Fitch hung up.
Shook out his hands.
Picked up the phone again. There was no answer at Piper, Coretta, so he moved on to Harold & Margaret. It rang twice. He was just about to hang up when a woman answered. She sounded like someone’s grandmother.
“Hello?” she said.
Fitch paused. “Is Amanda there?”
“Yes,” she said. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“Um,” he said. “Luke.”
He moved the phone away from his ear so he could lightly smack his head with it. God, what an idiot. Luke? Where did that come from? Why didn’t he just say his real name?
“Luke who?” the woman said.
“Luke . . .” His mind said Skywalker, but that was just too ridiculous. Why was he so stupid? “Just Luke.”
The woman paused. “Just a moment.”
He heard the phone rattle as she put it down. Then, muffled: “Amanda! Phone!”
What was he going to say?
He’d practiced something in his head, of course, but all those words left him now.
When Amanda picked up, her voice sounded like something from his imagination. A phantom. A ghost.
“Hello?” she said.
He opened his mouth.
No words formed.
“Hello?” she said.
He swallowed.
Could she hear his heart beating through the phone?
“Uh.” He mumbled something like I’m sorry, but it didn’t sound quite as he’d intended. He wasn’t sure if it even sounded like words.
“Hello?” Amanda said again.
Apparently, it hadn’t sounded like words.
It had sounded like nothing.
Just like he felt.
He hung up.
Sunday, January 26, 1986
SEND WORD TO BIRD
As far as Cash’s father was concerned, there was only one battle more intense than the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and that was the rivalry between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Boston Celtics.
Tonight they’d take the court right in the Nelson Thomas living room, via channel four.
Cash and his father had anticipated the game all week. They sat in their respective places near the coffee table, which was littered with more junk food than they could ever eat. Chips and dip. Soft pretzels. Pizza rolls. Cheez Balls. Cash’s mother typically spent such evenings reading in her room, but when she did wander in, she never failed to remark on the mountain of fat and calories they were stuffing into their faces.
“Dr. J can’t find the basket tonight,” his father said at the half. The Sixers were only up by one. He was acting antsy about it, sitting up straight on the edge of the couch, bouncing his feet and eating one chip after another.
“He’s shooting better than Barkley,” said Cash. He felt defensive when someone spoke against Julius Irving, as if they were close personal friends and he needed to defend Dr. J’s honor.
“All I want is to beat Larry Bird at home,” his father replied, his mouth full. “If we pound them at the Garden, I’ll run down the street singing.”
Cash laughed and rummaged behind the cushions for the bent coat hanger he’d been using to scratch under his cast. God, he couldn’t wait to get this thing off.
“I’m serious,” his dad said. “Mark my words.”
“What song will you sing?” asked Cash.
“I’ll make up something original, like . . .” His dad swallowed, stared off into an imaginary bubble in the air, and sang at the top of his lungs, bewilderingly off-key. “Send word to Bird! You’re not even good enough for third! SEND WORD TO BIRD!” He raised his arms and sang louder and louder, as Cash laughed. But the performance didn’t last long. Soon enough, Bird Nelson Thomas—not Larry—was standing in their basketball-only zone, looking quite confused.
Their father stopped singing but was still smiling. “Hey there. Want some snacks?” he asked.
Bird glanced between her father and brother. “Were you calling me?”
A moment of confusion passed between Cash and his dad.
“I heard my name,” Bird explained.
“Oh!” Mr. Thomas said. “No. I mean, yes, it was your name, but I was singing about Larry Bird, not our Bird.” He gestured toward the television.
“Oh,” Bird said. “Okay, then.”
She turned around and had taken two steps back toward her room before her father said, “You wanna watch the game with us?”
“No, thanks.”
“You sure? No need to stay cooped up in your room like your mom and your brother.”
“I know,” Bird mumbled.
“Everything okay? You seem . . . I don’t know. Quiet.”
Before Bird could answer, Mrs. Thomas appeared down the hall with a paperback tucked under her arm and an empty water glass in her hand. She walked toward the kitchen.
“Bird’s bummed out about the Challenger launch,” said Cash. He snatched a pizza roll and popped it in his mouth. “They keep rescheduling it.”
“Yeah, I was reading about that in the paper this morning,” said Mr. Thomas. He leaned back and returned his attention to the television, where it was still halftime. The volume was lowered. “If you ask me, they shouldn’t be going at all. Sending men and women in space together.” He shook his head. “Recipe for disaster.”
The faucet in the kitchen stopped running.
“What did you say?” said Mrs. Thomas. She placed her full glass on the counter.
Cash and Bird exchanged looks.
“What?” Mr. Thomas said, eyes still on the TV. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea, that’s all. I’m entitled to my opinion.”
Mrs. Thomas crossed her arms. She was standing behind the kitchen island like a general eyeing a disobedient army.
“Please enlighten me,” she said.
“Look,” he replied, making eye contact. “It’s just not good for men and women to be in such close quarters for a long period of time like that. You get a bad mix together, and bam! Disaster. They’ve got two women on the Challenger, right? What happens if both of them get their . . . you know . . . at the same time? It’s not like there’s a drugstore down the street at the space station. Not to mention the mood swings and tensions. Too much can go wrong.”
Mrs. Thomas raised her eyebrows. She uncrossed her arms and put her hands on her hips.
“Do you have any idea how ignorant you sound right now, in front of your children?” she said.
Mr. Thomas looked at Cash. Then at Bird. Then at the television.
“So much for equality,” he mumbled. “You can’t even disagree with a woman anymore without being accused of being a—”
“I can hear you, Mike. My ears work, you know.”
Cash focused on the screen and the first-half highlights. He couldn’t hear the announcers over his parents, but so what? He’d focus on what he was seeing. Here was Charles Barkley. Here was Larry Bird. Here was Dr. J.
Here was his sister, disappearing back into her room.
BENEFITS TO BEING INVISIBLE
There are some benefits to being invisible. When the house shifts to Mr. Hyde, no one pays attention to what you’re doing. You can slip out the door in your winter coat, gloves, and hat, even though it’s incredibly cold and icy after a day of light rain. You can even take your parent’s keys with you, get into a car, and turn the ignition. You can’t leave, of course—you don’t know how to drive—but you can turn on the heater and look at the stars through the window.
There was Venus. The brightest object in the night sky, second to the moon. According to Ms. Salonga, Venus was the hottest planet in the solar system. Mercury was closest to the sun, but Venus’s atmosphere allowed it to reach up to eight hundred and seventy degrees. Such temperatures seemed unfathomable, especially when you were sitting in the cold night air of north Delaware.
Bird wondered where Halley’s Comet was at this exact moment. What would it be like to see it up c
lose, like the Challenger crew would? What would it be like to see the stars from the window of a space shuttle instead of a Cavalier?
Bird closed her eyes. She imagined that the hum of the car was the hum of solid rocket boosters. She held on to the sides of the driver’s seat. But it wasn’t a car’s seat. It was a shuttle seat. Judith was next to her. This mission would decide whether or not she would be promoted to shuttle commander. Nothing could go wrong.
“All systems go,” Bird said.
Then, the countdown: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two—
Knock, knock, knock.
A foreign object was banging against the shuttle window.
Pay no attention. Probably just debris.
What number were we on?
—four, three, two—
KNOCK. KNOCK. WHATAREYOUDOING?
Don’t open your eyes.
Don’t worry, Judith. Just debris. All systems go.
AREYOUCRAZYBIRD?
The solid rocket boosters quieted. Judith disappeared—poof!—and the hum of the engine settled to an earthly buzz.
Bird opened her eyes.
Fitch was standing next to the car, giving her a bewildered look.
She rolled down the window. Squeak, squeak, squeak. Cold air rushed in.
“What are you doing?” he asked. He wasn’t even wearing a jacket. Just a long-sleeve Donkey Kong T-shirt. The shirt was so worn that Donkey Kong was cracked and faded. “Stealing the car or something?”
“No,” Bird said. “I’m just sitting here. I turned the heater on because it’s cold.”
“They’re done arguing,” said Fitch, motioning toward the house. Puffs of cold air came out of his mouth as he spoke. “Mom went to their room, and Dad is watching the stupid game.”
“Okay,” Bird said.
“You can come back inside now. You don’t have to stay out here.”
“Maybe,” said Bird.
She wanted to ask: How did you find me? I thought I was invisible. But she let it be.
Fitch hugged his chest. “Are you coming in?”
“Maybe.”
Fitch glanced back toward the front door. “You’re gonna get in trouble if Dad finds out you started the car.”
“Probably.”
Being in trouble was a strange thought. She’d never been in trouble before.
Bird started to roll up the window. Squeak, squeak. But Fitch put his hand on it before it closed completely.
“I’m gonna come in, too,” he said, nodding toward the passenger seat.
Bird didn’t have time to protest. She wasn’t sure if she even wanted to. Instead she rolled up her window and leaned over to unlock the passenger side. Fitch got in, rubbed his hands together, and aimed the heater vents toward his face.
“It’s freezing!” he said.
“You aren’t wearing a jacket.”
“What’re you doing out here?”
Bird shrugged.
Fitch cupped his hands around his mouth and blew into them.
“Are you looking at the stars or something?” he asked. “I don’t understand why you won’t go in the backyard to do that. You’d probably get a better view.”
“It’s cold,” she said.
And backyards are meant to be shared.
Backyards are meant for dogs. Barbecues. Families.
Our backyard is a lonely place.
I don’t want a lonely place.
They sat together in silence until Fitch finally warmed up, put his hands in his lap, and stared out the window.
Our mission has been aborted, Judith, Bird thought.
“You know what I think is kinda cool? Black holes,” Fitch said. “The way they suck in everything, like a vacuum. Shhhooop. But Ms. Salonga said we can’t even see them. And if we can’t see them, how do we know they’re there?”
Bird paused. “Their gravitational pull is so strong that it consumes everything around it, including light. That’s why we can’t see it.”
Bird put her hands on the steering wheel.
“Hey, Bird?” said Fitch. He leaned back on the headrest and turned toward her. “I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat. “About what I said.”
What would it be like to drive forever?
“I mean it,” Fitch said. “My apology, that is.”
What would it be like to drive down the interstate and never stop?
“Sometimes I say things and I don’t know why,” he continued.
Bird swallowed. “Maybe you were right,” she said.
Fitch looked out the window again. “Me? Nah. I’m never right.”
A shadow passed across the living room window.
“We should go back in before they come out,” Fitch said. “You coming?”
She didn’t want to, but Fitch had a point. It was time to cancel the launch for now. Sometimes all systems weren’t go. She killed the engine and followed her brother into the house. Cash was putting leftover food in the refrigerator.
He looked up when they came in.
“The Sixers lost,” Cash said.
“We care,” Fitch replied dryly, rolling his eyes.
Bird didn’t say anything. Usually she took off her coat and hung it on the hook by the front door, but tonight she kept everything on until she was in her bedroom. Then she put her jacket, hat, and gloves in a pile on the floor, turned off the lights, and fell back on her bed fully dressed. Even her shoes.
Her mind swam and swam.
She was just a girl from Delaware.
She was plain.
Girls didn’t belong in space, anyway.
Besides, she was invisible.
The truth is the hardest thing to hear sometimes.
She closed her eyes.
She wanted to go to sleep for now.
She was tired.
It was time to face the truth. All of it.
She would never go into space. Who was she kidding?
She would never be a NASA shuttle commander.
She would never be Judith Resnik.
She was just a plain, plain girl, floating like dust. She didn’t know Judith Resnik. They weren’t even real conversations and didn’t make a difference in the world. She was no better than a five-year-old with an imaginary friend.
What difference did it make if Bird talked to her or said good night or not?
None.
Monday, January 27, 1986
THIS MOMENT
Fitch wouldn’t have thought it possible for two people to attend Park Middle School in the same grade and never cross paths. School was like its own mini-universe, after all. Identical stars and planets, identical orbits, floating through the same galaxy, day after day after day. But somehow, Amanda Piper had managed to elude him for weeks. Today he would find her. He would finally, finally make amends.
He couldn’t take it anymore. The unsaid apology followed him everywhere. He wanted to swat it away. He wanted to believe that it didn’t matter and he should just go on with his life. But he couldn’t. He’d apologized to his sister, and now he would apologize to Amanda Piper, and then he could move on without feeling like such a failure.
When someone finally, finally, told him that Amanda had Ms. Salonga for sixth period, he hurried down the hall as soon as fifth period ended and lingered near the classroom door. He’d catch her on the way in.
She didn’t see him at first because she was looking down as she walked. When she saw him, her eyes darted away and she took a half step in the opposite direction.
“Amanda!” he called, narrowing the distance between them.
She stopped and turned. She hugged her books close to her chest, which rounded her shoulders. She didn’t look at him.
“Hey,” he said. He motioned to an empty space by the lockers. “Um . . . can I talk to you for a second?”
They stepped off to the side.
Fitch’s heart raced. He adjusted his backpack.
“Um . . .” he said. “I just wanted to say .
. .”
He looked at the toes of his sneakers, but for whatever reason—maybe because of where they were standing, who knows—Ms. Salonga’s words drifted into his consciousness. Something she always said in class when someone wasn’t paying attention.
Eye contact is the simplest gift you can give someone.
Yes, something like that.
Fitch picked his head up.
“I’m sorry, Amanda,” he said.
The words came out crisp and true.
He’d never said anything with so much conviction. He surprised even himself.
The words hung in the air between them.
Amanda looked up, too. For a split second, their eyes met. But that was all.
She didn’t say okay.
She didn’t say thank you.
She didn’t say it’s fine.
He wasn’t sure what he expected, but he thought she’d say something.
She didn’t.
She walked past him and into Ms. Salonga’s classroom.
But the words were said. They were out there. It didn’t change the past, but it certainly influenced this moment—the present.
He exhaled.
Tuesday, January 28, 1986
11:37 A.M. EST
Rows of chairs were set up in front of the TV. Bird had darted into the room first and took a seat in the front row, right in the center. By the time Dani and Devonte walked in, the seats around Bird were filled. She hadn’t thought to save a seat for Dani. Too much excitement. She wondered absently where Dani was sitting, but she could hardly sit still long enough to look around. Plus, she didn’t want to take her eyes off the television.
The launch had been rescheduled several times, so Ms. Salonga—and Bird, for that matter—was cautiously optimistic. But it was really going to happen today. Bird could feel it. Her belly was doing somersaults. Everything else that had been wrong these past few weeks had dimmed in the light of this moment. The universe had tilted and become surreal. Here she was, surrounded by kids from other classes, many of whom she barely recognized, all of them sharing this moment—or the moment that was about to happen, anyway.
Bird wondered what they had written in their essays.
She was the only one who’d brought a notebook, she noticed.
We Dream of Space Page 13
