Page 4 of 56 Days
“What about it?”
“Tell me things that will make me very jealous that you’ve been there.”
She describes the bus tour that takes you around the launch pads, the Vehicle Assembly Building, and the famous blue clock that you see counting down to launch on TV. Tells him about the IMAX cinema and the Rocket Garden. The “ride” where they make you feel like you’re on a launching space shuttle, how they tilt it straight up so you’re lying on your back and then forward a bit too much so you start to slide out of your seat in a clever approximation ofzero-G. The Apollo Center where you get to see an actual Saturn V rocket, lying on its side atceiling-heightabove the floor. The shuttleAtlantis, a spaceship that has actuallybeen in space, on magnificent display.
“It’s revealed to you,” she says. “Unexpectedly. A surprise. You’re herded into this big, dark room to watch a video about the shuttle program, and then, at the end, the screen slides up and reveals the shuttle just... justthere, in all its glory, right in front of you. With the cargo-bay doors open and at an angle so it actually looks like it’s flying through space. It’s amazing. People actually gasped. After I’d walked around it and taken all my pictures and read all the exhibits and stuff, I went back to where I’d come in and I waited for the screen to go up so I could watchotherpeople’s faces, so I could see their reactions, and it was...” She sees what looks to her like his bemused expression and panics. “It’s just that I wanted to go for so long—since I was a child, really—so it was a bit like, I don’t know... walking around in a dream.”
A long moment passes.
Then he says, “Ireallywant to go.”
Relief.
“You should,” she says.
“Thing is, I hate the heat.”
“Don’t let that stop you. It’s allice-coldair-conditioningand misting machines. Plus, it’s not always hot and steamy in Florida. I went in March and it was actually quite nice.”
“Was this a girls’ trip or...?”
She pretends not to have noticed that he is fishing for information, and he pretends not to have noticed her noticing but pretending not to.
“Work, primarily,” she says. “A tech conference in Orlando. So I was able to slip away and gogeek-outwithout an audience, thankfully.”
Ciara turns to look out at the canal. It is beautiful up close, she’ll give it that. The water is still, the reflections in it defined. The weather is pleasant enough for people to sit on the benches in their coats but not to show skin or plonk down on the grass. A steady stream of office workers and lunchtime runners cross back and forth on the narrow planks of the lock right by a sign that warns of deep water. Watching them makes her nervous, and she looks down at her coffee instead.
She can feel his eyes on her.
“Cork, right?” he says.
“Originally. We moved to the Isle of Man when I was seven.”
“The Isle of Man? I don’t think I’ve met anyone who lived there before.”
She smiles. “Well, I can assure you, thousands of people do. My dad grew up there and thought I’d want to, too.”
“Did you?”
“Not at the time, no. But it was all right in the end. What about you?”
“Kilkenny,” he says, “but we moved around a lot.”
“How long have you been in Dublin?”
“What’s it now”—he makes a show of thinking about it—“six weeks?”
“Six weeks?”
“Well, six and a half. I arrived on a Tuesday.”
“Where were you seven weeks ago?”
“London,” he says. “And you?”
“How long am I in Dublin?” She pretends to think, mimicking him from a moment ago. “Well, next Monday it’ll be, ah... seven days.”
“Sevendays? And here was I thinkingIwas the newbie.”
