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“Shhh.” I wrapped my arms around her and let her rest her chin on my shoulder. “I’m the one who had the plane crash today, but I will comfort you because I love you.”
As she straightened, laughing, her eyes were full of tears. “Can I come in?”
I pushed the metal door wide for her. “Yes, chick. Come in.”
twenty
The next Saturday, a few hours before the airport office was scheduled to close, I handed over the phone and the keys to Leon. In the restroom, I scrubbed my hands to make sure they didn’t smell like avgas, redid my hair and makeup carefully, and slipped on strappy sandals and the adorable sky-blue prom dress that Molly and I had found at the consignment store. The restroom didn’t have a full-length mirror. Standing on the porch of the office, I checked my look in the glass door. With the airplanes behind me in the reflection, I looked like a model from a fashion magazine spread that showed fine clothes against a gritty background of asphalt and machinery. A couple of guys whistled at me from several hangars down, and I waved to them.
By the time I crossed the tarmac to the Hall Aviation hangar, Molly’s car was parked outside. She stood by patiently in her heels and hot-pink dress while I rounded the Cessna slowly, running my hands over the wings. She didn’t comment when I climbed the stepladder to check the gas level. She only took pictures of me with her phone and probably posted them online.
But when I asked her to help me push the plane out of the hangar, she absolutely refused. She would trip in her heels. The rivets would snag her dress. The plane was too heavy. I could prove her last assumption wasn’t true by showing her how the plane rocked back and forth on its wheels when I shoved it. Still, I thought I was going to have to hunt up Leon or the Admiral or someone to help me when she finally relented. She pushed the strut while I hauled on the guide holding the wheel. The airplane was outside in the breeze scented with meadow flowers.
I closed her into the cabin and showed her how to put on her headphones. She didn’t protest. But when I taxied to the end of the runway and turned the plane around, I finally realized why she’d been so obstinate before. Her hands were shaking.
“Scared?” I asked her.
She looked over at me. Even her glittering eye shadow was unable to draw attention away from the panic in her wide blue eyes. “What do you think? But I said I would go with you.”
“Haven’t you ever flown before?”
“Not in a plane this small.”
“Oh, that’s right.” I nodded. “You only fly to Europe.”
“First class,” she agreed. “I can close the window blind and pretend it isn’t happening. Flight attendant!” She snapped her fingers. “What do I have to do to get an appletini around here?”
I rolled my eyes. “There are lots of things that can go wrong,” I acknowledged, “but I won’t let them. And the plane is our friend. The plane wants to fly. Watch.” I powered the engine up and sped away from the trailer park, then took my hands off the yoke. “Look, I’m not doing anything and the plane lifts into the air when we hit a certain speed. That’s just how it’s made.”
“Put your hands back on the steering wheel,” she shrieked in my headphones.
To placate her, I grabbed the yoke. As we rose above the trees, I made the gentlest turn I could manage so the cabin wouldn’t tilt. To give her the smoothest ride, I pointed us toward the ocean, where the water would temper the air and there would be less turbulence. I wished for the airline pilot’s uniform that would give people confidence in me.
I would get it soon enough.
“It’s beautiful up here,” she murmured. Auburn updo smashed against the window, she watched the late-afternoon sun glinting on the ocean.
“Yes,” I said, “it is.”
The longer we stayed up, taking in the scenery, the more she seemed to relax. But soon we had to come down. As the North Carolina swampland passed under us and the skyline of Wilmington came into view, I neglected to point out that we were landing at an airport much larger than ours, with actual airlines and an air traffic control tower. I’d done plenty of touch-and-go’s at large airports during lessons with Mr. Hall. Besides, the airstrip wasn’t busy late on Saturday afternoon. Still, Molly was so nervous, head pressed against the glass, freshly manicured hands gripping both sides of the seat until her fingers turned white. I used my Chuck Yeager voice to radio my request to land and sailed on in, feeling like an airline pilot already.
I taxied where they pointed me, toward the terminal. Ten teenagers in prom dresses and tuxedos stood grinning behind a railing, with Alec and Grayson in front. The instant I told Molly it was safe, she snatched off her headphones, unstrapped her seat belt, and bailed out of the plane with her overnight bag. She skipped across the tarmac and threw herself into Alec’s arms.
I went over my checklist in my head, made sure I wasn’t forgetting anything as I shut the plane down, and slid out of the cockpit slowly. The guy with my airport job, who looked college age, brought out the chocks for my plane. He glanced at me and then did a double take. “You are the prettiest pilot I ever saw.”
“Hey.” Grayson walked forward. “Do you see me standing here in a tux? Get in line.”
“Dude! Sorry.” The guy couldn’t back away with his hands up because he had to put the chocks down first, but he did round to the other side of the airplane.
Grayson slid his arms around me. I caught a whiff of his sexy cologne and wanted to inhale him. “You’re the prettiest pilot I ever saw.” He pulled me close for a long, slow kiss. Behind us I could hear some of the girls say, “Awww.”
Grayson laughed against my lips. But as he broke the kiss and looked down at me, his gray eyes were serious.
“What’s the matter?” I whispered. “Did it spook you to see your dad’s plane coming in?”
“No,” he said in surprise. “I wasn’t thinking about that. I just missed you. A lot.” He kissed my cheek, then turned. “Let me say hi to Molly.”
He passed Alec, who hugged me. I hugged Alec back, pretending it wasn’t weird that I had made out with my boyfriend’s brother. Maybe one day soon it wouldn’t be. He kept one hand on my shoulder as he asked quietly, “Did Molly do okay on the flight?”
I made a grim face and shook my head no.
He leaned forward and said in my ear, “I was afraid of that. Between the two of us this summer, maybe we can break her in.”
I grinned and nodded as he walked back to her. If he was planning to fly with Molly this summer, that meant he planned to help Grayson keep Hall Aviation open. Grayson must be so relieved that Alec wasn’t rushing to join the military anymore. At least Alec would give the family business a shot.
Grayson found me again. With an arm around my bare shoulders, he faced his friends. “So, here she is. I told you so. Some of you owe me money.”
They burst into laughter. A girl stepped forward with her hand stuck out for me to shake. “Leah, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Nance. And when Grayson told me he was bringing a beautiful pilot to the prom, I said he was making you up. We all had to see it to believe it.”
“Let’s go eat!” a boy shouted from the back of the group. “Classy,” a girl said, and suddenly all of them were moving into the terminal. Molly kept walking with Alec as she turned around and waved at me, smiling like her face would break. I’d never seen her so giddy about a guy.
Grayson took my overnight bag. He led me by the hand to the office where I had to register my plane, and he leaned against a pillar to wait for me while I filled out the paperwork. I couldn’t help glancing over at him a couple of times, so tall and handsome and strange in his black tux and bow tie, without his shades or his cowboy hat. Dressing up suited him. Several groups of passengers turned to stare at him as they walked by. Then they looked around for the other half of the prom date, saw me, and smiled. They knew we were together, and that made me happy.
I held out my hand as I walked toward him. He took my hand in his, and we swung them between us as we walked through the lofty terminal with mile-high ceilings. “I’m sorry about the huge group date,” he said.
“It seems like fun.”
“Well, they wanted to do it because we’re graduating soon. And I haven’t been a good friend to them lately, but they’ve been good to me.” He opened the door to the parking lot for me and held it as I blinked in the sunlight on the other side.
“We’re going to dinner,” he said. “Then there’s the prom. Then a party at my friend Ish’s house, and then, if you’re up for it, a better party at my friend Steve’s house.” He stopped and turned to me in the middle of the wide brick stairs. “But I promise, Leah, I vow to you, that sometime in there, we will be alone.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively and grinned. The edges of his blond hair glowed golden in the sunlight. A jet high in the atmosphere passed behind his head, silently streaking white across the blue sky.
That’s when I knew. The pressures of business and the sadness of death remained with him. But he could forget them for one night, for prom night, and worry only about how to get me alone, like a normal high school senior. Grayson would be okay.
I smiled and squeezed his hand. “I can’t wait.”
The prom theme was “Up, Up, and Away!” Instead of Superman decor, blue streamers looped through the rafters of the gym to look like sky. Sparkling white clouds hung down, plus cutouts shaped like hot air balloons, blimps, and airplanes. Even the prom photo backdrop had a 1950s aviation theme, like the inside of an airport bar in Hawaii. I had a weird feeling of déjà vu. It all seemed a little too perfect, like the prom had read my mind. Then Grayson explained that Alec was the student council president and the head of the prom committee. Of course he was.
I hoped someday I would look back at my prom photo with Grayson, vintage airline posters in the background, and laugh at how it had predicted such great things to come.
Late that night when the crowd started to thin, moving on to other parties, Grayson whispered that we would leave soon, but there was something he needed to do first. I sat on the bottom row of the bleachers, directly under the silhouette of a 737. Glad to get off my high heels for a minute, I happily watched Molly and Alec slow dancing and making out. They both half grinned as they kissed like they were really enjoying it. This was not how Alec had kissed me at all. He’d been holding out on me, which made me smile too. I was glad what he and Molly had found together was something special.
As I scanned the shadowy crowd, I spotted Grayson. He was dancing and talking with an elderly lady. Someone had told me earlier she was their high school principal.
“Leah!” Nance exclaimed, sliding onto the bench beside me and dragging her boyfriend, Ralph, with her. “You’re all Grayson’s talked about this week. I can’t believe he left you alone!”
I nodded to the dance floor. Nance slapped her hand over her mouth. Ralph laughed and swore.
“I take it Grayson and the principal aren’t close?” I asked.
“Not hardly!” Nance exclaimed.
“They’ve spent a lot of quality time together over the last four years, if you know what I mean,” Ralph said. “He’s gotten sent to her office at least once a month. To see them dancing together is truly bizarre.”
As he said this, the principal and Grayson laughed together like friends, as if all of Grayson’s transgressions had happened a long, long time ago, when he was a child.
“Speaking of bizarre,” Ralph said, “Nance and I have been dying to ask you something.”
I eyed them warily. “Okay.”
Ralph held both hands out flat, like he wasn’t sure how to put this. “Ever since their brother died, and then their dad died, Alec seemed to hold himself together pretty well. Grayson didn’t.”
“He’s been lost,” Nance added, watching me sadly.
“Depressed,” Ralph said.
“Gone,” Nance said.
“And now he’s back.” Ralph extended his hand toward me. “How did you do that? What did you do?”
“Listened.” I shrugged. “Understood.”
The song ended and a new one started. Couples shifted on and off the floor. Despite the movement, Ralph and Nance continued to stare at me like they were waiting for the rest of the story, but I’d told them all I knew.
“Well, please keep doing it,” Nance said finally, “because he’s like a new person.”
Grayson came toward me from the darkness. As he stepped out of the crowd, colored lights played across his wavy hair and handsome face, disappearing against his black tux. With a grin like a promise, he reached for me.
As I put my hand in his and let him pull me up, I murmured to myself, “So am I.”
“Seven-thirty-seven,” Grayson said. “Yours someday.”
My heart pounded and I squeezed his hand as the massive airliner seemed to head straight for us. But it was pitching into the sky by the time it screamed overhead, giving us a glimpse of its white underbelly. We both turned around in our lawn chairs to watch the gorgeous plane until it disappeared into the dim early-morning sky. We could still hear it.
After Ish’s party and Steve’s even better party, Grayson had driven us here to the industrial complex near the Wilmington airport, at one end of the runway. In the dead of night, in the cab of his truck, we’d finally gotten our delicious time alone. I was still smiling at the thought of it.
He’d planned ahead. Now we sat in our chairs in the truck bed, holding hands under a blanket against the wet chill, watching the first flights take off.
