Chapter 14

Haley’s turn:

Maybe I never paid attention. It’s a possibility that I’ve seen them out there and just never noticed.

What am I talking about? Geniuses. Magical creatures. People who operate outside the normally expected boundaries.

Like the pilot and co-pilot of the plane we’re flying. The pilot’s eighteen and the co-pilot’s nineteen and they’re both females and I understand that women have been freed from the old stereotypes and all that, but that’s a theoretical ‘I know’ that you put in your head and then go about your everyday life.

Until you run into it in real life and ‘real life’ is a redhead or a brunette with an astronomical IQ and a pilot’s license and she’s funny with an undercurrent of seriousness and she looks at you and says “I think YOU could do this…” where ‘this’ is be in college two years ahead of schedule.

Mom and Steve talked to me when I got back from the last trip.

“You sure they’re not blowin’ smoke up your ass?” Mister Steve asked me.

I smiled. Mister Steve’s been a GOOD stepdad. Treats Mom well. A little unpolished, as Bill says, but totally worth loving and respecting.

“Y’all have been looking at my report cards for the last four years. I have not made ONE single grade less than an ‘A’ since Bill started helping me.” I saw Mom smirk. “Even BEFORE that, Mom. That’s just lagniappe.”

“You’re smart, okay?” Mom said. “I figured you’d graduate at the top of your class now. But you’re saying that these people want you to take some tests and step you right out of high school and into college. Are you SURE they’re not running a scam?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Been there. Saw what they do with my own eyes. Besides, what could they get out of me ‘n’ Bill ‘n’ Deena? They came and took us there in a private airplane. That’s just too much to fake.”

And it’s too much to analyze, too. I’ve been on a commercial airline once, a trip to Disney World when Mom and Mister Steve were just married. He’d gotten a chunk of insurance money when they sold his mom’s house.

Deena’s been on several. We both agree that THIS is better. I don’t think Bill disagrees. We’ve talked. I think an airplane is in our future.

I find that very satisfying. Even more satisfying is that Bill got me the introduction to this rather neat little sidetrack in life, and now I get to share it with him and my closest best friend and stepdaughter, Deena.

You can bet that we have the books to study. When Cindy was explaining about weight and balance as relating to loading the plane, I already had a picture in my head of what she was explaining. Her mention of the term immediately brought up what I’d read. It’s like that. I read things, then somewhere a bit further down the road I get to play with the application.

The flight back to Alabama went faster this time. Nikki informed us that we were two thousand feet higher and fifty knots faster. The previous four-hour flight is now going to take less than three.

“Of course that’s costing a fortune in fuel,” Cindy injected into the conversation. “I love flyin’ this thing, but it’s expensive. Full load of fuel’s over four hundred bucks and we’re burning almost forty gallons an hour. At four bucks a gallon.”

“Damn!” Bill said.

“But it saves us a lot of long driving, a lot of lost days on the road, we can get our people and equipment a long way, fast… We have the business case all figured out. Songbird seldom flies empty.”

Nikki was turned sideways so she could see us. “We fudged a teeny little bit to let us be where we needed to be to fly you back with us in this thing.”

“We coulda drove,” Bill said.

“Yeah, one looong day or two days with an overnight in a hotel. Isn’t this better?” Nikki spoke.

“Yeah,” replied Bill.

“I absolutely love it,” Deena added.

“So do I, Deena,” Cindy giggled. “I still enjoy the looks when I walk into an FBO and they’re waiting for the pilot to show up.”

“Like today?”

“Well, they saw me on the last trip, but that was our little Cessna 180. This time, this big ol’ twin… Stretches their ideas of possibilities,” Cindy said. “Haley, I need to get YOU checked out. You’re littler than me, shorter, and you’ll wow ‘em for sure.”

“I’m all for that,” I said. “Like being a 4.0 in high school isn’t enough.”

Deena giggled. It sounds a little strange on the airplane’s intercom. “She’ll be a year ahead of me.”

“Everybody was ahead of me,” Cindy said. “I was fourteen when I married Dan. He introduced me to flying. I could FLY, I just couldn’t get a license, so I always had to fly with a licensed pilot.”

“Really?” Bill questioned.

“Yep! When I finally got my student license and started logging time and getting signed off, I had half a dozen aircraft I could fly.”

Nikki laughed. “Thing is, she’s the best flyer of the bunch. Pay a little attention and you’ll hear stories about ‘er.”

“Spill it,” Deena said. “What kind of stories?”

“Can I?” Nikki asked Cindy.

Cindy sighed. “People, I’m NOT all that… I was just in the wrong place at the right time and I did what I could…”

“A guy gave ‘er a ride in a bizjet, hauling a bunch of lawyers to a football game. On the way back, he had a heart attack. Cindy had to land the plane. She’d only had the one ride…”

“Wow!” Bill blurted. “Seriously?”

“Was on the news,” Nikki continued, “including the part where there wasn’t a big hole in the ground at the Birmingham airport. And that big yellow and blue plane at our airfield?”

“Yeah,” I said, leading.

“Cindy’s checked out. Did a week as an ag pilot, helping Wally out when his other pilot broke his foot.”

“Double wow,” Bill said. “That’s some flying, there.”

“Oh,” Nikki squealed, obviously getting into the conversation. “Oh! And ask Jason – he’s Susan’s husband – about being Cindy’s co-pilot when this thing lost an engine on takeoff…”

“This thing lost an engine?”

“Happens,” Cindy said. “Runs like a top, usually. Except that one time. Had a partial loss. Turbo controller quit.”

“And you handled that?”

“We’re flying it right now, ain’t we?” she said as she turned, grinning.

“Yeah, that means something,” Deena said.

“It’s all just stuff you learn,” Cindy said. “You have the ability, both of you. If you want to learn, you’ll learn. Maybe not flying, but whatever…”

I know she read the look on my face.

“Don’t get caught up in the enormity of what’s ahead. Nobody’s pushing but you. You decide how much, how fast.”

“Yeah,” Deena said. “You know how many people just WISH they’d be doing what we’re gonna do?”

“I know,” I admitted. “Bill, I’ll be okay.”

He squeezed my hand. “I know you will. You and me, we climb mountains together.”

We landed in Alabama. This time I paid just a little more attention to that big yellow and blue airplane. It was pulled off the side of the runway, a tanker truck full of chemicals being pumped into it. The pilot was hitting a bottle of soft drink while they loaded him. It’s a BIG plane and I’m thinking about Cindy, who’s MY size.

‘Okay,’ I tell myself, ‘I can do ALL this.’

After we landed, the dinner was a buffet and the socializing was a blur. At the end of it, though, Bill and I were in the guest room at Dan and Cindy’s while Deena was dragged off to stay with Terri.

Our shower was suitably comforting before bed. Once in bed, Bill went straight to the point. “Punkin, you’ve been subdued all day. What’s up?”

“I haven’t been…” I countered with a whine.

“Oh, you know you have. Me and you. Partners. Tell me.”

I sighed. “It’s just so much, babe. I don’t know if I’m all this…”

“What do you mean?”

“Like Cindy. A freakin’ PhD and a pilot with hundreds of hours. And teaching at the university… I’m not all that…”

“First, I’ve talked to Dan Richards a lot. Some of it was about Cindy. She wasn’t ANY of that when they met, just a C-average middle school girl. I remember another middle school girl who wanted a little help. Second, right NOW you’re a high school student with a clean 4.0 average. The only difference is that she found her path out earlier than you did. But if you’re scared…”

I looked into his eyes. He’s concerned. It’s genuine.

“I don’t want to disappoint you, Bill.”

“Sweetness,” he said, kissing my forehead lightly. “That’s not going to happen. You could be right in the middle of the thundering herd in high school straining for a C in math and banging your head over metaphors in English and I would not be disappointed. And if you want to back off, we’ll do that.”

“I really don’t, I guess. Just that sometimes all this catches up with me. Plus… period should start in a day or two, so maybe I’m a little bit on edge.”

He cuddled me. For years now, that’s been therapeutic – a good cuddle. I feel safe. Protected. Accepted. Wanted. “Just take a mental step back and look at things. You know about making rash decisions.”

“I know. And I really WANT this…” There I was, still in cuddle mode, feeling loved and… One hand. “I really want THIS, too, you know…”

Fitful dreams about papers with sentences in foreign languages. Awakened by a soft knock on the door. Cindy’s voice, announcing breakfast.