Читать книгу Cloud Nine - Luanne Rice - Страница 7

Another autumn had come to Fort Cromwell, New York, and Sarah Talbot was there to see it. She sat on the front porch of her small white house, drinking apple cinnamon tea, wondering what to do next. The college kids next door were washing their car. Spray from the hose misted her face. Wrapped in a red plaid blanket, she tilted her face to the sun, and imagined the drops were saltwater and she was home on Elk Island.

A blue sedan drove slowly down the street. It looked municipal, as if it might belong to an undercover police officer or street inspector. FORT CROMWELL VNA was stenciled on the side, and when it parked in Sarah’s driveway, a small, trim woman in a white coat climbed out.

Sarah smiled to see her.

‘What are you doing here?’ Sarah asked.

‘That’s a fine greeting,’ the visiting nurse said.

‘I thought you were done with me,’ Sarah said. Holding her blanket with one hand, she used the other to unconsciously ruffle her closely shorn white hair.

‘Done with you? My daughter would kill me. Besides, do you think that’s how I treat my friends?’

‘I’m your patient, Meg,’ Sarah said, smiling.

‘Were, Sarah. Were. We’re here to take you for a ride.’

‘A ride? Where–’ Sarah began. Glancing at the car, she noticed Mimi in the backseat.

‘Happy birthday, Sarah,’ Meg said, bending down to hug her.

Sarah reached up. She put her arms around the visiting nurse and smelled her citrus-scented shampoo. Meg’s pockets jangled with keys, pens, and a stethoscope. A colorful plastic teddy bear was pinned to her lapel, just above her name tag. Sarah could feel by the new padding between her bones and Meg’s skin that she was putting on weight. The hug felt good, and she bit her lip.

‘How did you know?’ Sarah asked when they pulled apart. Today was her thirty-seventh birthday. She was having a quiet day: no party, no cards or calls from home. In the car’s back window Mimi was waving with one hand, trying to paste up a bright pink sign with the other. In silver glitter she had written MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY!

‘I read your chart,’ Meg said, grinning. ‘Come on.’

Will Burke stood in the hangar, his head under the hood of the Piper Aztec. Fall was his biggest season. He needed all three of the planes he owned serviced and ready to fly. The lake region was a tourist destination, with all the cider mills and foliage trails. He operated fifteen-minute aerial tours, especially popular during the Fort Cromwell Fair. The end of October brought parents’ weekends at two area colleges, with scheduled flights back and forth to New York, shuttling parents to see the big games and visit their kids.

At the sound of tires crunching over the gravel outside, he wiped his socket wrench on a blue rag and placed it on his tall red toolbox. He checked his watch: four o’clock. A friend of his daughter’s had booked a quick birthday tour, up and down, a fifteen-minute scenic loop of the lake and mountain. An easy thirty dollars, and he’d be back to the tune-up in no time.

Tucking his work shirt into his jeans, Will walked outside to greet his customers. He didn’t really feel like taking a break, but the afternoon was sunny, and the fresh air felt good, so he found himself smiling at the car anyway. He waved as they pulled up.

Meg and Mimi Ferguson got out. Meg was the town visiting nurse, and she yelled hello with cheerful efficiency, making Will smile a little wider. He hung back, wondering which one had the birthday. His daughter sometimes baby-sat for Mimi, and judging from what he remembered, Mimi must be about ten.

But then someone new got out of the car, a woman Will had never seen. She was small and thin, the size of an underfed teenager. Her skin was pale and translucent, like high cloud cover on a fall day, and her head was covered with blond peach fuzz. It was the way she looked at the sky that caught Will’s attention: with total rapture, as if she hadn’t ever seen it so blue before, or as if she couldn’t believe she was about to go up in it.

‘Ready to fly?’ he asked.

‘Which plane, Mr Burke?’ Mimi asked, excited.

‘That one,’ he said, pointing at the two-seater Piper Cub.

‘We can’t all fit?’ Mimi asked, disappointed.

‘Now, Mimi–’ Meg began.

‘Sorry, Mimi,’ Will said. ‘The big plane’s getting an oil change. If I’d known …’

‘You know what, Mimi?’ the woman said eagerly. ‘Why don’t you go up for me?’

‘It’s your birthday flight,’ Mimi said. ‘It was my idea, and we want you to go.’

‘Happy birthday,’ Will said to the woman.

‘Thank you.’ Again, that expression of amazement, as if she had never been so happy. She stared at him directly, and he had that shock he felt when coming upon a person he knew from somewhere, hardly at all, but who has undergone a drastic change of appearance. A weight gain or loss, a different hairstyle, a drop in health. He had seen this woman around town looking quite different. Then, for some strange reason, he pointed at the sky.

‘Ready?’ he asked.

‘I am,’ she said.

‘Let’s go,’ he said. Then, speaking to Mimi in a voice he tried to keep from sounding overly hopeful, he said, ‘Hey, Susan’s in the office. She’d be glad to see you.’

Secret’s dad had brought her to the airport. Her allergies were out of control, and the school nurse had tried to call her mother, but of course she wasn’t home. So Secret had told her to call Burke Aviation and ask for Will: Her father would definitely pick her up. And he had. She’d felt better almost immediately upon reaching the airport, but there was no point in going back to school: the day was almost over. She slouched at his desk, painting her nails. Craning her neck, she could just see the action outside, through the big window. Mimi and her mom and their friend were standing by the landing strip, talking to him.

Of all the kids Secret baby-sat for, Mimi was the best. She was a nice little kid. She listened to her parents, never tried to get Secret to pierce her ears in weird places, and wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up. She had Dreams and Goals, she knew there was more to life than Emma Turnley, the only school in this one-horse town, just as Secret herself did.

‘Hi, Susan,’ Mimi said, bursting through the door.

‘“Susan”?’ Secret said, barely looking up. ‘There’s no one named Susan here.’

‘That’s right, I forgot,’ Mimi said, grinning. ‘Secret. You changed your name. What’re you doing?’

‘October is the month for witchy doings, and since you know I’m a witch, I’m painting my nails accordingly,’ Secret said patiently, as if she were explaining something terribly obvious to a dim but cherished friend. She wiggled her fingers at Mimi, casting a spell.

‘Wow,’ Mimi said, admiring the artwork. Secret had used India ink and a crow-quill pen to paint delicate spiderwebs on her iridescent pale blue nails. Being right-handed, her left hand was more intricately done, with microscopic spiders clinging to the silken strands.

‘You brought that lady here for her plane ride, I see,’ Secret said, looking out the window again. The airport was tiny, and there wasn’t much activity. ‘Was she surprised?’

‘Very surprised,’ Mimi said. ‘I’m glad you suggested it.’

‘Mmm,’ Secret said, taking the compliment as her due. She was known for her great surprise and party ideas. Watching the woman walk toward the plane, she noticed a few things: She was too thin, her hair looked terrible, and she had the nicest face Secret had seen in a long time. ‘Is that lady really sick?’ she asked.

‘She was,’ Mimi said. ‘But she’s getting better. My mom takes care of lots of people, and for a while she said Sarah was going to die. But now she says she’s probably not. I’m really glad, but I don’t get it.’

‘You’re too young to get it,’ Secret said benevolently, although Mimi was older than Secret had been when her brother died. Secret’s throat began tickling. Her chest got that heavy feeling, and she reached into her father’s top drawer for the inhaler they always kept there. She took a hit.

‘Are you okay?’ Mimi asked, always looking so worried when Secret had an attack. This was nothing. Secret had asthma and allergies, and she had first met Mimi because Meg Ferguson had been her nurse. After a really bad attack, when she had stopped breathing and started turning blue, Secret had needed inhalation therapy for a few days, and her mother had called the visiting nurse.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Good thing you have your inhaler.’

‘I didn’t have it at school today, so I had to come home early.’ As soon as she said it, Secret felt bad for lying – to Mimi and to the school nurse. She had had her inhaler; it was buried deep in her book bag, beneath her art supplies and Franny and Zooey. But she had been bored at school, feeling lonely, and when the opportunity had presented itself with a choking fit, she had asked them to call her father.

Lonely: Secret felt it all the time, down to her toes. She missed her brother. Living with her mother, she missed her father. Right under the same roof, Secret missed her mother. Half the time she missed people when they were sitting right next to her. Walking through the mall with girls from her school, she missed her friends and they were right there.

Like now: Sitting here with Mimi, gazing out at the airstrip, she watched the sick lady with the terrible hair get into the plane, with this beautiful radiant look in her eyes, and Secret missed her. Missed her so badly her chest began to hurt, even though Secret had never met her before and didn’t even know her name.

They flew north. The pilot took her over the lake and western ridge, where the leaves blazed in the orange light. The craggy rocks glowed red, and the lake itself was deep blue-black. Sarah pressed her forehead against the cold window, looking out. She watched red-tailed hawks circling below the plane, their shadows dark and mysterious on the lake’s smooth surface.

‘Ever been up in a small plane before?’ the pilot asked.

‘Yes,’ Sarah said.

‘Don’t know why, I thought it was your first time,’ he said. ‘The way Mimi and her mom were so excited about arranging it for you.’

‘I think maybe I mentioned to Meg that I love flying,’ Sarah said. ‘Although I don’t do it as much now as I used to. Lots of weekends, I’d be on a plane just slightly bigger than this, flying home to Maine from Boston.’

‘I’m from New England too,’ he nodded. ‘That lake’s pretty, but it’s not –’

‘The Atlantic,’ she said, grinning.

He laughed too, the response of a man who had saltwater in his veins, who for some reason, like Sarah, had found himself living in upstate New York after a lifetime by the sea.

‘I’m Will Burke,’ he said, taking his hand off the controls to shake her hand.

‘Sarah Talbot.’

‘Hi, Sarah.’

‘Who was that I saw in the window back at the airport?’ Sarah asked. ‘That young girl looking out?’

‘My daughter, Susan,’ Will said.

‘A teenager?’

‘Fifteen,’ he said. ‘Going on thirty.’

‘I know the syndrome,’ Sarah said, glancing east, as if she could see across four states to a tiny island off the coast of Maine.

They kept heading north, even though they had reached the midway point, been in the air for seven and a half minutes, and should have turned for home. Down below was an endless pine forest. It covered the hills in all directions, an unfathomable expanse of green, and the dying sun threw glints of gold in the tall treetops. Sarah felt her eyes fill with tears.

Will glanced over.

‘I didn’t think I’d be here,’ Sarah said. ‘For another birthday.’

‘But you are,’ Will said.

He pulled back on the controls, and the plane began to climb. They left the earth behind, flying straight into the sky. Sarah felt the exhilaration of adventure, something new, of being alive. Her heart was in her throat, gravity pulling her shoulder blades against the leather seat. Will glanced quickly over.

The plane dove down. Holding tight, Sarah felt the plane do one loop-de-loop, then another. Will’s hand was so close, she wanted to grab for it. It was a sudden, mad impulse, and it passed. The plane steadied off. Sarah’s fifteen minutes were up, but they kept flying north for a while longer before they turned for home.