Chapter 32

Stoney's turn:

I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but life with Johanna had turned me quite a bit more optimistic, even if some bozo broke my leg. Yeah, I can drive again. Insurance popped for a replacement of my SUV, mostly. By this stage of the game I could be mobile if I needed to be, on my own. Bumping around the apartment was not a problem. If I started getting messages from my leg, I just eased it straight on the sofa or in the recliner.

Walking out to my parking spot, though, was still a little longer than I desired on my own. I did it with Jo, though. Jo's an incentive.

And this morning, Friday morning, we have a goal, a general aviation airport not too awfully far from the apartment. The redhead who's driving is excited.

"An adventure," she said. "First time I've ever flown in a light plane." Giggle. "Cindy flies it herself, she says."

"She's too young to get a license," I said.

"Yeah. It's funny hearing her say that. Says Dan sits in his seat with his arms folded and lets 'er go."

"When did she tell you that?"

"She called me yesterday between classes. Mine, not hers. We talked for half an hour. She's something."

"I can imagine."

"I don't think you can, sweetie. D'you know that she's part of a government research project? Got a security clearance? She and her friends built a railgun and the government bought it from them?"

"No. Really?"

"Like I said. Interesting. I'm excited to meet the rest of that bunch."

I chuckled to myself. My Johanna was impressed.

"Oh, come on," she said. "We wouldn't be taking this trip if you weren't intrigued, would we?"

"Guilty," I replied.

"And I know YOU know how to handle any situation," she smiled.

My iPhone rang. "This is Stoney," I said.

"Stoney, this is Dan. We're about twenty minutes out. Just checking on you."

"We're on the way," I replied. "Jo's driving me."

He laughed. "I'm paying real close attention, but Cindy's in the pilot's seat today. She insisted. You'll see soon enough."

"I'm looking forward to this," I said. "So's Jo."

"The whole gang's waiting on you two," he said. "See you in a few minutes."

"Okay, buddy," I said.

"'Kay. Seeya!" Click.

"Checking on us?" Jo asked.

"Uh-huh."

We finally pulled into a parking slot at the airfield and went inside, explaining what we were here for.

"Once they're stopped, you can go out to meet 'em," the guy at the counter said. I guess he noticed my limp, even though I tried to hide it. "Uh, I have a golf cart. I can take you out there."

"That's wonderful," I said. "Had a car accident a few weeks back. Still kinda stoved up."

"Oh, well, sorry. I'll get the golf cart."

That's a neat little perk. I heard the speaker for the aviation radio squawk, "Harris traffic, this is Cessna 5-5-2-3 Uniform, five miles east, inbound for landing on one-five." I recognized the voice. Dan.

Jo and I sat outside at a table and we saw the Cessna (I do know a LITTLE bit. At least what a Cessna 180 looks like) enter the pattern, touch down, and taxi up. And just like Dan had said, there's a headphone-clad redhead in the pilot seat. And Dan held both his hands up. Cindy in control.

They taxied to the fuel pumps and the engine stuttered to a stop. The doors swung open and the occupants exited. One of them practically ran over and hugged Jo. The other walked over and shook my hand.

"You made it," I said. "And she really flies."

He smiled. "Insisted. I flew the last time into Houston. She watched. This time I let her fly. I handled the communications and made sure she understood where she needed to be. Houston's very busy airspace."

"I can imagine," I said.

"I see her and Jo headed inside. I need to make a trip myself. Four and a half hours is a long time. You need to go?"

"I better," I said, "since you mention it."

Everybody dispensed with that task and returned to the lobby. Dan signed the ticket for the refueling.

"This is our longest non-stop trip yet," Cindy chirped.

Len, the guy behind the counter, asked, "Where'd you come in from?"

"Auburn, Alabama," Cindy said. "As direct as we could. Until we hit Houston."

He looked at Dan. "She flew?"

"I handled the navigation and communications," Dan said. "She's good, just too young to get a license yet."

One word. "Wow!"

"Oh, it's easy," Cindy said. "He feeds me headings and altitudes and we both watch out for traffic."

"And you can fly?"

"Tie-down to tie-down," Dan said.

"But I'm sitting in the back seat for the flight back," she said. "So I can talk with my friend."

"And I can straighten my leg," I added.

We collected our luggage, two overnight bags, locked the car, and then let Len golf-cart us to the plane. Dan took care of stowing our bags securely. There's my banjo case and Johanna's flute on top of the stack. Cindy did her preflight, explaining things to Jo, who tagged along. I listened. She seems to have the knowledge.

The girls got into the back seat and with a little effort I got into the right front seat.

"Pull your seat all the way back if you need to, Stoney," Cindy said. "I don't need the legroom. You might be more comfortable."

"Thanks, Cindy," I replied. Four and a half hours, I'm sure that a stretch might be just the thing.

Dan slid into the pilot's seat, opened the window and shouted "CLEAR!", and started us up. I glanced over my shoulder, saw Jo smiling, the intercom headset on her head. Smiling? Make that 'eager'.

"You okay, babe?" I asked.

"Which babe are you talking about?" Cindy chirped over Jo's giggle.

"MY babe."

"I'm fine."

"Everybody tied down?" Dan asked. He looked at the affirmative nods. "Then let's do it."

I don't remember the details, but I do remember him talking almost interminably with various air traffic facilities as we wended our way across Houston. Ten miles on the east side, though, we were climbing and headed east-northeast towards Alabama.

"Whewww," Dan said over the intercom, "That still makes me nervous. But now we can relax."

"Yeah, relax," Cindy said. "Just like riding in a pickup truck on a country road."

Jo's giggle was in my headphones too. "It really is! This is neat!"

"If you could see your face right now, baby," I said to Jo.

Cindy elbowed her. "I was the same way. First time I was ever off the ground, it was in this thing."

"I've been flying in commercial flights all my life. This is the first time I've ever done this," Jo replied. "It's ... The other stuff is so sterile. You're disconnected from what you're doing."

"One of these days I guess I need to do a commercial flight. But I like this," Cindy said.

"And if you'd tried to fly commercial, it'd take you a lot longer on this trip, when you could have to change planes and rent cars and pick up bags and get through security," Dan said. "Believe me, I'll fly myself unless it's more than eight hours in the air. In this. And then I might talk myself into taking this."

"I think I can understand that," I said. "At this altitude, it's like the difference between driving the Interstate and taking the scenic route through the countryside."

Dan nodded. "That's a good analogy," Cindy said. I regarded the use of the word 'analogy' by Cindy in open conversation. Of course, I was still mulling over the 'let's talk about dI/dT' from earlier. The summation of all that in the package of a fifteen year old girl who was, darn it, just CUTE, well. Of course, I looked at Johanna and thought that Cindy might be what Jo looked like six years ago. Except Jo's hair was a couple of shades brighter red. Cindy's was aged copper. Jo? Just copper.

"Baby," said Cindy, "you know how Susan says that Terri is her 'mini-me'?"

"Yeah," Dan replied.

"I think I'm Jo's mini-me."

"They're close enough," Dan said. "You've seen the pictures of the gang. Susan's eleven years older than Terri. Sweetie-pie just turned fifteen in September. How old are you, Jo?"

"I'll be twenty-two in March."

"So seven years..."

"I can accept that," Jo replied. "Can't think of a better little sister. And Mom is getting a picture of THIS."

"Your mom?' Cindy asked.

"Oh, yeah, her mom," I said. "Red hair. Freckles."

Johanna giggled. "Here's Mom and Dad," she said, pulling photos up on her iPhone.

Cindy looked, adding her giggles to the sounds over the intercom. "Oh, I can see the resemblance. Your dad, he's a big guy!"

"Yeah," I said. "Viking warrior and his Irish captive."

"Really?" Cindy squealed.

Jo told her the story. "Almost as improbable as me and Stoney, you know..." So she told that story, too. I guess it was just about as normal as meeting by the side of the pool in the summertime, if you took away that whole forty versus thirteen angle.

"So what did you think of Jim and Ann?" Dan asked.

Jo laughed. "I thought it was a rift in the universe when we found out that they know you two."

"Good people," Dan said.

"They are," Cindy added. "He's the one that sort of sent me on this quest."

"Quest?" Jo asked.

"Yeah," Dan said. "He ACTUALLY paid attention to the testing they do. Caught my Cindy up out of the thundering herd. She went from eight grade to high school graduate in a matter of months."

"We're sort of attached to them," Cindy said.

"I can see why you might be," Jo stated.

The miles trailed off behind us. "Alabama," Dan announced.

"Looks just like Mississippi which looks just like Louisiana which looks just like Texas," I said.

"Yeah," Cindy interjected, "straight-line route stays over the archetypical southern forests."

"Really, it's interesting, though," I said. "Great country. Best view of it I think I ever had."

"It is, isn't it," Johanna said.

A bit later Dan hit the radio transmit button and announced our arrival at their home strip, and did a leisurely approach and landing. He taxied us directly in front of a hangar and locked a wheel, pivoting, leaving us perfectly lined up to put her away.

Cindy, Dan and Jo shoved the plane back into the hangar after extracting Dan's truck.

"I would have liked to fill the tanks," he said of the plane," but the pumps're locked. I need to get a key."

I asked why he was concerned and Cindy answered with an explanation about temperature changes and condensation. "But we check very carefully," she smiled.

"Dan, she knows so much."

"She pays attention. Soaks stuff up like a sponge. Takes a fact and runs with it."

I glanced at Jo, recognizing some of the same in my chosen mate, although her path was into the beauty of music instead of engineering esoterica. My new friend Dan? He had a great example of his own bit of heaven.

Jo and Cindy scooted into the rear seat of Dan's huge truck. I had to take a few seconds to position myself in it.

"Nice truck," I said.

Cindy giggled. "That's what I said the first time I rode in it. I got the 'it's a tool' speech."

"It's a necessity. Or at least it WAS a necessity when I was towing a travel trailer around," Dan said. "And I didn't know I was so predictable.

Cindy playfully stuck her tongue at him. "Oh, it's more than that. I talked with Tina and Nikki and they both got the 'It's a tool' speech from their husbands," Cindy laughed. "Maybe you're from a more genteel land, but around where I grew up (GREW UP!?!?! She's FIFTEEN!) a big pickup truck was almost a measure of a man's success as well as his testosterone level."

"Sweet Cindy, we're living in TEXAS, the Big Pickup Truck Capital of the World!" Jo laughed. "And I' married a guy with a Japanese SUV!"

"And a sailboat. Don't forget the boat," I said.

Jo giggled again. "He said it was forty feet. It's really thirty-six," she smirked.

"Really? A sailboat?" Cindy chirped.

"Yes. It's our magical place," Jo said.

"I think I understand what you mean. We have a travel trailer that's like that for us," Cindy said.

"They're dangerous together, Stoney," Dan said. "I think their minds are melding."