Coast to Coast (6 page)

Pop closed the window and secured it. “Charleston Executive Traffic,” he said—Birch could hear his radio transmission in her earphones—“Piper three oh three six two departing runway nine, will be a left downwind departure, westbound.”

Westbound—the word itself thrilled her. She took a deep, unsteady breath.

Pop turned onto the runway and pushed the throttle forward. The J-3 started down the runway, picking up speed. It lifted easily into the air.

“Want to fly over the house?” he asked. “Say goodbye?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want Mom to see us.”

“She won’t.”

Her grandfather banked the J-3 and turned north. Birch leaned against the window, watching for landmarks—the steeple of the Episcopal church, the high school, the track, the Bi-Lo parking lot …

“There’s your house, Pop! I’m glad we did this. There’s the tree I was named for—it’s the first time I’ve seen it from the air and—oh, look! Somebody bought the picnic table. They’re putting it in a station wagon.”

She felt so removed from the house that she could look at it without regret.

Her grandfather circled the block.

“Bye, Mom,” Birch said. She put one hand against the window.

She looked over her shoulder at her grandfather. She said, “I guess I ought to feel guilty about doing this, but I don’t. I feel wonderful.”

“I feel guilty enough for both of us.”

Birch took a deep breath of air. She had that freedom her grandfather talked about yesterday. She understood why cowboys yelled and threw their hats in the air, why people tore down goalposts.

Poetry said it all. “My heart leaps up …” “I am the captain of my soul …” “Up soared the lark into the air …”

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in his Heaven—

All’s right with the world.

Well, everything might not be all right with, her world, but that wasn’t going to catch up with her for a long time. She felt free and alive and—normal again. She was amazed at how good normal felt.

“Take the stick a minute,” her grandfather said.

“What?”

“Take the control stick.”

“What—wait, I’m not ready. I was in the middle of a poem.”

“Hold the stick while I fold my map.”

“Pop, wait. I don’t know which way to go. I—”

“Hold it like it is.” She could hear the impatience in her grandfather’s voice through the earphones.

“All right, but I am not ready for this!”

She grasped the control stick uneasily in both hands. Now her throat was dry for a new reason. First from excitement … now from nervousness.

“I’m not good at climbing! I told you that yesterday! I can’t see! I don’t know where I’m going!” Panic made her voice shake. It was as if she were alone in the plane. She strained forward, but all she could see over the cowling was the sky. “I have to see the horizon or something. I—”

“Hold it steady.”

“I’m trying! Pop!”

“All right,” her grandfather snapped. “I’ve got it!”

Birch sank back against the seat. She rested for a moment with her eyes closed. Her heart pounded.

In a voice that shook, she said, “I’m sorry if you’re irritated with me, but just because I flew for fifteen minutes yesterday, that doesn’t mean I’m a professional pilot.”

In her earphones, her grandfather’s voice said cheerfully, “I can’t hear if you’re talking to me. Well, say good-bye to the Atlantic Ocean.”

Birch glanced over the side of the cockpit at the beach they were leaving behind. A few white clouds had begun to form over the ocean.

“The next ocean you see will be the Pacific.”

“Good-bye, Atlantic,” she murmured.

Her grandfather turned the J-3 west. Birch watched the compass settle on W. They were still climbing. The altimeter read 1200.

“Want to look at the map—see what to watch for?” He reached over her shoulder. His thumbnail pointed to a pencil-thin line on the folded map.

“We’ll follow the railroad—this line. See? And this is a tower—that’ll be on our left.” His thumb shifted to a blue towerlike symbol. “It’s a big one—thirteen hundred thirty-four feet. But by that time we’ll be at two thousand. We’re already at fifteen hundred.”

“Can I hold the map?”

“You don’t know what the things mean.”

“I might if you’d let me look.” She tugged the map, but he did not release it.

“Over here’s the city of Walterboro,” he went on, “it’ll be on our right. This double line is the interstate.”

“I want to see where we are now.”

“We’re somewhere in here.” He made a small circular motion over a pale green area.

“In other words, you don’t know.”

“If you’d help me look for checkpoints I would.” His voice was irritated again. “I’m looking for Walterboro.”

Birch rested her head against the window. Below the land was mostly forest, but this forest was sectioned off into fields, like a crop.

They flew over a field of felled trees, then a field of new green trees. From the ground this forest probably looked like a regular one, she thought, but from the air it had the sharp look of engineered exactness.

“South Carolina is nothing but one big tree farm,” she commented.

“That’s where we get our paper.”

“Oh.” She straightened. “So, where’s our first stop?”

“Don’t tell me you’re already wanting to stop. I can take you back, you know.”

“No. No!”

“Oh, yonder’s the tower.” He pointed through the summer haze. “Now, let’s start looking for Walterboro.”

“W
ELL, I DON’T GUESS
we can put it off any longer,” Pop said.

Birch and Pop had checked into a Best Western motel and had eaten supper in the restaurant. The waitress had given them some scraps for Ace.

Now Birch was lying on one of the beds with her backpack beside her. Her eyes were closed. The J-3 engine still roared in her head.

“Put off what?”

“Calling your mother.”

Birch sat up abruptly.

Pop said, “That was quick.”

“Well, I want to get it over with, same as you.”

Pop continued to line up the contents of his pockets on the dresser exactly the way he did at home—his keys, knife, calculator, pen, gas receipts, wallet. He was taking his time.

“I’ll dial,” Birch said. All at once she was so impatient to talk to her mother that her hands trembled.

She reached for the phone, but Pop was there before her. “You don’t know the credit card number. I’ll dial. Anyway, I want to talk first.”

“Why can’t I talk first? I’m the daughter.”

“Well, I’m the father.”

They eyed each other competitively. Neither of them had combed their hair since they climbed out of the J-3 an hour ago, and they both had bangs down to their eyebrows. Their chins jutted forward at the same angle. They looked as if they’d been cut from the same pattern.

“It’ll be better if your mother takes the blame out on me,” he said, tugging the phone.

Birch didn’t let go.

“And there’s going to be plenty of blame, don’t kid yourself about that,” Pop said.

“Oh, all right.”

Birch sat back. She crossed her legs and jiggled her foot in the air while her grandfather dialed.

He listened and frowned at the phone. “I must have done something wrong.”

Birch snorted with impatience. “Did you dial a nine? It says right there you have to dial a nine first.”

Pop redialed. The phone rang, and Pop ran his hands through his hair, as if to make himself more presentable for the conversation.

“Liz?” he said in a loud voice. “Lizzie, it’s your dad.”

All Birch could hear after that was her mother’s explosion. Her grandfather held the phone a few inches from his ear to protect his hearing.

“Liz—”

He took another outburst.

“Liz, give me a chance to explain—”

Birch made circles in the air with her foot. Her ankle popped. Maybe it was better that he talked first, she thought. Her mother’s anger never lasted long. By the time she got the phone, if she ever did, her mother might even be sorry for Birch.

“Forest, Mississippi,” her grandfather yelled, as if he were trying to outshout her. “We’re in Forest, Mississippi!”

There was another tirade, shorter this time, but no less intense.

“We flew eight hours. That’s how we got so far. I just added it up—five hundred sixty-five miles, the most I ever flew in my life … well, I am proud of myself … I’m not proud of bringing Birch, of course not … She’s right here. You want to speak to her?”

He held out the phone. “Your turn.”

Birch took it. Her mother’s first words were, “Why, Birch, why?”

“Why what?”

“This isn’t like you, Birch, running off without a word.”

“I know, but I was afraid you would stop me. Pop was afraid you’d stop him too.”

“Well, I couldn’t have stopped him, but—”

“I’m sorry.” Birch’s voice quivered.

Pop turned abruptly and went into the bathroom. Birch could hear water running as he splashed his face. She noticed that he left the door open so he could follow the conversation.

“Are you all right, Birch?” her mom asked. “Tell me the truth.”

“I’m fine.”

“I have the feeling something’s wrong.”

“No, I’m fine. I just wanted to come on this trip. When did you find out?”

“I came up after the garage sale—incidentally we made over twenty-six hundred dollars—I came upstairs with a cigar box containing twenty-six hundred dollars which was a very scary feeling. I could have been robbed. I was calling Joyce to ask her to drive me to the bank to deposit the money, when I saw the note. I shook it open, read it, and hung up the phone in Joyce’s face.”

“I knew you’d be mad, Mom, but—”

“Mad! I was shaking like a leaf. I called your father—got him out of an orthodontics banquet to read him the note. Incidentally did you see it?”

“The note? No.”

“Here it is, in its entirety. ‘By the time you read this, Birch and I will be on our way to California in the J-3 Cub. We’ll call tonight.’ Like you’d gone to the corner drugstore.”

“What did Dad say?”

“Actually I am just as furious at your father as I am at you and Pop.”

“Why? What did he say?”

“He laughed.”

“Laughed?”

“He has always gotten a kick out of your grandfather. I said I fail to see the humor in this.’ He said, ‘I think it’s great.’”

“Dad said great?”

“He said, ‘I would have given anything to fly to California in a J-3 Cub when I was Birch’s age. My grandfather had a variety store and wouldn’t even let me play with the BB guns.’”

“I can’t believe he said great. I thought I’d have to go to the office for a talk. I—”

“I said, ‘Does this mean that you are not going to help me get her back?’ I already had the road atlas out by this time, figuring how far you had gotten. My thumb was on Alabama. It never occurred to me you’d make Mississippi!”

“Dad said no?”

“Your father never says no, you know that. He said if I thought it was the right thing to do, he would get in the car himself and come get you.”

“Is he coming?”

The thought was not upsetting to Birch, because on the long drive home—eight or nine hours, surely—she would get the courage to say what was on her mind. She longed to hear her dad say “You thought what? Oh, Birch, no. Nothing like that ever happened. It was just a poem. You know your grandmother. She was probably afraid something like that would happen, and so she …”

Her mother was still talking. “But, he also said that he wanted me to think about it, because he thought it could be a wonderful experience, the kind of thing you would remember all your life.”

“Is he coming?”

“So I gave it some thought, and while I do not approve of the way you and Dad did this—I don’t like that one bit. While I do not approve of the way you did it, I’m not going to stop you.”

“You aren’t?”

“No.”

“Dad’s not coming?”

“No. Now, tell me all about it,” her mother said, her tone changing to friendly interest. “Is it exciting?”

“I’m numb, Mom, we flew eight hours.”

“At least you had a beautiful day for it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say beautiful. It rained in Georgia.”

“I don’t think I could have stood it if it had rained here. The thought of a sale in the rain is—” She broke off. “Your grandfather stops to rest every now and then, doesn’t he? He used to hate to stop when we went on trips. That’s the one thing I remember about our vacations. Mom and I begging to stop and Dad pretending not to hear us. You do stop sometimes, don’t you?”

“We have to stop, Mom, the J-3 only holds twelve gallons of gas. We stopped at Louisville and Warm Springs. They’re both in Georgia, and Birmingham, Alabama. Oh, at the Birmingham airport a man had just soloed and they were cutting off his shirttail.”

Her grandfather came out of the bathroom, drying his sunburned face on a towel. “Is it safe for me to talk now?”

Her mom said, “Is that Dad?”

“Yes.”

“Put him on, Birch. He will flip when he hears what I got for the porch swing. Now, Birch, I want you to promise to call me every single night.”

“I will.” Wordlessly, she held out the phone to her grandfather. Pop paused as if reluctant to take it.

“It’s all right. She’s not going to stop us,” Birch said with a sigh. “She wants to tell you about the sale.”

Pop threw his towel into the air in celebration. He caught it and did an old timey fox-trot step with it as his partner. Then he draped the towel around his neck and took the telephone.

B
IRCH WAS IN THE
front seat of the J-3. She glanced above her at the skylight at the rectangle of bright, cloudless blue sky windowed there. The front had passed through during the night and the morning air was crystal clear.

“CAVU,” Pop had said. “What does that mean, Pop?”

“Ceiling and visibility unlimited. You’ll probably be able to see for a hundred miles.”

They had taken off at 7:40 and were now flying westward over Mississippi.