Free ISS by Laurie Mains, L Valder Mains Page B

door.
    “Hey Ringo, save me some hot water.”
    She heard the water stop and he came out a few minutes later wrapped in a pink bath towel shaking water from his hair. Washing it had made it curly. She liked the way it looked though he needed a trim. She also noticed that he’d shaved the blonde fuzz over his lip. She’d wondered about it, was it supposed to be a moustache or what? She had to admit he was kind of cute for a weird space geek.
    They brushed past each other in the narrow hallway and she caught the scent of clean boy skin and shampoo.
    He was taller than her by a few inches, strong and slim, not unattractively skinny, just spare and really kind of muscular for a science geek who never worked out. She realized that she’d been avoiding looking at him as a ‘guy’ these past few days but now she couldn’t avoid it. She slipped into the tiny shower and shrugged out of his sister’s clothes. She opened the bottle of shampoo that was on the shelf behind her and soaped her hair and the smell of the shampoo made her think about his curly hair. She found a wash cloth and soaped her body all over while she thought about his strange pale blue eyes.
    She’d never seen eyes like his before, sometimes they were greyer than blue. Set wide apart in an open and seriously handsome face. He still had lots of child in his features but they hinted strongly at the man he would become. His strong jaw and symmetrical features in her mind somehow did not mesh with his weird personality and odd lack of talking. She stopped herself when she started thinking she liked the sound of his voice. At that point she realized she was letting him get way too far inside her head and she needed to stop. Her resolve was short lived when her mind wandered to the bump she saw in his pink towel but just then the hot water ran out and took those thoughts away with it.
    Jack was studying the map spread out on the dining room table and shovelling microwaved spaghetti into his mouth. The best way to get to Clayton would be to take Interstate 40 East through Albuquerque and Santa Fe. It was about seven hundred miles. They decided to take the RV reasoning that it would be easier than looking for a place to sleep every night and after all the keys were right there in the ignition. Though neither of them had driven anything that large he figured they would manage. It was an automatic transmission and there wouldn’t be much traffic. The thing that made up his mind was the CB radio installed right in the panel above the driver’s seat. They would be able to talk with ISS anytime they wanted. It really felt like they were making progress.
    After they ate he put on a movie he found in a drawer. If they’d had any doubts about it before it was now clear that the RV belonged to old folks because the movie was really boring. Before it ended Jack went out and sat on a picnic table down by the lake and looked up at the stars. All his life he wanted to fly into space, he’d watched all the launches on television when he was a kid and he knew every astronaut’s name and where they were from. Now he was actually going to fly into space and the sky loomed huge above him and he felt the beginnings of elation take hold of him; this was his chance to make his dream come true.
    “What are you thinking about?” the sound of Sara’s voice startled him.
    “I was thinking about what it will be like up there,” he said.
    The evening sky was bright with stars when she gazed up.
    “I think it will be cold.” she said.
    She hugged herself pretending to shiver and then shivered for real when a breeze rose up off the lake. He looked at her and smiled.
    “You’ll need to wear a pair of long johns under your space suit.”
    They sat quietly watching the silent universe turn before them. A falling star streaked across the sky.
    “Quick, make a wish,” she whispered.
    He thought for a moment but there was really only one thing he wished for and, though she never said