Chapter One
Rachel
“Rachel Waters?” I said my name like a question, waiting for the older woman behind the secretary’s desk to find it in the computer system. “If you need me to, I can show you my ID—”
“I don’t need to see your ID.” Her voice was harsh, like she was already annoyed with my existence. “I’ve got you right here. Rachel Waters. Day one.”
“Day one.” I nervously smiled at the thought. It was the first day of my internship at NASA, the branch in Huntsville, Alabama. I’d been both surprised and terrified when I’d gotten the call that I landed the internship. Although it wasn’t the educational aspect that’d freaked me out so much. I had a perfect GPA in college.
It was the social part. I’d always been an introvert, but now, as an intern, I was going to be expected to rub shoulders with some of the greatest minds of my generation. I was also going to be expected to handle face time with actual, literal astronauts, bringing them their coffee, putting away whatever files they needed put away. And while I was confident when it came to matters of logic and reasoning, I was a lot less confident about my charming social skills.
Even now, I was convinced the woman behind the desk had decided that she hated me, based on the way she was staring over at me like I was the least interesting person on the planet.
“You’re going to start off in conference room B for the day,” she said as she slipped me a blank, white access card. “There should be someone waiting for you already. If there’s not, just look up the company directory and ask for Marsha.”
“Right. The company directory.” I nodded, like I had any idea what she was talking about. “And how would I be able to access that?”
“Just swipe your card at any of the contact areas.” The woman’s annoyance remained in her tone. She then pointed toward a huge black box on one of the walls before she went on. “You swipe your card and everyone’s information will come up on the touchscreen.”
“Oh. Wow.” I let out a laugh laced with anxiety. “That’s…that’s pretty futuristic. But I guess that’s what I get for working at NASA—”
“I have to go. I’m late for an admin meeting.” The woman behind the desk suddenly moved away from it, grabbing her coffee off the counter before she headed down the nearest hall.
“Okay. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you later? Maybe?” I called out after her as I gripped the access card in my hand.
Fuck.
Had I seriously already burned a bridge somehow? I’d just gotten here, for fuck’s sake.
No.
There was no way I’d burned any bridge. And there was no way the secretary already hated me, either. She was probably just like that with everyone. In fact, she was probably just as nervous as I’d been about our short interaction, putting on an extrovert’s face despite her introvert’s tendencies.
Conference Room B.
I headed down one of the myriad of hallways, my heels clicking across the floor as I went. There were maps of the building painted all along its walls, but those seemed to be more about artistic interpretation than actual guidance. Eventually, though, I was able to figure out where I was going, locating the conference room, seemingly nearly a mile away from where I first entered the building.
And when I was finally standing outside the right door, I reached a hand out toward it, gently knocking on its frame. “Hello? Marsha? I’m supposed to start out in conference room B today—”
“Rachel Waters!” A woman with wild, blonde hair and kind eyes pulled open the conference room door. “My name’s Marsha Perriot. I’m your internship supervisor. And I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Really?” My face fell. “I’m sorry. I thought I was running on time—”
“You are on time,” she interrupted with a wide grin. “I think we might be having our first misunderstanding. I’ve been waiting to meet you, Rachel Waters. I saw your scores on our aptitude test, and I did a little digging into all your time at UCLA so far. You’ve had quite the incredible track record in all of your STEM classes.”
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I murmured, immediately uncomfortable with her attempt at high praise. “I’m just…a lot of the people who go to UCLA aren’t really interested in getting the best grades, especially if they already come from cash. They’re using it more like a steppingstone than anything else—”
“Why do women always do that?” Marsha sighed. “Why do women always default to making our achievements seem less than what they are?”
She then took a step closer to me before she went on. “Do you have any idea what an achievement it is for people like us to get into places like UCLA in the first place? And to blow everyone else out the water when it came time to apply for an internship at NASA?”
“…People like us?” I quietly pressed.
“I read everything in your file, Rachel.” Marsha smiled. “I know what it’s like to come from the zip code you come from. I come from one just like it.”
“Oh. Right.” I offered her a smile in return, too, even though I had a sinking feeling in my gut. I’d never been proud of where I came from, even though I was proud of how much my parents worked to provide me with the best life that they could. I’d even grown up with dreams of making a life for myself on my own, and then going back home and buying my mom and dad a big, beautiful house with a big, beautiful back yard.
But ever since my senior year of high school, the only reason I would’ve had to go back home would’ve been to visit their gravestones. My parents had died in an apartment fire, one that had burned up the whole building. The only reason I’d managed to survive was that I’d happened to be at the public library that night courtesy of a librarian who’d always seemed to like me, pulling an all-nighter as I studied for my SATs.
“Do you know how to make coffee?” Marsha asked, interrupted my darker thoughts. “Do you even like coffee? Because I’ve found that people who don’t drink the stuff are always much worse at making it, too.”
“I know how to make coffee,” I answered, with a slight nod. “Is that my first order of business?”
“Not officially, no.” Marsha laughed before she waved me into the room. “But I was starting to have a hankering for it. I swear, you work here long enough, and you learn how to survive on nothing but bagels and coffee.”
Marsha then paused for a moment as I stepped into the room. She seemed to be eyeing me up and down, soon letting out a small hum. “Actually, we might want to do something about the whole bagels and coffee thing. No offense, but I think that kind of diet might kill someone as thin as you. You just don’t have enough pounds to sustain the fast.”
“I’m not—” I was flustered by her assessment, my hands moving up to my waist as I tried to come up with a response. I was used to people commenting on how thin I was, but not a few minutes after meeting them for the first time. “I eat. I’ve just…always been like this. It’s actually bad, you know, when it comes to…having…babies…”