Taking Off (23 page)

CHAPTER 54

I
stared at Tommy’s phone number, wanting to call. A week had gone by since I’d broken up with Mark. But the last few nights had been very busy: studying for three tests, a night of working, and long chats with Lea about Mark and Tommy. So I still hadn’t called him.

Finally, I did.

“Annie? Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me.” I was nervous, but it was a good nervous.

“Hey! I can’t believe you’re calling.”

“Is it all right?” I asked.

“I
wanted
you to call. What are you doing?”

“I’m sitting here talking to you,” I said, stumbling over how to ask someone out on a date. “I was wondering what you were doing tomorrow.” I didn’t think that was how you did it, but that was what tumbled out.

“I’m skydiving. It’s going to be a beautiful day. Want to come?”

“What? No. I don’t know how to skydive.”

“No, I mean, you could just come out there with me, see what it’s all about.”

Skydiving? I’d be watching Tommy jump out of a plane after we’d just seen
Challenger
fall apart in the sky. Probably not the best timing, but I wanted to be with him. “Sure,” I told him. “Yeah.”

- - - - -

He picked me up the next morning. He was wearing navy again, which was becoming my new favorite color. We grinned at each other stupidly and exchanged hellos. There was no hug like the last time I’d gotten into his car. Something felt new and different between us. I was suddenly shy, and slightly terrified by the extreme happiness pulsing through me at the sight of him.

“So, how’s Mark?” he asked before we’d gotten out of my neighborhood.

“We broke up.”

He glanced over at me. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

“Today I am.”

He looked away from me. He glanced back, with a grin on his face. “Hell, Annie, I want to be sympathetic about it, but I’m really happy right now.”

I nodded at him, knowing how he felt.

After that conversation, something shifted again, and we were less awkward and tentative with one another. We laughed a lot and teased one another about things. But there was no touching. I didn’t know how he felt, but I wanted touching—I hoped he would at least reach out and take my hand. I wondered if he knew we were on a date.

“So graduation’s getting close,” he said.

“Yeah. Confusingly close.”

He gave me a sympathetic look. “Still can’t decide?”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about teaching.”

He gave me a quick look. “Teaching?” He smiled. “Really?”

“I think at the college level, if I can hang in there long enough,” I said, thinking of all the degrees I’d have to get. But the thought of going for a PhD and becoming Dr. Annie was actually kind of exciting.

“I didn’t know you were thinking about teaching.”

“It’s been in the back of my mind. I’m not sure if it’s for me. But there are things about it I would like.”

“Like?”

“It’d be great to be around people who either know about poetry or want to learn about it. That’d be cool.” I looked at him. “My dad and I are going to a poetry reading on Tuesday in Houston. Would you like to come too?”

He gave me a long sweet look. “I’d really like that, Annie.” We were quiet for a moment. “It’s cool,” he said finally, “that we both might be teachers.”

“You might go back to college, Tommy?”

“I’m seriously thinking about it.”

It was a short drive to the tiny airport, which was in the middle of a field not far from my house. We parked next to a long, low gray building. Several jumpers—mostly guys, but some girls—were in front talking, already in their bright jumpsuits, orange, red, many shades of blue. Their excitement reminded me of being on the causeway, waiting for the shuttle to launch. I tried to push that thought away.

Tommy introduced me to a few people and left me with them while he went inside to pay and get ready. One gray-haired lady, the mother of two of the jumpers, pointed out the plane they would use—a white prop plane with red and blue stripes down the sides. “It’s an Otter, on loan from Metro Airlines. They get the plane on Friday night, pull out the seats, and she’s ready to go.”

Tommy came out in a white jumpsuit, wearing a backpack filled with his parachutes, and a harness with straps around his legs, shoulder, and chest. He was so enthusiastic he seemed to already be up in the air.

“A natural high,” he said, when I teased him about it.

“A crazy high,” I said.

“All kinds of high today,” he said, holding my eyes for a moment.

Whoa. What that look did to me. I was a little frightened by this charged connection between us. This was way past my comfort zone, but thrilling. The situation had changed. I didn’t have a boyfriend. I was free.

I glanced over at the plane, not trusting it. “This reminds me of the
Challenger
.”

“Hey,” Tommy said, grabbing my hand. “You look worried. It’s fine.”

His touch felt good. “How high do you go?”

“About thirteen thousand feet. We’ll get about sixty seconds of free fall.”

I nodded.
Challenger
had been almost four times that high when it fell apart.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to come,” he said, squeezing my hand. “I wasn’t thinking. It’s too soon after the accident.”

“No, no. It’s fine.”

He turned toward the plane when someone called his name.

“Go, Tommy,” I said. “Go. Have fun.” I smiled at him.

“Okay. See you in a few,” he said, jogging to the plane. He got on with the others and I gave him a little wave. I watched the plane roll away from me on the short runway.

There were other spectators. Two of the girls asked me questions about Tommy, and Tommy and me as a couple. They did it in a friendly way, making me feel part of the group. “You’re the first person he’s brought out here,” said the girl with feathered blond hair.

“Really?” I asked, pleased.

A couple of guys pulled an ice cooler out of the back of a truck. One of them offered me something. I popped open a Diet Coke.

Someone pointed out the plane. I looked up, feeling a little rattled because it reminded me of the awful day we lost Christa. The sky had been blue, just like this. The land had been flat, just like this. And I had been looking up, just like this.

And the excitement in the air reminded me of the excitement that day.

So my heart was in my throat as I watched. But I didn’t look away; I kept watching.

“Did you want to try this too?” the blonde asked me.

“Skydiving?” I asked. “I don’t know.”

“It’s really a rush. You’re flying at 120 miles per hour!”

“I think they’re crazy,” said a middle-aged man, “to be jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.”

“There they go!” the gray-haired lady yelled.

White specks appeared in the sky as the plane flew away. The jumpers fell through the air while those around me clapped and laughed and pointed. It was all eerily similar to being on the KSC causeway with the
Challenger
crowd.

My eyes watered, but I brushed the tears away quickly. It was all right, really. I wasn’t going to carry
Challenger
with me so closely anymore. I couldn’t. There were too many beautiful things I’d miss if I did.

Their parachutes were popping out.

“Your boyfriend,” the blonde told me, “has a dark blue chute.”

I looked up, not telling her he wasn’t my boyfriend. They were still too high for me to figure out who was who. “How high is he?”

“About two thousand feet or so.” She grinned. “He’ll be on the ground in five.”

I watched them float down under colorful canopies and wondered what it must be like to be up there, looking out over Clear Lake and beyond it. They must feel a part of the sky. All these years I’d looked up to watch the stars. Maybe I’d like to look down to see my house while I floated above it.

As the skydivers got closer, I could hear them yelling out in wild whoops and hollers, like they were riding in on currents of pure joy. The gray-haired lady pointed Tommy out to me, but I’d already spied him. A couple of cameras were snapping, but I knew the skydivers would look very small in the photos.

And then Tommy’s feet were on the ground and his parachute billowed out and then down behind him. I waved at him, but knew he probably couldn’t pick me out from the rest of the crowd.

It wasn’t long before he was running over to me, his arms out. “Hey, hey!” he said, spinning me around.

“You looked fantastic!” I exclaimed. “Was it as fun as it looked?”

“Oh, man. It was wild, a wild rush.” He leaned back, a grin on his face. “You thought it looked fun. You did?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Especially when your chute opened.”

He laughed. “Maybe you’ll come with me one day?” he asked, his hands on my shoulders. “Right?”

“Maybe,” I said.

He pushed my hair out of my face. “Maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“I’d like that, Annie. I’d really like to do this with you.”

“You would?” I asked, leaning closer in, wanting him to kiss me.

“Yeah,” he said, wrapping his arms around me.

“Your eyes are still lit up,” I said. “I can see how much you like jumping out of airplanes.”

“That’s not the only thing that has my eyes lit up,” he said softly.

“No?” I asked.
Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me.

“Not even close.”

I couldn’t wait for him anymore. I moved in slowly, touching my lips to his, and thought of nothing else.

CHAPTER 55

T
he weeks began to go by quickly, rushing toward graduation.

Mom was still adjusting to my dating Tommy. She’d come off her engaged cloud long enough to register that her senior daughter was dating a twenty-two-year-old. But she was worried enough about me after the Florida trip that she’d backed off a little in regards to rules about dating older boys.

I’d gotten used to walking into school by myself.

At first, it felt a little odd. I could still almost feel Mark’s hand in mine, remembering him looking at me, talking to him about any homework or tests I’d have for the day. I’d felt so safe. It had been nice to walk in with someone. More than nice.

And it was what I knew. I’d been doing it for two years.

But now, I felt free. I didn’t have Mark pulling on my hand, directing me, telling me which way to go. I didn’t have those thoughts about whether I was disappointing him, or not being what he wanted me to be. I suddenly felt weightless.

Over the last month, Mark had excelled at ignoring me. He must have asked for a different schedule than I had at the movie theater because I rarely saw him there. I’d had to reduce my hours because I could only work when I could get a ride. In the one class we had together, he did everything he could to avoid passing by me or running into me.

So it was a surprise when I saw him in the hallway, and he was looking right at me. I smiled, but he didn’t.

And then I saw that he was holding hands with a girl I vaguely knew. He threw his arm around her neck as they went by.

I kind of froze. I felt people passing by me, bumping me as they went by, but I just stood there.

“Hey,” said a familiar voice.

I turned around to see Lea. “Hi.”

“You saw them, right?” she asked, pulling me to the side. She looked down the hallway. “Mark and that girl, Amy?”

I nodded.

“It weirded you out?”

“It’s okay, actually.” I smiled at her.

Tommy picked me up after school. We got food from Sonic and went down to the water in Seabrook. We sat on the grass and fed the ducks and kissed and laughed and kissed some more. We’d brought tennis rackets and went to a public court and hit a few balls. It felt good to be on the court again, actually playing with a real person and not just the backboard. We stopped at a mini-mart and got Cokes on the way home.

As we got closer to my house, I saw Mark’s car in front under the streetlamp. He was in the car.

Tommy parked in the driveway. “What’s with that guy?”

“You have to go,” I said.

He looked exasperated. “Annie, I don’t trust him. How long has he been waiting here for you?”

“It’s Mark. It’s fine.” I put my hand on his arm and leaned toward him. “It’s okay. I know what I’m doing.” Then I laughed, surprising myself, and laughed even more, knowing it was not the right time to be laughing.

“You’re weird.” But he grinned.

“Look, I know I don’t have a very good track record when it comes to making decisions, but I know what I’m doing now. Go home.” I kissed him. “I’ll call you. Right when he leaves.”

“Annie—”

I put a finger to his lips. “Shh. Right when he leaves.”

I stood on the grass and waved him on until he left.

Mark got out of his car. I pulled myself up on the trunk. He sat beside me. “Hi, Annie.”

“Hi, Mark.”

“It’s a nice night.”

“Yeah,” I said. “The stars are out. So bright tonight.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking up. “How’s your mom?”

“Getting married this summer,” I said.

“They’re going to do it?”

“Donald the Dentist will be my daddy,” I said, nodding.

He smiled. “And how are you feeling about that?” he asked.

“I’m in the wedding.”

“Well,
that’s
a surprise.”

“Maid of honor.”

He laughed.

“You’ll be invited,” I told him. “The whole family will be there. They ask about you, how you are. They’d love to see you.” I paused. “You should come.”

“Mmm.” He shook his head. “Probably not.”

“Maybe one day, though,” I said, hearing the hope in my voice.

We were quiet for a minute. I felt he had something to say.

He looked at his hands. “I’m sorry.” Then he looked at me. “That I ignored you today.”

“It’s okay, Mark.”

“I was trying to make you jealous.”

“You made me sad,” I said.

He smiled. “Well, good.”

We laughed together.

I took a breath. “I’m sorry too, Mark. About everything, the way it ended between us. That I didn’t tell you sooner.” My eyes watered, and I looked away.

“But I knew,” he said. “We both did, right?”

I nodded, but I still couldn’t look at him.

“Annie, I knew but I didn’t want it to be true. I hoped it was just something you were going through because of all the pressure you were getting about college. I was hoping it was that. But deep down, I knew it wasn’t. I knew it was me, that you didn’t love me anymore.”

I slid off the car and turned away.

“Don’t cry, Annie,” he said, coming over to me. “Please.”

“Then don’t be so nice to me,” I said, with a sad laugh through tears.

“Aw, Annie. Come here,” he said, pulling me to him. And we hugged each other for a few moments until I stopped crying. His hand lingered in mine a minute before he let me go.

I wiped my eyes. “Mark, I know you probably don’t want to hear this, but you are so very special to me.”

“See, I know that, Annie. I do.”

I smiled. “Good. Good.”

“Hey,” he asked in a lighter tone, “did you know I’m joining the Coast Guard?”

“Really? Wow. I can see you doing that, Mark. I really can.” I touched his arm briefly. “I don’t think they let you have surfboards, you know.”

“No.” He looked off for a moment. We were quiet again. When he glanced back at me, his eyes were sad and wistful.

I looked back at him.

He looked away, smiled a little, then swung his key ring around his finger. “See you, Annie.”

I watched him drive away.

I lay down in the grass in the front yard, looking at the stars, feeling like a kid again. The smell of grass, the smell of flowers, the warmth of the evening … summer was almost here. I didn’t think I’d be here next spring.

I thought about Mom and Donald, and realized that in a way, Mom was freeing me. She wasn’t pushing me out the door and telling me to go. She wouldn’t do that. And I felt sure Mom wanted me around even if she was getting married. But at the same time, I didn’t have to worry about her when I left. She had Donald.

I felt light, floating almost.

And then it hit me. I’d thought about “when” I left, not “if.” When.

I had to go to the library.