Taking Off (19 page)

CHAPTER 45

O
n Saturday, when Tommy came to pick me up, Mom wasn’t there. Hallelujah! I didn’t want her to know about Tommy. Donald had picked her up early for a breakfast at a local café and an outing to look at possible places for the wedding reception. Mom was particularly excited about the Grand 1894 Opera House in Galveston. She’d heard they held parties on the stage.

I stood on the porch, waiting for Tommy, anxious to see him. I knew I shouldn’t be so eager, but I couldn’t help what I was feeling. When his car pulled up, I broke into a grin.

“Hi,” I said, getting into his car. He smiled; I melted.

“Hi,” he said, pulling me to him for a quick hug. He felt good. I wanted to hold on. And he smelled like fresh air. “Ready to go?”

I nodded, wanting to get out of my driveway. I was worried I’d get caught. I
had
actually thought about telling Mark. But I knew if I did, I wouldn’t be going with Tommy anywhere today. I’d either be fighting with Mark about why I was going to go or fighting with Mark about breaking up.

“Was that your stomach growling?” he asked, giving me another Tommy smile that made my stomach flip. How I’d missed him.

“Sonic would be great. I’m hungry.” I looked away so he wouldn’t see the idiotic grin on my face.

“Sonic, it is.”

At Sonic, we ordered two cheeseburgers, fries, two chocolate malts, tater tots, and two waters.

When the waitress in skates rolled out with our order, I couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was and how she lit up when she saw Tommy. “Thanks for the tip,” she said, giving him an extra little smile.

He just nodded at her and turned back to me.

“Thanks for not flirting with her.”

“I want to be with you, not her,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”

“Dad told me that, when he was over yesterday.” Dad hadn’t stayed long. He’d asked a few questions about Mom, trying to get information about her and Donald, I knew.

“Really? Oh, great,” Tommy said.

“He talks about you all the time now,” I said, teasing him.

“I’ll have to watch what I say.” He grinned.

I smiled, feeling a little shy. Here we were back in Texas, back in my real life, together in his car. I looked at him. “Have you had a lot of girlfriends, Tommy?” This was something I’d been curious about since Florida, or maybe since I’d first seen him in my driveway. “I bet you have.”

“I’ve had a few.”

“Anyone serious?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “A girl in California.”

“California? So a college girlfriend. How long did you date?”

“Until I left.”

“How long was that?”

He laughed. “Well, let’s see. I met her my freshman year at a friend’s party. It was about midway through, I guess. Right before Christmas break.”

“When did you leave college?”

“After sophomore year.”

“Oh my God.”

“What?” he asked.

“That’s a long time to date someone,” I said, feeling a little jealous of this girl from Tommy’s past that had been with him for almost two years.

“As long as you and Mark have gone out, right?”

“Yeah, but those are high school years. You were with her for two college years. That’s some serious dating.”

He laughed. “I don’t think she thought so.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Um … when I stumbled across her making out with my roommate, I figured she wouldn’t mind if I left.”

“Oh no. Really?”

He nodded.

“Is that why you left college?”

“No.” He thought for a moment. “Well. Kind of.”

“Really?” I asked, disappointed.

“Well, no. I mean, I was staying because of her. I wanted to quit my sophomore year, but I didn’t want to leave her. So I figured I’d get a degree and then figure it out. But when I found her with my roommate—and somehow it hurt more that she’d fallen for an idiot, but then, I didn’t have a reason to stay anymore.”

“Oh.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Something is. What are you thinking?”

“I just didn’t think you’d be the kind of guy to change what you’re doing because of a girl.”

“Nothing’s wrong with being in love, Annie.”

“No,” I said. “I know.”

“So is that why you want to stay in Clear Lake? For Mark?”

“I don’t know. It’s for me, I think. Because I don’t want to give it all up. I have it pretty good, Tommy.”

“With Mark?” He looked disappointed.

“I like being with Mark. I don’t think he’s my soul mate, if there is such a thing, but he feels like a part of me.” I tossed a tater tot back in the bag. “I understand people like Lea who want to leave to find something else. Like going to college to get out of here or because they think there’s a better life someplace else. But I don’t think that. I think life is what you make it. And I could be happy wherever I am.”

“So you might stay here?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“You’re biting your lip,” he said, gently touching my mouth, sending a little thrill through me. “You do that a lot.”

His touch felt sweet and wrong at the same time. “I wasn’t aware of it.”

We looked at one another, and he dropped his hand. “I guess I’m surprised because you were so taken with what Christa McAuliffe was doing—reaching for what she wanted.”

“But I don’t think she did that because she was unhappy,” I said, fighting the sadness that had settled inside me since the accident. “I think she thought it’d be cool to have that experience and share it with her students. But if she hadn’t been selected as the Teacher in Space, I think she would have been perfectly content to stay home and be a great teacher and raise her kids.”

He smiled.

“What?” I asked. “What?”

“You think a lot.”

“I’m good at thinking. I just need to learn how to actually
do
.” I looked at him. “Don’t you think a lot? You seem to.”

“About things not concerning me, maybe,” he said. “But when it comes to me, I just do. React and do.” He laughed. “Or maybe I just react. Here I am working at the plant, when I say I want to be a teacher.”

“So what’s keeping you from it?” I asked. “Your dad?”

“He’d rather me get a degree in
anything
rather than work at the plant. But then again maybe I’m waiting for him to change his mind.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. It might just be laziness. I stopped thinking about it as much.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“No?” he asked, looking at me closely.

“No,” I whispered, quieted by his gaze.

He exhaled. “You gotta stop looking at me like that.” He started the car. “Ready to go on an adventure?”

CHAPTER 46

W
e got on the interstate pretty quickly. There wasn’t much Saturday traffic. I liked being in the car, as a passenger especially so I could watch the world go by. I’d enjoyed the road part of our road trip to Florida. Being on the road was exciting, like you might be on the verge of having the best damn time of your life.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“It’s a surprise.”

“Still?”

“Be patient,” he said, with a smile.

We got off on an exit I’d never taken before, to a part of Houston I’d never been in before, just right off I-45, not quite to downtown. Tommy shifted into a lower gear. I liked watching him drive his standard shift. He grinned. “What?”

“I want to drive your car.”

“Do you drive a stick?”

“No.”

He grinned again. “Okay, I’ll teach you.”

Nope, Annie. Not going to happen. Get it out of your head.

“Where
are
we?” I asked. Small homes lined the street. “Tommy, who do you know here? You’re not taking me to meet a crazy friend who dropped out of USC or something?”

“No, a postman.”

“Huh.”

“But he’s dead now.”

“Okay. And we’re visiting his grave then?” I asked, trying to be respectful, but not knowing if he was pulling my leg.

“I can’t believe you’re a child of Jesse’s, and you don’t know about the postman.”

Then we arrived and parked.

“The Orange Show,” I said. “The Orange Show. Of course.”

It looked like an orange and red carnival. But it wasn’t. There were no rides here. It was two city blocks of folk art. I’d heard about it from my dad, how Jeff McKissack had begun collecting found pieces on his mail route and building this monument of stages and stairs, bricks and tiles, lost pieces of people’s lives becoming art, all in dedication to the orange, the perfect fruit.

We paid our $1 and got our free orange juice and began to wander.

It was bright out, which was perfect. The colors of The Orange Show popped against the vivid blue of the sky. This was touchable art too. I could run my fingers along the banged-out metal of the railings and sit down on old tractor seats given a new life. This place was made of concrete, brick, and steel, but it had ponds, an oasis, and a wishing well. I thought the Romantic poets might approve.

This was chaotic harmony, pieces of junk brought together and made into art by the vision of an old country postman.

I’d seen Dad’s photos of The Orange Show, but they didn’t capture its magic. It had to be seen and touched and walked through in order to feel the artist’s inspiration.

“You like it?” Tommy asked.

“I really do, Tommy,” I said, avoiding his eyes. I didn’t want to look at him because I was feeling so emotional. This place was filled with creative energy and not at all ordinary—very much the kind of thing I liked. And for Tommy to think of this for me, it made me feel like I was on the highest hill of the tallest roller coaster, looking over the edge, waiting to drop.

We sat down on tractor seats in a small amphitheater.

“It’s so cool,” Tommy said. “So cool that this mail carrier, in the fifties, started collecting scraps, old tires, thrown-away tractor parts, anything he could find. And putting it all together. He worked on it for decades.

“Can you imagine? He must have really believed in himself and in what he was doing to keep working at it so long.”

I looked around and knew I had been wrong about art stealing the souls of its artists. Jeff McKissack hadn’t given up pieces of himself for his art, or rather if he did, those pieces must have come right back to make him richer than when he began. Maybe Vincent’s paintings had given him a joy he would never have known if he hadn’t picked up a brush. He hadn’t suffered for his art; he had
lived
for it. He had been the person he was supposed to be.

That was what Christa had told me: the thing I had to offer was me and being true to that. She would have loved the story of the postman and his Orange Show. I could see her here, reveling in someone else’s dream. She didn’t want to just do something amazing herself. She wanted to share it, so others would reach for what they wanted too.

But you didn’t have to travel to space to inspire: you could live your life, do your job, walk across the street and still create art. Jeff McKissack had left his monument as inspiration, Vincent had left his art, and Christa had left her spirit. Such a simple idea, really, but I felt like I—finally—
got
it. I understood.

So what was holding me back?

I felt my eyes water and turned my head so Tommy wouldn’t see, not wanting to share this with him or anyone else right now.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked, trying to pull my chin around.

“I’m fine, I’m fine.”

“Stop crying,” he said gently, wiping my face with his napkin. I could smell orange juice on it. “I can’t be friends with a girl who cries for no reason.”

“Now my eyes sting because of the orange juice.”

“No more crying, though,” he said.

“This is perfect, Tommy. Thank you for taking me here.”

“I thought you’d like it. The art-car folks your dad hangs with told him about The Orange Show.”

“The Beatmobile would fit right in.” Dad had tried to get me to come here with him so many times, and I’d resisted. Over the years, I’d kept Dad at a distance in a lot of ways. But I knew I’d come here with him now.

“A couple of years ago, somebody donated a Ford station wagon to The Orange Show for an auction. A local artist created the Fruitmobile out of it.”

“I think the man who created all this,” I said, gesturing around me, “would have appreciated the Fruitmobile.”

“He was a folk artist but he didn’t even know it,” Tommy said.

“And he was an artist before anyone called him one.”

“I’m happy you said that.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “And that’s why you must read this here.”

It was a piece of paper, folded up into a square. He put it in my hand. I unfolded it slowly, knowing what it was. “My poem.”

He pointed to the stage.

“I can’t,” I said, shaking my head. “And there are other people walking around here.”

He took my hand and led me to the center of the stage. Laughing, I tried to pull away, but had no luck.

“There,” he said. “I’m going to sit on that tractor seat and listen.”

I was nervous. I’d never read my poetry out loud to anyone before. And granted, it was just one person listening to me now—besides any wandering visitors who might peep in—but that person was Tommy.

I felt like I was at a poetry reading.

I took a breath and began: “I swim in a sea of yellow.” The words felt good to say out loud. They were my words.

Chills crawled up and down my back as I read. I got into the poem, trying to make it sound like I wanted it to sound. Fast, furious, one image pouring into the next. I looked up when I was done.

Tommy broke into applause. “Bravo! Bravo!”

“That was a blast!”