by Cary Fagan
As if he had to tell me.
The snowplow pushed itself down the street, forming tall banks along either side. Kids built forts and threw snowballs at one another, shouting into the frosty air. Any other winter I would have been out there too, but all I could think about as I looked out the fogged-up window was Miami Beach.
Walking to school, I kept my scarf over my mouth and nose but still the wind hurt my face. My eyes teared up. Dad got our beat-up suitcases out of the basement. He went to a used bookstore downtown and bought himself a paperback copy of a fat novel called Exodus to read on the beach. Larry lay under his desk lamp with his shirt off, saying that he was getting a head start on his tan. Marcus began doing push-ups because he wanted to look like a lifeguard. Larry laughed. “They’ll take one look at you and decide they’d rather go under.”
At last Friday arrived, the last day of school. Our flight was the next day. Our suitcases were packed and waiting at the door. Dad had to go on an emergency job to deal with a frozen pipe. Trying to come home again, his car wouldn’t start and he had to get it towed. He walked in with ice in his hair. “It’s like Siberia out there,” he said.
Mom sent us to bed early. I lay in the dark, too excited to sleep. When I went to the bathroom I heard my parents talking in their room. They said that if the weather was bad the airplane might not be able to take off.
In bed, I worried until at last I fell asleep. In the morning, Marcus and Larry woke me up. They didn’t dump cold water on my face or try to scare me. They just nudged me gently.
“Norman,” Marcus said. “It doesn’t look good.”
I hurried out of bed and ran to the front window.
Everything was white. The street had disappeared.
“Go ahead and cry if you want to, Normy,” said Larry. “I wouldn’t blame you.”
I heard Dad’s voice. “Why are you kids just standing around? Get dressed!”
We turned around. Dad wore a baseball cap and sunglasses. “Do you really think we can go?” I asked. “Will the plane be able to take off?”
“We won’t know until we get there. And getting there is the first thing we have to do. My car won’t get through, but if there’s anyone who can get us to the airport, I know who it is.”
“Uncle Shlomo!” cried Marcus.
Dad nodded. “He’s on his way.”
The Runway
Uncle Shlomo was actually my dad’s uncle, which made him our great-uncle. He had a heavy Yiddish accent, a bald head and a barrel chest. He was the strongest man I knew, and it always looked like his muscles were going to burst out of his shirt. I guess that was because he was a junk dealer and had to lift so much heavy stuff.
Uncle Shlomo was from the old country and had survived World War II, which meant he had seen terrible things. But he was the most cheerful and easygoing person in my family. All of my other aunts and uncles would tell you that it was going to rain even when the sun was shining. If they felt fine, they were sure that something would soon start hurting. But not Uncle Shlomo. Dad said that he had learned to appreciate the little joys in life.
Most important for us, Uncle Shlomo drove a truck. It was an old Canadian army truck that he had bought cheap, and it was as solid as a tank. If anything could get through the snow, that truck could.
Mom told us to get ready. We put on our boots and scarves and coats and hats and mitts and waited beside our suitcases. Marcus and Larry jostled one another to peek out the little oval window in the front door.
“There he is!” Larry cried. “I saw him first!”
“Did you see this first?” Marcus said, pulling Larry’s hat over his eyes.
“Uncle Shlomo is driving awfully slowly,” Mom said, ignoring them. “I guess even the truck is having trouble getting through all that snow. Okay, everybody, grab your suitcase. Let’s go!”
When Dad opened the door we were hit with a blast of arctic air. As soon as I stepped outside, snow blew into my face. We made our way single file down the driveway. The truck growled and hiccupped by the curb. Dad heaved our suitcases into the back and covered them with a tarp. Then he and Mom squeezed in beside Uncle Shlomo while the three of us got in the back seat.
“A nice day if you’re a polar bear,” Uncle Shlomo chuckled. It was almost as cold inside the truck as outside, but my uncle wore only an old flannel shirt. As always, he had a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. “I got stuck three times on the way here. It was quite an adventure.”
“We can’t thank you enough,” Mom said.
“For you, darling, anything. Me, I don’t need any fancy-schmancy holiday. Give me a nice cup of tea and my easy chair to take a nap in. But people these days want more. I say fine, see Miami Beach. Now I have to concentrate on my driving.”
Nobody spoke. Uncle Shlomo gripped the steering wheel as if he was trying to strangle it and peered through windshield, the wipers swishing back and forth. On either side of the road parked cars were disappearing under blankets of white. It felt like a new ice age. I half expected to see some dinosaur stumble ahead of us and collapse into extinction.
We got onto the highway, where the driving was a little better but still slow. At last Dad said, “There’s the sign for the airport.” Uncle Shlomo took the ramp. I rubbed the side window to see out but couldn’t spot any airplanes taking off or landing. The truck slowed and then came to a halt.
“Here we are, door-to-door service,” Uncle Shlomo said. “If you don’t take off, call me. I’ll be at home having a bowl of soup.”
“But we have to take off,” I said.
“Listen, Norman,” he said in a kindly voice. “Here’s a life lesson: as long as you’ve got your health there’s nothing to complain about. But I hope you’ll get your fancy-schmancy holiday. You can bring me home a souvenir.”
Dad pulled out the suitcases and we fought our way through the big glass doors into the terminal. “It sure is quiet in here,” Mom said. “I expected it to be crowded with people going on vacation. But I guess…”
My dad shook his head at her and she didn’t finish her sentence. We made our way to the Air Canada check-in counter where a woman in a blue uniform with a little cap on her head was speaking into a telephone. She hung up and said, “May I help you?”
“We’re supposed to be going to Miami Beach.” Dad put our tickets on the counter.
She picked them up. “We’ve had to cancel the last three flights. It’s the same with the other airlines. Your plane came in last night. If there’s a break in the weather, you might have a chance. But you’ll have to wait.”
“We’ll wait,” I said.
She put our luggage on a conveyor belt. Not only had I never been on an airplane, I’d never been to the airport. The check-in woman told us to go to gate three. We walked over to find a few other people who were also hoping to get on. My brothers and I went to the big windows and pressed our faces to the glass. There was our airplane. It was a sleek beauty, and as soon as I saw it my heart leapt with excitement.
“What kind is it, Norman?” Marcus asked.
“A DC-8,” I said. “That’s a real jet plane. It’s got Rolls-Royce engines. It’s got the most up-to-date radar technology. It can fly thirty-five thousand feet high, way above the clouds, where the air is clear and calm. If only it can get up there.”
We watched as men moved around the plane, trying to keep it free of snow and ice. An announcement came on. “Passengers of Air Canada flight 318 to Miami, we are going to begin boarding in the hope of being able to take off. Please have your tickets ready.” We were going to get on! I could hardly believe it.
“Stay together,” Mom said. The five of us joined the line and made our way through a corridor to the oval-shaped opening that led to the plane. “Welcome aboard,” the stewardess said, looking at our tickets. “You’re all in row nineteen.” We shuffled down to our seats. My parents took the two on one side of the aisle while my brothers and I had the three on the other. I wanted the window seat so I could
look out, but somehow my brothers jockeyed me into the middle, where they immediately squeezed me with their elbows. I decided that I wasn’t going to let anything ruin this for me. I looked around at everything—the little tray set into the seat in front of me, the overhead compartments. I wondered if this was going to be the extent of my holiday—seeing the inside of an airplane before we had to get off again.
Did we have a chance of taking off? I leaned over Marcus to look out the window and to my amazement saw that the snow had stopped falling. It even looked a little brighter out, as if the sun was trying to peek through the clouds.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Ronald Fairbanks. It looks like we’re going to get a break in the weather. The ground crew is doing a final de-icing. There’s going to be a lot of turbulence in the first few minutes, so be prepared for some bumps. Nothing to worry about. Now I’ll hand over the microphone to our head stewardess, who will go over the safety procedures with you.”
I buckled myself in and listened to the stewardess, not because I was afraid but because I didn’t want to miss a thing. Then the plane began to taxi along the runway. My brothers and I looked at one another with wide eyes. Were we really going to be flying on an airplane? Were we really going to travel over a thousand miles to get to Miami Beach? I wondered if one day in the future people would fly all the time and it would be no big deal to them, just like riding in a car. The plane picked up speed and I grabbed the armrests. There was a jolt and I could feel the wheels lift off the ground. We were in the air!
Leaning toward the window, I could see the ground receding below. The plane rattled and shook. It dropped and then became steady and dropped again.
“Are we going to be okay?” Larry asked.
“Oh sure,” I said. “It’s just turbulence. It’ll probably get worse for a while.”
“I hope not,” Marcus said. “I feel kind of sick.”
“Don’t worry, this plane can take it. Why, we could be shaken right out of our seats and the plane would be fine. Why, we could even—”
Marcus reached forward. He grabbed the paper bag in the pocket below his tray and managed to get it open just in time to barf. Yuck! I turned away from him toward Larry. But Larry reached for his own bag and a moment later he was barfing too. All I could do was stare at the seat back in front of me. It was like listening to barfing in stereo.
The holiday had begun.
Just Picked
The pilot had been right; once we got over the clouds, the ride became smooth. The stewardess helped my brothers clean up and gave us a pack of Air Canada playing cards. She said that the flight was going to take just over three hours. Did any of us want to see the cockpit? My brothers weren’t the slightest bit interested but I eagerly agreed.
I followed the stewardess up the aisle. She knocked on the cockpit door and opened it. “Gentlemen,” she said, “we have a visitor. His name is Norman.”
The captain turned to smile at me. Then he pointed out various things among the rows of switches and dials and lights while the co-pilot beside him flew the plane. Through the windshield I had a view of the endless sky.
“Tell me, Norman,” the captain said. “Do you know what kind of plane this is?”
I rattled off all the facts I knew about DC-8s. Then I told him about the balsa-wood airplanes I built. “I used to build some of those myself,” the pilot said. “I think you know more than we do. George, give the young pilot one of those models.”
“Roger that, Captain,” said the co-pilot. He reached down beside him and pulled up a small box. I opened it as the stewardess took me back to my seat. It was a small metal replica of a DC-8 with the white and red markings of the airline. The little wheels on the undercarriage actually spun. I thought it was pretty amazing.
Fortunately, I remembered to hide it from my brothers as I sat down, slipping it into the seat beside me. The three of us played gin rummy for a while and managed not to argue too much, and then the lunch cart came up the aisle. We each got a tray with real china dishes and small silver knives and forks. Lunch was breaded chicken and green beans and little potatoes and chocolate pudding. After the trays were collected again I closed my eyes. I guess I was tired from worrying about the flight because I fell asleep.
I jolted awake when the wheels of the plane touched the tarmac. A moment later we were stopped and Dad was pulling our coats out of the overhead bins. I put mine on, slipping the model airplane into the pocket, and we began to shuffle down the aisle. Usually I let my brothers push ahead of me, but this time I got first in line.
I thanked the stewardess and then went down the portable stairway that led to the runway. Even before I was out the door I felt the heat and blinked at the brilliant light. The air was heavy with the scent of flowers. Immediately, I became too hot in my winter coat and boots. The sky above was pale blue and some strange birds with long necks flew overhead. Just past the airport building I could see a line of palm trees with their enormous drooping leaves. Palm trees!
I felt my father’s hand on my shoulder. “We’re definitely not in Canada anymore,” he said.
We walked into the terminal building, and things looked different there too. For one thing, the men didn’t wear suits like my dad was wearing. They wore short-sleeved shirts in wild colors—orange, yellow, pink. Some had patterns of flamingos or guitars on them. And they wore white trousers and white shoes. The women had on little sundresses, even ladies old enough to be my grandmother, and everyone had skin the color of copper pennies from being in the sun. It was like they were glowing.
I looked behind me to see my brothers staring just the way I was. “I feel like we’re in an episode of The Twilight Zone,” Marcus said.
We got our luggage and then piled into a taxi, Mom and the three of us squeezing into the back and Dad in front. The driver was an elderly Black man with close-cropped hair, sunglasses and gold chains around his neck. He had the air-conditioning on full blast, but Dad asked if he could turn it off so that we could open the windows.
“If you say so,” the driver said. “Personally, I think air-conditioning is the greatest invention of all time.”
We rolled down the windows and looked at the streets going by. Some of the palm trees had actual coconuts on them. We passed stands with signs saying Fresh Papayas or Just Picked Grapefruit. We passed a white stucco house with an enormous cactus growing in front, and pots of giant flowers, like out of some science fiction movie.
“It’s so colorful,” Mom said. “It makes everything at home look so drab.”
“Mr. Driver?” Larry said.
“Uh-huh?”
“Is everyone here rich?”
“Sure we are. In fact, I just drive this cab for a hobby.”
“Oh.”
“I’m just kidding. And you’re on vacation. All you have to do is enjoy yourselves. Can I give you a little piece of advice?”
“Please do,” Dad said.
“Don’t lie in the sun too much on the first day, or you’ll get a sunburn so bad you won’t be able to sit down. Happens all the time.”
“Thank you,” Mom said. “We’ll be careful.”
We drove for another few minutes and then we began to pass big hotels, one after another. Between them I caught glimpses of the beach and the ocean. My heart beat faster.
“Which one is ours?” I asked.
“The Royal Palm is just ahead.”
And there it was, a pink castle rising as if in a fairy tale. The rows of windows glinted in the sun and a line of flags on the roof fluttered in the breeze. The driver slowed down and pulled into the long entrance, stopping under the giant overhang. A man in a uniform with gold braid on the shoulders came forward to open the doors.
“Welcome to the Royal Palm Hotel,” said the door-man. “I’ll take care of your luggage. You go right in.”
The five of us stayed close together as we passed through the high glass doors into the lobby. A dozen pink columns rose to a domed roof painted with a
copy of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling, which I recognized from one of Mom’s art books. The floor was black marble and there were giant vases everywhere, brimming with jungle-sized flowers. Just like at the airport, everyone wore bright summer clothes. They carried towels, paperback novels, transistor radios, straw hats. Mom and Dad checked us in and then a porter pushing our luggage on a cart directed us to the elevators. The elevator was lined with mirrors and we looked at ourselves, five pale people in bulky winter coats and big boots, like North Pole dwellers who had taken a wrong turn.
At the thirty-fourth floor, the elevator door opened and we got out. The porter pushed the cart a little ways down the hall and then unlocked a door. “After you,” he said.
Mom went in first. I heard her gasp. “This isn’t a hotel room. It’s a palace!”
We followed her in. She was right; it sure wasn’t like any motel room we’d stayed in before. It was huge, with ceiling-high glass windows that looked down on the swimming pool and the beach. There was plush white wall-to-wall broadloom. There was a sitting room with two white sofas, and a crystal bowl of fruit on the glass coffee table. On the walls hung abstract paintings. Two doors led into the bedrooms, one for my parents and one for us. Ours had three separate beds piled with pillows, three end tables, three lamps and three dressers. We could slide open the glass door and step onto the balcony to see the ocean and feel the soft air.
“I’m never going to leave,” Marcus said. “I’m going to live here forever.”
“I’m going to live here for even longer,” Larry said.
“You can’t live longer than forever, you dope.”
“Enough, you two,” Mom said. “This is really something. And we owe it all to you, Norman. But where is Dad?”
At that moment Dad came out of one of the bedrooms. He wore his bathing suit, showing off his pale, hairy legs.
“So?” Dad grinned. “Who wants to go for a swim?”
The Black Suit