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 without 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.