by Phil Stamper
But she was my girlfriend … and my best friend. She deserved more than a weak excuse, so I went right to the point:
“I kissed Jeremy.”
We talked it out, and—months later—she accepted my apology. The thing was, Jeremy was always there in the back of my mind. He was the unattainable senior, and I was content with Deb. Unfortunately for her, I found something better than content as I sunk into his lips, the taste of Coors Light on our tongues.
I found a fire, a passion that I was missing. My identity seems to change by the minute, but I knew I was queer—and Deb did too. The hardest thing for her to accept was that it wasn’t that I didn’t like cishet girls … I just didn’t like her like that, and after dating for three months, I wanted to find someone I did like. And I found Jeremy.
Two weeks later, Jeremy found someone else.
“Calvin?” She grabs my hand and pulls me closer. “Come in. What’s—wow, last time I saw you looking like this I had to bring you back from a panic attack so you could break up with me. What’s going on, babe?”
My breaths aren’t coming easily. I’m suffocating, drowning in the overwhelming pink of her room. The pink beanbag chair with the pink fuzzy pillow and the—why can’t I breathe?—pink rug that I’m somehow lying on now, though I don’t remember crawling in through the window.
I focus on a point on the ceiling, and I don’t let it go. Breathe in. Breathe out. Slowly, I pull myself together. I’m okay.
“I’m okay.”
Deb rolls her eyes. “Yes, I see that.”
“I’m leaving. On Monday. Dad’s a fucking astronaut.”
This is when she busts out laughing. Like, I’m still crying, and she is one-hundred-percent losing her shit. I can see her try to hold it together—clenching, biting her lip—but nothing’s working.
“Oh, god, this is bad. Sorry.” She pauses to grab my arm. “It’s just so fucking unlikely. Your dad’s the least qualified person for this job.”
I shrug. “I mean, he’s a pilot, I guess.”
“For Delta.” She leans on that word like it tastes bad in her mouth. “He’s got to be the first nonscientist they’ve picked since, like, the seventies.”
I decide not to tell her that his degree in aeronautical engineering does make him a scientist.
“Focus.” I reach out to her, and all the air’s sucked from the room. She breaks eye contact and starts picking at the chipped paint on her toenail. “I’m leaving, Deb. On Monday, apparently. We’re moving to Houston, and I don’t know when I’m coming back. Or if I’m coming back.”
It’s as if the world reacts to my words. A cloud passes by, casting the window in shade. The pink around me dims. Her lips almost pout as she considers me.
She’s not laughing anymore.
So, no, I didn’t love her like that. But I do love her. From the moment we met at the mailbox downstairs, when I was geeking out about the vintage Prince cassette I’d just scored off eBay. She’d just moved in that day, but that didn’t stop her from relentlessly mocking my obsession with cassettes.
That didn’t curb my enthusiasm. I started rambling about it, about how much smoother cassettes sounded and how they had a quality she could never find in a digital copy or CD. I talked so much, I kind of forgot that my room was a disaster, even after I invited her up. She sat on my bed, which was totally unmade, and just listened.
She definitely didn’t get it. The cassette thing. But she listened anyway.
That whole year was spent falling into an easy friendship with her. One where I never had to ask if she was free later; I’d ask her, “What are we doing later?” We spent so much time together, it was like we were dating. Going from friends to more was easy too. Suddenly, we were dating, and it all felt the same.
The same, though, wasn’t what I wanted. Where I sought fire and excitement, I got the same calm, comfortable relationship we’d always had.
“What about BuzzFeed?” she asks, cutting through my memories.
I pause. After my coverage of the midterm election got picked up by the national news, plus one full year of building my following and reputation as a reporter, BuzzFeed News offered me a summer internship to help with video content for their new local New York City feature.
When I walked into the headquarters, with its yellow walls and couches everywhere, I knew I was somewhere special. With the laughing twentysomethings and their thick-rimmed glasses, phones always up on top of laptops in open meeting spaces. It was a dream. It was supposed to start next week. It was …
“Not going to happen.” I realize it as I say it. Everything I’ve worked for. A foot in the door with a career in media journalism. Stolen away by the astronauts. “Fuck, this sucks. What do I even tell them?”
“Tell them you’ll cover the Mars missions. They post a new article about the families like every day.”
“On the entertainment page. I was supposed to cover city news.” I gesture to the window. “And StarWatch has a gag order on any other video, or really anything, coming out of Clear Lake, Texas. Once Dad signs that contract, I’ll be a part of the show. I won’t even be able to do my FlashFame vids anymore.”
“That’s (a) not fair, and (b) wait, I just realized you’re going to be on Shooting Stars. Oh my god, Josh Farrow is going to be saying your name, aloud, on TV.”
I groan. “I can’t even process that you still watch that show. It’s all perfect families, fancy parties, and petty gossip nowadays. We’ll never be able to fit in with those people.”
The tension balls up in my chest.
“First of all, it is a fantastic television program.” She pronounces each word with extra force. “Okay, yeah, it’s a little petty. But hey, they’re entertaining at least. Don’t act like you aren’t a little starry-eyed—pun intended. You were just as invested as everyone else until you found out your dad got an interview.”
“Sure, I covered all the new astronauts and reported on the months-long debate about financing Orpheus before the Senate finally passed that funding bill. They were news stories that mattered.”
“Well, maybe I think watching astronauts get drunk off champagne before falling face-first into a bush matters too,” she jokes.
At least, I hope that was a joke.
Either way, I roll my eyes. “I even did that in-depth report on all the drama NASA caused by buying out every house on the market in Clear Lake, and it got picked up by the Washington Post.”
She nods, sagely, as I ramble through my frustration.
Clear Lake City is conveniently close to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. When the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts—and, of course, all the related teams—relocated here from their respective towns, Clear Lake and a few surrounding areas became known for being the home of astronauts. American heroes who made their front lawns the Hollywood of the South.
There was more than celebrity appeal then, however, and the same is true now.
“StarWatch thinks people don’t care about the science of it,” I say. “Plus, the exploration, what it could mean for our planet, anything. It’s so scripted and boring. You know a producer is behind the scenes, stoking the fire or asking pointed questions.”
She sighs. “We’re getting off track. Forget them—let’s get back to you. At least ask BuzzFeed if you could do the internship from Texas? You might not lose this opportunity if you try. I’m sure they can be flexible. It’s not the Times.”
“I will,” I say. “It’ll give me something to do on the car ride to Texas.”
She laughs and punches me in the shoulder. “NASA won’t pay for a jet? Come on!”
“You know Dad wouldn’t go for that. He’s spent the past decade moving the car for street cleanings twice a week, even though we use it a handful of times a year. He’s not going to get rid of it. He’s going to make us all load up the car and go. Forever.”
She pulls me into a hug, and I reach around her body and hold her close.
“What am I going to do witho
ut you?” she asks.
I know the question isn’t exactly rhetorical. At least once a week, she’ll tap on my window, needing an escape from her family. They fight too. Maybe all parents fight, I don’t know. But with Deb’s parents … their fights are always … scarier. More desperate. The echoed sound of a fist breaking through a particleboard door settles in my head.
They break her heart, and I fix it. That’s how it’s always gone. Whether it’s splitting vegan frozen yogurt at Pinkberry or impromptu slumber parties, fixing her pain—or at least distracting her from it—puts me at ease.
A shiver runs through my body as the truth breaks through. Sometimes, it feels like the only thing keeping me stable is the shield I put up. Cal the performer is always put together. Cal the friend is always there to fix your problems.
I try, but I can’t even picture the real Cal. The one without a carefully planned video schedule and content calendar, the one who has a clear vision of his future, the one without anyone to turn to.
And I especially can’t picture any version of myself in Clear Lake, Texas.
I rest my head on Deb’s shoulder and fight back the tears. I’m a little more successful this time, so I get the courage to tell her:
“I’m really going to miss you, Deb.”
I nod toward the fire escape, and she follows me out there. We take our usual spots, me a few steps higher than her, the wrought iron crisscrossed grate I sit on hurting my ass. The wind is cutting, though it’s a warm day in spring, and my hair is a disaster.
It’s all perfect.
The sun’s almost set, but we could be out here all night for all I care.
“Everything’s going to change,” I say.
Deb releases a bark of laughter. “Is that so bad?”
She bites her lip, and her eyes glisten and puff up. I know Deb could use a change. The only reason Deb is okay now is because she’s working the register at Paper Source, which means she can avoid her family for most of the day and night, depending on the shifts she picks up.
I know she’d run if she could, but that doesn’t make it any better, for either of us. I wish I could bring her along, to have someone with me on this trip who doesn’t drive me mad like Mom and Dad do.
“It might not be so bad—god, why am I tearing up right now?” She takes a moment to rub each eye with her sleeve. “I’ll visit you, and you’ll come back when you can. You’ll end up back in Brooklyn eventually, for good, don’t you think?”
“Oh, um, probably.” I hadn’t yet thought about coming back, really, because I never thought about leaving.
Too much. “It’s too much,” I say.
“Promise me …” She points to my phone. “Promise me you won’t stop. Keep streaming all your news stories.
“You know how fickle fans are. If you take a year off, I’m afraid … once you move back here, you won’t have anything left to come back to.”
She’s right. Her words slap me across the face, waking some fire within me. I have my next decade planned out meticulously. I have the college brochures on my desk, the SAT prep courses scheduled. I knew exactly how I was getting into my career.
If I leave, even for a year, I could lose so much.
“I know it’s against the rules or whatever,” she says, “but I say post everything you can until StarWatch pries that phone from your hands.”
There’s nothing I can do to change NASA’s mind. There’s nothing I can do to stop this move. The only thing I can control is sitting in the palm of my hand.
A spark of rebellion warms my soul. It’s not the smartest move, and it could get my family in trouble, but maybe Clear Lake, Texas, has a story out there just waiting for me to uncover.
Shooting Stars
Season 1; Episode 10
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: The Tucker family’s house has a reputation for being party central when it comes to welcoming new astronauts, honoring achievements, or celebrating holidays. In this episode, we pay a visit to Grace, Tony, Leon, and Katherine Tucker to get an inside look at their home and to learn more about the sacrifices the family’s made for the Orpheus project. (First aired 7/17/2019)
“Good evening to all our viewers. I’m Josh Farrow, and I’d like to welcome you to another new episode of Shooting Stars. Tonight I’ll be taking you on a very special tour through the Tucker family home. But first, I thought it would be nice to catch up with our astronaut family du jour: Grace Tucker, her husband, Tony, and their children, Leon and Katherine. It’s been a few months since we last got to chat, Grace, isn’t that right?”
“Yes, and I can’t believe how much has changed in such a short time. I want to thank all the viewers for their help. Without your support, and the thousands of calls and emails to Senate and Congress members … well, let’s just say we might not be sitting here right now.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself. So, last time I was here, we did a quick interview with Grace on that couch, but we only talked business. I want to know more about you all as a family. Leon, with a mother like Grace, you have a lot to live up to. However, you seem to be doing so in your own unique way. By this point we all know about your great talent for gymnastics—in fact, Tony was just telling me about your impromptu gym session today. No pressure, of course, but a few of our fans want to know, do you think we’ll be seeing you compete anytime soon?”
“I’m … not so sure about that. I’ve only been back once so far. Still looking for the right trainer. Kat dragged me to a gymnastics center in Houston earlier today, and I spent some time on the rings, hit the mat, and … face-planted a few times. I’m not quite so sure I’m competition material anymore.”
“My brother’s being a little too humble. See, back in Indiana, Leon was basically guaranteed a spot in the USA Gymnastics Elite Squad for his age group. But when we moved here, it was hard for all of us to get into the right rhythm. Plus, our new school is a lot more competitive—academically, I mean. Having said all that, we all know he’s still competition material.”
“That’s great to hear—and I love to see the supportive bond you two have. My sister and I are a year apart too, but we’ve always been far too competitive to have that kind of relationship! Before we go to break, I wanted to let viewers know we’ve actually acquired some fan-submitted videos of the Tucker kids at the gym. Our viewers can go to StarWatch.TV to see those videos. Once you’re there, read on to take a look back on how Leon’s promising career in gymnastics may have been cut short years before a potential Team USA Olympics run. As we know, he’s not the only family member whose life or career was affected by the Orpheus missions. With a full StarWatch pass, you’ll get access to a new miniseries that takes an in-depth look at the astronauts’ loved ones and the dreams they’ve left behind.”
CHAPTER 4
The weekend goes too fast. Way too fast. A few days ago, I never thought I’d leave my nook of a bedroom, with the tiny bookshelf, twin bed, and tape deck. But now, it really hits me.
I’m leaving Brooklyn.
“Look, buddy,” Dad starts.
I hate when he calls me that. So I just keep looking into my bowl of ice cream. I shuffle my feet out of habit, feeling them stick to the stone floor just slightly.
This shop’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, serving the same four ice-cream flavors. Unlike a lot of Brooklyn—new Brooklyn, at least—it’s a no-frills kind of place. Ice cream in the summer. Soup in the winter. And really, both foods usually warm my heart.
Today, though, my chest is too heavy. There are some pains even ice cream can’t fix.
“I want you to know that … I get it. I know how hard this can be. I was a military brat—my parents moved me all over the place, and I hated it every single time. I resented them for it, and I know you will too, but I hope one day you’ll understand.”
“And I hope …,” I start, not sure how to express the jumble that’s in my chest … how to say it in a way that will make him take my work seriously for once
. “I hope you know what this is costing me. I know you’ve always treated my videos as a hobby, and I’m sure it looks that way for you. You don’t even watch them. So you don’t see the time I put into my reports. You don’t see the folders I have on my drive—portfolios to help me get into journalism schools after I graduate, all my research on writing scholarships to help pay for college. It took so much work to build this following, and having to abandon something like this just … sucks.”
“I know.” Dad takes a big bite of ice cream. I follow suit. “I should have been more honest with you two in the beginning. That way you could have worked this into your plan. I know how you think—though, I have no idea where you got the planning gene, with how your mom and I are. It’s something I’m going to work on. But I need you to get on board, and help your mom do the same, okay?”
I shrug. A half-hearted gesture is all I can offer right now.
Pushing aside the rest of my ice cream, I take one last look at the small shop. I’m going to miss the sticky floor, the water-stained ceiling tiles, the enormous plastic ice-cream cone outside the storefront—the paint is chipping, yet it still manages to creepily light up at night.
Right now, movers are loading boxes into the truck. Boxes containing my entire life are about to be flung across the country. I sigh, and the chill of the ice cream finally catches up to me, until a firm hand grips my shoulder.
Dad’s voice is almost a whisper. “I’m going to miss it here too.”
“I still can’t believe you get to meet the astronauts,” Deb says while Dad loads our suitcases into the trunk of our car. “You’ll get to meet Grace Tucker and Mark Bannon. Like, actually speak to them. Maybe touch them?”
I roll my eyes. “I think we’ll take it slow, at first. What with them being double my age, and always on the news.”
“Oh, shut it.” She slaps me on the arm. “You know what I mean.”
The thought of meeting Mark Bannon, one of the first astronauts picked for the project, immediately intimidates me. I did one report on him that focused on his advocacy for the space program, back before we even knew if Orpheus V would earn the funding to get off the ground. It got me a ton of new followers—the same ones who are probably complaining that I don’t do those updates anymore.
