Clear to Lift (16 page)

How am I speaking like this? I've met this man only once before, and now, five minutes into our second conversation ever, I'm spilling like I'd spill to my mother. It's the alcohol.
But you haven't even finished two beers.
I push the bottle farther away, anyway.

“Why not?” he asks.

“What do you mean? I'm engaged, that's why not.”

“That's your head talking. Not your heart.”

I sit back, staring. “Are you always this forward?”

“Only if it concerns Will.”

Again, the pang. What a father would do for his child. Looking out for him. Loving him. And Jack isn't even Will's real father.

“It's obvious, you know,” he says.

“What's obvious?”

“I've seen you and Will together for exactly three minutes tonight, and there's something very special there. Don't ask me how I know, but it's unmistakable.”

“So are you gonna play or what?” Boomer calls out to Jack.

Rather than answer Boomer, Jack looks to me. “I suspect you've had enough of me,” he says, rising. “I hope you can forgive me. The forwardness and all. I just want what's best for Will.” He smiles, a comforting smile, before turning.

As he walks away, I hear it when he says under his breath, “And, truthfully … I think he's found it.”

*   *   *

Jack, Boomer, and Beanie continue their game, and even though Jack is well older than both of them, he's easily in the best shape of the three. Granted, he's injured and moving slowly, but like Will, the muscles in his arms are lean and taut and he moves in a graceful, purposeful way. The longer I watch, the more the differences become pronounced. With Boomer and Beanie, there's a lot of “extra” going on. With Jack, every movement seems planned, so as not to disturb the air around him.

I'm stirred from my observations as my phone vibrates in my pocket. The letters on the preview pane seem larger than usual. It's a text from Rich.

I wanted to tell you again how sorry I am for having to cancel. Trust me, I was just as disappointed. I'm done for the night, so call if you get the chance. I can't wait to see you next week! Love you!

I stare at the message, reading it through again and again, my heart sinking lower and lower. I am indeed a horrible fiancée. A horrible person, in general. I put the phone on the table, lean forward, elbows on my knees, and cradle my forehead in my hands. I stare some more. Between the lines, I read, “I'm sure you're sitting at home alone now. Missing me. Thinking about me. Anticipating my visit even more. Just like a fiancée should…”

When I finally look up, Will is standing there, watching. How long has he been there?

“Everything okay?” he asks.

And Jack thought
I
was perceptive …

“Yeah, it is. I, um, I have to get going,” I say, standing.

“Are you sure? You haven't even eaten anything.”

“Yeah, I'm sure.” I slide my phone into my pocket and turn for the stairs. Will follows. At the top, he moves ahead of me to the entryway closet to open it and retrieve my jacket.

“Would you like to take anything with you? Some water? Food? You have a long drive.”

“No, thanks,” I say, threading my arms through the sleeves. “I'm good.”

He opens the door for me, and I step out, met with a rush of cold.

“Can I walk you to your car?” he asks.

I notice he doesn't put on a jacket to walk outside, quick to follow. We move through the grand arch of pine boughs, the only sound the hollow crunch of snow from our footfalls, exaggerating the uncomfortable silence between us. Reaching my car, he steps in front of me, opening the driver's-side door.

“I hope everything's all right.”

“It's fine. I just have to go.”

I move past him, toward the front seat, but stop before getting in. Even with my back to him, I
feel
him.

“Alison, I meant what I said tonight on the balcony.”

I freeze.

Our interaction on the balcony replays. That look in his eyes, his fingers slipping through mine, my reaction. God, my physical reaction.

I pinch my eyes shut, Rich's text so vivid.
I can't wait to see you next week! Love you!

Gathering myself, I turn to face him. “I'm engaged, Will. What happened … well, it shouldn't have happened.”

“But it did.”

“It won't anymore,” I say, as sternly as I can muster.

He stares. I stare. It's cold. He's in short sleeves. Not a goose bump.

“But you
felt
it,” he says. “I felt it. Why would you—”

“That doesn't mean anything. Physical attractions happen. It doesn't mean you have to act on them.”

“It's more than that, and you know it.”

His eyes hold mine, communicating a connection I can't acknowledge.

“This can't happen, Will. I'm sorry.”

I drop into my seat, and turn on the ignition.

He steps back, closing the door, and remains there, unmoving, as I disappear down the drive.

 

18

“Longhorn Seven, Fallon Tower, you're cleared to the east, over.”

“Fallon Tower, Longhorn Seven, roger,” I say.

I follow Highway 50, passing over a dry lake bed baked with salt so white you could easily mistake it for snow. In front of me, the Sand Mountain Recreation Area, a haven for off-road enthusiasts. The sand dunes glare, much like the alkali flats, peppered with dirt bikes, sand rails, and quads, popping, careening, carving tracks upways, sideways, and crossways through the sand in the early-morning sun. It's a workday, Monday, but you'd never know it based on the number of RVs and trucks parked out here, like a mini off-road city.

I glance up at the outside-air temperature gauge. Sixty degrees Fahrenheit.

Just three nights ago, I needed four-wheel drive to grind my way through June Lake in multiple feet of snow and in subfreezing temperatures. And Will stood in that snow, so still, eyes uneasy, as I drove away.…

I've tried not to think about that, focusing on Rich instead. I called him, talked with him, as I drove home from the party, and again the next day. But it's no use. Will is
in
my head. He's in there, and I can't seem to push him out.

“I can't believe I'm gonna do this,” Snoopy says. “What the hell was I thinking?”

I saw Snoopy last at the Fallon swimming pool, almost two weeks ago, the day after he arrived for his air wing's training. Today, he rides in the cockpit in the left seat. He was appointed as the investigative officer for a noise complaint—sonic boom—so I've been tasked to fly him to Cold Springs Station, a restaurant, hotel, and RV park located about fifty miles east of Fallon, to interview the complainant and other witnesses. It's my first flight as an aircraft commander in the H-1; I completed my check flight just one week ago.

My first flight as an aircraft commander, and I'm about to do something so far outside the rules …

Snoopy—somehow—convinced me to do a trade with him. When he was here last time, he flew me to San Diego in a two-seater F/A-18—my first and only Hornet ride—for a search-and-rescue model manager conference. He asked if I'd let him fly the Huey if he let me fly the jet. Surely, I thought, this cannot be allowed. But on that blue-sky day at 26,500 feet, I took the controls of an F/A-18, never admitting to him that it was one of the biggest thrills of my twenty-eight-year-old life.

“So, are you ready, then?” I ask.

“No,” Snoopy says, laughing. “And Beanie, not a word of this to
anyone,
got it?”

“My lips are zipped, sir.”

“Okay, you've got the controls,” I say.

I take my hands and feet off the controls, and the nose immediately whips to the right. My feet fly to the rudder pedals to stop the yaw.

I look left. Snoopy has his feet on the floor. He must have pulled up on the collective or something to make the nose yaw like that, but he definitely wasn't in a position to correct it.

“Uh, Shane, you need to have your feet on the rudder pedals.”

“Ah,” he says. He places his feet on the pedals, and I remove mine. The bird is a little wobbly, but straighter now.

“We don't really use the rudder pedals,” he explains, referring to flying the F/A-18. “Once in flight, I mean.”

“I can see that,” I say, trying to keep a straight face.

What a trooper. This guy's an extraordinary F/A-18 pilot, a bazillion hours under his belt, but he's never flown a helicopter. For a jet jock, flying a helicopter should be easy-peasy, right? Yeah, that's what he bragged about in the brief.

I stifle the giggles as he wrestles with the controls, the aircraft slipping and dipping like it's teetering on a Bosu ball.

“Shit! Okay, so I take back everything I said in the brief,” he says, gripping the controls like he's about to yank them from the fuselage. “And I apologize
forever
for laughing after your Hornet ride.”

On that flight, Snoopy let me have the controls for most of the straight-and-level parts both ways. However, once we arrived at the training ranges in Fallon, he took the controls back, so he could “show me what the aircraft can do.”

Now, I hadn't done aerobatics in a fixed-wing aircraft since flight school. Barrel rolls, aileron rolls, loops, all of that was ancient history for me. I had forgotten most of it … and so had my stomach. I cringe, even now, thinking of it. The worst part of the whole thing was asking him for the airsickness bag. I remember looking up, watching his head tipped back in laughter. I didn't get sick in the plane—couldn't give him the satisfaction—but I did get sick on the drive home. Had to pull over and empty the contents of my stomach on the side of the road in a cow pasture.

The day after, I was a good girl. I ponied up and admitted it—to more good-natured, raucous laughter, of course.

“I think you're getting the hang of it,” I say as the aircraft begins to smooth. I knew it wouldn't take long for him.

“I've had night carrier landings that were easier than this.”

“I highly doubt that,” I say, knowing a night carrier landing would be infinitely more difficult.

As Snoopy gets a handle on things, I have yet another out-of-body experience, that thing that happens to me on a regular basis since coming to Fallon. Two months ago, when I agreed to the trade, I never thought I'd have to go through with it on my end. First, in what circumstance would I ever be flying with Snoopy? And second, this was
me.
Give someone who has never flown a helicopter the controls on a flight? Me?

But now, post–Mount Morrison, post–North Palisade Peak, this does little to register on the “extreme” meter.

Which sort of blows my mind.

Snoopy rolls the aircraft to the left, entering a narrow, gently sloping valley that splits two north-south-running mountain ranges, ten-thousand-foot peaks on either side. I'm reminded of the Sierra, because these mountains—at their summits, anyway—remain coated with snow, even on this warm mid-November day in the middle of the high desert.

“So what's next for you after this deployment?” I ask.

“Grad school. I'm going to Monterey to get my master's. Then a department head tour, and then, hopefully, my XO and CO tours.”

A man with a plan. Just like Rich. Just like me. Yeah, I've thought about that, too, since I last saw Will. “I don't even know where I'll be
next
year,” Will said on the balcony.

See, this isn't a fairy tale, Alison. He has no long-term plans. Will might be in your head, but this is reality we're talking about.…

“There it is, Shane,” I say, pointing out the RV park. “One o'clock, four miles.”

“Got it. So are you ready to take the controls back?”

“You mean you don't want to try to land?”

“Are you
crazy?
” Snoopy says.

“Just kidding. I've got the controls.”

I land about one hundred yards from the RV park and shut down—yes, I shut down. I remind Beanie that he doesn't have to mention that part to Boomer.

*   *   *

Beanie accompanies Snoopy, but I remain, “guarding” the helicopter. I'm glad for the alone time, as it gives me an opportunity to phone my mother again. Her voice-mail greeting over the weekend said she was “off hiking.” This new activity cropped up after she started her therapy sessions, and when I speak to her after one of these outings, she breathes life again. Energetic, positive, vibrant.

I wait for some time before calling, mulling over how to approach this conversation. During the last call, she admitted she
still
loves my real father, has always loved him,
and
that he was a good man. But
why
did he leave? Finally, I pull out my phone, relieved to see I have two antenna bars.

“South Land Park Realty, Candice Malone speaking,” my mom answers, all business.

“Mom?”

“Oh, it's you. The caller ID didn't show for some reason. Sorry, honey. I was expecting a call from the title company.”

“That's okay. So how was hiking this weekend?”

“Oh,” she says, and I hear it when she plops into her high-backed leather office chair, the one that lets out a large
whoosh
every time you sit in it. “It was a dream, Ali. Just a dream. Sequoia National Park was resplendent! The trees were on fire. Quaking aspen, god, the yellows and golds! The maples, the oaks, red and orange! It takes your breath away, it really does.”

I lean back in the helicopter cabin, propping my head against the rescue litter, and offer a silent thank-you to Celia and Dr. Grant for helping my mom get to this place—a good place.

But it's a
new
place, too. She never liked the outdoors before now, and when I was growing up, she was pragmatic with a capital “P.” Why would you go on vacation when you could stay home and relax just fine, saving money in the process. And traveling somewhere to look at
leaves?
The very notion would have been preposterous.