172 Hours on the Moon (6 page)

“Is that true?” Leonora didn’t quite know what to say.

“If so, that’s lame,” Silje commented. “I mean, if you clearly said you didn’t want to go, you know.”

“I did! A bunch of times.”

“Talk about being all up in your business,” Leonora said, taking a seat on the sofa and opening a bottle of water. “I mean,
they got you a trip to the moon that you don’t want. But still, wow! What are you going to do?”

Mia sighed heavily. “I don’t know,” she replied. “I really don’t know.”

Kari hadn’t said anything since Mia’s mother had knocked. “But, Mia?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Why don’t you want to go?”

Mia hadn’t expected that question. She’d assumed that none of them would have any interest in the whole thing. “Do you get
how far away it is? How much time I’d need to spend training? Or, I mean, the fact that it’s not exactly risk-free. It’s not
like stopping by 7-Eleven. Or what about the fact that I don’t give a shit about space? We live here, in Stavanger. Norway.
Europe. What would I do up there? Look at rocks with two other nerds and wave at the camera for a week? That’s not exactly
what I was planning on spending my next year on.”

Kari eyed her up and down, shaking her head. “Are you a total idiot, or what?” she asked slowly.

“What do you mean by that?” Mia didn’t like the way Kari was talking to her. “I don’t know what your plans are, but mine are
all set,” Mia explained. “In 2019, I’m going to be onstage, playing concerts. Maybe recording an album. At least a demo. I’m
not going to throw away my time posing for NASA ads. They can just pick someone else.”

Kari kept giving her that disapproving look.

“I signed up,” Leonora admitted weakly. She put out her cigarette in the pyramid of butts on the low coffee table in front
of her and lit a new one without a thought.

Mia turned and looked at her friend in surprise.

“Me, too,” Silje added.

“And me,” Kari said.

“But why?” was all Mia could manage to say.

“Why not?” Silje responded. “
Everyone
entered that contest. Don’t you get how big this is?”

Mia let her eyes wander from Silje to Kari to Leonora. “But when the Hair read those names … there weren’t that many people
at our school that had entered. And she didn’t say any of your names.”

Leonora said, “I’m the only one who’s in the Hair’s German class with you. I entered when I got home from school that day.
I mean, you’d already signed up, so I thought it would be cool. Maybe a lot of other people at school thought that and signed
up later, after the Hair talked about it.”

Mia couldn’t make any sense of it. Did the whole band
have moon fever? She plopped down onto the sofa next to Leonora.

Kari sat up on the other side of her. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. Mia won. Mia’s
going to the moon
!”

“The hell I am! I’m not going anywhere!” she practically yelled.

The four girls sat silently on the sofas, staring at the walls, three of them wishing their names had been picked, the fourth
feeling like she’d just been given some kind of prison sentence.

“I think it’s lame if you don’t go,” Silje finally said, breaking the oppressive silence.

“What are you talking about? What are you, my mother or something?”

Kari crossed her arms. “We just think you should look at the big picture, Mia.”

“We?
We?
Did you guys discuss this in advance? What kind of big picture am I supposed to be seeing?”

“Listen,” Kari said. “You think Rogue Squadron is in a rut, right? You want — what was it you said? — you want to be able
to live off the band, right? You want us to tour, record albums, hang out in hotels in Tokyo and L.A., right?”

“So?” Mia mumbled.

“So? Don’t you get it? This is the opportunity of a lifetime, Mia! It’s not going to get any better than this. Don’t you get
how famous you’ll be? You’ll be able to do whatever the hell you want after this.
Whatever. You. Want
. Want a record contract?
No problem
. Tour?
When do you want to start?
Quit school and live off the band?
Absolutely
. You’ll be the first person under twenty who’s been on the moon. You’ll do hundreds of interviews, TV shows, and I don’t
know what else. Every single one of them will
be a chance to promote the band. We’re guaranteed to get to perform on David Letterman!”

“I thought he was retiring,” Mia said drily.

“Screw that. He’s been saying that for years now. But it never happens, does it? The guy is going to keep doing it until they
have to drag his double-breasted suit out of the studio.”

They laughed at that. A nice, quick laugh that dissolved some of the tension in the room.

“ ‘We’re pleased to have a great new band for you tonight,’ ” Kari said, doing her best David Letterman impersonation. “ ‘A
great band, and the singer — well, you all know her — just returned from the moon. From the Land of the Midnight Sun, please
welcome Norwegian teenage astronaut Mia Nomeland and her amazing band, Rogue Squadron!’”

Kari, Leonora, and Silje clapped, and Mia had to smile a little as she played along for a minute.

“Think about it, Mia,” Silje said. “If you go to the moon, you’ll come back with, what, say ten great new songs you wrote
up there? Maybe even a hidden track that you recorded on the moon. If that doesn’t say recording contract, nothing does.”

“Do you think they’ll let her bring her guitar up there?” Leonora asked, laughing.

“Of course,” Silje said. “But that’s not the point. The point is she doesn’t realize how good this will be for us.”

“Well, it’s not like we’re Pink Floyd,” Mia said, still not totally convinced. “Are we supposed to be some kind of space band
now?”

Kari rolled her eyes and said, “No, of course not. We can be whatever we want. We can get whatever we want out of this opportunity.
There’s only one thing that has to happen.”

“I have to go.”

“Exactly.”

“You’re going to regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t go, Mia,” Silje said. “You’re going to be working at the
drive-through window at a McDonald’s, wearing that stupid hat and ridiculous uniform, with a vacant look in your eyes and
deep-fat fryer grease all over yourself, thinking about the opportunity you said no to.”

“I say we put it to a vote,” Kari said.

“Hey! Wait a minute!” Mia protested.

Kari held her hand up in the air. “Silje?”

Silje’s hand went up.

“Leonora?”

She lit another cigarette and raised her hand.

“It looks like the majority has decided, Mia. You’re going to be spending next summer in space.”

A slow, stubborn smile was growing on Mia’s face, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. They had a compelling argument,
didn’t they? That it could make all the difference for the band?

It’s just a few weeks. How bad can it be?

She stood up, walked over to the wall, and picked up the crumpled NASA envelope.

She looked at the other band members.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go.”

The rest of practice was some of the most beautiful music-making Mia had experienced.

Her decision to go had elicited a cheer unlike any she’d heard
before. They played better than they had in ages, and they even wrote two new songs, “Which Way L.A.” and “Super Fast Song.”
They planned two albums and dreamed their way around the world four times on endless tours in enormous tour buses.

They also played “II” again, and this time it was right on the mark. Leonora was pounding away on the last refrain when Mia
signaled that they should take it one more time from the top, and this time she gave it everything she had. When they reached
the end of the refrain, she just kept going, playing the same riff over and over again, faster than they’d ever practiced.
Mia screamed into the microphone and tore at the strings harder than ever. One of her strings broke, but she pretended not
to notice, kept going and going until there was only a wall of noise left, and she turned to the others and gave them the
sign. They all counted to four in their heads and stopped at the same time. To the second.

And then it was over.

The room got quiet. It was as if the sound had sunk to the floor.

Without a word, they all set down their instruments and moved over to the sofas. Silje was the first to say anything. “Jesus,
what was that?”

Mia looked at her fingers. The tip of her index finger was bleeding a little. “What do you mean?”

“That was totally awesome, if you ask me,” Kari said. “We should do more of that. Like on ‘Vintage Spandex.’ That would work
there, don’t you think? Just hold on to it even more at the end.”

“You guys, I think this is actually the start of something big,” Silje said.

* * *

They were giddy and slightly dazed when they finally left the rehearsal space at quarter to midnight to catch the last bus
home. They kept singing on the bus, and the driver flashed them nasty looks in the rearview mirror.

Mia was the last of the band members to get off the bus. She needed a walk right now, despite the heavy rain. A couple of
cars passed her, the drivers paying no notice to her trudging through the empty streets, tugging the collar of her thin jacket
up to cover the back of her neck. A girl walking through the rain in heavy paratrooper boots, even though it was the middle
of summer. A fifteen-year-old girl with big headphones, nodding her head to the beat of the music she was listening to. And
if the drivers had looked carefully, for the brief instant the headlights illuminated her face, they would have been able
to see that this girl was smiling.

Because she had made up her mind now.

She was going. And she would make the best of it. Take the opportunities that came her way.

This is the beginning
, she thought as she followed the sidewalk homeward and stepped into her front yard.
This is where the whole thing finally begins
.

Midori watched the mailman, Takumi Watanabe, as he stood in front of the mailboxes in the lobby. He was holding the envelope
in front of him with both hands. His black Lab named Bob stood next to him.

“Well, Midori-chan, it looks like you really
are
the luckiest girl I’ve ever met.”

Midori didn’t know if she dared take the envelope or not.

“I think you’re the luckiest person I’ve ever met,” Takumi repeated. He usually did that, repeated what he had just said.
As if he didn’t have that much to say, so he said everything twice to sort of fill the time.

Midori had never been particularly lucky. Not that she had necessarily been unlucky, either. One time she had even won a TV
contest. After calling in and answering four way-too-easy
questions from the idiotic host, she was told that she was the day’s winner. But she had misunderstood the prize. It wasn’t
a Mac laptop but a special edition of the manga comic
Akira
that included all six books in a single two-thousand-page collector’s volume. She sold it to a guy in her class that same
week and spent the money at the Shibuya 109 mall instead.

“I think you’re the luckiest person I’ve ever met,” Takumi repeated for the third time. He obviously had more trouble than
most people coming up with something to talk about.

Finally Midori stretched out her hands and took the letter. The envelope was white and made of very nice paper. Her name was
written in beautiful (and correct) Japanese characters. And in the upper left she saw the NASA logo. The letter was postmarked
“Houston, Texas, United States of America.”

“Well?” Takumi prompted impatiently.

“I don’t really know,” Midori replied, weighing the envelope in her hand.

“You have to open it.”

“I do?”

“Yes. The mailman’s job is to deliver the mail. But I haven’t seen the mail yet. Just an envelope. That’s not the same.”

“No, I suppose not.” She hesitated a few more seconds. It suddenly occurred to her how momentous this was.

“Midori-chan? Show us the mail, please?”

The dog feverishly wagged his tail, just as impatient as his owner.

Midori opened the envelope and pulled out the typed letter.

“Well?” Takumi said again, a little more cautiously this time. She’d almost forgotten he was there. She raised her eyes and
they looked at each other. Bob cocked his head to the side.

“I … won,” her mouth said, and she felt herself starting to wobble.

Seconds later, Takumi Watanabe was picking her up and swinging her around as he laughed and cheered, “You’re going to the
moon! You’re going to the moon!”

Bob barked, confused at the sudden commotion. A couple of women walking by stopped for a second and watched the grown man
swinging the girl around and laughing giddily.

“No more mail for you, Midori-chan,” he almost sang. “That’s outside of my delivery zone! Ha, the
moon
! Isn’t this unbelievable?”

Midori couldn’t get a word out. Maybe that was just as well. She might have disappointed him anyway, because the truth was
that Midori wasn’t thinking about the moon at all as she stood there in the mailman’s embrace. She wasn’t thinking about her
unique opportunity or staying in the Sea of Tranquility. All she could think about was the place she would go before and after
this absurd trip. Two words kept running through her head.

New York. New York
.

She knew exactly what this meant.

You just got your ticket out of here, Midori
.

Midori didn’t mention the letter to her parents until dinnertime later that night. They were so excited, they invited the
neighbors in for a glass of sake to share the news; and before Midori knew it,
the apartment was full of well-wishers, all sharing words of congratulations, amazement, and delight. Midori was happy, too,
almost jubilant. She knew that this meant the end of her life as she knew it. It was a colossal choice for a fifteen-year-old
to make, but she’d made it as soon as she read the letter, and she was determined not to change her mind. She wasn’t coming
back to Japan.

She still hadn’t quite figured out how she was going to take care of the practical details, since she would only be sixteen
when she came back to Earth. She and the other two teenagers would wind up in New York after the press tour around the world,
and then she could duck out of the spotlight for good. Of course, that would mean she’d have to hide from the authorities
for a few years until she was old enough to go to college…. No, that was a terrible plan, she had to admit. Besides, she didn’t
want to leave her parents forever. They could be complete imbeciles sometimes — well, a lot of the time — but still. Disappearing
from them altogether was too much.

But there was another option. And that was to exploit Daddy Tetsuo’s weakness for the United States. He’d never been there,
but he was always talking about how much he wanted to go. The Grand Canyon — that’s what he wanted to see most. God knows
why. As far as Midori could tell, the Grand Canyon was just a big valley with some mountains, and there were plenty of those
in Japan, too. But he brought it up all the time, and always with a certain reverence in his voice.
Well
, Midori thought,
you can have your Grand Canyon. As much of it as you want
.

She wouldn’t say anything to her parents about wanting to move away from Yokohama in particular or Japan in general until
they were well into their post-moon world tour. Then she’d
suggest that they go see this Grand Canyon place. And then, as they stood there looking at the (probably not all
that
majestic) view, she could let the words drop:
What if we just moved here?

And maybe, just maybe, they would say yes. It was a possibility anyway, and for now she’d have to believe it could work. Her
life simply depended on it, she thought. If not, the whole trip to the moon would be a complete waste.

The dawn light was already starting to stream in through her thin curtains when she finally fell asleep at five thirty in
the morning. She would have preferred to keep working on her plan, but her eyes wouldn’t stay open, and she wasn’t thinking
clearly anymore. She quickly disappeared down the long corridor of sleep, and at the other end she found herself on the roof
of a loft in Brooklyn, with a cup of coffee in her hands and a view of the Manhattan skyline. She opened the skylight and
called down to her friends who were sitting in the large loft apartment below, surrounded by the paintings and clothes they’d
been working on. “We’ll be right up,” they yelled to her, and Midori left the skylight open, sat down with her back against
a chimney, and squinted at the cool, infinitely beautiful September sun.

The letter was true to its word. A Japanese-speaking NASA representative called Midori three days later and popped the question:

“Do you wish to say yes and be part of this mission?”

Midori didn’t hesitate before answering, “Yes.”

“And have you discussed the matter with your parents?”

She was taken aback for a second at how formal and businesslike the representative sounded.

“Um, yes,” Midori replied. “Of course.”

“Good. I’ll need to speak to them now after we’re through talking. With their consent, one of our representatives will come
to Yokohama next week to meet with you and your family and discuss the details.”

She felt dazed as she handed the phone to her father, who immediately began confirming arrangements with NASA.

No going back now
, she thought.

Sure enough, a week later a deep-voiced American man wearing a suit showed up at the door of their fifth-floor apartment a
few minutes after seven p.m. Midori’s parents had probably been expecting the representative to give them more thorough information
about what their daughter could expect, but it was obvious that the purpose of his visit was totally different.

The man brushed aside their questions with a few curt, vague answers before opening his briefcase and taking out reams of
paperwork. Midori and her parents had to sign countless documents, insurance forms, waivers for this and that, release of
liability forms in the event of this or that, and so on. It would have been completely impossible to read them all; all they
could do was sign where the man pointed with his well-manicured finger, over and over and over again until he seemed satisfied,
smiled, and bowed deeply before thanking them and leaving, just as quietly and emotionlessly as he had arrived.

Midori and her parents just sat there on the floor around the
coffee table, slightly confused by everything they had experienced in the last hour. But the man hadn’t left a business card
or a phone number. For all they knew, he was already on his way back to the airport, headed for the next country and the next
teenage astronaut-to-be.

That feeling lasted for the next several months, as if everything was going too fast. When the calendar finally said March,
it felt like only a few days had passed. Suddenly it seemed to Midori that she didn’t have enough time for everything. She
turned in her application to postpone her finals at school, which was granted. She said a hasty farewell to her friends in
downtown Tokyo. And now that she was on her way to becoming a celebrity, she had to make several rounds of visits to her relatives
in Yokohama, along with the neighbors and her dad’s colleagues, before everyone seemed satisfied.

Takumi Watanabe was the last person Midori said good-bye to, the very morning she and her parents left. Like many other neighbors
and relatives, he was waiting outside their building when the Yoshida family was ready to head to the United States. Takumi
was standing at the very back of the crowd, so he wouldn’t be in anyone’s way, and Midori had to push her way through the
throng to reach him.

“Well, have a good trip, Midori-san.”

It was the first time he’d ever used the grown-up suffix “-san” with her instead of the diminutive “-chan” suffix that people
used for kids. She was sure probably no one else noticed it, but to Midori it meant a lot. Like they were really friends now.
After all, they had shared the historic moment when she opened the
envelope containing the letter. Maybe he knew more about her plans than she realized, because the last thing he said was,
“Don’t forget your way home. Your mail will be waiting for you here.”

Midori didn’t respond. Instead she bowed to him and started walking toward the car that was waiting outside the building.

Seconds later it started moving toward Narita International Airport.