Taking Off (7 page)

CHAPTER 14

A
nd then, luck arrived: Lea’s dad got the launch pass.

I was on the phone with Lea, and after she’d told me the good news, she started babbling about the Astronaut and how she’d found out he was from Iowa. I twisted the long phone cord around my finger, not really listening to her. I had to ask Mom about the trip. No turning back. Finally, Lea had to go, and we hung up.

It was Saturday, and Mom was spending the day with Donald. As soon as she got home, I’d ask her about the trip. I danced a little jig in the kitchen.

I grabbed my knitting needles and my new hot pink yarn and plopped down on the couch. I wondered what Lea would say when she saw her new gloves and if she’d wear them. I’d also bought a deep red yarn for me. I tied a slipknot and began casting stitches.

I tried to slide into the calm of knitting, but I was restless. Where was Mom?

I got out a crisp piece of paper and wrote down a jumble of words. I read over the poem. Ugh. I crumpled it up and threw the paper in the fireplace, where it settled with many other crumpled pieces of paper.
Poems to ashes, dreams to dust.

Mom walked in. “Hey, Annie.” Her cheeks were flushed.

“Hi! Where’ve you been?” I asked, in the friendliest voice I could manage. I wanted her in a good mood so she’d say,
Yes, Annie, you may go to the launch. Is there anything else I can get you?

“At brunch at the Galvez. Then we took a walk on the beach.”

“Brrr,” I said. “Kind of cold.”

She was all aglow. My mom was in love and it was changing her. “We talked about you while we walked actually.” She sat on the couch with me.

“Uh-huh,” I said, picking up my knitting again.

“Donald,” said Mom carefully, “has offered to help pay for your college.”

“What?” I looked up. “No.”

“He offered, Annie. And he’s got the money.”

“So?” I asked, no longer feeling friendly. “Do we take money from someone just because he has it? It’s not my money, Mom.”

“He
wants
to help.”

“And I don’t want him to.” I stood.

Mom held out a white bag.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Leftover shrimp.”

I took it. “Did you get some tartar?”

“It’s in there too.”

“Thanks,” I said, swinging through the doors into the kitchen and settling at the table. Mom followed me in.

I opened the bag and my book of Sylvia Plath poems lying on the table. Perfect. I felt like Sylvia Plath right now.

I could feel Mom staring. I heard her open the cabinet, then the refrigerator. She sat at the table with me. I ignored her while I peeled the fresh shrimp and dipped it in the sauce. Finally, I closed the book. “What, Mom?”

“Nothing, Annie. I’m just drinking my orange juice.”

I watched her play with the Fiesta bowls on the table. Mom collected old bowls, all sizes and colors. “Mom. I have something to ask you.”

“Shoot,” she said.

“I would really like to do something, and I’d like it if you said yes.”

Mom put down her juice. “What?”

“Well, you know I met Christa McAuliffe?”

She took one of the cold shrimp out of the bag. “Right.”

“Her shuttle flight is in a few weeks.”

“Is it? There are so many now.”

“I’ve never seen a launch. I’ve never even been out of Texas.”

Mom put down the shrimp. “Annie.”

“I want to go to Christa’s launch.”

“Annie,” Mom began, shaking her head. “I can’t take off work. You know I don’t have any vacation time. I had to use it to tend to Grandma when she was ill.”

“I was hoping you’d let Dad take me.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah.”

Mom sat back in her chair. “I didn’t see that coming.”

“I really want to go.”

“But with your dad, Annie?” she asked, standing, “All the way to Florida?”

“I know he’s a mess, Mom. But I’m not. I’m eighteen. I’m not a mess.”

“No, you’re not.” She put her hands on her hips and studied the linoleum floor. “He’ll get you into all kinds of trouble.”

“I can handle it.”

“You don’t even know, Annie,” she said, shaking her head. “What money are you going to use?”

I felt a little bit of hope then. “I have a little money.”

“No!” said Mom. “That’s a start for … your future. No.”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Figure it out? The launch is in, what, a month?”

“January 22.”

“And you’ll miss school.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“I’ll have to call the school.”

I tried not to smile. “Yeah.”

“I just don’t know, Annie,” she said, then left the room.

I took a sip of her orange juice.

Mom didn’t come out of her room much that night. She was mostly on the phone; I could hear her talking. I knew it was probably Donald.

I stayed in the den, hoping to catch her before she went to bed. She came out briefly while the news was on. She got a glass of water and asked where Mark was.

“He has a game,” I said, so glad he hadn’t quit the basketball team yet.

Mom kissed me on the head and said good night. I turned off the TV and went to bed.

I fell asleep while reading the poem
The Waste Land
.

- - - - -

I sat up in bed, trying to wake up. My book fell to the floor. “Mom?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

I blinked my eyes. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know.” She stood in my doorway, her hand on the knob. “If I let you go, you have to promise me something.”

I was really awake now. “What?”

“That you’ll think about going to college.”

I tried not to grin. “Okay. I’ll think about it.” That was easy. I might not talk to anyone about going to college, but I thought about it all the time.

“And that you’ll take Don’s money for college, if you decide to go. And you’ll take his money for this trip. He’s got it. He wants to help.”

“Did you call him and talk to him, Mom, about this?” I asked.

“Annie. Those are the conditions.”

She closed the door quietly. She couldn’t see it, but she was wrong about Donald’s money. I shouldn’t take it. But she’d see that eventually.

I shot up on the bed, jumped up and down a couple of times, my heart pounding. I fell back down, lying like a log, my head against the pillow. I couldn’t believe it. She’d said yes. I’d asked, and she’d said yes.

CHAPTER 15

I
checked the mailbox again.

Nothing.

I wouldn’t lose hope. Reach for it, Christa had said. Reach as far as you can.

CHAPTER 16

T
he next day at school, all I could think about was the trip. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but I was almost positive Dad would take me. I was ready to have
fun
, as Lea would say, and get away from real life for a while. I started asking friends at school if they knew anyone who’d seen a shuttle launch.

When I found someone that had, I waited for him after his art class.

“What was it like?” I asked.

“Cool. It was cool.”

“But I mean, what did it look like?” I asked.

“It blasted off. It was loud. It was cool.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Mark gave me a ride home after school. If Dad didn’t show, I was going to call him, but I wasn’t surprised when he walked in the door. I wanted for him to get settled before I asked, but I burst out with the question when he sat down.

Dad looked startled. “Are you serious, Annie?”

“Mom said we could go, if you can take me.”

“Go with my daughter on a trip? You bet!” Dad laughed.

I didn’t expect him to be so excited about it. I wanted to hug his neck.

“We’ll make it a road trip,” Dad said, “sleeping in campsites on the way. Hey, man, I haven’t slept on a beach in years. We could stop in Pensacola. Beautiful place. And you sure your mom agreed?”

“Yes,” I said, clapping my hands.

“When is the launch?” asked Mark.

“Just a few weeks,” I said, reaching over to squeeze his hand. I felt guilty that I hadn’t talked to him about it, but I was so excited and didn’t want him to be unhappy and ruin my good mood. He didn’t look pleased. “We’ll only be gone four days, maybe five.”

He nodded.

“We’ll take my gear and camp out on beaches along the way,” Dad said.

“We won’t eat any more food on the road than we would here,” I said, “so that’s not any more money.”

He nodded. “That’s right. All we need is money for food and gas and a KOA campground. It won’t be much.”

“I’ve got some money,” I said.

“It’d be fun to take the Beatmobile,” he said.

“Dad.”

“What?” he asked.

“I’m not driving all the way to Florida in an art car.”

“I thought you liked the Beatmobile.”

Dad’s contradictions merged for his art car. His car was a “tribute to the Beat generation,” but he was equally proud of being a Texan. So he’d painted the car a deep black, and on the hood, he got a talented friend to do portraits of the writer Jack Kerouac and the poet Allen Ginsberg. He’d been collecting Beat paraphernalia—poems, buttons, T-shirts, book covers—and he made a collage of these things on the car doors. To top it off, on the roof of the car, he painted a red, white, and blue Texas flag. Patriotism, but with a rebellious, cool streak.

“The Beatmobile is cool, Dad, but it’s not the most reliable car. Can we take your truck?”

He looked disappointed. Then he started laughing again. “And you’re sure your mom said yes?”

“Yes, Dad, she said yes.”

Dad grinned. “We’re going to have us a time, Annie. We’ll have us an adventure like Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady.”

“Not really, Dad.”

“Who are they?” asked Mark, looking grumpy.

“Kerouac wrote a novel called
On the Road
—,” I began.

“Not really a novel,” interrupted Dad. “Very autobiographical.”

“You didn’t even finish it,” I said.

“I did. I just skimmed the second part. I didn’t like that part much. But it’s a great book, Mark. The manifesto of the Beats.”

Poor Mark. Dad was on a roll. I closed my eyes and let him talk. The stars had aligned:
Cape Canaveral, here I come.

CHAPTER 17

I
checked the mailbox. A lone letter. I grabbed it.

It was my own envelope, with my own name, my own address written on it in my own handwriting. The envelope had creases where I had folded it carefully to put in the envelope I mailed.

A rejection.

I sat on the curb, pulling my coat around me.