Chapter 25

Dana’s turn:

Cindy’s co-pilot. I could LIKE the position, but it’s purely a figurehead thing. Well, maybe not PURELY. I’m a student pilot, so time in one of the front seats is always a good thing, even though we don’t log most of this time because seriously, I should be herding a two seat Cessna around the skies, not five million dollars worth of Swiss engineering...

We’re on the way home. For exercise, I take our course and speed and Terri and Jerry’s course and speed and do a rough calculation to see when we pass ‘em, even though they have a half-hour head start.

We’re double their speed, their hundred and thirty knots, our two seventy. Neither of us is getting much help from the winds aloft. I figure thirty minutes because we both spend a bit of time climbing to altitude.

A radio call confirms that I’m close.

We’ll see ‘em in Alabama.

Terri’s turn:

Eighty-five hundred feet. Hundred and thirty knots ground speed. In MY airplane. With MY Jerry as the pilot, sitting in the left seat.

“Ours, baby,” I said.

He’s smiling. Should be. Just shy of a quarter million dollars sitting underneath us. We got every bell and whistle they had. Makes it an actually very practical little bit of transportation.

We’re clicking along nicely when we get a radio call. Dana, flying with Cindy and the gang, for a position check. They’re passing us up, way overhead at flight level two five zero. They’ll be in Auburn HOURS before us.

“Sling four seven five juliette tango, this is Pilatus zero seven tango sierra.” Cindy.

I answered, “Pilatus zero seven tango sierra this is Sling five juliette tango, over.”

“Seven tango sierra, just checking again.”

“This is Sling five juliette tango, it’s STILL all nominal, over.”

“Pilatus seven tango sierra, understood. We’re passing you now. See you in Alabama.”

“Roger. Sling five juliette tango, out.”

So now it’s just us and we’re flying along and there are puffy summer cumulus all over, but only a few of them reach our altitude.

I’m cheating a little bit on the weather. My iPad has a weather app and I’m looking at our track south. Thunderstorms are starting to build in a few areas, but not problematic yet.

“I’m watching that, baby,” Jerry says. “You can pull up the overlay on your display.”

“Neat!” I said. “Glass cockpit. Big leagues, almost like Cindy.” I’d flown right seat with Cindy on a jaunt and was astounded with the cockpit technology, then I went back to the minimal instruments of my ultralight and the slightly more capable but OLD instruments in the little Cessna trainer and the 182. This thing’s got capabilities I’m just now learning. So weather...

“We really COULD get grounded, baby. If those thunderstorms make a wall. I mean, NOBODY would fault us. They can see the same thing we’re seeing...”

“And you know what we’d face when we got home, don’t you...”

I had to smile. Everybody jokes about me and Jerry but if the truth be known, we’re not as adventurous as Derek and Rachel. Yes, I have hugged him and cuddled up and I know what that warm feeling is, how I start glowing inside in some very specific ways. I know Jerry gets affected. We kiss. We cuddle. We hug. That’s it.

Still, I have thought about it. A month. My birthday, my fourteenth birthday, is a month away.

It’s pretty much a given. Judge Charlie has the papers ready. Tina’s taken me to the doctor a month and a half ago to get me started on birth control. Yes, I’m THAT ready. And Jerry knows all this.

I can lean sideways over the console between the seats and put my head on his shoulder. He’s using his left hand for the stick, we’re on autopilot, and that frees up his right arm to put around my shoulders. i reach up with my left hand, capturing his right, hold it to me.

“I love you, you know...”

“I love you too, Terri,” he says. “Life with you is nuts, though ... Look at us.”

“I know.”

His hand is on my chest. His fingers ... just a little distance and ... Nooooo. Not fair to either of us. I pat his fingers, looking at him. He’s smiling.

“One of these days, Princess.”

“We have it circled on the calendar. EVERYBODY’s waiting.”

“Not as much as I am.”

“For ME?!?” I squeaked. It’s a game. I like it. I know that underneath it, there’re serious feelings. But since we’re sane, THOSE feelings are under control but sometimes that simple little thirteen year old girl is a BAD little girl and wants to lose control, maybe just a little bit.

But I’ve talked with Tina and everybody else. Susan and Kara, though, both of them did like I’m trying to do – waited until after the official vows.

“Not to mention that you’re a felony on legs,” Susan said. “The ONLY way you can be legal going past holding hands and smooching is for Judge Charlie to waive the age restriction and get you married. Nothing else. I dunno about you, but if it was the love of MY life, I wouldn’t risk it.”

But there on the screen, not yet in sight, there’s a cluster of thunderstorms, angry orange and yellow on the display.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I think we’re diverting to the west. There’s about thirty miles between that cluster and this other one. That’s a pretty big eye of a needle.”

Neat how a few finger flicks on the display and we throw in a new waypoint on our route. The bug on the screen that represents our progress slides right through that gap. There are others.

“Ain’t gonna be the optimum path, Doodles,” he says.

‘Doodles’ because one day I gave him a sketch of an idea in a meeting. “What’s this doodle?” he popped to a peal of giggles and snickers.

“We can still make our mid-point stop. And all this weather stuff, I’m thinking full tanks are a big plus.”

“Besides,” he laughed, “If we get grounded and get a room, your dad won’t have as far to drive to shoot me.”

“He wouldn’t do that. And if he DID show up, I’d be sitting in my room, chastely plopped on my bed, chatting with you on FaceTime.”

“Yeah, I know you would.”

“Best that we do NOT put that resolve to the test, love,” I said.

He smiled broadly. “Yeah, there’s a point...”

“Four more weeks.”

“Yeah...”

Change the subject, Terri. Quick. You’re getting itchy and you KNOW it’s because you’re alone in a space with HIM and ... Gosh, it really is a space ... cockpit almost two miles above ground and he doesn’t need the distraction and this is a brand new airplane with some fantastic technology and about the only thing that’ll take your mind off THOSE feelings is to force yourself to pay attention...

“I like how it calculates true airspeed and ground speed,” I said.

“It is neat. But I have that E6-B flight computer too, so I can do the calculations...”

“That’s pure Cindy.”

“She makes you learn. Understand. Why you do it, not just HOW you do it.” He laughed. “It’s like getting schooled by a pixie.”

“And then you marry a pTerridactyl,” I said. “Pixies. pTerridactyls. What a world you live in, sir.”

“And it keeps getting better.”

I snuggled into his shoulder a bit. I like this. “Here’s what we do.”

“What?”

“Cancel the flight plan. Turn off our cellphones. Drop out of the sky, transfer some money to an offshore bank account, then you and me head for Barbados, get a beach cabin, and cavort naked in the sun...”

“And become the subjects of an international manhunt, which means my best hope is that I’m taken into police custody before your dad finds me. That cavorting part’s rather intriguing, though...”

“Just intriguing?” I teased.

“Terri Addison, don’t go putting those thoughts in my head. You KNOW we gotta wait...”

“I know, but I also want YOU to know that those thoughts...”

“We’ve talked, baby doll. We both know about those thoughts, and right now...”

“We’d be breaking our promise to both our families...” I sighed, more for effect than anything else. “I may go crazy in four weeks...”

“You can’t do that,” he said. “Judge Charlie’s already pushing sensibilities with you being fourteen. If you’re fourteen and mentally incompetent, I think he’ll pull up short.”

“I may be crazy by then,” I said.

“You’re already crazy, Miss Almost Fourteen. You’re supposed to have a fancy bicycle and an iPhone...”

“I got both of those...”

“And a serious crush, number seventeen of the year, on some kid who wishes he was old enough to grow a beard so he could REALLY look cool...”

“Got the serious crush, but it’s the same ol’ crush I’ve been having since I reached puberty. And I don’t think I’d like you with a beard. You’re plenty scratchy if you miss a shave.”

“And this little travel contrivance...”

“It’s got MY name on it, but you know I bought it for us, even if the paperwork’s in 3S Transport’s name.”

“A mere legality. It’s OUR plane...” his finger tapped the display. “We’re past that one. Now we’re on a new track to Kentucky, but there’s this one. We oughta miss it by fifteen miles. We’ll watch.”

Giggle. “We could get twin beds...”

“Separate rooms,” he said. “And stop it...”

“You know I love you.”

“I do, indeed.”

“And I like making you laugh.”

“You always make me smile.”

I smile a lot, you know. He’s the reason for some of it. Another hour and we’re on final for our midpoint outside Cincinnati for refueling and toilet.

Two guys from the FBO have to come out and look at our shiny new plane. There aren’t a lot of ‘em around, so it attracts attention. While Jerry’s pumping gas and talking, I grab my backpack, hot-foot it into the office and hit the bathroom. When I get out, he’s walking back towards the office. I’m already at the counter with a credit card to pay for the fuel.