The Lisa Nowak I Knew

The last time I saw Lisa Nowak was Thanksgiving weekend 2001 at our 20th high-school reunion. This moment is etched in my mind, though I'm not sure why. The infamous drive from Texas to Florida, the diaper drama and wig, the love triangle, the late-night jokes—all of that had yet to happen. There I was, chatting with old friends at the Marriott in Gaithersburg, Md., when Lisa walked over to say hello. It was just two months after 9/11 and we all needed something happy to focus on. Lisa had the right stuff. She was elated about her twin girls, born just weeks before. And she was looking forward to pulling on her spacesuit and going for a ride. Nowak was the great Astromom—the woman who could mother three kids and train for a NASA shuttle flight. I was glad to see her.

I am still trying to sort out what happened six years later. This week Navy Capt. Lisa Marie Nowak appeared before a judge in an Orlando courtroom in a dark suit, pearls, and pumps, and pleaded guilty to two charges in the notorious case against her: felony burglary and misdemeanor battery. She looked exhausted, thin, and aged. Nowak answered the judge's questions calmly and confidently, then listened as her victim, Colleen Shipman, described the horror she experienced on the night of Feb. 5, 2007, when Nowak followed her to her car in the dark parking lot of Orlando International Airport and assaulted her with pepper spray. A shaken Shipman, who was dating Nowak's love interest, former space-shuttle pilot Bill Oefelein, detailed the nightmares, anxiety, high blood pressure, dizzy spells, and chest pain she has suffered since the attack. Nowak, she said, is a great actress and an accomplished liar. "I know in my heart when Lisa Nowak attacked me, she was going to kill me," Shipman testified. "I believe I escaped a horrible death that night."

There are myriad theories about what drove Nowak, a woman who'd floated near heaven and circled the stars, to plummet into the abyss of passion. But none explains precisely what triggered her bizarre behavior. I am beginning to think we may never know. Growing up, she was competitive, ambitious, a perfectionist. Not somebody who seemed destined to self-destruct. She excelled throughout school; she ranked high in student government; she went to church. And she dreamed about walking on the moon. Nowak was hyperfocused, not teenage-silly. My old friend Alison Ahmed remembers everybody else chatting and joking around while running laps during field-hockey practice. "Not Lisa," says Ahmed. She was out front and alone. "Lisa always had to be first." She was liked by her teachers, liked by the boys, and liked by the Naval Academy, which accepted her into its class of 1985. I was impressed.

And then she became an astronaut. The same girl I took piano lessons with; the pal who came to my sweet 16th slumber party, looking angelic at the breakfast table in her pink robe; the classmate who stood next to me for a photo on '60s dress-up day senior year, flashing a smile and a peace sign. In July 2006, our high-school class Web site posted big news about Nowak, saying she had the only good excuse for not showing up at our 25th reunion picnic: she was serving as a mission specialist on the shuttle Discovery. What a life, and so perfectly timed. Nowak was born in May 1963, one month before Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. She graduated from high school in 1981, the year NASA's first shuttle, Columbia, took its maiden flight. And now, two and a half decades later, she was climbing aboard Discovery and rocketing into space. The Web site entry concluded, "Way to go Lisa!!"