by Nova Rain
I nodded assent, and she slipped her arm through the gap between my arm and my torso.
“Three, two, one…” She flexed her muscles at the end of the countdown and eased me back up.
“Okay, what do you want to do?” Ava made her voice sound sweeter, pushing a stranger aside.
“I want to see him again.” I sniffled, gazing out at the road. “Let’s go to Parkland.”
“Sweetheart, that’s two hundred-and-seventy miles away,” my friend responded. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Please, take me there.”
I didn’t disclose this to her, but my response wouldn’t have changed, even if Jake was halfway around the world.
On our way to the parking lot, I started wondering what he was doing up there. It didn’t take me long to come up with an answer. His mother used to live in Boston. It wasn’t that close, but it was a lot closer than New York was. In any case, this was just a part of the big picture. Jake Turner, the hero, the pilot who had saved hundreds of lives in his career, had not been able to save his own. He wasn’t killed up in the air, in what many people—including me—considered dangerous and frightening. He had lost his life in a fancy car.
The drive to New Hampshire was easily the longest five hours I had ever spent in a car. Ava and I didn’t speak to each other. I knew that any words of comfort would help me, so I needed her to talk to me. Yet, despite my desire, she chose to keep her mouth shut and focus on the road up ahead. Every few minutes, she would throw me a pitiful glance. My weeping and my sighs were the only sounds in her purple Honda. I found her attitude a bit bizarre. She and I were very close. Ava loved to give me her advice, and even scold me whenever she thought I was wrong. Perhaps she felt incapable of lifting my spirits. Maybe she was just as shocked as I was. I couldn’t know; neither would I ask her about that during our long road trip. I was too preoccupied reminiscing about that wonderful man who had perished so young.
And this was precisely what turned the sorrow within into an abyss that threatened to consume me whole. In a matter of a few weeks, he had given me so many happy memories. First and foremost, our kiss in the rain. I should have known just by that, but, for some reason, I had remained skeptical about him. My frantic dash to catch up to him after my disbelief had driven him crazy, followed by another, impeccable kiss.
How had I repaid him? By being a selfish bitch. I had turned my back on him when he needed me the most. I didn’t show him love, affection, or any of the feelings I had for him. I showed him my “business” face, the face of the calculating reporter who had a longing for a big career. This desire overwhelmed everything else, betraying Jake in the worst possible way.
In a roadside diner outside Boston, I took advantage of the free Wi-Fi and went online. The headlines I came across were sensational, as well as heartbreaking.
“Hero pilot crashes head-on into a tree – Killed on the spot”
“America mourns the loss of one of its finest – Jake Turner, Captain of the New Orleans miracle dead in car accident”
Photos from the scene didn’t leave much for hope. I doubted anyone could have survived this tremendous crash. Jake’s red Corvette had skidded off the road, leaving tire marks across the wet asphalt. A thick cedar tree had put an end to its wild course. The hood of the car had snapped in the middle and twisted. No glass had been left intact. The Corvette’s windshield had shattered, just like the driver and passenger windows. Its gorgeous paint had been charred, a clear indication that the vehicle had been consumed by fire. The blaze had not been satisfied with the bodywork. It had even reached the wheels, blackening rubber and rims alike.
Upon reaching the hospital, Ava spared me from the trouble of addressing the staff. She located a nurse, who in turn informed her that Dr. Humphreys was at the morgue in the basement with Jake’s mother.
The basement itself gave me an idea of what hell would be like. Narrow, twisty corridors were saturated with the pungent smell of formaldehyde. The small fluorescent lights only illuminated their middle, leaving the sides in almost complete darkness. Our heels on the floor disrupted the eerie silence. Still, just moments afterwards, another sound joined in: the heartrending sobs of a woman. Turning right and into another corridor, I saw a female form, standing in front of a man in a lab coat. Her long, silver hair covered the side of her face while the sound of her heartache filled the air.
“Dr. Humphreys?” My friend assumed a soft voice. “We spoke on the phone. I’m Ava Briggs. This is Penny Green. Can we see Jake’s body?”
The doctor wasn’t allowed a chance to speak. Upon hearing my name, Jake’s mother whirled to face me. In a split second, she threw her arm up. I felt the sting of her hand on my cheek, the sheer force of her blow sending me staggering backwards.
“You fucking whore!” She screamed, disgust and rage dripping from her every word. “You’re the reason my boy’s in there, you hear? You killed him!”
“Mrs. Taylor, please!” Dr. Humphreys yelled, yanking her back. “I understand your pain, but you need to remember you’re in a hospital. Please, be civil.”
“I can’t be civil to the monster who sent my own son to his death,” she grumbled, straightening her jacket, her gaze still on me. “Go ahead. Go see what you did to him.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” I wondered in a broken voice.
“Because it’s the truth! That’s why!” She emphasized, rage dominating her expression. “He told me about you. He told me why you dumped him. It was your career, wasn’t it? You wanted to become this bigshot editor. Even when he said he needed you, you still chose your career over him. Get your ass in there,” she urged, pointing up at the door of the morgue. “Go see what your ambition did to him.”
“I’ll go,” Ava stated, stepping forward.
“Ava…”
“Stay here,” she commanded, looking back at me.
“Show your face at the funeral, and I’ll have you kicked out of the cemetery,” his mother threatened, strutting past me.
I exhaled hard, bringing my attention to the physician. “Dr. Humphreys, please tell me more about the circumstances of his death.”
“Well, the paramedics said it was quite straightforward,” he began, interlocking his fingers over his stomach. “He was doing about ninety miles an hour when he lost control of the vehicle. He tried to correct at the last minute, but it was too late. There was also a strong scent of alcohol on his clothes. Add a slippery road to all that, and you’ve got yourself a disaster. We don’t have the results of his toxicology test yet, but I’m quite sure it will come back positive for alcohol.”
“Doctor, could you give us a moment, please?” Ava requested, walking out of the morgue.
“Yes, ma’am,” he nodded in agreement, before gripping the handle. The heavy door ground against the floor as he pushed it shut. “I’ll be upstairs if you have any more questions.” He continued, locking the door.
“What the hell was that?” I pitched my voice higher, wondering why she had refused me the chance of seeing him one last time.
“What did Jake look like, Penny?” she continued in a calm tone, her eyes locked with mine.
“Excuse me? You’d seen him; you know what he looked like,” I rebutted, narrowing my eyes at her.
“Well, I want you to remember him like he was,” Ava explained, raising her hands up to my shoulders. “Tall. Charming. Full of life. Believe me, you don’t want to see what’s in there.”
“What if I do?”
“Then you’re going to feel even worse than I do!” She yelled, pushing me back. “The man in there is nothing like your Jake. He’s just as tall as him, but…” She faltered. “That’s about it.”
“Oh, my God…” I whispered, hanging my head in despair. I felt the all-too familiar wetness in my eyes and leaned forward and into her embrace, seeing the point in Ava’s persistence. She was just trying to protect me. The horrific image of the man in that morgue would be engraved in my heart and mind f
or the rest of my life. She was right. I should remember my Jake like he once used to be; like the handsome pilot who captured my heart in Miami.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Penny
“The funeral is tomorrow morning at eleven, at Calvary Cemetery in Queens.”
I sighed in relief at Dr. Humphreys’ words. Yes, they meant that Ava and I would have to go back to the city right away, but they also meant that we didn’t have to spend the night in a nearby motel. I couldn’t stand being near the place where Jake was killed. In addition, if Ava and I stayed in New Hampshire, one of us would have to cover the funeral, because Walter wouldn’t send out an entire crew just for that. In his mind, it was an expense the Bulletin could do without. We would save some money and the trouble of covering hundreds of miles in one day. As for footage from the funeral? We could get that from affiliates.
Covering the funeral…
Covering the media circus would be more like it.
Ava and I arrived at the Calvary Cemetery two hours in advance. However, that wasn’t enough. My friend had to park her car four blocks away, due to the traffic jam in the streets around Lauren Hill Boulevard. I would have blamed the rain, if it wasn’t for the dozens of news vans we ran into. Some crews had pulled over on either side of the road. Reporters were rehearsing their lines before they went live. Some of them had even taken makeup artists along. I saw two or three female colleagues of ours under umbrellas, looking at themselves in small mirrors while professionals fixed their makeup.
Things got much worse on Lauren Hill Boulevard itself. Hundreds of men, women and children were on the sidewalks, heading in the same direction, amid some of the loudest honking I had ever encountered. Witnessing this crazy influx of people, I came to a painful realization. Jake’s feats had touched many lives, perhaps more than he could ever have imagined. I might have lost the man of my dreams, but those people seemed to be mourning the loss of something even bigger. They had lost a legend. His story had affected the lives of our fellow New Yorkers, and I had no doubt it had done the same throughout the country. Of course, if he could have seen this, he’d tell them that they didn’t have to attend his funeral. He was just “good at what he did.” There was nothing heroic in doing his job well, regardless of how many lives he would save in the process.
The wide entrance gate of the cemetery proved too narrow for the occasion. I was standing more than fifty yards away, and I could see people pushing each other on their way in. In spite of her threat the night before, Jake’s mother didn’t react at all when our eyes met. She preferred turning her head the other way, and halted beside her son’s casket, with her two, teenage children on her flanks. Wrapped in an American flag, the casket was placed in a small clearing further down the cemetery.
“On days like these, I’m ashamed to be a reporter,” Ava confessed, watching a bald man with a microphone shoving his way through the crowd at the gate. “Look at him. He’s desperate to find a decent spot.”
“So am I,” I agreed. I was ready to rant about our line of work, but, just then, I spotted two men in identical, blue suits, talking to a reporter just a few feet to my right. The one closest to me mentioned the word “United.”
Waves of anger coursed through my system. Not only did those bastards have the nerve to show up at Jake’s funeral, but they wanted to exploit it, too. I couldn’t hear much of what they were saying, but I didn’t have to. I was positive that they were pointing out the fact that they were devastated for the loss of one of their own.
Their own… What a joke.
He was, until he cost them too much. That’s when they decided that he was no longer an asset. He was a liability they had to get rid of. Why else would they have threatened him with a lawsuit?
I puffed air out of my cheeks. “I wish I were a guy, just this once. I’d beat the living crap out of those idiots.”
“I’m sure you’re not going to like this, but I overheard a reporter saying that the funeral would take a while, due to ‘a number of scheduled official’s speeches,’” Ava informed her. “United representatives, the FAA director, and some of his former colleagues want to talk about him.”
“Everyone is entitled to talk about him, except United officials,” I groaned, scanning the area. There was a podium with a microphone against the East wall. “I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Penny,” my friend urged, starting off behind me.
“Stupid? No. Necessary? Yes,” I spoke in a stiff voice, bypassing the vultures disguised as ordinary people. Jake had been too nice to them. He hadn’t said a word to the press about their tactics. He even refused to expose them to me. Still, I wasn’t Jake. I didn’t have his forgiving nature or his kind heart. Determined to let the world know what they had in store for a national hero, I stepped up onto the podium and faced the crowd.
“Is this thing on?” I uttered, tapping my index finger on the microphone. The thump from the speakers provided the answer. “Hello,” I said, gazing out at the people. “Some of you may know me. I was…” I swallowed hard. “I was Jake’s last girlfriend. I was blessed being his last girlfriend. To me, that’s what meeting that extraordinary man was. A blessing. Not so long ago, I…” I cleared my throat. “I was there when he rescued a snake expert from a python. His bravery boosted my career. In fact, it boosted it so much that I was recently offered a well-paid job in L.A. But that same bravery was probably his downfall. You see, it didn’t matter to the people he worked for. He was saving lives, and at the same time, United Airlines was counting its losses. Those…” I gave a huff of exasperation. “Those people had the nerve to send two of their representatives to his funeral. There they are.” I pointed them in the crowd; they were just a few feet to the left of the casket. “In a few minutes, they’d tell you what an honor it’d been to have known and worked with Jake. But the truth is a lot different. The truth is disgusting,” I growled, not taking my eyes off of them. “The last time I saw Jake, he told me they had suspended him, and were getting ready to press charges against him, because landing on that levee in New Orleans was too costly for them.”
At that moment, I ceased talking altogether, the sound of chatter rising in the crowd. A group of men started moving towards the United representatives as those two glanced at each other.
“Get the hell out of here!” One of them shouted, jogging past the rest of those men. Without wasting any time, the United representatives spun around and began heading in the direction from which they had come.
“Thank you.” I spoke through the microphone, holding in a sob. “I know you lost your hero. To me, Jake was the hero of my heart. He waltzed in there. His kind ways won me over. And this comes straight from the heart. I would gladly turn down that job in L.A., just to spend one last night with him. There’s a lot more I could say about him, but…” I drew in a sharp breath. “I’m afraid I’ll break down in front of you. So, I’m going to say just this: he was the love of my life,” I added, a tear streaming down my cheek. “And no matter where I go, no matter who I’m with, he’ll never stop being the love of my life. Farewell, Jake Turner. Farewell, hero of my heart.”
A distinctive sound came right after my last phrase. A clap. Hesitant at first but picking up speed with each passing second. It was Jake’s mother. Looking right up at me, she put her hands together, a look of appreciation on her face as more people followed her example. Tears welling up in my eyes, I settled my gaze on the base of the microphone.
I had no idea how my actions would be viewed, but frankly, I didn’t care. I owed Jake a debt. It wasn’t monetary. It was a debt in emotion. I had taken plenty of love. I had taken plenty of thoughtfulness and care but had refused to give some of that back when it counted the most. With my pilot gone, I knew in my heart that this was a debt I could never repay. I would spend the rest of my days, remembering who I had been blessed with, and how I ruined that blessing by thinking only of myself.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Penn
y
Predictably, exposing the tactics of United Airlines became a major story in mainstream and online media alike. Indeed, the press was soon inundated with a lot of condescending comments on how they had handled Jake’s case. Polls set up by news websites asked for people’s opinion on the matter. More than eighty percent of voters disapproved of the airline’s actions, most of them calling Jake’s former bosses names such as “greedy,” “ungrateful,” “corporate pricks,” and the list went on and on.
I had to admit that this gave me a sense of satisfaction. United would not go unpunished for what they had done to one of their best pilots. Maybe I had chosen an unorthodox way to break this to the public, but it yielded the same results as a report. I had been able to put a dent in two of the most critical features of an airline: status and profitability. People would no longer consider them a prestigious carrier who respected their employees. Their profits were sure to go down. It was just a matter of time before they did.
Nevertheless, a personal victory was too small to fill that emptiness in my heart. Even if United were to go bankrupt, Jake was not coming back. He was somewhere up in the heavens, where he was meant to be. Looking at airplanes fly by, happy that those passengers were safe and sound in the cabin. And during his eternal stay, he would always wonder what he had done to deserve such treatment from me. If only I could see him… Ten minutes would suffice. They would be enough for me to hold him in my arms, apologize to him, and hope he would find the strength to forgive me. Perhaps seeing the pain in my eyes would convince him of my honesty. But even if he wasn’t convinced, just catching a glimpse of his beautiful face would make our meeting worthwhile.