172 Hours on the Moon (3 page)

Mia heard cheers starting to erupt from the other students before she slammed the door shut and headed down the stairs and
out onto the school grounds. She strolled over to the track
next to the gym, sat down on the railing, and took out her phone to call her mother. An uncomfortable suspicion had started
to take shape in her mind.

Behind her, about thirty students were running around the track. Mia didn’t even need to look to know that this was their
crazy PE teacher’s doing. She was almost fifty, had a mustache, and had been teaching there since the dawn of time. She didn’t
accept the concept of excuses; even if you were paralyzed from the waist down, she demanded that you perform to Olympic standards.
Several of the panting students in the back were obviously pale, a couple of their faces were light green, and it was only
a matter of time before they keeled over and vomited.

Mia’s mother answered just as the first stomach emptied its contents onto the track.

“Mia, hi. What is it? Are you at school?”

“Mom, did you sign me up for that trip to the moon thing?”

It was quiet on the other end of the line. Very quiet.

“Mom?”

“I … we, your dad and I, we … thought you’d regret it. Later. So, well, we, um …”

Mia interrupted her harshly. “Did you sign me up?”

There was another pause, but shorter this time. “Yes.”

Mia groaned. “
What
were you guys
thinking
?”

“Mia, everyone else your age thinks this is an amazing opportunity. Why —”

“But I’m not everyone else, am I? You have absolutely no respect for the fact that my opinions are different from yours. Why
don’t you guys go yourselves if you’re so excited about it? Because that’s what it’s about, right? Since you guys aren’t
eligible, you’re signing me up as the next best thing. What do you think, that it’ll make us all rich and famous? Is that
it?”

“Mia, I think you’re being unreasonable now.”

“Unreasonable? What’s unreasonable is doing it behind my back.”

“Mia …”

But Mia had already hung up. Two students collapsed with a dull thud onto the grass behind her. Seconds later the PE teacher
was over them, hauling them up as the vomit ran down their gym clothes.

Gym
.

Mia didn’t even like the word. And it didn’t have anything to do with the kind of shape she was in. She could have easily
outrun most of the kids on the track. She could swim laps in the pool with her clothes on and retrieve those lame dummies
from the bottom or whatever they were being asked to do, without getting tired.

But it was all just a waste of time. Actually, compared to gym, a trip to the moon kind of made sense.

The old man sat shaking on a sofa by the window and looked around the room in confusion. There were old people sitting everywhere,
on the sofas, on the chairs. A woman who was almost a hundred dragged herself across the linoleum floor with her walker in
front of her.

What in the world are all these old people doing at my house?
the man thought.

His name was Oleg Himmelfarb. And if he weren’t profoundly senile, he would have understood that he wasn’t at his own house
anymore, and that the old people were there because they all lived in the same nursing home he did. And obviously he would
have understood that he was an old man himself, and that he had only a year left to live.

But he didn’t know that. Oleg Himmelfarb hardly knew anything anymore.

At one time, less than six years ago, he had been a fully functioning person, a charming grandfather and a man who still loved
his wife and gave her flowers every single Saturday. During his long professional life, Himmelfarb had been a custodian with
the highest security clearance at NASA’s Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

But all of that was forgotten now.

Safely tucked away and preserved at Parson’s Nursing Home outside Miami, the previously quite intelligent Himmelfarb had been
reduced to a bag with eyes, a box no one really knew where to send.

He sat there on the sofa with his hands in his lap for a few minutes, until the aides came into the room. One of the nurses
lifted him off the deep sofa and into a standing position.

“Do you have your balance now?” she asked him, without waiting for a response. Himmelfarb stood there, straight up and down
with his hands at his sides as he waited to be told to move. The nurse waved at him and he started walking in the direction
her finger was pointing. It was best that way.
Don’t resist, just do what they ask
. At least that let him avoid thinking, because every time he did that, he got a headache. It was like his brain could no longer
tolerate the strain of deciding what his body should do.

“Are you coming, Mr. Himmelfarb?”

The old folks were rolled into the room and arranged in chairs in a semicircle around the TV. Several of the residents jumped
nervously when the screen lit up. One of the aides rose and said, “My dear residents, today is an important day, so we’re
going to watch something we don’t usually watch. Is that all right?”

No one responded to her question. There was a bit of grumbling among the residents, but it was impossible to know for sure
if that had to do with what she’d said or with things only they were aware of.

“Good,” the aide continued. “I’m sure you remember the moon landing in 1969, right? Well, we’re going back there now. As we
speak, a global lottery is being held for all the teenagers in the world. NASA has set aside three spots on the upcoming flight
for them. My son Scott already entered. So, cross your fingers — my son may be selected to be an astronaut this year!”

“Turn on the Weather Channel!” one of the old people whimpered.

The aide pretended she didn’t hear that and smiled. The speech the president was about to make, and especially the chance
that her son could be one of the lucky winners, meant a lot to her. She clenched her fists in her pockets and waited.

Then the president’s face appeared on the screen. He talked about the dawn of a new era in the history of space travel. He
talked about the three young people who would travel to the moon aboard the spacecraft
Ceres
, and he showed sketches of the moon base DARLAH 2, where they would live during their stay up there. He did his best to make
it seem completely unremarkable that the government had kept the base a secret for all these years.

Mr. Himmelfarb straightened up in his chair and concentrated on the man giving the speech, but he couldn’t quite follow
what he was saying. Still, it was like something minuscule clicked deep within his brain when the president showed the drawings
of the moon base. He’d seen those drawings before. But where? And why did it make him so nervous?

Suddenly, his whole body stiffened. He couldn’t breathe.

In that instant, it was totally clear to him where he’d seen those drawings before, and his face changed from an empty, apathetic
expression to one of blinding, white fear.

He screamed.

And his scream could be heard all the way out on the street.

It was the sound of a person who’d just realized that all hope was lost.

Midori Yoshida was standing outside the Shibuya 109 shopping center in Tokyo with her bags between her feet, checking her
phone for messages while she waited for her girlfriends Mizuho and Yoshimi to finish their shopping. It was a little past
five, and the warm April air was a pleasant change from the stuffy clamminess in the dressing rooms.

Her mom had called. Midori was just about to call her back when she changed her mind.
No
. She would call her later. It surely wasn’t anything important anyway. It never was. When her parents did call, it was just
to nag her about something they thought she should’ve done. Or they called when they were mad because she wasn’t home yet.
Not so strange, given that they lived all the way out in Yokohama and it took almost forty
minutes to get there by train from Shibuya or Shinjuku station. And that was when it wasn’t rush hour.

Ever since she’d turned thirteen, almost two and a half years ago, Midori had made the trip into downtown Tokyo at least twice
a week, on Wednesdays and Sundays. After school on Wednesdays she went hunting for clothes — used or new — and also fabric,
shoes, hats, bracelets, and small knickknacks she knew she didn’t need but that she wanted anyway. Every single yen she earned
from her evening job in the warehouse for her uncle’s supermarket went toward these purchases. Her parents thought she was
throwing away money she would need in a few years. But the way Midori looked at it, it didn’t make any sense to think like
that. What was the point of her doing well in five or six years if she wasn’t doing well now?

The truth was, Midori had only just begun to feel like she was doing well, and she wouldn’t give that up for anything. She
had never understood why the bullies targeted her specifically from the very beginning of elementary school, because there
really wasn’t anything to justify it. Without any false modesty, she was much prettier than most of the other girls in the
class. She didn’t talk differently or act in any way that made her stick out. Her taste in music was maybe a little different
from most kids’ preferences, but it’s not like she made a big deal about it.

The harassment continued all the way through elementary school, and when she switched to junior high, it just followed her,
like a part of her identity. It’s not that the bullying was particularly serious; they never bothered her physically, and
at least it was only the girls who took out their frustrations on her. The boys pretty much didn’t care one way or the other.
But it was
enough that Midori could never totally relax while she was at school. She could never be quite who she wanted to be.

But since she’d become a teenager, that had changed. She’d heard about a place in downtown Tokyo called Harajuku, where offbeat
teens gathered on Sundays and completely took over the area for a few hours. They came from all parts of the city, and all
they had in common was the need to show that they were different. Most of them wore clothes and costumes they’d sewn at home,
a chaotic blend of colors and outfits. Some looked like they came from the future; others were dressed like European maids
from the nineteenth century. There were rock-and-roll types from the 1950s, superheroes, hippies, and teenagers wearing suits
or with hair dyed all the colors of the rainbow. Everyone who didn’t fit in anywhere else was here. Together.

After just a couple of months she had made more friends there than she ever would have dared to dream and, just like that,
her life had changed radically. Now whatever those anonymous girls in her class thought or said to her, she didn’t care. And
better yet, she started getting back at them. She struck where they were weakest: boys. It was fun to play baseball with the
guys and go to cafés with them during lunch break. She could talk about music with them and swap the latest news about bands
that were coming to Tokyo.

She knew all too well that eventually these boys would end up having lives that were totally different from the ones they
were hoping for. Every last one of them would end up a salaryman, wearing a suit, just pushing papers from nine to five, before
falling asleep, exhausted, on the train home to their bitter wives. And those bitter wives? Well, they were all those drab
girls in
her class who were throwing their lives away by going to this school to begin with. Deep down, in spite of everything, they
knew that the same thing would happen to them as to so many Japanese women. They were expected to get married by the age of
twenty-five. They were expected to quit working and take care of the home. And then they would sit there, neat and tidy in
their cramped apartments, doing dishes and waiting for their men to finally make it home after hours of overtime and a visit
to some cheap hostess bar for a couple of overpriced drinks with random girls who didn’t have saggy boobs that hung down to
their knees. They would sit there wishing they were somewhere totally different, living a totally different life.

Midori was not going to be one of them. No question about it.

She had other plans.

And the young people down in Harajuku were her ticket. They helped her remember that they all had choices and that they were
free to do what they wanted with their lives.

Midori’s sister, Kyoko, who was seven years older, had certainly never been a part of the Harajuku scene, but she’d done what
she could to avoid winding up in what she called “the Japanese trap.” She’d escaped. She moved to London when she was nineteen
to study, and since then she’d come home to visit only twice a year. But there was something else, too. She seemed happier
every time she came.
It’s very simple, Midori
, Kyoko had told her.
There’s more than Japan, you know. There’s a whole world out there. You can go where you want. You just need to make up your
mind
.

And that was exactly what Midori had done. The day she turned eighteen and was done with school, she would leave Yokohama,
leave Tokyo, leave this whole noisy country that was
desperately trying to be modern while still clinging firmly to its conservative past.

New York
, she thought.
It has to be New York. Obviously
. But she didn’t know why. Maybe it was the movies she’d seen. The pictures. The music. She pictured how she, Mizuho, Yoshimi,
and maybe even more of her Harajuku friends could travel across the Pacific together. They’d be the neo–
modan garus
, the new modern girls. They’d find a big loft in an old apartment building, and they’d have to ride a rusty freight elevator
to get to it. They’d have people visiting all the time, friends who popped in from Japan. They would make art, clothes, music,
movies, everything. And they’d get old together, never get married, and never dry up into boring middle-aged women. Of course
they’d date people, and their boyfriends would certainly come and live in their little commune for a while, as long as they
made sure they left again before they really settled in.

That’s how it would be. In less than three years.

She just had to make it until then.

“Midori!”

She turned toward the sound and saw her girlfriends walking out of Shibuya 109 behind a load of shopping bags. They could
just barely walk normally. She smiled at them and strolled over to meet them.

“Did you guys leave anything for the other customers?” she asked.

“Well, we didn’t buy the dressing room. Or the cash register. Here, can you take a couple bags?” Yoshimi held out her arms,
and Midori relieved her of part of her load.

“I’ve been waiting for you guys forever. If I were a man, I’d have a long beard by now.” Midori laughed.

“It’s your own fault you finished so fast, you lightweight, not ours,” Mizuho protested.

“Hey, three hours is
not
‘so fast’!”

“Okay, so it took a little longer than we thought,” Mizuho replied. “But maybe this will make up for it.” Mizuho handed her
yet another bag. They’d bought her the boots she’d been wanting for months.

“You guys are crazy!” she exclaimed happily, and hugged them.

“Should we go get coffee before the train?” Mizuho asked.

Midori hesitated. “I don’t know; it’s starting to get late. My parents called and …”

“You’re supposed to be home already?” Yoshimi asked.

“Yeah.”

“But then it doesn’t matter. If you’re already late, it’s not like you can make it home on time, right?”

“I guess not,” Midori said. “Okay, then, a quick coffee.”

They headed for the Starbucks and sat by the big windows on the second floor, where they had a panoramic view of the gigantic
neon advertising billboards on the buildings across the street. Below them thousands of people scurried over the big crosswalks.

“Coffee actually isn’t good for people like us,” Yoshimi said. “But it tastes good, so what can we do?”

“Why isn’t it good for us?” Midori wanted to know.

Yoshimi and Mizuho replied in unison: “Because it stunts your growth.”

Midori took a big gulp. “We’re Japanese. It’s not like there was any big risk we were going to be six foot five anyway. Cheers!”

They raised their disposable cups and clicked them together. And that was the exact moment Midori heard the music.

It was classical music, dramatic and loud. She saw how people clearly stopped out on the street and turned toward them.

“Quick, they’re going to play it again now!” Yoshimi squealed enthusiastically, already on her way down the stairs.

“Play
what
?” Midori managed to ask before grabbing her cup and running after her friend.

“The NASA ad!” Mizuho called over her shoulder, and disappeared out onto the street.

The huge video screen located on the side of the building was playing a Hollywood-style ad.

“It’s been nearly fifty years since the very first moon landing took place,” it began. With pictures of the historic 1969
event as the backdrop, the voice-over explained that NASA was ready to send people back to the moon for a longer stay. Then
the action sequence began. A rocket hurtled out into space with dizzying force.

The voice-over paused for effect as the pictures showed a computer-generated image of a landing module quietly setting down
on the moon. Small astronauts climbed out and went to work. In the background could be seen the contours of a large moon base.

“For this exceptional expedition,” the overly dramatic voice continued, “NASA has decided to make an equally exceptional offer
to the next generation. Three young people between fourteen and eighteen will have the opportunity …”
pause for dramatic effect
“… to be part …”
another pause for dramatic effect
“… of this return to the moon!”

Midori couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

“
You
could be the first teenager in space,” the voice urged. “Sign up at
www.nasamoonreturn.com
and be part of the most important lottery in history.
You. Are. Invited
.”

And with a vigorous fanfare, the NASA logo flashed onto the screen for a few seconds before it went black. And then a stupid
car ad came on.

“Had you really not seen that before?” Mizuho asked incredulously. “They’ve been playing it nonstop on TV. It’s everywhere.”

“I signed up already,” Yoshimi said. “Are you guys going to?”

“No way,” Mizuho said instantly. “What the heck would I do up there? There’s nothing to see, nothing to buy, nothing to do.
Pretty much like Roppongi during the day.”

“What about you, Midori?”

But Midori was already too lost in her own thoughts to even hear them.

This is my ticket
, she thought.
It’s three years earlier than my plan, and it takes me a little farther than I’d thought, but this is my way out. This is
the way to New York
.

Yoshimi tugged on her arm and said, “Isn’t it cool?”

Midori snapped out of it. “Totally,” she replied. “Totally. We should definitely sign up. Definitely.”