Launch on Need by Daniel Guiteras (small books to read txt) 📗

“All right, we have time for one more caller before the break. Elliot, you’re on WSPX.”

“Hey Craig, how’s it going?”

“I’m fine thanks. What are your thoughts on being stranded in space?”

“Well, if you ask me the whole thing strikes me as such a mind f… ”

“Whoa, Elliot, watch the language, man. Steve, did you catch that in delay?”

Randall had turned from his mike. Unintelligible voices could be heard in the background.

“Okay, Steve’s nodding his head,” Randall said, now back at his mike, “I can see him through the glass. He’s giving me a thumbs-up. Okay good, man, thank God for technology.

“Now, while we’re waiting for the delay to catch up. For those of you who just joined us, we’re talking about what it would be like to be stranded on Columbia. I’ve asked listeners to imagine themselves in space in place of the Columbia astronauts, to imagine how the astronauts are handling their days and nights up in space. We invite your thoughts on this at one-eight-hundred seven-nine-zero WSPX.

“Steve?” Randall was half turned from the mike.

“Okay, Steve’s given me the sign that we’re back in delay. Elliot, are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here, sorry for the F-bomb man, it’s just that this topic just really gets to me, gives me gooseflesh, you know.”

“I don’t think you’re alone on that one, Elliot.”

“I’ve been following the space program for a long time. I’m one of those space nuts you know, and I can’t even imagine what those astronauts are going through, what their families must be going through. We all like need to say a prayer or something that they make it back. They’re up there trying to explore and stuff and do science, they don’t need this kind of stress. I mean this rescue mission thing has been interesting and all, but man it must suck to be up there right now, you know, up there in Columbia.”

“And with that we’ll take a break. You’re listening to WSPX AM 790, Florida’s choice for news and talk up and down the Space Coast, I’m Craig Randall. We’ll take more of your calls in just a minute. Don’t go away.”

Stangley beat Brown to the restaurant and decided to take his table rather than wait for him in the lobby. He caught a glimpse of the “Specials” board, but had no time to read them, because the hostess whisked him off to a table. The place was only half-full, but it took only twenty seconds for someone to recognize him. Stangley acknowledged with a friendly wave.

Stangley was acutely aware of his recently enhanced celebrity status—having a private meal in Cocoa Beach, or anywhere along the Space Coast for that matter, was impossible. He felt like a politician trying to enjoy an uninterrupted meal in D.C.—forget it. Stangley hoped the lateness of the hour would help limit his exposure to the public.

As he sat at his table browsing the menu, he sensed that fatigue had found him at last. He suddenly felt tired in every muscle and joint. His eyes were heavy and his appetite was waning.

Before he finished the first panel of the menu, Stangley looked up to see a waiter walking in his direction. He was tall, thin, young, smiling—and familiar. Stangley remembered the waiter as the one who had served Claire and him. It was the last trip they had taken to Cocoa Beach before she died.

“Good evening, Mr. Stangley,” the waiter said, as if Stangley were one of the restaurant’s regulars.

“Hi,” Stangley replied in an understated way, trying to downplay the fact that the waiter recognized him.

“I haven’t seen you in a long time, well on TV of course, but I do remember your last visit. You were here with your wife, right? No way could I forget her!”

“It’s been almost two years,” Stangley responded.

“She isn’t dining with you tonight?”

The waiter quickly saw from Stangley’s expression that what was coming next was going to be awkward at best.

Stangley hesitated a beat because he still had trouble saying it. “My wife died a little over eleven months ago, cancer.”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry…” the waiter stammered.

“It’s okay—really,” Stangley cut him off reassuringly. They both recognized the waiter had stepped on a land mine.

“I’m so sorry,” the waiter repeated, hoping a bolt of lightning would strike, rendering him more than dead.

“Really, it’s okay, there’s no way you could have known.” As far as Stangley was concerned, the waiter had remembered his dear wife Claire. That was all that mattered.

“Been waiting long?” Brown appeared and slipped into the booth.

“No, I just got here.”

Brown’s arrival was a gift from God to the waiter, who took the opportunity to slip away.

Brown studied Stangley’s face for a second, then took a sip of water from the glass in front of him. “You look like hell, like you saw a ghost.”

Stangley raised a single eyebrow but didn’t look up from the menu. “I did see a ghost.”

“You’ve been here before with Claire, right?”

Stangley nodded, “Once.”

Brown turned his head to watch the waiter walk away. “Did the waiter? Oh, shit, the waiter recognized you and asked about Claire?” Brown had met Stangley’s wife on several occasions, and remembered her as being quite attractive, not someone you could easily forget.

Stangley gave Brown another nod.

“Sorry man, I know how that feels. I went through the same thing after Helen died.” Brown paused as if calculating. “It’s been almost two-and-a-half years now. Where does the time go, right? I remember when I finally got up enough courage and strength to go out for dinner on my own, you know after I’d eaten every meal in the frickin’ frozen-entree lineup. Five minutes on high, rotate a quarter-turn, three minutes more. Anyway, I would run into acquaintances, you know, people who didn’t really know me or Helen personally. It stings, really rips your heart out, believe me I know.”

“Just when you think you’re past it,” Stangley said finally, “something happens or someone says something that pulls you right back. The strength you thought