Earth Bound (26 page)

Parsons intended to do exactly that, starting with his concerns about Maynard. Because he wasn’t giving up on this. Not if he still had the barest chance to return this project to Charlie.

“How much sugar are you going to put in there, honey?” Beverly asked.

“Oh, I…” Charlie realized she’d added at least a quarter cup of it to her coffee. Oops. “Well, that’s enough, I guess.”

Dot smiled gently. “You going to tell us what’s happening?”

Charlie certainly wasn’t going to tell them about the fate of the rendezvous mission. For one, she hadn’t had a chance to discuss it with Hal. Until she did, she refused to accept that it had been taken from her. She was going to keep fighting for it until Hal told her it was over—and even then, she’d still be bitter.

But two, she hadn’t ever told Dot and Beverly about Parsons. It was silly, she supposed. She didn’t think anyone would care. If affairs between ASD employees were verboten, well, then almost none of the secretaries would have social lives, as they were all going with engineers.

No, she didn’t think there would necessarily be trouble if anyone found out that they’d been…dating. Not in general. But maybe there would be trouble specifically. She didn’t like the idea that Dot and Beverly might think differently of her.

“A long night, that’s all.” She hadn’t gotten home until after two. And truth be told, she had a headache. There was a reason she didn’t normally consume half a dozen beers at once.

“If we tracked down the Director of Engineering, how would he look?” Beverly asked this with a nonchalant lift of her brows.

Charlie gagged on her over-sugared coffee. “Why? Why would you ask?”

“Because three months ago, you were having a conversation with him in the corridor,” Dot said. “He had his arm on the wall, and you were leaning close, and the two of you… well, let’s say you both looked like you’d been hypnotized.”

Beverly nodded. “Whenever you’re in the same room, something crackles between you. You’re not looking or touching, but you sort of shift around and talk to each other, even when you aren’t addressing one another at all. It’s like you’re a binary star system, locked in orbit.”

Charlie slid her fingers into her hair, hiding her face. For once she didn’t care if she messed up her makeup or French twist.

“Do you think everyone knows?” she asked from behind her hands.

Dot draped an arm over Charlie’s shoulders and gave her half a hug. “No, I think no one knows. Because everyone else is a man and therefore oblivious.”

“Your secret is safe with us,” Beverly agreed.

Charlie peeked out at them. “There’s no more secret. Not anymore. It’s over.” She declined to characterize
it
because the truth of the affair would shock Dot and Beverly. They thought she and Parsons had been secretly dating, and she had no desire to disabuse them of that notion.

Dot and Beverly exchanged a look. “Were things serious?” Beverly asked.

Charlie wasn’t sure how to answer that. As much as she hadn’t wanted to ponder it last night, it had been the longest and most serious relationship of her life. Nothing about it had been traditional. There had been no courtship. But she couldn’t pretend for an instant that it hadn’t meant a great deal to both of them.

“I think it was,” she answered.

“Then why did it end?”

Because he betrayed me.
But Charlie couldn’t say the words, and not only because they weren’t in a Viennese operetta. She still wasn’t sure what role he’d played in the decision to take the rendezvous mission away from the computing department. She also couldn’t determine if she felt betrayed because Hal and Stan had taken the project away or because Parsons hadn’t been able to return it.

Either way, she’d been reminded that Parsons was a member of ASD brass. She’d tried to convince herself he wasn’t, that Stan and Hal were the ones in charge, but that was all wrong. Parsons as much as anyone was the face of ASD management.

She’d poured everything she had out. For the first time in her life, she’d thought her efforts were seen and appreciated.

But the management had crushed her.

She supposed that professional hurt was compounded by the fact that she’d let him in, let him see her with her family. She’d thought he’d understood, that he’d wanted her for her.

Somehow it had all gotten tied together, the work and the sex and her emotions and his desire. She’d watched him telling her the rendezvous mission was gone, and he seemed to be speaking of something else.

That confusion was why it had to be over. They couldn’t go back to being two people who met for clandestine moments in a motel. That neat separation was done. So it all had to be finished. It would be better this way. They could go back to being colleagues and nothing else.

“I can’t talk about it,” Charlie said. “I’m sorry. I only… it’s done. There’s nothing more to say.”

“When it being done causes you this much pain,” Beverly said, shaking her head, “it’s never just
over
.”

“You shouldn’t be talking to us, you should be talking to him,” Dot agreed.

That made Charlie want to laugh. The idea of discussing emotions with Parsons was outright funny. “I can’t. Believe me, the way I ended it, he doesn’t want to talk to me. Please promise me you won’t repeat this.”

Dot and Beverly nodded firmly. “Of course.”

Hal didn’t arrive at the office until the early afternoon. He’d been in Virginia for a test the day before and had used that as an excuse to come in half a day late.

When he finally showed up, she immediately went to his private office and shut the door.

“Hello, Charlie,” he said, barely glancing up from the memos he was sorting. “How are those new cables working out?”

“They’re fine. But we need to talk about the rendezvous mission.”

“Uh-huh.” He sat in his chair with a thump and indicated that she should sit too.

She did not take him up on his offer. “Are we really contracting it out to Maynard?”

“You’ve got good sources. I didn’t intend to make the announcement until close of business today,” he said. “Who told you?”

“Does it matter? Besides, I’m still hoping to talk you out of this.”

Hal linked his fingers and regarded her. “The contract was signed two days ago. It’s a done deal, but I’m confused. Why aren’t you pleased about this? You’re always encouraging me to keep up with industry.”

Oh, so that’s what Parsons had meant. Hal had used their conversations and her work on keeping him apprised of industry developments to justify this to himself, and probably to Jensen too. That bastard.

She licked her lips and tried to formulate something coherent out of all the arguments swirling in her head. “I meant we should emulate what they do well and acquire and integrate the latest technological advances into our work. Once we give this part away, Hal, Stan Jensen is going to want to give everything away. This might be the beginning of the end of us as a department. Industry will lie. They’ll say they can do everything cheaper. But that might not be right. And where’s the oversight? How will we know they’re doing it as well as we would? With the backups and the proper testing and everything else.”

Hal held up a hand, and she swallowed the rest of what she’d been preparing to hurl at him. He’d heard the core of her reasoning, at any rate.

Hal, to either his credit or his tone-deafness, didn’t look angry. He looked amused. “You sound like Parsons.”

Charlie felt herself flush. She hoped he wasn’t as smart as Dot and Beverly, that he wasn’t about to piece everything together.

“It’ll be fine,” Hal said. “Stan will take good care of us. He isn’t going to lay anyone off. In fact, I talked him into keeping on those two computers you like.”

He meant Dot and Beverly. The plan they’d been worried about had been real.

“I’m glad. Dot and Beverly are indispensable to me.” It was true. They weren’t merely her closest friends; they were at the core of what the computing department did. “We wouldn’t function as well if all the computers were in Virginia.”

“He knows that. These…” Hal paused to search for the correct word. “
Arrangements
with industry. Little contracts to cover a service or machine: There are going to be more of them. Everyone wants a piece of what we’re doing here.”

You mean they want some of the money.
“Yes,” was all she said.

“We have to learn to deal with them, Charlie, or else we won’t get to the moon.”

She couldn’t decide if he was right. It might be that her own personal hurts were clouding her judgment.

Before she could respond, Hal looked behind her. His office had a glass wall overlooking the computing department’s small conference room. Right now, the curtains between the two were open.

Hal’s face fell. “It’s Parsons. He’s probably here to ream me out, too.” Hal waved, and she could hear footsteps coming around to the door.

She was going to have to see him. She clenched her hands together and set her jaw. They might as well get this over with.

She kept her eyes low and watched the creases on Parsons’s trousers as he came into the room. She didn’t look any higher than his knees.

“Good afternoon,” Hal said with a mighty sigh. “What can I do for you?”

“I take it you haven’t reconsidered.” Parsons’s voice was low and filled with anger.

Charlie wasn’t sure if he was speaking to Hal or to her.

“No. As I was saying to Charlie, it’s done. There’s nothing more to argue about. I thought both of you would be thrilled. This frees us up for other work. After all, I’m as focused on the mission as you are.”

Charlie wanted to laugh, but she was keeping every single emotion ricocheting around her chest contained at the moment. She didn’t trust herself enough to try to free one.

“I’m nervous about the oversight,” Parsons said.

“Me too,” she agreed. She looked at Hal’s desk, but not at her former lover.

“Everything’s going to be fine. You both need to relax.”

He had no idea how relaxed the two of them could be.

“If that’s all,” Hal said, “I need to catch up.”

Charlie waited for Parsons to go before she left. But just outside, in the main office, she found him waiting for her.

Obviously he wanted to get through this moment, awful though it was going to be.

While the clock on the wall sounded the seconds, they watched each other. Thirty seconds passed. Maybe a minute. She lost track.

It appeared as though he hadn’t slept a wink. Dark purple circles were under his eyes. He’d dragged his hands through his hair at some point, and the pomade-coated strands were a mess. Even his tie was askew.

He looked like hell, and she had done this to him.

“It was worth a shot,” she said quietly, and her words had two referents.

He made a noise of agreement and agony. And then he was gone.

Something in her chest broke at the sight of the door swinging shut behind him, and she hadn’t the slightest idea how it might be fixed.

Parsons had survived the first week.

He was at the chalkboard in his office, trying to work out a rough take on what exactly Maynard would need from ASD in order to build the computers. Instead, his mind was wandering to her, as it had frequently the past week.

It had been painful, yes, to see Charlie and know that they were only colleagues now, that whatever had existed between them outside of work was gone, never to return. But it wasn’t unbearable.

Slowly, inexorably, he would push his feelings for her into the space right next to where he kept his grief for George, ruthlessly cutting off any stray tendrils that tried to leak out. He’d done it with Gerhardt; he could do it with her.

He studied the stick of chalk in his palm, his mind tuning to white noise. For long moments, he couldn’t look away from his hand, couldn’t gather his thoughts into anything coherent.

Finally, he was able to give himself a shake. He must need more sleep. Or coffee. But he didn’t dare go grab a cup, in case Charlie was in the break room. He could ask Peg, but she looked at him so oddly lately, as if she still suspected he was sick.