The Sky and the Stars - Tom and Sarah Kazansky

-13-

Months later, just after a year since she had arrived in California for the special job at Top Gun, Sarah was giving a talk about space exploration and travel at none other than the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. To say she was a little nervous and jittery would be an understatement.

"You'll do great," her supervisor, Jerry Kowalski, a man in his sixties from a Polish-Jewish family who felt like another father figure, assured her. "This is your comfort zone - you've got this!"

"Thanks Jerry." Jerry had been one of the few people from work in her department who hadn't taken her ex's side in their breakup, and she was forever thankful to him for it. That, and he was always supportive of her work efforts, and she had been the one he had selected to go to Top Gun for that special job. You could, also say then, that he was the reason she had met Tom in the first place - but only if you wanted to get really, really specific.

Her parents would be here today to listen to her speak, as well as several colleagues and others in the space related field and with similar interests. Oh God, all those people would be sitting out there watching her, listening to her...

The talk was only scheduled to be half an hour long, but with all those people out there, it already felt like an eternity and it hadn't even begun yet.

But Jerry was right, this was her field of interest, her comfort zone. She could do this, she could do this...

"All right, we're getting ready to start," Jerry told her. "You ready?"

"Yeah, I am." She gave a nod to reassure herself. "Let's do this." And with that she approached the podium. "Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to The National Air and Space Museum here at the beloved Smithsonian Institution. My name is Dr. Sarah Coleman and I will be your speaker for today. First off, thank you so much for being here today, I really appreciate it, we all do..."

The half an hour sped by and was all a mad blur. Suddenly, it felt like just moments after her introduction, she was onto her conclusion. We're here already? "Once again, thank you all so much for your support. Have a wonderful rest of our day everyone, good bye!"

"That was excellent!" Jerry cheered her on. "You shone out there! They loved you! You should do more events like this, Sarah!"

"Thanks Jerry, but I think that's enough for now."

"Oh Sweetheart!" Suddenly, there was her mother rushing towards her, her father not far behind. And with them, in tow, was-

"Tom?"

He smiled.  "Hi Sarah."

"Yes Sarah, why didn't you tell us you were inviting Tom?" Rosa asked.

"Um, I, I - I wanted it to be a surprise..."

"Well surprise indeed! We nearly left without him - thank goodness we were running behind! Your father-"

"Hey!" protested her father, Roger. "Your mother-"

While they bickered over who caused them to be running behind in the first place, Sarah took this opportunity to check in with Tom. She leaned close to him.  "What's going on?"

"I think there was a misunderstanding," he explained, leaning down to meet her soft tone with his own. "I stopped by again to see if you were home just as your parents were leaving to come here. They clearly thought you had invited me and your mom was asking why I didn't bring any flowers as they ushered me into the car."

Sarah snorted with laughter. "Oh my God - that's honestly hilarious! I'm sorry you got dragged into all this."

"No, don't be, that was excellent, very interesting. I hope you don't mind that I joined along."