Chapter 8

Carlie’s turn:

One of the techniques I learned in Grandma’s kitchen was the art of simmering. It’s a technique to turn a hearty selection of ingredients into a truly memorable dish.

We’re on simmer.

My smiles are deeper, unrestrained. I said I love him. He says he loves me. It’s like my heart is free now.

We share the sofa now, me lounging inside his arm, leaning against him for a while every evening after we shower.

There’s a kiss before bed.

There’s me watching him go to his bedroom while I go to mine, and the little girl inside screaming to follow him and find out for sure about all the things I’ve heard and read and seen about sex.

Didn’t, though. Did some vigorous diddling of the little ol’ button. Man, it goes fast if you put the right face to the fantasy.

Thursday after school I jumped into the car, hustled home, dropped off Jess, then caught Bob standing in the carport with two bags, mine and his.

Destination? Southwest of Houston to look at a nasty ol’ yellow airplane.

And I was going to be sleeping in the same room as he was.

“You’re in a good mood, Carlie,” he said.

“Always in a good mood around you, Bob. Ever since I found out you weren’t gonna rape me and leave my dismembered body in the woods somewhere.”

“Never once did I consider disposing of your dismembered body,” he laughed. “I was gonna keep it in the freezer, under last year’s shrimp.”

“But I was gonna get raped first, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely candidate for a good raping.”

“You’d’a had to do it the first week, you know...”

“First week?”

“Yeah, after that first week, I was starting to reconsider whether it would’ve been rape.”

“There’s always statutory. Tender teen led astray by charming older man...”

“Even if the old man has only the noblest of intentions...”

“Even if the teen’s emancipated.”

I smiled, loving the game. “And has a birthday coming up...”

“Yes. I have it circled on the calendar. Half a Piper Cub for a birthday present?”

“That’d work. What else would you give me?”

“I dunno. Half an airplane’s pretty significant.”

“I want more.”

“Jewelry?”

“I’m not a ‘jewelry’ kind of girl,” I said. “I see women with all these rings. I think ‘nahhhhh’.”

“What about when you’re married?”

“I think when that happens my mate will know what I want...”

“A rock that looks like a refugee from the ice-maker?”

“Yeahhhhh, uh, no.”

“Wedding in the big church downtown, half a dozen bridesmaids in matching purple taffeta, a train bigger’n my shrimp trawl.”

“I dunno. I haven’t seen your shrimp trawl.”

“When did you decide to be evil?”

“Sir,” I said with a stilted tone. We ARE playing a game, after all. “When I decide to be evil, you will be the very first to find out.”

I watched his eyes change. Little crinkles in the corners. Little smile, like he was thinking.

“Evil Carlie. Now that’s a thought.”

“I could be, you know. I know girls at school who use guys all the time...”

“And vice versa,” he said. “Stories as old as time.”

“There’s evil and there’s EVIL, too.”

“Oh, really? How evil would the evil Carlie be?”

“Moderate levels of evil. NO dismemberment. No poisonings. No property crimes.”

He smiled again. “Sounds more like fun than it does evil.”

Laughter and lightness between us made the miles fly by. I actually hardly remember bypassing the middle of Houston, taking toll roads to stay out of traffic, and then the scenery changed from strip malls, subdivisions and apartment megaplexes to farmland.

The voice of the GPS turned us this way and that, finally coming to a sign denoting a little remote county airfield.

“He said he’d be in a blue pickup truck by the T-hangars,” Bob said.

There’s the blue pickup truck. When we pulled up, an older guy got out, introduced himself as Tom Henschel.

Bob introduced himself and me.

The doors to the T-hangar behind us were open, displaying the Cub we’d seen on the Internet.

“There she is. Hate to sell ‘er, but...” he touched his glasses. “Eyesight’s going fast.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Mister Tom,” I blurted.

“Is what it is, young lady,” he said. “Had a good run. Let’s wheel ‘er out in the sun...”

That’s an easy task.

He showed us logbooks. “Had ‘er annualed a month ago,” he said. “Engine’s got good compression. Couple hundred hours since a major overhaul. Airframe’s tip-top. Fabric’s five years old. You’re getting a gem.”

“Looks like it.”

“You ever prop a plane?” he asked Bob.

“A time or two.”

“Well, if you’ll do the honors. Can I give the young lady the first ride?”

I squealed. Started to get in the rearmost of the two seats.

“Uh, no, ma’am,” he said. “Passenger rides in front.”

I buckled in. Actually, Mister Tom showed me how the harness worked, so I got buckled in.

I never thought about starting an airplane that way, the pilot in the pilot’s seat, manipulating mixture and throttle and magnetos, some guy standing in front, flipping the propeller over with his hands, but Bob and Mister Tom acted like it was normal. Couple of tries, the eighty-five horsepower engine was running.

Okay, it should’ve been Bob, because this is one of those ‘first times’ in my life, but Mister Tom handled the Cub with easy familiarity, got us off the ground, made a couple of wide circles around the area, then returned me.

I was smiling when I got out. This is gonna be MINE.

When we got back to the hangar, the other thing that’s gonna be mine was standing by our SUV, waiting.

I almost leapt out of the cockpit, ran to him, kissed him. “I love it!”

Mister Tom was grinning. “She’s happy. Bob, you’ve got your license. You get in the back seat.”

My turn to wait. Oh, it was almost the stuff of poetry, the yellow-winged little plane against the blue sky punctuated with a few clouds.

After a bit they came back to the airfield, but didn’t come right back to the hangar. Instead, they spent some time practicing take-offs and landings. Bob says he’s rusty. I read that the Cub is just the right plane to scrape rust off with.

I looked into licensing, too. I’m old enough – sixteen at the moment – to get a student license, and at seventeen I can get any of several licenses. Some are more restrictive than others. Sport and recreational licenses restrict what I can fly and when.

I know. Basic Cub, right? NO electrical system, so no lights, so no night flight, and a handheld radio and being glacier slow, we won’t be going into busy airports, but I’ll have the license so that if this flying thing develops further, I’ll be ready.

‘Gotta get a physical’, I made a note to myself.

Lots of notes to myself, lately.

Finally I heard them land and the sound wasn’t followed by the crescendo of another takeoff. The little plane came taxiing up doing lazy S-curves, came to a stop in front of the hangar.

Bob pulled his billfold, took out a check, filled it in.

“Here you go, Tom. Five thousand. That’s a ten percent deposit. I’ll have a bank transfer the rest when we get back.”

“That’ll work,” Mister Tom said. “And she’s good in this hangar until the end of the month, so...”

“If the weather’s good next weekend...”

“Any time,” Mister Tom said. “Just give me a call...”

We parted ways with Mister Tom.

“Well, since you gave ‘im a check, I don’t need to ask how it went.”

“Seriously. Next weekend...”

“What if I can’t wait that long?”

“Patience is a virtue,” he countered.

I thinking, ‘Bob, you have no idea how much patience I’m generating.’

“How’re we gonna do that? Get it back?”

“Thought we could drive over here together, and I could fly ‘er home and you could drive back.”

“Hate it,” I said.

“Why?”

“Never drove in Houston, Bob.”

“Oh.”

“Besides. It’s OUR airplane. We should fly ‘er home together.” Yes, I dump ‘we’ and ‘us’ on him a lot. He needs to get that imbedded in his mind.

“I guess we could drag Art and Bekka in on this. Get ‘em to drive us...”

“Maybe drive over to Houston, have a special evening, us and them, and then do the trip back the next day.”

“Well, it’s not like they don’t know about us spending nights together in a hotel room,” Bob said.

Yes, they knew. Pretty basic detective work, really. Car’s gone, with both of us, for the weekend. Mizz Bekka asks me in private conversation.

“One hotel room. Two beds, Mizz Bekka. We’re not sleeping together.” I didn’t add the ‘yet’ that formed in my mind.

“Bob’s a good guy,” she said. “I thought that you’d be more temptation than he can stand.”

“Never laid a finger on me, past holding hands in the museums or whatever. I like to think we’re connected. Holding hands, that just sort of shows that we’re good friends.”

“You consider Bob your friend?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “He’s my friend. My rescuer. My benefactor. A truly great guy. The universe delivered him to me. Or vice versa.”

She smiled. “He seems to be a bit brighter – happier – with you around, Carlie. I know you’re sixteen and I know you go out, but be careful if you start getting serious about a guy. Lots of ‘em will say anything at all to get in your pants...”

I gasped a little. “Uh, yes, ma’am. Already had dealings with one that thought that paying for popcorn and a movie would gain him ... uh ... liberties. He got a sprained thumb for his miscalculations.”