Taking Off (4 page)

CHAPTER 6

O
n 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

H
ey,” 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.

And for the two of us, it’d been like sisters from the start. Sometimes she was the big sister, sometimes I was, sometimes neither, but we’d been there for each other, no one else getting between us. Except for Mark. But even that had gotten better with time.

“Annie,” Lea said, “you can talk to me, you know. About anything.”

“I know.” I dipped the brush back into the bottle of pink.

Lea took her foot back.

“Hey!” I chastised. I pointed the pink brush at Lea’s foot. “I’ve got to do those two toes.” But she was looking at me with a serious face. “What, Lea?”

“I tell you everything, you know that?”

“I know.”

“So why are you so secretive? Don’t you trust me?”

“My life is pretty secret free.” The poetry thing didn’t count. That was private.

“You’ve been very quiet lately, Annie. Something’s different. Mark’s noticed too.”

I looked at her. “You and Mark have talked about me?”

“We’re worried.”

“You should’ve just asked me. You didn’t have to talk to Mark.” That explained why he’d been hovering so much lately.

“It wasn’t like that,” she said. “I didn’t go to him. We were just talking, and it came up.”

“Right,” I said, annoyed. “Neither of you should worry. It’s fine. I’m fine. No more worrying about me.”

But as was Lea’s way, she ignored everything I said. “Is it Mark? Your parents? Is it because we’re graduating?”

I sighed. “Oh, Lea. You’re such a pain!”

“Talk to me!”

“I don’t know. Things are different this year. I’m just trying to figure out how I fit into things.” I pulled her foot back onto the towel, set on finishing her toes.

“Annie, you’re smart.”

“You’re smart.”

“But you’re different.”

“You are very different,” I said.

“But you know all about dead writers,” she said. “And you love cemeteries. And you’re always quoting obscure lines of poetry that nobody cares about.”

I laughed. “That’s your proof of my genius?”

“And you think an
awful
lot. It’s a rare kind of weirdness you have. You’re going to do something special with your life.”

I gripped her ankle trying to keep her still. “You’re the only one who thinks so, Lea.”

“Mr. Williams thinks so, unless he just wants your body.”

“A girl can dream,” I said.

“If I had your curves instead of my skinny butt, then good-looking English teachers might chase me.”

“Stop moving around,” I said.

“You’re hurting me! Give me the brush,” Lea ordered, palm out.

“Fine.” I passed her the brush and the polish and lay back on the floor.

Lea hummed while she painted, and I stared at the ceiling.

She screwed the top back on the bottle and put it aside. She folded up the towel and pushed it away. Then she lay beside me.

“I’m not serious about things like you are, Annie. I just want to have
fun
.”

Then we were both quiet and listened to Lea’s
Like a Virgin
record over and over until we were called for dinner.

CHAPTER 8

T
he first thing that struck me about Christa McAuliffe was how natural she was and how much she seemed to be that person I’d seen on television. That kind of surprised me. I thought there would be a difference, that when people were on TV they put some other public person out there to hide behind. But Christa radiated genuineness.

Twelve people, including Lea and me, were at dinner. Some of the Taylors’ NASA friends were there, everyone in jeans. I thought a couple might be astronauts, but I wasn’t sure.

We stood around talking for a bit before supper, the adults drinking beer. Lea and I were at the edge of a circle of NASA nerds—I mean, engineers—who were talking to Christa. She had a quick smile. Everyone gravitated toward her.

It was kind of cool that I’d just read about her and seen her on TV and now here she was. I could glimpse a little bit of her charisma, but I wanted to talk with her. I wanted to find out what NASA saw in her, why they chose her out of the eleven thousand teachers who applied.

Lea pulled me to the side. “Isn’t he cute?” she said, almost squealing.

“Who?” I asked.

“The Astronaut,” she said.

“So he’s here?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at Christa. I wanted to make my way back over there, but Lea’s hand was on my arm, anchoring me to one piece of carpet.

“Him,” she said, pointing to a guy with a buzz cut. He looked younger than I thought he’d be, maybe mid-to-late twenties. He was standing by a woman with a perm of long curly hair. She was saying something, and he was listening, really listening, all of his attention on her.

“He
is
cute,” I said, although cute sounded like the wrong word for the Astronaut. “I can see why you’ve got a crush. But he’s got to be twenty-six or twenty-seven.”

“I think this might be a real possibility for me.”

“Seriously, Lea? Your parents won’t let you go out with somebody that age. And anyway, he looks like he’s really into that woman.”

“I’m in love.”

“Right.” I looked back at the Astronaut. He was laughing, his eyes lit up. “Have you even talked to him, Lea?”

“Come with me,” she said, pulling me behind her. We almost knocked over a lamp trying to squeeze our way by a couple of people to get to him. He took a quick glance at us in the middle of a sentence. Something made him look back at Lea. She was grinning.

“Hi,” Lea said.

“Hi,” he said. He seemed very astronaut-y to me. Like he might’ve actually driven up in a T-38, one of those NASA jets, and parked it outside in the driveway.

“Remember me? I’m Lea. This is Annie.”

I gave a nervous little wave.

“Hey!” he said. “I’m—”

“I know who you are,” said Lea. “We’ve met before.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “You’re Jim’s daughter?”

“Right,” said Lea. “When do you fly? On the shuttle?”

“I haven’t been assigned a mission yet.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Lea, looking like someone died.

He laughed. “I just finished training.”

“Really?” asked Lea, moving closer. “How long did you train for?”

He glanced over at the woman he’d been talking to, as if he expected her to rescue him. She had big blue eyes and looked patiently amused. “A year.”

Mrs. Taylor was at Lea’s elbow. “Can you girls help me in the kitchen?”

Lea looked back and forth between her mom and the Astronaut. “Mom—”

“Lea.”

She pressed her lips together, working them while she thought. “Excuse me. I have to go help my mommy.” She dragged me into the kitchen with her. “Isn’t he something?”

“I think you need to back off the Astronaut.”

“Back off?” she asked. “No way.”

Dinner was all very casual. We had chicken and rice. Lea’s mother used their everyday family plates, but we ate on the large dining room table. Lea tried to get us seats by the Astronaut, but I hung back. I wanted to sit by Christa. I’d come to this dinner to meet her. I wasn’t going to be shy Annie and miss the chance to talk to her.

Lea’s mom directed Christa to one end of the table. I followed and sat down on her right. Lea was on my other side.

Christa smiled at me. “Hi, I’m Christa McAuliffe.”

“I’m Annie Porter,” I said. “I’m a friend of Lea’s.” I pointed at Lea. “Her friend.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” said Christa. “Lea, your mom talks about you a lot.”

“Uh-oh,” said Lea.

Christa laughed. “The good stuff.”

Mr. Taylor, at the other end of the table, passed a bowl of broccoli to the Astronaut on his left. “Dig in, everybody. Lots of food here.”

I took a sip of iced tea, trying to think of something to say. I should have written out a list of questions beforehand.

Lea picked up the bowl of rice, scooping some onto her plate, and launched right into asking Christa, “So you aren’t scared to fly on the space shuttle?”

Mrs. Taylor gave Lea a mom look, but Christa didn’t seem surprised by the question. “Oh, no. It’s not like the early missions when the astronauts had no control.” She took the rice from me. “Thank you, Annie.”

Her voice sounded exactly like I thought a New Englander’s would. My Texas twang must be hurting her ears. My accent wasn’t as strong as my parents’, and theirs weren’t as strong as their parents’, but we still had them. Lea’s family didn’t, though.

Christa’s face was serious, but open. “Now they can make emergency landings or orbit the earth once before landing. There’s a lot less to worry about.” She grinned at Lea. “But you’re a NASA kid. You know this!”

“Not really,” said Lea.

“Christa’s right,” said Mr. Taylor. “Some say we’re too conservative.”

“And never get off the ground because of it,” added one of the engineers. “The press won’t let up about it. They expect it to be like flying airplanes.”

“Things do go wrong,” said the engineer with the serious eyes. “Look at the Apollo 1 fire.”

“But problems are rare,” said Mrs. Taylor, looking like an agitated hostess. “Incredible when you think about the complexity—”

“But Apollo 13—,” continued Serious Eyes.

Mr. Taylor cut him off: “Christa, did Helen ever tell you what she said to Ken Mattingly?” Mrs. Taylor laughed.

“Who’s Ken Mattingly?” I asked shyly, taking a bite of my chicken.

“He was the astronaut,” said Christa, “who was originally on the Apollo 13 crew.”

“Oh,” I said, “that’s the flight when they said, ‘Houston, we’ve had a problem.’ ”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Taylor. “And there
was
a problem. Anyway, they bumped Ken because they said he’d been exposed to German measles. He must have been so disappointed. So, Lea, your mom and I meet Ken a few years ago, and your mom asks him if he was relieved he was bumped off that flight.”

Long-Curly-Hair Lady laughed. “What did he say?”

Mrs. Taylor played with her napkin. “He gave me an amused smirk, then looked off and didn’t say anything. Everyone around me acted a little embarrassed, as if I’d committed a serious
faux pas
.” She shook her head. “I don’t think he minded.”

“Oh, Mom,” said Lea.

“That’s a good story,” Christa said.

While everyone was laughing, I saw an opportunity. “What do you teach?” I asked Christa quietly.

“I teach an economics course,” she said, her curly brown hair soft against her open face. “And American history to eleventh and twelfth graders. I also teach a course I developed called The American Woman, which is social history.”

“Social history,” I repeated, wishing I could think of something memorable and profound to say to her. “Like what went on in the homes and in the communities?”

“That’s right. Social history gives my students an awareness of what the whole society was doing at a particular time in history. I use diaries and personal letters and travel accounts as sources, like those left by the pioneer travelers of the Conestoga wagon days.”

“I read you’re going to keep a journal? Like those pioneer women did?” I wondered if she liked to write.

Christa paused. “I’m not sure if I’m going to do that now. But I do think there’s so much we wouldn’t know about history if it weren’t for those journals.”

“I’d take your class,” I told her.

“What grade are you in?” She seemed genuinely interested.

“We’re seniors,” said Lea.

“That’s exciting,” Christa said. “Senior year is a special year. It’s the beginning of what you’re going to be doing in life. Any plans yet?”

“Lea’s been accepted to UT,” said Mr. Taylor.

“What are you going to study, Lea?” Christa asked.

“I’m undecided.”

Lea was being coy. She was exceptionally gifted at math, which she casually accepted. I knew she would never ever admit it, but she liked doing math homework while she watched old movies.

“You’ll figure it out,” Christa said.

“She’d better and quickly while she’s spending my money,” said Mr. Taylor.

“You mean our money,” said Mrs. Taylor, sliding him a look.

Lea grabbed my arm, while looking at Christa. “I want Annie to come with me to UT. But I can’t convince her.”

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” I said.

Christa nodded. “So many choices.”

“Or just one!” announced Lea, hitting me on the arm. “Go to UT with me!”

Christa smiled at me. “You must be looking at all the career opportunities and colleges and saying, ‘What am I gonna do? What do I want to do?’ ”

“It can be confusing,” I admitted. “And a little scary.” I laughed. “That probably seems pretty wimpy considering what you’re doing.” I looked at her shyly.

“I say reach for it, Annie. You know, go for it, push yourself as far as you can, because if I can get this far, you can do it too.”

There was something about her that made you want to do just that. Perhaps because she wasn’t telling you to do something she would never do. I mean, look at what she was doing.

“Do you think you’ll continue teaching after all this?” I asked her.

“The teacher in space,” she said, buttering a roll, “has got to get back into the classroom. And I can’t wait. I want to show my students how the space program connects with them, how it belongs to them.”

Now that I met her, it was easy to see why NASA selected her. She was confident, very sure of herself. And she had my dad’s optimism and excitement about life, but without his particular brand of craziness and laziness. She was like the stars, shining with possibility.

“So you’ll still be teaching in, say, ten years?” I asked her.

“What could you possibly do,” Lea chimed in, “that’d compare to flying into space?”

“I think I’ll be in New Hampshire and in education,” Christa said, without hesitation. “But I want to have a bigger impact on how the system works, so maybe in curriculum development or administration.”

“But how could you possibly make a bigger impact in education than you can with this mission?” Lea asked.

Christa’s eyes shone. “I’m not sure, but I can’t wait to find out.”

Oh man. Look at her. She was lit up. I wanted to feel that enthusiasm inside me. I felt so apathetic when I was supposed to be excited about graduation and life, about
something
. Did you have to be born with that? Was Christa like that as a toddler, climbing up ladders, counters, anything, so she could see what was up there?

Lea and I helped her parents serve coffee and chocolate cake. Lea gave the Astronaut a huge piece of cake, twice the size of the others. He blushed when she put it down in front of him.

Right after we settled back down with our own desserts, Lea began to riddle Christa with questions. “Didn’t you get to meet the president? And go on
The Tonight Show
? What was it like meeting Johnny Carson?”

“Come on, Lea,” Mrs. Taylor said, waving a fork of chocolate cake at her.

“What?” asked Lea, palms up. “Okay, I won’t ask that.” Her eyes went up to the ceiling like there were questions there. “Let me see.”

Lea was the right person to have at a dinner party because she could always think of something to say. She put people at ease. Even now, everyone was smiling at her, even Serious Eyes, who had pushed back his chair and thrown a leg up, his ankle resting on his knee. The Astronaut was watching her with a smile on his face (and his plate almost empty of cake). I thought part of the key to Lea’s charm was that she never cared how ridiculous she looked to others.

“Oh! I know!” Lea said, looking at Christa. “Where’s your husband?”

Christa grinned. “Back in New Hampshire with our two children. And Johnny’s very nice.”

“I saw a picture of you with your family in
People
magazine,” I said.

“Did you?” she asked, her face soft. “I am homesick. I miss my kids and my husband.”

Lea pushed her plate forward and folded her arms on the table. “How long have you been married?”

“Steve and I got married after college, but we were high school sweethearts.”

“No!” said Lea.

Christa laughed, nodding her head. “Oh yes. We started dating when we were sophomores. My father thought fifteen was too young to get serious and wanted me to date other boys. But I wanted to be with Steve.”

“Just like Annie and her boyfriend!” Lea exclaimed.