Anna Mantzaris ~ Rocket Science

1.

It doesn’t take a rock­et sci­en­tist to fig­ure out how to lose ten pounds but I call NASA any­way. The guy picks up on the first ring. He asks me what I con­sume. I men­tion the cof­fee and books. Hardcovers? Those could be the issue, he says. I hear a lot of noise in the back­ground. Blasts and beep­ing and big fir­ing up sounds and imag­ine the con­stant flash­es of orange light he must see on the dai­ly. I don’t want to take up too much of his time and be the cause of a rock­et going off course. I speak quick­ly and we agree about the books and decide I’ll keep eat­ing cot­tage cheese with canned peach­es even though it’s very dat­ed, from the time when mom went to aer­o­bics in the base­ment of a mall and took me with her and the women in Capezio leo­tards (most­ly in black with criss-cross backs) would tell me what a lucky girl I was to be so skin­ny. I don’t admit to the rock­et sci­en­tist that I put my gold charm neck­lace in my mouth every night for safe­keep­ing and some­time for­get to take it out in the morn­ing before step­ping on the scale. But I’ll cut back on the trilo­gies. And the Tolstoy. It’s too much to digest with­out understanding.

2.

A dif­fer­ent rock­et sci­en­tist answers on Tuesday. This one sounds less patient. Hasty. It’s not what she says but how she says it. With irri­ta­tion. The same way I speak to the old man deliv­er­ing old-fash­ioned milk bot­tles when he comes too ear­ly in the morn­ing even though he brings them in those gold-etched bot­tles trans­port­ed one at a time in a horse-drawn car­riage. I remind myself that the doc­tor I almost went to would have told me I need more Vitamin D and it’s worth the mon­ey. But that has noth­ing to do with why I call NASA. I want to know if I should be wor­ried that I wake up scream­ing and have no idea where I am. I would tell you what she said but from the tran­script you’d think she were help­ful, nice even. It’s like if I drew one of those sea­side car­i­ca­tures of myself I’d prob­a­bly look tall and angu­lar, and that’s just not the case.

3.

For a rock­et sci­en­tist, my hus­band knows very lit­tle. About dai­ly life that is. If I ask him to mash a pota­to or vac­u­um a hall he looks at me like we’ve nev­er met. Once I sug­gest­ed he sweep the spi­dery part of the side patio and he spoke back in French. I want to know: If you add cream to milk does it become half-and-half if the mea­sure­ments aren’t right? He looks to me and sings a verse from Maxime le Forestier’s 1972 song about the blue house. I cry.

4.

I call NASA sev­er­al times a day every day and hang up until I get the first rock­et sci­en­tist. Should I wor­ry if it sounds like a small plane plum­met­ing in one of my ears? He asks me this before I have a chance to query him. I don’t think I’ve done any­thing to make him think I have a med­ical license but I have been told I can be quite precise.

5.

My phone isn’t work­ing. Maybe I for­got to pay the bill. Or not. Maybe it’s because I con­vert­ed to a tin can last month but have no string. I pre­tend to talk to the sec­ond sci­en­tist, you know, Her. I imag­ine she’s warmed up to me. Like when I met my friend Shelly and she said I was real­ly hard to like at first. I hadn’t felt that way about her. I was mes­mer­ized by her curls and one sharp tooth hang­ing down every time she smiles. We have a good con­ver­sa­tion. Me and the imag­i­nary sec­ond rock­et sci­en­tist. We laugh and tell each oth­er a lot of secrets. She tells me she’s not real­ly in love with her hus­band any­more. She tells me she might be in love with me. I nod even though she can’t see me. I eat a strand of mus­cat grapes to keep myself from inter­rupt­ing. I want her to think I’m a good lis­ten­er. Caller, go ahead.

6.

A child answers. I would think there’s an age require­ment to work at NASA but he speaks with a lev­el of author­i­ty even with a kid­dish lisp. He calls me Ma’am, which I don’t like, but then won­der if he’s try­ing to say Mama. I ask him: If one per­son makes din­ner should the oth­er per­son do the dish­es? I hear a ball bounc­ing. I hear slurp­ing. He starts to cry. The phone goes dead.

7.

I dial from my new rotary phone in the mid­dle of the night. A man with an uniden­ti­fi­able accent answers. I wor­ry I have the wrong num­ber but he quick­ly starts telling me about Geometry, Relativity, and the Fourth Dimension by Rodolf V. B. Rucker. I tell him that’s not some­thing my book club has read. He sum­ma­rizes for me: We are all liv­ing the past, present and future at the same time. I take it as good news.

8.

The phone is dis­con­nect­ed. I don’t know if it’s mine or NASA’s. There have been a lot of gov­ern­ment cuts. It doesn’t mat­ter whose it is because if one isn’t work­ing, then both aren’t work­ing.

9.

My phone rings. It’s a wrong num­ber but I keep her on the line. I’m good at that. If you give me just a hint of space, I can crack it wide open with very lit­tle effort. She seems bored. Tells me she’s been most­ly watch­ing game shows, but not the ones with the loud buzzers, but now the cable is out. I can hear a trop­i­cal rain in the back­ground and with­out ask­ing know she’s not from around here. She has a very gen­tle inflec­tion that I find com­fort­ing and take as encour­age­ment to con­fide. I tell her about yes­ter­day. I tell her I ran into my ex-hus­band and I was wear­ing my pilled fisherman’s sweater and my hair was unrav­eled. My face looked fuller than it used to. I tell her that I could tell he felt sor­ry for me but what he didn’t real­ize is that I’m real­ly quite hap­py now. She tells me she has to feed the chick­ens before it snows and hangs up as I say, See you lat­er.

10.

I decide to try ESP to con­nect to Rocket Scientist #1. I feel that we have the strongest con­nec­tion and I have been rec­og­nized for my psy­chic abil­i­ties in the past, though not in a mon­e­tary way. The invis­i­ble line in which I access comes from the back­yard with my face point­ed towards the fad­ing sun and while wear­ing my green sym­pho­ny shoes, though it’s been ages since I’ve heard a rum­bling tuba. I tune into what comes to me as “rock­et ener­gy.” I repeat Alpha, Bravo, Charlie in my head and let the chirp­ing of the white-throat­ed spar­row lull me into the trance required. The con­nec­tion is stat­icky but he answers. I’m just on a lunch break with my ham sand­wich. I quick­ly con­vey my query with eyes closed: If you find an ear­ring on the bath­room tile is it wrong to think anoth­er woman was in your bed?

11.

A blurred-out enve­lope arrives. The ink was smeared by mois­ture but made its way to me. It’s a supervisor’s report sug­gest­ing employ­ee per­for­mance is tank­ing due to “extracur­ric­u­lar” (spelled X‑tra-car-lar which at first I read as extrater­res­tri­al) activ­i­ties and exces­sive per­son­al phone use. No names are giv­en, just codes for each employ­ee and I can only spec­u­late that #J7OROD is Rocket Scientist #1 by the series of check marks next to the entry. I cut the let­ter into rib­bons and wear them in my hair with my grandmother’s coat.

12.

It’s been sev­er­al years since I’ve called NASA and they’ve been renamed: PITS (acronym inter­pre­ta­tion of my own: Pie In The Sky). We don’t know why. No one seems to care but me. I con­sol­i­date what I deem “Final Questions” for who­ev­er will answer. Whenever they’ll answer. A com­put­er­ized voice says to leave my name on a record­ing and I can expect a call back in the near future (past or present). I have my list at the ready: