Chapter 30

December 26 - 30, 1999

Flagstaff and Spearfish Lake

They had a couple days after Christmas to finalize arrangements for the upcoming trip and have a little fun. On Sunday, several of them, including Jon, Tanisha, and Myleigh headed out to the ski hill again. Scooter would have thought that Jon and Tanisha would have about had their fill with it after one day, but for some reason they decided that they liked it and wanted to get better at it. Myleigh had hung around with Crystal and her ski hill expeditions for four years at Northern Michigan University and had never gotten on a ski hill. After some difficulty, she was convinced that as a surfer it wasn't a big deal to transition and she'd get brushed up for next week, she gave a snowboard a try on the bunny hill. She was dithering, saying she was "most dreadfully concerned," but after about two runs on the bunny hill she was getting the hang of it and was on the intermediate hill before the day was out. Crystal said it didn't surprise her; Myleigh had always protested that she was not very athletic, but once she'd gotten started attempting some things like surfing toward the end of her undergraduate career, she proved very good at things that involved balance and finesse.

Jon and Tanisha had to head back to Phoenix Sunday night. On Monday Crystal, Scooter, and Myleigh drove out to the South Rim, ostensibly to help Michelle with some packing for the trip, but in fact so Myleigh could see the Grand Canyon from what the girls now admitted was a great overview, if not the intimacy of being on the water. The three spent the next couple of days just hanging around, having a good time while Crystal and Scooter got organized for their trip to the east.

By then, Scooter had changed her opinion of Myleigh to a considerable degree. She was still prissy, there was no doubt about it, but she proved that prissy could be fun, too -- she poked a lot of fun at herself in the process. Although about as different from the rough, scruffy river guides as could be imagined, it didn't make her any less memorable.

In the middle of the week Michelle dropped by the girl's house with her mother's dark blue Plymouth Voyager minivan; somehow it made her seem grown-up to be driving that instead of the Mustang. More stuff that would be needed in Florida was loaded, and soon she was on the highway. It was a long haul to be driving solo, but she liked solo long drives, had a CB radio, and plenty of CDs, so no one was particularly concerned.

Early the next morning, Crystal, Scooter, Karin, Al, and Myleigh loaded into Karin's Buick and headed for Phoenix. Parking at the airport was notoriously lousy, so they'd worked out a deal to meet Jon and Tanisha at their place, and they'd take the morning off and borrow a neighbor's minivan to take the five to the airport.

But, when they got to the airport, they got a nasty bit of news: their flight to Chicago was cancelled, no reason given. The airline representative said that it would be Saturday morning at the earliest before they'd be able to honor their tickets, since things were at the height of the holiday rush. She was nice enough to offer a refund, under the circumstances. A quick check around the terminal proved her right -- that was about the soonest they were going to get out of there. The only problem was that the wedding was at midnight on Friday night, and the rehearsal dinner was that evening.

"Damn," Al said with disgust. "That screws that. And those tickets weren't cheap, either. Time to spare, go by air."

"If we drive straight through and change off driving, we can probably make the wedding," Crystal grumped after doing some mental calculations -- she'd driven the trip before -- "But there's no way we can make the rehearsal dinner or the shower, and no way we can get any time to hang out with the people there."

"Plus, it leaves a car stranded in Spearfish Lake until you kids come back through from Florida," Al pointed out.

"I am most disappointed," Myleigh said in irritation. "I had so hoped to spend some time with Jennifer. We had planned to do some discussion on a future album. If we are forced to drive, I shall have to cancel Florida, since I owe Jennifer too much to not acquiesce to her request."

"I'm certainly open to suggestions," Karin nodded.

"Hey!" Tanisha piped up. "How about if we call Jennlynn?"

"You mean have her fly us there in her Learjet?" Crystal said with a definite negative sound. "It'd get us there, but we're raft guides and a college professor, we're not made of money."

"It might not be the dumbest idea," Al conceded. "Any idea of how much she'd charge?"

"No idea," Jon said, reaching for his cell phone. "But finding out is close to free."

It turned out that Jennlynn was at the office. Jon talked back and forth with her for a couple minutes, and ended the call with an "OK, we'll see you there in half an hour."

"I take it that you worked out a deal," Crystal smiled. "How many arms and legs?"

"She said she would be happy to fly you there if you pick up the direct costs, which mostly means jet fuel. She said she's not doing anything much and would be glad of the chance to get a few hours in the air, so she won't charge us for the pilot's time. The only thing is that she has to be back late this afternoon; she's going to the Redlite, and the airstrip there isn't lighted."

"Jon," Crystal said with exasperation. "How much?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "Like I said, it depends on jet fuel, but she said it's probably less than you paid for your tickets. She's a friend; she feels she owes you one." He let out a sigh. "As you've seen, Jennlynn is a neat person, but she doesn't have a lot of friends outside Lambdatron and the Redlite, and really, not all that many there."

"Under the circumstances we can't turn her down," Al nodded. "But when this is over with I'm damned tempted to call some other charter operation and find out what they'd charge, and give her a discount on a future river trip about the size of the difference."

"No, Al," Karin protested. "If she's willing to give us her time, we need to allow her to think she's returning a favor with it."

"We're going to have to get moving if we're going to get over to her hanger," Jon pointed out. "We can argue the details later. Tani, Jennlynn says there's room for us if we want to go along for the ride, she can drop us off back here on her way to Antelope Valley."

"Sure, I won't turn down the chance," Tanisha grinned.

Twenty minutes later they were sitting in front of a small hanger on the far side of the airport when Jennlynn drove up. To everyone's surprise (except Jon and Tanisha, who already knew), Jennlynn was driving a very rusty and beat-up old Chevy Monza that left a broad trail of oil smoke behind it. It proved to be the only car she'd ever owned! "It gets me where I need to go," she shrugged as she unlocked the side door to the hanger. "I don't need something better, why waste the money? After all, it doesn't fly."

With that, she hit the button to open the main hanger door. As it opened, they could see the Learjet sitting right inside, the twin Cessna she'd flown the other day to one side and behind it.

The gleaming white Learjet was polished to within an inch of its life; it almost hurt the eyes to look at it. There have been other business jets made, some of them better, but the earlier Learjets are considered the classic sports cars of business jets, and there was never a more striking one made. It had a sharklike beauty to it that made it look like it was punching through the sound barrier even as it was sitting on the hanger floor. "Skyhook Aviation LLC" was painted in small letters on the nose.

"That may be the most beautiful airplane I've ever seen," Myleigh said in a tone of awe.

"I'm satisfied with it," Jennlynn smiled. "It's an old one, a 1967 Learjet 24A, so to some people it's an antique. Still, it's probably worth close to a million dollars on the open market. I didn't pay anything like that much for it, though. Someone made the mistake of trying to haul a load of cocaine into the country with it and thought he could outrun an F-16. I was the high bidder at the DEA auction."

"It must cost you a bit to keep it polished like that," Scooter observed.

"It's a rather expensive paste wax," Jennlynn smiled. "But that and rags are the only cost. Scooter, when I need to relax and unwind, to do something mindless, to just be alone and chill out, I come down here and work on the polish jobs on these two planes." She snickered and went on, "I mean, there are those people who smoke cigars and those who polish airplanes. Let me get the dolly and roll it outside. You don't fire this thing up in the hanger."

"I thought the twin Cessna looked pretty spiffy the first time I saw it," Al commented as she rolled a small two-wheeled electric cart over to the nosewheel and hooked it on. "But this is nicer."

"There's a story about that," she grinned as she bent over to hook the tow bar on the nosewheel. "I like to name my airplanes. My first one was Magic Carpet; the name came with the plane. So, when I bought my Mooney, it had to have a name. It was all white, like this one, so I called it Soiled Dove. After a while, I thought it was a little bit blatant, so I knew I needed to be not quite as up front with the Cessna. I was all set to name it Skyhook, but then Mike Hanneman, my chief pilot, told me, 'Over my dead body. There's only one possible name for a Cessna 310, and that's Songbird.'"

"Somebody else watched Sky King on Saturday morning when they were a kid, huh?" Al grinned. "Probably everyone else here except maybe Karin is too young to know what we're talking about."

"I'm too young, too," Jennlynn laughed as she began to guide the Learjet out of the hanger. "But Mike found a videotape of a couple episodes of the show once. I thought it was pretty cheesy, but most older pilots I know admit to that show hooking them on flying. But then I came across this thing, and I'm still grateful to Mike for not letting me waste the name Skyhook on the Cessna. I mean, I'm a little more open about my notoriety than I was when I had the Mooney."

"I'm almost afraid to ask," Crystal snickered. "But do you already have a name picked out for your next airplane?"

"Nothing for sure," Jennlynn smiled as the plane rolled outside. "But if it's another jet, it's probably going to be Hustler."

"You take some pride in your profession, don't you?" Karin smiled.

"Yes, I do," Jennlynn confirmed. "To most people that would be rather strange. But I've always taken a good deal of pride in the fact that I do it legally and honorably and safely; I know what I'm doing, and I'm not hurting anyone. It was harder to learn to take pride in what I am and what I'm doing. But you'll notice that the 'N' number on this airplane is 590SH. The letters stand for 'Sky Hooker', of course. The numbers are the month and year I turned out at the Mustang Ranch up near Reno. Let's just say that I'm satisfied with who I am, and I don't care if anyone knows it. Most people find that more unbelievable than what I do in the first place."