CHAPTER THREE

Al rolled over and ran his hand up the curve of the spine that lay next to him in bed. Her name was Ursula, and she was twenty… twenty-something. He couldn't remember. Maybe she hadn't said. They had both had only one thing on their minds last night. He grinned at the memory.

Slipping carefully out of bed he made his way to the bathroom. Indoor plumbing was one of the premiere achievements of modern man, as evidenced by the fact that he was still marvelling over it after twenty months of reacquaintance. There had been running water at Hoa Lo, not that he had been in any position to enjoy it, but after '67 he hadn't seen a working tap until arriving at Clark Air Force base en route to San Diego. He showered quickly and plastered his hair back into obedience.

Back in the bedroom he donned his uniform, the one that branded him as a misfit as surely as his size, coloring and accent. It was ridiculous, he told himself. The military was the military, and when the chips were down it didn't matter if the guy wiping the blood from your mouth with a strip of cloth torn from his own shirt was a grunt, a bird or a sailor. Nevertheless, whenever he wore his khakis he couldn't help feeling the other guys looked at him differently.

Ursula was still asleep, the angular curve of her white shoulder showing above the bedclothes. Al paused to admire nature's work of art, then moved through to the kitchen. He didn't feel hungry, but he knew he had to eat. The thought of the sheer amount of food in the refrigerator sent another confused pang through his chest. He had gone grocery shopping for the first time six days ago, and he had been astounded by the endless variety and choice. In San Diego there had been a midshipman taking care of that for him during his brief stints out of the hospital. Here he was finally independent, and the idea that he could chose what he ate was a little overwhelming.

Because he knew it was a good weight-gain strategy, he started to make a four-egg omelette. At least he hadn't forgotten how to cook.

When he had eaten he washed the dishes carefully, and swept the little kitchen. The apartment was spotless. You had to keep your space clean. That was one idea he hadn't acquired in captivity. He remembered sneaking out of bed to find Poppa scrubbing the kitchen floor in the middle of the night at the end of a long shift on the docks. The nuns had set a huge store by cleanliness, too. Make your bed properly, Albert. Nice sharp corners. Excellent practice for the Navy.

It was almost time to leave. Al went back into the bedroom. A city-savvy voice in the back of his head told him to hustle the girl out of here before he left, but logic reminded him there was nothing worth stealing. The Navy had provided everything in the apartment; "necessities" only—there wasn't even a television set. All he actually owned were his clothes, so unless she was going to take off with his dress whites he had nothing to fear. He hadn't saved anything from the old house. Whatever Beth hadn't taken with her had been disposed of: sold or donated to the Salvation Army. If she didn't want it, why should he?

Al bent over the bed and kissed the girl very deliberately, expunging the thought from his mind. Her eyelids fluttered.

"Ursula?" Al said. He was getting the hang of this. She smiled. "Ursula, I have to leave now. Help yourself to whatever you want, take your time. I just wanted to say thanks and good morning."

"Mmm. Good morning," she breathed drowsily.

"Right, well, g'bye then," Al said, kissing her again. She sighed contentedly and twined her arms around his neck. He reciprocated the embrace, and then eased her back into bed. She curled up with a soft exhalation of satisfaction, and he pulled the covers back over her shoulder. Then he left the apartment, pausing at the end table that held the telephone to snatch up Elsa Orsós' book.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

After a session in the centrifuge, a quick flirt with Lauren Taggert, and a mediocre lunch in the cafeteria, Al was able to head back to the simulator. To his delight, Elsa Orsós was once again manning—womaning?—the Operations panel.

"Well, good afternoon, beautiful," Al said, obediently lifting his arms so that the attending nurse could attach the belt that would transmit his vitals for scrutinization.

Elsa ignored him. Maybe she thought he was talking to the nurse. As soon as he was free of the deftly working hands he sidled up to her console. "I said good afternoon."

"It's going to be evening if you don't get into the module," Elsa said, not even looking at him. "I hope you're ready to work today."

"All work and no play makes Elsa a dull girl," Al warned.

"Stop it," she said, her voice hard and almost angry. "Get into that simulator before I start it without you."

"All right, all right," Al chuckled, raising his hands in surrender. The techs had the hatch off, and he climbed into the tiny capsule. Sealed in, he pulled on the com headpiece and fastened his seatbelt like a good boy.

She was running him through a different program, he realized about two minutes in. He grinned. Either she didn't realize this was only his fourth time in this machine, or she was trying to challenge him into a—how had she put it?—better performance. A snicker accidentally went over the two-way, prompting a question from the guy acting as Mission Control. Al focused on the task at hand.

After a gruelling but exhilarating ninety minutes, the hatch finally opened and Al was able to climb out. He drew in a much more frantic lungful of air than he had meant to. It was ridiculous: they kept the oxygen flow constant. It was impossible to run out of air in the simulator. Angry at his body for the weak waves of relief that were running through it, he hopped to the ground and made his way to the nurse.

"Better?" he called out to Elsa Orsós, who was making notes on a stainless-steel clipboard.

"Pathetic. You can expect my full report on Monday," she said coldly.

"C'mon, honey," Al cajoled. "Let's be friends."

"Let's pretend we can't see or hear each other," Elsa bit back, and proceeded to behave as if that was the case.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

Al hit the shower, surprised and bewildered at how much he was sweating. The narrow stall seemed too small for comfort, so he finished as quickly as he could and put on his uniform again. Next to his wallet on the top shelf of his wall locker was the paperback. He tucked both articles into his pockets and went out in search of Elsa. No luck.

"Calavicci!"

Al turned to see Colonel Simmons, wearing a green flight jumper and carrying a ceramic coffee mug, trotting up the corridor behind him. He grinned in greeting.

"You done for the day?" Simmons asked.

"Just getting started," Al replied, smirking.

Simmons chuckled. "I mean, are you done here for the day?"

"Looks that way," Al said.

"Oh. 'Cause a couple of the guys are heading in to Orlando to make a little noise, if you want to come."

Al couldn't quite believe his ears. They were actually making social advances?

"I dunno, Commander, I don't want to be a third wheel," Al demurred. "I know how to scare up a good time on my own."

"Aw, come on!" Simmons clapped him on the back, a little harder than was quite comfortable. " 'Bout time you started to get to know the guys. After all, you could wind up in mighty close quarters with two of 'em some day!"

"Yeah? Some people don't seem to think I've got much chance of making it," Al confided. Of all the other astronauts, Simmons was the only one who had any perspective of the appropriate limits, and he was certainly the easiest to talk to.

"Some people? You been talking to Orsós?" Al frowned, wondering how this was so self-evident. Simmons shrugged. "Word travels fast. She hasn't got a very high opinion of you. You didn't try to make a pass at her, did you?"

"Well, not in a strictly academic sense," Al hedged.

Simmons laughed. "Dammit, Calavicci, the boys tried to warn you!" he chortled. "She is not the kind of woman you try that stuff on."

"In my experience there is no other kind of woman," Al quipped.

"Yeah, well, take it from me that we ain't in the sixties anymore!" Simmons said. "I gather she's your first encounter with the liberated set?"

Al wondered if this was a dig. Sure, the last couple of weeks had been his first foray onto the dating scene for almost… God, how long had it been? Since he and Beth had started to go steady. Nineteen sixty. Fifteen years. Chip had to be rolling in his grave.

"Calavicci? You okay?" Simmons asked.

Al realized he had stopped dead, mid-stride. He shrugged off the ghosts and grinned. "Sure. Great. So where are we meeting?"

"Gimme your address and somebody from the motor pool will pick you up," Simmons said. "If the golden boys of the space program want to kick back on a Friday night that isn't a problem. If we get caught D.U.I., it is."

"I'd really rather make my own way," Al hesitated.

Simmons shook his head. "You're running with a married crowd, Calavicci! The likelihood of hooking up with a lady tonight isn't great."

"You obviously don't know much about Italian charisma!" jibed Al. "Or the appeal of the seaman," he added with a wicked grin at the Air Force commander.

"Motor pool picks you up or it's a no go. Sorry, Calavicci, it's the way we do things here."

"Then I guess the motor pool picks me up," Al said good-naturedly. He liked Simmons. Good guy.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

Al returned to his apartment at a quarter to one in the morning, alone. It had been a great evening: amazing what civvies and a little alcohol could do for camaraderie. After the third beer there had been none of the usual delineations of rank and classification. They had just been six astronauts having a good time together. It had been too long since Al had had that kind of experience.

The down side was this: coming home alone. It wasn't that late at night. He could go out again if he wanted, find some singles joint and make up to a pretty young thing. It definitely wasn't too late to hunt down a bordello, but for some reason that idea didn't appeal. It was something of a matter of pride that he hadn't had to buy affection once since coming back to Florida, and if he could keep it that way, so much the better.

So he locked the door and went to the fridge for a glass of milk. That was one of the nine hundred condescending dietary tips in his portfolio on putting on healthy weight. A glass of whole milk right before bed. They suggested warming it up as a natural hypnotic, but the thought made Al shudder. Hot milk was for invalids and babies. Deciding that if he was going to do this he might as well do it properly, he dug into a cupboard for a package of woody, prefabricated chocolate chip cookies that he had bought more because he could than because he wanted to. Funny how many things in his pantry qualified for that award.

He went into the living room, neither drunk nor sober, and settled on the sofa, taking off his shoes and socks and unbuttoning his shirt. He had to go clothes shopping. The wardrobe that had seemed so extravagant—three whole duty uniforms, dress whites, two pairs of slacks, jeans, one black turtleneck and five shirts, each one a different bright color, not a frayed hem or a patch or a hole or a bloodstain to be found in anything—was starting to look boring. There had been some interesting developments in fashion since he had shipped out in the spring of '66. He had some catching up to do.

Al ripped open the package of cookies and tried one. Sweet but hard enough to chip a tooth on. He dipped it in the milk to soften it.

Next to the phone lay the book he still hadn't been able to return to Elsa. Surfacing, by some woman he'd never heard of. It occurred to him that he hadn't wrangled a recommendation out of the owner. What the heck. He had nothing better to do with his night. He picked it up.

There was an embossed foil bookplate inside the front cover. Ex Libris E.I. Orsós, it read. Al ran his finger over the raised surface, as if by doing so he could divine something about the woman who had placed it there. A programmer, she had said, one of the best. She was gorgeous, she obviously liked flashy jewellery, and she didn't like to be told how beautiful she was. Simmons had called her a liberated woman. Despite this she was sentimental enough to put bookplates in her paperbacks. Very interesting.

He turned to the first chapter and started to read.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

By an amazing stroke of luck, she was in the cafeteria again, this time busy with some kind of pasta salad and a coil notebook. Al approached cautiously, sliding into the seat across from her before speaking.

"You left this behind the other day," he said, pushing the book towards her.

She looked up, eyes blazing with hostility and only softening briefly when she saw his offering. She gathered it up into her territory possessively. "Thanks," she said coldly.

Al started sawing at his chicken breast. "We got off to the wrong start last week," he said.

"That's one way of putting it," Elsa agreed. "Did you read this?"

"I tried to," Al admitted. He tried to focus on the positives. "It's set in Canada."

"It's written by a Canadian," Elsa informed him, clearly taking him for an absolute idiot. "The world is bigger than the United States."

Oh, did he know that. He tried to keep his smile amicable. "Are you Canadian?"

She curled her lip. "Hungarian," she said proudly. Then she gave him an exasperated glare. "Why? You think only Canadians read Canadian books?"

"Of course not. I like Leacock."

"And this one? What did you think of this one?"

"I couldn't get into it," said Al, hoping she would leave it at that. He was trying to make peace, not fight with her over her morbid choice of literature.

"How far did you get?" she pressed.

"End of the first chapter."

She snorted as if she had suspected as much. "What's the matter?" she taunted. "Don't like to face the fact that there's ugliness in the world?"

She didn't realize she was baiting him. Al took a forkful of once-frozen mixed vegetables to give himself the requisite ten seconds to control his impulses.

"The world is ugly enough," he said levelly; "without reading about it in a novel."

"Hah!" she said, then muttered something to herself in a language he didn't recognize.

"Hey, as long as we're all free to enjoy the books we want to," Al said, still trying to smooth things over. "So tell me, what do lovely young Hungarian programmers do with their evenings?"

She looked at him with hatred. "American men," she said. "You are monsters. Selfish monsters, wrapped up in your own small worlds. Stay away from me."

She started to get up. Al grabbed her wrist. "Hey, hang on. I'm just trying—"

"I know what you're trying," she snarled. "You aren't the first one who's tried. You know how hard I've had to work to get here? I'm not going to throw away what I've earned by playing along with your stupid little games. Go away and leave me alone."

"Elsa—"

"Miss Orsós," she corrected. "I wanted it to be doctor, but Caltech doesn't like to take women into its electrical engineering graduate studies program!"

"Look—"

"By the way, here's your report from Friday's session in the simulator. Do everyone a favor and go back to the Navy where you belong." She shoved a bundle of papers into his chest and strode off, this time retaining enough presence of mind to pick up her book.

Al watched her go, trying to process what had just happened.

He knew first hand how it felt to be part Italian at a time when your country was at war with Italy. He understood how hard it was, or had been, to be black. He was all too familiar with what it was like to be hated for shape of your eyes and the flag you saluted. But it had never occurred to him before that it might be difficult to be a woman... especially a beautiful one.