Coast to Coast (5 page)

“Pop!” It was a cry of anguish.

She buttoned her shirt as she ran down the stairs.

“Pop!”

There was no one in the kitchen. She crossed the hall quickly and looked in his bedroom. The room was empty, the bed unmade.

“Mom!” she wailed. “Pop’s gone!”

She ran for the basement stairs. Halfway down, she paused. The basement was packed with people looking over the tables, making selections.

“Oh, look at this. I haven’t seen one of these in years. I’m going to get this for …”

“I love these old-timey kid gloves. I wish they were bigger. Ladies used to have such tiny hands …”

“Mom!”

“Does Bertie have an ice cream maker, do you know? I’d get this for her if …”

“I’m in the garage,” her mother called cheerfully.

Birch elbowed her way through the people and into the garage where there were more tables, more people.

“Where is Pop?”

“At the airport,” her mother said. “Birch, it is going so well. You would not believe how much money I’ve already made.” She flipped open the cigar box so Birch could see the pile of bills.

“Mom, I was going to the airport with him.”

“He left early. He had some things to do. He said he’d be back for you.”

“You should have called me!”

Her mother turned to speak to a customer. “No, we’re not selling the Christmas lights. Those go with the house … The sheet music is ten cents a copy, and the records are twenty-five. The albums—Birch, I’m busy.”

“Did he say when he’d be back?”

“I don’t remember. Birch, do something with Ace. Everybody’s stepping on him. … Yes, the toaster works,” she told a woman. “All the appliances work.”

“Would you take five dollars for the toaster?”

“Not this early in the day, I—”

“Mom!”

“Birch, if you want to make yourself useful, do something with Ace.”

“I can’t right now. I’ll be back.”

Birch ran up the stairs, two at a time. She grabbed her backpack and packed in a rush, muttering to herself, “Shirts, shorts … What else? Jeans, underwear—Where’s my sweatshirt?” She paused in thought. “Oh, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb.”

She glanced around the room and her eyes fell on the box of poems. She hesitated because these were what she wanted to leave behind. Something in that box, some unwanted knowledge was the reason she was going.

She crossed the room and stood looking down at the box. She picked it up and poems exploded onto the bed. It was as if they had been waiting for years to get out and would never allow themselves to be shut away again.

She bent, picked up the sheets and laid them back in the box. Then she put the box in her backpack and zipped it up.

She ran down to the garage.

“Sit by the cash box, will you, Birch?” her mom asked.

“But only until Pop comes. Then I’ve got to go.”

Birch sat at the card table and stuffed her backpack behind her legs. She drummed her fingers impatiently on the cigar box. Her eyes watched the driveway.

Long minutes dragged by. Eight-thirty came. Nine o’clock. Birch’s fear began to grow.

Her mom came into view and Birch asked again, “Mom, please try to remember when Pop said he’d be back.”

Her mother was talking to one of her friends. “Joyce, I don’t know whether all the pieces are there or not.” She shook some boxes of jigsaw puzzles and listened to them rattle. “They probably are because Mother was so particular about her puzzles. She finished her last one the day before she died. It was the Mona Lisa. I don’t have the heart to sell that one. Oh, listen, just take the puzzles.”

“I couldn’t. Why, there must be thirty—van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers.’ Degas’s ‘Dancing Class.’ Your mother must have loved art.”

“She did. At one time she painted, or thought about painting. Then she gave it up and just did puzzles of paintings. It’s sort of sad when you think about it. Here, take them. She’d want you to have them.”

Birch was almost sick with tension. “Mom, I have got to get to the airport.”

“Your grandfather said he’d be back for you.”

“I’ve got to go now.”

“I’m going by the airport on my way to the island, Liz,” Joyce said. “I can drop her off.”

Her mother hesitated, and Birch said impatiently, “Please, Mom.”

“All right, but if your grandfather isn’t there—and he’s liable to be on his way home to pick you up—if he isn’t there, go in the executive terminal and wait.”

“All right.”

“And take Ace, Birch. He’s starting to growl at people.”

“Ace?” Birch paused at the garage door. “I can’t take him. He’d be in the way.”

“You won’t mind if he rides in your car, will you, Joyce? He can sit on Birch’s lap.”

“Not at all.”

“Then it’s settled.”

Birch picked Ace up and put him under her arm. “You are going to ruin everything,” she told him on the way to the car. His tail thumped happily against her back.

Birch slid into the front seat and waited for Joyce to start the car. Joyce was looking out the car window.

“Oh, I hate to see that house sold. I grew up with your mom and we had so many good times there.”

“Mom’ll miss it too,” Birch said.

She sighed with impatience as Joyce pulled away from the house. She glanced at the speedometer. Thirty-five. They were only going thirty-five! It was the race of her life and they were going thirty-five!

“Picnics on the back lawn, spend-the-night parties. One Halloween we slept up in the attic and your grandfather came up the steps rattling tire chains. We screamed so loud your grandmother said, ‘Mr. Earl, go to your room!’”

They stopped for a light. Birch checked her watch. She began to smooth Ace’s coarse fur.

“And at Christmas your grandfather put up more lights than anybody you could see the glow for miles. It was like fireworks.”

At last, they pulled into the airport. Joyce said, “I’ll wait to make sure your grandfather’s here.”

“Never mind. I see his truck.”

Birch had the door open even before the car came to a halt. A voice said, “Right door is open.”

“Oh, sorry,” Birch said. She laughed nervously. “Now, I’m apologizing to a car. Anyway, thanks for the ride.”

Birch put Ace on the ground and started for the T hangar. “I’ll help you attack his shoes this time,” she said.

Ace caught up with her at the corner of the hangar and they rounded the building together.

Birch stopped. For a moment she could not believe her eyes. Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, no!” she said.

The hangar doors were open. The hangar was empty. The J-3 Cub was gone.

“H
E’S LEFT ME, ACE.
He’s gone.”

She put one hand over her chest. “I can’t bear it, Ace. I just can’t bear it.”

She slumped to the bench.

Ace walked around the bench and stood at her feet. He waited, his tail slowly sagging between his short hind legs.

“Up until yesterday, Ace, I was a happy person. I was average, but I was happy. And then, I read this poem and it was like a dark cloud came over my life. I wasn’t happy anymore. I felt like I might never be happy again. That probably sounds silly to you, but it was one of the strongest feelings I’ve ever had in my life.

“And then, Ace, Pop agreed to let me fly away with him, across the whole country, and it was like I’d gotten a stay of execution or something. I felt so relieved and, well, almost happy.”

She blinked her tears away. “And now well, I’m more miserable than ever.”

Ace’s tail gave one tentative wag.

“Don’t wag your tail. It’s not appropriate. I had this dream last night. I can’t remember all of it, but it was about a baby that somehow died …”

She slumped forward, not looking at the dog now.

“And in some way, I was responsible … It doesn’t make sense and yet it would make sense if I knew what I was supposed to know.”

She sat without moving. Ace waited and then gave a moan of impatience. She looked up.

“Oh, all right. We better go to the terminal.”

She slung her backpack to her shoulder and, kicking a rock ahead of her, she began walking.

“Come on, Ace,” she told the dog.

Ace had paused to scratch behind his left ear. Then he trotted after her. At the terminal, Birch held the door open for him.

“Well, I have been abandoned,” she told the girl at the counter.

“Oh?”

“I was going on this wonderful trip with my grandfather—to California, and he left without me.”

“Who is your grandfather?”

“Earl Bingham. We were going in his J-3 Cub.”

“Oh, Mr. Earl wouldn’t abandon you. I know him. He’s a real fine gentleman.”

“Then where could he be?”

“Well, he was in here about a half hour ago and bought some new maps. Did you check the hangar?”

“It’s empty.”

“I mean the maintenance hangar next door. Right through there.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Birch crossed to the door and reached for the knob. Then she stopped.

She didn’t want to open the door if he wasn’t going to be there. This was her last chance.

“Is it locked?” the girl at the desk asked.

“No.”

“Go on in then. It’s all right.”

Birch took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, reached for the knob and pulled the door toward her.

She opened her eyes, and it was like something out of
The Wizard of Oz.
It was the moment when the black and White world suddenly turns to technicolor.

There was the bright yellow J-3. There was her grandfather in an orange flight suit. Even the sunshine slanting in the hangar door was brighter than regular sunshine. The sky beyond was crayon blue.

Birch ran through the door. Her grandfather turned and she threw her arms around his waist. At their feet, Ace caught the excitement and began to bark.

“Where’d you two come from?” he asked.

“I thought you were gone! Pop, I thought you’d left me!”

“You know I wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“But the hangar was empty and—I don’t know—I thought you’d gone. I didn’t think I could bear it.”

“We were changing the oil, that’s all. Then I was coming for you. Now that you’re already here, we’ll take off in ten minutes.” He looked at his watch. “A little bit behind schedule, but not much.”

“Where do I put my things?”

“That’s the luggage compartment.” Pop pointed behind the rear seat.

“I am so excited,” Birch said. She leaned in the window and stowed her backpack in the compartment. “I’ve got goose bumps, look. And I hardly brought a thing—one pair of jeans, two pairs of shorts, a box of—some stuff …”

“Did you say anything to your mother?”

“Oh, no. I didn’t dare. Anyway, she was so involved with the garage sale, I could have gone, ‘Mom, I’m leaving now, I’m flying to California,’ and she would have said, ‘Fine.’”

“I left her a note.”

“Pop, she might find it before we get going! She might try to stop us.”

“Not with that sale going on. Your mom is very wrapped up in that sale.”

“I know, but—”

“I figure she’ll find the note about suppertime. We’ll give her a chance to read it and cool down. Then we’ll telephone and let her know we’re all right.”

“But we can’t tell her where we are, Pop. She’ll come after me. I know she will. She’ll drag me home. She won’t be able to make you come home, but she’ll—”

“We have to call her, Birch. It’s—” Pop broke off as the realization hit him that Ace was with her. He looked down. Birch read his thoughts.

“I had to bring Ace, Pop. Mom wouldn’t let me come without him.”

“Birch—”

“What was I supposed to say? ‘I can’t take him because we’re flying to California?’”

“Birch—”

“I’ll hold him on my lap. And, Pop, you know how he hates to be left behind.”

“Birch, I wouldn’t have left Ace behind. He’s the best friend I’ve got. If you hadn’t brought him, I’d have gone back after him. Hey, Ace, you been wanting to go to California bad as me, haven’t you, boy?” He picked Ace up. “We—”

The mechanic interrupted. “Anything else, Mr. Bingham?”

“No, thank you for your help.”

“You and your granddaughter must be going on a trip.”

“That’s right. Birch, help me push the plane out of the hangar.”

Birch put her hands on the strut. Ace trotted at her heels.

“It’s a nice day for flying,” the mechanic said. “How far you going?”

Her grandfather looked over his shoulder, and as he said the word a chill of excitement came over Birch.

“California.”

“You’re going all the way to California in the Cub?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, you have a nice trip, you hear?”

“We will,” Birch called over her shoulder. “We really will!”

T
HE J-3 WAS ON THE RUN-UP
area, engine idling. Birch was in the front seat. Her seat belt was tight; her throat was dry.

Pop was in the backseat, and Ace was on the luggage rack behind him. Ace was leaning forward, panting with heat and excitement. Drops of saliva dotted the shoulder of Pop’s orange jump suit.

“What are we waiting for, Pop?”

“Talk into the hole,” her grandfather said.

Just before they had gotten in the plane, Pop had given her some earphones. “What do we need these for?” she’d asked.

“So we don’t have to be yelling all the time. Put them on.”

Birch had slipped them over her head and settled them on her ears.

“Now see this tube? That goes right in front of your mouth, and when you’ve got something to say, you talk into that hole.”

Birch asked her question again—this time into the tube. “What are we waiting for?” She felt she would not be able to relax until they were in the air.

“That’s better. A Cessna’s on final,” he told her. “We’ll take off after he lands.”

Birch squinted at the sky until she saw the airplane. She watched it touch down, roll to the taxiway, and turn off. She looked back at her grandfather and gave the thumbs-up signal.

Pop said, “Ready?”

“I sure am!” She felt as if she had been ready for this all her life, instead of just for one day. “Let’s go!”