Like a Fox on the Run, стр. 124
“Most people keep their porn stashed on their PDC,” Tiger snickered, unable to resist.
“Yeah, you got me,” she replied sarcastically, her head turned slightly, eyes taunting. “I didn’t want him to see all my homemade girl-on-girl vids I made with the neighbor down the street while he was at work.”
“Now that … I’d pay good points to see,” laughed Tiger as he followed her into the room.
“Yeah, well don’t get all worked up there, sailor.” The stale air of a closed-off room, rarely entered, assailed his nostrils. The room was as dark as a cave, all the windows having been set to full tint. Then the lights came on automatically in recognition of her voice. As they lit up the cozy little two-room apartment and Tiger was able to take it all in, he found himself almost speechless.
“Jesus!” he finally gasped as he turned back to Lulah, who stood grinning broadly. Hung on the walls and sitting on tables and display shelves were pictures and memorabilia from the glory days of their youth.
“It’s like a museum in here!” he exclaimed, almost like a kid who’d come running down the stairs on Christmas morning to find Santa had deemed him a good boy. Most of the stuff he instantly recognized, after all, he’d been the one who’d given it to her, mementos from different missions, tokens of appreciation from employers and contractors, advertising trinkets from parts vendors and manufacturers.
“I can see why you never let Chris up here,” he raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think he would’ve appreciated the trip down memory lane.”
“I didn’t have all of this the first few years of our marriage. You know me as well as anyone, Tiger. I don’t go into anything half-assed. I wanted to be the best wife possible. I really worked at it. I was devoted to him. I did love him once.”
He hoped like hell she didn’t see how he’d flinched ever so slightly at those last words. I could’ve gone all day without hearing that last sentence. It drove through his heart like a lance. Damn, know when to shut up, Lu! Even though he had no right to begrudge her that, he found it hard not to; hard to be sensible.
She continued, now seemingly dejected again. “I dunno if he would’ve even cared there at the end.”
He wondered if it bothered her that Chris had lost interest in her. Did she still love him? Could it be she was still not over him? Or was it simply that it was the failure of the marriage that was unacceptable to her? After all, she was a woman whose previous occupation dictated very little, if any margin for error. Did it haunt her because it was something she couldn’t fix? A scrubbed launch that she was unable to resequence another firing solution for. Either way, it bothered him that it bothered her.
He picked up a holograph of the two of them the day he’d left for his first Mars mission. Looking at the younger versions of themselves, it suddenly hit him just how many years had passed by. The two smiling naïve kids in the picture were light years from the weary old spacer and the mature, responsible mother standing here now. How bright and shiny she looked in her NASA parade dress, like a newly minted penny. God, I was such a goofy looking dweeb! Young, dumb, and full of cum!
“Chris never even knew about all this,” Lulah confessed as her eyes made the circuit around the walls one more time, taking it all in again. It never got old. Her eyes would eventually return to his. “Does this look like I was ever ashamed of my handsome, young spacer?”
He didn’t answer. What could he say? When he didn’t, she continued, “I always felt we were part of a special time in history.” She walked over to a gigantic 3-D looping poster that covered a section of wall, reaching from the floor to within a foot or so of the ceiling. It was a head-on view of an original Charger blasting off into space. The ship started out as a speck against the brilliant blue of Earth, growing rapidly into view as it hurtled toward its destination. At the climax of the loop, it seemed to literally burst from the glossy material. All the boys at The Possum Works had autographed it back when the company had been in its heyday. The Cap’n. Dee Train. Even the mad scientist himself, Odder.
“We were breaking barriers, expanding horizons … y’know all that bullshit.” She put a hand to the poster, caressing it as if it were an old lover. “We may not have been the like all those Mercury and Apollo guys back in the old times, or those who restarted it all during the Lanson years, but we did our part. We were special in our own way. We made a difference too.”
Tiger scratched his head, looking a tad discouraged. “Did we really, Lu? Looking back now, did we really make a difference?”
She was flabbergasted. “Why … how can you even ask that?”
“Look at the big picture … we were supposed to open up space, to colonize the solar system … relieve the overcrowding on Earth, put people back to work, help heal the environment … fifty years later, where do we stand? What? A little over half a million living on the moon? Another six or seven million on Mars. A few thousand scattered throughout the Rocks.” He threw up his hands. “Not even a drop in the