Written for: mardia in Yuletide 2017
Author's Note: Where there are conflicts between history and the movie, I have gone with the movie timeline. Notably, in real life, Katherine married Jim Johnson in 1959, three years before the movie is set.
Katherine wasn't a chatterbox like Mary or even as talkative as Dorothy could be, but she was especially quiet for the rest of the day. It hadn't taken long after the meet-and-greet with the astronauts for things to go back to normal, or what passed for it at NASA: working as hard as you could, as fast as you could. Katherine had tried her best, but … her hand was still tingling and her heart was … she didn't quite know where her heart was. Colonel Glenn was somewhere on base, concentrating on what he was being shown. (Except when his attention wandered in her direction.) And so it was hard to keep her brain on the numbers.
Nobody noticed, though. It was a coin toss, on any given day, whether her coworkers would take more notice of her than of anyone else (because she was different and therefore conspicuous), or less (because deep down they thought of her as the help, not as a coworker). Today, she had been lucky; but tomorrow, she'd need to be back at her best.
How, she didn't know. Bonded to a white man—an astronaut, no less! A famous white man! A married famous white man! What was she going to do?
Her brain was still spinning through those questions by the time she got in Dorothy's car for the ride home.
Of course Dorothy noticed. "You're awful quiet tonight, Katherine," she said, when they were about half-way back to town.
"Yeah," Katherine said.
"Want to talk about it?" Mary asked.
"Colonel Glenn and I bonded when we shook hands," Katherine said.
The car came to a screeching halt. Good thing there weren't any other cars on the road, Katherine thought, wryly.
Dorothy and Mary both turned to stare at her.
"You bonded with Colonel John Glenn, the astronaut?" Dorothy asked. "That Colonel Glenn?"
"I wasn't trying to," Dorothy said. And she knew a lot about trying—for all their marriage had been a happy one, she and Jimmy had never been able to bond.
"Well obviously you weren't trying, Katherine," Dorothy said.
"What are you going to do?" Mary asked, eyes wide.
"I don't know," Katherine said. "There wasn't any opportunity to talk to him today, and I have no idea what he thinks." She pressed her lips together and looked down at her hands, twisted together in her lap.
"How does he feel?" Mary asked, as always willing to smash through any social convention she didn't agree with.
"Mary!" Dorothy said.
"I don't know," Katherine said. "Surprised. He kept … reaching out to me." Her sense of him was beginning to fade to the background level that was supposed to be normal. But he'd spent the day poking at their bond like a child with a missing tooth.
"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Mary said.
"Should be," Dorothy said, but her voice was doubtful.
"And he insisted on coming over to shake hands with the colored women, not just the white women," Mary continued. "He didn't have to do that."
Katherine looked down at her hands, firmly clasped in her lap. The right one had stopped tingling hours ago. "I still need to get home, tuck my girls in," she said. It was late. Colonel Glenn's tour of the facility had taken up so much of everyone's time.
"Right," Dorothy said. The rumble of the engine restarted, and they lurched into motion.
That night, as she was lying in bed trying to fall asleep, she felt … something. It might have been him, reaching out, although it could also have been nothing more than her imagination.
The next day was fairly anticlimactic. Nothing happened, and Katherine mostly went about her work like normal. No one took any more or less notice of her than they ever had. She thought about writing him a letter, but what if he didn't want her? What if he was offended that he'd bonded to a colored woman? White people were like that sometimes, and Katherine had heard the horror stories. He could make her life very difficult. If he wanted the reminder or the evidence gone, NASA would get rid of her in a heartbeat.
But he was her match. They'd bonded so quickly and easily. And even though the bond had settled enough that she couldn't really pick up anything from him at this distance, he was still present with her. She couldn't believe that Colonel Glenn would be like that.
Besides. She hadn't gotten where she was by being a shrinking violet.
She could write him a letter, send it through NASA's internal mail service. If she sealed it in an envelope and didn't put her name on the outside, nobody would notice.
Katherine put a piece of paper in the typewriter, and typed up a proper header with her name and address, giving her phone number, too. But when it came time to write the body of the letter, she had to take a few minutes to think. What could she even say?
Dear Colonel Glenn,
My name is Katherine Coleman Goble, and we shook hands yesterday during the tour. I think you'll remember it; I certainly do.
I have no idea what is going to happen, or what to even suggest we do; the obstacles around us are large and dangerous. I have no fear of obstacles, but by their very nature these cannot be surmounted by either of us alone, but only both of us together. And yet despite our souls' touch, we are strangers to one another. I don't even know if you want to try anything, or just forget that I exist. So it seems to me that the first thing to do is to get to know one another.
I work in the Space Task Group as a computer, and it's the best job I could ever imagine. Throughout all my life, numbers have always been my joy and pride, and getting to work with them at such a high level and serve my country is both an honor and a privilege.
I was born in 1918 in West Virginia, and at age 14 I graduated High School and went to West Virginia State College. I was the first Negro woman to attend graduate school at West Virginia University in Morgantown, and I did very well there. After graduation, I taught in various schools for many years. I began working for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NASA's predecessor body, in 1953 as part of the Colored Computer group.
Along the way, I met and married a man named James Goble, and although we never were able to bond, we were very happy together and had three beautiful daughters, Constance, Joylette, and Katherine. I was devastated when he died of cancer five years ago, and so were the girls, but life does move on, and I have received so much support from my family, my church, and my friends.
Katherine stopped, and thought. That was her life in a nutshell. Now came the delicate part. If it came down to a choice between a bond with a man she didn't really know, and the life and career she'd built for herself, she knew which one she would choose. She wanted both, but if that wasn't possible, she'd worked too hard to get here to throw it all away.
All I know about you is what I've felt, and the things they say about you on the news. I can't claim to have any insight into what you might want, if anything, out of this bond. If you would prefer to forget all about it, I will respect your wishes and this will be the last communication from me on this or any other subject. Only my two closest friends have been told, and you need not fear any indiscretion from me or them.
Sincerely,
Catherine Coleman Goble.
Katherine pulled the letter out of the typewriter. There was no use agonizing over it; she was a woman of numbers, not words, and anyway she didn't have the time. She typed Colonel Glenn's name and department on an envelope, and sealed the letter away. The next time she got up to deliver her calculations, she dropped it in the office out-box, from where it would be collected, sorted, and distributed via internal mail.
It was out of her hands now. Katherine had done what she could, and the rest was up to Colonel Glenn. There was no point in worrying about it.
She didn't know where Colonel Glenn was, but he certainly wasn't at the Langley campus, and so the earliest he could get it would be the next morning.
She turned to the stack of work on the corner of her desk. It was a good thing she had too much to do to fret about it much.
On the day after that—the second day since she'd bonded to Colonel Glenn—a letter was waiting for her in her in-box.
This in itself was not unusual; she got lots of mail, filled with calculations to make or check. Sometimes, if they were confidential for one reason or another, they came sealed in envelopes.
But she knew this one was different when her fingers touched it. It had no 'from' address on the outside, but she knew. It was from Colonel Glenn. He could not possibly have received her letter yet; he had reached out to her of his own accord. That was either very good, or very bad.
Glancing around, she opened it.
Dear Mrs. Goble,
When I was a boy, imagining how I might one-day meet my match, or soulmate, I was never quite romantic enough to believe I'd be one of the ones who just touched them and bonded. I've always known that most good things require hard work and dedication and a bit of luck, and I guess I assumed that bonding would be the same way.
I grew up with my wife Annie; I don't remember a time when I didn't know her. We grew up together, went to college together, and I always assumed that after we married, we'd pray together and meditate and spark a bond between us. But that was not to be. I never imagined that I would bond like a bolt out of the blue, to a woman I'd only just been introduced to and had little way of finding. A colored woman, no less!
We shook hands, and you could have knocked me over with a feather. I don't know how you stayed so cool and calm, but I admire your poise. You said, "We calculate your trajectories, launch and landing," and I don't even remember what I said in response—if it was something stupid or thoughtless, I apologize. It wasn't until later that I realized you hadn't even told me your name, and I had no idea how to find you.
I tell you, that took up more of my attention than it should have. There we were, being shown around NASA and seeing the capsules we would be going to space in for the first time, and all I could think was that I didn't even know your name, and how was I going to find you? Then I stopped being an idiot and asked Miss Farmer, our tour guide, and she gave me your name and department.
I wonder what you dreamed of, when you were a child. I wonder if you've been bonded before (or maybe you're still bonded, and now have two bonds)? You seem to be about my age, and it would be rare if you hadn't. I hope at least one of us has some idea what they're doing, because I am flying blind without instruments. I know when it happened you were as shocked as I was, and then the rest of the day you were scared. But it didn't stop you from reaching out to me, and I respect the courage it took to be that open.
I couldn't figure out why you were scared, and to be honest, it got my back up a little. But I talked it over with Annie, and she pointed out that the world isn't kind to mixed-race couples, and that you had a lot more to lose than I did. Annie's such a good woman, I hope you like her—she's smart and always figures out the right thing to do or say.
I don't remember what you look like; I was too shocked to take much notice of it. But from what I've seen of your mind, you're another like Annie: smart, independent, and kind. Exactly the sort of woman I've always liked. I hope I'm the sort of man you like—although I'm probably not the color you were expecting.
I don't know what the Good Lord has in store for us, but I can't wait to find out.
Yours,
John Glenn
Katherine stared at the letter. Her hands were shaking, and she closed her eyes to fight back tears. She hadn't realized how scared she was until she didn't need to be any more. As quietly as she could, she gathered up the letter and a few other documents to disguise it, and walked out to take a break. She'd only just gotten in, but oh, she needed it.
She wanted to cry, and collapse into a heap for a few hours, and talk it all over with Mary and Dorothy, but she didn't have the time.
She read the letter one more time as she paced the halls, and only one more time. She had to get her head back in the game, and head back to her desk to work. Katherine noted Colonel—John's—address and phone number at the bottom of the letter; she could call him after she got home tonight. She folded the letter back up and stuck it back in its envelope.
And now, back to the numbers. If they got this wrong, it wasn't just some white man who would die, it was her bonded mate.
It wasn't like Katherine had needed any extra motivation, but if she couldn't handle pressure, she was in the wrong job.
When she walked in her front door that evening, she knew something was wrong. Mama was tense, and the girls had taken a cue from her. After a few minutes admiring art they'd made in school, and asking how their days had gone, Katherine went into the kitchen with Mama to help get dinner on the table, which was already set.
"What is it?" Katherine asked. After the day she'd had, she couldn't take the suspense of waiting until the girls were in bed to find out what was bothering her mother.
"A man called," Mama said, dipping a spoon into the stew to test it. "Didn't recognize the voice, but he said he was John Glenn." Her voice dripped with skepticism. "He wanted to know what time you usually get home from work." She set the spoon down and reached for the cayenne pepper.
Katherine couldn't blame her for being skeptical. She hadn't told Mama about bonding with John—hadn't figured out how—so Mama would have no reason to believe him when he called.
Katherine braced herself against the counter. "Mama, it really was Colonel Glenn, the astronaut," she said. "I met him the other day, at NASA. He shook my hand, and we bonded."
"Just like that?" Mama said, eyes widening. "You must be quite well matched for a handshake out of the blue to do it."
"I know," Katherine said. "But he was on a tour, and we didn't have time to stop and talk—I didn't even tell him my name, I was so flustered—and then I was so scared about how he might react."
Mama nodded. "Well, of course," she said, wiping her hands on her apron. "Oh, you poor baby. I knew you were upset, but I thought it was just your new job." She came over and gave Katherine a hug.
Katherine leaned into her mother's embrace gratefully. No matter how old she got, there was just something about her mother's arms that always made the world seem a better, safer place. "I wrote him a letter, yesterday, sent it through the internal mail. I said I would keep quiet if that's what he wanted, but I gave him my address and phone number in case he didn't."
"Sounds like he wants to get to know you," Mama said. "At least you have that."
"It's more than that," Katherine said. "He wrote me a letter himself—I got it this morning when I arrived." She detached herself gently and went to her purse, pulling the letter out. "Here." She handed it to her mother.
Mama read it through quickly. "My," she said. "No, I don't think you have anything to worry about. He sounds like a good man, a good man who wants to do right by you."
"Oh, I hope so, I hope so," Katherine said. She wanted it all, her job at NASA and a bondmate to come home to. She hadn't dared to get her hopes up, but now she couldn't keep them down. There were butterflies in her stomach.
"You need to call him," Mama said. "We can wait dinner, and I'll keep the girls occupied. At least tell him you'll call back later, once they're in bed. I may possibly have been a bit short with him."
"Okay, Mama," Katherine said. There was only one phone in the house, and it was in the kitchen. If she closed the door and Mama kept the girls out of the dining room, they probably wouldn't hear.
Mama turned the stove off and left the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. Katherine waited another thirty seconds, heart in her throat, before picking up the receiver. Nobody was on the line; she breathed a sigh of relief. She dialed the number and waited to be connected. It seemed to take forever.
After only two rings, the call was answered. "This is John Glenn," he said, and she would have known that voice anywhere, though she'd only heard it once. She prayed none of the other people on the line would try to make a call in the next few minutes and overhear them.
"This is Katherine Goble," she said, smiling.
"Katherine, I've been waiting with baited breath. Got your letter, but it's not the same—I want to see you. Can you come over tonight to talk?"
"Not really," she said. "By the time the girls are in bed, it'll be pretty late, and I have to be up early tomorrow for work. It's a pretty demanding job, and I don't have much time that isn't taken up by it or the girls. I'd invite you over here, but it's a small house—no privacy."
"I've never had to handle kids by myself, and Annie handles most of it," John said. "Must be hard."
"It is," Katherine said. "I couldn't do it without my mother."
"I'm glad you have her support," John said. "So, let's talk weekends. How's your Saturday look?"
"I should be free all day," Katherine said. Usually, she did the shopping and a lot of the household chores on Saturdays, but for this her mother would be happy to help.
"Good!" John said. "John and Carolyn—my two kids—should be out of the house playing with friends by ten or so. I don't think we should tell them anything until we've had time to talk, you and me and Annie."
"I'd agree there's no point in telling the children anything until things are more settled," Katherine said. "Ten o'clock sounds fine with me."
"Want me to come pick you up?" John asked.
"That would be good, since I don't have a car," Katherine said. "But if we don't want my girls to know something's up right away, how about we meet someplace other than my front door."
Saturday dawned dreary and gray, with sporadic showers drizzling down. It was a good thing Katherine didn't believe in omens, she reflected, as she waited in a bus shelter downtown for John to pick her up.
She wasn't there long before she could feel him coming closer. It was an odd feeling, him going from a ghost-like presence in the back of her mind to a fully-tangible personality. He was excited to see her, and it was contagious; she started smiling without even realizing it.
She laughed when she saw the car. It was a red Corvette, a convertible, and he pulled smoothly to a stop in front of her. He was going to get out to open her door, she realized, and she sent him a nudge to keep him in place.
She opened the passenger door for herself. "No sense both of us getting wet," she said, sliding in to the seat.
"You look pretty as a picture," John said, handing her a bouquet of red roses.
"Thank you," she said, lifting them up to smell them.
"I didn't know what you liked, and I figured all women like roses, so that's fairly safe," John said as he shifted the car into gear and pulled smoothly out into traffic.
"They're lovely," Katherine said. She'd never been given roses before; Jim couldn't have afforded them, not while they had to pay her school fees, and then later take care of the children.
"If you've got another flower you like better, let me know," John said.
"I haven't been given enough flowers to have a preference," Katherine said honestly. "Not ones that come from a florist."
"Shame," John said. "We'll have to change that."
They turned onto another street, accelerating as they did so, and Katherine savored the smooth power of the car.
"Oh, you like that?" John said. "It's not ideal weather for joyriding, but I know some backroads where we can really see what she's got. Annie won't mind if we're late … much."
"I appreciate the offer, Colonel—"
"Call me John," he said.
"—John," Katherine said, "but I wouldn't want to keep Mrs. Glenn waiting." She paused, giving him a sly look. "Besides, you never know. The roads might be drier in the afternoon."
"Good point," John said. "Home it is."
They drove through town to a suburbs on the other side, much nicer than any neighborhood Katherine had ever spent much time in. The kind of neighborhood where black people weren't welcome, except as maids and nannies and gardeners. Katherine felt herself tense up as they drove through it.
"Don't worry, Annie's not gonna bite," John said, mistaking the cause of her apprehension. "She knows you're not some sort of evil seductress trying to lure me away."
"Good to know," Katherine said.
At last they pulled up to a large ranch style house with a two-car garage. John pulled in to the open bay and jumped out, darting around to get her door for her.
"Thank you, John," Katherine said, taking his hand as she climbed out. He sure was handsome—Mary hadn't been wrong about that. And he was babyfaced. Although he was only three years younger than she was, she wouldn't have pegged him for forty years old. And he was powerful, too; this close—the closest they'd been yet—she could tell there was muscle under that suit.
Their faces were only inches apart, somehow, and Katherine wondered if they were going to kiss. She was aware of him on the most visceral level possible, and she wanted to get to know him better, body and mind both. And she could tell he felt the same way about her. She felt very hot, suddenly, and couldn't tell if it was her reaction or his.
She closed her eyes and made herself take a step back, pressing up against the car. They hadn't had time to talk about anything, yet, and that had to come first. There were too many people involved for them to just react like teenagers on a first date.
"Wow," John said, breathing hard. "Uh. Okay. Yeah. Let's—let's go inside and I'll introduce you to Annie."
That reminder was like a dash of cold water. Yes, Anna Glenn, his wife of many years, and the mother of his children. Katherine felt horribly guilty for what the other woman must be going through; she could only imagine what it would have been like if Jim had come home one day and announced he'd bonded to some strange woman she didn't even know. Katherine followed John into the house.
The garage door opened into the kitchen and Mrs. Glenn was there waiting. She had a smile on her face, but it was a bit strained.
"Annie, this is Mrs. Katherine Goble," John said. "Katherine, this is my wife, Annie."
"Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Glenn," Katherine said. "You have a lovely home."
"Thank you," Mrs. Glenn said. "Please call me Annie. May I take your coat?"
"Thank you, Annie," Katherine said, taking it off and handing it to her. "Call me Katherine." It was the weirdest feeling to be served by a white lady, and call her by her first name.
While Annie took her coat, John got out a vase and some water for the roses, and led her into the living room. Katherine hesitated, wondering where to sit. If she took the couch, would John sit next to her? And would that offend Annie? She hadn't made up her mind by the time Annie came bustling in with a silver tray filled with fine china.
Annie set the tray down on the coffee table, sitting gracefully on the couch herself. "How do you take your coffee, Katherine?" she asked brusquely.
"Black, one sugar," Katherine said.
By the time Annie had served everyone's coffee, John was seated in the recliner and Katherine was in a wingback chair next to it.
"Now, Katherine," said Annie, taking a sip of her coffee, "the way I see it, you and I are either going to be dire enemies … or the best of friends. I would much prefer to be friends, personally."
"So would I," Katherine said honestly. "No matter what happens, John and I aren't the only ones affected. There's you and your children, and my three girls. I don't want anybody hurt."
"Good," Annie said. "Then I take it we're considering some sort of triad relationship?"
"That would probably be best," Katherine said. Usually, cases like this ended in divorce so that the bonded couple could marry, but sometimes—especially if there were children involved—other arrangements were made.
"I have to ask," John said, "there's something I've been wondering about ever since I got your letter. You were very anxious that I should know you weren't going to press for anything, and you're practically falling all over yourself now to agree with Annie about a triad—"
"I wouldn't call it falling all over myself," Katherine pointed out.
John nodded. "But I was always told that Negros valued bonds more than White people did, and yet … you don't seem to fit that."
"It's true, bonds are more important for us," Katherine said, picking her words carefully. "It's because, back when we were slaves, we weren't allowed any other sort of marriage … and even bonded couples had no real rights, as far as their owners were concerned. When something's all you have, you cling to it."
"But?" John said.
Katherine sighed, looking down at her coffee in its beautiful china cup. "But it rarely went well for any Negro, slave or free, bonded to a White person. There's no use talking it over, but it was a very difficult and dangerous thing. And it still is, today."
"Well, I'm not a hypocrite nor a liar, and I'm not cruel, either," John said. "And neither is Annie. You don't have to worry about either one of us. I can't control what the world's like, but our home and our family is going to be safe, whatever that happens to look like."
He meant it, too, and Katherine relaxed a little in the light of his warm certainty.
"Now, a triad," he said. "Normally, I'd say we should start looking for a bigger house, that all of us will fit in."
"Might be good to hold off on that a bit," Katherine said. "Let everyone get to know one another, first. And maybe wait until after your spaceflight to do anything public, when there's less NASA can do to you."
John scowled. "They're too tied to public relations—sometimes I think they want us more for how pretty we look for the cameras than how good we are as pilots."
"In any case, John's being transferred down to Houston," Annie said. "All the astronauts are. That's where they're setting up the training camp. Why, I don't know; they'll be launching from Florida."
"But … my job's here," Katherine said, heart sinking. The new control center in Houston was fine, but the bulk of NASA—including all the engineering and math research—was staying in Virginia. She supposed she could get a job as a teacher, but it would be a terrible step down both in pay and in how interesting the work was.
"I know," John said. "And I know how much you love it; I wouldn't ask you to give it up. Our time in Houston won't be forever; I'm one of the oldest of the astronauts, barely made the cutoff. And my science background isn't as strong as they'd like. I get this one flight, and they're probably not going to give me another. There are a lot of men wanting to go into space who'll get the next shot. And if I'm not going to be going to space again, there's no reason to stay in Texas once I'm through."
"So you see, nothing can be really decided until then," Annie said. "It will give us time to get to know one another. Lots of letters, I suppose, and of course John will be flying back and forth for his job, so you'll see each other then."
They discussed the details of how it might work, what sorts of things they wanted in life and in a relationship. This led to conversations about family and work and stories about their respective childhoods—most of John's and Annie's stories included both of them, since they'd known each other practically since birth, and Katherine tried not to feel jealous of that. Annie might have had more time with John, but Katherine was the one who touched his soul. They talked about books, and music, and all sorts of things, and Katherine loved every minute of it. Time flew until Katherine realized that her mother and daughters would be wondering where she was.
Annie got her coat, and John got her roses, and he escorted her back out to the garage.
Once kitchen door closed behind them, Katherine took a deep breath, aware of him again in a way she'd tried not to be while Annie was present. He was so attractive, body and mind, and she could feel that he thought so, too. She stood there, and she could feel her cheeks flushing as she looked at him and he looked at her.
"Can I kiss you, Katherine?" he asked, voice low.
"Oh, yes," she said, moving towards him before he'd even finished speaking. His hands went around her waist, and their lips met, and Katherine gave herself over to the sensation, body and mind.
It was hard to stop so they could drive home. They didn't talk much, but John held her hand the whole way.