“Where are you going?” Theo asked.
“Cynthia needs something in town,” I snapped. I started to leave, when something struck me. I turned back. “You drove all night to come here and surprise me?”
Theo nodded.
“You didn’t stop at home to change or take a nap or anything? You were so eager to see me that you came straight here?”
He nodded again, but I recognized a guilty look on his face. Something was fishy. Theo hated the DZ, and he never came out here. Besides, neither one of us had even noticed when our four-month anniversary came and went—would he really drive all the way here for our fifth? Our sixth, maybe, but not fifth. Plus, he knew I’d be working and that even if my dad wanted to let me take time off, he couldn’t, not on a day like this, when students were bound to be lining up.
“I’ll just leave you two alone,” Denny said again. This time Theo moved aside and let him go.
“Do you have something to tell me?” I asked when we were alone. Theo avoided my gaze. “Something about a girl? Another girl?” At each question he flinched, but I felt no mercy. “The rock-climbing girl—the one in the picture?”
At last he looked at me, and his dark eyes were misty with tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“You haven’t hurt me yet,” I said, although I knew he was about to.
He took a deep breath. “Ali—the rock-climbing girl—she’s…I’m…we’ve been seeing each other.”
“You mean sleeping together.” Please deny it, I begged silently.
But he didn’t. Instead, he said, “She’s…different from you.” I waited. “She’s brave, she takes risks. She doesn’t need someone to protect her.”
“Sh-she d-doesn’t need—” I sputtered. I made myself breathe. “She doesn’t need someone to protect her? Neither do I! I keep telling you and my dad to back off, that I can take care of myself, and you both ignore me! And now you’re punishing me for it? For your own fantasy that I need you?” My voice had risen, and I clamped a hand over my mouth to hold in a sob. The last thing I wanted was for my dad to hear me and come in.
I spoke through my trembling fingers. “And you come back here and accuse me of…and all the while, you’re the one…with that rock-climbing girl…” Everything I felt—rage, hurt, the last shred of guilt—threatened to choke me, and I couldn’t speak. Half-blinded by tears, I stumbled out of the hangar and into the office. Cynthia, blessedly, was on the phone and didn’t look up as I grabbed my dad’s keys off the hook.
Out in the parking lot, I heard someone running behind me. I turned, ready to tell Theo to back off. But it was Denny. “Clancy, wait! You shouldn’t drive when you’re mad. Can’t you wait till you’ve cooled down? I’d take you myself wherever it is you’re going, but I don’t want him to think I’m running away from him.”
“I’m okay, Denny,” I managed to say. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Cynthia wanted me to get something at the Mart, and I need to get out of here for a while. There’s nothing to crash into between here and Knoxton.” I glanced back at the hangar and saw Theo heading toward the Porta-Johns. He hadn’t even stopped to pee? He’d been in that much of a hurry to confront me? And then when he heard me talking to Denny he turned all his guilt about Ali into anger at me.
“Sure?” Denny asked uncertainly. I nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll go back and try to convince him that nothing happened between us.”
“Don’t bother,” I said. “I don’t care what he thinks happened. I never want to see him again.” I really didn’t. The way he had cheated and lied—it was infuriating and humiliating.
Cynthia’s voice boomed out of the PA system, calling the next load, which Denny was on. “You have to go too,” I said.
“Okay.” He sounded unconvinced, and he glanced back at me as he walked across the landing area toward the plane.
Then I remembered my driver’s license. I wasn’t likely to be pulled over on the Knoxton road on a Sunday morning, but the last thing I needed today was a ticket. I went back into the hangar, hoping that Theo would still be in the Porta-John. He wasn’t anywhere to be seen, so I retrieved my purse. It was heavier than usual with Margaret Finnegan’s logbook inside it.
I froze in place. I’d had a thought, a crazy thought that swirled up out of the ache in my chest and the turmoil in my mind. It was just a tiny idea, and I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do it, but I knew I’d figure it out.
The Geezers were the only jumpers in the hangar, and they were still being discreet and ignoring me. I took a breath and quietly opened my cashbox. I took out a handful of folded bills and slid them into my pocket.
I got into the car and sat folded over for a moment with my eyes closed, my forehead against the steering wheel. My dad would be disappointed in me; he’d say I should have broken up with Theo before getting involved with Denny. He would be right, but it’s not like I’d planned any of that. And he’d be sure to find out about me driving to Knoxton today without checking with him. He’d clamp down, and I’d be so stifled I’d explode.
I had to get out of there, off the DZ, and go—where? Angie was hundreds of miles away. My dad’s parents were dead. I hardly knew my mom’s parents, and they lived in California anyway. My dad would have the National Guard out looking for me before I’d gone fifty miles.
I started the car and backed out slowly. There was nothing I could do, nowhere I could go. That little idea I’d had back in the hangar was nuts. I’d buy Cynthia’s paper at the Mart, and when I came back Theo would be gone, and Denny would be making a jump or driving back to his monkeys.
Only that’s not what I did.
I drove through town without stopping at the Knoxton Mart and kept going until I pulled into the parking lot of the Jump Ranch.
* * *
After what my dad had said about the rival DZ, I’d expected derelict old aircraft and tumbledown buildings. Instead, it looked okay. Small, and maybe not as well kept as Skydive Knoxton, with weeds growing out of cracks in the runway and some rust spots on the hangar’s metal roof, but the aircraft—two Cessna 182s—looked fine from what I could see, and Norton had said they were well maintained. Four jumpers were dirt diving with all the seriousness and precision of anyone at Knoxton. With a lot more seriousness and precision than some of the Knoxton jumpers actually, the Geezers in particular.
I watched the jumpers through my windshield. I didn’t know any of them. I took a deep breath and stepped out. I hadn’t seen Raymond, who owned the DZ, for a few years, and I didn’t think he’d recognize me.
They didn’t have a for-real office, just a chair in the doorway of the hangar in front of a card table with a metal cashbox and a legal pad on it, and a guy with a gray beard sitting there. “Morning,” he said as I approached.
“Hey.” My palms were sweaty. “I, um, I did an AFF class at Knoxton and got cleared for my solo. I was wondering if I could do it here.” I laid Margaret Finnegan’s logbook down on the table. Surely, this guy would figure that someone at Skydive Knoxton had verified my age, and he wouldn’t bother doing it again; my dad was famous for being strict about things like that.
The guy flipped through the logbook. “It’s been a while since your last AFF. Let me run this by the boss. He might want you to do a refresher before he lets you solo.”
I bit back a protest. Play it cool, I told myself. I stretched my lips back in what I hoped was a smile and nodded. Carrying the logbook, the guy disappeared into the hangar. I strained unsuccessfully to hear what they were saying, and then the bearded guy came back out with a heavy man, shorter than my father, with a receding hairline. I recognized him from the DC-3 days.
“Margaret?”
I nodded.
He stuck out his hand. “Raymond Purvis. So you want to solo?”
“Yes, sir.” I shook his hand, hoping he would put my sweaty palms down to the normal nerves of a jump student.
“Why not at Knoxton? That’s where you did your AFF course, right?�
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“It’s too expensive there. My boyfriend paid for the classes, but then we broke up before I soloed, so…” I let my voice trail off.
“So you want to prove that you weren’t just doing it for the boyfriend.”
It wasn’t really a question but I answered it. “Right.” It was kind of true anyway.
“Good for you.”
He was a nice man. This was something I hadn’t figured into what little plan I’d made—that I’d be lying to a nice man. But I’d just make this one jump and leave, and he’d never find out that I had lied to him, that I wasn’t Margaret Finnegan.
He glanced at the entries in Margaret’s logbook. I’d already read them. She had done okay—a little hesitation on her first pull, but that was normal. She hadn’t recorded her solo, where she had broken her ankle. “I don’t know. I think I should have one of my instructors go out with you once, and then you can solo after that.”
That was not in the plan either. If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right, meaning that nobody would be there to help me, not even an AFF instructor. I had to do it all by myself.
“I really can do it.” I knew how feeble that sounded. “And I didn’t bring enough money for an instructor.”
“Tell you what. I’ll take you out myself and give you a break on the price. You don’t have your own rig, do you?”
I shook my head. Damn. I wished I’d thought to bring one; now I’d have to pay for a rental too.
He looked up and squinted while he mentally calculated the price of the jump, a discounted instructor fee, and a rig rental, and named a figure. “Can you handle that?”
I pulled the wad of bills out of my pocket and riffled through them. I nodded. “Just.” An AFF with an instructor wasn’t what I wanted, but at least I’d be doing everything on my own, even if Raymond was in the air with me.
While we’d been talking, two loads had gone up. Soon my dad would start wondering where I was. Cynthia would have told him about the paper, but going to the Mart wouldn’t take more than an hour, and I’d already been gone almost that long.
“Can we go up soon?” I asked.
“I like that kind of enthusiasm!” he said. “Sure. Give Frank your money. He’s about to go on break, so I’ll get you a rig. Frank, this young lady and I will be going up on load three. Tell Hal to wait for us.”
Now that I was about to go, I started to freak out that I’d have to jump a rig that someone else had packed. I paid the gray-bearded man and ran after Raymond. When I caught up to him, I asked, “Can I repack the rig?”
He turned and looked at me, surprised.
“They taught me how at Knoxton. They said everyone should learn how to pack their own.”
“That’s usually true, but we’ll miss the load. And then there’s a bunch of students. If you repack, we won’t be able to go up for another hour, maybe two. I thought you wanted to go up on the next load?”
I was stuck. I couldn’t imagine jumping someone else’s pack job. On the other hand, the longer I waited, the greater the chance that something would happen to stop me. I chewed on my lower lip, agonizing.
The phone in the hangar rang, and I whipped my head around. The folding chair was empty and Frank was nowhere to be seen; he must have started his break already.
“Voice mail will get it,” Raymond said. “So what do you want to do?”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
When we came out of the hangar, I saw that along with the 182s, Raymond also had a Twin Otter. “An Otter!” I said. Raymond looked at me curiously. “Um, that’s what it is, right? I mean, I don’t really know…”
“Yep, that’s what it is. Not many people know one aircraft from another, though.”
I shrugged. “I like planes, I guess.”
Raymond said, “Cool,” and gave me a hand up. The plane didn’t have seats, just seat belts bolted into the floor. It’s fine, it’s fine, I told myself. Plenty of jump planes just have seat belts. It’s perfectly safe, and it leaves more room for jumpers. Very sensible and economical.
People were climbing in, and Raymond and I scooted farther back. I put my mouth next to his ear so he could hear me over the racket of the engine. “We’re going out last?”
“Yup. Why? Want to get it over with?”
I shrugged, trying to look casual.
“Nervous?”
I thought about lying but decided that only an idiot wouldn’t be at least a little nervous, so I nodded.
The pilot turned down the runway and accelerated. Raymond handed me an altimeter, and I strapped it onto my wrist. Raymond leaned in close. “Don’t worry—do it just like before. I’ll be right there if you need me.”
I looked out the window. Part of me was saying, Need you? I won’t need you. I don’t need anyone. And part of me was saying, Like before? There is no “before”! This is crazy—tell him you’ve changed your mind, and neither part was drowning out the other. I leaned my forehead against the window and closed my eyes, hoping the shaking would rattle my brain into silence. The sound of the propeller was deafening since the aircraft door had been removed.
I felt the liftoff and opened my eyes again. When we reached a thousand feet, Raymond motioned at me to take off my seat belt. Soon it started feeling cold as we climbed rapidly. I glanced at my altimeter and saw we had passed five thousand feet.
The Missouri landscape spread out below us. The trees were the pale green of early summer, but in a few weeks they would be that heavy, dark color that even looks hot. From this high, everything on the ground seemed clean and whole. The rust spots on the roof of the hangar disappeared and the metal sparkled in the sunlight. The weeds in the cracks in the runway, and even the cracks themselves, were invisible. A car on the road to the DZ looked like one of those little metal toy cars, all cherry-red and shiny and sporty….
I gasped and pressed my forehead to the window again. It couldn’t be—but it was. Denny’s car was speeding toward the Jump Ranch.
How had he figured out where I’d gone? Well, if he was coming because he thought he could talk me out of it—for one thing he was too late, and for another, it wasn’t any of his business. It was nobody’s business but mine whether I jumped or not.
A four-way lined up in the door. They took a little while to get into position—it’s awkward moving around in such cramped quarters—and finally bombed out. I was in agony. With the delay, the pilot would have to circle around to get me and Raymond out over the right spot. Meanwhile, Denny would recognize my dad’s car in the lot. When he didn’t find me on the ground, he’d tell someone.
I stared out the window. Slow down, I willed Denny. I couldn’t see the road, so I moved to the other side of the plane, near the door.
Raymond put out his hand. “Not yet!” he yelled over the prop noise.
“I just want to look out!” I shouted back. Raymond looked puzzled; there were windows all around us to look out of.
But the plane turned on jump run at exactly the wrong time, blocking my view of the road. I glanced at the pilot, wondering when the cut was going to come. He was talking into the microphone on his headset. He turned and looked at me with narrowed eyes.
Vomit rose in my throat.
The pilot’s voice came over the crackly intercom. “Ray, I need to speak to you.”
Raymond hoisted himself up and leaned over him. The pilot’s lips moved and he pointed at me. Raymond turned and now both of them stared at me. Raymond leaned over and asked in my ear, “Is your name Clancy Edwards?” I stared back at him, not knowing whether to admit it or deny it, and then he asked, “Dave Edwards’s girl?”
I gulped and nodded. I couldn’t read his expression; it looked like anger and fear and maybe embarrassment. He didn’t say anything more to me but turned back to the pilot, and I knew he was telling him to land. We started a descent.
Before Raymond could stop me, even before I knew I was going to do it, I hurled myself through the door. Instantly, I thought,
I need to hit rewind, and then I thought, You can’t rewind real life.
* * *
The first thing I noticed was the noise. Being in freefall in the serene-looking sky wasn’t any quieter than the plane ride had been—it was louder, if anything. The wind sounded like a freight train when you’re too close to the tracks, a pulsing roar that slams your eardrums. I didn’t feel like I was falling; I felt like I was the locomotive of that freight train, moving incredibly fast, tumbling every which way, so I didn’t even know where the ground was. If I was still tumbling around when I opened, I could get wrapped up in the lines. Didn’t happen often, but it was possible. I have to hit an arch, I told myself. I flung my arms wide, arched my back, and tried to touch my heels to the back of my head.
Miraculously, the tumbling stopped, and right away the earth rolled smoothly under me like a huge green carpet. The wind still battered my face, forcing my lips back and freezing my teeth. I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and I realized that Ray must have exited right after me and tracked head-down to catch up. He would try to get close, but he needed to avoid flying straight over me. When I pulled I’d come to a near stop, and if he was in freefall above me, we’d slam into each other at more than a hundred miles an hour, and both of us would die.
I didn’t know what our exit altitude had been, but it must have been pretty high. Ray would have planned for me to have a long freefall so he could check out whether I could solo. But I didn’t want a freefall experience. All I wanted was to open now. I wanted to see a big, bright canopy overhead, to ride it down to the ground to whatever trouble was waiting for me.
I waved off, just in case Ray was over me. I reached to my waist to pull out the pilot chute, but that made me break my arch and I wound up on my back. I hit the arch again and stabled out, but I didn’t spend any time enjoying the view. I moved my right arm down, gritting my teeth to force the rest of me to stay in the arch. I found the pilot-chute handle and flung it out.
Freefall Summer Page 17