CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Elsa lay on her back in the sand, staring up at the cloudless sky. She raised her hand above her head and turned it so that the diamond glittered like a star. It was a beautiful ring. To think she had tried to turn it down.

She had tried several times, in fact. She relived the conversation as she watched the sparkles in the sunlight.

"I don't want to marry you!" she had protested.

"Why? Something wrong with me?" Calavicci had asked, getting to his feet. He'd been smiling, but she was aware of his disappointment.

"I don't need a husband!" she said. "Husbands are nothing but trouble!"

"Nothing wrong with a little trouble," he had said suavely, guiding her over to a bench and brushing it off before she sat.

"Hah! Men want to control you! The only reason a man wants a wife is to have somebody handy to sleep with, and somebody to cook and clean for them!"

He laughed. "Only a fool would try to control you. I don't need somebody handy to sleep with. I'm Italian and I can cook for myself. And you show me a room that you can clean better than I can, and I'll show you one sailor who's ready for that final voyage!" He had wrapped his arm around her shoulder and kissed her on the crest of her cheekbone. "Come on, marry me!"

She thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "No," she said. "I… I don't know if I love you."

"So marry me and you'll find out!" he said blithely. His cavalier attitude was disarming. She had laughed and shaken her head.

"That isn't how it works," she said.

"I don't know," he had said pensively. "Seems to me that the recent fashion of marrying for love has a worse track record than the old trial-and-error approach."

"What if it's a mistake?" she had said, her logic overriding her heart.

"So you get over it, and next time you're wiser! Come on. We're good company. Why not get hitched and make it official?"

Then he had slipped the ring onto her finger, and she had not resisted.

She smiled. Once again she was going to be married, and this time the government would not stop her.

Apollo 19 was to go up in three days. She knew that Calavicci—that Al was disappointed that he was not going to go up with it, but she was glad. No one had died in space yet, but with her luck he would be the first. She propped herself up on her elbows and looked down towards the water. Somehow he had wrangled a day off for both of them—the first that either had had in almost two weeks—and he had insisted on spending it at the beach. It was a tiny beach, scarcely large enough for the two of them, the picnic basket, and the sandcastle that he had insisted on building. Below her she could see Al swimming in the surf, his arms taking long, powerful strokes. He stood up, water streaming from his bare shoulders, and waved at her. She waved back, smiling enormously.

He waded towards the shore, the waves breaking against his back, then his legs, until finally they were nothing but foam around his ankles. He came up the sand, shaking his head so that the water flew in every direction. Elsa smiled enormously.

"Hey, gorgeous," Al said, grabbing his towel and ruffling his hair so that the tiny black curls stood out in every direction. He dried himself quickly, and knelt down on the edge of her blanket. He kissed her and she twined her arms around his neck. Then he slipped out of her grasp, scrubbed his face with the towel, and started to daub sunblock on his nose.

"You know, you're going to wind up with lines in that nice, even tan," he said, shivering a little as he shook the bottle of lotion and proceeded to smear it over his arms.

"That's what that stuff is for," she said. "To even it out again."

He laughed. "Sure. I thought redheads burned easily?"

Elsa sat up. "Not this redhead." She kissed him again. He reciprocated briefly, then spun around, sitting down with a soft thump. He handed her the bottle.

"Here, do my back," he said. "Careful not to miss anything. I may not be a redhead, but I burn like a lobster."

She nibbled his ear. "I like lobster," she said. "Besides, a tan might hide some of these marks."

She greased her hands and slid them over the rippling, scarred skin of his back. She felt him flinch under the touch.

"What, do they bother you?" he asked, and she could tell from the way that he said it that he didn't mean it as lightly as he wanted her to think he did.

"No," she said, bending down to kiss one of the glossy ridges. "They're interesting. There is one down here that is shaped like Hungary."

He turned around, with a wry smile on his lips. "No kidding?" he said.

"No," she told him, tracing it with her finger. "See? Exactly the shape of Hungary."

He chuckled and gathered her forward into his arms. "You're really something," he said.

"Better than being nothing," she mumbled as his lips found hers.

"Is that a dig?" he said thickly, between kisses.

"You're the one who makes the sand castles."

"Mmh. I'm compensating," he sighed.

"Compensating?"

He shrugged and kissed her harder. "Deprived childhood. Not many beaches in New York City."

"I love New York," Elsa said.

"We could go there for the honeymoon, if you like," Al said. "I was thinking New Orleans, but—"

"Are we going to have a honeymoon?"

"Sure, of course." He slid down so that his head was resting on her lap. "What's a wedding without a honeymoon?"

He reached up over her and into the bag of clothing and sundries, and drew out a cigar and a book of matches. Elsa toyed with his hair as he lit up.

"Papa—my father," she said, inhaling the sweet smoke. "He loves expensive cigars. But the prices are so high on the black market that he can only get one or two a year."

"Mmh. We'll have to send him a box with the wedding announcement," Al said. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. "Better yet, two boxes: one to smoke and one to sell!"

Elsa realized abruptly that she would have to write her parents. "Oh!" she said sharply. "What will Mama say?"

"About what?" Al murmured drowsily.

"Me! Getting married!"

He looked at her in disbelief. "Elsa, you've been independent for fourteen years!" he said. "You're a grown woman. You don't need your mother's permission to get married."

"What if she doesn't approve?" Elsa fretted.

"What's not to approve of? I'm a respectable military man, an astronaut, I have plenty of money, I'm even Catholic."

"You're Italian."

He smirked. "That's your misfortune," he teased. She laughed softly and bent over to kiss him.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

The sun was setting when they left the beach and drove to Al's apartment. Elsa was not comfortable with having him spend the night at her place: her landlady would not understand the relationship. Nevertheless, though she knew that abstinence until marriage was what her parents would have expected, she could not stay away from her betrothed. Perhaps she did not love him the way she had loved Andrew, but she delighted in his company, in their wild evenings of passion, in the soft sighs he made when he slept. He was funny, considerate and charming. They weren't even arguing anymore.

He rounded the car to open the passenger door for her, and they mounted the stairs together. Elsa had the key, and she opened the door. He slipped past her and drew her into the apartment, clutching her in an encompassing embrace as he closed the door and shot the deadbolt. He smelled of sand and sunshine and sea-salt, and she felt a burst of desire that drove her to find his lips for what had to be the hundredth time that day. He stroked her hair as they kissed.

"Bathtime?" he murmured, his lips finding her neck.

"Mmh…"

He began to maneuver them towards the bathroom, fumbling with the knot of the bright fabric she wore wrapped around her waist. Elsa tripped a little as her feet slipped out of the purple plastic sandals, but Al caught her around the waist and held her tighter. His fingers found the bow fastening the top piece of her swimsuit. As it fell away and the embrace tightened, the telephone shattered the silence.

Al stiffened a little, but Elsa clung tightly, willing the embrace to continue as he moved to the living room. She lifted his shirt over his head and off of his arms as he reached for the receiver, and her hands began to work over his bare chest and back.

"Cala—mmph—Calavicci," he said, tripping over his name as he tried to move his mouth away from hers. She kissed the tiny scar to the right of his mouth, the one that looked like a second dimple set too high. "Oh, hey, Jim. How's things?"

Suddenly he was pushing her off of him. "What the hell?" he roared. "You're kidding… God, you're not kidding!"

"What's wrong?" Elsa whispered, trying to massage his shoulders.

"Jesus Christ, we're three days from launch! Was anybody hurt?"

Elsa's heart sprung to her throat and this time when Al swatted her away she withdrew. Something had gone wrong. Suddenly she felt very exposed standing there in her bikini bottoms. She retrieved her sarong from the floor and wrapped it under her arms, her eyes fixed on Al. His face had gone a very horrible shade of gray, and he was scrubbing at his forehead with his free hand.

"God, yes—yes, I'll be there as soon as I can," he said. "Damn it. Damn it." He glanced at Elsa. "There anybody else you're trying to get ahold of?" he asked. "Yeah, okay. Yeah. As soon as I can."

He cradled the receiver and chafed both hands against his face. Elsa stepped forward, placing a tentative hand on his bare arm. "What is it?" she asked softly.

"God… the S-II arrived last night, right?" he said. He wasn't really looking for confirmation, but she nodded anyway. "This morning they were pulling out the spool and putting the module in when the hydraulic lift gave out. Thing fell forty feet, made a crater in the asphalt. Sounds like Nineteen isn't going up on Tuesday."

"No!"

"Yeah. Yeah… look, I've got to get up there… could you do me a favor and pull out a fresh uniform? I've got to have a quick shower… I'm really sorry about this, but apparently they've been trying to get ahold of me for six hours…JFK is a media circus, all hands on deck, united front…" Al shook his head as if he was aware that he wasn't making any sense. "I've got to get up there," he repeated lamely.

"Yes, yes, you do. Do they need me?"

"Taggert didn't say anything about that… God, what am I supposed to do if they start asking me questions?" He looked up at her in terror.

"Who?"

"The press… what the hell am I supposed to say? I don't know anything!"

She cupped her hand around his cheek. "Well, don't tell them that," she said in a matter-of-fact voice. "Tell them it's classified and they should talk to Yardley. Yardley or one of the other administrators. That's what they told us all to say when Apollo 13 was in trouble."

"I forgot you've been around that long… could you come with me?" His eyes were pleading, like a child afraid to face the first day of school alone.

"No, not if…" Elsa frowned. "Why do they want you? It isn't your mission."

"I don't know… Taggert said they want all the Apollo astronauts there… something about a united front…"

He wasn't thinking straight. He was panicking. Elsa hugged him, stroking his hair. He didn't fight her, and she could feel his body trembling against hers. "Was anyone hurt?" she whispered.

"No… no… I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I wish someone would tell me what to do."

She didn't understand this sudden uncertainty. In her experience he was anything but indecisive, but now, suddenly, he didn't know what to do. It was strange. Nevertheless, if he needed orders she was as capable of giving them as any captain.

"Go and take a shower," she said firmly. "I'll find you a uniform and make you a sandwich. Then you go up there and find Taggert, and he'll tell you what they need you to do."

Al nodded numbly, and she watched as he made his way to the bathroom, rubbing each upper arm with the opposite hand.

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

Two of the guys from Public Relations briefed the handful of spacemen as they donned flight suits and optimistic smiles.

"Here's how it will work," said the one who looked not a little like a weasel. "Roosa, Glenwood and Winters, you'll be seated at a table with Yardley and Matheson. Colonel Simmons, you too. You'll be handling the questions. We're typing prompt sheets for each of you as we speak. The three important points to emphasize are: no one was hurt, it's a minor setback, and you three from the main crew especially are very optimistic about the mission even though it'll obviously be a little delayed."

"How little delayed?" Winters asked.

"We're not sure," the second PR man said. "We've go the guys in California working on an ETA for the S-II for Apollo 20, but—"

Despite his resolution to go unnoticed, Al couldn't keep his mouth shut through that one. "Won't that mean delays to Apollo 20, too?" he asked.

"Very probably," said weasel-face. "Now, we'll have chairs for the rest of you behind the table. You're there as a presence only: no one is going to ask you any questions."

Al almost moaned in relief. It was stupid and irrational and qualified for just about every derogatory adjective in the book, but the thought of facing reporters had struck genuine terror into his heart. It wasn't a fear of public speaking: he had always been great at that. It was the idea of being asked questions to which he had no answers. The idea of being interrogated.

The weasel's partner was talking again. "In the event that some joker tries to startle something out of one of you just remember: no one was hurt because everyone was following the protocols, it's a minor setback, and we're all optimistic. Very optimistic."

MWMWMWMWMWMWMWM

Al wasn't feeling very optimistic as he wearily climbed the stairs to his apartment at one o'clock the next morning. After playing a human backdrop at the circus of a press conference, he had driven out to the assembly complex with Taggert to examine the wreckage of the fallen rockets and try to wheedle some solid information out of the engineers overseeing its removal. The spool had been replaced to support the other components, and the vessel looked strangely unwieldy with the dummy segment in its middle. After that Al had stopped by Admin to pick up his revised orders for the week. With the launch now pushed back to an indefinite date, his spot in the simulator had been pre-empted for the main crew, but the longer that was delayed the better. It gave him more time to conquer his claustrophobia.

He had forgotten to bring his key, but the door was unlocked. In the kitchen, Elsa sat sleeping with her head on the table. She had changed into a yellow checked cotton sundress that made her look like a bouquet of fiery flowers. Al tiptoed up to her and kissed the graceful arc of her neck. With a soft sigh of pleasure, she turned and lifted her head.

"Mmh, you're home," she said.

"Yeah, and I'm dead beat," Al said heavily, sinking into a chair. "What a zoo."

"Is there a lot of damage?"

He shrugged. "The shell looks fine, but God only knows what kind of a mess the wiring's in. It sounds like they plan to scrap the whole thing and use Apollo 20's."

"And cancel the last mission?" Elsa exclaimed.

"I don't know. They said delay. But one of the snoops seemed to think there's a rumor going around that Congress thinks this is an excuse to scrap the program entirely."

Elsa got to her feet, his own fierce tigress. "They can't do that!" she said firmly. "Just let them try it!"

She moved over to the stove and uncovered a simmering pot. "I made potato soup," she said. "And there are rolls left over from the picnic."

Al shook his head and rubbed his eyes. "I'm not hungry," he said. "I need some sleep."

"You also need food!" Elsa said sternly. "You're too skinny to go into space as it is. Now you eat this, or I'll tie you up and force-feed you."

She set a bowl of steaming, creamy soup in front of him, and he caught her around the hip, nuzzling her flat stomach. "I might not mind being tied up by you," he murmured seductively.

Elsa playfully swatted the back of his head. "Are all Italians as dirty-minded as you?" she asked.

"Only the incredibly handsome ones," he said.

"Ah!" Elsa exclaimed, snapping her fingers. "Well, that explains it!" She kissed the crown of his head and moved to the refrigerator to pour him his nightly glass of whole milk. "Eat all of your soup and maybe I'll tuck you in," she said.

Al chuckled. "You're quite a woman, Miss Orsós," he said, bending over his meal.