Taking Off Read online

  I thought about the two nights ahead of me, alone with Tommy, waiting for the launch, waiting for Dad to get here. A smile twitched at my lips. I felt giddy and nervous at the same time. It felt like—finally—something was happening to me.

  If Mark found out, he would flip. But I pushed that guilt away. I didn’t want to worry about that.

  I looked up when Tommy came through the door. Navy was a good color for him. It made his eyes look a darker blue.

  “I guess we didn’t have to leave on Wednesday after all,” I said to him, as we walked to a nearby diner.

  “Hey, you want to go to Disney World?” Tommy asked. “Seems like we have tomorrow free.”

  “It’s an hour away.”

  “We could look into a bus,” he said.

  “Yeah, but Disney World’s expensive.”

  “I have some money. It’s my treat.”

  “I’ve never been to Disney World,” I said, grinning.

  “You’ve never been out of Texas,” he said, opening the door for me.

  We found a table by a window.

  I played with the flatware, trying not to think about the upcoming night. “Thanks for paying for things, Tommy. Do you plan on working at the plant for a while?”

  “Nope. I’m saving up.”

  The waitress, with menus under her arm, put two glasses of water on the table. “Do you know what you’d like?” The menus fell to the ground. “Sorry,” she said, “I’m new.”

  “That’s all right,” said Tommy, picking one off the floor.

  “Thanks,” said the waitress, juggling the menus, a pen, a notepad, and some clean napkins. “I’ll be back. Let me just …” And she was gone.

  “Poor lady,” said Tommy, looking after her. “Can you imagine being on your feet all day having to wait on hungry people?”

  “She may not have the job much longer,” I said, watching her picking up the napkins that floated out of her hands.

  Tommy laughed.

  The hamburger bun was stale, but the meat was thick and juicy. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I bit into the burger.

  We got to talking about hobbies. Mine—knitting, reading, watching Mom bake—didn’t require a lot of energy. Tommy, on the other hand, liked to skydive. He’d just done his one-hundredth jump.

  “It is a rush, Annie. Nothing like it. You’re up there, in the sky, so high up, and you can see so much. It’s like you’re flying.”

  “Scary, but fun, I guess.”

  “Nothing like it,” he said again. “You should come with me sometime.”

  “Maybe,” I said, pleased.

  “You might?”

  “I might.”

  I mentally slapped myself on the head. What was I thinking? Mark. Mark. Mark. I had a boyfriend.

  “Do you think you’ve torn up that napkin enough?” asked Tommy.

  I looked down at the white hill of napkin pieces. I fidgeted when I was nervous and I was really nervous the faster we were getting to the end of this meal. “It’s a nice little hill.”

  Tommy pulled another napkin out of the silver holder on the table and handed it to me. “Here’s another to play with.”

  Laughing, I took it. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  CHAPTER 25

  When we got back to the room, the silence was deafening. Even Tommy seemed nervous.

  I got my pajamas, which were gray sweatpants and an old shirt, from my suitcase. I would have picked something else to wear at night if I’d known my dad was bringing Tommy along. Nothing frilly or sexy or anything provocative like that, but at least not so drab.

  Shutting the bathroom door, I sat on the side of the tub. This was ridiculous. There were two beds. Nothing was wrong. Things would be fine.

  I brushed my teeth and changed. Taking a breath, I opened the door. Tommy was reading a book, lying against some pillows propped up against the headboard. Mark never read.

  I put my stuff away and lay down on the other bed, on the side farthest from Tommy’s. I felt stiff and uncomfortable. Even my breaths felt forced and unnatural.

  I looked over at him, around the lamp on the table between us. “What are you reading?” I asked, trying to make things seem more normal than they were. God, I felt awkward.

  Tommy sat up on the side of his bed. “The Republic.”

  I moved closer, looking at the cover. “Plato?”

  “Have you read it?” he asked, holding it out for me.

  I sat up on my bed, across from him, and took it. “Is he the one who drank poison?”

  “That was Socrates,” he said.

  “And why did Socrates commit suicide?” I asked, flipping through the pages. “I’ve forgotten.”

  “It was mandated by the state, his punishment for corrupting the minds of the youth.”

  I laughed. “Even the old Greeks thought we were so impressionable we couldn’t think for ourselves.”

  He laughed too. I liked his laugh. I liked the way he looked when he laughed.

  “So you’re interested in the ancient Greeks, then?” I asked, giving him the book back.

  “Particularly classical Greece,” he said, looking like he was thinking about my question. Mark never paid much attention to my questions. “So much rich history there. Mesopotamia. Persia. All fascinating.”

  “Have you been to any of those places?”

  “I’m part Greek,” he said. “My mom’s grandparents. She and my sister and I took a trip over.” Something flitted across his eyes, some hesitation or sadness, but then it was gone, and I wondered if I imagined it. “When I was in high school.”

  “I bet it was cool.”

  “Beautiful,” he said. “We saw Athens, the Acropolis, but mostly we island hopped.”

  “I want to travel,” I said.

  “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” He grinned.

  I smiled, but felt a little self-conscious in the quiet that followed. “Have you been anyplace else? Outside of the U.S.?”

  “No, but one day …,” he said.

  “Mark only wants to travel where he can surf.”

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked.

  “Everywhere.” I thought I could do that, using Texas as a home base. I’d love to go on trips to visit and explore, and then return home. I wanted both lives.

  “Could you narrow it down?”

  I picked up the Japanese fan I’d left on the bed. “Tokyo.” I opened it and leaned over to fan him.

  He laughed, grabbed it. “Where else?”

  “Hong Kong before the Brits hand it over to the Chinese.”

  “I don’t think it’s closing down like a bar.”

  “You know what I mean. I’d also like to go on one of those grand tours of Europe, like young people used to do in the nineteenth century.”

  “You mean the wealthy,” Tommy said.

  “Wealthy young men, at that.”

  “So when are you going to get started?”

  “As you said, I’m traveling now!”

  “That you are,” he agreed. “So you might bum around Europe for a while?”

  I laughed. “Yeah, that would be my grand tour: hostels and Kit Kat bars.”

  “What do you want to see most? The Eiffel Tower? The ruins of Rome?”

  “I want to see Van Gogh’s paintings.” I leaned forward. “I heard a woman say that seeing Starry Night was nothing like seeing the print of it, that she found herself crying in the museum because she was so moved by it. Isn’t that amazing? That Van Gogh painted something so beautiful, so powerful, that it made a woman cry one hundred years later.”

  “Look at you,” he said, reaching over to run his hand up and down my arm. “You’ve got goose bumps.” His touch was warm and nice, and thrilled me a little too. I missed him when he drew back.

  “And I want to see where he lived,” I said, “where he painted.”

  “You like Van Gogh.”

  “I don’t know anything about art,” I said. “I just know how it makes m
e feel when I look at it. And I like the feeling.” I paused. “I like color. Van Gogh’s colors are so amazing. You look at the colors and you feel like he’s painting feelings, and that those feelings are the key to everything.”

  But thinking of the envelope I was carrying around like a priest’s hair shirt made me realize I couldn’t even express what I felt about Van Gogh’s paintings.

  “Hey.” Tommy tapped my knee with the fan. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Nothing. I just thought of something.” I shook my head, trying to dismiss it.

  “It is something. What’s going on?”

  I looked at him.

  “Come on, Annie. What’s wrong?”

  He was looking right at me, like he really wanted to know. “I … oh hell, let me show you.”

  I grabbed my bag off the floor and pulled it onto the bed. I tried not to let my undies spill out while I searched through it. I found the unopened envelope and gave it to him.

  “What’s this?” he asked. “It’s addressed to you. And, hey, it’s from you. You’re writing yourself these days?”

  “It’s a rejection letter for a poem I wrote,” I explained. “Literary journals gift you with rejections in the envelopes you send in with your submissions—so you’ll grow to hate your own handwriting.”

  “You write poetry?”

  I nodded once.

  “Your dad said the two of you talked poetry. He didn’t tell me you wrote it.”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  Tommy looked at me quizzically and was quiet for a moment. “You haven’t opened the envelope.”

  “You get acceptances back in their envelopes, not your own. Or so I’ve heard. I’ve never gotten an acceptance.”

  “So you’re upset you got a rejection?” he asked. “It’s one rejection.”

  “No,” I said. “That poem has been rejected twenty-six times. There’s no other place to send it to. The poem’s crap. I write crap.”

  He raised the envelope. “Can I open it?”

  I gestured for him to.

  Why was I letting him do this? Maybe it was because being in this motel room in Florida with someone I just met two days ago didn’t seem like any part of my real life. But it was something more than that too. I wanted to show him. Telling Christa about my desire to write poetry had opened up something in me, something that wanted to reach out and talk to someone about my poems.

  Dad would want to hear about it, but I resisted that, had always resisted telling him about my poetry. I kept Dad at a little bit of a distance, knowing he wanted more from me, but not trusting him completely. I knew how he could hurt people.

  Maybe I should tell Mark, but he wouldn’t understand, and that would make me feel more alone.

  Tommy was here and so easy to talk to.

  I watched him rip open my busted future and pull out the contents. Two pieces of paper. It would be the rejection and my own poem returned to me.

  “It’s a rejection,” he said quietly.

  “Yeah.”

  “Can I read the poem?” he asked, holding it up.

  “Ye-es,” I said carefully, wondering if I meant it.

  “Are you sure?”

  “As long as you remember it’s been rejected twenty-six times. Sorry, twenty-seven.”

  To my horror, he read it out loud, but it was in his warm, sensual voice. And he read it so well, getting the rhythm, the inflections, hitting the pauses, almost just like I wanted, like it sounded in my head.

  I Swim in a Sea of Yellow

  I struggle

  in seas of amber

  suns melted below

  streams of blackening

  blue stalks

  of wheat sting

  my face wild

  wind distorts

  crows’ wings rushes

  into my soul all I see—

  is color

  He looked at the paper. “I like it, Annie.”

  “It’s Van Gogh. One of his paintings. How I see it, at least.” I gestured to the poem. “I look at things and words pop into my head. And I feel restless until I can describe whatever I’m looking at or what I’m feeling when I’m looking at it.”

  I’d never said any of that to anyone. Not to Mark, not to Lea, not my mom, Mr. Williams. It was a relief.

  Writing poetry felt silly, not practical. It was poetry. I wasn’t exploring space here. But it felt necessary to me.

  “Then you should keep doing it,” he said. “You will, right?”

  “I keep trying to quit. When I got that rejection, I promised to quit again. But it’s like the words won’t leave me alone.” I shrugged. “I can’t quit.”

  “Can I keep the poem, Annie?”

  I smiled, feeling uncertain. “Sure.”

  “I’d like to see more if you ever want to show me.”

  “Okay. Sure.”

  He looked down at the poem again. The room was quiet except for the hum of the heater cutting on and off. Someone besides anonymous editors in remote business offices was reading my poetry.

  I felt lighter.

  “If we’re going to Disney,” said Tommy, “we’ll need to get up early. You still want to go?”

  “I must see Mickey.”

  Tommy took a small bag from his backpack and went into the bathroom. I tried to adjust the heater so that the fan was blowing even though the heater was off because I liked white noise. But that wasn’t an option. I left it off and crawled under the cool sheets, after folding the bedspread so that I was only half covered by it.

  Tommy came out of the bathroom. “Annie?” he asked quietly.

  I raised my head. “Yeah?”

  “Mind if I turn out the lights?”

  “No,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  I put my head back down, and the room went dark. It was so quiet I could hear every little noise. I found I was holding my breath; I let it go. Relax, Annie. I heard Tommy get into his bed. His breathing slowly turned to sleep breathing.

  I kept seeing Van Gogh’s painting and thinking of my poem. I’d always thought I could write poetry from anywhere; I could stay in Clear Lake and write. But I wondered if I would have written the poem differently if I’d seen an actual painting and not just a print. If seeing a painting had moved that woman to tears, what would it do for my poetry?

  CHAPTER 26

  What do you think the temperature is today?” I asked, looking out across the water. We were in a good spot. I wanted to pretend I really was in England and not at a fake Epcot pub.

  I should be exhausted after the ungodly hour we had to get up and the bumpy bus ride over from the Cape. But I wasn’t. I felt awake and ready for anything.

  “Sixty? Sixty-five?”

  “It’s so nice out.”

  He gestured to me. “You’re making love to your coat over there.”

  “I’m a Texan. I need my coat.” The weather was nice, so there were lots of people here. “I think I’d like to drink in every country.”

  “I’m not going to let you drink,” Tommy said.

  “You’re not going to let me? Back up, buddy.”

  “Your dad would kill me.”

  “Honestly, I don’t think he would care,” I said.

  “Annie.”

  “You’re not my babysitter,” I said, offended.

  “You’ll get carded.”

  “I could pass for nineteen. Isn’t that the drinking age here?”

  Tommy smiled a little, shaking his head. “You’ll get carded.”

  Now I really was offended.

  “What would you like?” asked the waitress in a broad English accent.

  “Are you really from England?” I asked.

  “Liverpool.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me! That is cool.” I couldn’t believe I was meeting someone from the same town as the Beatles. “Did you ever go to the Cavern Club?”

  The waitress laughed. “I’m twenty. Not even born then. But,” she added, with a grin, “m
y aunt was into the Beatles like mad.”

  “No. Get out!” I said, not believing her for a minute. “And I appreciate your use of the word ‘mad.’ It helps with the whole Epcot-British-suspension-of-belief or suspension-of-disbelief, whatever it is, thing.”

  “Sorry?” the waitress asked.

  “What’s your name?” asked Tommy.

  The waitress lit up. “Jane.”

  “Jane Austen?” asked Tommy, laughing. I stared at him, thoroughly disappointed. Not only was he flirting with this girl in front of me, he used that too-easy Jane Austen reference.

  But Jane’s smile back to him was equally flirtatious. “Sure.”

  “Well, Jane Austen, what kind of beer do you have on tap?”

  I didn’t like this at all. “Yeah, I’d like a beer.”

  “We have Bass, Guinness—”

  “I’ll take whatever brown ale you recommend that’s on tap,” I said, trying to say it confidently. The waitress barely looked at me enough to know I wasn’t nineteen.

  Tommy raised two fingers at Jane, the British barmaid, who I thought was annoying. At least I’d get a beer.

  “Nothing to eat for you?” asked Jane, only looking at Tommy.

  “Nope,” said Tommy. “Not for me.”

  “Not for me either,” I said, knowing the girl wasn’t listening.

  “Be back to you soon,” said Jane, scooping up the menus and leaving.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” asked Tommy.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re getting your beer.”

  I looked at him. He thought of me as some high school kid. Here I’d been thinking all sorts of things about him, and I realized he thought of me as someone he had to watch over.

  “You like Jane?” I asked him.

  He looked confused. “Yeah, she’s nice.”

  “You were flirting with her.”

  A slow grin spread across his face. “Just having fun.” He looked at me carefully, dropping the smile. “What’s wrong, Annie? I’m not going to go off and leave you, you know.”

  That thought hadn’t occurred to me. My confusion must have shown on my face.

  “Annie, what’s going on?”