Page 8 of Love Below Zero

8

IMPOSTER SYNDROME

BECKY

I don’t belong here.

The thought plays on a constant loop in my head. I am surrounded by real life scientists who have done incredible things, and I’m just a romance author. I shouldn’t be here. There must have been a thousand more competent people who applied for the mission, and yet they chose me. Surely they made a mistake. I must have fooled them somehow, and any minute they’re going to realise it and kick me off this mission.

“Earth to Becky.” Jojo is shaking my arm lightly, and I realise that I have been staring at nothing for far too long.

“Sorry.” I blink, trying to clear the panic from my brain. Now is not the time. We are leaving in three days, and I need to focus. I have been in my role as the team’s media liaison for a while now—I can handle this. “I’m just excited and nervous.”

Jojo nods. We are in front of the buffet table, chasing down the mini cheeseburgers she spotted. Joanna was an unexpected joy. I Googled her after the announcement, of course, and what I found was a badass military vet who now builds robots for NASA. Her Instagram is full of hiking pictures, something she does despite having lost her leg in combat. She is beautiful, short and petite. She seems so ... in balance with her body, something that I haven’t been able to achieve yet. Yes, I’ve lost a lot of weight, and I’ve managed to walk back my pre-diabetes, but every day still feels like an uphill battle. Me vs. my body, on a constant loop.

I thought I would hate her. She seemed like the type of woman who never has to worry about eating a slice of pizza. Her body works how it’s meant to.

Of course I only judged her on her Instagram pictures, and that’s not reality. We got to know each other over the last few months as we were prepping for the mission, and I learned it’s not that easy for her either. After she lost her leg, she had to go through physical therapy and had to train her upper body even harder to compensate. She had to learn how to walk with a prosthetic.

“I hated the outdoors,” she told me one night over Zoom. It was just the two of us, waiting for a journalist to join our call. We were giving an interview for some women’s magazine and we had started the call early to prep. As usual, we didn’t do a lot of prep, instead opting to chat about nothing in particular. “But my physical therapist at the time encouraged me to go out. I didn’t want to be seen, you know? I hated walking down the street. But hiking was different. I didn’t have to be seen by people, and I could challenge myself. My body was different, and I had to learn how to be in it again.”

I still feel an unwelcome pang of jealousy at the ease with which she eats. I’m trying really hard to not be afraid of food. But every time I look at a piece of bread, I can feel the needle sinking into my spine. I have to constantly remind myself that food isn’t good or bad, it’s just food. Some bodies just handle things differently.

I grab some of the fruits, hummus, and veggies, promising myself some gluten-free brownies Mac sent with me for later.

“You shouldn’t be nervous. You’re badass,” she says as we make our way to one of the tables. The room is filled now. Ground staff and researchers all mill about. It’s a good reminder that this mission is more than just the five of us. There are about sixty other people who will all make sure things run smoothly.

“I appreciate the vote of confidence,” I say as we sit down. I feel anything but confident. “Have you seen Frances yet?” I have to fight the urge to call Commander Jemison “ma’am.” It isn’t in my upbringing to call an authority figure by name, and calling Commander Jemison “Frances” bothers me to my core. I danced around the subject while on calls with her, until she eventually just told me to call her Fran.

That was a step too far. I am not going to call a woman who’s been to actual space by her nickname. Frances it is.

Jojo is too busy with the cheeseburger to reply, but I get my answer anyway. The energy in the room shifts, heads turning toward the doors.

Frances Jemison is a commanding figure. It’s like a buzz of electricity races around the room as she enters. She’s a medium-height Black woman, hair cropped short, with brown eyes that make you want to follow her anywhere. She radiates confidence. You just know she can keep a level head in the most dangerous of situations.

Yup. I definitely shouldn’t be here.

Frances’ warm eyes find us and she makes a beeline for our table. Which isn’t easy to do, since everyone wants to shake her hand. She weaves through the crowd with grace, making small talk as she goes, but never lingering too long.

I am absolutely starstruck, gaping at her like a fish.

She sits down on the chair next to me, eyeing our plates of food. “Lord, it’s windy out there. Feels like it could snatch your soul.” She has a slight southern accent leftover from growing up in Mississippi.

No, I did not learn that information by reading her Wikipedia page.

I am not some weird stalker.

“Here, have a burger.” Jojo pushes her plate towards Frances. “I’m sure they’ll be rounding us up for photos any minute, and by the time we’re done, the food will be gone.”

“Thank you kindly.” Frances smiles, grabbing a burger. I’m still gaping. She reaches out, putting a finger under my chin and closing my mouth. “You alright there, Baxter?”

“Yes ma’am,” came the automatic reply. I wince.

“Nerves,” Jojo says. She casts a quick look around, before pulling out a small orange bag of cookies from her pocket. I’d recognise those cookies anywhere.

“You cannot be serious,” I say, shocked and slightly horrified that she would pull out weed in front of Frances. The cookies are a very popular South African brand of THC. You can buy them at any mall—hell, you can buy them at any robot (a traffic light, for the rest of the world).

“It’s just a little THC to take the edge off. Plus, they’re sugar- and gluten-free.”

Frances chuckles as she eats the burger, and I’m reminded again that this woman has been the highest of us all, and she didn’t need drugs to get there. Maybe. Has anyone ever smoked weed in space? I should ask her later.

“Thank you for keeping my food preferences in mind while buying weed,” I hiss.

Jojo snorts. “I didn’t buy them—some dude outside just gave them to me. He was very friendly.”

I resist the urge to facepalm, grabbing the cookies off the table and putting them on my lap. “You cannot take things from strangers here. I’m surprised he didn’t stab you, or worse.”

It’s hard to get it through the American skulls that while Cape Town is breathtaking, it is also extremely dangerous.

“I should have gone with you on that walk,” I say, angrily biting into a carrot topped with hummus. It is surprisingly delicious, as far as raw carrots go.

“Relax, I got them from the store. You sound like my mother.”

I gasp, offended even though I don’t know her mother.

“We shouldn’t eat those—” Frances says.

“Thank you.” Finally a voice of reason.

“—without the rest of the crew.”

I choke on the carrot, and Jojo slaps my back as she cackles.

“Fran, you can’t be serious,” I wheeze out, grabbing a glass of water.

“Oh, I’m very serious,” Frances says. “I’ll go round them up and we can all calm down before the photos and interviews.”

I sit there, wide-eyed, having almost died by carrot, as she gets up to collect the boys. Jojo is still cackling.

“You’re doing great, sweetie. At least this time you called her Fran, not Frances. ”

“I forget that she’s also human sometimes.” I take another gulp of water. My heart is beating loudly in my ears.

“We’re all human,” Jojo reminds me, her hand now rubbing calming circles on my back. “Now come on, let’s get some grass.”

“Is this our first team-building exercise?” Eli asks, eyeing the cookie in his hand dubiously. We’re all huddled outside, the wind whipping around us, hiding away like some school kids who know they’re about to do something bad.

“Affirmative,” Frances says, chewing on her cookie. “It’s a small amount of THC, it’ll help with the nerves.” She makes eye contact with each one of us, and I can tell she already mentally assessed us, figured out where our mission problems would come from, and solved half of them. “This will be the last indulgence for a while.”

Most people give food only a passing thought. What will I have for dinner tonight? Do I have enough milk left? But for astronauts, food is literally life. Every calorie in and out is counted, because in the vacuum of space, food is all they have. It is the fuel that keeps their bodies and minds alive, the most important consideration on any space flight. If humans ever make it to Mars, food will be the number one priority.

Even though we’re only going to Antarctica, the danger of the mission cannot be understated. If something happens to our food stores, we’d be in serious trouble. There is nothing to forage on the continent, the nearest speck of civilization hours away across a barren, frozen wasteland .

We were each allowed our own personal food store, that we could fill with whatever we felt would be necessary to our daily functions and well-being. I worked with my nutritionist and the ESA to draw up a food plan that won’t make me sick, and even got to include some of my favourite chocolates in my store. I tried killing my sweet tooth in the beginning, but that didn’t work for me. Now I’m trying to embrace it.

We will be celebrating two birthdays, Jojo’s and Eli’s, while we are locked up, so at some point we’ll be baking a birthday cake.

But in three days from now we’ll be eating on a strict schedule, monitoring everything we do and feel, so Frances is right: this will be our last indulgence.

I take a bite of the cookie.

James is looking at the cookie like it’s a small child who sneezed on him—with utter disgust. He really isn’t good at hiding his facial expressions.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he says.

Eli nudges his shoulder. “Come on, we’re bonding. Plus, you’re not doing anything wrong. It’s legal here.”

I can tell he’s still apprehensive. He is the rule following type alright. It’s both annoying and endearing. I watch as the gears in his brain turn. What is his thought process like? Sometimes I wish I could read minds, maybe specifically James’ mind, just so I can see how he makes decisions. It would be great research for books. And maybe I’m dying to know what James really thinks of me.

He asked me to call him James. The name feels weird in my head. I made sure to keep things very professional between us, both online and offline. There was already a lot of buzz about our history and how it might affect the mission, and the question came up more than once in some of our interviews. Still, I kept it so professional I should win an award.

It was easy to ignore the reality while we were prepping. He was in Spain, for the most part, and I was in my hobbit hole in London, trying to stop Mr Spock from hijacking every meeting I was in. By now the cat is our unofficial mascot. I hope the gremlin remembers me in four months. He’s staying with Mac, who will probably pamper him much more than I do.

“These are surprisingly good,” Jojo says around a mouthful of cookie.

“Don’t eat the whole bag,” Eli says. “I want another one.”

“Clearly I’ve been hanging out with the wrong scientists,” I mumble. “The ones I know would never do this.”

“That’s because you only know James.” Eli snorts, but there’s affection in his voice.

“I was quite wild in my youth,” James says, defending himself.

Now it’s my turn to snort. “Is your version of a wild night reorganising your tie drawer?”

“You don’t put ties in a drawer—you hang them.”

“Is yours in alphabetical order?”

“Sorted by colour, I’ll have you know.”

The group bursts out laughing, and I feel some of my tension already melting away. Maybe I can do this after all.