AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I tied mine in place. We drove along for what felt like another five or ten minutes. The limo slowed down and stopped. “Don’t take them off yet,” said Bellamy. “I want you to be surprised.”
We heard the limo door open.
“Vanessa, take the limo driver’s hand. He will help you find your way,” said Bellamy, since Vanessa was closest to the door. “Deb, take Vanessa’s hand, and so on, so you have formed a chain.” We did as we were told, awkwardly stumbling out onto what felt like gravel.
“Can we take them off yet
?” asked Deb when we were all standing outside the limo holding hands.
“Okay,” said Bellamy. “Take them off!”
We lifted our blindfolds and discovered we were in a gravel parking lot beside a small airfield. A little yellow plane stood about a hundred yards away.
“We’re going to jump out of that plane!” said Bellamy.
“Rad,” said Shar.
“First we’re going to have a brief class on safety, right here,” said Bellamy, leading us towards a building in the opposite direction. “The thing that is really amazing about this is that we’re going to form a free-falling heart. Check it out,” he said, showing a small diagram of cartoon people dropping from an airplane, each one forming a piece of the heart.
“Emma wasn’t supposed to be on this date, and if she tries to be part of the heart it’s going to be lopsided,” said Shar. True enough, the diagram consisted of just five cartoon female skydivers along with the cartoon Bellamy. It was the most sensible thing I’d ever heard her say.
“Shar is absolutely right. I guess I’d better sit this out,” I said.
“Oh,” said Bellamy. “I guess you’ll have to. Are you sure you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind at all,” I said. “In fact, maybe I could take a little walk. I’m feeling a little under the weather.”
“Sure. Yeah, go for a walk,” said Bellamy.
My head was spinning at the potential of freedom. Far, far across the way I could see a small strip mall with what looked like a sub shop, a hair salon, a nail spa, and a coffee shop. There had to be a phone there. Maybe I was going to get an opportunity to call Pete. “I’ll just be getting my nails done. Have fun, everyone,” I called waving and starting on my way.
It wasn’t that easy, of course. An assistant came dashing after me. “Emma, wait. Wouldn’t you like to jump out of the plane too?”
“Oh, hello, Irene. It’s Irene, right?” I said.
“Yes. We’ve only met five hundred times now. So would you like to jump out of the plane?”
“Actually, this is fine. Honestly, I prefer it,” I said, holding up my nails. “Have you ever seen such shabby nails? I can see why Bellamy is more smitten with some of the others than with me.”
“I don’t know that Bellamy cares so much about the details,” said Irene, steering me back towards the training building. “I think he’d prefer it if you jumped out of the plane.”
“He didn’t seem to care.”
“Don’t you care?”
“Sure I care, but I’m feeling a little queasy. Just between us girls,” I said, ignoring the cameraman, “I have cramps. It’s probably not the best day to jump out of a plane.”
“Is that your final decision?” she asked, taking her job entirely too seriously.
“Yes.”
“Okay then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you that jumping out of the plane was in your best interest.”
“I will never say that.”
“Charlie, you can go back with the group,” Irene said to the cameraman. “I’ll stay with Emma.”
“You don’t have to,” I said.
