off and handed it to Judy, who forced a smile. Was she jealous? Of me? “Wanna dance?” he asked.
“But no one’s dancing,” I said.
“They will be,” Teddy replied, extending a hand. “Come on! This is Little Richard!”
“Little who?” Without waiting for my answer, he took my hand and led me to the dance floor: a square of parquet with no tables on it. I was never a very good dancer—all arms and legs that never seemed to cooperate with each other—but I still loved to try. And boy, could Teddy dance. Not only was every pair of eyes in the typing pool on us, it seemed everyone in the place was watching. Teddy spun me around as if he were Fred Astaire and I felt I was playing a role—and playing it well. I ate up the feeling just as I had at the Mayflower drop. Teddy pulled me closer. “They’ve bought it,” he whispered.
After another dance and another drink, we left the bar. Out on the sidewalk, I said goodbye. Teddy interrupted. “You don’t want to grab some dinner?”
“I thought that was just something you said.”
“What if I said I really do have reservations at Rive Gauche?”
I thought of the leftover borscht Mama would be reheating, then looked down at the pea-soup-colored dress I’d worn that day. “I’m not really dressed for that kind of place.”
“You look beautiful,” he said, and held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 9
THE TYPISTS
Another Friday morning at Ralph’s. Another doughnut, another mug of coffee. By the time we left the diner, the chilly fall morning had turned mild. We molted our hats and scarves and opened our jackets as we made our way down E Street.
First thing in the morning, SR was usually bustling with people settling in at their desks or grabbing coffee in the break room or rushing into one of the many morning briefings that started promptly at nine fifteen. The phone at reception would already be ringing, the chairs in the waiting area already filled. But not that day in early October. That day, reception was empty, as was the break room, as was every desk surrounding the typing pool.
“What’s going on?” Gail asked Teddy Helms, who was half-walking, half-running toward the elevator. He stopped short and stumbled over a bump in the ancient beige carpet.
“Meeting upstairs,” Teddy said, which was code for Dulles’s office, which was really downstairs. Teddy hurried off and we went to our desks, where Irina was sitting behind her typewriter.
“Teddy say anything?” Gail asked.
“We lost,” Irina said.
“Lost what?” Norma asked.
“Unclear.”
“What are you talking about?” Kathy asked.
“I can’t explain the science of it.”
“Science? Of what?”
“Something they shot into space,” Irina said.
“They?”
“They, they,” she whispered. “Just think of it…” She trailed off and pointed to the asbestos-tiled ceiling. “It’s up there. Right now.”
It was the size of a beach ball and weighed as much as the average American man but had the impact of a nuclear warhead. The news of Sputnik’s launch spread across SR hours before the Russian state news agency, TASS, announced that the first satellite to reach space was now nine hundred kilometers above Earth, circling the planet every ninety-eight minutes.
Even with all the men gone, it was impossible to get any work done. We cracked our knuckles and looked around the empty office. Kathy peeked over the partition. “What kind of name is Sputnik, anyway?”
“Sounds like a potato,” Judy said.
“It means fellow traveler,” said Irina. “I think it’s quite poetic.”
“No,” Norma said. “It’s terrifying.”
Gail stood up, closed her eyes, and drew invisible calculations in the air with her finger. She opened her eyes. “Fourteen.”
“Huh?” we asked.
“If it’s circling at that speed, it’s passing over us fourteen times a day.”
We all looked up.
* * *
—
After lunch, we gathered around the radio in Anderson’s empty office. No one had any real information, and the announcer said frantic reports were coming in from all over the country about possible sightings—from Phoenix, Tampa, Pittsburgh, both Portlands. It seemed everyone but us had seen the satellite.
“But it wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye,” Gail said. “Especially not during the day.”
Just as the Alka-Seltzer jingle came on, Anderson walked in. “I could use one of those myself,” he said. “Looks like we’re hard at work here.”
“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz,” Norma said under her breath.
Kathy turned the volume down. “We wanted to know what’s going on,” she said.
“Don’t we all,” Anderson said.
“Do you know?” Norma asked.
“Does anyone know?” said Gail.
Anderson clapped his hands like an exuberant high