Falling Like Stars

by Eve Kasey

  She smiled at her whiteboard and placed the cap back on the marker with a satisfying click.

  “Well done.”

  Elle jumped at the smooth sound of Tate’s voice. She turned and spied him leaning against the doorway of her office.

  “Why, thank you. I’m pretty happy with how the experience turned out. Did you look at the binder?”

  She’d asked Quinn to look at the fleshed-out experience in written form before passing it on to Tate. That had been a week ago and she hadn’t received any feedback from either of them.

  After overhearing an exchange she probably shouldn’t have, Elle had, however, received intel on what Quinn called “an arrangement” between herself and Vadim. “I guess I’ll have to be extra devoted,” she’d heard Vadim promise Quinn. The woman hadn’t divulged details, but Vadim was casual sex incarnate and no one needed release more than Quinn. Their “arrangement” wasn’t hard to guess at. Maybe Vadim was keeping her too busy to read the binder. Elle hoped so.

  “I did,” Tate replied, pulling her into the present. “It’s perfect.”

  When Tate didn’t elaborate, Elle pushed on. “It can always be better. I’ll start looking for improvements. Interview more people, maybe. Try to break down the milestones even further to see if there’s any part of the experience we missed.”

  She said the words with a smile, but the thought of continuing to do this work exhausted her. The experience was planned. Her own goals achieved. Since Chen had left, work had felt less like using her creativity to make guests happy and more like work. She had bursts of inspiration, sure, but mostly she was digging into the depths of her brain and coming up empty. She even found herself googling hospitality ideas sometimes, and that was sacrilege. She had begun to wonder if her usefulness at OrbitAll had been maxed. But she’d keep fighting if that’s what Tate needed.

  Tate pushed off the doorframe and took a seat at her conference table. “Sit with me.”

  She obliged, thankful to rest her feet. They were killing her from all the aimless pacing. He looked tired. Her own split with Chen had mirrored the timing of his and Rosie’s. She wondered if her boss was feeling as lonely as she was with Rosie now out of his life.

  “When we first started the wait list for the flights to space, we had nothing to offer but a seat on a spaceplane.” He smiled. “Look at what you’ve done for us.”

  “I can do more.”

  The corners of his clear eyes crinkled in kindness. “Do you want to do more?”

  Elle sucked in a breath. No one she had worked for had ever asked her that. No one cared whether she wanted to give more of herself. She could; she’d worked herself to death for years on the island. But Elle recognized when someone was close to buckling under too much weight. Right now, that person was her. She’d done what she came to do at OrbitAll. She didn’t want to push herself anymore.

  She could barely whisper the truth. “No.”

  Because she was missing Chen, tired, stressed, fucking hungry, and so relieved at Tate’s question, Elle broke open. The tears rushed out of her like a newly sprung leak in a dam. In true form, Tate gave her a calm space to cry. He didn’t even twitch. Minutes of sobbing later, Elle rose to blow her nose. When she turned back to her boss, he was smiling that sweet, gentle smile that had chucked Rosie out of her self-imposed no man’s land. At least for a while.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?” Her skin tingled from the lightness of dropping what she hadn’t realized was guilt dragging her down. Looking out for her own well-being for once felt good.

  “Do you have something to say to me? Something I won’t like?”

  Realization dawned and a grin that should have been mistimed split across her face. “I do. Tate, I love this job. I adore you, and I admire what OrbitAll stands for. But I quit.”

  He chuckled. “Good. I couldn’t watch you break yourself anymore. Elle, you didn’t have to do any of this extra work for us. We wanted a few great ideas. You’ve created an experience, a brand, memories to be made, all perfectly aligned with our mission. The board, the staff, myself—you’ve surpassed our every expectation. I want to make sure you leave here knowing that every single mark on that whiteboard is valued and will be carried out. We are the OrbitAll we wanted to be because of you.”

  More tears fell as she let Tate’s soothing words wash over her. Was it possible he was actually cool with her quitting only four months into her contract? Elle stood and waved him up. “I can’t not hug you after that,” she blubbered.

  He chuckled again. It was the first time, but hopefully not last, that she’d hugged him. He gave good, warm hugs and smelled delicious, though not quite as good as Chen.

  “What can I do for you?” she whispered. “Talk to Rosie?”

  He let her go to hold her at arm’s length and shook his head. “Go home. Relax. Really relax. Feet up and Netflix on, or spend a day on the beach. You’ve done enough for me.”

  Elle nodded. She felt ten pounds lighter after all that liquid exiting her body through her tear ducts. “Whatever you say, boss.”

  “I’m not your boss anymore. You’re your own boss.”

  Her own boss. Elle had no idea what to do with herself now. The possibilities were scary and amazing and she was ready.

  A week later, she arrived on Rosie’s doorstep with only one suitcase. There was no room at her parents’ house, as much as she’d have loved full-time access to Betti’s cooking and those crazy boys. Instead, she’d commandeered Rosie’s office slash guest room while she searched for her own place. She’d decided to buy a house. No more living in places others chose for her. No more transition.

  The list she’d given her realtor, a brusque woman named Veronica they’d known since elementary school, had garnered an eyebrow raise and a clipped, “Don’t get your hopes up, Elle. Even with your budget.” Elle had just smiled. “I have all the time in the world,” she’d told Veronica.

  For the first time, she wasn’t freaked out by the idea of not working. She finally had time to figure out what she wanted without the influences of circumstance. And she had a ton of money saved from two high-paying jobs that also covered rent. That was a perk she’d miss.

  For sure, she wanted the cottage by the sea with the secret garden and a garage for her gorgeous car. More than that, she wanted her new life—free time, cottage, dinners squeezed around her childhood dining table—with Chen.

  Elle knew that part of her fairy tale was unattainable. Chen lived on the other side of the planet, working as a real astronaut with real purpose and real dedication to his family. She loved that he’d done the right thing by others. How could she not? Still, she couldn’t shake the daydream of cooking him dinner, eating with him on a quaint patio, and drinking wine together under the stars. She’d spent a lifetime yearning for the fairy tale, and she couldn’t stop now.

  Elle took a deep drink of sweet tea and closed her eyes. She sighed and tipped her face up to the sun, letting it warm her skin.

  “What’s on your mind, baby girl?”

  Elle smiled without opening her eyes. “Everything.” She loved living with Rosie again. Easy conversations on the couch, taking turns cooking, shopping—except this time for houses instead of clothes.

  And this. Quiet time in her parents’ backyard. Reconnection—with her family and her best friend—had become the theme of Elle’s hiatus. She hadn’t even started panicking about not working. Only one important relationship hadn’t been rekindled.

  “And Chen.”

  “Everything and Chen,” Betti repeated. “Do you still miss that boy?”

  “Every day.” Their time apart was equaling the time they’d been together and still her feelings for him remained as steadfast as they had when she’d been falling. She didn’t know when she’d stop loving him, missing him, or if she even wanted to. “I was going to propose to him, you know. So he could stay here.”

  “That the only reason?”

  Elle cracked an eye to look at h
er stepmother. She wore a muumuu, hair up in a bun, with giant sunglasses on her angular face. Her smile said that she already knew Elle’s answer.

  “You know it’s not. I wanted to love him forever.”

  “You should lead with love when talking about marriage.”

  “I never told him. I still wonder if keeping that to myself was a mistake.”

  Betti’s eyebrows drew together. “Oh, baby. That’s a tough one.” Her Southern drawl conveyed sympathy. “Sounds like you wanted him to make his choice without influence.”

  “I did. And he did.”

  Elle closed her eyes again and resettled in the backyard lounge chair. She supposed she couldn’t regret their choices—they’d led them both back home. She had to trust that the rest of the fairy tale would follow.

  43

  Chen’s first month whipped by and turned into two in a blink. If he wasn’t shuffling about inside a full-sized replica of the space station that felt like it was a thousand degrees, he was at the gym or immersed in training and equipment manuals back at his flat.

  He didn’t have time to miss Xiaoming, or Elle, except in that moment when he was falling asleep—the moment where he jerked awake as he felt himself falling.

  One morning, more than two months in, Chen rolled onto his back, eyes glued to the ceiling, and wondered when the excitement about this mission would kick in. He’d felt a stirring of happy nerves when he’d first stepped inside the mock space station, but the happiness had quickly been replaced by an uneasiness that hadn’t faded. The heavy, foreign feeling sat like a black hole in his stomach and continued to pull him apart.

  He had no real complaints about his team. The mission commander, a woman named Wu Sying, was younger than him but outranked him in Space City. She was a minority on base since she hadn’t served in the military, but she was a second-generation engineer at Jiuquan and her parents were famous for their engineering feats. Even her name meant star. The mission specialist, Yang Gan, was older than Chen by a decade and had finished his military service as a full colonel.

  Everywhere, Chen was outranked. He missed OrbitAll, where he was entrusted to do what he felt best for the program. Here, every move or suggestion had to be sanctioned by everyone above him. The stratification chafed even though he’d lived with it most of his life. He’d too quickly gotten used to the Western way of working, it seemed.

  He wondered how Vadim was faring at OrbitAll. Moreover, he wondered what his friend thought of the woman who had stolen Chen’s heart.

  With a groan, he rolled out of bed and into his morning routine. Tea in his OrbitAll mug, quick check on Instagram for any hints of life in Victory, staring at the one text message that had come from Elle nearly two months ago. He spent his time in the shower wondering why she’d stopped responding to his messages. He continued to send them the first few weeks but had tapered off as he slowly realized he wasn’t going to get a response. He hadn’t even considered giving her up completely, but their tango had two people and he couldn’t keep dancing without a partner. Her silence amplified how much he missed her.

  Since he couldn’t talk to her, he dialed Vadim instead. He needed to feel connected to them again.

  “Brother,” Vadim said in greeting.

  Chen forced levity into his voice. “My man. Tell me everything. I need to know how you’re doing at OrbitAll.”

  Vadim caught him up on the team he’d left behind and his family news. He did not mention Elle.

  “Have you gotten a Victory tattoo yet?” Chen asked. “It’s not an American flag, is it?”

  “No American flags for me. What’s happening in Jiuquan?”

  A groan escaped him before he could stop it. “Being here is like being in the military again. I hate being at the bottom. I can’t make any decisions.” But his new-man-in-town role wasn’t what bothered him most. “And she’s not here.”

  “Elle? Are you still mooning over her?”

  “Always. I can’t just turn it off.” He paused, suddenly nervous. “How is she?”

  “She’s gone.”

  Chen’s heart transformed into a cold, dead star. “What the fuck? And you didn’t tell me? Gone where?”

  “You left her, Chen. How is her life my business, or yours? I don’t know where she went. She just quit.”

  He cursed in Cantonese as his pulse skyrocketed. A happy, successful Elle was as important to him as Vadim achieving his dreams. But OrbitAll was supposed to have stayed the same after he left. “I’m not sure I can do this,” he admitted, sharing what he’d been too afraid to consider for more than a few nanoseconds at a time. “I really don’t know if I can do this not knowing where or how she is. She’s my north star.”

  Vadim stayed quiet for a long time, uncharacteristic of the loud, opinionated man who had never shared anything with a woman but a few hours of X-rated fun. “I’m sorry, brother.”

  “I don’t know what I want anymore. Every day here has felt like a mistake.”

  “You made a choice. You can make another.”

  A few days later, he parked his new car at the launch complex and trudged toward the neutral buoyancy lab. Vadim’s words were still weighing him down. He’d spent the past week logging hours in a modified military aircraft meant to simulate the approach and landing of the spacecraft. Flying he knew. Flying he loved. But even screaming off the ground and into the sky above the achingly beautiful Gobi Desert hadn’t lifted his spirits.

  Chen couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d made the wrong choice. His mother’s face during their last conversation kept haunting him. She knew or felt something she didn’t want him to know, a completely new sensation for him.

  Maybe the buoyancy testing would finally make him feel like he’d made the right choice in coming here. The gigantic pool full of mocked-up space station equipment would allow him to feel truly weightless for the first time since he’d been in orbit more than a year ago. His test flight with OrbitAll hadn’t had time for a float about the cockpit. Very soon he’d don a full spacesuit and submerge in water to perform mechanical tests to see if their equipment would work on the station. Today was his team’s first go in the pool that was so full of technology—equipment, cameras, mechanical arms and lifts—that it looked like a movie villain’s underwater lair.

  Sying and Gan had beat him there. Chen joined his team on the edge of the pool where they were getting assisted into the many, many layers of clothing that made up the spacesuit. If he wasn’t mistaken, Sying shot him a sharp look, though he wasn’t technically tardy. He couldn’t read her yet. Unlike Elle, she wasn’t a woman who wore emotion like perfume.

  Colonel Zhang—as he’d always be to Chen though they were both out of the military—who was overseeing the dive prep, gave Chen a small nod of encouragement. He took a deep breath. Fei wanted him here. Chen wanted to be here. Didn’t he?

  Two men approached carrying his gear, a massive heap of white, which they left next to him on the pool deck. Chen moved closer to Sying and began pulling on what he could without help. Sying’s face was serene, her movements unhurried and full of purpose.

  “How are you feeling, Sying?”

  This was her first faux spacewalk. Chen remembered his own giddiness. He’d felt like he was floating, and the sensation wasn’t from lack of gravity.

  “Proud,” she replied.

  “For getting yourself into that spacesuit?” he joked.

  She shook her head, face serious. “For what I’ve accomplished for my family. What I’m doing for my country.”

  Of course. Family, country, self. He wondered if his inclination to balk at that mentality was why he admired Elle’s selflessness so much. He had to force himself to move past his own wishes, where others seemed naturally able to do so. He’d always defined doing the right thing, being selfless, as living at home caring for his parents and sister. But even that wasn’t quite right. The apartment was too small. Xiaoming needed a place more attuned to her needs. His parents wouldn’t want to live
in the city forever. What if this mission just delayed what his family really needed? What if he’d helped no one?

  With misgivings ramping up again in his veins, he lay down on the pool deck and tried to be helpful as the two men standing by shoved gear on his legs and arms. Many minutes later, he and his team were suited up, helmets on, and standing on platforms that were slowly submerging in the water.

  Chen felt like he weighed a metric ton. He was sweating buckets from the humid pool environment. His mechanically enhanced breaths sounded too loud in his helmet. Once he was fully underwater, a diver swam over and unhooked him from the platform. Floating now, Chen grasped at the scaffolding that held the equipment he was meant to test. But he didn’t enjoy the sensation. He couldn’t concentrate.

  What the fuck was he doing here? Really? He’d been dazzled by the idea of the space station. Temporarily blinded. Every move since Fei’s first call had been toward this goal. Forward. So why did his gut tell him he’d only moved further away from what he wanted, needed, to do for himself and his family?

  He’d tried to keep himself too busy to notice these dark, unfamiliar feelings, but as Chen floated in the water, he felt crushed by the truth. “This is wrong. I don’t belong here.”

  “What was that, Lew?”

  Gan’s voice sounded in his ear. Chen realized he must have spoken the words in English. Or Cantonese. Or French. Definitely not Mandarin.

  Tears filled his eyes as he struggled to breathe. He couldn’t breathe. And he couldn’t move. Chen tried to push his way to the surface, but the suit was too heavy. The band of muscles across his chest constricted. Pain shot across his upper back.

  “Lew Chen, what is this?”

  Sying’s voice was stern. He was vaguely aware that he was flailing in a vain attempt to reach the surface. Spots danced across his vision as her voice continued to chirp in his ear. Chen spotted divers heading his way as the pool turned black.