Taking Off by Jenny Moss Read Free Book Online

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.
    Christa glanced at me like she might ask a question about that, but Lea leaned over me and asked, “What was your wedding like?”
    I thought Christa would be tired of the questions, but perhaps all the press conferences and interviews had prepared her for people like Lea.
    “I wore daisies in my hair,” she said.
    “Aww,” said Lea.
    “The reception was in my parents’ backyard.” Christa laughed. “The Trolls played while we danced until dusk.”
    “The Trolls?” I asked, smiling.
    “A local rock band. After it was over, Steve and I drove away in our orange VW bug with a trailer attached to it. Tin cans were tied to the bumper, clanging behind us.”
    Lea sighed. I laughed at her. “What?” she asked me. “Leave me alone. I love this stuff.”
    “So, was flying in space,” I asked Christa, “just a wild dream you had all these years?”
    “Any dream can come true if you have the courage to work at it.”
    “Well, you have to be a good student too,” said Serious Eyes. “School’s important in helping us realize our dreams.”
    Christa looked at him directly. “I would never tell a student, ‘Well, you’re only a C student in English, so you’ll never be a poet.’ You have to dream. We all have to dream. Dreaming’s okay.”
    I stared at her for a moment. I knew there was no way she could know I wanted to be a poet. I hadn’t told anyone that. I felt like she’d read my mind, or I was getting another cosmic message, Earth to Annie. Snap, snap. I took a sip of my coffee and thought about poetry and me.
    The dinner was over too soon. Christa pulled me aside right before she left. “I enjoyed meeting you, Annie.”
    “Me too,” I said.
    “Listen,” she said. “Would you like to come play volleyball at the space center?”
    I couldn’t help but laugh. “What?”
    She laughed too. “I’m playing at the recreation center at JSC on Tuesday night with some engineers. I thought you and Lea might want to come.”
    “Can we get on-site?”
    “Oh, sure. Use one of Lea’s parents’ cars. They have an on-site sticker.”
    This was probably not a good idea. I didn’t know much about volleyball—I’d only played the few times in PE when they’d forced me to. But I knew I shouldn’t turn down invitations from Christa McAuliffe.
    So I did a very un-Annie-like thing and said, “We’ll come. Sure we’ll come.”
    The room seemed to sag a little once Christa was gone, but a little of her excitement