A Perfect Life nd Other Stories (6 page)

Forget-Me-Not

I MISS YOU
.

Denny brushed her fingers across Vanessa’s flowing script,
centered between the folds. This was the fourth such letter, if you could call
it that, if three words were enough. Vanessa spoke in pictures, not words, so
it must have been hard for her to do this much. Denny had crumpled the first
three from residual anger, but this one she folded neatly and slipped into her
jacket pocket. Their last argument throbbed in her memory, louder still than
the quiet words on paper. Forgive and forget? All Denny had wanted was the
summer in Alaska, flying tourists around Mount McKinley, North America’s
highest peak. It was the chance to fulfill a dream for a no longer young pilot
whose flying days were closer to landing than takeoff. Somehow, Vanessa had
come to see that as her own abandonment, a rejection of her very being, and an
excuse for a terrible betrayal.

Denny leaned back in her chair and rocked, inhaling the scent of
spruce filling the warm, mid-summer air and listening as the creek tumbled
softly across stones beyond the driveway. Did she miss Vanessa? Oil and water
may not mix, but they can coexist. Until a match strikes.

A distant rumble nodded Denny out of her reverie. Through the
screen door behind her, she heard laughter and dishes clinking as the college
kids set up dinner. The rumble grew until it became visible as a school bus
with “Denali Roadhouse” stenciled in red across the side. It turned in from the
road and pulled to a stop amid a cloud of dust. Men, women, and children gathered
their things and bustled off. Some chatted enthusiastically about the wildlife
they’d spotted on the ninety-mile trip into the park. Others quietly stretched
the long hours out of their legs before climbing the steps to the lodge.

A woman caught Denny’s eye. And Denny seemed
to have caught hers. They shared a gaze for a few long seconds, an immediate
and visceral connection. When Denny’s mind caught up, she noted that the woman
appeared to be alone, which was unusual. The trip of a lifetime and no one to
share it with? She wore binoculars and a camera slung around her neck, like
everyone else, but she held a small notebook and pen. She checked her watch
then wrote something down. Denny marveled that she would want to document even
the moment of arrival. Then she stowed the pad in her pocket and snapped photos
of the log building and the bus with her fellow passengers streaming out. She
smiled shyly at Denny as she headed up the porch steps and inside. Her dark
hair was streaked with gray and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Most women did,
even in Alaska, especially those over fifty, if only a trace of lipstick or
powder.

Something clicked in Denny as she rocked. It
had been a long summer with few intriguing people and fewer lesbians. The
upside being no drama.

Helen, the manager, gave Denny the signal during dessert, and she
headed into the dining room to introduce herself. Tundra Air Service, she said,
offered hour-long flightseeing trips to “the mountain, Mount McKinley, or, as
many prefer, Denali, its Athabascan name.” She explained the sign-up process
and was almost finished when she spotted the woman, sitting at a corner table
with two other couples, taking notes. Maybe she was writing a book.

Denny retreated to her desk in the lobby and
soon guests trickled by, some clustering around her, asking questions. She
spotted the woman at the back, listening and watching. People tended to be
nervous about a female pilot, so Denny answered their questions carefully. Her
list filled with names. Then only the woman stood before her.

“I’ve never flown in a small plane before,” she said. Her voice
was soft, ethereal.

“There’s really nothing to worry about,” Denny assured her. “We’ve
each had at least twenty years’ flying experience.”

“Will I be able to take pictures?”

Denny smiled. “Of course. That’s what most people do.”

The woman nodded but paused, looking at the pen and sign-up sheet
on the desk. Denny glanced at the list. “There’s room for tomorrow.”

“Okay.” The woman picked up the pen and tried to write from the
wrong end. “Oh, how silly,” she said, blushing and turning it around.

Alice Campbell. Denny read the name upside down, in neat script.
“Okay, Alice. You’re all set. See you in the morning. We’ll meet right here at
eight.”

Alice took out her notebook and wrote down the
time then looked up. “Will I be able to take pictures?”

Denny raised an eyebrow. “Yes. As I said—”

Alice turned abruptly and walked away. She headed back toward the
dining room, then stopped, glanced around, and returned to the lobby. She
didn’t look at Denny, but a hand fluttered to tuck her hair behind her ear.
Probably exhausted, Denny thought. She made a tick mark next to Alice’s name.
That would tell Josh, her boss, to put Alice in her plane. All the pilots did
this, but Denny hadn’t till now.

AT SIX THE next morning, Denny radioed the airfield. Josh reported
the weather clear and winds calm, so all flights were on. Adrenaline surged as
she washed up and ate breakfast. To fly! It never got old.

She checked names as everyone boarded the van for the short trip
to the airfield. Alice sat in the back, quiet, staring out the window. When
they arrived, Josh took over assigning the passengers to planes while she
greeted Dave and Walt, the morning’s other pilots, and headed to her plane. Not
her own. Hers sat to the side of the runway, ready for her day off. She walked
around the single-engine Cessna with the Tundra Air Service logo on the tail
and ran through her checklist.

A family of four strode toward her. Where was Alice? She looked
over to the hut that served as an office. “Josh! I’m missing Alice.”

He checked his list and shrugged. “She’s here
somewhere.”

Maybe she was using the bathroom. Denny helped the guests settle
in then glanced around and spotted Alice with Walt just as he pointed her way.
Alice apologized but Denny shrugged and patted her brown leather jacket. “We
all look alike,” she joked as she opened the copilot’s door and helped her in.

Denny took her own seat, made sure everyone
was buckled in, and showed them how to use the headsets and mics, the only way
to hear each other once airborne. Alice twisted around to snap pictures of the
controls, of Denny, the other passengers, and the view outside. The plane
filled with restless excitement as Denny started the engine.

“We’re next,” she said into her mic as Dave
took off.

She taxied to the end of the runway then turned. The engine roared
and the plane picked up speed, racing along the dirt strip. Denny’s neck hairs
prickled. This part never failed to thrill her.

Alice put her camera down and stared at Denny. “Oh my, that feels
wonderful,” she said, her voice tinny in the headphone.

Denny smiled. “Takeoff is my favorite part.” The G forces pushed
her back into the seat. Alice grinned as they left the bumpy ground and the
ride smoothed out. Someone whooped from the back.

For the next hour Denny played tour guide, pointing out the peaks
of the Alaska Range that formed a wall eighteen thousand feet up from a flat
plain threaded by shallow streams of glacier runoff and dotted with small
ponds. Denali gleamed proudly, covered in bright snow against a deep blue sky.
Below, glaciers formed frozen rivers pouring down the face of the mountain.

She ran through her script, describing how the mountain’s
elevation gain was greater than Everest’s, rising as it did from a plain only
two thousand feet above sea level. What she couldn’t describe was how this
massive uplift of planet, rising higher than her plane could fly, grounded her.
It served as her guidepost, a pivot point around which she oriented herself.
Denali comforted her, despite its dangers. Treat the mountain with respect,
Josh had said during orientation, and she’ll treat you fairly in return. There
weren’t many women you could say that about.

Oohs and ahhs from Alice and the others penetrated the engine’s
buzz as they soared over sharp, snow-covered ridges and past jagged rock.
Heading up Peters Glacier, the plane began to buck. Denny concentrated on
maintaining control as the small craft dropped and tilted then rose, as though
riding an invisible roller coaster.

She pulled away and turned back. “Sorry
folks, a bit too windy to make it around to the south side.”

She headed back across the north face and glanced over at Alice,
who looked a bit pale and was clinging to her seat. But she was grinning.

After landing back at the airstrip, Denny
posed for pictures and let the kids sit in the pilot’s seat. When she looked
around for Alice, she had vanished.

BY THE NEXT morning clouds had moved in, obscuring the summit and
grounding the pilots. Rather than do nothing, Denny offered to co-lead a hike
up a nearby ridge. Erin, one of the college kids on staff, tended to leave the
older hikers in her dust, so Denny diplomatically offered to serve as sweep,
staying at the back of the pack, and telling herself it wasn’t just because
Alice had signed up.

They climbed steeply through dense alder thickets then out onto
dry tundra—knee-high blueberry shrubs, small wildflowers, mosses, and lichens.
Erin stopped often to talk about the plants and animals while Alice took notes
and photos with the studiousness of a reporter.

Twice, after they’d stopped, Alice had left her daypack behind.
The first time, Denny called to her and Alice thanked her. The second time, her
face clouded over in an expression Denny found hard to analyze. Maybe
embarrassment or even anger. Happens to everyone, Denny assured her.

At lunch, when people got to talking about themselves, Denny learned
Alice had recently retired after teaching high school biology for thirty years
and that she lived in Jamaica Plain, one of Boston’s gay-friendly
neighborhoods.

“I live in Provincetown,” Denny said. “We’re practically
neighbors.”

The information settled on Alice’s face like a
weight as she stared at the ground. A brief smile formed and she glanced up
quickly then away. “Yes.”

Even if they had been alone, Denny might not have pursued the
question she was partly dying to know and partly dreading—are you gay? Whether
it had anything to do with Vanessa, she would think about only later, for in
the moment, Vanessa was forgotten. For now, Denny sat next to Alice, a calm, if
puzzling, presence, with her quiet words and soft face that smiled with shyness
and a certain sadness. She remembered that this was what it should feel like,
attraction. A pulse quickening, heat rising on her cheeks, breath catching. For
now, it was enough.

AFTER LUNCH, THEY hiked down an old mining road behind the ridge.
It wasn’t as scenic, but was easier going, and Erin didn’t stop as often. Denny
held back to ensure no stragglers got left behind. Alice joined her.

“I think you’re very courageous, flying toward that mountain every
day.”

Alice spoke without preamble. They’d been walking in silence,
enjoying the birdsong, or so Denny thought. Alice had been thinking about her.
She shrugged and was about to deny it when Alice continued.

“‘Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.’”

Denny blinked at the sheen of familiarity. “Amelia Earhart.”

Alice smiled. “Yes, I wondered if you would know that.”

“It’s on coffee cups and T-shirts all over P’town.”

“Oh.” Alice clasped her hands behind her back to lift the weight
of the pack off her shoulders.

Denny regretted deflating Alice’s enthusiasm. “‘Each time we make
a choice, we pay/With courage to behold resistless day,/And count it fair,’”
Denny said. “That part’s not on the mugs.”

Alice smiled but did not meet Denny’s gaze. “I had a feeling there
was more to you than a slogan.”

When a plane climbs through clouds, the pilot fights for control
in the turbulence. Visibility is zero, so she focuses on her instruments. Then
she breaks through, not with a blast or shudder, but with sudden, unexpected
calm. Tense muscles take a moment to relax. The light is clear, the white cloud
tops brilliant. It is a moment of complete and utter clarity, and the closest
Denny comes to believing in God. She didn’t know why she felt it now, walking a
dusty track down a small ridge, with the sky and the mountain obscured. But she
knew better than to ignore it.

“I’m off tomorrow,” she said impulsively. “Would you like to go
flying with me?”

“You fly on your day off?”

“Flying isn’t what I do,” Denny said. “I fly, therefore I am.”

Alice laughed and accepted the invitation.

DENNY AND ALICE rode in the back of the van to the airfield with
the other flightseers. While Denny checked her plane, Alice snapped photos.

They waited while the others took off before Denny taxied her
smaller Cessna down the runway. She was keenly aware of the tighter space in
the cockpit. Alice’s shoulder was mere inches from her own, which felt
unnaturally warm.

“We won’t be going to the mountain, if that’s okay,” Denny said
when they were airborne. “We need to leave that for the paying crowd. There’s
something I’d like to show you, though.” She turned the plane north, toward the
Kantishna Hills.