Taking Off Read Online Free

Lea, nodding.
    “But you’re rich,” said Mark. “Your parents would buy you more.”
    Lea started hitting him on the shoulder.
    “Ow. Ow.”
    “Stop being that way!” Lea told him. “Stop it now!”
    I couldn’t help but laugh.
    “What are you laughing at?” asked Mark. “Want to be tickled?” He knew how ticklish I was; just the thought of it made my skin laugh somewhat madly.
    “No, no.” He reached across Lea and kissed me. His lips were sweet from the doughnut sugar.
    “Okay,” said Lea, “I’m gone.” She started walking backward. “My house, Saturday night, Annie?”
    “Yes!” I yelled as Lea ran off. I looked up at Mark and saw his face. Not again. “Mark, what’s wrong?”
    “You’re going to her house on Saturday?”
    “Yeah. I’ll see you Friday night. And all day Saturday.”
    “At work? You’ll see me at work?”
    “Mark—”
    “I gotta go, Annie.” And then he was gone, and I was staring at his back moving away.
    Ducked head. Hands in pockets. My jealous boy.
    I wouldn’t call him back. In a way, it was a relief not to have to argue with him. He was probably hurt Lea hadn’t invited him over too. Sometimes I felt torn between the two of them. When the three of us were together, I couldn’t make either one of them happy.
    But a guilty thought needled at me. Mark hadn’t always been this insecure about us. It was partly my fault. Senior year was making me withdraw, not just from Mark, but from others too. My friends were looking to the future. And I wanted to cocoon in my house.
    I liked my little house, my life with Mom. I liked that my dad hung out there. It felt as if we were still together in a way.
    At least I was getting out of the house on Saturday to meet Christa McAuliffe. I had this feeling it was important for me to go. I wanted to know what kind of person went from teacher to teachernaut. I’d always seen teachers as practical people who wanted their feet on the ground.
    Of course I was nervous about meeting her. I didn’t think I had it in me to get strapped into a seat in a rocket to be hurled into space. It didn’t seem real. That was probably why all these conspiracy theorists thought the moon launch was faked. To them, that level of deceit was a more likely possibility.
    I walked slowly. I enjoyed the quiet of the parking lot now that most everyone was already inside, driven in by the cold and the lateness. The wind felt good. It was cold, but not bitterly so, and blew gently, like whispered tiptoes against my ears.
    I envied the wind: moving, but with stillness at its center. But of course, the wind couldn’t be moving and be still. So I wasn’t sure what I meant. Maybe that stillness was a sense of peace, or a certainty—stillness in purpose. I couldn’t find the right words. I’d try to capture the feeling in a few lines later.
    I didn’t tell anyone I wrote poems. People thought poetry was a waste of time. It was no longer popular, not practical, and to some, as elusive as a moon landing.
    Most likely, though, they’d think I didn’t have the talent. That was what I thought. Poetry was for the Walt Whitmans, the Ezra Pounds, the Marianne Moores—not for a regular girl living in Texas. One of the masses, one of the millions. You either were born with the gift or not.
    And there was something else too. A poet couldn’t keep herself at a distance from her own poetry—at least if her poems were to say something new. Van Gogh felt paintings came from a painter’s soul. I wondered if he’d felt he was leaving behind pieces of Vincent on each of his canvases.
    I thought it must take courage to be that kind of painter, that kind of poet. It was a different kind of courage than launching into space. But it was still courage.

CHAPTER 5

    A fter school, I came home to an empty house and went straight for the kitchen. I pulled out the potato chips, opened the bag, and crunched into their yummy saltiness.
    I wanted to have them finished before Mom got