by Liza Palmer
“The best.” Jenks’s voice drips with sarcasm.
“Yes, sir.”
“Turn the plane around, Danvers.”
“Sir, I deserve the chance to try out just like everyone else.” Even as I speak, I obey his order and turn the plane around.
“You deserve nothing.”
“No, you’re right.” Jenks’s body flinches slightly. “I’ve earned the chance to try out just like everyone else.”
“I’m confused, Danvers, as to what you think is happening right now? Is this not a tryout?”
“You and I both know that it is a tryout in name only.”
“The only thing you and I both know, Airman Danvers, is that you are unsuitable for the United States Air Force in every way.”
“No, sir. No—”
Jenks interrupts me. “You’re emotional and impulsive. Your bravado is embarrassing. You launch yourself into things without thinking—”
“Isn’t that the definition of impulsive?” I can’t resist.
“And you’re insubordinate.”
“Sir—”
“This is my gift to you, Danvers.” Jenks grips his hands into tight fists, stretches out his long fingers, and reaches for the panel. “You can thank me later for showing you just how dangerous your recklessness truly is.” Jenks reduces the throttle of the plane and lets the nose of the Mescalero fall.
“I’m doing this for your own good, Danvers.”
Jenks reduces the power to idle.
The plane shakes and fights. And just as the stall horn blares throughout the tiny cockpit, Jenks takes his hands off the yoke and looks over to me without a word. The nose of the plane dips as the plane begins to gracefully plummet out of the sky. The cockpit enfolds me as Jenks disappears. I tighten my fingers around the yoke. I know what he’s trying to do. He wants me to fail, wants me to acknowledge my shortcomings in front of my peers. In some twisted part of him, perhaps he truly does think this is for my own good, and not simply a gross misuse of power.
Unlucky for Jenks, he doesn’t know about me and Mr. Goodnight.
I let the plane fall.
I wait…and wait…and wait for the break. Trust myself. My breathing steadies. My eyes focus.
Feel it. Wait….Wait….Hold it….
There. THERE! The break.
And I give the Mescalero full power, pull the nose back to the horizon, right rudder, bring the flaps up, and restore the plane to cruise altitude, successfully performing a standard power-off stall. A bursting swell of pride crashes and streaks through every part of me.
Thank you, Jack.
“All of those things you said about me are true, sir. I’m emotional and impulsive and more than a little cavalier. But I’m also brave enough to let myself learn.” I look over at Jenks to find him seemingly composed and aloof. But then I look harder. His face is flushed and his hands are tightly gripping his legs, white knuckles erupting across the tops of his hands.
“You should try it sometime.” My parting shot.
Jenks looks over at me.
I pull the plane around toward the airfield and take us home.
Jenks doesn’t say another word for the rest of the trip.
“SO HE WAS GOING TO WHAT, JUST LET YOU crash the plane to prove a point?” Del Orbe asks as we walk out of hangar thirty-nine carrying a basketful of steaming biscuits, with Bonnie trailing behind us.
“You can just drop those on the table next to the slaw, Erik,” Bonnie says to Del Orbe.
“Straight white bread or nothing!” Jack yells from over by the smoker. Del Orbe looks nervously from Jack to Bonnie.
“It’s a Texas thing. You’ll be fine, sweetheart,” Bonnie says with a wink. Del Orbe looks terrified as he continues over to the table with the biscuits, dropping them onto the surface like hot potatoes and then rushing away, mumbling something about wanting to check out the hangar. Poor guy isn’t one for conflict, even the pretend kind.
“No, Jenks was going to save her,” Maria says, standing next to Jack and his beloved smoker, a feat of pure ingenuity. Clearly constructed lovingly by Jack himself, it’s a delicious crazy quilt of old plane parts that have literally been stitched together by Jack’s own steady welding hand. But the real art comes from the mouthwatering smells currently drifting out of its main smokestack.
“Yeah, save me from myself, apparently,” I say, holding out a plate as Jack stacks it high with freshly smoked corn on the cob.
“Unbelievable,” Maria says, shaking her head in disbelief even though she’s relived this story with me dozens of times since it happened.
I walk over to the picnic tables, plate of corn teetering, and Pierre and Bianchi shove aside various salads and a large bowl of macaroni and cheese to make way for the new addition. Jack and Bonnie are throwing a party of sorts for me and Maria, and they insisted that a party is nothing without the whole family. However it started, Bianchi, Del Orbe, and Pierre are our true family here, and Maria and I knew we had to have them celebrating alongside us. Plus, they would never turn down a chance for a home-cooked meal, especially if their mess hall reveries about back-home delicacies were any indication.
“Tom, honey, can you go inside and grab the two pitchers right there on Jack’s workbench?” Bonnie says to Bianchi. “One’s got sweet tea and the other has fresh-squeezed lemonade. You know what, Garrett, why don’t you go on and help him?”
“Fresh-squeezed lemonade?” Pierre asks, his mouth watering.
“Yes, sweetie. Fresh-squeezed lemonade,” Bonnie says, pinching his cheeks affectionately. Pierre blushes, but you couldn’t wipe the smile from his face if you tried.
“Yes, ma’am,” they say. Pierre and Bianchi disappear into the hangar in search of the delicious beverages Bonnie’s kind words have promised them, which seem to remind them of home.
“So, now what?” Jack asks, once it’s just the four of us.
“Now we find a new way,” I say, looking over at Maria. She nods.
“Find a new way to what?” Jack asks.
“A new way to become the first female fighter pilots,” I say. Jack and Bonnie share a look.
“Jenks and his Flying Falcons aren’t the only game in town,” Maria adds.
“Hmm,” Jack says as he pulls the meat from the smoker and piles the brisket and pork ribs high onto their respective plates.
“What aren’t you saying?” I ask, eyes narrowed. Bianchi and Pierre emerge from the hangar with the pitchers and set those on the table, Del Orbe trailing in their wake.
“I’m just saying there’s more than one way to skin a cat, Danvers,” Jack says. Just as I’m about to ask what skinning cats has to do with the United States Air Force, Bonnie cuts in.
“That’s about as long as I’m okay talking about that man,” Bonnie says, herding everyone over to the table. “Now, come on. Let’s eat.”
Stretching down the entrance of hangar thirty-nine, Jack and Bonnie have set out two long folding tables end to end, surrounded by every kind of chair you can imagine. A red gingham tablecloth flutters in the dusky night air. An old record player plugged into the world’s longest extension cord snaking out of the hangar serenades us softly. Old kerosene lamps cast a misty glow over all of us. And standing sentinel is none other than Mr. Goodnight, washed and buffed. He’s just as much a part of tonight’s festivities as the rest of us.
“You gonna take us up in him, sir?” Bianchi asks, gesturing over to Mr. Goodnight as we all pull out chairs and scoot them close around the groaning table, momentarily sending the pitchers of sweet tea and lemonade sloshing precariously.
“You think you can handle Mr. Goodnight, son?” Jack says, with a wink to Bonnie. Bianchi beams and Bonnie just shakes her head. We all fill our glasses and wait. Bonnie raises her glass.
“To flying,” she says.
“To flying,” we all say in unison.
And then the ballet of a family dinner begins, the intricate choreography of platters being passed under pitchers refillin
g cups. A pile of macaroni and cheese is put on a plate just as the secrets to its recipe are told to the eagerly awaiting recipient. Eyes are closed in ecstasy as we experience Jack’s brisket, so tender it melts in our mouths. Heads tilt back and laughter peals out over the airfield. We’re treated to old war stories, harrowing tales of bravery and sacrifice, and we finally learn how Mr. Goodnight earned his name. Bianchi was right. It was not because things went well for anyone else but Mr. Goodnight.
At one point in the evening, I look around the table and find myself overwhelmed with a sensation that I can’t quite place. But not being able to figure stuff out about myself is something that I’ve become well acquainted with, so instead of becoming frustrated or scared…now I get curious.
I watch as Jack leans down to listen to something Garrett is saying and then throws his head back and laughs, clapping Maria on the shoulder in the process. Erik and Tom lean in as Bonnie tells them a story about a transport mission at the tail end of World War II that went all kinds of wrong. The flickering lanterns. The wafting music. A sip of lemonade and a bite of Bonnie’s potato salad.
This is what a family feels like.
This is what it feels like to belong.
This is what it feels like to love and be loved.
“Hey, Danvers. Where are you right now?” Maria asks to my right.
“Hmm?” I ask, floating back down to earth.
“You were very far away,” she observes with a smirk.
“I’m just happy,” I say, nudging her.
“Me too,” she says. We sit in companionable silence.
“So, what do you think Jack meant about there being more than one way to skin a cat?” I ask.
“Aaaand you’re back,” she says, laughing.
“I am still me, you know,” I say, mock-defensive.
Maria takes a sip from her glass. “I mean, they’ve been trying not to dive into our whole first-female-fighter-pilot plan for a while now.”
I nod. “Yeah, but I can see this look in their eye every time we bring it up.”
“Bonnie was talking to me about it while we were making her mac ’n’ cheese, and, I don’t know, it got real.” Maria leans over me to get Bonnie’s attention. “Bonnie, I was telling Carol about our conversation earlier,” Maria says.
“I guess I’m not ready to give up on the dream yet,” I say.
“And what dream is that?” Bonnie asks, setting down her cup of sweet tea. She rests her arm on the back of Maria’s chair, leaning in even closer.
“The dream of flying combat,” I say, my voice smaller than I would have liked.
“So, when you were a little girl, soaring around your backyard with your arms as wide as they could go—that was about flying combat?” Bonnie asks, velvety smooth.
I pause and think about what she’s asking. “No, ma’am,” I admit. Maria clears her throat.
“So what was that dream about then, dear?” Bonnie asks.
“To fly…just to fly,” I say, remembering Noble’s drawing and the—seemingly temporary—epiphany that followed, about needing to reclaim the joy I once had for flying.
“And then someone came along and told you that this one kind of flying was the most important kind of flying, and then that’s when that dream of yours stopped being a dream and became…” Bonnie prompts, her gaze flicking back and forth between Maria and me.
“A way to prove ourselves,” we say in droning unison, absolutely stricken that we’re back here again.
“A way to prove yourselves,” Bonnie repeats, nodding effusively, wrapping her arm around Maria and giving her a little squeeze. “Who you are is for you to define, not them.”
“But it’s not fair,” Maria grumbles, pushing her last bites of food around her plate.
“No, it’s not. So now what?” Bonnie asks. Maria and I look at one another, searching each other’s faces for the answer.
“We don’t know what our ‘now what’ is,” Maria says.
“We find another way to get there?” I ask.
“No, you find another there, sweetheart,” Bonnie says.
“A new there,” Maria echoes quietly.
“Girls, listen. I would have been a great fighter pilot,” Bonnie starts off.
“Hear! Hear!” Jack interrupts from the other side of the table, raising his glass, apparently listening in. With all those years at the mercy of the air horn, you’d think his hearing wouldn’t be quite so sharp.
Bonnie gives him a melty look and he winks back at her, then she clears her throat and continues. “But they took that from me, and once they did that, I wasn’t about to let them take flying away from me, too.”
“If it’s about flying, then make it about flying,” Jack says.
“And stop making it about only flying combat,” Bonnie adds.
“Because that way lies madness,” Jack finishes.
The rest of the table has quieted now to follow this exchange. “Shakespeare?” Pierre asks.
“‘Oh, that way madness lies,’” Bonnie muses.
“King Lear,” Pierre says to a confused Bianchi and Del Orbe.
“I feel so stupid right now I can’t believe it,” Bianchi says.
“So, just like any other day, then,” Del Orbe says. And the whole table howls and hoots as Bianchi raises his glass and laughs, breaking the gravity of the moment.
A new there. I roll it over and over in my head, taste it on my tongue. But how do we find it?
“Honey, can you help me with the cherry pie?” Bonnie asks. Del Orbe stands up immediately, and upon doing so it becomes clear pretty quickly that he wasn’t the honey she was referring to.
“I’m her main honey, son,” Jack says with a mock growl, clapping him on the shoulder.
“I mean, I can help, too,” Del Orbe says following them inside the hangar.
“A new there,” I say out loud. I can’t get past it.
“You ever think about helicopters?” Pierre asks. We all groan, and he throws his hands up in protest. “What? They’re awesome. You guys know I saw the Silver Eagles back when I was a kid, and—”
“They’re disbanded now, but they made me want to fly,” we all complete in unison.
“Okay, verrrrry funny,” Pierre says, grabbing a biscuit from the basket.
“I’ve thought only about flying combat for a very long time,” I say.
“Me too,” Maria adds.
“Ugh, this is that ‘let yourself learn’ thing again,” I say, realizing it.
“What ‘let yourself learn’ thing?” Bianchi asks.
“Driving to USAFA on that very first day I got stopped by this state trooper. I was speeding and maybe being a bit ‘reckless,’ but this guy in a Jaguar had—”
“Nope, I’ve got it. You don’t have to tell me another word. I’m pretty sure I know exactly what happened,” Bianchi says. His eyes twinkle as he points his fork at me. “Let me guess. Something about you throwing yourself into the middle of a situation that had nothing to do with you except for the fact that you couldn’t stand by while someone powerless was being mistreated?”
“Okay, fine. That’s exactly what happened,” I say.
“Yeah, I have met you, you know.”
I wave my hand at him dismissively. “Anyways. The state trooper let me off with a warning and I thought it was just going to be this kind of ha’ticket—”
“Nope. Not a word,” Bianchi says.
“Ha’ticket. Like a ha’penny, but this time, instead of half a penny, it means half a ticket. Ha’ticket,” I say, unblinking.
“I like it,” Pierre says, plucking yet another biscuit from the basket in the middle of the table. The guy could really put it away.
“Maria, please back me up on this,” Bianchi says. Maria throws her hands up in surrender. Bianchi deflates.
“So tell me more about this…” We all wait. Bianchi lets out a long weary sigh. “Ha’ticket.”
“She wrote on the ticket ‘Let yourself learn.’ And it’
s been this sort of thing for me ever since.”
“I mean, it’s kind of haunted you,” Maria points out.
“In a good way, but yeah.”
“A ha’ticket has haunted you, but in a good way,” Bianchi says slowly, his face screwing up as he tries to understand.
“See, I can be very stubborn,” I say.
“What?” Maria pretends to faint.
“No!” Bianchi gasps.
“You don’t say!” Pierre blurts out, clapping his hands to his head comically.
I roll my eyes. “I know that’s no great secret. But I guess I didn’t…wouldn’t see the bad parts of sticking to your guns,” I say. “I didn’t see that as long as I kept myself locked away in my own sense of what’s right and wrong, and what I believed I needed or deserved, I would be closed off to everything else.”
“I definitely get that,” Bianchi says.
“I was wrong about a lot of stuff,” I say, making particularly pointed eye contact with Bianchi.
“Me too,” he says, holding my gaze.
“But as misguided as I’ve been at times, it’s still weird to think I could be wrong about the flying-combat thing,” I say.
“I don’t know another there,” Maria says quietly.
“Not yet,” Pierre corrects her.
“Let yourself learn,” Bianchi says, circling his hand around.
“In order to find the new there…” I trail off.
“You have to let yourselves learn,” Bianchi finishes.
“Right,” I say.
At that moment, Jack, Bonnie, and Del Orbe emerge from the hangar with the cherry pie. Bonnie sets the pie down in the middle of the table, along with a gallon of fresh-churned vanilla ice cream.
“Before we dig in, Bonnie and me…we wanted to give y’all something,” Jack says, digging into his pocket.
“From a couple of old fliers to you,” Bonnie says. All five of us melt as one.
Jack pulls out five shiny silver dollars from his pocket. He drops three into Bonnie’s hand and she hands one each to Bianchi, Del Orbe, and Pierre. Jack walks around the table and drops one shiny silver dollar into the palm of my hand and then one into Maria’s.
“They’re from the year you underclassmen were all born,” Jack says, as we study the coins.