forward them on,” she says. “I’ll take all the blogs and social sites. Todd, have your team split up the others.”

For the next hour, I’m passed back and forth between the press office and Donna’s, tracking all the new hits and tracking sentiment. Donna shows me a ton of tools where she gets to see how many people saw the video, plus how many people loved it enough to send it on, plus a hundred other little pieces of data that make me a little nervous to be living in such a digital age, but thankful too. And I’m glad NASA has someone like Donna, who—though she’s a frazzled mess most of the time—actually knows her stuff.

In the end, Donna and Todd have one killer slideshow, thirty top news stories to mention, and big grins on their faces. The charge and electricity of the first astronaut missions are back, flowing through everyone’s veins.

I wave goodbye as I leave the office, and head out to the car. I turn in my visitor’s badge to the security guard when I leave. I won’t be needing it anymore, even if the mission stays on. I can finally focus on my own path, or rather, figure out what I want it to be.