Taking Off by Jenny Moss Page B

said. “What do we do then?”
    He looked at the car. “I’m going to have to have it welded.”
    “Welded doesn’t sound like a quick fix, Dad.”
    “Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “But we’ll find a mechanic. We passed a store not too far back. They’ll let us make a call.”
    I was so angry I had to walk off. I had the blanket still pulled around me. No one followed me, which was a good thing. I had to keep moving, had to keep quiet. I walked down the beach for a bit, and then came back.
    Dad was leaning against the car, waiting for me. “Annie, aren’t you glad I pushed for us to leave home early?”
    “Let’s go find a mechanic.”
    I couldn’t ask how long this welding stuff would take. I didn’t want to know just then. We were five hundred miles away from Kennedy Space Center. But the launch wasn’t until Saturday. Like Dad said: We had two days. We were going to make it. We were.
    - - - - -
    About thirty minutes later, we were at the small grocery. The owner, an older no-nonsense kind of woman, recommended a mechanic. The mechanic agreed to come out and look at the car.
    I glanced at the clock on the wall of the store. “This is taking too long.”
    “It’s fine,” said Dad.
    The mechanic finally got out to the beach. He was a nice-enough guy, although I swear he was moving slower than Dad does. And it turned out, he and my dad had so much to talk about. Tommy stood by them, listening.
    I tried very hard not to scream.
    Dad finally came over. From the looks the other two guys gave me, I knew it wasn’t good. “Now, Annie,” said Dad, “don’t go blowing a gasket.”
    “What?” I asked, my heart sinking.
    “We’ll get at it first thing in the morning. He’s going to have it towed to his garage.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “We can still make it. We’re only seven, eight hours away.”
    The mechanic was listening to us, looking pensive. I knew that look. I’d recognized it over the years when my dad was swearing up and down something was going to happen a certain way. And then I’d see someone in the background looking just like that mechanic looked now. It was the your-father-is-idiotically-optimistic look. When the mechanic caught my eye, he looked kind of guilty. “Where are y’all going?” he asked.
    “To see the shuttle launch,” Tommy said.
    “Oh. I thought maybe you had an art-car show or something. What with your car.”
    “The Beatmobile,” said Dad.
    “Yeah,” said the mechanic, looking like he had no idea what that meant. “My neighbors have an art car.”
    Oh, no. No, no, no.
    “Really,” said Dad, running his fingers through his hair. “What kind of art car do they have?”
    The guy shrugged. “It’s an old VW minibus. They call it the Love Bus, decorated it with all sorts of couples, I guess.”
    “Couples?” asked Tommy.
    “Yeah. You know, from books and movies. Romeo and Juliet . Bonnie and Clyde , of course. Things like that.”
    “Can you take us over there?” Dad asked.
    “Sure,” he said, shrugging. “Let’s go.”
    “The car, Dad?”
    “It’s not going anywhere today,” he said. “Let’s have some fun.”
    I grabbed my book of poems so I could read them and forget how I might not be seeing the shuttle launch after all.
    - - - - -
    The house was small, like Mom’s and mine. The yard was filled with statues and things that twirled. The Love Bus was parked out front. The mechanic left after introducing us to its owners, Bonnie and Clyde.
    “Clyde’s not his real name,” Bonnie whispered to me.
    “Oh,” I said. These people were weird.
    She glanced at Clyde, who was talking to Dad. “His real name is Millard,” she said quietly.
    “Oh.”
    “Mm-hmm,” she said, nodding her head. “Now you see.”
    They were big people who moved slowly, but talked very quickly. Bonnie touched my arm a lot while she talked, in a motherly way. When they found out about the Beatmobile, you’d have thought they were long-lost relatives of Dad’s.
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