Taking Off Page 8
“So that was your boyfriend?” asked Tommy.
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“He didn’t like me much.”
No, he didn’t, I thought.
“Is he always that angry?” asked Tommy. “Hitting the door like that?”
“I’ve never seen him that angry,” I said.
Tommy nodded. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
I shrugged. “It’s all right. So you work with my dad?”
“I’ve worked at the plant for a year, all with your dad. He’s a good guy.”
I looked at Dad, wondering if I agreed.
“He talks about you all the time,” said Tommy.
“Me?”
“All the time.”
“What does he say?” I asked.
“Everything. He told me about a paper you wrote for class. On King Lear.”
“What?”
“Yeah. How you argued Lear had an epiphany, and that even though he died right after he had the epiphany, it was important that he had the epiphany. Right?”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling uncomfortable Tommy knew things about me that Dad had told him. What else had he said? “So,” I said, eager to change the subject, “where did you work before the plant?”
“I was in college,” he said.
“Oh, yeah? Where?”
“California. At USC.”
“USC? That’s cool. You didn’t like it?”
“Nope.”
“Why not go to another college?” I asked.
“It wasn’t USC I didn’t like.”
“Oh,” I said. “What then?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated I know.”
He laughed. “Fielding lots of questions lately?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“About what you’re going to do with your life?”
“Yeah.”
We were quiet for a moment.
“Did you know what you were going to do when you graduated?” I asked.
“No. I had an idea, but my parents …” His voice drifted off and he didn’t say any more about it.
I figured he didn’t want to talk about whatever it was and I knew how that felt. I changed the subject: “Do you like working at the plant?”
“It’s fine, for now.”
“And that should be okay,” I said.
“What?”
I hesitated, trying to figure out what I meant. “I mean it’s okay not to know. It’s okay to do other things until you figure it out.”
“That’s what I think.”
“Yeah,” I said, taking a breath. “Yeah.”
“Hey, you want a Coke?”
“A Coca-Colaaa?” I asked, singing the word. I paused, inwardly cringing.
I wasn’t used to being so awkward. I’d always been comfortable with guys. I’d been friends with Mark for ages. When we started dating, it felt natural, even though we hadn’t been best friends or anything. But we’d been friends and hung around together in the same group.
So we had bypassed awkward.
Tommy was different. Or I was different around him. Not good.
“There’s some fast food up in Orange,” he said.
“It’s a date!” I closed my eyes. Just stop it now, Annie.
Tommy didn’t seem to notice my befuddlement though. He pulled into a McDonald’s just off the interstate. Dad continued to sleep and snore while we ordered Cokes for everyone, including him.
Tommy drove to the food-pickup window, and a girl who didn’t look good in McDonald’s colors leaned out. “Hi,” she said to Tommy in a husky voice. “Interesting car.” I leaned forward to see her better. She was trashy looking, I thought, as I fell back.
“I have a question for you,” Tommy said to the girl, “about someone who used to live around here. In Port Arthur.”
“Shoot,” she said.
“You know Janis Joplin? Big rock singer. Biiiig.”
“Never heard of her,” the girl said.
“Sure you did!” I called out from the back. “Wasn’t Janis Joplin at Woodstock, Tommy?” Dad snorted and moved around a bit, but he still slept. “Hey, she even had her own art car, remember?”
“That’s right!” said Tommy. “It was that psychedelic Porsche.”
“What’s an art car?” the girl asked.
Tommy glanced back at me. “And Janis had to have been at Woodstock.” He paused. “You do know Woodstock, right?” he asked the girl.
She giggled. “Of course I do.” She leaned over the window ledge. “Is that y’all’s dad sleeping?” Dad’s snoring stopped, and he shifted in his seat. He then leaned his head against the glass window.
I leaned forward in the seat and pointed to Tommy, then to myself, “We,” I said, “are not brother and sister.”
“What are you then?” asked the girl.
I leaned back. I didn’t know the answer to that.
“We’re friends,” said Tommy.
She handed him a drink. “Diet Coke.”
“Here, Annie,” he said, handing it back to me. “Have some bubbles of nothingness.”
“So, how good of friends are you?” the girl asked.
“Very good friends,” he said. The look he gave me made my stomach feel all flippy and nice again.
“Thanks,” I said. “For the Diet Coke, I mean.”
“Are you in Orange for long?” asked the girl, passing the last Coke to Tommy, but not letting it go. He held on to it too. I thought their pinkies might be touching.
“We’re leaving in five seconds,” he said. “Thanks for the Coke.”
“You’re welcome,” said the girl, releasing it. “Come back anytime.”
- - - - -
Neither Tommy nor I said anything else for a while. I was uncomfortable, not so much with the way the girl had acted toward Tommy as that it reminded me of my own reaction to him. I wanted to believe I wasn’t anything like that girl back there. That girl would end up married to a guy in her town and stay there all her life and never do anything worthwhile.
With a sick feeling in my stomach, I thought about Mark. That was what he wanted of course. And he didn’t need anything beyond what he had right now. I found I didn’t want to leave him, but I thought I wanted to go.
“Your dad’s a real sleeper,” said Tommy.
“He’s always falling asleep, at the movies, on the couch, in a chair at Star Furniture once. Doesn’t he sleep at work?”
“Nooo. Your dad’s a hard worker.”
“He’s asleep. You don’t have to say that.”
“Hey, it’s true. Your dad’s well thought of at work.”
“I thought he quit a lot.”
“Quit? He’s worked at the plant for fifteen years. But you know that.”
I didn’t say anything.
“They want to make him a supervisor,” said Tommy. “But he’s resisting. Doesn’t want the pressure. But he told you that, right?”
“No.”
“How about that?” said Tommy.
So why was Dad telling Tommy all this stuff, and not me? He never talked about work. I hadn’t even known about Tommy, but he and my dad were close. “It sounds like you know my dad better than I do.”
“We’re together a lot at work,” said Tommy. “He doesn’t talk much about your mom. How long have your parents been divorced?”
“What are you doing, writing a book?”
“Hey, I’m sorry.”
“No, look. I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s okay, really. I just don’t know a lot about my mom and dad.” I paused, glanced at Dad. “I don’t understand them really.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, first of all, I don’t find them very interesting, or at least as interesting as you do.”
Tommy laughed. “That’s normal.”
“Are you interested in your parents?”
“I tried, more than they did. Or at least more than my father did.”
&
nbsp; I thought about that, unsure about what he meant. “Hey, are you hungry?” I started going through the sack of groceries on the seat beside me. “Ah! Potato chips,” I said, grabbing the bag. “Thank you, Dad! You want some, Tommy?”
“What else is in there?”
“Nothing healthy,” I said.
“Jesse brought a cooler of stuff, but unfortunately it’s in the trunk.”
“Here’s some cashews,” I said, pulling out a can.
“That’ll work.”
While I pulled off the sealed top for him, he leaned forward and started playing with the radio. “That station’s going to static.”
I handed him the can, and he put it on the seat beside him and then went back to fiddling with the radio. I ripped open the bag of chips gleefully. “By the way, do girls always act that way around you?”
Tommy glanced back at me quickly. “Who? That girl back there?”
“Yep. Her.”
“You mean friendly.”
“She was way more than friendly.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. She seemed nice.”
“To you.”
“She wasn’t nice to you?”
“She wasn’t not nice to me. But she sure wasn’t as nice to me as she was to you.”
“Huh,” he said, stopping on a station playing country music. “Do you mind country?”
I shrugged. “I’d prefer not.”
So he kept searching, finally leaving it on some awful generic music station. “Nothing.”
“I’ll find us another cassette,” I said, picking up the shoebox from the floorboard. It was Dad’s. I don’t know why I didn’t remember to bring my own cassettes. Nothing in here was going to be after 1970, the year the music died, according to Dad.
“So why do you want to see the launch?” Tommy asked.
“Why do you?”
He laughed. “Just thought it would be a cool road trip.”
Even his laugh was infectious. It just made you feel all warm inside. What was it? Because he was so good looking? It wasn’t just that. Some guys were fine looking, but were missing something else. And whatever that something else was, Tommy had it. And what made it extra charming was that he didn’t seem to know he had it.
“So why do you want to go?” asked Tommy.
“Well …,” I began, trying to figure out exactly why.
“Are you a space nerd? A big Star Trek fan?”
“No,” I said, laughing.
“Not going to be an engineer?”
“No.”
“Wanted to take a trip with your dad?”
I laughed. “No.” Then I looked at my dad, hoping he hadn’t heard that. But his mouth was open and he was still sound asleep.
“Okay, so I don’t get it,” he said. “Oh, wait. Did you just want to skip out on school?”
“I don’t mind school,” I said, wrapping up the chips bag and throwing it back into the grocery sack. I had to stop eating this junk.
“Huh. Well, you got me, Annie.”
I smiled a little, liking the sound of that. I glanced up and saw him watching me again in the rearview mirror. I brushed off my mouth real quick to make sure there were no bits of chips hanging out.
“You gonna tell me?”
“It’s not that big a deal,” I said, but thinking that wasn’t true. “I got to meet Christa—you know, the teacher who’s flying? She’s cool, and doing something really amazing. I’d like to be there when she realizes her dream.”
“It’s a long way to go for someone else’s dream.”
“Not that far,” I said, watching the green WELCOME TO LOUISIANA sign go past. “It’s too bad it’s dark now. I’d like to see Louisiana.”
“Right here, along I-10, it’s flat, just like home.”
We drifted into not talking.
“Hey, you want me to drive?” I asked after a while. He was rubbing his eyes.
“I’m fine.”
Yes you are, I thought. “I don’t mind.”
“I’ve only been driving a few hours.”
“I’d like to,” I told him. “I’m wide awake.”
“Okay. Sure.”
He pulled over in a gas station. Dad looked up at the sudden quiet, then stumbled out of the car into the store without saying a word. Tommy filled the tank while I went to the bathroom.
Dad still wasn’t back when I settled into the driver’s seat, readjusting the seat and the mirrors and trying to get a feel for the Beatmobile. Soon, we were all back in—Tommy in the front with me, and Dad sprawled out in the backseat, sleeping again.
“It’s so obvious he likes to drive at night,” I said sarcastically.
Tommy shrugged. “He went out last night. A friend of his was playing at a club.”
I started the car.
“We’re about to drive over the swamps of Louisiana,” said Tommy. “It’ll be a long bridge.”
I got back on the interstate, sorry it was nighttime. I would have liked to see the trees growing out of the dark water. My first time out of Texas, and I couldn’t see anything. Regardless, I was flipping with excitement.
Soon, I was crossing the Mississippi. Now I felt like I was going somewhere. As a kid, this famous river of song and story had always seemed like a big chasm in the middle of the country, separating my life from the bold, fascinating cities of the East like Washington DC and New York City.
It was a peaceful night, and quiet in the car. I pretended to see ghostlike steamboats floating below and to hear ghostlike blows of a jazz horn floating up from New Orleans. I’d finally leaped over the Great River.
CHAPTER 21
Hey, you doing all right?”
I looked over at Tommy. I could barely see him in the dark. A car’s headlights flickered across his sleepy face.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I told him.
“I’m sorry I zonked out. How long did I sleep?”
“You were pretty quiet when we crossed the mighty Mississippi.”
“Where are we?” he asked. I liked his voice. Before, I was looking at his face and not thinking about how he spoke. But now that I couldn’t see him I was drawn in by his voice. It was a man’s voice, but not too deep. It also had a sleepy quality to it, soft, rhythmic.
“We’re in Alabama. Just.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope.”
“You must be tired, Annie.”
“We need to stop for gas.”
“We need to stop for you.” He looked behind him. “Your dad.”
I laughed softly. “Still out. Must have been some night.”
“He likes to party.”
“That he does,” I said. “I’m getting off here.”
Dad stumbled out of the car again and toward the restroom. When he came back, he was drinking a coffee.
“That has got to be awful,” I said.
“It’ll keep me awake,” Dad said. “Give me those keys, Annie.”
I hesitated.
“Go ahead and sleep in the back, Annie,” Tommy said. “I’ll keep your dad awake.”
“I’m okay,” I said, not telling him there was no way I was going to fall asleep in front of him. What if I snored like Dad?
“We’re only about four hours from the campsite. You rest.”
“All right,” I said, thinking I would just rest my head on the pillow, but wouldn’t be able to fall asleep.
- - - - -
I woke. It was still dark.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Oh, we just ran over something,” Dad said.
“What? A dead body? That was a big loud jolt, Dad.”
He waved his hand. “It wasn’t a dead body, Annie. I don’t think.”
“Where are we?” I asked.
“At the beach campsite. You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
Dad left the headlights on, which lit up a clear spot. The guys got the camping gear out. Tommy set a kerosene lamp on the ground and lit it.
“Not too close to the water, Annie,” said Dad.
“I’m not even close,” I told him.
He peered at it, then gave a small shrug.
I threw my bag and my sleeping bag in the tent. Home, sweet home. Now it was time for food. I’d seen some sandwiches in the cooler. With Dad, no telling what they were.
“What are you doing, Dad?” I asked, picking up a sandwich that turned out to be peanut butter and banana on white bread.
“Getting wood for the fire,” he said, holding a few pieces of driftwood. “Aren’t you cold?”
“Did you see the sign clearly stating no fires?” I asked, glancing at Tommy.
“Sure,” Dad said, shining a flashlight around. “Would you mind helping? I’m having a devil of a time finding any wood, which makes me think people haven’t been paying attention to that sign you’re talking about.”
Tommy gave my arm a squeeze and me a small smile. “I thought I saw some when we drove up, Jesse. I’ll go.” He waved his flashlight at me. “Want to come, Annie?”
“Sure,” I said, following him.
“A fire will be nice,” Dad called out. “You’ll see.”
Maybe so, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to yell it out. But then again, the beach was deserted. I could see a few lights in the distance.
Tommy and I found a scattering of wood. The wind whistled in my ears as I filled my arms. It was cold. It was also three o’clock in the morning. I wasn’t exactly sure why we weren’t asleep. But then again, I was with Dad. I glanced over at Tommy, who was trying to pull a big chunk of driftwood out of the sand. And, yes, Tommy was here.
The fire ended up not being too big. We were close to the outer reach of the waves. I heard the sea’s soft whispers as the surf gently slid over the sand. Dad was right. This was nice. I wasn’t sleepy. I felt excited sitting here with Dad … and Tommy.
Dad had a stick and was poking at the embers under the flames. “So, Annie, if you were a boy, what would your name be?”
“Well, Dad, you are my father,” I said, sipping my hot chocolate. Not the good kind made with milk, but it did have tiny marshmallows in it. “Seems like you would remember what boy names you and Mom had picked out.”
“No, no. Not that. This is about you, Annie. What do you see your boy name being?”