The Fated Sky Read online

  The French-speaking diplomat, out for an evening stroll, was accosted by a group of white youths. The group yelled at him, he said, and then he was hit with a beer bottle. He suffered facial cuts requiring hospital treatment.

  Helen met me at her front door wearing a mint-green day dress and a strained smile. “Thank you for coming over.”

  We did not hug. “It’s good to see you.” I’d seen her at work, of course, but we’d done nothing social since I’d replaced her. The invitation to come over for a bridge night had been a welcome surprise.

  “May I offer you something to drink?” She led me back down a short hallway to the living room. Florence Grey sat on the sofa sipping a whiskey and soda.

  Oddly, the card table and chairs hadn’t been set up yet. Helen walked over to the birch sideboard where a bucket of ice sat sweating on a silver tray. “Martini?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble, that would be lovely.” I set my handbag on an end table. “Good evening, Florence.”

  “York.” She picked up her soda and sipped it, watching me over the rim.

  This was going to be a swell evening. The doorbell rang, which must be Ida. That offered me an excuse to flee for a moment. “I’ll get it.”

  Helen nodded from the sidebar, where she was measuring out vermouth to add to the pitcher. I retreated down the hall and pulled the door open. Ida stood on the little stoop of the Carmouches’ home with a big grin and a basket of strawberries. “Elma!” She gave me a quick hug. “When are we going to get you back out to the 99s airfield for some flying? We all miss you.”

  “You know how mission prep is.” I gave a pained smile and glanced back toward the living room. Lowering my voice, I said, “I don’t want to talk about the mission, though … Helen, you know?”

  She grimaced. “Sorry. I forgot.” Putting on a grin, she stepped past me and headed down the hall. “Ladies! I come bearing strawberries and shortcake!”

  “You are a goddess among women.” Florence stood up from the table and greeted Ida with a hug and a radiant smile.

  “Strawberries!” Helen stirred the martini in its cut glass pitcher, but grinned at Ida over her shoulder. “Now I wish I had champagne to add to that.”

  “Honey, if you’re making martinis, we don’t need to look any further.”

  I drifted at the edge of the room, suddenly aware that I was the only white woman present. I tucked my hands behind my back, as if hiding the color of my skin would distract anyone. Moments later, Helen delivered the martini, and I had to untuck them. At least I had something to do with my hands now.

  2, 3, 5, 7, 9 … Everything would be fine.

  “Do you want me to set up the card table?” Once we started playing cards, the tension would drop away.

  “Actually…” Helen poured another measure of gin into the pitcher. “I’ve invited you here under false pretenses.”

  Oh dear. I swallowed, then sipped my martini and swallowed that, too. The sense of unease in my gut didn’t go away.

  She poured in the vermouth, while I exchanged glances with Ida and Florence. At least they looked as confused as I felt. “Elma, you may already know about this,” Helen continued.

  “Not yet, but go on.”

  “At the last poker game that Reynard played with the boys, Governor Wargin mentioned the rocket crash.” As we waited, she tossed in a couple of ice cubes and picked up a silver spoon to stir. “The FBI is investigating whether Leonard Flannery had anything to do with it.”

  I lowered my martini. “They asked me about that.”

  The clinking of the ice against the sides of the pitcher slowed as Helen stopped stirring and turned to stare at me. “They?”

  “The FBI. A couple of weeks ago, they pulled Leonard and me out of a sim in the neutral buoyancy pool. They had a bunch of stupid questions about whether he could have brought the rocket down from inside. I told them that he wasn’t and couldn’t have been involved.”

  “Well, apparently they have a witness who says that he was.” Helen tapped the spoon on the side of the glass and set it aside.

  “The hell you say.” Florence sat up on the sofa. “Who?”

  Helen shrugged. “Reynard didn’t think to ask.”

  And Nathaniel hadn’t thought to tell me about the conversation at all. “When they asked me, they said that someone had reported on the conversation. A witness. So … someone on the ship. Right?”

  Ida swore softly and strode over to the sidebar. “Better hurry up with that martini, because I can tell I’m not going to like the way this conversation is going to go.”

  I settled into one of the armchairs. “What else did Reynard say?”

  Concentrating on pouring the martinis into the glasses, Helen grimaced. “Apparently Governor Wargin is concerned that if this business with the FBI gets out, the Congress might pull Leonard.” She set the pitcher down and turned to face the room. “And Florence.”

  “What?!” We all said it at pretty much the same time, surrounded by varying amounts of cursing. Florence slopped some of her whiskey and soda over the edge of her glass.

  As she mopped it up with a cocktail napkin, she said, “On what grounds?”

  “You’re both members of the NAACP, and so were all the men who boarded the ship.” Helen shook her head and came to join us.

  Ida trailed behind her. “So am I. So are most of the colored astronauts.”

  “They asked about the pilot, too.” I set my martini on the side table next to my handbag. “Okay. So let’s work the problem.”

  Ida took a healthy swig of her martini and responded with the question astronauts ask when things go wrong in space. “Right. What’s going to kill us next?”

  “I’m about to kill someone, that’s for sure.” Florence sat back on the couch. “But I’m guessing that my mouth is one of the problems.”

  “Public opinion.” Helen sat down on the couch next to Florence. “That is what will kill us.”

  It had already killed Helen’s shot at the Mars mission. I reached for my bag and dug out my notepad. “Okay. Public opinion. What else?”

  “Lies.” Florence shook her head. “We need to figure out who’s lying about Leonard.”

  I scribbled that down as we began making a list of everything that could go wrong. And then Helen mixed more martinis, and we started finding solutions.

  * * *

  I didn’t get home until after midnight, but Nathaniel was still up. Or rather, he was awake and reading. He sat propped against all the pillows on our Murphy bed with a sheet draped across his legs. The pale blond hair on his chest caught the amber lamplight like a cloud at sunset. He looked up and smiled.

  “I am angry at you.” That might have been my third martini speaking, but I set my handbag down on the kitchen table, kicked my shoes off, and went to stand on the new rug in my stocking feet. It really was gloriously soft. But the tufted oriental wonder did not diminish my irritation. “Or maybe irked.”

  He sat up, setting his book aside. “Why?”

  “Because you didn’t tell me about the FBI and Leonard and Florence.”

  “Oh.” He threw the sheet off. He had no pajamas on beneath it. That was interesting, but would not distract me from the main issue. Nathaniel stood in his full nude glory. “Is that why Helen invited you over?”

  “We are talking about why you didn’t tell me.”

  Nathaniel sighed and gave a little shrug. “When?”

  “When what?”

  “When was I supposed to tell you?” He ran his hand through his hair so it stuck up, like gravity had stopped in his orbit. “You come home late. You leave before I wake up. At work?”

  “I didn’t leave before you woke up this morning. We went to synagogue together. And had lunch! We spent most of today together before I went to Helen’s.”

  “Yes. Forgive me for wanting to spend a day with my wife instead of talking about work.”

  I rocked back a little. “We’ve always talked about work.”

/>   Nathaniel sighed again and covered his face with his hands. “I know.” When he peeled his hands away, his shoulders had sagged. “The truth is, I forgot by the time we got to the weekend.”

  “You forgot. You forgot that the FBI is investigating two of my teammates?”

  “Yes.” He leaned over and snatched his dressing gown from the back of the living room chair. “Believe it or not, I have other things on my mind than a conversation over a game of poker.”

  “It’s not just—”

  “I know! I didn’t ignore it. I told Clemons. All right?” He pulled the dressing gown on, tying the belt tight enough that it must have hurt. “You were already upset enough about Helen. I didn’t think you needed more to feel guilty about.”

  My jaw dropped. “Guilty? Leonard and Florence aren’t my fault. Why would I feel guilty?”

  “You’re Jewish. You’re Southern. You feel guilty about being alive.”

  I snorted. “All right. All right. I’ll grant you that point. That one point.”

  He dropped into the chair, leaning one elbow on the armrest. “Well, thank God for that.” Looking up at me, Nathaniel tilted his head to the side. “Look. Elma. There’s nothing you can do about it, so—”

  “Ha!”

  He sat up abruptly. “What are you planning?”

  I drew a circle on the carpet with my toe. It really was a glorious carpet. And maybe I should’ve stopped after martini number two. “Maybe I should keep some secrets of my own.”

  “It wasn’t a—you know what? Fine.” He wiped the air with both hands. “Who won the bridge game?”

  “We didn’t play bridge.”

  Nathaniel stared at me. I’d seen him give this look to an engineer who failed to account for a drag coefficient in a design concept. The only time I could remember being on the receiving end of that flat, slightly aggrieved expression was the time I’d turned his tuxedo shirt pink in the wash. (Yes, I should have sent it to the cleaners, but I was trying to save money when we were newlyweds.) The stare wasn’t quite as good as Mama’s had been, but it was darn close.

  I cleared my throat. “Do you really want to know, or are you just asking so you can shoot down the idea?”

  He blinked, three or four times. “What—”

  Nathaniel shook his head, shoving himself to his feet, then stalked around the room until he returned to stand behind the chair that he’d been sitting in. Pressing both hands on the chair’s back, he leaned all his weight on it. “When have I ever—ever—stood in the way of what you wanted to do?”

  Heat discharged through my face like a rocket venting at separation. He hadn’t. Ever. Not even when I wanted to leave him for three years to go haring off to Mars. “I’m sorry.”

  “What are we fighting about?”

  “I don’t—” I sat down. On the coffee table, in front of the sofa, but I didn’t really care at this point. “I don’t know. I just wanted you to have told me.”

  Outside the window, one of the late-night streetcars clattered past over the tracks. I stared at my hands and knotted them together. My knuckles turned white from pressure. I shouldn’t have had that third martini.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  It was not entirely clear if he was apologizing or just that he regretted doing something we were fighting over. Pushing that question seemed inadvisable.

  I sighed, trying to vent some tension. “You’re right. I’m not spending enough time with you.”

  “I know what the schedule is.” Across the room, cloth rustled as he shifted behind the chair. “And how much catch-up you have to do on top of that.”

  “What did Clemons say?”

  “That replacing Leonard wasn’t an option. That he literally wrote the book on Martian geology and landing sites.”

  “But not Florence.”

  He shifted again. Not even a streetcar broke the silence in the room.

  My toes dug into the intricate patterns on the rug. “She wasn’t even on the rocket.”

  “She’s been very outspoken about the inequalities at the IAC.” Nathaniel cleared his throat. “And there have been complaints.”

  I lifted my head. She and I didn’t get along, but I had never voiced that to anyone except Nathaniel. “You didn’t—”

  He scowled. “Who, exactly, do you think you’re married to?”

  “Sorry.”

  Tilting his head back, Nathaniel stared at the ceiling and took a markedly slow breath. He pursed his lips as he blew it out, like one of Clemons’s smoke rings. “Elma. I do not share our private conversations.”

  “You did with the doctor.”

  “No.” His gaze snapped down to me. “I fucking wanted to, but I. Did. Not. There are these vows that we made to each other? Remember those? I told the doctor about your physical symptoms, and that is all. The fact that you and Florence don’t get along? Please.”

  “I’m sorry.” The weight of it all grabbed me, and pulled my head down until it rested on my knees. I wrapped both arms around my head. “I’m sorry.”

  Outside the confines of my arms, Nathaniel’s feet scuffed across the carpet. A moment later, his hand made a mascon of weight on my back. He kissed the crown of my head. “Why are you angry with me?”

  Because I could be. I ground my teeth against the thought, but it had already happened. “Because … Because…” You’re here. “Because I feel helpless.”

  His sigh stirred the hair at the nape of my neck. “Me too.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve said that.”

  A chuckle escaped me, and I used it to help me sit up. My eyes needed wiping, but at least I didn’t have snot running down my face. “Well, I am. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

  “And I should’ve found time to tell you.” He grimaced and looked off to the side. “I forgot how much you feel these things, which is stupid—not you feeling them, but me forgetting.”

  I almost followed his train of thought. “What things?”

  “Injustice.” He sat down on the carpet with his legs crossed and looked up at me. “So what did you all figure out? What can we do about it?”

  Have I mentioned how lucky I am to be married to this man? The dressing gown had fallen open to show most of his chest, and all of his calves. I reached out to run a hand down his cheek. “We have an idea. But—Oh.” This was why I was really angry.

  Nathaniel’s raised eyebrows asked the question.

  “I realized why I’m angry…” My therapist would be so proud: I’d figured it out, even with a third martini. “I feel angry because I feel guilty about what I’m about to ask for.”

  His gaze narrowed, but he held his tongue and gave me room to speak.

  “The IAC is on American territory.” I swallowed. “Lunetta isn’t.”

  He stared at me for a moment, so I saw the point when his trajectory of thought caught up with my apparent nonsequitur, because the color drained out of his face. “Shit. All of you?”

  I nodded. Helen had figured it out before we’d even arrived. The only way to be certain that Florence and Leonard weren’t pulled into endless meetings with the FBI and Congress was to get them out of that jurisdiction. With launch only six months away, Clemons could make the budgetary case that we couldn’t replace a team member without pushing the mission out by a year and a half and causing enormous cost overruns. But if Clemons sent just Leonard and Florence to Lunetta, we couldn’t continue to train together as a team, and the motive would be blatantly transparent. The entire First Mars Expedition team would need to go.

  “Helen thinks I have to be there, as the Lady Astronaut, ‘to guide public opinion’ about our reason for being on the station.”

  Nathaniel groaned and fell back to the carpet—except he forgot that the Murphy bed was down and cracked his head against its steel frame. “Gah!”

  He curled over onto his side, grabbing the back of his head. “Shit.”

  I knelt by him with no memory of crossing the sp
ace between us. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” He pulled a hand away and looked at it. No blood. “Just stupid.”

  “I’ll get some ice.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll get some ice.” Standing, I kept my gaze on him as if his head might suddenly spew blood across the carpet. “You’ll have a knot there.”

  He sighed and pushed himself up to sit, his legs spread so that his dressing gown hid nothing—yes, even in moments like this, I notice my husband’s body. Nathaniel probed the back of his head with one hand. “I’m fine.”

  He is a brilliant rocket scientist, and yet completely stupid sometimes. The apartment is so small that it took only a moment to go to the freezer and pull the ice tray out. The cold metal burned against my skin as I grabbed the handle and yanked on it to crack the ice in the tray into cubes. Grabbing a clean kitchen towel, I dumped the ice cubes into it.

  “Are you going to come home?”

  “What?” I turned, with the towel wadded up in one hand.

  “Nothing.” He closed his eyes, still rubbing the spot on the back of his head. A breath. “After Mars. Will you come home?”

  “Yes.” What a question. Did he think I would stay on Mars forever?

  His smile was pained. It might just have been the bump on his head. We both pretended it was. “Good.”

  I walked around the kitchen table and knelt to hand the ice to him. “Here.”

  “I’m fine.” But he took it and set the wadded-up cloth against the base of his head.

  “See?” I sat on the floor and leaned against him. “I have to come home, because someone has to stop you from being an idiot.”

  He chuckled, wrapping an arm around my shoulders to pull me closer. “Does Helen have a plan, or do you need me to make the Lunetta assignment happen?”

  I nodded, my head sliding across the silk of his gown. “Sorry.”

  “Me too.” He kissed the top of my head. “But I’ll do it anyway.”