Atmosphere

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

It would be easy to make the case that humans are ill-equipped to be in space. Whatever led to our design, it was not meant for this. But Joan sees it as the exact opposite. Human intelligence and curiosity, our persistence and resilience, our capacity for long-term planning, and our ability to collaborate have led the human race here. In Joan’s estimation, we are not ill-suited at all. We are exactly who should be out there. We are the only intelligent life-form that we know of in our galaxy who has become aware of the universe and worked to understand it.

But then Lydia laughed. And in the moment, Joan wanted to slap her. Didn’t Lydia understand that if one of them made it seem like it was okay, the rest of them would be sidelined as humorless? Didn’t Lydia get that this was how the men kept them separate and underestimated? With these small jokes that made them look petty if they got upset? Couldn’t Lydia see how it worked?

Bravery is being unafraid of something other people are afraid of. Courage is being afraid, but strong enough to do it anyway.”

Her parents’ marriage seemed fine to her. Good, even. They still loved each other. Her mother, basically a vegetarian, made her father’s favorite meatloaf most weekends with a joy that Joan had scrutinized for years but found completely sincere.

Joan knew that society was changing and some men were changing with it. Some of them now understood that a woman’s career, her life, her passions were just as important as their own. But still, all Joan could think was that it was now just two people cutting off parts of themselves to make themselves fit together. A world of vegetarians cooking meatloaf.

She had been here before—not often, but enough to recognize it for what it was. The glances that lasted just a bit too long, the softer tone of voice directed only at her. It almost never ended easily. There was always a thrash or two, when she tried to kill it.

Joan arrived at Vanessa’s front door one minute before six o’clock. She waited two full minutes to ring the doorbell so that Vanessa could see she was perfectly capable of being late.

lol Joan

Being human was such a lonely endeavor. We alone have consciousness; we are the only intelligent life force that we know of in the galaxy. We have no one but one another. Joan was always moved by the fact that everything—all matter on Earth and beyond, up past the atmosphere, going as far as the edges of the universe, as it expands farther and farther away from us—is made from the same elements. We are made of the same things as the stars and the planets. Remembering that connection brought Joan comfort. It also brought her some sense of responsibility. And what was kinship but that? Comfort and responsibility.

“Sometimes I don’t know if I knew my dad or I just created a man out of thin air, as a god to pray to.”

“No, what I’m saying is that…Joan, you live in a world where time is on your side. But I don’t live in that world, Joan. You live there alone.” “What do you mean?” She inhaled deeply and blew out her next words like cigarette smoke. “I mean, don’t confuse my respect for you with patience.”

Joan knew then that Donna was not an idiot. And the Beatles were not nonsense. And that there had always been a place for her in this world. She had just been walking past it over and over again, never noticing that there was an unmarked door, waiting for her to discover it.

“I don’t know but I…I want to show you every good thing I’ve ever found,” Joan said.

The way Vanessa’s eyes crinkled at the sides…Joan knew that she would not need to find a way to tell Vanessa how she felt. Vanessa would understand it. Which meant Joan would not need to learn how to be anything other than who she already was.

In all of her time spent watching others, she hadn’t picked up on this part of falling in love, that someone could look at you as if you were the very center of everything. And even though you knew better, you’d allow yourself a moment to believe you were worthy of being revolved around, too.

“When you die, someone will bury you or turn your body into ashes. Eventually, you will return to the Earth. You already are a part of the Earth. What better reason do we have to take care of this Earth and everything on it than the knowledge that we are of one another?”

But to love Frances was to be always saying goodbye to the girl Frances used to be and falling in love again with the girl Frances was becoming.

Later, Barbara would make a remark about how she could never forgive Joan for hanging up on her. But Joan would never be able to forgive Barbara for not loving Joan as Joan had loved her. For not knowing how to love Frances as Joan loved her.