Taking Off by Jenny Moss Page A

the way out to her car, Christa asked if either of us played on a volleyball team.
    A team? How good were these people? I should have known: this team was probably made up of overachieving engineers who overachieved at volleyball too. A shot of nerves hit me. I should have told her I didn’t know how to play.
    “Neither of us has been on a team,” Lea was saying, knowing full well I had a hard time telling the difference between a soccer ball and a volleyball.
    Lea got in the backseat of the car, gesturing for me to get in the front with Christa. She knew how fascinated I was by her. I slid into the copilot seat, wondering if I should tell Christa about my lack of volleyball experience. Here she was bringing us to play with her friends and I didn’t even know how to play.
    “I’m not that good at sports—,” I began.
    “Yes, you are!” Lea said. “You’re really good at tennis, Annie.”
    Christa glanced over at me as she pulled out of the parking lot. “Do you play tennis, Annie?”
    “I just hit the ball around. I practice against the backboard a lot.” That sounded pretty sad, probably because it was pretty sad.
    And it had been months since I’d done that, I realized. I used to love to be outside, under a blue bowl of a sky, loving the feel of the ball as it bounced against the strings of the racket.
    “She could have made the school team if she’d tried out,” Lea said, leaning forward in between the seats. She kept talking about how I would have been this great tennis player if I’d only tried. She had me winning the Olympics by the time we pulled up to the Gilruth Center.

CHAPTER 12

    A re those deer?” I asked, seeing brown forms in among the trees.
    Lea looked in the direction I was pointing. “Dad said there were deer out here. One night, when he was working late, he almost walked into one on a sidewalk close to his building.”
    The employees’ recreational center was made up of baseball fields, a large grassy area with trees, a nice-sized pavilion, and one building with a gymnasium and locker rooms. People in sweats, some in shorts, were running alongside the road in front of the building.
    “Armand Bayou Nature Center backs up to here,” Christa told us. “Joggers hit a dirt road right behind those trees,” she said, pointing. “The road borders the nature center.” She laughed. “But you probably already knew that.”
    I shook my head. “I’ve never been on-site before. I mostly hang out on my side of the lake.”
    Christa had to change, so she went into the locker room. Lea and I waited in the gymnasium, which looked just like any other gymnasium.
    We sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, watching some of the engineers playing around with the volleyball. The net was already set up. One of the guys went up for a ball and spiked it over the net.
    I was getting nervous.
    “Mind if I join them?” asked Lea.
    “No, go, go,” I said, waving her on.
    She jumped up and walked over to the three guys warming up. “Hi, I’m Lea,” I heard her say. “Christa invited us.”
    I smiled. Meeting new people was easy for Lea. I’d always wished some of it would rub off on me.
    Lea started playing. She wasn’t as good as the guys, but she got in some good hits. Her serve was pretty decent too. She threw the ball up in the air and came down on it hard, most of the time getting it over the net on the first try.
    Christa came out of the locker room. A group of three others—two women and a guy—walked through the door. They all called out to one another. It was obvious they’d known each other awhile, either through this volleyball league or through working together at the space center.
    Christa came over to me. “Did you want to play, Annie?”
    Other people walked up, throwing bags and purses on the sidelines. “You’ve got enough on your team. I’ll just watch.”
    “We can rotate you in.”
    “Maybe later.”
    She smiled and went back out to the court. The game