CHAPTER 8

Julia was afraid to even step out on her own porch. She resented that. She had bought this little old white farmhouse, situated at the end of a very long dirt road, in the middle of nowhere, for a very good reason. Julia Rice just had a natural inclination towards disliking the greater portion of humanity. This house wasn’t much. It was almost a century and half old, only had two bedrooms, a substandard kitchen, one bathroom, and a furnace that didn’t work. Even so, it was hers, and most important of all it was private!

After looking at her watch again she dared to peek out the door. There was no one out there and she was half thankful for it. Seeing no one driving down that rutty dirt road was only slightly better than seeing a horde of reporters on it. They were out there of course. She knew a couple of trucks with satellite dishes were parked up by the paved road. More than likely some of them had slipped through the woods and were filming the house right now.

Unfortunately, Julia was waiting for someone that was supposed to be here! Where was she? If Julia was going to get to the other side of Houston on time then she should have been on the road an hour ago! Julia hated Houston and all of that traffic. The interstates there were perpetually clogged at the best of times and she was going to catch it during the morning rush hour.

At this rate she’d be lucky to ever make it at all. Julia stopped pacing for a moment and thought about that for a second. That was not such a bad idea! It was not like Julia asked for this. She never wanted it, had not volunteered, and the entire idea of flying through millions of miles of nothing scared her to no end.

Julia was shoved into this. The worst part about it was that, before this came up, she was finally starting to see the fruits of years of hard work. At one time her life had been a monumental mess. Julia never did anything by half steps and that included screwing up. Julia had just gotten tired of the pathetic excuse for a life she was leading. Now she had a house, stability, respect, and a job she loved. Julia was also just short of getting her tenure.

If this had all just happened six months from now! Like a lot of universities, Texas A&M had been given a position to fill for this up and coming interstellar voyage. For whatever reason, and Julia was not going to pretend to even understand what that reason was, the Aggies had been charged with providing a botanist. Julia was one of two professors that had experience in hydroponics. It was apparently considered a critical position by NASA.

Since the other professor, with the right degrees and qualifications, had twenty years with the department and no interest in space travel, Julia got picked to represent her University. She had given them a big fat ‘hell no’ as an answer. The President of the University thought it was a matter of pride that they be represented. He gave Julia ‘an offer you can’t refuse’ and that was that. If she didn’t apply then her tenure would be denied.

No one at the school, a school that Julia had loved, nor at NASA for that matter, seemed to give any consideration to her at all. Did any of them even care that she was a single parent? Joey was ten years old! She couldn’t go off into outer space and leave behind her only child. He’d be an old man when she got home! Who would he stay with in that time? Julia couldn’t go and it was that simple!

Finally a red pick up truck came down the drive and pulled up to the house. Julia fetched Joey’s things before ushering him out the door. The entire time, Joey was busy firing off a thousand questions. The most important one on his mind was, “Mom when are you going to take me to see a real astronaut?”

Julia greeted her friend Lucy with a hug and then went over last minute details. Julia gave Lucy most of the money in her pocket and then gave her son a goodbye hug. She finally answered his big question too, “never if I have any say in it.”

Lucy Watkins let out a heavy sigh, “sorry I’m late Julie. The traffic back in College Station is a mess. Speaking of which, it all seems to be trailing right out here to your driveway.”

Looking down the driveway as if she could actually see the main road, Julia snarled, “shit.”

Julia took a moment to summon the courage it was going to take just to leave her own driveway. Then she let Lucy know, “thanks for this. Really, you and Daryl are just gems. I…”

Lucy clicked her teeth at the young boy, “you like riding four wheelers don’t you Joey?”

The boy got excited and jumped into the passenger side of the truck. Lucy then gave her friend a hug, “don’t mention it girl. We know what you’re doing. I mean it’s just kind of exciting to be a part of it.”

Backing off from the hug, Julia started fishing for her own car keys, “yeah I wish I could say that. I’ll call you as soon as I can. Let you know when I’m coming home.”

Lucy winced, “you don’t really think you’re going to be commuting to Houston everyday, do you?”

Growling as she opened her own car door, Julia replied, “I don’t really have a choice!”

Sure enough, the entrance to her drive was clogged with TV trucks. At least the Sheriff’s Office had been nice enough to send out a deputy to keep them off her property. When Julia’s application became public knowledge, something the University had wasted no time in screaming to the world, she had been getting overrun by these people. The worst part of it all was that they actually acted like she was a bitch because she resented their intrusions into her life!

Some of them actually followed her all the way to Houston and it was nerve racking. Julia actually took some pleasure in loosing them in the heavy traffic on the I-10. Unfortunately, that triumph was offset by the fact that she had managed to loose herself in the process. The Space Center wasn’t actually in Houston. It was right down the road from it. Julia had been coming down here a few days a week, for two months now, and she still couldn’t find her way around!

When she finally found the main street, that ran in front of her destination, she kept driving right by the many entrances, to the space center, because they were not well marked. Turning around in the heavy traffic, so that she could make another pass, wasn’t either. She stopped at the next red light and grabbed for her cell phone. She had to call that number and let that Colonel guy know what the problem was. Julia had yet to even program the number in her phone so she was busy sifting through papers, looking for the number, when a heavy rap at her window startled her.

Julia let her window down only half way and told the guy rather harshly, “what do you want?!”

Her biting tone did not seem to phase the guy in the least. He pleasantly asked, “you’re Professor Rice aren’t you?”

Julia stiffened up in the seat. The fact that some stranger on a street corner knew who she was meant only one thing. This guy was a reporter. “Um, yeah?”

The man stayed polite and was even laughing, “you’re lost aren’t you?”

“Um,” Julia was stunned, “uh, yeah?”

He pointed upward, “I got our news copter on the two way here. He say’s it’s that gate right over there. He’ll hover over it for you. He says you can turn around just down there. Then just turn right when you’re under him.”

The man walked off without even so much as a goodbye. Despite that she still meekly blurted out, “thank you. I think?” Julia decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth after that. She did exactly what he suggested and thankfully found herself at the right gate.

Maybe she should have been surprised that the trick with the helicopter actually worked? After parking her car and looking off to the distant sky where the chopper still lingered, Julia was starting to wonder if those reporters were actually halfway descent people. Then she got mobbed on the way to her building. Apparently not all of them were being kept out of the Space Center.

Julia let out a hefty sigh of relief to the first person she saw after getting past the security check point. She let those reporters know every nasty thing she thought of them, at least in absentia. Julia told the pudgy looking guy, with the buzzed hair, every last insult she wished she could have said out in the parking lot. Then Julia realized she was not even exactly sure who this guy was. She knew he was one of the crew finalists but beyond that she was clueless.

He laughed and took a sip of coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Then with his very country sounding accent he replied, “yeah sounds like you about got them pegged all good.”

Julia let out a sigh and gave her hand for a shake, “I’m sorry. I forgot your name. I’m Julia Rice.”

He was real peppy for his size. Julia figured he was the kind of guy that would get excited over watching paint dry. He introduced himself that way, “Red Darby here. Oh yeah, and I know who you are Doctor Rice. Pete sent me down here to get you. He knew you was going to be late. We saw it on TV.”

Julia’s eyes rolled almost into the back of her head. She grimaced and felt a certain amount of fatal embarrassment, “this is really starting to be a bad day.”

He laughed and gave her a hardy slap on the back, “come on Doc. Let me show you where we’re going. I think Pete said this was our… Initial Mission Brief? Some crap like that anyway. All the real work starts after this.”

As they walked down the hall, Julia asked in passing, “so what are you going to be doing? I mean, I guess, we all know that for certain now, right?”

“Little old me?” Darby laughed, “I’m a reporter. I’m one of the mission journalists.”

Julia gulped. Red just kept on laughing.