Card Sharks

Sampson and Meadows. Even Enloe cracked what I hoped was an approving smile.

I was still a deux with the blonde when I realized that Margaret had come in. She gave me a wink as she squeezed past us, murmuring, 'Pretty fast work for an engineer,' and took a place at the bar between Guinan and Meadows. Soon Enloe and Dearborn had joined them.

Everyone seemed to be having a good time, particularly the three 11A pilots. At some point Meadows called over to Mike Sampson, and with some reluctance he joined the group. Meadows had picked up the camera and was trying to take a snap of the pilots with Margaret. He was too drunk to make it work. Equally drunk, I disengaged myself from my blonde and rolled off the pool table long enough to point out that he wasn't advancing the film. Without a word he just handed the camera to me, so I took the photo … Margaret in the middle, Enloe and Dearborn to her right, Guinan and Sampson to her left.

I'm not sure exactly what happened after that. Sampson's voice suddenly got very loud: 'If I wouldn't fly in formation with him, I sure as hell wouldn't get close enough to fuck him.' Followed by Margaret: 'Shut up, Mike.' Guinan added: 'If she wanted to be with you, buddy, she'd still be with you.'

Sampson leered. 'I never heard any complaints.'

Margaret shot back, 'You were too busy watching yourself perform.'

The next thing I remember is Sampson tapping my blonde on the shoulder. 'Let's go, baby.' Her lipstick smeared, the blonde straightened like she was on a string. She actually followed him out.

Now, a juicy scene like that would have silenced any ordinary bar, but the general din and jukebox wail never diminished. I'm not sure anybody but me actually heard the three-way love fest.

I staggered to the bar, where Pancho thoughtfully had a cup of coffee waiting for me. Then Enloe summoned Guinan over to the table where he was sitting with Grissom and Meadows, leaving me alone with Margaret.

'Well, go ahead,' she said. 'Say it.'

'Say what?'

'Call me a tramp, or whatever it is boys from Minnesota say. You're just radiating disapproval.'

'I think it's the beer. Honest.'

She stabbed out her cigarette and swung around on her stool. 'They're awfully fun,' she said, nodding toward what had become the pilots-only table. 'A bunch of eighteen-year-olds with their first hot rods.' She turned back to me. 'How old are you, Thayer?'

'Twenty-eight.'

'That means you're still fourteen. In boy years.'

'Boy years?'

'Like dog years. A boy's real age is only half his chronological age. Believe me, I've done all the research.' She took out another cigarette. 'There are girl years, too.'

'I can't wait.'

'They're a little trickier. The conversion factor is one-point-five. When I was thirteen — '

'— You were actually twenty.'

'Of course, that's only good up to twenty-one. Then the conversion factor begins to diminish until you're twenty-nine when you're twenty-nine.'

'And twenty-nine when you're thirty-three.'

'My. A college graduate.' There was that smile again. She looked over at the table in the corner, where Enloe, Guinan and the others had their heads together. 'Do you suppose Casey's ever going to come back?'

I glanced at the clock. 'He's probably waiting for the eight P.M. news.'

'You're probably right. Damn you and that stupid Russian rocket. I hope it blows up.'

'It might do just that.' My head was clearing.

Then Dr. Rowe walked in.

He was dressed as he always dressed, except for the fact that his tie had been slightly loosened. For the first time, there was relative quiet in Pancho's. Rowe seemed amused. 'Anybody know what happened with the Russians?'

'Pancho, what's the matter with you! Turn the damn radio on!' Dearborn shouted from the table.

Rowe stepped up to the bar and ordered a beer. As he waited, he glanced at Margaret and me. 'Margaret. Ed, what do you think?'

'I don't think they've had enough test flights.'

He got his beer and stared into it for a moment. 'I hope you're right.' He looked up. 'And I hate myself for it.'

Three minutes to eight. Rowe went to a table — alone. Margaret slid off the stool and took my arm. 'Let's go,' she whispered.

'Don't you want to know?'

'No.'

We found her car. She slid behind the wheel and I got in beside her. Then we just sat in silence. Finally I said, 'What was the big rush?'

'I just wanted to get out of there.' She pulled up her knees, dropping her shoes. Through the car window came a hot breeze that rippled her hair and blouse. Suddenly I pulled her toward me. After a moment, she pushed me away. 'Something wrong?'

She smiled, and unbuttoned her blouse. 'I've just decided we're perfect for each other.'

(A handwritten note:)

I can still remember each time we made love … each move within each time. On the couch in her office one Friday when everyone had gone. (Sliding my hand under her skirt to her moist center. We didn't even take our clothes off.) In the car outside a motel in Rosamond, where Deb and the kids had come to visit me. (Her head in my lap … hair caught in the steering wheel … stains on my jacket.) The motel in Lancaster on a hot afternoon. (The shades drawn against the heat if not the light, her riding me, drowning me in her breasts….)

Pathetic. But this is what happened.

(From the notebooks of Edgar Thayer:)

The news of the Soviet failure encouraged all of us. We started receiving visitors … a couple of generals from the Western Development Division, which supervised the missile program and who, until that week, had believed the idea of space travel to be so much cream cheese, and from Aeronautical Systems, who were running around trying to take credit for Rowe's project, which they had been forced to fund.

A Senator Kennedy showed up, too.

Since I was spending twelve hours a day in flight control, I was oblivious to most of this. We were debugging our data processing network while at the same time the engineers in Hangar Three were putting together and tearing down the LOX pump that had caused the pogo. There were orbital operations to be rehearsed and worldwide communications to integrate.

Oh, yes: on April 20, after Sampson and Dearborn flew another test, Rowe announced that Enloe and Guinan would make the first all-up flight. Major Wilbert Wood Enloe would become the first man in space.

I saw Dearborn moments after the announcement. He was still shaking his head, like a man who'd been in a bad fight. Sampson didn't react at all. I concluded that he hadn't expected to get the first flight.

Enloe began to fly daily landing approaches in an F-104 that had been modified to handle like the X-11A.

I didn't see Guinan at all in those several days between the incident at Pancho's and the announcement. When I chanced to meet him at the commissary on Wednesday the 21st he acted as if nothing whatever was the matter. 'No hard feelings?' I said.

'Like I told Mikey, if she wanted to be with me, she'd still be with me.' He was piling enough food on his plate for three men. 'Enjoy it while it lasts, buddy boy. Because one of these days, she'll pull the same thing on you.'