by R. D. Kardon
“No, no problem. I get it. I never thought about that. I’m happy to be along. I’ll make myself useful.” She almost offered to step aside and let a mechanic go, but there was no way any of them could get packed in time.
“We were looking at the overnights. There’s one long one in Vienna toward the end of the trip. We know it well.” Ross dialed up his heartthrob smile. “Vienna’s really fun. There’s a neat bar near the airport. Live music. That is, if you’d be up for it.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she replied and turned the conversation back around to the work at hand. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Sure! Why don’t you go put coffee and ice on the airplane? And check on the catering. It’s scheduled to arrive at five fifteen. Keep a lookout for it, ok?” Ross turned to walk back to the pilot area.
“Hey, you pre-flight yet?” Tris called to Ross’s back.
“Deter’s going to,” he said without even turning around. She’d hoped she could do it but didn’t want to ask Deter; she couldn’t risk setting him off before the trip even got off the ground.
As Tris filled the ice bucket, she heard the loud bang of the hangar door locks release, followed by the unmistakable screech of cables and pulleys. The eighty-foot wide door rose slowly, noisily, and settled in its metal tracks high above the concrete floor. Tris hefted the bucket into the cabin, and listened to the sound of fuel trucks pumping, tugs pulling aircraft, and the usual cacophony of takeoffs and landings.
Once inside the Astral, Tris inhaled its signature smell, a combination of leather cleaner, metal, and dust. The navigation system clicked as it spooled up, all part of the low-level hum of the Astral rising early along with its crew.
Ross would fly the first leg. Tris recognized his headset on the left seat. She smiled at the sight of the custom-fitted earpiece at-tached to a microphone. Most pilots wore traditional headsets, with two ear covers, but rumor had it that Ross didn’t want to mess his thick, wavy hair. The small leather bag he used to carry it, embossed with the initials LRR in gold, lay on the left seat.
Tris finished her duties early. It gave her some time before the maintenance crew pushed the Astral out of the hangar to treat herself to a few minutes alone on the ramp. Just to watch the show.
Airplanes executed precise turns and revolutions, taxiing in step with the choreography designed by ground control. Aviation equivalents of stop and yield signs kept them from harm as they traversed the blue, yellow, and white pathways on taxiways and runways. Other airplanes rose in rhythm to the takeoff commands of the tower controllers.
Tris closed her eyes to identify the manufacturer of aircraft engines from the sound they made on takeoff. She inhaled deeply. She counted off the seconds in her head until she heard the gear come up once airborne, felt the split-second timing of planned positioning. The canon of aircraft movement at the airport; the only true ballet.
“No. We can’t,” Deter said.
“Why not? Who cares? We’ll be right there.”
“But Zorn didn’t approve it. I’m telling ya, man, don’t do it.”
“He’ll never know if we don’t tell him,” Ross said, exasperated.
That was all Tris heard through the door to the pilot area. Deter and Ross both looked at her like she was the last person they expected to see when she walked in. Deter threw his hands up, shook his head, and walked away.
Ross turned to Tris. “I was pleading your case for some legs in Europe. I’m sorry.”
“What case? What?”
“I thought we should give you a chance to fly a couple of legs.” He took a breath and looked away for a second. “It would give you the experience and us a break, which we’re gonna need at some point.” He shuffled a massive stack of paper that was probably trip information. “But that’s not what Zorn approved,” he continued, lips pursed in distaste. “If I let you fly and Zorn found out, it’s my ass, since I’m PIC on the trip. Well, both our asses, we’re both captains. We can’t do it.”
“No, I get it,” she said to Ross, moving quickly from excitement to disappointment. “No problem.”
Tris finished her indoor chores and walked outside for a few more precious moments alone on the ramp. The sun rose to her right. It lit up piles of slush pushed to the edges of the taxiway by airplane tires. Some sparkled from the previous night’s new snow, others were crusty with dirt-covered frost. Tris opened her overcoat. She already felt the heat.
Thirty-Two
“YEAH, WE JUST got here from Zurich,” Ross told Devon over the speaker on the hotel room phone. “I wanted to try and reach you guys, talk to James, just check in.”
He moved around the bed, pulling what he’d need for the short overnight out of his suitcase. They were in Berlin for the night, off to Vienna in the morning. Luckily the crew had a long layover there before heading to Luxembourg and then back across the Atlantic.
“Hey, Dev? Can you hear me?” Ross thought he might have gotten disconnected. Devon hadn’t said anything. For the last two days, he’d called their home line and her mobile phone, but hadn’t reached her. He’d left at least three messages on their home machine. Finally, he caught her.
“No, still here,” she said, although she sounded very far away. Well, Exeter was far away.
“So,” Devon continued, “that girl, that Tris, she’s on the trip with you all?”
“Yeah, she’s an observer. I told you that before I left. Dev, I don’t make the schedule. You know that.” He heard his wife take a deep, dramatic breath.
“You brought her home with you. You were alone with her in our house.”
“Dev, I had too much to drink at O’Slattery’s. She drove me home. She didn’t come home with me. You should be glad she did that!”
“I just…” She paused, then got a head of steam. “Look, Larry. The last couple of years have not been great for us. It’s not just that girl, it’s so many things. Your drinking. It’s getting out of control and—”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Hang on a minute. Just you wait now. I don’t drink liquor at home anymore. And that’s because of you, Dev. You asked me to stop and I did. I just have a couple of beers at home. You know that.” Ross heard the panic in his own voice. Calm down.
“You still get drunk at home. It upsets James,” she said quietly.
“How would you know?” Ross responded a bit too loudly.
“Well, he has asked me a few times why Daddy walks funny or laughs when nobody says anything.”
Those words practically stopped his heart. His son noticed this? Or was she just positioning? If so, she had a position of strength. She had James.
“Ok, Dev. I’m so sorry. I am really sorry. I’ll stop. I promise.”
“Well, I hope so. I really hope you do. And, until you do, James, Buddy, and I will be at my parents’. We got to the ranch yesterday.”
His legs buckled and he landed on the edge of his hotel bed. The room began to spin and his stomach lurched in revolt. And he hadn’t even had a drink yet.
It took several seconds before he could speak.
“You left the house? You’re not home? What…? When…?” He stammered.
Devon held her silence and drew in a long deep breath. “We started driving the day you left on your trip.” Her voice first sounded shaky and uncertain but quickly hardened. “We’re just taking a break. Let’s talk more when you get back home, ok?”
Ross thought he might be sick, that he might actually vomit. Buddy, too? She took the dog? He lowered his head between his knees and managed to say, “May I speak to my son, please?”
“Not today. When you get home, ok?”
His face flushed. He should demand that she put James on, order her to do it. But they weren’t in the Astral; she didn’t have to comply.
“Ok, Dev,” he said.
He pressed the speaker button on the phone to disconnect his wife.
Thirty-Three
A SMALL, NONDESCRIPT entrance door on a dingy street
near the airport in Vienna opened to a large room with tables, an L-shaped bar, and a wide dance floor. They’d just arrived from Berlin. The leg was uneventful, another routine trip from one airport to another.
Tris finally understood why the Tetrix pilots called this trip the “Ball Buster.” She was exhausted from the long days, short nights, and lack of downtime. She just wanted to go to the hotel and relax.
But Deter and Ross couldn’t wait to get to this place. It sure didn’t look like much. There was a coat check area where they could park their luggage. Predictably, Ross and Deter walked straight inside to grab a table, leaving Tris to collect the claim checks.
As she shoved the stubs in the back pocket of her jeans, she fingered the familiar form of her spare house key. She must have forgotten to put it back in the kitchen drawer after grabbing it to run down to the laundry room in her building. Tris dreamed of twisting it in the lock of her front door and walking inside her home.
At the table, Deter motioned to a waiter.
“Ein beir, bitte.” Deter spoke halting German. Tris shook her head. Every pilot knew the word for “beer” in multiple languages.
The waiter nodded toward Tris and Ross. “Zwei mass, bitte,” Deter added. The waiter walked off and soon returned with three one-liter glasses of beer. The overnight had officially begun.
“I’m starving,” Deter said. “You ordering lunch?” He asked Ross.
“Oh yeah. Tris?”
“Definitely.” They stumbled through mispronounced menu choices.
“A toast,” Deter announced. “To getting home,” he said as their glasses clinked.
Ross was at the bar when lunch was served. While Tris and Deter ate, Ross drank. He’d grab a shot of tequila from the bar, do it halfway back to the table, then turn around and get another one. Each time, Ross positioned himself next to a different woman.
Tris found herself alone at the table with Deter, grasping for conversation.
“This happen a lot?”
Deter thought for a minute before speaking.
“You know, for most of the guys, a week away from home is a nice break.” He sipped a cup of coffee. “Not sure what’s going on in his world right now.“
Ross weaved back and forth on his feet, trying to stroke the hair of an older woman who twisted away, and pushed her outstretched arm against his shoulder as she repeated, “Nein. Nein.”
“Let’s go get him,” Deter said, as he rose from their table to guide Ross away.
Tris settled in her hotel room just before midnight. They had an evening departure to Luxembourg the next day, so she wasn’t in a rush to get to sleep. Deter practically had to carry Ross to his room, he was so drunk. The night at O’Slattery’s wasn’t a one-off.
She cycled through all available TV channels, but only CNN broadcast in English. Tired of the news, she pulled out Comanche Moon, the prequel to Lonesome Dove.
Tris wedged herself deep into an overstuffed divan in her otherwise austere room. A thick, soft comforter covered the bed that she’d settle into soon enough.
Then she heard a knock on her door. Turndown service? Had the “Bitte Nicht Stören” sign fallen off the door handle? Tris had already stripped off her work clothes, slipped into the big cozy T-shirt she liked to sleep in and thrown on a pair of soft white tube socks. Two suitcases and she’d forgotten to pack slippers.
“Hey, Tris. Open up.” She could hear Ross fumble with the doorknob.
“Larry. What’s wrong?” She said from inside the room, the door still closed and locked.
“Can I come in?”
“Uh, why?”
“Really. It’s important. I have something important to tell you.”
“Is there something wrong?” she asked again. “Something with the Astral? The passengers?”
“Me! I need to tell you something.”
Good grief. “Hang on a second.” He replied with a grunt. She threw her jeans back on. There wasn’t time for her bra, so she’d just cross her arms over her chest. He knocked again. How is he still awake after all that drinking? Why hasn’t he passed out?
Tris flipped the safety bar off and opened the door. The smell of him knocked her back. Alcohol, cigarettes and urine. A dark stain spread on the front of his pants.
“So, how’s it going?” he asked casually. He wore his uniform jacket over jeans and a sweater. He grasped at the doorjamb to stay upright and seemed even drunker than when Deter steered him to his room. Must have hit the minibar.
“Going good. Getting ready for bed.”
“Oh yeah?” He leered at her breasts. She involuntarily took a step back.
“Yup. Off to bed. See you for breakfast in the morning?” This would be her only try at diplomacy. She hoped it would work.
It didn’t. “Yeah, yeah, bed. Bed now. Lemme in.”
“No, Larry. No. No. Your room is two floors down. Remember?”
He shouted. “I have something to tell you. It’s really important!” Tris heard a couple of doors open elsewhere on the floor.
“Look. Have a good night. See you tomorrow.” She stepped back further and pushed the door closed.
Ross grabbed the doorknob and leaned his full weight forward. “Let me use the key.” He grabbed her around the waist and poked at the knob with his room key.
Tris put both hands on his chest and shoved him hard. He stumbled backward and caught himself against the door to the room across the hall.
“Larry, this is my room. Your room is two floors down? Do you know how to get back to your room?”
“I am here! I live here! Come on, Tris. You know you want it.” He made a loose fist and moved his wrist quickly up and down, in a gesture that could not be mistaken for anything other than what it was.
“You need to get out of here, Larry.” She heard more doors open on the floor. If she didn’t call security, someone else would.
He stared at his room key and muttered what sounded like, “That’s the way it’s gonna be, ok.” As he took a step in the direction of the elevator, he tripped over his own feet and almost fell. He literally hung on to a wall sconce in the hallway.
She couldn’t handle this alone. “Wait. I’ll bring you a chair. You can sit while I call the concierge.”
Tris made sure Ross held on to a doorjamb as she ran inside her room to grab the straight back chair at the desk. She dragged it outside and put it against the wall, adjacent to a room service tray with a half-eaten hamburger and French fries on it.
“Sit here. I’ll be right back.” Tris hoped no one would come through the hallway until Ross was gone. She quickly called the concierge and returned to Ross.
Ross slumped in the chair, nodding off. Then, all of a sudden, he reached over and grabbed her thigh. She slapped his arm, but he held on tighter. Tris wrenched away and moved a safe distance from him.
She was more disgusted than afraid.
“What are you doing? What is so important that it couldn’t wait for tomorrow?”
He mumbled something completely indecipherable. Maybe “buddy” or “my buddy.”
Finally, the elevator door opened and a man in a uniform wearing a nametag appeared.
This discreet gentleman obviously had some experience with this type of situation and looked apologetically at Tris as he helped Ross up. “Sir. Guten tag. Let me escort you to your room, yes?”
Ross didn’t say another word. “Good night,” she called, as the concierge propelled him toward the elevator.
Thirty-Four
TRIS OPENED HER eyes to streaming sun the next day. She was safe in the soft folds of her hotel bed. The thermostat kept her room a cool 70 degrees, and she curled the covers beneath her chin and wondered if last night’s episode had been a dream. Tris lay on her left side for a few seconds, then flipped over to her right. Surely she imagined it.
When she propped herself up in bed, she looked under the covers at the very real black and blue mark blooming on her thigh.
It made no sense. Sober
, Ross always behaved like a professional. Outside the cockpit, he’d be friendly, joking around. He did nothing overtly suggestive. Last night he said he had important information, something she needed to know. Was it all bullshit? A ruse just to get into her pants?
And then logic set in. Ross was sloshed for sure, but lucid enough to figure out what room she was in, go to the elevator, push the right button, knock on the correct door, and proposition her. Part of him knew exactly what he was doing. That night at O’Slattery’s—was he more conscious than she thought that night, too?
Her thoughts spun as she touched her thigh. A captain assaulted a crewmember on the road. No, no, she had to walk that thought back. Tris had to fly home with him. Luckily, he and Deter would be in the cockpit. She could hang in the back of the Astral with the passengers. She’d avoid the jump seat altogether.
She’d faded in and out all night, tempting sleep but never fully attracting it. Tris threw the covers off and walked to the window. Outside, the city’s ornate rooftops looked thousands of years old. Paintings of old-world scenes in gilded frames were bolted to the walls of her room. Seen in the light of day, the high-backed chair Ross sat in resembled a small throne.
Everything about Vienna screamed history, and Tris wanted to scream right along with it. Instead, she paced. Bed to door to window and back again.
She looked at the antique style phone in her room, creamy ceramic complete with gold accents and a rotary dial. Tris had to talk to Danny. But it was 4:00 a.m. in Exeter, and he still hadn’t returned any of her calls.
She’d just take it one step at a time. Breakfast, the flight to Luxembourg. One more night, two more days, three more legs, and she’d be home.
Tris found Deter sitting by himself in the hotel restaurant reading The New York Times. Although he faced the entrance, he didn’t acknowledge Tris until she hovered right next to him.
“Good morning,” she said brightly, sitting at his table. It was a strange day when being with Deter made her comfortable.