About four o’clock, we pulled into the parking lot of a cheap motel in Cocoa Beach. We’d made good time, considering we had to stop to walk the German shepherds. Lunch was at a rest stop—baloney sandwiches and Cokes out of the cooler—where the dogs could roam a little. It’d been nice to be outside after so long in the car.
Clyde parked a ways from the entrance. We grabbed our bags. “What about the dogs?” I asked.
“I’ll wait here with them,” Clyde said as he scratched their necks. “Bonnie, you register the two of us.”
The two of them, not the four of us. That meant Tommy and I would be together. I took a breath. Maybe we’d each have our own room. I could borrow the money from Tommy if I didn’t have enough, and Dad would pay him back.
“Will they let the dogs into your room?” Tommy asked Clyde.
“We’ll sneak them in,” Bonnie said. “Come on, kids. Let’s get registered.”
Tommy held the lobby door open for me. “Do you mind if we only get one room?” he asked, looking a little shy. “Seems a waste to spend the money on two.”
“It’s okay,” I said, but my heart was beating really fast.
“There’ll be the two beds.”
“Right. Right,” I said. “Two beds.”
Only one person was working the desk, so Tommy gestured for Bonnie to go first. “Thanks, Tommy.” She told the desk clerk she needed a double. “What time does the shuttle launch tomorrow?” she asked him.
“The launch?” he asked. “It’s been pushed to Sunday morning.”
“Oh no,” said Bonnie.
“You didn’t hear?” asked the clerk.
“We didn’t see a paper,” Tommy told him, “or watch any news.”
“The news doesn’t cover the shuttle like they used to anyway. But NASA announced the delay days ago, at a press conference. It’s not launching until Sunday.”
Tommy laughed. “What are you gonna do?”
The desk clerk didn’t laugh. Obviously, he thought shuttle launches were serious business. “There’s a storm over an emergency landing site,” he said dismissively.
“Oh my,” said Bonnie. “That’s not good. For NASA or for Clyde and me. That changes our plans.”
I looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“We have to leave early Sunday. Clyde has to work.”
“You could head home after the launch and make it back by Sunday night. It’d be close, though. What time does Clyde have to go to work?”
“Let me go talk to him.” I watched her walk off toward the Love Bus. I hoped they didn’t come all this way only to drive right back.
“We won’t have a ride to Kennedy Space Center if they leave,” said Tommy.
“And we won’t have them either. I’ll kind of miss them.”
“Your dad will be happy to hear that.”
“Don’t tell him,” I said.
“It’ll be hard to make it out to KSC without a car,” he said. “We can watch the launch from the beach, can’t we?”
“I heard you can’t see it lift off the pad, though,” I said. “Maybe we can get a ride from someone at the motel who might be going over.”
“Maybe,” said Tommy.
It occurred to me Dad was rubbing off on me. I was turning into a hitchhiker and a mooch. I smiled at Tommy. “Maybe we’ll run into some good art-car people.”
We walked out to the Love Bus.
“This is it for us,” said Clyde. “Right, honey-baby?” he asked his wife.
“Yep.”
“You’re just going to drive all the way back?” I asked. “You came all this way for nothing.”
“Not for nothing,” Bonnie said. “We’re going south to see Coral Castle, this coral structure built by Edward Leedskalnin when he was jilted the day before his wedding by his sixteen-year-old fiancée, Agnes Scuffs. Not exactly the love story we like, but that man understood the power of love, to spend almost thirty years carving a sculpture garden for his Sweet Sixteen out of coral rock.”
“But can’t you stay tonight?”
“It’s still early,” said Clyde. “We’ll get down there tonight and tour it tomorrow.”
“I need to tell my dad where we are,” I said.
“I’ll call my neighbor,” said Clyde. “He’ll get your dad the message.”
“Thanks, Clyde. Here,” I said, grabbing a pen from the bus and writing down my number, remembering Christa doing this for me. “This is my number back in Houston. You need to come visit us.”
Bonnie gave my arm a squeeze. “You have fun at that launch.”
As we stood in the parking lot waving to the departing Love Bus, I wondered if Dad would arrive in time with the Beatmobile. Viewing the launch from the NASA causeway was supposed to be an amazing experience. It was the closest public viewing area to the launchpad.
We dumped our bags on the floor of our room. I stood awkwardly by the door, looking around. I’d never stayed in a motel before, let alone with a guy.
It was small, with hard beige carpet probably no dirtier than what was in my own bedroom. Nondescript, colorless art adorned the walls. Ugly, stiff-looking bedspreads covered the two double beds. I glanced over at Tommy and found he had looked up at me at the same time. I felt my face grow warm and turned toward a chair in the corner, wondering if I should go sit in it. I couldn’t just plop down on the bed.
“Want to get something to eat?” Tommy asked.
“Yes!” I said, a little too enthusiastically.
He moved his bag to the bed farthest from the door. “Let me put on a fresh shirt.”
I grabbed my purse and quickly went out our door to the balcony to wait for him. We were on the second floor with a great view of a concrete parking lot. Still, the air had that heavy sea smell, so I knew we were close to the ocean even if I couldn’t see it.
I thought about the two nights ahead of me, alone with Tommy, waiting for the launch, waiting for Dad to get here. A smile twitched at my lips. I felt giddy and nervous at the same time. It felt like—finally—something was happening to me.
If Mark found out, he would flip. But I pushed that guilt away. I didn’t want to worry about that.
I looked up when Tommy came through the door. Navy was a good color for him. It made his eyes look a darker blue.
“I guess we didn’t have to leave on Wednesday after all,” I said to him, as we walked to a nearby diner.
“Hey, you want to go to Disney World?” Tommy asked. “Seems like we have tomorrow free.”
“It’s an hour away.”
“We could look into a bus,” he said.
“Yeah, but Disney World’s expensive.”
“I have some money. It’s my treat.”
“I’ve never been to Disney World,” I said, grinning.
“You’ve never been out of Texas,” he said, opening the door for me.
We found a table by a window.
I played with the flatware, trying not to think about the upcoming night. “Thanks for paying for things, Tommy. Do you plan on working at the plant for a while?”
“Nope. I’m saving up.”
The waitress, with menus under her arm, put two glasses of water on the table. “Do you know what you’d like?” The menus fell to the ground. “Sorry,” she said, “I’m new.”
“That’s all right,” said Tommy, picking one off the floor.
“Thanks,” said the waitress, juggling the menus, a pen, a notepad, and some clean napkins. “I’ll be back. Let me just …” And she was gone.
“Poor lady,” said Tommy, looking after her. “Can you imagine being on your feet all day having to wait on hungry people?”
“She may not have the job much longer,” I said, watching her picking up the napkins that floated out of her hands.
Tommy laughed.
The hamburger bun was stale, but the meat was thick and juicy. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until I bit into the burger.
We got to talking about hobbies. Mine—knitting, reading, watching Mom bake—didn’t require a lot of energy. Tommy, on the other hand, liked to skydive. He’d just done his one-hundredth jump.
“It is a rush, Annie. Nothing like it. You’re up there, in the sky, so high up, and you can see so much. It’s like you’re flying.”
“Scary, but fun, I guess.”
“Nothing like it,” he said again. “You should come with me sometime.”
“Maybe,” I said, pleased.
“You might?”
“I might.”
I mentally slapped myself on the head. What was I thinking? Mark. Mark. Mark. I had a boyfriend.
“Do you think you’ve torn up that napkin enough?” asked Tommy.
I looked down at the white hill of napkin pieces. I fidgeted when I was nervous and I was really nervous the faster we were getting to the end of this meal. “It’s a nice little hill.”
Tommy pulled another napkin out of the silver holder on the table and handed it to me. “Here’s another to play with.”
Laughing, I took it. “Thank you, kind sir.”