_Not everyone will think of the first
moon-flight as the first glorious
step on the road to space. There
will always, for instance, be the
fast-buck boys like Lubrano...._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity, December 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Jeanne turned off the radio and went downstairs slowly, watching how
the gold-shot curtains on the landing window caught the sunlight in a
multitude of brilliant flecks. She shuddered slightly. Up _there_, the
sun would scorch and sear.
When she entered the living room, Aunt Anna looked up from her
magazine, and Pop puffed on his calabash pipe, occasionally grunting
with satisfaction. Mom looked at Jeanne hopefully, but soon turned away
in confusion. She could not tell whether Jeanne wanted her to laugh or
cry.
"Well," said Jeanne, instantly hating the flippant way she tried to
speak, "he got there." She never quite knew why, but whenever emotions
threatened to choke her up she would slip on the mask, the carefree
attitude, the what-do-I-care voice she was using now.
"All the way--_there_?" Aunt Anna fluttered her eyebrows, allowing
herself a rare display of emotion.
Mom smiled, laughed briefly and nervously. She touched Jeanne's cheek
tentatively with a trembling hand, hugged her daughter quickly and drew
back. "I didn't know," she said. "None of us knew. We were afraid to
listen. I mean, it's so far."
"Knew he'd make it," said Pop, tamping his pipe full with another load
of tobacco from the humidor. "Tom's got good stuff in him. Smokes a
pipe, you know."
"Not up there," said Jeanne practically. "It would waste oxygen."
"It says here in this magazine the moon is 240,000 miles away," Aunt
Anna told them.
"Did the announcer say how Tom felt?" Mom wanted to know.
"Just imagine how it will be," Aunt Anna said, "when we get Tom
back here and he speaks to the Women's League. We'll have to make
arrangements--"
"Can't," Pop reminded her. "Government hasn't said anything about when
Tom's coming back. Liable to keep him there a long time. Do the boy
good. See what he's really made of, I always say. Andrea, your roast is
burning."
Mom scurried off toward the kitchen. A moment after she disappeared,
the phone rang and Aunt Anna took the receiver off its cradle. "Hello?
Yes, this is the Peterson home. Yes, she is. In a moment. Jeanne, it's
for you."
"Hmmmm," Jeanne chortled. "Some fellow trying to make time because
Tom's too far away to protest." She hated herself for saying it, and
administered the mental kick in the pants which never helped. She was
missing Tom more acutely every minute. The distance was unthinkable,
the moon almost too remote to consider, lost up there in infinite void,
surrounded by parcels--parsecs?--of nothing.
Picking up the receiver, Jeanne turned her back to Aunt Anna, who
appeared quite eager to listen to at least half of the conversation.
"Hello? Yes, this is Jeanne Peterson. The _Times-Democrat_? I could
see you today, I suppose. Why, here at home. I'm on vacation. But
what--about Tom? Oh, I see. Oh, they told you down at White Sands.
Well, all right. 'Bye."
"It was a man," said Aunt Anna.
"Who said my roast was burning?" Mom asked them all indignantly as she
returned from the kitchen.
"Who was the young man, Jeanne?" Aunt Anna asked.
Jeanne grinned, brushed back a stray lock of her blonde hair. "Sorry to
disappoint an old gossip like you, but--"
"Tom _is_ a long way off!"
"That was just Mr. Lubrano, a reporter on the _Times-Democrat_. 'How
does it feel to be the fiancee of the first man to reach the moon,' he
said. Funny, I hadn't thought of it that way at all. How does it feel?
Did he expect me to turn cartwheels? (_But, I_ am _proud of Tom, so why
don't I admit it?_) He'll be down to interview me this afternoon."
"After dinner, I hope," said Mom.
Awkwardly, Aunt Anna lit a cigarette--something she did only on rare,
important occasions. "It never occurred to me," she said slowly, trying
to remove tobacco grains from her tongue as delicately as possible with
thumb and forefinger. "Not for a moment. But Jeanne, in her own right,
is also a celebrity. The Women's League has watched her grow up, I
know. But suddenly, all at once, Jeanne is different. Andrea, get May
King on the phone!"
"May--the president?" Mom wanted to know, somewhat awed.
"Of course, Andrea. A little imagination, that's what you need."
Mom got up doubtfully, approached the telephone as if it might jump up
and attack her.
"Forget it," Jeanne told them. _Use big words. Use words which would
have ridiculous double-entendres for them. Frighten them._ "I won't
prostitute my emotional relationship with Tom for all the Women's
Leagues in the county. Forget it."
"Jeanne!" said Aunt Anna.
"Jeanne," Mom echoed her, more than a little shocked. "What all this
has to do with--Jeanne! Oh...."
But Jeanne was on her way upstairs to put on something gay and bright
for the arrival of Mr. Lubrano. Now that she thought of it, she liked
the almost electric crackle in the reporter's voice over the phone.
* * * * *
"Good afternoon, Miss Peterson. Honest, I feel almost like a cub. In
a few hours, you've become quite a figure." Mr. Lubrano was young,
good-looking in a dark, dangerous, eager Latin way. He took Jeanne's
proffered hand, held it and looked at her long enough to let her know
he appreciated what he saw, briefly enough to indicate everything would
be strictly business if she wanted it that way.
Jeanne had been firm with Aunt Anna and her folks. Their part in this
was to be strictly a vicarious one. She would answer their questions
later. As it turned out, Pop almost had to propel Aunt Anna from
the room, and this only because Jeanne had insisted beforehand. Mom
couldn't fathom the fuss or the secrecy, and contentedly did as she was
told.
"You're younger than I expected, Miss Peterson."
"Come now. Tom's only twenty-five. You know that."
"Well, then, prettier."
"Then we're even. After a reporter friend Pop once had, you could be
Tyrone Power."
"Lovely dress you're wearing." He fingered the taffeta at her shoulder,
let his hand rest more heavily than necessary. When she pulled away and
sat as primly as she could on a straight-backed chair he said the one
word, "Business?" He made it a question.
"Business."
"Just how long have you known the Man in the Moon?"
"The Man--really!"
"Oh, that's him. That's your Thomas Bentley. He's the Man in the Moon
now."
Jeanne suppressed an unfeminine snicker. "About nine years. High school
together, dates, going steady, engaged. The usual middle-sized town
sort of thing."
"Love him?"
"Of course. Really, Mr. Lubrano."
For the next thirty minutes, Dan Lubrano asked her the sort of
questions that might make an adequate Sunday-supplement feature.
Nothing startling, nothing very original--except for the fact that
Jeanne, as the fiancee of the first man to rocket across interplanetary
space and reach the moon, was an unusual subject. Did she plan on
marrying Tom upon his return? Naturally, but only the highest echelon
of government and military circles knew when that might be. Was she
afraid the utter desolation of space would somehow--change him? Lubrano
made the pause significant. Might make him more romantic if anything,
although Tom never tended toward stodginess. Could she be quoted as
saying she looked up at the moon every clear night and called softly,
silently, secretly to Tom across the unthinkable distances? Yes, if it
were absolutely necessary.