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She was already in the air. The staff at the front desk encouraged him to go sit in on the advanced class that would be watching her video stream live.
Tyler took a seat, nodding to the class instructor who looked as if he had served in the military. His class of six or seven students ranged in age from twenty to forty. They were mostly men, adrenaline-seekers he guessed. Only one woman, a thirty-something who looked like she was doing it to break her out of the mediocrity track. In the back near Tyler two men sat in flight suits with the airfield’s logo, indicating they were also instructors assisting in some manner with the class.
“Marguerite is truly one of our exceptional jumpers,” the instructor was saying.
“She’ll be demonstrating the Atmonauti method we’ve been going over today. In a few minutes, you’ll watch her exit. ”
Tyler’s gaze turned to the wide-screen television behind them. At that moment, the screen flickered and they had a picture of the inside of the plane, the camera holder obviously moving to the open doorway.
The camera tilted and Tyler blinked, his stomach dropping at the free-fall effect of seeing the ground thousands of feet below and the tips of the cameraman’s shoes as he stepped on the small platform just outside the door.
“Now the difference with Atmonauti is you’re flying at about a thirty degree angle to the horizon and you can vary that about fifteen degrees in either direction. You’re looking for a certain zone and wanting to hold it. You control the speed with your legs, move them wider to slow down, arrow them together to go faster. You can fly more efficiently and do more things because you’re working with the airflow. ” The instructor went to the chalkboard where he’d diagrammed stick figures, angles and figures on velocity and ground covered. “She’ll be going a hundred miles an hour in the right heading. You can go slower with this method, prolong your dive. She’ll go about 1. 5 miles out and then use her chute to bring her back to the DZ, the Drop Zone. ” He glanced toward Tyler, acknowledging his presence and apparently taking him for a potential new diver auditing the class.
When hell freezes over, Tyler thought with grim humor. On several missions he’d been forced to jump out of plane, in such less than ideal circumstances that it had been added to the list of things he would never do if he had any kind of choice. Jump out of an airplane, cut off his genitals with a rusty knife…
Marguerite was at the opening in a white diving suit that covered her from head to toe, her body clearly defined, smooth and sleek as a seal. Her goggles were down, but he’d know those soft lips anywhere, the way she tilted her head, apparently listening to something the cameraman was saying to her. She nodded, reached out, clasped his hand. Drew back, adjusted her goggles and then leaped.
Tyler’s chair scraped as he stood up, unable to stop himself. Fortunately, the instructor and class were too riveted on the screen to notice his involuntary response.
“She chose a forward exit. Notice how quickly she orients herself, finds that angle we talked about. You can do a head down or a backward jump as well. In fact, she’s likely to roll in a few moments…there she goes…now she’s on her back, which is an outstanding view. Just blue sky, folks, nothing up there but you and God. The beauty of the Atmonauti jump is, because you’re at that angle, you find silence. No noise, no air rush, no disruption…”
“Well, except for John and his camera,” an instructor near Tyler quipped.
“God, she commands the air,” one of the students said, awe in his voice.
“You don’t command the air,” the teacher reproved. “You learn to work with it, respect it. She does, on all levels. She’s part of it. ” Tyler noted the man did not take his gaze from the screen as he added, “Marguerite is poetry up there. She’s the best of Walt Whitman with some of the darkness of Edgar Allan Poe thrown in. ”
“Yep. ” The staffer who’d made the original quip gave the class a wink. “For a lot of guys, it’s a beautiful girl carrying a six-pack of Budweiser, but to Kyle here, it’s a woman who looks like that and is a hell of a diver. What more could he want?” How about jaw replacement surgery if he doesn’t stop salivating over her? Tyler quelled the territorial surge. She WAS beautiful. Even the woman in the audience was riveted, as if they were all watching an angel, something not quite one of them and capable of marvelous feats.
“All right, she and John will break now and she’ll pull her chute and come back in. ” The instructor turned back to his class. “Let’s go over the head down jump…” Tyler watched the full jump, his eyes trained on the television even as John got farther from Marguerite and his camera at times was swinging to capture the scenery, above and below. But eventually the camera would swing back to her and it was for that Tyler waited, leaning forward in his chair to watch the now small figure. The chute pull, her body drifting up with it gracefully, then her arms moving as she used the cords to take her in the direction she wanted to go.
Did she go there for the stillness? For the weightless feeling? For the memory of her last moments with David, spinning through the air, knowing that it was when they hit the ground that everything would change?
When the class was complete and the students were headed out to practice landing techniques, he stepped outside, standing in the shade of the hangar, simply waiting for her. He wasn’t sure how he felt. He’d come, driven by anxiety, but now he just needed to see her, touch her, reassure himself that the endearment he used for her was not in fact what she aspired to be, to fly away from him, from all of them.
The Jeep that pulled into the parking lot was driven by a kid who he assumed was John. An eighteen-year-old geek type with a surfer’s physique who looked at her as if she was everything he could ever want in life. There was an older man in the second seat who called out as she left the Jeep, “Be sure and put something on that scrape. ” Tyler’s eyes coursed over her, saw the rip in the knee of her suit, the stain of blood.
It was superficial, something probably caused by a stumble on landing, but it still made him take a deep steadying breath before he stepped forward.
She’d already seen him, even as she lifted her hand in acknowledgement of her companion’s comment. Carrying her gear in her arms, she came toward him, her expression unreadable. Not welcoming or unwelcoming, just neutral.
“You know, certain royal personages used to cut the tongues out of their servants’
heads to ensure their secrets weren’t revealed,” she said when she was within earshot.
“As devoted to you as she is, I’m not sure Chloe would stand still while you got the butcher knife,” he commented. “Unless you presented papers proving you were related to Prince William and could arrange a date with him. ” She stopped a few feet away, studying him. He raised a brow. “What?”
“I’m wondering if I need to run. You have that look like you did the other night. ”
“I was angry at first,” he admitted. “I thought this was more of the same. Your constant flirtation with death. But—”
“It was. ” She stated it quietly, met his startled gaze. “At first. ” She glanced around.
“Let me put my gear down and maybe we can walk down to the duck pond, there at the end of the runway. ”
She dropped her equipment in her car, shoving it into the second seat to repack later, and pushed back the hood of the jumpsuit. Her hair was wound in a crown of braids tightly pinned against her skull. When she released the pins and let the braids drop, she tied them together with one of the braids, making the tail look like a flogger of multiple blonde strands. After a hesitation, she reached out. Bemused, he took her hand. She started down the runway linked to him in that fashion.
“I like holding hands,” she said, with a shy nod that he found charming.
