Footfall

Jeri frowned. She wasn’t worried about Melissa’s going with Harry, but — “Is it safe?”

Harry gri

He just might do that, Jeri thought. “Look, Harry, not too fast—”

“Speed limit, and no freeway,” Harry said.

Melissa was dancing around. “I’ll get my jacket,” she said. She dashed out of the kitchen.

“Oh, all right,” Jeri said. “Harry, do be careful.”

An hour later, Melissa came in the front door.

“Have a good time?” Jeri asked.

“Yeah, until his motorcycle blew up.”

“Blew up!”

“Well, that’s what he said. It just died. We were a long way off.”

“How did you get home?”

“Harry asked if you let me take the bus by myself, and when I said sure, he waited at the bus stop with me.” Melissa giggled. “He had to borrow bus fare from me so he could get home, too.”

Linda Gillespie drained her margarita and set the empty glass down too hard. When she spoke, her voice was too loud for the dimly lit Mayflower cocktail lounge. “Dammit, it just isn’t fair!”

Carlotta Dawson shrugged. “Lots of things aren’t. At least you had fair warning! You knew you were marrying an astronaut. I thought I’d married a nice lawyer.”

“They could let us go to Houston with them.”

“Speak for yourself,” Carlotta said. “I’ve got work to do. Someone has to think about his career, and it’s for sure Wes won’t now that he’s got a chance to go to space. If you’re looking for something to do, come help me with the constituent mail.”

“Yeah, sure—”

“I mean it,” Carlotta said. “Sure, it gives you something to distract you, but seriously, I need the help. It’s hard to find intelligent people who know California and live in Washington.”

“I don’t blame them.”

“So why don’t you go home”

“We were going to have the house painted anyway, and when the President ordered Ed to Washington we decided to have an extra room put on the attic. The house is a madhouse, crawling with contractors.”—

“You could go see Joel.”

“No I can’t. That expensive boarding school doesn’t like having Mommy drop in. Interferes with their routine. Of course if Ed wants to come—”

Carlotta smiled. “Astronauts are always welcome. You knew that when you married him.”

“Yes. And I still love him, too. But it gets damned lonesome sometimes.” Linda signaled the waitress. “Another round, please.”

“Not me,” Carlotta said. “Two’s more than enough. Linda, be reasonable. Ed and Wes don’t have any time at all, that’s straight enough. They’re living on the base

“I could stay in a hotel.”

“Be pretty expensive, and he still wouldn’t have any time for you.

Linda nodded. “I know. But it’s still not fair.”

Carlotta chuckled. “The aliens are coming. Our husbands are intimately involved in making contact with them-and we’re sitting here grousing because we’re not seeing them in Washington instead of being ignored by them in Houston.”

“You don’t like it either—”

“No. I don’t. Congress recesses about the time Wes actually goes into orbit, and I’ll like that even less-but there’s nothing I can do about it.” She stood and fumbled in her purse until she found a five-dollar bill. She put the money on the table. “I mean it, Linda, I could use some help. Call me at the office”

“All right.”

“I like your enthusiasm. Well, if you do, I guarantee I’ll put you to work. Bye.”

Linda watched Carlotta leave, and turned back to her drink. I probably should go help Carlotta. It’s something to do — “Five dollars for your thoughts.”

“Uh—” She looked up at the man standing where Carlotta had been. “Roger!”

“Yep. Were you thinking about me?” He sat down without waiting to be asked.

“No.” He still looks pretty good. He must be-what, fifty? That’s about right. Good-looking man for fifty. Good-looking for forty, for that matter. “After five years? Why should I?”

He chuckled. “Because you’re alone in my town. You ought to have been thinking about me for weeks.”

“That’s silly.” I did think about you, damn you. “How do you know I’m not waiting for my husband?”

“Because he’s in Houston, sheep dogging the Honorable Wesley Dawson. You were with Carlotta Dawson until a minute ago.” He flashed a grin. “I passed up a chance to interview her, waiting for you to be alone—”

“And if I’d left with her?’

“I’d have got my interview, of course. Or at least had a chance to talk with the wife of the U.S. Ambassador to Outer Space. Now I have to settle for the chauffeur’s wife. How’s Ed taking it?”

“Not well ye never seen him so twitchy.”

“He projects that “Right Stuff” image. Cool and collected, like all the astronauts.”

“Clint’s on TV,” Linda said. “And usually he really is like that. Now he doesn’t know how to feel… Well, look at it. That alien ship is the biggest thing since the invention of the lung, Ed’s sister-in-law discovers it even, and a congressman steals his mission.”

“You ought to be glad it’s Wes. If it wasn’t him, it still wouldn’t be Ed,” Roger said. “The Sovs don’t want Edmund Gillespie. An American military officer, a general-he outranks Rogachev, for God’s sake!”

“Yeah, he knows that, really,” Linda said. “But it doesn’t help that he knows it. Roger, what are you doing here?’

“Trying to seduce you.”

“Roger!”

He shrugged. “It’s true enough. I had a lead on a story, brought her here for a drink, spotted you, and got rid of Ms. Henrietta Crisp of the Business and Professional Women’s Alliance. Surprised hell out of her, it did.”

“Well, you might as well go find her again.”

“All right.” He didn’t move.

Damn you, Roger Brooks! I should get up and leave right now—

“I’ve missed you,” he said. “Sure you have. Three times in fifteen years—”

“Come off it. You weren’t about to get divorced, and when Ed’s around you don’t want to see me across a football field. What was I supposed to do?”

“Yeah.” The old feeling came back, excitement and anticipation. Go home now! That wasn’t going to work, though.

Who is this? I’m happily married, and every five years Roger Brooks finds me, and I feel like a schoolgirl on her first heavy date. How does he do this to me? “I guess I’ve missed you too. Remember that movie Same Time, Next Year? It’s like that with us.”

“Except we don’t see each other so often.” He picked at the scars on his left hand. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t think about you.”

“Oh, sure, and next you’ll tell me I’m the reason you never married,” Or have you?

Roger spread his hands in an exaggerated gesture. “Du

“You’re too busy chasing stories. That’s all you see in me, a news source.”

“Come on, now.”

“Will you promise you won’t try to get information from me?”

“Of course not.”—

“See? Good. I don’t like it when you lie to me. So what do we do now?”

He glanced at his watch. “A bit early for di

“And then?”

“Up to you.” Roger stood and came around to hold her chair.

“I’ve got to be going,” Linda said. She started to push back her chair from Roger’s kitchen table, but Roger stood behind her and blocked her way.

He put his hands under the bathrobe. She felt her nipples erect in the warmth of his palms. “What’s the hurry?”

“Stop that-no, don’t stop that. Roger, what will I tell Aunt Rhonda?”

“Party at the Thai Embassy. Got late. Some senator from the Appropriations Committee insisted on quizzing you about the space program.”

“But—”

“There really is a big party there, so big that you could have been there and been lost in the crowd.” He bent around her, took her nipple in his mouth.