The Four Corners of the Sky

by Michael Malone

  “Is that one of her songs?”

  “No, I made it up.” He added, “Mama Spring likes to meet the big names. I hate to disillusion her with how fucked up they are.”

  “Your mom sent me a Christmas card.” Spring Hopper stenciled her own holiday greetings and had mailed one to Annie, signed “Mama Spring.” In her note was the news that Brad was “seriously involved” with the daughter of a friend. “She said you were seriously involved with a friend’s daughter.”

  “Who? No, I’m not.” He frowned. “Mama Spring’s having trouble. It’s angina.”

  “I’m sorry.” The tasteless coffee reminded Annie of all the cups of coffee she had stared into, day after cold winter day, in the first months after she’d left Brad, when she’d awakened at four in the morning and had sat playing solitaire until dawn released her. She pushed aside the coffee and stopped herself from wondering if he had slept with the unhappy country-western star to whom he’d sold a jet. To her surprise, the prospect didn’t hurt that much. Wasn’t such a revelation in itself worth the whole flight to St. Louis? She no longer wanted to choke Brad. It was a great relief.

  He was saying, “Yeah, and my sister Brandy’s doing totally okay. Sam told you about her twins?”

  No, Sam hadn’t mentioned it and the news gave Annie a strange spasm behind her breastbone. Once, shortly after they’d married, she had thought she was pregnant. Brad had been terrified by the prospect.

  “Boys,” he grinned. “Back in February.”

  She nodded, forcing cheerfulness into her voice. “Twin boys, wow. Tell Brandy congratulations. Funny, we used to wonder if you and I’d have twins—your grandmother and you being a twin—and here they are. Twins. I told you Brandy would have kids before we did.”

  He didn’t remember that either. It was as if they had traveled through their marriage in separate tunnels under the sea, parallel but invisible and inaudible to one another. He was holding his wallet open to show her a picture of two fat little blond babies in blue knit jumpsuits. “Brandy had a rough time last winter. She woke up Christmas Day and Dylan had left her.”

  “Left her?” Annie was shocked. Her sister-in-law’s husband had always seemed too passive to choose a piece of chicken off a platter, much less desert his wife on a major holiday.

  “But hey she’s got her kids.” Brad pointed at the fat babies. “That one’s named Bradley for me and that one’s Bobby. Cute?”

  “Very,” she agreed. “Brad, Brandy, Bradley, and Bobby. Now if you ever have twin girls, will they be Babs and Brenda?”

  Hurt by her sarcasm, Brad closed the wallet. “Family’s why you come home. We shoulda had some kids, babe.”

  She looked away.

  “Not too late.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “I’m never going to stop loving you.”

  She didn’t want to argue with him about whether he’d ever loved her at all. She changed the subject. “So your mom’s basically okay though?”

  He flipped the wallet back open to a photo of Spring Hopper smiling at an oversized check she was holding. “Ever since Daddy Alton died, she can’t sit still. Spring Hopper, Inc.’s in the Hundred Million Club now. Just in the last year she’s sold seven luxury homes in this new golf community Windermere Rise. She got elected president of the Atlanta Women’s Realtors Club.”

  “Well, Mama Spring always said she loved to close a deal so much she’d sell her own house if she didn’t need it to sleep in.”

  Brad looked puzzled. “She was joking.”

  Annie doubted it.

  “It really worries me about the angina. I sure don’t want to lose her.” He stared around the corridor nervously as if someone might be going to steal Mrs. Hopper from him right then. “You know how I feel about that lady.”

  “Yes, I do.” Annie noticed that Brad’s hands were trembling. And there was a little line of sweat by his ear. “You okay?”

  “Just hot in here.”

  Annie felt his forehead. It did feel hot. “Drink some water.”

  On the floor beside her, Malpy managed to twist and wriggle out of the opening of his carrier case. Before Annie could grab him, he raced away from the bistro and took off in the crowded terminal. Annie and Brad gave chase but the little Maltese was quickly lost in the mass of passengers.

  Brad trotted after him, turning back as if he expected a football pass, calling, “You need a leash for this dog!”

  As Annie ran in and out of storefronts, searching for Malpy, she saw that the good-looking stranger in the blue T-shirt was now standing at a nearby ATM machine. He was in the midst of a phone call on his mobile phone that had apparently upset him. Spinning about in a tight circle, he flung his arms into the air.

  Suddenly the little white Maltese sprinted toward Annie, turning back to bark at Brad who was in pursuit. Malpy raced at her, leaping into her arms and she gave him a hard shake and stuffed him into the cloth case.

  “Get him a leash.” Brad stopped, hands on his knees, breathing hard. “Be back.” With a wave, he hurried into the nearby men’s room entrance. She suspected he’d gone in there to take a pill or sniff a powder.

  She waited. The man in the T-shirt finished one phone call and answered another.

  Brad was smiling on his return, rubbing his well-shaped head. He surprised her with a question as they walked along. “You think life’s ironic?”

  “Brad, life’s so ironic that after nearly twenty years my dad suddenly sends a FedEx to Emerald saying he wants to see me before he dies. Then he cons me into flying here through a twister, then he blows me off and disappears. Then Sam cons you into flying my dad to Miami. Now here you and I are, chasing Malpy. Yes, I think life’s ironic.”

  Brad’s handsome face turned defensive. “I didn’t fly Jack anywhere. Personally.” He crumpled with sympathy. “I guess he’s a little mixed up from being so sick and then getting the crap beat out of him.”

  Annie said “Ah.” She recalled that she’d often said “Ah” when married to Brad; he’d never appreciated the variations she could play on the short syllable. “How do you know he was beaten up? And did Sam tell you who beat the crap out of him?”

  He shook his head vigorously. “Probably muggers.” He couldn’t hold her gaze. “Annie, losing your dad’s a tough assignment, take it from me. Look, hell with it. I’ll fly you to Miami myself, right now.”

  His sudden decision surprised her. “You will?”

  Brad slowly nodded, pleased by his generosity. He’d fly her in the new Cessna VLJ that he’d just brought here from Charleston. He’d enjoy showing her what it could do. They could be at Miami International Airport in a few hours. True, he had been scheduled to spend the Fourth of July with his mother in Atlanta but Mama Spring would understand. Annie and he could have a blast in Miami; catch a Marlins game, scuba, stay at the Biltmore in Coral Gables—

  She interrupted the fast burst of talk that was another indication that he was high. “I’ve flown the Citation Mustang.”

  He nodded in a rush. “You can fly anything. Anything.”

  Annie looked closely at his eyes. His pupils were now pinpoints. On their wedding day, he had promised that he was quitting drugs for good. When she’d found out otherwise, he’d allegedly gone cold turkey but six months later he had blamed his infidelity on amphetamines.

  She patted his flushed face. “Listen to me, you need to get some sleep. Lend me your jet. I’ll fly it to Miami and bring it back Friday.” He winced skeptically at her. “Okay, look, I’ll make a deal. We’ll fly together to Atlanta. But then you go to your mom’s. I’ll go on to Miami alone. You need to get home and go to bed.”

  “You’re a riot.” He patted her hand. “Lend you my jet.”

  She felt his pulse. It was racing. “Come on, do this for me, Brad, come on.”

  He stared at her hand on his, then looked her up and down again, head to foot. “You just look great. Life treating you okay, Annie? Well, I don’t mean now, with losing your dad…”


  “I’m okay.”

  “Sam says you could marry somebody else on the rebound from me.”

  “Sam said what?” Annie glanced over at the ATM. The man in the blue T-shirt was no longer standing there. After a search, she spotted him in the crowd by a distant gate, walking away, speaking into his cell phone. “Brad, I’m not getting married again for a long time.” The man turned down a corridor and was gone.

  Brad grinned at her. “Don’t get a divorce and then you won’t need to get married again for a long time. Good plan?”

  She gave him a rueful smile. “Don’t you think I need a break?”

  He looked hurt. “What happened wasn’t so bad.”

  “Yes it was.” She gave his hand a quick squeeze. “Come on, I’ll drop you in Atlanta. Lend me the jet.”

  Brad brought out the ring box from the pocket of his Italian suit jacket, showing her the diamond. “Marry me again?”

  It was a much larger diamond than the first one he’d given her, which she’d liked and had, in fact, missed looking at after she’d returned it. Annie wore very little, and very good, jewelry—a small string of pearls, a plain gold bracelet. This new diamond setting was the sort of thing she didn’t want, and amazingly enough she was beginning to feel absolutely sure that she didn’t want Brad either. He had come to win her back, was even really helping her, but it was over. She shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry. No.”

  “Okay,” he grinned. “But can we have sex?”

  It made her laugh, as he’d hoped. “No. No sex either. Keep on being the good guy here.”

  He gave an elaborate pretense of thought. “Okay, last offer. Will you slow up on this crazy divorce? Just one month. You wait one little month and you can fly my plane to Miami tonight.”

  “Come on, that’s blackmail!” Their whole marriage had been negotiated this way, like clauses in contracts drawn up by hard-boiled lawyers.

  “Yep, it’s blackmail.” Brad held out his hand.

  She thought about it. “If you get off in Atlanta.”

  He grinned. “I copilot.”

  “As far as Atlanta.” She held out her hand.

  “No divorce for a month?”

  She sighed, then nodded.

  His glance flickered sideways to two young laughing stewardesses hurrying in tight skirts down the corridor.

  Chapter 28

  Breaking the Sound Barrier

  As CEO of Hopper Jets, Brad was persuasive when he assured the air traffic controller that, despite Lieutenant Goode’s earlier daredevil landing of the Piper Warrior, she was a serious, decorated military flight instructor with the proper license and endorsements; she was one of the best pilots male or female ever seen in the sky, a flyer ranked second at the Naval Academy and second at Fighter Weapons School at San Diego only to Brad himself. All Brad wanted was quick clearance from ATC. If the air traffic controller couldn’t trust the U.S. Navy…

  “Why is it, A, I can talk anybody into anything except you and my mama?”

  Annie pushed Malpy down inside the cloth carrier atop the courier case. “Because we know you better than anybody else.”

  “You think?”

  “I think. And take your hand off my butt.”

  “Just trying to help.”

  Annie shook off Brad’s hand as they climbed into the cockpit of Hopper Jets’ newest acquisition, the Cessna Mustang jet.

  They waited for clearance on the taxi runway where Brad talked to her through their headsets. It had always been her favorite way of hearing his voice. “They’re phasing out the Super Hornet?”

  “Looking into the F-35,” she said.

  “I hear it’s got problems.”

  “Everything’s got problems.” She adjusted her helmet.

  Ten minutes later, they were first for takeoff. “You good to go?” she asked him.

  He wriggled in the copilot’s seat. “All yours, babe. Take this thing to the max. You break the sound barrier, it makes the earth tremble.”

  Annie smiled. It was a joke of theirs, from the past when they’d thought they’d have a future.

  At 12:53 a.m., July 5, sprays of rocket bursts and roman candles exploded above as the VLJ started its tight loop.

  The logistical nightmare caused by all the backed-up planes had shortened the temper of the surly traffic controller. But now as he watched the super-light Hopper jet corkscrew straight up into the night, headed for the stars, he turned to face his overworked staff and grinned at them widely. To grin widely was not something this man ever did. “You see that?” He shouted at them, “That woman’s a goddamn flyer! God bless America!” They stared shocked at their boss until he yelled at them to get back to work.

  By chance, as Annie flew to the southeast of the airport, the last clusters of red white and blue fireworks burst into air, illuminating the stainless steel of the St. Louis Arch. The Cessna Mustang seemed to go right through the fireworks. Then it tilted in a falconlike glide and headed toward Atlanta, Georgia.

  “Does it get much better than this?” Brad was not really asking a question and Annie did not give him an answer.

  She tipped a wing of the jet at the catenary arch over the Mississippi River, in tribute to the city whose merchants had purchased an airplane for Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh would christen it the Spirit of St. Louis and honor it years later by transferring its ID to the Monocoupe D-145 that was now hanging from the ceiling in the St. Louis airport���high off the floor but not high enough to stop her father from taking something (she had no idea what)—out of its cockpit.

  ***

  The Hopper jet was very fast and the flight was not a very long one. When they landed in Atlanta, Brad climbed onto the wing and then leaned in to kiss her good-bye. “You find Jack, tell him, well, good luck. You don’t want to let your daddy die in jail.”

  “No, I guess I don’t,” she agreed.

  Brad looked better, his eyes no longer darting. “Maybe Jack let you down when you were little, but give him a chance. Could be he’s just trying to make it up.”

  “Could be…”

  “I’m all for a second chance.”

  She rubbed his cheek, touched the mustache. “I know you are. Third, fourth, fifth chance.” She smiled at him. “Thanks for the loan.”

  “You owe me a month of marriage.” He acknowledged her raised eyebrow. “Name only. But we’re not signing any papers for thirty days.”

  She nodded. “After that we’re getting a divorce.”

  “No, we’re not.” Brad patted her gloved hand. “You take care of yourself, A. Happy Birthday. You’re looking great.”

  She gestured at his muscular body, fashionable clothes. “You too.”

  He socked himself in the stomach. “I keep at it. Wow, our first year at Annapolis? That bastard Johnson shoving our faces down in the slush with his boot? Remember that? ‘Give me another hundred!’ And it’s sleeting ice? Those were hard times.”

  She nodded. “Yes.” But those weren’t the hard times she remembered. “Take it easy.”

  “Always do.” He brought out the ring box again but before he could open his hand to show her, she closed her fingers over his.

  “It’s a very nice ring,” she said. “I’m grateful.” She moved his hand back down to his side, smoothed out his lapel. “But no.”

  Brad put the box back in his pocket. “You’re not going to find anybody better, A.”

  “Probably not.”

  “In a month, I’ll ask you again.”

  She turned back, looked seriously at him. “Why? Why would you? We weren’t happy.”

  He frowned as if thinking through their life together. “I was pretty happy. And let’s face it, babe, you weren’t ever happy. I mean, before it was my fault, you weren’t happy either.”

  The truth of what he said took her aback. She’d always blamed him for her unhappiness as she’d blamed the boyfriends before him, or the stress of school, or her father or…She nodded at him. “You’re absolut
ely right, Brad.”

  He looked puzzled. “Don’t be sarcastic.”

  “I’m not being sarcastic. It’s true.” She cradled her helmet. “It was great, flying with you again. I’ll take care of your jet.”

  He gave her a thumbs-up. “I know you will.”

  She had decided against telling him this news but now she offered it in gratitude. “I’m taking the Lockheed JSF X-35 up later this month.”

  His eyes widened. “Pax River?”

  She was surprised. “You know about these tests?”

  He shrugged. “You hear things.”

  Excitement slipped into her voice. “Brad, the landing’s totally vertical. I mean zero. You can drop it on a dime. There’re two of us testing for the Navy in a couple of weeks.”

  He swung his headset from its strap. “Who’s the other one?”

  “Don’t know. But I’ll get higher faster.”

  He grinned. “Than anybody but me.”

  It was true. She’d never clocked as fast a speed as Brad Hopper had.

  “Dropping the X-35 on a ship…” He said it as if it were ice cream on his tongue. “Love it. Well, if you can’t do it, babe, just call me.”

  “I can do it. Bye.”

  “Remember, thirty days.”

  Brad leaned into the cockpit to kiss her. She turned her head so his lips, a thin hard hot line, pressed against her ear. Handsome as ever, he jumped down to the tarmac and waved good-bye. Tightening the strap on her helmet, she watched him turn under a floodlight and grin. His grin had always both attracted and infuriated her. She knew, looking at that grin, that there was no doubt in his mind about her. He was sure that she would never divorce him.

  But she would.

  She recalled that she’d never liked the way Brad jabbed his tongue into her ear. While his lovemaking was efficient and generally effective, his kisses had never done for her what the old songs Sam played on the piano had claimed for romance; they had never given her the sort of chills run up and down your spine, take your breath away feeling of love songs. With Brad it had not been an unchained melody, rope the moon romance. She laughed at herself. So? Life’s not a movie, love’s not a song. Hadn’t her father taught her that love didn’t last?