Chapter 52

Saturday morning. Breakfast. Phone calls. Cindy's phone jingled the tune that signaled a call from Tina.

"Hey, Sis!" Pause. Squeal! "Uh-huh! Better than new!" Pause. Giggle. "Oh, you bet! What would YOU do?" Pause. "I'm sure." Pause. "No, we're gonna go flying later. Range tomorrow with the Hardesty's after they go to church." Pause. "No, it's NOT incongruous. Don't you remember seeing those drawings of the Puritans going to church with their arquebuses? Or is it 'arquebi'?"

They continued the conversation for a few more minutes, then "Okay! Love you! Bye!" and she turned to me smiling. "Arquebuses or arquebi?"

"I never heard of 'arquebi'. And you're probably the only teen in Alabama who'd ask that question."

"I have fun with the language." She smiled, green-eyed mischief on her face. "Mizz Turbermann says she's gonna miss me when I'm gone."

"Lots of people will, little one," I said as we loaded into the truck. "I know a powerplant where ten years from now, people will look at a picture and ask who's the little redhead on the front row."

"And Mizz Sara will tell 'em, too," Cindy said.

A short while later we were pulling the plane out of the hangar on a pretty Saturday morning. Unsual for these times, there was another T-hangar open and an older guy and woman were lavishing care on an old Piper low-wing. We had to go take a look.

They were all too happy to show off the plane and talk about it. Next thing I know, I was standing on the apron in front of the hangar watching the thing taxi off with the old guy in the right seat and Cindy in the left. His wife was standing beside me.

"Your daughter?" she asked.

"Worse than that. My wife."

Her eyes told me that she was parsing that statement. "Kind of young."

"Long story," I said. "Precocious. Seriously gifted." I explained about the school angle.

"Goodness. That would explain a lot. Let's go see what kind of coffee John's making in the office these days."

We walked to the office. John, aircraft mechanic, manager of the airport, friend, laughed when I headed to the coffee-maker. "You KNOW you ain't gonna like my coffee, Dan!" I poured the lady a cup, then one for myself, offered to pour John one. "I already had two." He smiled. "I see you and Mizz Stanley. I guess that means that Cindy hitched a ride in Kevin's Comanche."

"You know how Kevin is with that thing. He likes to show it off." She smiled. "And Dan says she's quite the pilot."

"Never did tricycle gear or a retract," I said. "Only low-wing she did was an Extra."

"Oh, don't say 'Extra' around Kevin. He's got more money than sense about these things. We can travel in this old thing."

"That's a nice aircraft," I said. "Probably thirty miles an hour faster than our old 180."

"Yeah," John said. "It's a goer."

Mrs. Stanley said, "It gives us legs for trips, for sure, but I'm afraid it's getting harder for me to get into and out of it. But he refuses to let it go."

"I wouldn't," I said.

"He won't," she answered. "He's a retired naval aviator, and this is his connection to his youth. Not bad, really. He could've been in submarines, and THEN where would I be?"

We all laughed at that one.

The speaker on the radio tuned to the Unicom frequency came alive with Cindy's voice announcing their location in the traffic pattern for landing.

"Well," I said, "let's go see how big a smile she has on her face."

Mrs. Stanley stood with me. "She REALLY flies? Not just along for the ride?"

"Absolutely," I said. "If she was seventeen, she'd have a private license. She's flown us from here to Louisiana and all I did was go along for the ride to keep her legal." We watched the sleek craft cross the threshold of the runway and flare for landing.

"Nose is higher than John usually does. Wanna bet Cindy's landing?"

"Yeah," I said. "She's a big fan of three-point landings in our plane." I saw Mrs. Stanley looking at the two of us. "Do you fly, too?"

"Oh, no. Kevin made me take a few lessons just in case he becomes incapacitated, but I just never really wanted to do that. I'm very happy as a passenger."

The plane turned off the taxiway onto the apron and the propeller swung to a stop. Yes, there was a big grin in the cockpit. And Kevin was smiling. The door popped open and they exited. I was there to catch Cindy by the waist and swing her from the wing to the ground.

"I won't ask if you liked it," I said.

Squeal! "First time I flew a tricycle gear plane, and retractable gear."

Kevin was there. "You got something with her, uh ... Dan."

"Oh, I know it," I said.

"I don't know if you do. I figured she wanted the left seat and once we got off the ground, she'd do a few turns and play at the controls. Boy, was I wrong."

"Oh, yeah?" I looked at Cindy. She was grinning.

"She taxied. When we lined up with the runway, she asked what the rotation speed was. That should've given me a clue." He looked at my little redheaded doll. "Then," he said, "I thought, 'okay, she wants sightseeing. WRONG! She says, 'I noticed the change in control pressures when the gear retracts. Can we go to the practice area and look at that?'. Dammit! I had to put my instructor hat on, and it's BEEN years since I had somebody who wanted to explore the envelope and who knew that there even WAS an envelope to explore."

"That's my Cindy, sir!"

"Kevin was an instructor-pilot on one of his Navy assignments," his wife interjected.

"Really!" I said. "That's something. And you flew with Cindy?"

"She asks all the right questions," he said.

"Thank you, Mister Kevin. Mizz Sharon. It was fun!"

Kevin wasn't finished. "She flew with somebody in an Extra? Boy, I could see her getting good at that."

"Thank you," Cindy said again, almost bashfully.

"Do you still wanna fly our nasty ol' Cessna now, baby?" I asked.

"Of course!"

"Well, folks," I said, "Thank you for letting Cindy put a hole in your day. I guess we're going to go make a loop around the countryside."

Cindy waved as we walked to our plane. She did the preflight inspection and then characteristically, climbed into the pilot's seat. I saw that Kevin was watching. I smiled and shrugged, then climbed into the passenger seat.

I knew that conversation would be sparse until the wheels left the ground, limited to the mechanics of her flying the plane. I was getting very comfortable with Cindy the Pilot by now and I just watched her concentration at the task at hand.

Once we were established in climbing away from the runway, she said, "I can see where that tricycle gear would spoil a person."

"It is different, isn't it?" I answered. "What about the retractable gear?"

"Boy, you pull the gear up and that thing MOVES!" she looked at me. "Of course, if you forgot to put the wheels down when you land, you wouldn't need brakes!"

"There is THAT," I said.

"And landing," she giggled. "Mister Kevin was like you used to do, just hanging close on the controls in case I let things get wonky, but I just pulled the nose up like I do this plane, and he asked me if I was trying to hook a wire. You know, like on an aircraft carrier. He used to fly off those things. That's soooo cool!"

"And you asked him to let you..."

"Explore the transition between gear up and gear down. Other than that, it's just numbers. That Comanche wants about seven knots faster to break ground, but once it's in the air, it's just an airplane. But I noticed the change when he pulled the gear up, so I wanted to see how that worked, you know, slow flight, wheels up and wheels down."

"You impressed Kevin, baby."

"He's a nice guy," Cindy said. "But it was almost like turning on a switch. He went into 'instructor mode'. I could see where he'd really make you learn things."

"I've heard that those guys can be real bears to learn with. You oughtta ask Jim. That's where he learned."

"I'll have to do that."

We spent the remainder of a couple of hours with a stop at another airfield for a drink from a vending machine and a talk with members of another weekend aviation enthusiast group, and then we returned to our home field and put away our plane.

"Dinner!" Cindy announced as she paged through the music on her iPod, plugged into the truck's sound system.

"Dead cow?" I asked.

"If YOU do it. You beat those steakhouses, and I just think a little rib-eye and a hot cast-iron pan works. And an oven-baked potato."

"I thought teen-aged girls were all about hamburgers and tofu."

Giggle. "Unless they've had YOUR steaks. Let's see what's at the grocery store on the way home." The grocery store she had in mind was not a national chain. They had a really good meat market, and when we walked out, we had a couple of thick pieces of meat and some baking potatoes, along with a few other odds and ends to restock the trailer's tiny pantry.

Lunch? Oh, that's something that we took care of out of a snack machine at the airfield. We got back 'home' to our little trailer in late afternoon, too early for dinner, so we decided to take a walk around the park and first stopped in to chat with Helen and Charlie at the office.

Cindy excitedly told Helen about her latest adventures in aviation. By this point in our relationship, I think Helen's almost at the 'let's see what happens next' stage with Cindy. After all, she's had Cindy around for years, what with giving Cindy's mom a place to park a trailer, but I also know the Cindy that I met last summer. When I think of THAT Cindy, shy, unsure, unhappy, compared to the Cindy who was leaning over the counter, one leg bent at the knee, foot wiggling in a circle as she recounted her story in happy, excited tones, that was more than the proverbial 'day and night'.

Charlie and I chatted about legal matters with incorporation in Alabama. I mentioned the conversation with Don Spears.

"I'd do it, son," he said. "Don's a damned good lawyer, and he's got some cases that need technical support. Do this for him right now, and when you and your crew get formed up, you have an entry in your portfolio that you do consultation on legal matters."

"That's an interesting angle on it, ' I said. "You're right, Charlie. It's time to start thinking about portfolios." I noticed Cindy standing at my shoulder. "I guess that's my cue, Charlie."

"Go ahead. We'll see you later," he said. We made a lap around the park, brisk walk except whenever we ran into somebody of conversational bent. RV parks with late season snow-birds are full of them, so we spent a bit of time standing around talking. I'd like to think that I was what they spotted first, but I knew better. Cindy's memorable. I'm just another middle-aged guy.

We ended up back in our little home. Put the potatoes in the oven, season the steaks, now there's an hour to kill. I looked around. Cindy was stretched on the bed, smiling.

"Come lay down and put some music on," she said. "I feel the need for comforting."

"Stressful day, kitten?" I asked.

As I slid into her waiting arms, she said, "Yes, it's very stressful maintaining the high standard of adorability that my husband deserves."

I landed a kiss on those smiling lips. "Give it up, baby doll. NOBODY deserves this much 'adorable'."

"You're so wrong." And she kissed me. Wasn't a peck. Drew my soul out and merged it with hers.

Two more like that and clothes weren't an option any more. Saturday afternoon love-making. It's wonderful. Would've been MORE wonderful if there wasn't a ticking clock, the potatoes in the oven, but we got out of bed and she put on her nightshirt and I did T-shirt and warm-up pants and put together our dinner.

After dinner, we found a movie to stream for the evening's background noise while we played cards, then it was showers and back to bed.

As we'd planned, Sunday afternoon we loaded up the guns and ammo and joined the Hardesty bunch at the local range for some shooting practice. The only thing new to this foray was Billy standing an awe of Cindy working those guns. And Ann outshooting her former Marine husband with a rifle. We ended up with an early dinner at the catfish emporium.

And Monday was back to work for me and back to school for Cindy.

...

Cindy's turn:

Monday morning Dan and I got up and got dressed and then we went and picked up Kaitlyn and took us to breakfast. Kaitlyn thought that was the neatest thing, having breakfast at the restaurant before school. Of course, having Dan drop us off at school was a lot less uncool than if her mom or dad dropped her off. So there we were, walking across the high school campus, me on my second day of high school.

"You and Dan," she said, "Y'all talk to each other just like Mom and Dad."

"Of course," I said. "We're married, just like your mom and dad."

"Yeah, but you're fourteen. I'm seventeen. And they talk to me like a kid."

"I'm fourteen, but we're married. If he had to talk to me like a kid, I don't think we'd be married." I sighed. "And I've heard you and your parents talk. And they don't talk to you like a kid, even though you ARE their daughter." (Dan and I ran into them on one of our catfish meals. We all sat together. Dan makes friends fast, and we all had a good time.)