Taking Off Read online

  I thought it must take courage to be that kind of painter, that kind of poet. It was a different kind of courage than launching into space. But it was still courage.

  CHAPTER 5

  After school, I came home to an empty house and went straight for the kitchen. I pulled out the potato chips, opened the bag, and crunched into their yummy saltiness.

  I wanted to have them finished before Mom got home to complain about the weight I was gaining. She didn’t have to nag me about it. I knew I was gaining. I couldn’t help it that salt and oil was such a delicious combination. And she didn’t make losing weight any easier by baking all the time.

  Grabbing a blanket, I settled onto the couch to watch cartoons. The screen was fuzzy, but not too bad. After that show ended, I grabbed the pliers to change the channel. Dad had broken the knob last year when he was over, and we’d never repaired it.

  I watched reruns of MASH and WKRP, finishing off the chips and licking my fingers. What could be better than this? It was getting a little chilly now that the sun was sinking, so I flipped on the heat.

  The front door swung open. My father burst in and plopped down in the chair with the stuffing hanging out. He thought of it as his chair, even though this wasn’t his house and that wasn’t his chair. “Hi, Annie.”

  “What’s up, Dad?”

  “Any chips left?”

  I peered in the bag. “Not a one. Not even a crumb.”

  “You’re a heartless girl.”

  “But full,” I said, patting my stomach.

  “Where’s Mark?” he asked. “I’m surprised he’s not here. He’s always here.”

  He’s always here? I thought. “He’s got basketball.”

  Dad studied me. “You two are getting awfully close.”

  I looked away. “Mm-hmm.”

  “I mean, have you even dated anyone else? Ever?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I don’t think you should settle down right away.”

  “I’m not settling down,” I said, peeved. I didn’t need relationship advice from my divorced father.

  “Humph. I wouldn’t be surprised if that boy buys you a ring for Christmas.”

  “Oh, Dad,” I said, but I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.

  “It’s true. That boy’s smitten.”

  “Subject will be changed now, please,” I said.

  “You should date more. There’s this guy, Tommy, at the plant—”

  “I thought you liked Mark,” I interrupted.

  “Sure, I like Mark. But what do you two have in common?”

  “Let’s not do this, all right?” I turned back to the TV.

  “Your mom’s not home yet?”

  “Nope.” Dad had a job at a chemical plant and had for years, but he worked odd hours. He didn’t understand the routine structure of office work.

  He didn’t answer, just stared at the screen. He got up, went through the swinging door into the kitchen, and came back with some cold chicken.

  “Mom’s not going to like you eating that.”

  “We’ll tell her you ate it,” he said, grinning. He pointed a chicken leg at the screen. “Find something good on.”

  I was a little irritated. Today, I’d wanted to be alone, just me and the TV. “Don’t you have some place to be, Dad?”

  “Hey, look,” he said. “There’s that teacher from Concord.”

  “What?” I asked, my head whipping around. “Oh, shhh,” I said, running to the set and turning up the volume. I sat down on the floor in front of the TV so Dad’s talking wouldn’t keep me from hearing. Christa McAuliffe was being interviewed by a local television reporter.

  There was a knock at the door. I barely looked up. Christa was in the middle of a sentence.

  “Come in!” Dad yelled.

  I glanced up from the TV. “Mark!” I said. “I thought you had basketball.”

  “Canceled,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “Hey, Jesse.” He sat on the floor beside me. I looked back at the TV. They were replaying a shuttle launch.

  “Look at that shuttle go,” Dad said. “God, it’s beautiful.”

  Orange fire, blue sky, rising white.

  It was a familiar sight, at least on TV. The reporter was saying that Christa’s mission in January would be the twenty-fifth flight of the shuttle. I leaned in to watch the shuttle roll over on its back as it climbed in the sky and wondered why it did that.

  And for the first time, I wondered what it would be like to actually be in the shuttle. What did the astronauts feel? What did they see? What were they thinking? I couldn’t even imagine it.

  “What’s the thrust of those engines, Mark?” Dad asked, a kidlike grin on his face. Dad really got excited about things. I liked that about him.

  Mark fingered my new charm, now hooked permanently to my bracelet. “I’m not that interested in the space program, Jesse. I have to be around those NASA kids all day. They’re full of themselves.”

  “Lea isn’t,” I said defensively.

  “Lea’s different,” said Mark. “But a lot of them don’t like hanging out with blue-collar kids. To them, you’re not as good as they are if your parents didn’t go to college. You didn’t go to college, Jesse. You didn’t need that.” Mark glanced at me, like he was checking for my response.

  “Damn, Mark, I am an idiot,” Dad said, letting out a loud laugh.

  “You’re not either,” I said, irritated with both of them. “You can tear up a car and put it back together. You can fix anything that breaks at all. That’s not stupid.”

  “Well, thanks, Annie,” he said, looking pleased.

  “And your art car is very cool, Dad.”

  His ears blushed pink, and he gave a shy grin to the floor.

  My dad was an odd combination of Texan and beatnik hippie. He fished, he hunted, he read Beat poetry, and he’d protested against the war. He loved the poem “Howl,” which many labeled profane, but he didn’t like women swearing.

  I heard the jangle of keys.

  Dad’s eyes swung to the door. “Uh-oh.”

  He said that, but I knew he could’ve left a while ago. My dad was still hung up on my mom. She’d wanted the divorce, not him. But I knew from my aunts that he’d run around on her.

  In some ways, he’d never really left, though. With his odd work schedule, he’d been able to look after me when my mom or my grandma couldn’t, keeping me company after school.

  Mom stopped in the doorway, wearing the high heels and nylon hose she hated, looking at Dad. She hadn’t seemed to mind him hanging around all these years, until recently. Donald was bringing lots of changes into our lives.

  “Hi, Mags,” Dad said, gazing at her warily.

  “Hi,” Mom said, clutching a bunch of purple tulips in one hand.

  Good, I thought. Flowers usually cheered her. Maybe she wouldn’t get annoyed with Dad.

  She threw her keys on the table by the door. “Nowhere to be, Jesse?”

  “Just visiting with my daughter,” Dad told her.

  “And eating my food?” she asked, glancing at his plate.

  “Gotta go.” He stood. “See ya, Annie.”

  “Bye, Dad,” I said.

  The door slammed as Mark yelled out a good-bye.

  “It’s so hot in here,” Mom said. “Annie, turn the heat down. I can’t afford to pay for beach weather. And put these tulips in water, please.” She laid them down on the coffee table.

  I didn’t like being ordered around, so I waited an extra two beats before getting up and grabbing the flowers.

  “Start peeling potatoes,” Mom yelled from the hallway.

  Mark followed me into the kitchen.

  I chose a ceramic glazed vase from the many under the sink and began filling it with water. Mom used to make ceramics in the garage, hoping to escape secretary work by opening up her own business. She just ended up exhausted.

  “What’s with your parents?” Mark asked quietly. “They’re usually friendly.”


  I shrugged. “Things change.”

  I put the vase on the table and the flowers into the vase. Mom was right. Fresh flowers did brighten the kitchen. Mark sat down while I arranged the tulips.

  “Was basketball really canceled?” I asked, rubbing one of the petals, so pretty, the purple so rich. “Or did you skip again?”

  He gave me a look.

  “You’re going to get thrown off the team,” I told him. He didn’t say anything. I stared at him. “You want to get thrown off the team, don’t you?”

  “What does it matter?” he asked.

  I sat down beside him, taking his hand. “But you love basketball. You’ve been on the school team since, what, the seventh grade?”

  “Sixth.” He shrugged. “I don’t like sitting on the bench.”

  “But, Mark, it’s your senior year. Don’t you want to stick with it, finish it out?”

  “I don’t have time for it.”

  “That’s because you’re working too many hours at the theater.”

  “I need the money. Bill and I want to take another surfing trip.” He grinned. “Costa Rica.”

  “That’ll be fun,” I said, wondering why I was so disappointed. “Expensive.” I got up, pulled out the potatoes.

  “That’s why I’m saving up,” he said, coming over to me at the sink. “I’m thinking about getting a second job, maybe as a mechanic.”

  “A second job. Wow.”

  “What’s wrong, Annie?” he asked, tucking my hair behind my ear and looking into my face.

  “I don’t know. It’s the basketball. I wish you wouldn’t quit.” I realized I was disappointed he could give up something he loved so easily. I couldn’t give up writing that easily.

  He leaned against the counter as I washed the potatoes. “I didn’t know that basketball was that important to you.”

  “It’s just that … I liked that you liked it so much. You’re so happy when you’re on the court. You like … glow or something.”

  He grinned. “I glow?”

  I laughed and wrapped an arm around his waist. I liked the way we fit together. He squeezed me tight, lifting me up off the floor.

  “Whooaa,” I said. When he set me back down, I looked up at him and we kissed. His lips felt warm. I cuddled in closer.

  “You know, Annie,” he said in my ear, “people sometimes still end up together.”

  I leaned back to look at him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, people sometimes fall in love in high school and get married after.”

  “And love each other forever?” I asked.

  He answered with a lingering kiss.

  Part of me really wanted this.

  CHAPTER 6

  On Saturday, Mom dropped me off early at Lea’s. She wanted time to get ready for her date with Donald. Mom never used to wear makeup, but she was wearing blush and mascara now. At least her hair was still long and straight, the way she’d worn it for years.

  Mom didn’t really ignore trends like Lea did; she just wasn’t aware of them. She didn’t read popular magazines and didn’t understand my obsession with TV. I liked her easy style, with its leftover hippie vibe. It made me see how she and Dad fit together at one time. I hoped she wasn’t changing.

  Donald was divorced with older kids he rarely saw. He was quiet, but he laughed at subtle humor, which I liked about him.

  The thing is, though, he didn’t seem anything like my mom. She was quiet, like him. But she was different, special. She had a quirky perceptiveness.

  I looked over at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She glanced at me. “Why?”

  “You’re quiet. And you’re drumming your fingers on the steering wheel.” Her fingers were long and thin and always capable and busy.

  “Oh,” she said, stopping. “Sorry.”

  “I’m just wondering what you’re thinking about.”

  She hesitated. “You, actually.”

  “Oh,” I said, looking out the window. “Sorry I asked.”

  “Annie.”

  “I really don’t want to know anything I’ve done wrong.”

  “I was thinking about next year.”

  I twisted my long hair into a bun, then let it go. Why had I asked? I should have known better.

  “Annie?”

  “What, Mom?”

  “I know you don’t want to talk about this.”

  I looked out the window. Here it comes.

  “But we need to, honey. You need to figure out what we’re doing next year.”

  We’re doing? How was it we? “It’s only November.”

  “Well, have you at least thought about your plans?” she asked.

  “Sure I have.”

  “Do you know if you want to apply somewhere?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “So you want to stay in Clear Lake and work?” she asked.

  That didn’t sound right to me either, so I shook my head, not having any answers. She was quiet then as we drove over the brown swampy creeks to the west of the lake, but I knew she was getting ready to say something else.

  We passed some of the newer condominiums at the edge of the creeks, and I wondered what it would be like to live in one. The area was changing rapidly as the shuttle program took off, becoming something very different from the small prairie towns my grandparents and great-grandparents had been born in. Very few of my relatives had ever left, and those that did usually came back. Mom sure wanted me to leave. But I didn’t know what I wanted. New lines ran through my head:

  I yearn to leave, yearn to stay:

  Hey, Mom, I know!

  I’ll split myself apart,

  Run with my legs,

  Leave behind my heart.

  “Annie, it’s just that, if you’re going,” Mom said, “then you need to get your applications ready.”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well, why don’t you send them in?” she asked. “Then you can decide later if you want to go.”

  I sighed. “It costs money to apply.”

  “At least fill out the applications. Be ready.”

  “Let’s just drop it right now, Mom.” All that the parents and teachers of seniors seemed to think about was college. This was my life, not theirs. That was the good thing about graduating from high school. No one could tell me what to do.

  “Annie,” said Mom, glancing over at me, “don’t get stuck here like I did. You need to get out of here and go someplace else.”

  “Teenagers in Someplace Else are talking about how they want to go someplace else. So what’s the point?”

  She opened her mouth to say something else, but then stopped and went back to drumming on the wheel, all the way to Lea’s. And then I thought I got the rhythm of her song: What am I, am I, going to do, to do, about An-nie?

  CHAPTER 7

  Hey,” Lea said, standing in the doorway. “You’re late.” She held up a pair of tweezers.

  “Have you seen Madonna’s eyebrows?” I asked. “Thick.” Lea was a big Madonna fan. We’d gone to see Desperately Seeking Susan three times.

  “Since when have you wanted to look like Madonna?” she asked, shutting the door behind me. “Although you are wearing fingerless gloves now.”

  I laughed, raising my hand and pointing to the one gloveless finger. “It snagged. It’s not on purpose.”

  “All right, no plucking your eyebrows. You can paint my toenails instead.”

  “My day is made,” I said, following her up the stairs.

  Lea’s house was in one of the first NASA neighborhoods in Clear Lake. Her parents recently updated the 1960s house. It was now larger with more windows. They’d bought all the furniture from one store, probably from one display, even the pictures on the wall. It was pretty. It was perfect. It was filled with light.

  “Who’s here?” I asked, as Lea closed her door.

  “Just Mom and Dad.”

  Lea had two older brothers, away at college at A&M. She
didn’t want to follow in their footsteps because she said College Station was in the middle of nowhere. So she’d talked her parents into letting her apply to the University of Texas at Austin.

  “The guests get here soon, though,” said Lea, pulling out some pink polish. “And then you get to meet the Astronaut.”

  And meet Christa, I thought, taking the bottle from her. “Pink, Lea? Pink? I don’t see you and think pink.”

  “They’re not your nails,” she said, pulling off her socks.

  We settled onto the comfy thick carpet, with Lea’s feet safely on towels because she knew I wasn’t very good at this.

  “Try not to get it too much out of the lines,” said Lea.

  “What are we, coloring?”

  “Focus,” said Lea, pointing at her nails.

  I shook the polish, giving Lea an evil laugh. “Oh, I’ll focus. Just trust, grasshopper. Close your eyes and trust.”

  Lea pointed at me. “You are scary, Annie Porter.”

  “Hey, do you think I’m related to Cole?”

  “Cole who?”

  “Cole Porter, you nimwit.”

  “Does he go to Clear Creek?”

  I shook my head. “Never mind.”

  “Hey!” yelled Lea, pointing. “You’re getting it on my skin.”

  “You’re getting under my skin,” I mumbled. “Hold still.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “You’re nervous about tonight,” she said. “I can tell.”

  I glanced up at her. “And how can you tell?” I asked, trying to pretend I wasn’t.

  “You get cranky when you’re nervous.”

  It was hard to hide stuff from Lea. “I’ve never met anyone famous before.”

  “You’ve met astronauts.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “but this seems different.” Even though I’d felt awkward and tongue-tied those times too. There were many astronauts, but only one Christa.

  “I won’t let them eat you up,” Lea said quietly.

  I paused, something catching at my too-soft heart, knowing that she meant it. I’d been comfortable with Lea from the moment I’d met her. She was so direct and open. She wasn’t polite to your face and then trashing you behind your back. If she trashed you, it was to your face. So you always knew where you stood with her.