Chapter 29

Kim and I had lunch at our semi-private table. I was meeting Susan that evening and I wanted to make sure she saw me with Kim at lunch. Everyone knew but I just felt better about it.

“Spring Break is coming up. Are you doing anything special?” I asked.

“No. A couple of friends are going down to Fort Lauderdale but I think that’s stupid.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s probably great if you’re a guy and wet T shirt contests are your thing. If I want to hang around with a bunch of drunk people, I’ll...”

“You’ll what?”

“I don’t know. How crazy is that? I just realized that none of my friends drink or get stoned. None of them! At least not that I know of.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Yeah. But I don’t even know anyone that does. Not personally. I know of people who do.”

“Mom and Veronica came home pretty wasted one night.”

“You told me about that. Golden opportunity lost.”

“What’s that?”

“You could have told Veronica that you fucked her but she was a lousy lay.”

“Ouch.”

“Too much? I should probably go easy on her. She’s your mom’s friend and if I was her, divorced and single and probably lonely, I’d want you.”

“You’re not divorced and single and lonely...”

“And I still want you. Okay, I’ll ease up.”

“Yeah. Definitely. Tell her you’d bury her in only three holes instead of six or whatever.”

“That’s what I’ll do, then,” she said and we both laughed.

“Kim, I like that.” We both shut up and she looked at me and knew. She knew that by saying that to Veronica, it was more important that I knew she’d said it. It was important that I knew just how serious she was. Cutting someone up into six pieces was pretty serious. Here’s the crazy thing, I wasn’t sure if she meant it or not.

“Yeah, well when you confronted the boy who shall not be named, I was pretty proud of you. Plus, I knew that if you would do that for one of my friends, you would do that and more for me.”

“I’d probably be in jail if he’d tried that with you.”

“I’d visit every day.”

Everything seemed back to normal on Thursday. Kim managed not to float around school with a just fucked look on her face. Lunch was lasagna and I managed to nab a second helping. Kim was really attentive and life was good. Right up until she pulled a banana out of her lunch sack. She turned her back to the rest of the cafeteria and where we sat made that possible. Then she peeled the banana and tried to swallow the entire thing whole. Fortunately for both of us, she only got a couple of inches in before her gag reflex kicked in and she had to pull it out.

“And I’m the doofus.”

“You ate me at lunch one day only it was a peach or something.”

“Nectarine. It was really tasty, and wet. I liked it and would do it again. I’d do it now. I’d skip history class and take you out to your truck, drop your pants and panties and make you scream for mercy. I’d...”

“Please, stop.”

“You’re the one with the banana.”

“True. I guess I started it. What are we doing this weekend?”

“I’d like to go fishing.”

“You just want to get in my panties.”

“It’s true. It is my absolute favorite place to be.”

“Will we ever get tired of doing that?”

“No. Never. Zero chance of that. None.”

“I agree. Mom and Dad...”

“Shh. I really don’t want to hear.” She laughed.

“I bet we could learn some stuff.”

“I think I’d rather learn on our own. Sunday morning at IHOP, by the way. Nine AM.”

“Sex lessons?” I nodded. “I’ll bring a notepad.” I looked around the cafeteria and tried to imagine any other couples having a conversation like that. I saw a two or three that might. Wait. If I could imagine them having that conversation, could they imagine us? Didn’t matter. It would just be their imagination.

We were back to push that afternoon and all three of us bumped up our dumbbell bench press. That was one of the nice things about working out with three people is that you could have two spotters, one for each dumbbell. We could go a little heavier because of that. Kim drove home alone so I could eat dinner and knock out homework before my tutoring session.

Susan lived two streets over so I walked. I’d brought my book but didn’t think I’d need it. I knocked and Susan answered with a nice smile and invited me in. Her mom said hi and left us to it. We took seats at the kitchen table and she showed me her last couple of homework assignments and tests. That’s all it took. I knew right where to start. I backed her up a little, explained a principle and gave her a couple of problems. She got most of it right. We tried again and she nailed it. We moved on to the next one. We stayed at it for a full hour and made great progress. She just needed a little help to see relationships between formulas.

When we finished, she walked me to the door.

“I knew you could help me,” she said. “I knew it. Thanks so much.”

“Susan, can I ask how you picked me? There were other names on the list.”

“Kim said. When your name came up, I asked Kim and she said you’d do great.”

“My Kim? She said that?”

“Sure. We have second period together. Didn’t she tell you?”

“Must have slipped her mind. If you want, I can come back next week. But if you feel like you’ve got it, just say so.”

“Okay. I know I said thanks a couple of weeks ago but I really meant it.”

“No one knows you were the other person.”

“Almost no one. I like it that way.”

“I don’t blame you. I can’t imagine. See you next week,” I said and left.

It took me about ten minutes to walk home and my mind raced a lot faster than I walked. Kim knew the whole time. Son of a gun! Susan seemed nice, and shy and in need of a little help with trig. Besides, Kim said I would be able to help her. When I got home, I told Mom and she just smiled. I asked her what I should do.

“Nothing. Teach her again next week. Is Susan cute?” I nodded. “Is she dating anyone right now?”

“She is cute. She has a lot in common with Sally, at least physically. I don’t know if she’s dating anyone. I think after Dillon she might have taken a break.”

“She trusts you, Buddy. She trusts you. Don’t betray that.”

“Yeah. I think that much is clear. That’s it then”

“Yeah. You’ll probably tease her about it tomorrow and she’ll grin when you do. You’ve got a keeper, Aquaman. She’s special. And the best part ... she thinks the same about you. Save your pennies. Save your pennies.”

Yup. She knew the whole time.

Friday at lunch, Kim and I were sitting together and I mentioned that I’d been able to help Susan with her trig and thought I might do okay with the other two. She took another bite of her sandwich. She wasn’t going to say anything.

“But you knew that.”

“Of course. How much time have we spent together? I’d be a pretty dense girlfriend if I didn’t know what you could do.”

“Thanks, Baby.” She grinned and took another bite. I would save my pennies.

That afternoon, I was walking out to the gym and heard Kim and Mom talking. They hadn’t seen me yet and they were talking about me. I took a bit of a detour to stay out of site.

“Of course, he does, Kim. Who is his best friend, besides you? It’s Franklin, and probably Karen. They’re ten years older. Almost ten. It’s strange for him to have a friend that’s just as smart as he is. His father didn’t suffer fools lightly and Jack got that from him. He might not have gotten much from Ronnie but Ronnie tried to surround himself with people smarter than he was. It didn’t work because he was so damned smart but that didn’t keep him from trying. Sally was smart, and she was creative. Those are big for him. And now you’re smart and you’re Frontier Woman. He learned from Sally. He’s learning from you. It’s what he does. Birch, too. He looks for people that are smarter than him or know things he doesn’t.”

Kim said something but I couldn’t hear it. I didn’t really want to eavesdrop but I couldn’t help it. It was fascinating and I was sucked in.

“No. Not at all. He loves with all his heart. I know that. He’s devoted to you. But the fact that you’re every bit as smart as him is a huge plus. You’re beautiful and that’s a nice plus for him but that’s what it is, a plus.”

I was just getting one side of the conversation.

“No. Trust me. Boobs are nice. He’s a boy. He loves boobs. But it’s not a deal breaker. Look at Sally. Sally was a real sweetheart but he was not attracted to her because of her boobs. But if he ever sees yours, he will love them. You’re beautiful Kim. He likes that about you. It’s why he was interested when Karen said you should do a pageant. But you’ve already won one with him. I almost died when I found him asleep with his hand on your boob. Don’t let him do that again.”

Kim said something else and they both laughed.

“You saw Veronica. Guys drool over her. She’s got curves in all the right places. I don’t care how old she is, when she came on to my little guy, you had to know he was in agony. No. She looks best in a bikini. She doesn’t look forty. I think she’s past that though. She better be. I’ve known her for twenty years and you scared the crap out of her. She needed it though. What was she thinking?”

And then I did hear Kim. “She was thinking she wanted to get laid and Aquaman was a good candidate to scratch her itch. Pissed me off. She knew he had a girlfriend. Sorry, but that’s huge with me. You don’t try to horn in on someone else’s boyfriend, or girlfriend.”

“You would have made her pay, wouldn’t you? I mean, really. Not just rhetoric.”

“I’m not sure what I would have done, to be honest.”

And then Mom said something I couldn’t hear.

“No. A little. Look at her. He’s fifteen and he’s got all the hormones going on and someone like that basically says, ‘here I am. Fuck me now.’ Sorry. I’m really proud of him. She had to have been tempting.”

“Well, I’m glad that didn’t happen. I’m pretty sure she would have used him up. I’ll bet he was tempted though. Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?” Mom said, quoting a line from The Graduate.

Kim said something else. I was starting to feel more than a little guilty but I was totally sucked in.

“Yes. Exactly. And when he found out that you were a good teacher, and that you had things to teach him ... how did that go over?”

“No. It didn’t make him love you any more or less. More like it was an added bonus attraction. Does he ask you a lot of questions? Oh, here’s a better one. Has he invited you to help with his research on anything?”

Again, Kim was talking but not loud enough to hear. At least I wasn’t eavesdropping on Kim, I thought. That’s BS, though.

“See? That’s a big deal to him. If you two can learn things together, he’s sharing a central part of who he is. But you don’t need to worry about it because I think it’s pretty central to who you are, too?”

“Hi ladies,” I said. I couldn’t wait any more. “Ready to work? What are you talking about?”

“You,” Kim said. “You and your insatiable appetite to learn new things. And we might have mentioned Susan.”

They seemed pretty open about what they’d been talking about and I felt like a shit. I probably could have been standing right there and they wouldn’t have cared. Okay, if they wouldn’t have cared, maybe I shouldn’t feel like a shit. Nope. I was a sneaky shit. I wouldn’t do that again.

We had a great workout and I knew what both Mom and Kim thought about me in a whole different way. Stuff I hadn’t thought about before. But it was true. I didn’t have a lot of male friends and the reason was probably just what Mom had said. I read Harpo and Phillips the riot act for not applying themselves and when they decided to, I liked them both a lot more. It’s what I liked about Birch and Claire and even Pendleton. And even though I didn’t know him very well, I did know that I liked Vince Delinger. Plus, Dane was an achiever. Obviously. So, I liked him.

I threw my bike in the back and rode with Kim back to her house. There was a message on the machine saying they’d be home before six and were picking up Chinese so she didn’t need to cook. We both looked at the clock. We had less than an hour.

We hugged and kissed for a while.

“I’m pretty much all-in, you know,” I said.

“I was beginning to think so. I’m pretty much all-in, too.”

“I like to please you.”

“You do please me. Very much.”

“I’d like to please you right now. We were kind of rough the other day. I’m glad you liked that, and especially that I didn’t hurt you. I want to please you now, though. Different.”

“You see the clock,” she said, letting me know we didn’t have a lot of time.

“I see the clock. I want to. I want to taste you. I want to smell your desire.”

“Okay. Okay. I’d hate to deny you,” she said, dragging me back to her room.

With an eye on the clock, I kissed her, then slid my hand down her pants. I felt that she was beginning to get wet. When I heard her shoes hit the floor, I pulled her pants down and her panties went with them. I slid down between her legs in inhaled deeply.

“I am addicted. You have no idea how much I love this. I love how you look, and especially since you trimmed for summer. So sexy. Your bouquet, that’s what it is, you know. Your bouquet makes my heart race.”

“Shh. Stop talking. I’m already ready.”

I went down on Kim in the most tender way I knew how. I wasn’t looking for numbers. Just one, very nice orgasm for her to start the weekend. I tried not for a gasp or a scream but a sigh. When she came, she did it almost quietly but there was still no doubt she’d had an orgasm. Her legs didn’t shake and she didn’t scream my name or buck hard, but I knew. She pulled me up to her and we held each other. We kissed for a few minutes and when we broke, she looked at me, studying me.

“I don’t think I ever would have tasted myself. Why would I? But when I taste me on your mouth, it’s pretty nice. It just shows me how much you love me and that you would do that at all, and especially when you’re not getting anything back. You’re a sweetheart and that felt really nice. You wanted to do me tender and that qualified. Really nice. I liked the other day but sometimes I need tender like that.”

“Good, Baby. That was different, the way I hoped for. It’s almost six.”

“Yeah. I better get cleaned up and you need to go. Call me when you and Franklin get done doing whatever you do. Sometime this weekend, I’m going to pay you back. Poor baby.”

“I’ll live. I love to do that, you know. You’re so tender and vulnerable and I can feel and hear you respond to everything I do. That’s pretty motivating.”

“Shh, or I’ll make you do it again and we’ll get caught. Go. I will really get you good this weekend because that was very nice.” She always said that. It was always really nice. It cracked me up that she’d had orgasms numbered in the dozens.

I made the ride home with a smile on my face. Somewhere, in the back of my brain, a little thought crept in that said, the better I treated Kim, the less likely she would be to look elsewhere. I don’t know where it came from but there were two problems with it. First was that Kim was as loyal as I was and I knew she wasn’t looking. And the second was that I didn’t know how to treat her any better than I already was. Don’t stop, I thought. Simple.

I got home, went to my room and washed up and gargled. I loved Kim’s taste and smell but I didn’t think Mom would. Certainly not on my breath. “Hi, honey. Glad you’re home. Smells like you’ve been eating Kim again. Good for you. Ready for dinner?” No. I didn’t think so.

Mom apologized for serving up leftover spaghetti but I didn’t mind. She said Franklin would pick me up at eight and I was supposed to bring binoculars. That, she said, was all she knew. It was still light out after dinner and I did a few chores then went to the library to start Hondo. I had thought Louis L’Amour would be a lot like Zane Grey but they were totally different.

The next morning, Mom was already up and dressed by the time Franklin got there at eight. I asked but she wouldn’t say what she was planning. I got in the car and Franklin took off. By then, I knew better than to ask where we were going or what we were going to do. From the very beginning, I had a hunch that whatever Franklin had in mind for the day was different. I wasn’t sure how, but I knew.

I shared a little of what had happened, including my desire to earn the money to purchase an engagement ring with my own money. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him more proud of me than for that. It was the right decision. I knew it was. He said it was and he agreed with my argument with mom. After four hundred hours of work, I’d have plenty of time to reflect on it and make certain it was the right decision.

We got off the I26 at Aviation and turned toward the airport. Now I knew this was something different. My curiosity was pretty high. I didn’t know what was out that way except the air force base and the airport terminal. I asked him three or four times what we were going to do but he just sat there with a silly grin on his face. And then he turned down a road that ran parallel to the runway. I watched a big Air Force cargo plane take off to parts unknown. We pulled into a small parking lot with a hanger and what looked like an office in front.

“Okay, Franklin. What are we doing today? I am not jumping out of an airplane. Simply not going to happen.” I was done waiting to find out what he had in mind.

“No. I know you wouldn’t. Sally probably would have, though.”

“Yeah, she is that kind of crazy.”

“You’re not going to jump out of one. You’re going to fly one.”

“Right. You’re nuts.”

“Nope.”

Clearly, he was insane. I’d driven a Bobcat and an excavator, then go carts and a golf cart. Franklin didn’t know how to fly and I certainly didn’t. Franklin was nuts. There was no other explanation. We went inside and met Dink Fletcher. What was it with crazy nicknames? I had to ask and he told me it wasn’t a nickname. On his birth certificate, he proudly said. Still, a crazy name. We went into an office and grabbed a couple of headsets. By this time, I’d figured that Franklin might not be crazy. Dink didn’t think he was. Still...

We went outside and Dink talked about a couple of different planes and we ended up in front of a Cessna 172. A lot of this didn’t register with me because I couldn’t believe where we were or what we were doing. I actually pinched myself because that’s how you can know you’re not in a dream. He said it was a popular plane because it was easy to fly, reliable, could seat four and the wings were above the cockpit which made it perfect for sightseeing. I was still in a state of disbelief. I asked a lot of questions but was only half paying attention to the answers. I guess I was stalling for time to figure out what we were really doing.

“We’re going flying, that’s what,” Dink said. “Franklin called up a week ago and booked an orientation flight for two. He said you might want to learn to fly. That sound right to you?”

“Franklin,” I said. “So, the three of us are going to fly around for a while?”

“Orientation to the aircraft, flying and a bit of the local scenery. We’re going to slip the surly bonds of earth,” Dink said. “This is a surprise, isn’t it?” He asked.

Franklin had a shit-eating grin on his face and I guessed he was pretty happy with himself and my surprise. I asked, and Dink walked us around the aircraft one more time and I paid a lot more attention.

“Alright. What the hell. I’m game.”

“Good. I’ll be in the back since you and Dink will be doing the flying,” Franklin said.

“I’ll be flying?” I asked. Maybe I still didn’t have a grip on what we were doing.

“That’s what you want, right?”

I just wanted to live through the morning and I didn’t have a great feeling about the whole thing. What the hell. Franklin was going to be in the airplane too, so I guessed he wasn’t sending me to a certain death. “Definitely. Let’s slip some surly bonds,” I said, guessing that was poetic for flying.

We were about to get in when I spotted Mom’s sedan in the parking lot. She wasn’t in it, so I followed the fence line and there she was, together with Kim and her parents. That’s what she was doing up so early. They had smiles as big as Franklin. Apparently, I was the last to know what the plan was.

As Franklin climbed in, I got a good look at the interior. “Seats four, right?”

“Seats four. Cozy, but yes. Not a lot of room for luggage but pretty good for sightseeing.”

“Can Kim come with us?” I asked.

“We’re ready to go. Is that her, the young girl? The tall one?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And are those her parents with her?”

“Yes.”

“Alright,” he said, somewhat reluctantly. “Go see if she wants to come and if she does, have her parents go inside, see Eddie and sign a waiver and we’ll add her to the manifest. Girlfriend?”

“More,” I said over my shoulder as I ran to get her.

“Don’t waste time,” he hollered at me and I picked up the pace a bit.

Five minutes later, we were ready to go. Dink was in the front left and I was beside him. Kim was behind Dink so Kim and I could see each other and Franklin was behind me. I figured that as tall as we both were, he’d probably have his knees crunched up. We put our headsets on and tested them and Dink told us about limiting our talking during takeoff and landing. Take my cues from Dink, I thought, and tried to imitate how he adjusted his headset and mouthpiece. He had a buttload of gauges in front of him, plus the steering wheel thing in front of him. And then I realized, so did I. I had all the same stuff in front of me. For some weird reason, I remember pushing the accelerator on the golf cart and shooting backwards. Not a particularly great memory considering what we were going to do. I looked in the back again and Kim was happy and smiling, excited for the opportunity. I was trying to be but the whole thing was unnerving.

Dink turned on the radio and asked tower permission to do everything from engine start to taxiing. It sounded like a party line. So many people were talking on the radio, one after the other, that I couldn’t follow any of it. Dink could. Dink was not a confidence inspiring name. Dink. We taxied along at probably thirty miles per hour from this taxiway to the next until we were number one for takeoff on three-three, whatever that meant. There weren’t thirty-two other runways. None of this was in the encyclopedia and I didn’t know anyone who had gone flying except as a passenger. My head was on a swivel trying to take it all in. Dink wasn’t flying. Not yet. He was driving a plane. I had never even thought about this part of it before.

A commercial aircraft landed and we were told to ‘taxi into position and hold’ so we did. The runway looked like a four-lane highway with no traffic, just for us. It stretched out as far as I could see. I looked back over my shoulder at Kim and she had a goofy smile. She reached over and put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. This was so cool, sort of. I didn’t think I had a goofy smile.

Dink said we were waiting for separation because big aircraft cause wake turbulence. That sounded like it might be a bad thing. I was in no hurry. Actually, I was pretty anxious. It was exciting. I’d finally figured out that we were November five nine six something, something papa. It’s nice to know who you are.

Finally, I heard over the radio, “November five nine six something something papa, you’re cleared for takeoff.” We were supposed to maintain heading until something else happened but it was like a foreign language and I wasn’t sure what.

We were cleared for takeoff. Dink released the brakes and we started rolling and he explained everything he was doing as he did it. I tried to keep up but I had to decide if I wanted to watch what was going on inside the plane or watch us speed down the runway. We built up speed slowly and when the airspeed gauge read sixty, he pointed to it then pulled back on the yoke and the front wheel came off the ground. I watched what was going on outside. I’d been in a car going faster than that on the freeway but we never got our front wheel off the ground. Very cool. Somewhat unnerving. I couldn’t decide which was winning, unnerving or cool. I wanted cool to win but it was a toss-up.

We hit about seventy-five or so and were airborne. One minute we were driving and the next minute we were flying. I don’t think the airplane cared. I did. We were climbing and it was suddenly very smooth. I realized Dink was talking to me and not the controller or tower or whoever else he’d been talking to.

He told me about different gauges and pointed to each one as he described what it did. Now that we were airborne, they were suddenly a lot more important to me. The altimeter was pretty easy to understand. It told us how high we were. The airspeed indicator and vertical speed indicator were pretty easy too. The artificial horizon seemed pretty easy too, and he banked the plane left and right so I could see what it did to the gauge. He said that if we’d been flying in the clouds, we’d need that artificial horizon. I tried to pretend banking didn’t bother me but it did. Whenever we banked, it seemed like we should start falling. Of course, we didn’t but it made me uneasy. It didn’t seem to bother anyone else.

He showed me the controls on the yoke and then how the pedals worked the rudder. The yoke was the steering wheel thingy. The whole thing actually seemed pretty easy. Easier than an excavator and that was pretty surprising. There were a lot more gauges but fewer things to control and it seemed more intuitive, like a car but in three dimensions instead of two. I could deal with this. We climbed up to two thousand feet and turned to a heading of two seven five. That’s what the gauge said and I was assured I had to trust my gauges. I was getting into it but I was still a little uneasy. The combination of seeing so many things I was unfamiliar with both inside the cockpit and seeing the Lowcountry from a bird’s eye view, was almost overwhelming. I know my eyes must have been flitting from the instrument panel and back outside at the speed of light. Mom said I liked to learn but this was almost too much. Almost. This was fun. I had decided cool would beat unnerving.

“That’s the Ashley River coming up. We’re going to fly over it and then follow it northwest for a bit. We’ll turn in just a second and if you look out the right window, you’ll be able to see Magnolia Plantation. If you know it, look for the impoundment and you can follow the trail visually back to the house. Kim, after the turn, I’ll bank left for a moment so you can see it too. You doing okay, Jack?” I nodded, then said I was over the radio. I think my voice squeaked for the first time in a year.

He did what he said and I could definitely see Magnolia Plantation and then Middleton Place and we could see the gardens at the riverfront. After banking left so Kim could see, he said, “Hands on the yoke, young man.” I did. “Right and left are just like a car, or, I guess, golf cart. Push forward to make the houses bigger and pull back to make them smaller. If I tell you to, let go and I’ll take it back. Questions?”

“You’re letting me fly?”

“That’s the plan. It’s not that hard and I’ll talk you through it. Easy.” I put my hands on the yoke but I didn’t move anything. “Alright, I’d like you to turn right. Let’s make this a nice easy turn of twenty degrees,” he said. “Turn right, just like you were driving a car and line this up at twenty,” he said pointing at the artificial horizon. I looked at him to make sure he wasn’t kidding. “Anytime you’re ready, young man. Just start the turn and hold it at twenty.”

I did. I started to turn right and he talked me through it until we were pointed east. I think I had a death grip on the yoke as though if I let go, we’d fall out of the sky. Half way through the turn, I said, “We don’t have parachutes.”

“You didn’t plan on leaving us, did you?”

“No, sir. I just don’t want to screw up.”

“I’m not leaving a perfectly good airplane. Why don’t you see if you can put us on a heading of one zero five,” he said, pointing to it on the compass.

I got it close and then tweaked it to get it heading right. It wasn’t that hard. When we were pointed at one zero five, I looked out to get my bearings. We were headed toward Deewees Island, just north of Isle of Palms and suddenly I knew exactly where we were. I could see the entire peninsula to the right, Daniel Island was in front of us with Deewees beyond that. My stomach felt a little better, I decided we weren’t going to fall out of the sky and I started looking for things I knew. I tried to spot our house but couldn’t. But then I found the Wappoo Cut and then Porter-Gaud. I was still looking for our house when I heard Dink on the radio again.

“See that tower off the nose? That’s two thousand feet tall. Let’s change course a bit. Aim just to the left of it. It’s just off seventeen near Bulls Bay, if you know where that is. We’ll go out over the water and then come back with the shore on our right.”