The Astronaut Wives Club Part 4

Soon the wives were going down to Florida for a glimpse of what their husbands were doing. Driven from the airport in convertibles, they held on to their hats and squinted through cat-eyed sungla.s.ses at this fabulous s.p.a.ce frontier town of coconut palms and white stucco motel architecture, with blinking neon signs advertising nightclub acts. Along the stretch of Highway A1A known as the Strip, Cocoa Beach was exploding with rat-shack motels, popping up overnight with names like Starlite, Polaris, Sea Missile, and Astrocraft. The Satellite Motel spun its famous Earth-orbiting signpost. A rocket took off in neon from the Starlite Motel. The famous Mouse Trap steakhouse crowned a Miss...o...b..t every year. The Vanguard was a lousy-looking joint, but it had topless waitresses.

The Holiday Inn was the cla.s.siest of the new accommodations along the Strip. It looked like a giant live-in c.o.c.ktail, garnished with a huge green neon star on top. This was where the wives would be put up for this and all subsequent visits to Cocoa Beach. The tanned, smooth-talking manager, Henri Landwirth, p.r.o.nounced with a dramatic French accent, met them at the door and welcomed them chez Henri, offering his master-of-ceremonies services for the wives' weekend.

As the husbands escorted them in, the women were alarmed to see a crowd of astronaut groupies waiting in the lobby. Stewardesses with flexible flying schedules, hotel clerks, and diner waitresses seemed to magically appear wherever an astronaut was to be found. Two of these Cape Cookies, as the boys called them, dropped to their knees as the group entered, prostrating themselves before the astronauts. The wives were taken aback at the sheer number of these pretty, tanned young things with their scantily clad bodies, obviously willing to do anything a s.p.a.ceman desired. Dear G.o.d!

"I mean, these Hollywood types-they need this and they want this," said Jo, looking around at the rest as if to say, But our guys don't, right?

The boys didn't mind the attention one bit. The MO, as it had always been for a Navy wife worrying about her husband (who might be cozying up to an exotic Asian dancer in a dark tiki bar on the other side of the globe), was to play a cool hand.

Pretty soon the wives learned the lay of the land at Cocoa Beach. It was chock-full of promoters and public relations men, each trying to get in a word about his product and solicit an astronaut's endors.e.m.e.nt. The party followed the astronauts wherever they went. When the astronauts had first rolled into town, everyone went to the Cape Colony Inn because that's where the astronauts were. After they packed up and moved the party permanently to the Holiday Inn, everyone followed them there. The hotel bar would be empty, then an astronaut would walk in; within minutes the bar would be full. The bartenders tipped off reporters, who would literally chase the astronaut children down hallways. The kids thought it was funny. The rabid press didn't get to them the way it got to their mothers, who didn't like their husbands being walking advertis.e.m.e.nts for the bald smooth-talking types who offered a variety of perks and bargains while picking up the cookie crumbs left in their wake.

For the time being, the boys ignored the cookies, instead reminding their wives what a terrific rate the Holiday Inn was giving them. Their rooms cost only a dollar a night, not to mention free all-you-can-eat dinner buffets, which featured shrimp c.o.c.ktails shaped like rockets. And there was an even better perk: down here in Florida, each astronaut was given a dollar-a-year Corvette.

Al, Gus, and Gordo befriended Jim Rathmann, who'd won the Indy 500 that year. Jim owned the local Cadillac-Chevrolet dealership in nearby Melbourne, and, under the auspices of doing his patriotic duty, he arranged an out-of-this-world deal with the president of General Motors. An astronaut could "executive drive" a Corvette for a year, then trade it in for a new one the next year. All he had to do was plunk down another dollar. Meanwhile, the wives were doomed to drive station wagons; family rooms on wheels were deemed the perfect vehicle for these all-American mothers. Trudy, who was not only a pilot but liked to race cars, yearned to get behind the wheel of something with a little more horsepower. But the ad men of America told her that a station wagon, with plenty of room for kids and groceries, was more suitable.

As for Betty, she thought Gus was in a little over his head, always talking about his "friends" at Rathmann's house. It was a fast crowd, and they all raced cars. Betty didn't like it a bit. Finally she had a chance to see the place for herself. After dinner in the formal dining room, Betty, who usually didn't like to cause a fuss, pointed out to Gus, "It's you they're after, not me."

The astronauts weren't exactly tall, NASA's requirement being that they all had to be less than five foot eleven-small enough to squeeze into the cramped quarters of a s.p.a.cecraft. But they were enormously compet.i.tive. Anything, no matter how insignificant, might become a test of their manhood. At a mere five foot five, little Gus wanted to prove to the others that he was the most macho of them all. The boys liked to play handball, but they turned this simple street game into an epic battle. Gus was the champion, except for the one time when he supposedly let Alan beat him so he wouldn't feel bad. To make sure that never happened again, Gus strutted around the Cape squeezing a spring-loaded handgrip to strengthen his hand and wrist muscles so that he could smack the ball even harder, faster. Gus had to win, all of the time. Dominating his peers, even at handball, just might make the hairbreadth of difference when it came to winning the prize of being first into s.p.a.ce.

Ultimately, NASA would decide who was the One, but the question would also be posed to the astronauts themselves: "If you can't make the first flight yourself, which man do you think should make it?" Each would vote for the man he thought would be the best among them to go first. No one was allowed to vote for himself, obviously, since each felt very strongly that he should be chosen.

So they had to prove themselves to their peers, all of the time. If the boys were going waterskiing at the Cape, whoever was in charge of getting the speedboat had to make sure he got the fastest one on the dock. Pansy tourists might like to slalom, but astronauts preferred barefoot skiing, which required far more horsepower. NASA worried that their national treasures might break an ankle going fifty miles an hour on the choppy water, but the astronauts just went faster. Even at a friendly astronaut barbecue, the boys would jockey for position to be the one manning the grill. The wives would roll their eyes while each secretly hoped her husband got the ap.r.o.n and tongs.

When the wives were together, they tried to avoid talking about their husbands' compet.i.tion because it was so ferocious. Betty didn't think Alan liked Gus one bit, and in fact thought Gus was a shade ahead of Alan (and driving Alan nuts because he couldn't catch her Gus). The compet.i.tion reached pathological proportions one day at the Cape when Gus spontaneously started shimmying up one of the guy wires that held up the rocket on the launch pad.

"Get down!" the engineers ordered, but Gus wasn't about to let some pencil neck tell him what to do. Strong as a bear, he climbed higher and higher. This sent the rest of the boys into a tizzy. Alan hopped on the wire and climbed after him, ready to beat Gus to the top.

"Get down!" the engineers called again, but the guys were too pumped on adrenaline to even hear them.

Wally Schirra's gambit to beat out the rest of the boys was through practical jokes. If the astronauts were on the golf course together and Alan was about to tee off, Wally might goose him with a putter. If Wally "gotcha," as he called his pranks, that meant he had triumphed over you, at least in his own mind. To his wife, Jo, Wally didn't care to sugarcoat his compet.i.tive nature with jokes. They competed at everything-swimming, diving, waterskiing. One time, when they went out on the tennis court, Wally served as hard as he would to an astronaut, as if his wife were somehow competing with him to be first in s.p.a.ce.

But Jo was no shrinking violet. Instead of thwacking back the ball to Wally, she would give it a light tap so it would just go boop over the net. Wally didn't know how to handle it. Jo "got him." When Jo won a match she didn't brag to the other wives, lest they mention it to their husbands. Wally would go ballistic if his comrades knew he had lost in anything to his wife.

After having spent a couple of nights in Cookie Land, the wives could joke about the absurdity of the scene, and each went to sleep glad her astronaut was diligently sticking to his training schedule during his many months down at the Cape. But was her man really staying in like John Glenn with his Bible? Or, G.o.d forbid, panting around until the wee hours like Alan, chasing tail like a hound dog, taking advantage of the Strip's easy drive-up-to-the-door motel access (so you didn't have to sneak cookies in through the lobby).

The possibilities for extracurricular activities made Marge Slayton, for one, see double. G.o.d knows what her Deke was nailing down in Cocoa Beach. What was so top-secret that the Cape, the actual rocket launch site, was declared "off-limits to wives"? Who knew what went on at the top-secret Cape with the astronauts' secretaries and nurses? Marge was no dummy. She'd been a secretary on an air base in Germany. That's how she'd met Deke!

Marge decided enough was enough, and she finally gave Deke an ultimatum. "Tell them I'm coming to wash your d.a.m.n Ban-Lon shirts. That I'm looking for a job. That I'm your girlfriend. That ought to do it!"

Deke drove out to the Cape and shot the breeze with the guards at the gate while Marge hid on the backseat floor underneath a couple of blankets. Recounting her adventure to the wives afterward, she said, "I was having a nicotine fit, and I just about jumped up and asked those guards for a cigarette."

She didn't want to get Deke in trouble for breaking the rules, or to do anything to jeopardize his chance to be the first man in s.p.a.ce. After she popped up her head, she realized there wasn't much to see at the Cape, only scrub gra.s.s and a couple of lonely launch pads, where she hoped Deke would make history. Suddenly, she looked over and saw Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr., the appropriately named flight director, who would have no small part in making the big decision of who would go up first. He stared right at her. Marge could have just died.

On another occasion, the wives were treated to a sporting boat trip down the coast to ooh and ahh over technological marvels created for their husbands' journeys, like the green dye marker that would show the rescue crews of frogmen where their husbands' "can" had landed. Its brilliant color was now spreading across the waves. After this fun fact was pointed out to them, perfectly bred Jo, emboldened by the company of the wives, asked, "Is that how we'll know where to throw the wreath?" She made them all laugh through their fears.

The grand finale was getting to watch the test firing of the Atlas rocket, which would first be manned by Enos the chimpanzee, then by their husbands for the orbital flights. It was an ominous, gray, overcast day. Everyone on the beach craned their necks to see the magnificent bird rise in the distance from its launch pad on the Cape on a red-hot thrust of flame.

The girls looked on in amazement. Then kaboom! The rocket exploded like a bomb.

"Oh, thank G.o.d the monkey wasn't in that one," cracked one of them.

The wives knew NASA was looking not only at how their husbands flew, but how they lived at home. Alan Shepard offered an easy scapegoat, comedian Will Dana's joke being if he had slept with as many women as he was rumored to, "his d.i.c.k would have fallen off." Besides, why would Alan want to squash the rumors? His reputation for astronomical virility might even help him outshine the compet.i.tion! Wasn't riding a rocket the biggest test of manhood around?

Still, the wives felt terrible for Louise. They called her Saint Louise, not because the Christian Scientist was churchy like organ-playing Annie, but because she was so serene and ladylike. She smiled so genuinely; often she seemed to glow from within.

Finally, in their own version of their husbands' Kona Kai Seance, the wives broached the subject during a get-together at Jo's house. They asked Louise if she knew what her husband was doing. It was so obvious. How could she turn a blind eye to Alan's constant fooling around?

Louise had to catch her breath before she composed her answer-"Because I'm the one he really loves."

The wives thought it was just awful. Louise was in total denial, lost in her own world and glued to her great consolation and time-pa.s.ser, needlepoint. She would sit for hours sewing light yellow into the depths of brown, giving shape to florals, flame st.i.tches, even abstract designs. She never stuck the wrong color in the wrong square, and rarely seemed to miss a hole. Neither did Alan.

At home during the week in Virginia Beach while Alan was off at the Cape training, Louise managed a household of girls, looking after her two daughters, Laura and Julie, and a niece, Alice, who had lived with the Shepards ever since Louise's sister had died from mysterious causes. Louise had already gone through long periods of separation from Alan as a Navy wife. As the other wives noticed, Louise had an unusual elegance and reserve about her. She had been raised at Longwood Gardens, the spectacular Du Pont estate in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, where her father was the chief groundskeeper and engineer.

Longwood Gardens was America's Versailles, more than a thousand acres comprising formal Italian and French gardens, English rose gardens, woodlands, meadows, and a gla.s.s-canopied conservatory lush with orchids and exotic flowers. Inspired by the grand Italianate marble fountains of Europe, Mr. Du Pont had created similar wonders on his estate. Louise's father was a favorite of his and he sent her parents all over Europe to study these great fountains, so her father could design and construct water marvels for the Du Pont estate.

The most splendiferous feature Louise's father designed was a ma.s.sive pipe organ connected to an extensive system of fountains and colored lights. As a girl, Louise had often helped her father create brilliant bursts of colored water with the push of a b.u.t.ton or the press of a pedal. The ever-changing colors of the water jets provided a magnificent backdrop for the ballets staged at the Du Ponts'.

Old man Du Pont didn't have any children, so the couple was especially attentive to Louise and her older sister, Adele, who were affectionately known as VIP kids around the estate. When they were little girls, they used to play hide-and-go-seek in the underground pa.s.sage that connected the groundskeeper's cottage to the main house. They enjoyed tea parties in the trellised garden with their dolls and teddy bears, and when they were older they were invited to the formal tea dances, garden parties, and lavish b.a.l.l.s the Du Ponts hosted. Louise was like Audrey Hepburn, starring in Sabrina as the chauffeur's daughter living on a wealthy estate. The Du Ponts even returned from one of their many tours of the Continent with new dresses for the sisters.

When Louise was a teenager, her parents sent her to Principia in St. Louis, a private Christian Science boarding school. People dismissed Christian Science as that religion that didn't allow you to go to a doctor, which was true, but in the East, Christian Science had high social cachet. At Principia, Louise was known as "Frosty" because of her icy reserve. They also called her "Miss Westinghouse," after the refrigerator. It was at Principia, at a Christmas dance, that she met Alan, who was there visiting his sister Polly. He, too, had grown up going to a Christian Science church (although his faith didn't particularly carry into adulthood). Louise's schoolmates thought he was an arrogant jerk and didn't want her to marry him, but marry him she did, and she was not sorry about it.

Keeping up her calm and elegant demeanor, her "Frosty" facade, proved to be a perennially challenging part of being Alan Shepard's wife. Louise took her role as a Navy wife seriously. She was loving but strict with her girls, and she used secret codes to keep them in line. If they didn't put their napkins in their laps, Louise would look over and very quietly say, "White Sails." If, after taking a serving of fruit c.o.c.ktail, the girls had neglected to return their spoons to the doily on their place setting, Louise would say, "Star-Spangled Banner." That meant, "Spoons out of the bowl, girls, spoons by your plates. Mind your manners!" It was a monumental challenge for Louise to maintain her composure when she and her daughters were invited to an opulent invitation-only luncheon in the wardroom of Alan's ship, which was docked in port. Louise's girls observed the linen tablecloths and silver service and asked, "Mommy, how come Daddy is so rich and we are so poor?" There were no secret codes to answer that question, which struck at the heart of Navy life. The men were heroes and the families were broke.

Louise's religion had helped her survive Alan's days as a Navy test pilot. Her bible, Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health, stressing the power of positive thinking, was always near and dear. Mrs. Eddy counseled not to dwell on dark thoughts, which was perfect for a test pilot's wife. Still, Louise insisted that if Alan was going to be even a little late coming home, he had to call her at exactly five o'clock to warn her. Otherwise she'd be squinting at the sky, looking for those awful black clouds that meant someone's husband had crashed to the ground in a burning hulk.

On the day that Alan was announced as one of the Mercury Seven astronauts, one of the newspaper photographers had snapped a photo of Louise posing rather awkwardly in front of her mailbox. When the papers came out the next day, the address on her mailbox, 580 Brandon Road, could clearly be read. Louise received a boatload of mail, letters written by housewives across the country with cheery messages like Good Luck! and G.o.d Bless You, Dear, some clipped to a check written out for a generous sum. It seemed most of the women in the country believed Louise would end up a widow now that Alan was officially an astronaut.

On January 20, 1961, while the wintry light shone on the crowd huddled before the Capitol steps for John F. Kennedy's inauguration, the handsome new president, beaming with hope, spoke of a "New Frontier" that, as it came to pa.s.s, would include going to the Moon by the end of the decade. "Ask not what your country can do for you," Kennedy said, "ask what you can do for your country."

The day before, the astronauts had been called into NASA head Bob Gilruth's office for a meeting. "I have something important to tell you," Gilruth said. NASA had made its decision. "This is the most difficult choice I've ever had to make. It is essential this decision be known to only a small group of people. We'll make it known to the public at the appropriate time. Alan Shepard will make the first suborbital Redstone flight."

They were all stunned, especially John Glenn, who had been sure he was going to be chosen to be the first man in s.p.a.ce. Instead, he was slated to be the backup pilot not only to Alan, but also to Gus, who would make the second suborbital flight. John would have to go up third. It was a difficult pill for him to swallow. Where was the glory in that? The third man in s.p.a.ce?

Perhaps it had something to do with the Kona Kai Seance, which had turned a few of the boys against John. Not long after that caper, the astronauts had to rate each other for their "peer vote." John called it "a popularity contest." In the weeks after the decision, he fought NASA until he was finally told to be a good sport.

Alan managed to control his jubilation by forcing his expression to stay neutral and staring at the floor. Freckle-faced John was steaming, but he reached out and gave Alan a congratulatory handshake; all the other guys followed suit. Then they left the room. Standing there alone, Alan realized there would be no celebratory drinks tonight; still, he was elated. So he raced down the highway to his home in Virginia Beach. Alan strode into the house, looking into the living room where Louise liked to sit on the carpet and play solitaire. "Louise! Louise, you home?"

She came into the room. "You got it! You got the first ride!" She could tell by his smile. He hugged her, squeezing her so hard she nearly squealed.

"Lady, you can't tell anyone, but you have your arms around the man who'll be the first in s.p.a.ce!"

"Who let a Russian in here?" was Louise's naughty reply.

The only catch, Alan explained, was that though he was definitely going to be first, NASA wanted to withhold the news until the day of the launch. This would protect Louise and the girls. Otherwise, the press would be all over them like on that first day.

NASA told the press that the choice would be among the three men-Alan Shepard, John Glenn, and Gus Grissom. Life promptly nicknamed them the Gold Team. (The editors acted like it had always been clear that these three were the most impressive of the seven.)

Louise couldn't tell her two youngest girls, her daughter Julie and her niece, Alice, both of whom were chatty little girls and would surely tell their secret. Louise did tell her oldest daughter, Laura, who was thirteen and, like her mother before her, attending Principia boarding school. For Laura it was torture keeping the secret, as it must have been for Louise. "It's going to be John Glenn," Laura's friends at school taunted. Laura, who was blonde and as compet.i.tive as her dad, had to bite her tongue because she had been sworn to secrecy.