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Up in the Air

By: Adrian Leverkuhn



A heavy rain fell on the 747 as it was pushed back from the gate. The airliner looked dark and perversely sinister in the evening light, like some kind of misplaced prehistoric whale wallowing on wet pavement, incongruously bathed in garish yellow light that flooded the crowded ramp. Open window shades along the side of the beast dappled the tops of the wings with little amber shadows; water collecting on the wings quivered and ran down to the safe embrace of the earth below when the huge turbofans spooled up during their startup. A person in an anonymous orange rain-suit walked under the nose of the aircraft, hooked by an umbilical to the aircraft and looking about as significant as a remora trailing a whale shark's gaping mouth. 

"Clear to start two," the person said.

"Starting two," Paul Overton said from his seat some forty feet above the ramp. He reached over and pushed buttons, watched pressures build on the screens in front of him while he advanced a throttle lever to the start position.

"Pressure good," Overton's first officer said, her voice full of a gravelly West Texas twang. "EGT good. EGP check."

"Clear to start three," the voice below called through rain and wind.

"Starting three," Overton repeated. He began the same sequence and watched the screens again, then moved a practiced eye to the latitude and longitude readouts on the tiny screen by his right knee to see that the aircraft's movement was registering on the navigation display. "Good inertial lock," he said when he saw the numbers change.

Another voice broke into the cockpit from the overhead speaker: "United two three heavy, clear to taxi to alpha foxtrot for runway two five left."

"Two three heavy to two five left," Overton replied to the ground traffic controller huddled somewhere far away in the darkness. He saw the red panel light blink out indicating the push back truck was disconnected, then heard the voice below calling through the storm that they were now clear to taxi. Overton waited until orange suited figure walked into view ahead and turned to face him, then, as the figure below held out a flashlight tipped with a glowing orange wand pointed to his left, he advanced the throttles for two and three with his right hand while turning the nose-wheel paddle with his left. The old girl hesitated, then began to move ever so slowly; he increased the turn radius and backed off the throttles as the speed picked up.

"EGT on three is a little high," Denise Evans, the first officer, said.

"Okay, keep an eye on it. Give me flaps seven and set V-ref for one two seven and rotate for one four three."

"Flaps seven, V-ref to one two seven and V-r to one four three."

Overton straightened out the nose gear and goosed the throttle again for just a moment, and the old girl steadied out at just under twenty miles per and rumbled along the old concrete far below. "What's the EGT now," he asked.

"Forty five percent and holding."

"Good. Go ahead and give me lights and some wiper." The taxiway ahead lit up as Evans hit a switch on the overhead panel, then the wipers burst into action and cleared the windshield. 

The two pilots settled into calling out the remainder of the takeoff checklist while Overton turned onto the taxiway; about halfway out to the runway he started the two outboard engines and watched their readouts as they spooled up.

"United two three heavy, winds two four three at eighteen gusts to two five. Taxi to position and hold."

"Two three heavy," Evans said as Overton reached for the intercom.

"Flight attendants prepare for takeoff," he said as he armed the slides and doors. He caught a flicker of lightning in the clouds and flipped the weather radar from standby to active and watched a line of deep red cells form-up on the screen.

"Ooh, that's nice," Evans said. "Going to be a messy climb out tonight."

The two peered ahead into the darkness and watched as a sheet of lightning filled the sky ahead of a sudden burst of heavy rain. Overton groaned when a couple of pea-sized hail stones bounced off the windshield.

"Ah, United two three heavy, wind now one nine zero at thirty five, gusting to forty plus."

"Two three heavy received," Evans replied. She turned to Overton: "That's getting pretty close to the line." Even the huge 747 had a crosswind limit of forty five knots on takeoff, but this heavily loaded even forty would be pushing it.

Overton slowed the aircraft as they came to the end of the taxiway; he squinted through the wipers and saw the landing lights of an American 757 on final. The wings of the landing jet rocked and dipped as a gust tore across Jamaica Bay; the pilots corrected and the jet slid by outside with barely a whisper, the right wingtip seemingly inches above the runway. Overton turned his jet to the right as he stepped on the brakes and slowed to a stop; they both looked at the 757 as it flew above the runway as if hesitating, then heard it power up and climb back into the clouds.

"Shit," the two pilots said.

"United two three heavy, American 757 reports severe crosswinds; we're still showing three five knots from one ninety."

Overton spoke to the controller in the tower this time: "Ah, two three heavy, we'll give it a try."

"United two three heavy, roger, and you're clear for takeoff. Contact departure at one two seven decimal three. Good night."

"Two three heavy," Overton said as he advanced the throttles a little. Turning onto the runway he straightened out along the centerline and pushed the throttles all the way to the takeoff indent and moved his hand to the wheel. He pushed his left foot down on the rudder pedal as he felt the first gust bite into old girl, then he brought his left hand up from the nose gear steering paddle. Another gust hit and he rolled in a little left aileron. He looked at the speed momentarily, then focused on the runway and the crosswind . . .

"V-one," Evans called out a moment later, then: "Rotate!"

Overton pulled back on the stick and the nose lifted; a savage gust tore into the old girl but he corrected easily, smoothly, and he looked at the rate of climb indicator. "Okay, positive rate of climb; gear up."

Evans reached up to the front panel and pulled the gear lever out and up, then waited for the annunciater lights to indicate green before stating "gear up and locked." She reached up and turned off the bright landing lights, then switched to the departure control frequency and called in: "United two three heavy out of 500."

"Roger, two three heavy, turn left to one five zero, and you're cleared to flight level two-two zero."

"Two three heavy to one five zero and angels twenty two," Evans said as the 747 leapt from one strata of cloud before climbing up to the next.

Overton began a gentle standard rate turn just south of The Battery; he looked down and could just make out The Statue of Liberty through a tiny break in the storm below. The carpet of dappled dark cloud below was rimmed with pale light from an endless sea of city lights down in there in the rain, and as strobes on the wingtips pulsed the sensation of speed between these two layers of cloud was startling.

"Two three heavy, turn left to zero eight zero, ident 2400, and check Mode C please."

"Two three heavy to zero eight zero, 2400 Mode C confirmed."

Overton set the heading bug on the flight director then flipped on the autopilot; another onboard computer continuously calculated the most fuel efficient throttle setting and maintained this calculated speed to climb ratio, and would all the up to the final cruise altitude. 

The cabin intercom chimed and Evans answered, then New York Center came on:

"United two three heavy, now clear to flight level three six. Come left to zero three zero and contact Boston Center on one three-three decimal seven.

"Two three heavy to three six on zero three zero," Overton replied while Evans fiddled with a cabin temperature setting on her overhead panel. "What's up back there?"

"Too hot back in coach."

"Well, hell, there're only three hundred twenty folks down there crammed into a space designed for two hundred." He changed the heading bug on the flight director again and the jet banked gently to the left. "Shit, just tell 'em to open a window." 

Evans laughed, then her eye shot to the EGT readout for engine three again. She reached over and changed screens to focus on just that engine.

"I see it," Overton said. He reached over and retarded the throttle lever for number three until the fluctuation stabilized again. "Looks like an oil filter or pump issue. Probably be okay at seventy percent." Evans fiddled with the flight director to dial in the compensation. "Switch over to Boston, would you?"

Evans switched comm units and called Boston Center: "Boston, this is United two three heavy at eighteen climbing for three six."

"Good evening two three heavy. You're clear to three six. Only traffic at this time is at your ten o'clock descending from twenty right now, about one five miles. You're following Speedbird zero zero three, four five miles ahead at flight level two five. You are clear for St John, contact Bangor on one three four decimal one, and good night."

"Roger Boston. Contact Bangor one three four one."

"Shit," Overton said, "this is going to be a long night. I hope they gave us something other than rubber chicken salad this time. Man, I got the shits something fierce last time I had one of those things. Death bombs!"

"You want something already?"

"Hell yes!" Overton said, grinning. Evans ran her seat back on it's motorized track and opened the little crew mess kit strapped into one of the jump seats. With the new post 9/11 cockpit access restrictions in place, flight attendants could no longer bring food and drink up to the flight deck; now a refrigerated tote bag loaded with soda and sandwiches was all they had access to for the next seven plus hours.

"Dr Pepper, I assume?"

"Hell yes!"

"Looks like . . . uh, chicken salad or roast beef tonight. A couple of pasta salads and some blueberry yoghurt."

"Oh barf! How 'bout the roast beef. Is it green again?"

Evens took out a sandwich, fiddled with the plastic wrap and took a tentative sniff, then peeled back the bread and held the thing up to a ceiling light. "Looks like mayo and salt and pepper. Still cool. Smells alright, I guess."

"Shit. I shoulda had something on the way in."

"You want it?"

"Hell yeah."

Evans chuckled and took two sandwiches out of the case, and grabbed a can of club soda for herself before zipping the bag shut; she motored back up to the panel and handed Overton his DP, then his sandwich. She looked out to her left, toward the coast, and could just make out Portland, Maine through a break in the cloud and about sixty miles away. She looked off to her right, out into the back pit of the Atlantic, and she could just make out a couple of fishing boats flickering on the darkness below. 'Must be rough down there tonight,' she said to herself. She unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite, then wrapped it back up and tossed it into a little metal trash bin.

"Pretty fucking gross, huh?" Overton said.

"Tastes like a goddamned maxi-pad," she said, and she was gratified to hear Overton gag as he spewed Dr Pepper out his nose.

'Yeah, and I bet you've had a ton of experience chewing on those!' Overton thought. Evans didn't exactly advertise her preference, but not one male pilot asked her out on a date and lived to tell about it. Well, that was the standard line on her, anyway. But she was as good as they got, he told himself, and he always looked forward to flying with her. She had flown C-17s in the Air Force for ten years and had the reputation for being one of the toughest jet-jocks out there. She lived, so he'd heard, with a physician, a pretty but butch looking lady, somewhere up in Connecticut on a horse farm.

The night reeled by with monotonous precision: St John, St Pierre, Gander and Thule, then Shannon and Cardiff as the sun came up, followed by a straight-in approach to Heathrow. They pulled into Terminal Three just before zero eight hundred and shut down the engines as the Jetway pulled up to the First Class doorway.

"Would you do the 'Meet and Greet' thing this morning?" he asked her while he ran through the shutdown checklist. "I don't much feel like smiling this morning."

"Yeah, sure. You alright?"

"Oh, you know, Denise, I've been better, but that's another story for another day."

"Yeah, okay Paul. I'll be back up in a second." She unbolted the cockpit door and walked over to the little spiral stairway and disappeared down into the main cabin.

Soon he sat still, looking out over the instrument panel at little raindrops that fell like tears on the curved glass before running away. "Just like me," he said aloud, though he had no idea he'd spoken out loud.

"Just like you - what?" he heard Evans say.

"What?"

"You said, 'Just like me.' You've sure been down all night, Paul. What's up? Want to talk?"

He shook his head and undid his harness while the seat whirred backwards, then he stuffed his Jeppesens in their case and clasped it shut. He stood, stretched and yawned. "No, no talk for me today. Anyway, been too much talk lately," he said almost in a whisper, just as a sigh might drift away. "I'm all talked out."

"You staying out here, at the Hilton?"

"No. I'm going to go into the city."

"Mind if I tag along? I've never really spent much time there. Could you show me around?" Evans felt there was something really wrong with Overton today; she had a bad feeling about him as she watched him stand. There were dark circles under his eyes and his skin looked sallow and pasty.

"I wouldn't be much fun. Why don't you just go in and take a tour?" He brushed by and squeezed through the cockpit door and made for the stairway, but stopped short when he saw one of the flight attendants talking with a woman still in her seat. Something odd about her . . . He put his case on a seat and walked back.

"Everything alright here, Patsy?" he said when he looked at the woman in the seat.

"Uh, no Captain. Miss Carpenter feels light-headed and . . ."

He bent down to look into the woman's eyes; they seemed bent, unfocused. "Ma'am, have you had any pain in your arms or legs tonight?"

The woman nodded, tried to speak, but a little stream of drool ran from the corner of her mouth.

"Oh shit, I think it's a DVT. Recline her seat and get an oxygen bottle hooked up." Overton dashed back to the cockpit, almost knocking Evans off her feet as he passed, then flipped on a radio while he reached for his headset. He checked the frequency, then called: "London ground, United two three heavy with a medical emergency!"

"United two three, go ahead."

"Two three, we have a woman up on the second level going into stroke, probable deep vein thrombosis."

"Understood, two three. Emergency Services notified." 

Overton had already tossed off the headset and was out the door before the transmission ended. He got back to the woman in her seat just as the flight attendant returned with oxygen, and he put the mask on the woman's face and adjusted the flow, then pushed her seat further down. Her First Class seat was a full recliner, so he raised her legs, then looked at the woman's eyes: one pupil was a pinpoint, the other full and round, and her skin was almost waxy now. He could see frantic confusion in the woman's eyes.

"Get me a cool washrag, would you, Patsy?" He brushed a stray hair from the woman's forehead, then knelt down beside the woman and patted her head gently. "It's alright Ma'am. Paramedics will be here in a moment."

"Here you are, Paul," he heard Evans say, and he turned and took the rag from her, then folded it and put the cool cloth on the woman's forehead. A few moments later they heard footsteps running up the spiral stairway, and uniformed men came in and pushed them aside. One of the men swabbed the woman's arm and inserted a needle into a vein, then he hooked up a bottle and set the drip rate.

"Captain? We're going to need to take her out the doorway on this level."

"Right. Denise, would you go disarm the slide? Patsy, give her a hand, would you?"

Warm, wet air flooded into the compartment moments later as the doorway opened, and Overton could hear a truck moving into position below, then a ramp ascending to their level. More people flowed into the cabin, pushing Evans and Overton further back into the upper deck, back where the ceiling arced over, confining them in the cave-like space. Overton watched as a medic pushed another needle into the woman's arm and hooked another vial of clear fluid to it; the man adjusted the flow and began talking on a radio. Now the medics were lifting the woman onto a gurney.

"Good work, Paul," he heard Evans say.

"Oh, just all part of the service, Ma'am."

"Gee, Paul, when I grow up I want to be just like you." She grinned when he turned and scowled.

"Oh, go blow it out your nose!" But he laughed. It shocked him, but he laughed. The first time he'd laughed in weeks, maybe months, and it felt good. Amazingly good. He continued looking at Evans, at her frank warmth, that easy West Texas Smile, and suddenly he knew she was a friend. And friends are rare in this life, he told himself.

The medics began moving the woman down the aisle and out the doorway, and a covey of flight attendants began clearing away the dressings and wrappers the medics left behind.

"I usually go into Mayfair, to the Fleming, on Half Moon Street. Good pub down the way for breakfast."

"You want some company?" Evans said.

"Probably not a bad idea," he said, looking at her from a down-turned face. He was unaware of how quietly he spoke; his need was like a sigh, involuntary, almost silent, and now quite unmistakable.

__________________________________

They made their way past the packed Customs queue to the Crew passage, then down to the basement level. He bought tickets on the Heathrow Express from a little wall dispenser, then they hurried off to make the next train. They ran the last few steps as the conductor ushered on the few remaining stragglers and they piled into the First Class carriage and dumped their bags on a rack before sitting down.

Overton was quite oblivious to the stares his uniform gathered wherever he went in public, but Evans was still consciously all too aware of it. She met the frank stares and covert glances with an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach; weren't women supposed to be flight attendants, the questing eyes asked accusingly, and certainly not pilots. She knew of flights where men had walked off planes when informed a woman was the pilot-in-command. She was proud of her accomplishments, knew she would soon make Captain, but sometimes the attention felt stigmatic.

The train eased from the station and moved silently to the next terminal; a few more boarded here, then the train pulled quietly away again and left the airport. Now they moved off towards London, bursting out into daylight a few minutes later as the train accelerated to an almost unbelievable speed. The industrial landscape gave way to suburbs; within a few minutes the train clattered through switches and slowed as it approached Paddington Station. It was so neat, so orderly, so completely foreign. Something like this would fall flat on its face back home; it was simply too efficient for America.

Overton led her off the train and through the madding crowds to an escalator; he bought two more passes for the Underground with practiced ease and marched off through another maze-like series of stairways and escalators, and they soon boarded yet another train. Standing among the late morning rush of commuters, Evans felt even more eyes on her than usual, and she looked up at the advertisements for plays and low-cost airfares that demarked the ceiling. The train jerked into motion and she caught herself on Overton's sleeve, and she felt him reach for her shoulder and steady her. She flexed her knees and steadied herself, smiled at Overton while she tried to hide her embarrassment. What felt an eternity later, they got off and made their way up into the light, and Paul led them off down a crowded sidewalk to Half Moon Street; there he turned away from the park across the way and walked a few more paces to a hotel; there he ducked inside. Evans followed, suddenly aware she was following him into a hotel and now quite uncertain what she should do.


Up in the Air Again



Paul Overton looked at the instruments and shook his head. The engine temperature looked a high again, and he leaned forward and tapped the gauge with his finger. The little needle crept upward, hovered just short of the red.

"Shit! Goddamned piece of shit!" He slowed and stopped at the red light, looked at an old woman trundling by in the crosswalk, and wondered aloud how many times he'd have to take this old hulk to the mechanic before he'd have to break down and buy a new car.

The car, an old BMW and now almost thirty years old, had been his wife's pride and joy for what seemed like forever, and since her death he couldn't bear the thought of parting with it. He'd managed to hold on to most of their past, but now some things he just couldn't justify any longer. The transmission had gone out last summer and he'd struggled to find a mechanic with enough time and talent to rebuild the thing. Replacements simply weren't available anymore. How long could he hold on to this car? How long had he held on to that past? 

And there were so many days of late when he'd felt much the same way about his life: he was wearing out and the parts were getting harder and harder to come by. Things simply didn't work the way they once had, and those were on the good days. The bad days had hardly been worth waking up for.

But that had been yesterday.

Today the sun was out, the sky full of hope and promise.

Today -- Denise Evans had told him she was in love. With him. And suddenly everything was different. Now this old car seemed like an anchor holding him to an unusable past, and he resented the thing and its hold on his soul. 

The light changed and he surged ahead, looked down the street for a service station. He watched the gauge slide slowly into the red and saw the first hints of steam seep up from under the hood. He saw a Mercedes dealership ahead, saw the new "SmartCar" banner fluttering on the breeze and on an impulse flipped on his turn signal and crossed the street, turned into the lot. The old BMW rolled to a wheezing stop and shuddered, and Overton turned off the engine and sighed.

A couple of salesmen inside looked at the steam pouring out and pointed at the old hulk, laughed while one took out a nickel and tossed it in the air. Overton saw they were flipping a coin, probably to decide which one of them would have to deal with him. One apparently called it wrong and shook his head, this one walked out to greet his next hapless victim while the one who stayed behind laughed.

Overton, still in uniform, stepped from the car and the approaching salesman hesitated when he saw the four stripes on his shoulders. 'A pilot!' he said to himself, now hopeful that he'd get to sell a Mercedes today, and probably an E class at that.

"Afternoon, sir. Looks like you got here just in time. Is that an old 2002?"

Overton took in the salesman: he looked like a slick Ivy League wannabe and was almost drooling at the thought of selling a new MB today. "Yeah, but it's a Tii." The salesman looked clueless. "Well, it's a 2002 alright, but it's the Tii model. Pretty rare, and quite a bit more valuable. Quicker than greased eel shit, too."

"Seen better days, hasn't it." The salesman wasn't going to be snookered by this approach. He'd drive a hard bargain. "So, what can I show you today? Maybe an SLK?"

"No, I'm interested in the SmartCar."

The salesman looked crestfallen. Puny commission, no room to dicker around on the price. "Oh. Well, yeah, we have a couple inside."

Overton followed the salesman into the showroom and his eye immediately fell on a silver one. "That's cute," he said. "How much."

"About thirteen-five."

"Not about. How much? Exactly. Driveaway."

The salesman didn't flinch: "Thirteen eight out the door."

Overton pulled out his wallet and fished out his American Express card and tossed it to the salesman. "Okay, wrap it up. I'll take it."

The salesman chuckled and looked at Overton. "Sir?"

"Put it on the card, would you?"

"Sir? Do you want to trade in the BMW? You want me to get a number for you? Work up a trade?"

Overton turned and looked at his wife's old car. "No. not really. You want it?"

The salesman looked at Overton like he'd just sprouted horns to go along with his pitchfork. "Uh, yeah, sure, I'll take it." The other salesman -- the 'winner' of the coin toss - looked utterly devastated as he watched Overton take the keys from his pocket and toss them to the 'loser'. 

"Fine. Write it up and I'll go grab the title from the glovebox."

The salesman shook his head again and walked off to the business office, but he couldn't resist smiling at his colleague and flipping him the bird.

____________________________________________

Denise Evans sat looking out the train's window as it approached the station in Bridgeport. She was locked within the tortured confines of her infidelity, wondering not simply about her choice, but the contours of her life and all she'd negated about her understanding of herself. 'Paul Overton!' she said to herself again. 'How? Why?'

She'd never once been involved with a man, never even felt attraction to men in general, yet when she was honest with herself about her feelings toward women she admitted to a softly smoldering ambivalence. She'd drifted into her first relationships with women not out of furious attraction; rather, she'd felt oddly detached from them emotionally and never once a physical attraction. She'd first become involved with a roommate in college and, as most of the boys she came in contact with were hopelessly clueless about what to make of a girl who wanted to fly jets in the Air Farce, she'd simply made the obvious choice. At least it had seemed obvious eighteen years ago. 

But when she told Paul she felt jealous of his life with Peggy, about the life and love he'd known for so long, she'd had to admit to herself that she'd drifted into relationships on false pretenses almost all her adult life. Now, with her thirty-seventh birthday looming, she felt an overwhelming desire to connect with Overton, to love him as she'd never loved anyone before and, most uncharacteristically, to have a family with him. She couldn't explain these feelings, they just -- were. 

Yet, as the train pulled into the station she knew she was going to have to explain these feelings, and soon. Her explanation would be painful, shatteringly so. Miriam Davies had been the closest, truest friend she'd ever had in her life, and the last thing she ever wanted to do was hurt her.

She saw Miriam standing by her car in the lot outside the station; saw the simple, expectant smile of a lover longing to hold the burning crucible of the familiar once again, and her heart lurched.

She wanted to turn around, run back to the city and call him. She wanted to run away from the pain she knew was coming, from the tortured questions and ruptured understanding, and in the span of one solitary heartbeat she realized she didn't want to run from anything ever again. And certainly not ever from this feeling that had sprung forth so silkily, so easily... so naturally. 

No, not from him. Not ever from him.

___________________________________

He walked into the house, into the emptiness, into his past, and the presence of two women hovered in the air -- locked in mutual refutation yet joined to him beyond any simple denial of fact. One soul gone, now a memory fighting time to remain in the grasp of one so long loved; the other living, fighting for recognition, for a place by fires banked down for so long that only the faintest embers remained.

He walked into the house, into the memory of sounds now long departed, the echoes of laughter and tears fading from his mind's eye. In the kitchen, in the little niche by the 'fridge, a covey of photographs met his glance -- and he turned away from them as though he wanted nothing more from them. He walked through the house, through the fog of lurking memories, looking at porcelain figurines she'd bought on their trips together, at the exorbitantly-priced fabric on the re-covered sofa she'd simply had to have, and everywhere he looked he saw her not far away, hanging back in the shadowlands of different days.

He walked up the stairs to their room and went to her closet and opened the door. He'd not once looked in this sacred space in all the time since she'd moved on, and the smell of her -- the smell of lingering perfume and the rich leather of her shoes -- danced along the byways of memory. He closed his eyes as the waves of other nights washed over him, and he felt a longing for her touch, a visceral longing he'd denied himself in the countless nights since . . .

He sat in the overstuffed chair in the little study tucked neatly off the side of the bedroom and looked out windows at Spring blossoms waving in the evening twilight, and he felt his eyes filling with tears. He gripped the arms of the chair, tried to hold it back just a little longer, but it was no use. He started to cry, gently at first, but soon he was overcome with a sorrow bourn of impulsive guilt.

First, he'd slept with a stranger, even fallen in love, he said into the gathering darkness, then he'd come home and given away her car. Driving home from the dealership he'd been overcome with the intense desire to sell the house, to get rid of every remnant of that past, and finally, to turn his back on Peggy once and for all time and simply . . . move on. Opposing tides pulled at him, and caught in the rip he struggled to breathe.

But, he'd asked himself when he turned down their street once again, how do you turn away from that past without sacrificing your humanity? How do you turn away from memories so vast and uncontrollable? How turn away from your soul-mate and dare to dream of another future? Would she always be there, her memory forever in the shadows, always crowding out whatever happiness he dared stake-out as his own?

Now, in the gathering darkness, he knew his first impulse had been the correct one, at least for him. He'd sell the house. Call Peg's brothers and sisters and have them come claim any memories they wished and cart them away, then broker off the rest and be done with that past.

A clean break. That's what it would take to move on, and he knew it in his heart even as tears coursed down his face. She'd never leave him if he stayed here . . . she was everywhere in this house. Waiting around every corner, waiting to seduce him once again into the tender warmth of what had now become a fatal embrace. She'd always be in this house, watching, waiting . . .

He went to his closet and took out a large duffel and began putting clothes in it, then toiletries. He filled another much smaller duffel with vital papers and mementos of his flying career, then carried the lot down to the garage and the little silver SmartCar waiting there, and there he dumped the stuff, in the tiny space behind the seats. He plugged his phone into the charger after he started the car's tiny motor, and opened the garage door, then backed down the driveway. He stopped and looked at the house one last time, seeking validation perhaps, or at least understanding, but all he saw was her shadow lurking in an upstairs window, looking down at him and laughing.

__________________________________

Denise Evans looked across the table at the face in the flickering firelight and knew she would always feel love for this woman, this healer, but she knew their 'relationship' was over. Miriam Davies was hard core, had always been on the radical fringe, and loathed the very thought of men. Her group of internists, each running with the wolves, were united in that feeling. They unashamedly ran a practice of women, by women, and for women, and that's how she'd met Miriam, though now almost three years ago.

And while there was many noble characteristics Miriam possessed, her well-developed empathy rose above all others. She connected with people -- instantly. She saw them, felt them almost as if they were inside her own being -- men and women alike -- and she'd always used that ability to help people, to care tenderly for her patient's deepest wounds. Perhaps, Denise once thought, that empathic sight was what had driven her from men . . . perhaps she felt basic truths in men that repelled or revolted her. But tonight, getting off the train, Miriam Davies had looked at Denise Evans and been torn apart by what she saw, and rather than going out to the farm they had each sought the quiet certitude of neutral ground.

Little had been said on the drive over to their favorite little hideaway; little needed be said. They sat in a quiet corner by an old stone fireplace, ordered wine and a small dinner, and looked at one another through the building, uncomfortable silence. The sommelier came with wine and opened the ancient bottle, Miriam tasted and approved, and as quickly, the bright-eyed girl filled their glasses she was gone.

"To better days," Miriam said, holding her glass up.

"And distant friends."

"Distant? Really? This is rather sudden, Denise."

"Yes. Yes, it is, isn't it."

"Can you tell me about her?"

So, here it was, Evans thought. Not merely a betrayal. No, this would be murder. A soul's murder. She held her glass up and looked at the candlelight through deep red currents; the memory of Paul Overton sweeping across her in that instant. The feel of him, of his hands on her face, of the taste he left in her mouth. She looked away from Miriam to hide the warmth that suffused her being at the very thought of him taking her again.

"Oh my God," she heard Miriam whisper, and she turned from her desire, turned to look back at the anguish that washed over her friend's face. "No, Denise. No . . ." A single tear ran down Miriam's face; she then stood and walked from the table.

Evans sat in the uncomfortable silence and waited; waited for her friend to return. To finish what had to be finished.

Minutes passed. She looked at her watch, took a sip of wine.

"Excuse me. Ms Evans?" Denise turned to look at the young hostess who had seated them. "Your friend had to leave. An emergency. She left your luggage up front, said she was sorry, and hoped you'd understand."

Denise nodded and thanked the hostess, sat back in her seat and sighed.

"Well, so much for going home."

Her dinner came and she picked at it for a moment, then pushed it away, reached for her purse and took out her iPhone. The little box connected to the 'net and she went to her email, saw a note from Paul and opened it:

'Got home and crashed, I mean really crashed. Couldn't take being is that mausoleum one more night. Packed up and heading for my boat in Mystic. How's it going on your end?'

Denise Evans looked at these words on the screen for a long time; they filled her with hope, and suddenly she felt like she wanted to sing out loud. Now full of energy, she paid the bill and walked out into the night and dialed his number. He picked up on the second ring.

"Paul?"

"I'm here. Are you alright? Sound a little weak in the knees."

She told him about her ride up on the train, about meeting Miriam and her response, and about being stranded now at a little French place outside Bridgeport.

"So, are you there right now?"

"Uh, yes." She suddenly felt vulnerable, exposed.

"Hell, I passed that exit about five minutes ago. Can you give me directions?" He listened; so attuned was his memory to assimilating such data, he had no need to write down what she said, and he told her he'd be there as quickly as he could.

"Paul?"

"Yes?"

"You said something about a boat in your email? Do you have a boat?"

He laughed. "Yes, I do. I do indeed."

_________________________________

There was the thinnest layer of fog over the marina when they pulled in, and from their vantage above in the parking lot, it looked a lot like a sea of masts planted on a field of misty snow. The boats were simply not visible in the clinging mist, only a vast forest of pale tree-like masts hovered above in spectral hues, dancing silently above an unseen sea. 

Denise unfolded herself from the SmartCar and looked out at the luminous landscape. It seemed a little unreal to her, but decidedly familiar, too. A half moon hung above an island -- Fisher's Island, Paul had said when they turned into the marina -- and with the moon above, the clouds below obscuring a distant sea, simply everything about the scene reminded her of the view out the cockpit at night, flying across the Atlantic. Except here she was, her feet on the ground, her roll-on bag in the back of Paul's impossibly tiny car, and now she was looking out on a sea of sailboat masts, and Paul Overton said he was going to live on his sailboat for awhile . . .

"Just until I can sell the house. I guess I'll have to move the boat into the city, though. Too damn far to drive all the way to Kennedy from out here. Shame, to. Love it here."

"Paul? I've never been on a boat, any kind of boat, in my life."

"Yeah? So?"

"Yeah? Well, I can't even swim across a pool."

"Cool. I'll teach you."

"Paul, is there any problem out there you feel you can't handle?"

He opened the hatch, pulled her bag from the car, then slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and took her hand in his. "I don't know, Denise. I think if you're patient enough you can find a solution to just about any problem, but sometime the solution is right in front of your face. I think we get into some lousy habits as we get older, and those habits obscure solutions." He looked at her standing in the moonlight, the cool seaborne breeze drifting through her hair, and there it was . . . The solution was so simple. This woman was so . . . right.

"So, you've never been on a boat? Ever?"

"Paul, I grew up outside of Alpine, Texas. The closest water was the Rio Grande River."

"I guess that might make a difference." He chuckled as he guided her down the ramp toward the water. "Well, anyway, some boats are better than others."

"I'll have to take your word for that!" She sounded dubious.

They turned on a concrete walkway and, now deep in the clinging fog, continued feeling their way down the misty ramp. After passing row after row of boats he turned again and made his way along another finger pier until he came upon a sleek black hull, the name on the side -- 'Peggy Sue' -- clearly visible in the moonlight. He set their bags up on the deck and climbed up himself, then disappeared into the gloom.

"Paul, this thing is huge!"

"Yeah? Peg always said I was over-compensating for having a little dick."

"You call that thing 'little'?" She heard him opening a lock, moving boards, sliding a hatch open.

"Well, it's a relative term?" Footsteps going below, a light turning on and a warm glow filling the space behind the dewy port-lights. 

"Relative to what?" she said quietly, far too softly for him to hear. A light halfway up the mast popped on and the scene around her filled with milky white light.

"Oh, come on. It ain't that big!"

"You heard that?"

"Hey, sound carries in fog." He came back up on deck. "Hand me the bags, would you?" He took them from her and put them in the cockpit, then came back for her, reached down for her: "Here, give me your hand."

She reached up, took his hand in hers, felt herself stepping into a strange new landscape of compound curves and awkward handholds, narrow decks littered with a million things to trip over. The dark planks underfoot were wet with dew; everywhere she put her hands she felt water. She followed Paul into the cockpit; he stopped and held his hand out again until she was safely over the coaming, then he disappeared below. She stepped over to follow him -- at least until she could see the interior of the boat from the head of the companionway -- and she stopped dead in her tracks.




Up in the Air Again



"Holy cow!" she said as she looked tentatively down below. "This place would give termites a wet-dream!" She looked appreciatively, almost longingly at the huge expanse of woodwork as she climbed down below. "What kind of wood is this?"

"Cherry. Except the sole, uh, the floor. Those are teak planks."

"No shit? Where are you?"

"Aft."

"You mean there's more? Just how big is this thing?"

"Told you. I've got an overcompensation problem. Through the galley. Follow my voice!"

Evans walked through the galley and into a huge cabin in the very rear of the boat. "Shit, Paul, that bed's bigger than the one I have back, uh, well, you know."

"Yeah, I know. Did she give you a rough time?"

She walked over and sat on the edge of the bunk. "I guess it could have been worse, you know? We never really got a chance to talk. She just put two and two together then walked out the door."

"Not the most mature reaction, but understandable, I guess."

"Maybe. But the funny thing is, I think she'd have understood if I'd moved on to another woman. I guess it's just such a frank repudiation of so many basic assumptions."

Overton was looking at Denise, at the trembling lip and the quivering eyelid -- all the classic symptoms of chronic stress, and he reached to her, took her in his arms. Her hair in his face, he breathed in, took in the now familiar scent of her and drifted back to Half Moon Street and the impossibility of their union. He ran his hands down her back, drew closer still and whispered "I love you so much" into her ear.

She pulled back a bit, looked at him through smiling eyes. "You do, huh?"

"It's a fact. Better get used to the idea."

"Paul, I don't ever want to get used to that. If I get used to it, I'll begin to take it for granted. And I don't ever want that to happen."

He nodded, brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips.

"Anyway, before I forget to say it, I love you too, Paul Overton."

Now it was his turn to smile. "That feels good."

"Now, don't take this the wrong way, but the last time we showered was in London. That was, like, twenty hours ago. I stink, and I need a shower. I don't suppose there's one on this tub, is there?"

"Tub? Tub? You calling my baby-doll a tub?"

"So. There's not, huh?"

"Well, not one. There are two."

"Shit."

"Well yeah, if you need to. There's two holes for that, too."

"Paul?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Before or after?"

He smiled, began unbuttoning his shirt but she stopped him, moved to his belt.

"I didn't have much to eat tonight. Still kinda hungry, ya know."

"Amen to that, darlin'."

_________________________________

They slept in that next morning, woke with a start to the sound of thunder crashing overhead. Overton hopped from the bunk and dashed to an electric panel and flipped a couple of breakers, then tip-toed back to the waiting warmth of her open arms. He slid in beside her, took her face in his hands and her face to his. They played tentatively while sheeting waves of rain pounded the deck overhead between blinding flashes of lightning and deep rumbling thunder, then he rolled on his back and as quickly Denise mounted him, took him in her hand and guided him inside. 

"Oh God, yes. So good. So good," he gasped as he reached for her breasts. They were on a raging sea now, a sea of their own making, a sea of crystalline vibration, resonant need, renewal, heads thrown in ecstasy, panoramic insanity as an electric charge between gripping hands, orbits ever higher, squeezing thighs, wet kisses hot breath dancing tongues -- hands seeking hands, need meeting need, love seeking resolution, soul seeking soul.

Re-release, release . . . oh, this song of life . . .

. . . mind seeker . . . seek . . . 

. . . chance dancer . . . dance . . .

. . . cloud flyer . . . come, fly . . . now . . .

She holds still inside this moment, lost inside craving penetrations of need now as undeniable as gravity; she feels the boat rocking as if in ancient music, hears water lapping against the hull through diamond shards of rain overhead. It is, she feels through seeds of this release, as if her orgasm has become part of some vast oceanic womb. She rocks back, leans back, looks up through the glass hatch directly overhead as banks of scudding black clouds race by -- now the clouds are close enough to touch . . . am I flying? -- and the power inside this moment comes to her, holds her as powerfully as his hands have all through this need. She is as one with this womb, is as one with the rain and the clouds and the thunder. And she is as one now, as one now with this man.

So good . . . this re-release . . . release . . . so good, this song of life . . .

________________________________

All storms pass.

Life goes on, if but tentatively for a time, while broken limbs fall down to rushing streams and tumble towards the sea. The sun returns and bright eyes turn to its warmth, spirits of wounded souls reach for the solace of sky; words of passion take wing on earthborn breezes and drift in ancient rhythm -- seeking release again and again.

________________________________

"United two three heavy, taxi to position and hold short of the active."

"Two three heavy -- holding short." Overton backed off the throttles and tapped the brakes as the 747 crept forward again. It was a Tuesday afternoon and they had been caught up in the usual rush hour pile-up of air traffic waiting to take-off; now, after waiting for almost forty minutes Overton was ready and anxious to get on with this take-off. On this off-season mid-week flight the old girl was less than a quarter full, and Overton always enjoyed taking off under these conditions. So lightly loaded, she seemed to want to leap into the air and climb at impossible angles back into the currents that would carry her around the earth at will.

"Checklist complete," Evans said, her voice flat and dull, full of tortured memory. 

"United two three heavy, clear for take-off. Contact departure on one two seven decimal seven."

"Two three rolling, departure on two seven seven." Overton advanced the throttles slowly again and taxied to the runway centerline, then with barely a pause pushed the throttle levers forward to the stops. He smiled at the sudden acceleration, watched as the speeds reeled by quickly, and he pulled back on the stick barely half way down the runway. She leapt into the sky with the vicious pull of a predator, and Overton smiled when he thought of the people behind who would gasp in wonder as this huge bird took wing so furiously. Evans worked the departure frequency while Overton gently handled leaving the pattern, and their long journey across the Atlantic began again.

He had helped Denise get the last of her belongings from that physician's house over their last days off, but the two women had a minor confrontation as that day wound down, and Denise had been as fragile as a dove's wing ever since. Edgy and close to tears, they had driven the rented van back to the storage facility and unloaded her things before returning to Mystic and the boat, and Evans, now hollow from this first taste of bitter combat, soon grew brittle and darkly moody as the stepped back on board. He had made a salad for dinner but she wouldn't eat. She hardly spoke at all before drifting back to the aft cabin and retreating to the safety of her dreams.

But she had seemed better this morning, spoke gently and with assurance that things were alright, that the darkest part of the storm had passed, yet Overton felt some holding back within her words and her movements, and a sharp chill had taken him and held him while he watched her wake and dress. The long drive into the city passed in near silence, her mute, shattered confusion during the briefing in the dispatch office had not gone unnoticed, either, and that was cause for no little concern itself. There were, after all, policies about conduct in the cockpit that reached well beyond the confines of their time on the job. Simply living together now was in violation of about a half dozen company rules, and any actions they took that implied an improper relationship would be dangerous for them both. Marriage was out of the question unless one of them wanted to look for a position with another airline.

Now, as they climbed to the northeast along the Maine coast, he looked at her as the sun's last rays bathed the cockpit in fierce amber flames. She was fidgeting with a dial on the overhead panel, half her face suffused in honeyed-tones, half lost in shadow.

So much can lie dormant in the shadows.

A practiced team in this office, Evans worked beside Overton quietly, efficiently, hardly ever a wasted word or motion took her away from the almost symbiotic relationship she had with an airplane. But not tonight. She was all business on the outside, but smoldering anger hissed from the shadows, obscured all understanding of memory and understanding, and Overton realized he simply didn't know her well enough yet to read her moods.

He picked at his rubber-chicken sandwich for a while, then lost his appetite for the first time in weeks. He felt acute loss, bereft of the all-encompassing future he had constructed in his mind, and suddenly sure that she had had a sudden change of heart, he too grew stonily silent and preoccupied with his vaulting fear. He sat in silence, terrified that the hopes and dreams of the past month would evaporate in the fading light.

He fought back this terror -- fought to hold on to this fragile dream -- as they slipped deeper into the night. He looked down into the infinite darkness below, occasionally spotting the infinitesimally tiny lights of fishing boats working the Georges Bank eight miles below, then his eye drifted to the heavens just on the other side of the glass, just inches from his face. He looked at the impossibly bright stars that blazed in a sky so far from the light of distant cities, a sky so used to concealing danger and betrayal. He was surrounded by frozen darkness in every dimension, and as if in some relativistic trap, he felt time stop, felt himself adrift in a sea of exploding stars, felt waves of warm water washing over his body. 

"I've got to hit the head," he heard her say, and he automatically donned his oxygen mask and scanned the panel. He couldn't even watch as she pushed back and left the flight deck. He looked at a couple of cells on the weather radar, listened to traffic ahead adjusting course around them, then asked Oceanic Control if they too could divert around the storm. 

He was changing the heading on the flight director when he heard it: the deep, retching sound of Denise vomiting, the running tap, then more vomiting. She'd been gone almost fifteen minutes he saw, and suddenly he grew worried.

Ten more minutes passed, then she came back and settled into her seat, unbridled misery etched on her flushed face.

"You alright?" he asked, his voice muffled by the mask.

She turned, looked at him, nodded as she tossed him a benign smile, then took a paper towel and wiped her forehead.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yes, sir. Fine. Right as rain."

'Sir,' he said to himself. 'Sir? What the fuck is this?'

He shook his head, cleared the cobwebs from his mind, took the oxygen mask off and told her about the course change, then excused himself and went back to the head. She'd managed to clean up her mess pretty well but the tiny space reeked of anxious bile. He washed his hands and ran cold water over his face, then looked at the stony reflection he saw in the mirror. It was a stranger, he saw, someone he might have known once. But unrecognizable fears distorted the face in the mirror, and he turned away, dried his face, returned to his seat.

"You alright?" she said.

"Fine. Right as rain." He heard her laugh and he turned away, didn't want her to see the fear that gripped his heart. He craned his head further back, looked back at the pulsing glow of the strobe on the wingtip, at the gentle flexing of the wing, and he remembered who he was. The Captain, the man in control, the man whose very presence elicited admiring eyes and warm respect wherever he went.

"What a fucking load of shit!" he said, probably louder than he realized.

"What's that?"

He shook his head, kept his face averted. "Nothing. Just thinking out loud."

"Sounds fun. Uh, we're coming up on Shannon."

"Already? My-oh-my, time sure flies when you're having fun."

"Paul? Are you crying?"

"What? You kidding? Just allergies kicking up." He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face and eyes, pretended to blow his nose. "Okay, your airplane. You want to hand me the checklist?"

___________________________________

Evans taxied off the runway, followed a line of jets towards Terminal Three and brought the old girl in smoothly to the gate. Overton began shutting down engines, running through final checklists while Evans began filling out the endless reports that had to be dropped off at Operations on their way out.

Suddenly she bolted from her seat and made for the head, but she didn't make it and dropped to her knees, vomited on the cockpit floor. Overton scrambled from his seat and knelt beside her, felt her trembling and helped her into the head. When she was safely in he left the cockpit and walked downstairs and smiled as people filed out the door, and he asked one of the flight attendants to find the Gate Agent. A few minutes passed, then he saw the uniformed agent approaching.

"Sir?"

"Uh, we've had an accident up in the cockpit." Overton watched the man's eyebrow arch as only one schooled in Britain can.

"Indeed."

"Can you get a crew up there asap?"

"Right away, sir."

He walked back upstairs and into the cockpit, expected to find Evans still in the head, but was surprised to see her back in her seat, working on reports.

"Need a couple of signatures," she said as she handed him the clipboard.

He stepped over the mess on the floor and took the reports. He looked them over, made a couple of notes on one then signed them. "Got a crew coming up to take care of that stuff. Let's get you out into some fresh air." 

He helped her up and got her bag, lead the way down the stairs and they darted out without a word to anyone, then made their way to through Customs and on to Operations. She ducked in the first restroom they passed and stayed in there for what seemed like half a minute, then she popped out smiling:

"Had to brush my teeth. I hate dragon mouth."

"Nothing worse. You alright now?"

"Yeah."

They dropped off their reports and picked up the crew billets and chits, and Evans ducked into an office and made a call.

"Looks like the Hilton," he said when she came out. They walked out into the terminal. They walked for a few minutes, then she stopped, looked at Paul.

"Come on," he said. "We'll miss the crew shuttle."

"Nope, my turn today. Follow me."

Almost as they had a month ago, she led him down to the Heathrow Express; once inside Paddington Station she led him through the teeming throngs to the taxi stand and pushed him inside the first cab she saw, wordlessly handing the driver an address before she sat. They roared off into brutal mid-morning traffic while Overton looked at her with questions now flying across his face.

They made their way through the city and soon turned up Half Moon Street. The taxi stopped at the Fleming and she pushed him and their bags out; a porter took the bags and she led Paul off toward the reception desk, but not before telling him to go sit in the lobby and wait for her. She fetched him a few minutes later and took his hand, led him to the lift and punched in their floor, and then led him happily back to the same room they'd shared six weeks ago to the day.

She opened the door and led him in.

Nothing had changed; the room even smelled as it had, and she went to the windows and opened them, took a deep breath of the cool air and held out her hand.

He came to her, but she stopped him.

"Would you open that," she said, pointing to a bottle of champagne in an ancient silver ice-bucket.

"Yeah, sure. What's the occasion?"

He opened the bottle in the presence of her silent gaze and the rumble of distant traffic, filled two glasses and walked to her side. 

"Okay. I give. What shall we drink to?"

She handed him an envelope. "Why don't you have a seat, then read this."

He sat, opened the envelope, read the card she had so carefully composed with Miriam Davies at her side two days ago.

His hand began to tremble as he read the words on the card, a wave of tears swept his eyes as he looked up at her. "You're sure?" he asked.

"Oh yes. We made quite sure. She helped me write this, you know." She said this calmly, teasing him with a million unforeseen implications.

"My God."

"Oh come on now, Paul. Surely you expected this?"

"My God."

"Now Paul. He might have had a hand in this, but as recall, I think you did most of the work." Her eyes sparkled, a tiny laugh like distant sighs parted her lips.

"My God."

"Did I misunderstand you, Paul? Didn't you say you wanted a family?"

"Oh my God."

"Paul, shut up and take off your pants."

He looked up at her as if he'd misunderstood.

"I'm hungry."

Now he understood. 

"Yes, Ma'am."

"One thing, though. You think you could see your way clear to marrying me?"

He looked at her again as he stood. "Well, let me think about . . ."

"Paul? You can shut up now."

They laughed, stood close and held on to one another, their union now complete in so many ways. She kissed him, ran her fingers through his hair while she basked in the glory of her ruse. The fight she and Miriam had staged for his benefit, all her help getting the results back in time, everything. Everything a best friend could have done, Miriam had done.

She ran her hands to his belly and let it drift down, and she rubbed him, then slipped her hand inside and stroked him.

"Paul, I said I'm hungry. Now take off your goddamn pants!"

"I've heard you gals get all sorts or strange cravings . . ."

She pushed him down -- cutting him off -- then took him in her mouth. She'd never once thought it would be so hard to take him with such a huge grin on her face.

*

(Once again, this is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons and events herein depicted is simply coincidence. AL)



Up In The Air – One Last Time



All storms pass -- eventually. Life goes on, if but for a brief time, and often tentatively at best, like storm ravaged limbs falling down into rushing streams before tumbling onward, and one day, perhaps, out to sea. The sun returns for a time, and with upturned faces bright eyes seek it's warmth. Spirits of wounded souls reach for the solace of sky; words of distant passion take wing on earth-borne breezes and drift inside the ancient rhythm of memory -- seeking release again and again.

__________________________________

The man sat in the doctor's office, beside his wife.

Two weeks before, when a routine mammogram had found a lump in her left breast, their world had changed forever, the journey they had suddenly found themselves on had taken a hard turn away from normalcy and predictability -- and now they were well and truly on a road less traveled. 

Now there were trips to foreign lands, quiet visits to strange places with names like Oncology, and Radiotherapy. A mammogram gave way to a fifty minute session in the MRI, and now a radiologist had his two cents to throw into the maelstrom of confusion. Surgeons recommended one course of action, oncologists another, but first things first, they all said. 

'We have to go in and find out exactly what we're dealing with.'

And last Friday, they had done just that.

Now they were in an oncologists cheery office, waiting for his sure to be cheerful news. A print of Klimt's 'The Kiss' hung on one wall, while Klimt's 'Danaë' hung behind the physician's desk, and the man thought that image particularly ironic, indeed, almost obscene -- given the circumstances of their visit today.

The physician, a short, trim man with almost no hair on his head save for a severely trimmed beard, came into the office with a file folder in his hand. He came in silence. He came deep in thought, reading and re-reading surgical and pathology reports in the folder, then he looked up at Peggy Overton, and at her husband, Paul. He sighed, collected his thoughts again, then took off his glasses and put them on a polished rosewood desk.

"There's no easy way to talk about this, so let's just dive in," the physician began.

"First, the lump. Well, lumps. The first, the one we found in the original mammogram, is malignant, and aggressively so. Dr Karstens also palpated another lump in your right breast, as you'll recall, as it was too high for the mammogram to catch. It too is malignant. Your MRI revealed some involvement of the lymph nodes in your left axial, uh, armpit, and these were biopsied. Dr Karstens decided, when he saw the nodes on your left side, to go ahead and sample three on your right side, while you were under.

"We expected to find a few, perhaps five nodes on your left side to be involved. We found fifteen. Of course, Karstens had no expectations for those sampled on the right, but all three rapid biopsies of those showed involvement, and so he went in and dissected those as well.

"The overall staging, at this point Mrs Overton, is four, and I'm not going to lie to you, or try to somehow make this sound less serious than it is, but the bottom line is..."

And there it was.

Thirty four years of marriage, reduced to a single word.

'Terminal.'

Paul Overton had wrapped his arms protectively around his wife, he had held PeggySue while seismic waves of grief ground through their souls, and then, after the impact of the physician's words had crushed through his own meager defenses, he fell under the weight of his own reflexive grief, fell into the grip of his own emotional death.

________________________________

Heavy rain fell on the 747 as it pushed back from the gate. The airliner looked dark and almost perversely sinister in the evening light, like some kind of displaced prehistoric beast wallowing on the pavement, incongruously trapped in garish yellow light that bathed the crowded ramp. Open window shades along the side of the dripping beast dappled the tops of the wings with little amber shadows; when sharp knives of wind tore across the ramp, water collecting on the wings eddied and ran down to the safe embrace of the earth below. 

An anonymous figure in an orange rain-suit walked under the nose of the aircraft, hooked-up an umbilical inside a little recessed compartment, then looked at all the activity winding down on the ramp. 

"Clear to start two," the person below the aircraft said.

"Starting two," Paul Overton said from his seat some twenty five feet above the ramp. He reached over and pushed buttons, turned dials, then watched pressures build on the screens in front of him while he advanced a throttle lever to the start position.

"Pressure good," Denise Evans said. Evans was Overton's first officer on this flight, and her voice was full of a gravelly West Texas twang. "EGT good. EGP check."

"Clear to start three," the voice below called through rain and wind.

"Starting three," Overton repeated. He began the same sequence and watched the screens again, then moved a practiced eye to the latitude and longitude readouts on the tiny screen by his right knee to see that the aircraft's movement was still registering on the navigation display. "Good inertial lock," he said when he saw the numbers were unchanged.

The push-back truck slowed to a stop, and felt it disconnecting from the nose-wheel.

Another voice called, Kennedy Ground Control, and it burst into the cockpit from the overhead speaker: "United Two Three Heavy, clear to taxi on alpha foxtrot for runway two five left."

"Two Three Heavy to two five left," Overton replied to the ground traffic controller huddled somewhere far away in warmth and darkness. He saw the red panel light wink out indicating the push back truck was disconnected, then heard the voice below calling through the storm that they were now clear to taxi. Overton waited until the orange suited figure walked into view and turned to face him, then, when the figure below held out a glowing orange wand pointing to his left, Overton advanced the throttles for two and three with his right hand while turning the nose-wheel paddle with his left. The old girl hesitated, then began to move ever so slowly; he decreased the turn radius and backed off the throttles as her speed picked up.

"EGT on three is a little high," Evans, the first officer, said.

"Okay, keep an eye on it. Give me flaps seven and set V-ref for one two seven and rotate for one four three."

"Flaps seven, V-ref to one two seven and V-r to one four three."

Overton straightened out the nose gear and goosed the throttle again for just a moment, and the old girl steadied out at just under fifteen miles per and rumbled along the old concrete. "What's the EGP now," he asked.

"Forty five percent and holding. Temp looks good."

"Fine. Go ahead and give me lights and some wiper, would you?" The taxiway ahead lit up as Evans hit a switch on the overhead panel, then the windshield wipers burst into action and cleared the glass. 

The two pilots settled into calling out the remainder of the takeoff checklist while Overton wove through the various taxiways, and about halfway out to the runway he and Evans started the two outboard engines and watched their readouts as they spooled up.

"United Two Three Heavy, winds two four three at eighteen, gusts to two five. Taxi to position echo and hold."

"Two three heavy," Evans said as Overton reached for the intercom. "Lot's of traffic," she added.

"Yup. 'Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff'," Overton said as he armed slides and doors. He caught a flicker of lightning in the clouds and flipped the weather radar from standby to active and watched a line of deep red cells form-up on the screen.

"Ooh, that's nice," Evans said. "Going to be a messy out tonight."

She looked at Overton, took in his stoic silence, wondered how long he'd last before he cracked.

________________________________

PeggySue and her oncologist settled on chemotherapy. There would be no cure, the physician told her, but perhaps they could fight their way to an uneasy truce, perhaps gain a year, maybe more -- if they were lucky.

Paul Overton sat with his wife in a room the size of a basketball court, a room filled with men and women sitting back in recliners, men and women covered by little homemade quilts, sitting quietly, stoically, while one liter bags of death seeped into their veins. Every Friday morning for two months they sat. Every Friday morning for two months he sat and watched death flow into the port below her left collar bone. He watched some people improve, and he watched as more than a few stopped showing up for treatments, and he came to see cancer as a predator.

He came in their bathroom one night, to the shower, running towards cries of sorrow and tears, and he had found her sitting in the shower, naked, naked with warm water running down her ravaged breast, holding clumps of hair in her hand, looking at him, willing him to wake her from this nightmare.

He lifted her into his arms, into his embrace, and she had clung to him, held on to him so fiercely her fingernails had torn through his flesh, and he watched his blood mingle with the water and spiral down into the darkness. She asked him, then begged him through tear streaked eyes to take a razor and strip all the hair from her head. He had soaped her head, pulled withering clumps of her precious red hair from her scalp, run the blade over her skin until it was smooth, and then he had held her, pulled her as close as one mortal being could another, while her tears joined his blood on their journey into the night.

________________________________

The two peered ahead into the darkness and watched as a sheet of lightning filled the sky ahead of a sudden burst of heavy rain. Overton groaned when a couple of pea-sized hail stones bounced off the windshield.

"Ah, United Two Three Heavy, wind now one nine zero at thirty five, gusting to forty plus."

"Two Three Heavy received," Evans replied. She turned to Overton: "That's getting pretty close to the line." Even the huge 747 had a crosswind limit of forty five knots on takeoff at this weight, but so heavily loaded even forty would be pushing it.

Overton slowed the aircraft as they came to the end of the taxiway; he squinted through the wipers and saw the landing lights of an American 757 on final. The wings of the 757 rocked and dipped as a gust tore across Jamaica Bay; the pilot corrected and the jet slid over the threshold with barely a whisper, but the right wingtip seemed just inches above the runway. Overton looked at the 757, willing the wingtip up, then he sighed as the 757 flew above the runway as if hesitating, then heard it power up and climb back up into the clouds.

"Shit," the two pilots said.

"United Two Three Heavy, American 757 reporting severe crosswinds; we're still showing three five knots from one ninety."

Overton spoke to the controller in the tower this time: "Ah, Two Three Heavy, we saw him. We're a little heavier, so we'll give it a go."

Evans cast him a sidelong glance, shook her head.

"United Two Three Heavy, roger, and you're clear for takeoff. Contact departure at one two seven decimal three. Good night."

"Two Three Heavy," Overton said as he advanced the throttles a little. Turning onto the runway he straightened out along the centerline and pushed the throttles all the way to the takeoff indent while moving his hand to the nose-wheel paddle. He pushed his left foot down on the rudder pedal as he felt the first gust bite into old girl, then he brought his left hand up from the nose gear paddle to the yoke. Another gust hit and he rolled in a little left aileron. He looked at the speed momentarily, then focused on the runway and the crosswind . . .

"V-one," Evans called out a moment later, then: "Rotate!"

Overton pulled back on the stick and the nose lifted; a savage gust tore into the old girl but he corrected easily, smoothly, and he looked at the rate of climb indicator. "Okay, positive rate of climb; gear up."

Evans reached up to the front panel and pulled the gear lever out and up, then waited for the annunciator lights to indicate green before stating: "gears up and locked." She reached to the overhead panel and turned off the landing lights, then switched to the departure control frequency and called in: "United Two Three Heavy out of 500."

"Roger, Two Three Heavy, turn left to one five zero, and you're cleared to flight level two-two zero."

"Two Three Heavy to one five zero and angels twenty two," Evans said as the 747 leapt from one strata of cloud to the next.

Overton began a gentle standard rate turn just south of The Battery; he looked down and could just make out The Statue of Liberty through a tiny break in the storm below. Everywhere he looked the carpet of dappled cloud below was rimmed with pale light from an endless sea of city lights down there in the rain, and as strobes on the wingtips pulsed the sensation of speed between layers of cloud was startling.

"Two Three Heavy, turn left to zero eight zero, squawk 2400, and check Mode C please."

"Two Three Heavy to zero eight zero, 2400 and Mode C confirmed."

Overton set the heading bug on the flight director then flipped on the autopilot; another onboard computer continuously calculated the most fuel efficient throttle setting and maintained this calculated speed to climb ratio, and would all the up to their final cruise altitude. 

The cabin intercom chimed and Evans answered, then New York Center came on:

"United Two Three Heavy, now clear to flight level three one. Turn left to zero three zero and contact Boston Center on one three-three decimal seven."

"Two Three Heavy to three six on zero three zero," Overton replied while Evans fiddled with a cabin temperature setting on her overhead panel. "What's up back there?"

"Too hot back in cattle-class. Giving them some air conditioning for a minute, then I'll try to even it out."

"Okay," he said as he peered down at the Connecticut coastline beneath the clouds.

________________________________

He started taking time off, giving them more time together, and when the weather warmed they would get on 95 and head north to Mystic, to the marina in Noank.

To the PeggySue.

She was an older boat, but at forty eight feet on deck she was big for two people, sometimes too big, but the room came in handy now, and the weight of a larger boat made the motion gentler, more comfortable, and while Peggy had always loved it out on the water she was fragile now, and less tolerant of such things.

They didn't sail much now, however. She came down to the boat to lie in the sun, to feel cool breezes on the bare skin of her face and scalp. To lean against him, to hold his hand.

They talked about their life together, about the things they'd done together, the friends that had come and gone. Memorable parties, weddings they'd been to decades before, the surprising divorces they'd watch unfold, the not so surprising human train wrecks they'd witnessed along the way. 

They talked about the children they'd tried to have, and hadn't -- or couldn't. The dogs they did have, too. That marvelously clumsy Gordon Setter she'd named Ralph -- because she couldn't think of a sillier name for a dog than that. How he'd tried to get Ralph to play 'fetch' -- and how the poor boy had taken off and run headlong into a tree. The little West Highland Terrier that had worked it's way into their hearts, and then died when only a few years old. That had been it, no more heartbreak. That was when they had decided to get the boat, and they'd never regretted the decision.

She would walk up onto the foredeck, then back to the swim platform off the stern, and she'd climb down the little steps there and dangle her feet in the water. She would sit there by herself some days and peer down into the darkness, like she was looking into the future.

________________________________

He heard her tell him about the heat back in coach. "Okay, fine," he said as he changed the heading bug on the flight director. The jet banked gently to the left, and he scowled before adding: "Shoot, just tell 'em to open a window if they get too hot." 

Evans laughed, then her eye shot to the EGT readout for engine three again. She reached over and changed screens to focus on just that engine.

"I see it," Overton said. He reached over and retarded the throttle lever for number three until the fluctuation stabilized again. "Looks like an oil filter, or maybe that pump again. Probably be okay at seventy percent." 

Evans fiddled with the flight director to dial in compensation. "Think it could be ice?"

"Nope. Remember, it was acting up on the ground?"

"Right."

"Switch over to Boston, would you?"

Evans switched comm units and called Boston Center: "Boston, this is United Two Three Heavy climbing through eighteen for three six."

"Good evening Two Three Heavy. You are clear to three six. Only traffic at this time is at your ten o'clock descending from twenty right now, about one five miles. You're following Speedbird Zero Zero Three, four five miles ahead at flight level two five. You are clear for St John, contact Bangor on one three four decimal one, and good night."

"Roger Boston. Contact Bangor one three four one."

"Shit," Overton said, rubbing his eyes, "this is going to be one long night. I hope they gave us something other than rubber chicken this time. Man, I got the shits something fierce last time I had one of those things. Death bombs. They ought to know better by now."

"You hungry already?"

"Might as well get it over with, Denise," Overton said. 

Evans looked at him again, didn't like the tone in his voice, but she ran her seat back on it's motorized track and opened the little crew mess kit strapped to one of the jump seats. With the new post 9/11 cockpit access restrictions in place, flight attendants could no longer bring food and drink up to the flight deck; now a refrigerated tote bag loaded with soda and sandwiches was all they had access to for the next seven plus hours.

"Dr Pepper, I assume?"

"Am I that predictable?"

You have no idea, she wanted to say. "Looks like . . . uh, tuna salad, chicken salad or roast beef tonight. A couple of pasta salads and some blueberry yoghurt."

"So. White barf, yellow barf, or gray barf. How 'bout the roast beef? Is it green tonight, or kinda gray?"

Evens took out a sandwich, fiddled with the plastic wrap and took a tentative sniff, then peeled back the bread and held the thing up to a ceiling light. "Looks kinda gray to me, with mayo, salt and pepper. Still cool though, and smells alright, I guess."

"Shit. I should have had something on the way in."

"You want it?"

"Unless you do."

"No, I think I'll stick with tuna."

Evans fiddled in the tote and took out another sandwich out of the case, grabbed a can of club soda for herself before zipping the bag shut; she motored back up to the panel and handed Overton his Dr Pepper, then his sandwich. She looked out to her left, toward the coast, and could just make out Portland, Maine through a break in the cloud and about thirty miles away. She looked off to her right, out into the black pit of the Atlantic, and she could just make out a couple of fishing boats flickering in the darkness below. "Must be rough down there tonight," she said to herself, as she unwrapped her sandwich and took a bite; she immediately wrapped it back up and tossed it into a little metal trash bin, spit the muck in her mouth into a napkin and tossed that away too.

"Pretty bad, huh?" Overton said.

"Tastes like a goddamned maxi-pad," she said, and she was gratified to hear Overton gag as he spewed Dr Pepper out his nose.

"I take it," Overton finally said, "you're not speaking from experience?"




Up In The Air – One Last Time



Evans looked at him, maybe a little anger in her expression, maybe not. He couldn't tell, and anyway, he regretted saying it as soon as it was out his mouth, so he looked back down at his sandwich. He was about to take another bite when he decided against it, wrapped the pasty tasting muck up in a napkin and tossed it in the bin.

They drifted through the night in monotonous precision: St John, St Pierre, Gander and Thule, then Shannon and Cardiff as the sun came up, followed by a straight-in approach to Heathrow. They pulled into Terminal Five just before zero eight hundred and shut down the engines as the Jetway pulled up to the First Class doorway.

"Would you do the 'Meet and Greet' this morning?" he asked while he ran through the shutdown checklist. "I don't much feel like smiling this morning."

"Yeah, sure. You alright?"

"Oh, you know, Denise, I've been better, but that's another story for another day."

"Yeah, okay Paul. I'll be back up in a minute." She unbolted the cockpit door and walked over to the little spiral stairway and disappeared down into the main cabin, wondering as she went just what the Hell was wrong with Overton.

________________________________

He was back in her oncologist's office, back inside Klimt's hall of mirrors, watching the little physician flip through the latest blood panels and MRI reports.

The physician leaned back, sighed.

"Well, it's metastasized. To her lungs, and liver too."

"Which means what?" Paul Overton remembered asking. "I mean, what do we do next."

"I think this will be her last chemo, Mr Overton. It's just not working, and it could be doing her more harm than good at this point."

"Okay. So what's next?"

The physician shook his head. "I'm sorry, Paul. Palliative measures would be my recommendation, from here on. There's just not much else..."

"Bullshit! There's gotta be something..."

"Paul, feel free to get a second opinion. Really. I won't be offended."

"Offended? I don't give a crap if you're offended or not, doctor. I just want options. What could we try next?"

"Paul, her white counts are down in the weeds. Chemo will kill her before the cancer can at this point. The cancer's spread is so advanced any form of radiation treatment would simply kill her, too. We can't take out her lungs, or her liver, or she'll die on the table." The physician held up his hands in defeat. "Paul, you've just got to understand this, and try to accept this is where we are. She fought the good fight, but it's over now. Let me keep her comfortable, at least. Don't make her suffer."

He'd simply left the room, bolted away in a fog of despair, walked past the ward where Peggy was taking her last round of chemo, and out into the rain.

________________________________

Overton sat in the stillness, looking out over the instrument panel at raindrops that fell like tears on the curved glass -- before running away. "Just like me," he said aloud, though he had no idea he'd spoken aloud.

"Just like you - what?" he heard Evans say, then he heard the cockpit door closing.

"What?"

"You said, 'Just like me.' 

"Oh."

"You've been down all night, Paul. What's up?"

He shook his head and undid his harness while the seat whirred backwards, then he stuffed his charts and his iPad in his flight-bag and clasped it shut. He stood, stretched and yawned. "No, no talk for me today, kiddo. Anyway, there's been too much talk already," he said -- almost in a whisper, and just as a sigh might drift away on a breeze, he added: "Besides, I'm all talked out."

"Oh? Really?"

"Really."

"You staying out here, at the Hilton? With the rest of us?"

"No. Think I'm going into the city. A few things I need to do."

"Oh? Mind if I tag along? I've never really spent much time there. Could you maybe show me around?" Evans felt there was something really wrong with Overton today; she had a bad feeling about him as she watched his eyes. There were dark circles under his eyes this morning, and his skin looked sallow and pasty, but there was something in his voice that seemed unreal. Like he had made a decision, and was now walking too close to the edge. She liked him, always had. Everyone did, she knew. He was more a father figure to most of the girls, not the kind to fool around, and she simply respected him in the way pilots respect really good aviators.

"No, you go on with the others. I won't be much fun. Or why don't you just go in and take a tour?" He brushed by her rapidly and squeezed through the cockpit door and made for the stairway, but stopped short when he saw Kate Middleton, one of the senior flight attendants, talking with a woman still in her seat. There was something odd about her face, too. He put his case down on a seat and walked back to the women.

"Everything alright here, Patsy?" he said as he looked closely at the face of the woman in the seat.

"Uh, no Captain. Miss Carpenter feels light-headed and . . ."

He bent down to look into the woman's eyes; they seemed bent, unfocused. "Ma'am, have you had any pain in your arms or legs tonight?"

The woman nodded, tried to speak, then a little stream of drool ran from the corner of her mouth.

"Okay, Kate, I think it's a DVT. Recline her seat and get an oxygen bottle hooked up." Overton dashed back to the cockpit, almost knocking Evans off her feet as he passed, then he flipped on a radio while he reached for his headset. He checked the frequency, then called: "London ground, United Two Three Heavy with a medical emergency!"

"United Two Three, go ahead."

"Two Three, we have a woman up on the second level going into stroke, probable deep vein thrombosis."

"Understood, two three. Emergency Services notified."

Overton had already tossed the headset back onto his seat and was out the door before the transmission ended. He got back to the woman in her seat just as Kate returned with oxygen, and he put the mask on the woman's face and adjusted the flow, then pushed her seat further down. Her First Class seat was a full recliner, then he raised her legs with some pillows while he looked at the woman's eyes: one pupil was a pinpoint, the other full and round, and her skin was waxy now, with a sheen of perspiration forming on her brow, yet he could see frantic confusion in the woman's eyes.

"Get me a cool washrag, would you, Kate?" He brushed stray hair from the woman's forehead, then knelt down beside the woman and patted her head gently. "It's alright Ma'am. Paramedics will be here in a moment."

She saw him, looked at him, tried to smile...

"Here you are, Captain," he heard Evans say, and he turned and took the rag from her, then folded it and put the cool cloth on the woman's forehead. A few moments later they heard footsteps running up the spiral stairway, and uniformed men came in and pushed him aside. One of the medics swabbed the woman's arm and inserted a needle into a vein, then hooked up a bottle and set the drip rate.

"Captain? We'll need to take her out the doorway on this level."

"Right. Denise, would you go disarm the slide? Patsy, Kate, give 'em a hand, would you?"

Warm, wet air flooded the compartment moments later when the doorway opened, and Overton could hear a truck moving into position below, then a ramp ascending to their level. More people pushed there way into the cabin, shoving Overton further back into the upper deck, back where the ceiling arced over and down, confining them in the cave-like space. Overton watched as a medic pushed another needle into the woman's arm and hooked another vial of clear fluid to it; the man adjusted the flow and began talking on a radio. Soon the medics were lifting the woman onto a gurney and rolling her toward the open doorway.

"Good work, Paul," he heard Evans say from the far end of the upper deck.

"Oh, just all part of the service, Ma'am."

"Gee, Paul, when I grow up I want to be just like you." She grinned when he turned and scowled.

"Oh, go blow it out your nose!" But he laughed. It came as a shock to everyone up there, but he laughed. The first time he'd laughed in weeks, maybe months, and it felt good. An amazing kind of good. He continued looking at Evans, at her frank warmth, that easy West Texas Smile, and suddenly he knew she was a friend. And friends are rare in this life, he told himself.

There was activity everywhere now, and a covey of flight attendants began clearing away the dressings and wrappers left behind by the paramedics.

"Cripes, I don't know about you, but I'm starved," Evans said.

"I'm going into Mayfair, the Fleming, on Half Moon Street. Good pub down the way for breakfast."

"You want some company?" Evans said.

"Probably not a bad idea," he said, looking at her. He was unaware of how quietly he spoke.

To Evans his need was like a cry, involuntary, still almost silent, but now quite unmistakable.

__________________________________

She wanted, she said, to pass at home. At home with all her things. He porcelain figurines, her photographs, her garden. Her house. And she wanted to be in her bed.

There wasn't much else to say, or do. 

The oncologist had sent hospice workers from an agency, and they'd taken care of everything. A nurse came, checked in with them both, ran through a checklist of things she'd do for Peggy, then she'd asked Paul to help her with some things in her car.

"Did Dr Mason give you a time frame?" the nurse had asked.

"No, not really."

"Oh." The woman looked away, angry that physicians increasingly left it to hospice workers to deal with this most terrible part of the process.

"And? What does that mean."

"Mr Overton, we're looking at a few days. Dr Mason doesn't think she'll make it to the weekend."

"What?!"

"God, I hate this."

"What?"

"I'm sorry, but your physician really should be the one..."

"Well, he's obviously got other things on his mind." Or is a lazy, spineless son of a bitch, he said to himself. "You shouldn't be the one...no, no, so tell me, what's the drill?"

"They started her on morphine, a light dose, at the clinic today. It'll be wearing off soon. I need to get that going now. It'll be a steady drip. Tomorrow would be a good day for friends and family to drop by."

__________________________________

Overton and the crew made their way out of the aircraft just as the cleaning crew moved aboard, they walked past the packed Customs queue to the Crew passage, then on to Operations. When he was done, Evans walked with him down to the basement level, and there he bought tickets for the Heathrow Express from a little wall dispenser, then they hurried off to make the next train. They ran the last few steps as a conductor ushered on the few stragglers running up to the carriages, and they piled into a First Class carriage and dumped their bags on a rack just as the doors closed and the train pulled smoothly from the station.

Overton was, after so many years, quite oblivious to the stares his uniform garnered wherever he went in public with it on, but Evans was still consciously all too aware of them. She met the frank stares and covert glances with an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach; 'weren't women supposed to be flight attendants?' the uneasy eyes asked accusingly. They were certainly not supposed to be pilots. She'd heard of flights where men had walked off planes when informed a woman was up front, and it hurt. It hurt because she was proud of her accomplishments, proud because she knew she would soon make Captain. And it hurt because the attention felt stigmatic, often painfully so.

The train eased from the station and moved silently to the next terminal; a few more boarded here, then the train pulled quietly away again and left the airport. Now they moved off towards London, bursting out into daylight a few minutes later as the train accelerated to an almost unbelievable speed. The industrial landscape gave way to suburbs; within a few minutes the train clattered through switches and slowed as it approached Paddington Station. He looked around the train; it was so neat, so orderly, so completely foreign. Something like this would fall flat on its face back home; it was simply too efficient for America, and ignored the dictates of modern American urban planning that if you couldn't pull your car to the 'drive-thru' any effort to address developmental shortcomings was almost certainly doomed to fail.

Overton led her off the train and through the morning rush to an escalator; he bought two more passes for the Underground with practiced ease and marched off through another maze-like series of stairways and escalators, and soon boarded yet another train. Standing among the late morning rush of commuters, Evans felt even more eyes on her than usual, and to hide from them she looked up at advertisements for musicals and low-cost airfares that lined the ceiling. This train jerked into motion and she caught herself on Overton's sleeve, and she felt him reach for her shoulder and steady her. She flexed her knees and steadied herself, smiled at Overton while she tried to hide her embarrassment. What felt an eternity later, they got off and made their way up into the light, and Paul led them off down a crowded sidewalk to Half Moon Street; there he turned away from the park to their left and walked a few more paces up the street to a hotel, and there he ducked inside. Evans followed, suddenly aware she was following him into a hotel -- and now quite uncertain what to do next.

__________________________________

She lay in the fading light of evening, and it seemed as if her body was caving in on itself. In just a few days her skin had grown waxy and sallow, her eyes had fallen inward, and her breathing was now shallow and raspy. 

The hospice nurse adjusted the morphine and went back to the kitchen, and Overton stood by a window in their bedroom, listening to her sleep. He wondered how many more nights he would hear her breathing, and how many more mornings might he wake to see her still there by his side? The nurse returned a minute later with a sandwich, asked him to eat something, and he set it down on their dresser, left it there like an unfair accusation.

The sun fell behind winter's bare trees, and he saw snowflakes falling. 

"Paul," he heard her say, "come lay with me."

They talked a while, talked of other days, other times, and he held her hand.

"Oh, Paul," she said at last, and he wiped tears from her eyes before he kissed her one last time.

__________________________________

"You want me to see if they have another room free?" Overton asked when Evans came up behind him.

"I doubt I could afford it, Paul. I'll probably just head back out to the Hilton later on."

"Okay. Why don't you go settle in over there," he said, pointing to some chairs in the lobby. "This won't take long."

She walked over and picked up a Sunday Times; they had until Tuesday afternoon free, and she wondered if there were any plays or musicals worth seeing. She looked around, saw the concierge desk and walked over. She asked about shows and tickets and picked up a brochure for a tour bus that circulated around the most popular sights all day, then walked to the front desk, and Overton, and heard him arranging to leave their bags with the Bell Captain.

"Room's not ready yet. Hungry?"

"Actually, I am."

"Good. Follow me."

A doorman held the front door open and they walked out onto the sidewalk; a tepid sun was trying to break through low-scudding clouds that flew by seemingly just overhead, and they turned to the right and walked up the shallow incline and crossed the street at the first corner, then walked ahead a few more paces before ducking into another narrow doorway. Smells of frying bacon and eggs and sausage slammed into her, knocking all thought of anything else from her mind. She took a seat at a little table while Overton walked up to the bar; he came back a minute later and sat down.

"Hope you're not a vegetarian, because I just ordered the mother of all breakfasts, and some coffee and juice."

"Bless your heart. You read my mind."

He smiled, then looked around the low-ceilinged room like he was looking at old memories, memories that had once been good friends, and she could see the cares of the world settle on his shoulders again.

"You come here often? I mean, to that hotel?"

"No, not really. It's been a while, I guess. Peg and I used to come here."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Paul. I didn't mean to bring it up."

"Oh, I know Denise. Tomorrow's our anniversary. I just wanted to see the place again."

Overton's wife had passed away not long ago, she knew, and only now was he getting back to something like his old self. He'd been very much in love, or so other pilots had told her, even after thirty some odd years of marriage. They'd never had kids, Evans was told, and she'd wondered why -- but could guess. Whatever the reason, he was alone now, and 'alone' was a bad fit for Paul Overton. A child, a living part of Peggy remaining in this world, would have been a grand comfort to him. Now he often times reminded her of an old tree in autumn; the one true thing, the one person who above all else had defined his life had been stripped from him, and now he stood barren, exposed to winter's winds. Whatever was left of him had turned brittle and cold, and life had drifted away from his soul like a reddened leaf on a quiet brook, too soon lost among the wayward currents of fading memory.

Plates of orange-yolked eggs and bacon appeared, the plates heaped with baked beans and broiled tomatoes and mushrooms. Evans attacked her plate with unbridled hunger while Overton looked on in amazed silence as she wolfed down her breakfast. He picked at his food every now and then, mostly just looked at his coffee. He'd lost thirty pounds the past few months, though had never once in his life been considered overweight. Now his shirt collars were obscenely loose and his uniform hung on his spare frame like rags on a scarecrow, yet he hardly ever ate anymore. 

He hardly seemed to care anymore.

"You not going to eat?"

"Not too hungry this morning, Denise."

"Paul?"

"Yes?"

"Eat your goddamned breakfast."

He looked at her and shrugged his shoulder, took a bite of egg and a long pull from his glass of juice. "It is good, isn't it?"

"Goddamned right it is. And you need it, too, amigo."

He ate, tentatively at first, but soon he ate and enjoyed it. All of it.

"Whoa there, Paul! Making up for lost time, aren't you?" She watched as he polished off his plate, and finished his juice.

"Man, that felt good."

"Yeah. Food's a good thing, Paul. Try to remember that from time to time, okay?"

He grinned, first at his empty plate, then at Evans. "We ought to go to the hotel, see if we can get out of these things. We can get 'em cleaned overnight, too." He walked up to the bar and paid while she gathered her stuff, then they walked back down the hill to the hotel. His room was ready, his bag delivered, so he took the key and they rode the lift up to the fourth floor and made for the room. He opened the door and walked in, looked around at the ghosts that met him there, then went to his bag and pulled out his toiletries.

"You want to shower?" he asked.

"No, go ahead." 

He walked in and brushed his teeth, then threw on some jeans and a white polo shirt and slipped on a pair of Adidas Stan Smith tennis shoes. He ran a brush through his peppered blond hair and a razor across the stubble on his face, then stepped back into the room. 

And stopped dead in his tracks.

"Shit! I thought you were going to shower!" Evans said. She stood bare-foot in the middle of the room, with only panties and a bra on, and she turned a bright crimson as Overton stood open-mouthed, gaping at her.

"Crap, I'm sorry Denise," he said as he retreated to the bathroom. He gathered himself in front of the mirror and looked at his reflection, but all he saw was her flat belly and smallish - though obviously quite beautiful - breasts, and perfect legs crowned by sexy white-lace panties. The sight had all but taken his breath away, and he shook inside at the thought of her standing out there, untouchable, indeed, almost unknowable.




Up In The Air – One Last Time



"Alright," he heard her call a minute later, "coast is clear!"

He held on to the sink, tried to shake the sight of her from his mind, then ran his hands under cold water and rinsed his face. He toweled his face dry, walked out into the room and saw her standing by the window, looking at the building across the lane. 

"Is that place empty?" she said, looking at the red stone megalith.

"Good question. Used to be an MI-6 hangout. You know, James Bond kinda stuff. Anyway, Ian Fleming used to hang out there."

"No kidding? That's pretty, well, interesting. Kind of makes all that fiction seem a little less so." She was tense, and continued to look out the window, refusing to acknowledge what had just passed between them, and perhaps because she was having a hard time understanding the wave of feelings that had washed over her -- while he stood there, open-mouthed, staring at her. She'd felt like taking her clothes off and sliding under the sheets, waiting for him to come to her, suddenly wanting him, needing him. The realization had rocked her world, just as his presence behind her now made her weak in the knees. 'Why?' she asked herself. 'This just doesn't make sense!'

"So, times flying. What do you feel like doing?" 

She heard it in his voice, too, and wondered just what the Hell was going on.

She turned around, faced him, saw the confusion clearly on his face, in his eyes. 

She stepped forward, took his face in her hands and kissed him. She kissed him hard, ran her tongue into his mouth and a hand to his belt. She opened his jeans and freed him, moved her fingers until she held him firmly, then pushed him back to the bed, pushed him down, and she knelt there as if in absolution, pulled his jeans down, took him in her mouth. She worked him violently until he grew inside her warmth, then she stood and pushed her trousers off and mounted him. Her hands on his chest, her hair raking his face, she buried herself in their need. Lost in this newness, this writhing embrace, she danced in the light of ancient music until the universe exploded -- then everything imploded into the womb of what had been created.

__________________________________

He seemed awkward after, almost little-boy shy, like the rules of the game had been broken. 

But perhaps they had just been rewritten? 

And how kind he was, almost too kind, holding her, kissing her face, telling her how beautiful she was, how wonderful this day had become. She kissed him again, felt the strangeness wash over her, then she had pushed herself up over his chest again.

"Come on, Paul. You promised to show me London, didn't you?"

"That I did, that I did. What do you feel like doing?"

She looked at him, looked at innocence and happiness dueling with sorrow and loneliness, the gales of recent storms still plain on his face, in his eyes. She lifted herself from his groin, felt the watery warmth of their love on the inside of her thighs and her belly stirred again. The impulse to act was overwhelming, undeniable . . .

She drifted down into this newness and looked up at him. "I'm still hungry, Paul. What do you think I ought to do?"

He smiled as she took him again, but this time she kept him in her mouth, working him frantically until he tensed, until his back arced skyward, and she took him, all of him, in her mouth. And still she couldn't release him: she swirled her tongue over him, felt the sticky warmth coating her tongue and her lips, felt him growing under the subtle glory of the movement that was redefining the very nature of their relationship, and she worked him over again and again until he regained his strength, then she mounted him again, took all he could give her, again.

Later, they stood in the tub and let hot water run down their bodies while they kissed. All the while, Evans felt pelted by gales of confusion, but every time she looked up into Paul's eyes she felt a quiet certainty she had never known in her life. She felt loved, and more curious still, she felt in love. And these feelings washed over her like storm tossed waves spending their fury on a wall of rocks, over her like the summoning this most assuredly was.

They walked along the Thames as the afternoon passed. Barge traffic moved downstream on brown water; the broad paved walk along the river's bank was awash with people leaving work, and Evans in her uncertainty was glad of their anonymity. They had, for a while, held hands, but she soon pulled away from him, unsure of herself, unsure of the feelings that swirled in the air around her. She grew wary of the implications that hid behind each passing pedestrian; the sun settled behind veils of insinuating, sentinel-like trees as they walked, the air growing cooler as they passed each wary sentinel, then streetlights winked on, calling out to the sudden shadows that had appeared all around them. Calling out to what, or to whom? She stopped, moved to the wall by the river and looked down into the swirling darkness.

"Penny for your thoughts," he said.

"Probably not worth much more than that," she said, forcing a laugh. She looked upstream towards Parliament, towards Big Ben -- and all the iconic truth that Time held in it's fleeting grasp stood in silent witness, the tower's baleful eye staring down at her.

"Could you tell me about her?"

Her words hit him like a blow to the stomach; he felt winded, at a complete loss as the implications washed over him. 

"I'm not sure," he said.

"You said tomorrow was, is, your anniversary?"

"Yes."

"I need to ask you something, Paul," she said, now slowly, carefully, "and I need you to listen to me, and not lie to me."

"Okay."

"I was worried about you. Last night. In the cockpit. Worried you might be, well, planning to do something."

"Oh? Such as?"

"Hurt yourself."

He looked at her, then looked away. "I guess I can understand that."

"I need to know. Am I right?"

He looked at her now, his eyes like focused beams. "No, you're not. Never in a million years would I, could I do something like that."

"So, why did we come here? Into town? You said you had something to do here?"

"I have something to do here, tomorrow," he said.

"Could I come with you?"

He looked away, looked downriver. "I think I'd be disappointed if you didn't. Given what..."

"What happened today? Between us?"

He laughed gently, then stepped close to her and put his arm around her shoulder. She didn't move away, and he moved his hand to her neck and softly massaged it. "I was kind of curious, you know. Why me? Feel sorry for the old man?"

She turned to him and he saw tears in her eyes, yet she reached up, stroked his face with the back of her hand. 

"You're really quite stupid, Paul. You know that?"

He might have felt wounded by her words but for the look in her eyes. "So I've been told. Peg accused me of as much on any number of occasions."

"I feel jealous, of her," she said, and the brutal honesty of the emotion stunned her once again.

"Jealous? Why?"

"Of the time you had with her. Of that life."

"I don't understand?"

"I've always considered that kind of life as something I would never know. Could never have. It's just not who I am."

"You could've fooled me," he said.

"Really? What did you feel when I, when we . . ."

"Surprise, in a way, I guess. But after I saw you standing out there, in your, uh, out of uniform, well, I wanted you, but what got me was, well, I didn't think I would ever feel anything like that, ever again." 

His words reached her, washed over her, and she leaned into him, kissed him. And he kissed her, again.

"Paul? I don't know what we've started, but I know I don't want this to end."

He held her, held her as gusts of cold confusion and warm certainty washed over them. He looked over her to the sky above, to a 747 climbing from Heathrow and beginning its gentle turn south, and out of the pattern. 

He had made such a turn today. They both had. "I think a lot of things changed today, Denise, but something about this feels so right to me. Something about you feels so . . . right."

She pulled back, looked up into his eyes again and nodded. "Yes. 'Right.' That's a the word I've been hearing today, over and over, while we walked. But you now what?"

"Hm-m, what?"

"I'm hungry."

"Can't imagine why. It's only been ten hours." He looked at his watch, then at the river. "You trust me?"

"Implicitly."

"Good girl. Off to Brick Lane."

"Brick Lane?"

"Yup. Best Indian restaurant in London. Kind of spicy, though, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, God!"

"He can't help you now, girl. You're walking a different path today, if you haven't figured that out yet."

__________________________________

He woke the next morning in a dazed fog; the room smelled of curry, very spicy curry, and Overton's gut felt like an inferno. He looked over, saw Evans in the bed and wondered what the Hell Peggy would do when she found out.

Then it all started coming back.

They had started on Kingfisher's a little after seven, and little fireball appetizers that hit like napalm, then got hotter -- then, with an eye on the 24 hour liquor rule, they had carried on into the early morning, then poured themselves into a taxi and back into his room a little past two. 

Now, as he looked at her in the early morning light he realized it hadn't been a dream. Yesterday had happened. All of it. Now he looked at her and danced between guilt one moment, and incredible happiness the next. He jumped in the shower and cursed English plumbers for the billionth time, then brushed his teeth and climbed back into his jeans before digging fresh socks and another white polo shirt from his overnight bag -- and getting them settled 'just so.'

He ordered breakfast, then woke Evans, sat in a chair across the room and pretended not to watch her when she dashed to the head. He heard the shower come on, then heard her scream when someone, somewhere in London flushed a toilet and the water pressure fell to zero just as the water temperature went from 105 degrees F to 35 degrees F in the space of one one hundredth of a second. He slapped his knee and laughed until he coughed.

"Jesus H Christ!" he heard her scream, "the plumbing in this hotel sucks!"

"Nope, the plumbing in Great Britain sucks! It's legendary, just like the delightful attitude Parisian's have towards Americans."

She reminded him they had twenty four hours to let the booze filter out of their systems, before tomorrow's flight back to Kennedy, so, she added, today would of necessity be a sightseeing day. Overton, of course, had other plans, so he went down to get the day's rail schedule out to Canterbury and back, then when he got back to the room he watched the news while she dried off and got dressed.

"Are you always going to pretend you're not staring at my legs?"

"Yup. Always."

"Nice to know," she said, grinning.

"Yup. Predictability ain't all bad."

They made their way to Victoria Station and grabbed a sandwich to eat on the train before walking out the platform to a local that was scheduled to make it's way slowly to Canterbury, and was scheduled to arrive a little after one that afternoon. They boarded and took a couple of facing seats in the tiny first class compartment and spread out their sandwiches on the table between them while the train pulled out of the station. Within a few minutes they were rolling through gently rolling farmland crossed with narrow stone-lined lanes; both looked out their window at gentle hills and distant steeples until, almost two hours later, the little train pulled into Canterbury and stopped.

Making their way through the tiny station and across to the ancient wall that encircled most of the village, they walked along ancient tree-lined paths until, rounding a corner, the old cathedral came into view.

"Oh my God," he heard Evans gasp.

"It's something, isn't it?" He looked at her, at the look of sheer astonishment on her face, if only because these old cathedrals never failed to awe Americans, and that always got to him. There was simply nothing comparable to them back home, not even the new National Cathedral in Washington, and he suspected it reminded Americans of just how new their country really was, and of how deeply European culture was rooted in a common -- yet ancient -- heritage. And these Gothic cathedrals were almost newcomers on the scene, he reminded himself; the ties that held this culture together were now almost two thousand years old. America was an afterthought to this old world, because even Canterbury Cathedral was much older than America.

He took her hand and they walked through a little residential neighborhood, then out onto a lively commercial street full of modern shops and huge throngs of people out doing their marketing. They stopped and browsed at market stalls full of produce and woolen goods as they made their way to the cathedral, then they walked through a timbered passage onto the cathedral grounds. 

Here, surrounded by open green grass, the sheer mass of the structure was overwhelming. He walked around for a bit, got his bearings and absorbed once again the sheer size of the building, then they walked down the crushed stone path toward the main entry and walked inside.

Again, Evans stumbled to a halt; again, he heard her whisper words of simple incredulity. The nave stretched off into the distance under soaring vaults; explosions of random light scattered from clerestories above and fell on ancient stones below in psychedelic swarms. The scene elicited, he imagined, every thought and feeling the original designers had intended: overwhelming awe at the sheer majesty of man's interpretation of their God's greater glory. It was simply impossible to take in the scene and remain unmoved.

The air was cool inside, and there were only a handful of Chinese tourists wandering about, their little camera-phones clicking away like crickets in twilight, but he paused here, paused once again to let the scale of the space register, then they walked down the nave to the transept -- and there he stopped. Directly under the center of the tower he paused and looked up; fan vaults framed the ceiling there, the delicate tracery above imparting a sense of movement toward heaven, and again he heard Evans take in a sharp breath as she absorbed the sight. 

He kept moving after that, first to the altar and the adjacent choir, then the chapels beyond; he moved slowly yet purposefully, wanting her to see as much as possible in this brief time they had, wanting to share this moment with her in the same way he had nearly twenty years ago -- with PeggySue.

When they were done, he walked to a small door on the north side of the transept, then out into a little rose garden. He took off his rucksack and carefully opened it, then removed a little ceramic urn. He unscrewed the urn's copper lid, then walked around the rose garden spreading ashes over the petals, and when he was finished he turned, looked at Denise, saw her hands steepled over her mouth, tears running down her face, and he walked to her, took her in his arms and held her for the longest time.

"Thank you, my love, for sharing this with me," he said at last.

"Oh my God, Paul. No, please, let me thank you for letting me be here, to be a part of this moment. Oh my God," she said as she tried to wipe the tears away. "What a wonderful place to meet eternity."

He took her hand and kissed it, then they walked quietly away and into the evening.

_________________________________

They made it back to London just before nine that evening and rode to Leicester Square in another taxi. He took her to an old Italian restaurant nearby, one he'd always enjoyed over the years, and the owner recognized him and sat with them for a while, accepting Denise warmly. They ate carpaccio and spinach and spaghetti carbonara, then walked through the Square and looked at posters for shows before taking the tube back to the hotel. 

The flight home had hovered in the air all evening like a bad dream; they knew what was coming and couldn't keep it from happening; they wanted, in fact, to do anything and everything possible to keep the sun from rising the next morning. 

When they got back to the room they held hands for a while, and he kissed her once, gently. She led him to the bed and lay beside him, took his face in her hands once again and looked deeply into his eyes, and she felt a connection to him now that was stronger than anything she had ever known. Unable to contain herself any longer, she cried when she drifted back over the day's events, and thanked him once again. He kissed her again, felt himself falling under her spell again, but soon he felt his body drifting away into the night, drifting toward the sunrise.

____________________________________

"United Two-Two Heavy, taxi to position and hold."

"Two-Two, roger," Overton replied, then he switched over to the intercom: "Flight attendants, arm and cross-check; prepare for takeoff." 

"Give me take off flaps," Evans said. It was her turn to do the takeoff, so Overton handled the checklist and callouts this time around.

"You decide on ten?" The flight today was full, headwinds over the Atlantic furious, so a full load-out of fuel was onboard as well. The 747 was in fact loaded right up to it's maximum permissible takeoff weight, somewhere just shy of a million pounds gross weight, and though the air was somewhat cool outside this afternoon, he knew this would be an interesting takeoff.

"Yeah, and I think I'm going to start the run from back here, too. We're gonna need every inch of runway today."

"Okay. Flaps ten." He reached across the center console and moved the lever until ten degrees indicated on the panel, then set the departure control frequency on the secondary COMMs unit. A Singapore Airlines 777 on short final drifted by just over the threshold and settled onto the runway, it's wings sprouting spoilers above the blue smoke of screeching tires returning to earth.

"United Two-Two Heavy, clear for takeoff. Contact departure on one two seven decimal one, altimeter two niner-niner five, wind two five zero at five."

"Two-Two Heavy," Overton said as Evans put her left hand on the throttle levers. "Well, here goes nothing." She advanced the throttles to near full takeoff power while still holding short of the runway; the grossed-out airliner shuddered then began to move ever so slowly. She dialed-in nose-wheel steering while the jet lumbered forward and lined up on the runway centerline, then she shoved the throttles all the way to their stops.

To Overton the engines seemed to howl in protest as they tried to move the incredible mass down the runway. "God, she's slow," he said. "Fifty knots. Eighty. Got a little less than half the runway left. One hundred knots. . ."

"I'm gonna go with it . . ."

"V-one! Shit, baby, move! Come on . . ." Overton inched up and peered over the panel; he couldn't see the end of the runway any more . . . they must be right over it! "Rotate!" he called out and the nose lifted imperceptibly. "V-r plus five!" 

"Goddamn-this-pig-is-heavy!" Evans yelled.

Overton glanced out the left side window; the runway's end raced by seemingly just as the main trucks lifted from the concrete, and he halfway expected to feel them smash into the strobe towers just ahead. He looked down at the flight director: about seven degrees nose up and a rate of climb of two hundred feet per minute. "Gear up?" he asked as he switched frequency to departure control.

"Yeah, what the fuck, might as well! This is as close to a positive rate as we're gonna get for a while!"

"Roger that."

The radio blared: "Ah, United Two-Two Heavy, say altitude please."

Overton laughed: "Two-two heavy, we've got one seven five AGL, indicating two five zero FPM."




Up In The Air – One Last Time



"Two-Two Heavy, have you lost an engine?"

"Ah, Two-Two, negative, we're just a tad, uh, heavy this afternoon."

"Ah, roger, Two-Two. Climb at your discretion to five hundred AGL then turn right to one eight zero."

"Roger, five hundred then one eight zero," Overton replied, then to Evans: "We're gonna rattle some dishes down there today." Looking down at the scene below, he could make out upturned faces on the streets and in a couple of backyards, and almost everyone was pointing at their 747. "Looks like two hundred indicated, now reading three-two-five FPM."

"Damn, Paul, I've never felt anything like this in my life! How about flaps seven?"

"Flaps seven, roger. Okay. Now three seven five FPM and nine degrees nose-up. Two fifteen indicated airspeed. Three fifty AGL. Okay, now four hundred FPM, passing three nine five AGL. Okay, coming up on five hundred AGL."

"Okay, flaps five please."

"Flaps five. Now five hundred FPM, five hundred AGL, two-two five indicated airspeed. I'd keep your turn pretty easy."

"Roger. How're the temps? Can I come back a little?" She started a slow right turn to 180 degrees.

"Maybe try ninety eight percent; temps look okay. Wouldn't go any lower yet. Probably have to write this up, though, if we go much longer."

"Clean the wing, would you?"

"Roger, flaps up, slats coming in. Coming up on eight hundred AGL, two three zero indicated, now ten degrees nose up."

"Paul, have you ever had a 744 this heavy before?"

"Yeah, once. Quito - on a hot day, too. Ass puckered-up so tight they were plucking vinyl from my asshole for a week. Okay, now one thousand AGL and two three five indicated, heading one-four five."

"Man, I hate to say it, but I've really gotta take a dump!"

"Really? I did about two minutes ago."

___________________________________

They reached a decent cruising altitude about halfway to Iceland and powered back a bit, let the autopilot settle in, and they both heaved a sigh. Evans pushed her seat back and stood, then walked to the head. Overton could see the back and arms of her blouse; they were soaked through with sweat, and he shook his head knowingly.

Out ahead the sky was tracked with dozens of contrails headed west; off to the south dozens more pointed eastward. The sun hung high overhead and the cockpit grew uncomfortably warm. He adjusted the temperature, checked in with Oceanic Control and received clearance to climb another two thousand feet, then set the altitude bug on the flight director and watched the altitude display slowly climb again. The head door closed and Evans returned to her seat.

"Want to try lunch?" she asked.

"You know it. Those jokers at Heathrow know how to cook!"

She opened the lunch box and took out a couple of trays, one marked salmon, the other some bizarre form of curry. Without asking she passed the curry to Overton and they both laughed.

"I don't know if I can eat this crap without a beer."

"Well," she said, "first time for everything. Want a Dr Pepper or . . . oops, no DP. Ginger ale or Coke?"

"Fucking limeys. You choose." 

She handed him the ginger ale. "Coke and salmon," she added, "breakfast of champions."

"You say so. I wonder what the hell you call shrimp masala and ginger ale?"

"Diarrhea?" 

"Oh, thanks ever so much," he said. She smiled. "What's the fuel flow look like?"

She coughed, laughed a little, then reached up and checked a dial, flipped a rotary switch and checked another dial. "About one eight. Looking good."

"Go ahead and run a weight for approach when you finish that smelly thing."

"Smelly? You calling my fish smelly. I can't wait 'til you start blowing farts after another load of curry. Your seat's gonna catch fire."

He shook his head. "Wouldn't be the first time."

She laughed, then reached behind her and flipped the breaker for the cockpit voice recorder. "So. Want a blowjob?"

Overton coughed, blew ginger ale out his nose before turning crimson, then looked up and saw the recorder was off. He looked at her for a moment, at the hungry look in her eyes. "You really liked doing that? I mean, have we created a monster here?"

"I can't help it, Paul. I loved it, the way it tastes, the way you feel just before. But I love it, you know?"

"Really?"

"I got you last night, you know. Just after you fell asleep."

"What?"

"Very gently, if I may say so myself. You popped a big one, too."

"You're kidding me."

"Nope."

"Yeah, well. I've never even heard of anyone trying something like that up here."

"Just push your seat back and leave the driving to us!"

"You serious?"

"Paul, I'm horny as hell. Now push your seat back, goddamn it!"

He shook his head again, then double-checked the autopilot settings. She was out of her seat and getting on her knees behind the center console, licking her lips all the while; he hit the button and his seat rolled back, then dialed in a little recline and undid his belt and the button on his trousers. 

Evans pulled the zipper down and pushed his briefs around until she freed him, then she engulfed him, worked him over with her mouth for a while, then pounded him with her fist. She kept at it for what felt like an eternity to Overton, then he felt his groin tightening, his back arching, and she pushed his cock so deeply down her throat he thought she would choke. She grasped him around the base with her fingernails as her head bobbed furiously; soon he heard her gulping ravenously as his seed flooded into her mouth. 

Again she bobbed and swirled and he felt himself stiffening again, then he felt her standing, heard her zipper opening, and he felt her contorting around the controls, mounting him, and he gasped when her liquid warmth engulfed him. With her hands on his seat back she ground into him, her hips swayed and rocked, her head drifted back and snapped forward in complete abandon and within moments he felt her shuddering into her first orgasm. He held her hips down, tried to thrust against her weight without jamming his feet forward against the rudder pedals, then felt his own orgasm building. He moved his hands to her shoulders, held her down while he did his best to impale her, then gasped as his second orgasm took over."

As he came back to earth he felt her dismount, then encircle him with her mouth again and clean-up the remains. She licked her lips as she stood, then made her way to the head again.

Overton looked at the instruments; perhaps ten minutes had gone by and everything was as it should be, but he knew now that nothing was. He looked down at the wreckage, tried to wipe up the mess in his lap before he zipped up and fastened his seatbelt again. She came back a minute later and leaned over, kissed him on the mouth, then took her seat. He tasted toothpaste on her breath and smiled, then without saying a word reached over and took her hand.

"Never again, darling. Alright? Now flip on the recorder."

"Sorry, Paul. But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, you know?" She reached up and hit the breaker, then called out some fuel flow numbers and started working up landing weights. She went to work on the pre-landing checklist while he made his way back to the head, and she smiled when he came back and stopped, leaned over and kissed her forehead. He bent closer still and whispered in her ear, and she looked at him while he climbed back into his seat. He sat and buckled himself in again, brought his seat forward and scanned the instrument panel. He felt her looking at him and tried as hard as he could not to look her way, but after a few minutes he gave in and looked at her.

There were tears running from her eyes, a smile parted her face, and he winked at her.

Silently the words formed on her mouth. He watched them form, watched them cross the air between them, felt her words wash over his parched soul . . .

'I love you too. I love you too.'

For how long had his life been up in the air, waiting, wanting to be reborn. How very odd to find love thirty some-odd years after he'd promised another woman his love 'til death do us part.

But they had parted, and with his wife's death his life too had seemed over.

But now this. This, what? Miracle?

It was all so very sweet, and so very impossible. He knew it had to be a dream.

He looked ahead, looked at the New England coast approaching beneath a carpet of puffy white clouds.

Maybe he was a fool to dare love another woman again. Their relationship would be complicated, he knew, but their's would be a relationship of equals.

He looked at her again, then began calling out the pre-landing checklist. He did so with a gentle smile on his face.

___________________________________

Overton looked at the instruments and shook his head. The engine temperature looked high again, and he leaned forward and tapped the gauge with his finger. The little needle crept upward, hovered just short of the red.

"Shit! Goddamned piece of shit!" He slowed and stopped at the red light, looked at an old woman trundling by in the crosswalk, and wondered aloud how many times he'd have to take this old monster to the mechanic before he'd finally have to break down and buy a new car.

The car, an old maroon BMW 2002 Tii now almost thirty years old, had been his wife's pride and joy for what had seemed like forever, but since her death he couldn't bear the thought of parting with it. He'd managed to hold on to most of their past, but now some things he just couldn't justify any longer. The transmission had gone out last summer and he'd struggled to find a mechanic with enough time and talent to rebuild the thing. Replacements simply weren't available anymore. 

How long could he hold on to this car? How long did he have to hold on to the past? 

And there had been so many days since her passing when he'd felt much the same way about his life: he was wearing out and the parts were getting harder and harder to come by. Things simply didn't work the way they once had, and those were on the good days. The bad days had hardly been worth waking up for.

But that was yesterday, he said.

Today the sun was out, the sky full of hope and promise. Today -- Denise Evans had told him she loved him. Him! -- and suddenly everything was different. Now this old car felt like an anchor holding him to an unstable, unusable past, and he resented the thing because of it's hold on his soul. 

The light changed and he surged ahead, looked down the street for a service station. He watched the gauge climb slowly into the red and saw the first hints of steam seep up from under the hood. He saw a Mercedes dealership ahead, saw a "SmartCar" banner fluttering on the breeze and on an impulse flipped on his turn signal and crossed the street, turned into the lot. The old BMW rolled to a wheezing stop and shuddered, and Overton turned off the engine and sighed.

A couple of salesmen inside looked at the steam pouring out and pointed at the old hulk, laughed while one took out a nickel and tossed it in the air. Overton saw they were flipping a coin, probably to decide which one of them would have to deal with him. One apparently called it wrong and shook his head, this one walked out to greet his next hapless victim while the one who stayed behind laughed.

Overton, still in uniform, stepped from the car and the approaching salesman hesitated when he saw the four stripes on his shoulders. 'A pilot!' he said to himself, now hopeful that he'd get to sell a Mercedes today, and probably an E class at that.

"Afternoon, sir. Looks like you got here just in time. Is that an old 2002?"

Overton took in the salesman: he looked like a slick Ivy League wannabe and was almost drooling at the thought of selling a new MB today. "Yeah, but it's a Tii." The salesman looked clueless. "Well, it's a 2002 alright, but it's the Tii model. Pretty rare, and quite a bit more valuable. Quicker than greased eel shit, too. At least when it wants to."

"Seen better days, has it?" The salesman wasn't going to be snookered by this approach. He'd drive a hard bargain. "So, what can I show you today? Maybe an SLK?"

"No, I'm interested in a SmartCar."

The salesman looked crestfallen. Puny commission, no room to dicker around on the price. "Oh. Well, yeah, we have a couple inside."

Overton followed the salesman into the showroom and his eye immediately fell on a silver one with a white top and a red interior. "That's nice," he said. "How much?"

"About thirteen-five."

"Not about. How much? Exactly. Driveaway."

The salesman didn't flinch: "Thirteen eight out the door."

Overton pulled out his wallet and fished out his American Express card and tossed it to the salesman. "Okay, wrap it up. I'll take it."

The salesman chuckled and looked at Overton. "Sir?"

"Put it on the card, would you?"

"Sir? Do you want to trade in the BMW? You want me to get a number for you? Work up a deal?"

Overton turned and looked at his wife's old car. "No. not really. You want it?"

The salesman looked at Overton like he'd just sprouted horns to go along with his pitchfork. "Uh, yeah, sure, I'll take it." The other salesman -- the 'winner' of the coin toss - looked utterly devastated as he watched Overton take the keys from his pocket and toss them to the 'loser'. 

"Fine. Write it up and I'll go grab the title."

The salesman shook his head again and walked off to the business office, but he couldn't resist smiling at his colleague and flipping him the bird.

____________________________________________

Evans walked into her little house, a bungalow in Inwood not far from JFK, and tossed her overnight bag onto the sofa. She looked around the living room -- not one print or painting adorned a wall, her furniture looked like it had been collected at yard sales -- and she wanted to walk out of this place, this cave, yet she was tired and wanted a shower in the worst way. She walked into her bedroom, found glass on the floor under the single window in the room, and groaned.

"Not again," she said. "No, not again."

This would make the third time in the past six months her place had been broken into, and the last time it had happened it appeared the only thing 'the burglar' did was come in and look through her underwear drawer. The police thought it was probably some kid, a teenager probably, a sick kid with a hard-on for her, and as there wasn't any property 'missing' -- save perhaps a pair of pantyhose -- she'd been left with the impression that the cops really didn't care. She looked around her bedroom, in the tiny closet, in her drawers -- and once again, nothing was gone -- but she went ahead and called the police again, then the glass company.

A patrol car arrived thirty minutes later, after she'd showered and changed, and the patrolman, actually, a patrolwoman, came in and introduced herself.

"I'm Officer Christy D'Angelo," the girl said, and there was something instantly likable about the girl, kind of wholesome, kind of tough, like she had grown up in a family of boisterous, bullying brothers.

D'Angelo looked the scene over, thought she saw a latent fingerprint on the glass and went back out to her car, then came back a few minutes later with a little red tackle box full of investigative tools. She dusted the window for prints, came up with a couple of good ones, then went outside and walked around the house, probably checking for footprints, Evans guessed.

"Do you know who lives behind you?" the D'Angelo asked when she came back in.

"No, never seen anyone out there."

"Never? No summer BarBQs, no nothing?"

"I'm away a lot, but no, never."

The woman looked at her closely. "Away a lot? What do you do?"

"I'm a, I work for United."

"Oh, yeah? What do you do?

"I'm an F/O, a first officer."

"Really? Cool. I'm gonna start taking flying lessons, kinda thought it would be cool."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, well, got these benefits, ya know, GI Bill, thought I'd see if I like it, maybe try to go to one of those flight schools. Go from nothing to working for an airline in like six months. Where'd you learn?"

"The Air Force."

"No shit? I was in the Air Force. Helicopter maintenance, in Iraq. What did you fly?"

"KC-135s, mainly out of Tinker, but I spend a year in Guam, too."

"Tankers, huh. Intense. Guess it was real easy to get a job once you got out?"

"Not too bad. I had about three thousand hours, so that made it easy."

"What do you think about the flight school thing?"

"You know, I'm not sure, never looked into it. I guess like anything else, the quality of the school is the big thing, but I'd talk to graduates, get the real scoop."

"Uh-huh."

"And I guess you know that you'd probably get an F/O position with a commuter airline, fly a turbo-prop or an RJ. The pay's not very good, from what I hear. What do you make now?"

"Oh, with a lot of overtime I clear sixty. Base is mid-40s."

"Well, from a 'making money' standpoint you'd probably be better off where you are. Those commuter carriers are sweat shops. You really got to want to fly to justify working for some of them."

"No shit? Are you, like, an instructor?"

"Oh, sure, part of getting your Airline Transport rating involves doing that, but I haven't taught in years."

"Hey! I'm volunteering if you want to do it sometime!"

Evans grinned. "Yeah? Well, I'll keep that in mind!"

"So, anyways, I'm gonna head out now, try and find somethin' out about the people behind you. There are footprints out there, by the way, around the hedge under your window. I'm gonna check 'em out, and if I find anything out I'll let you know."

"Thanks, appreciate it."

"Got it, and here's my card, with the service number for the report, in case you need it for like insurance or somethin'."

"Right. Thanks."

"Later."

Evans watched her go, sure this girl was the best cop she'd ever run into, certainly the most thorough, but now, as she looked around her bedroom the sense of violation was acute, and intense. She went over to the broken window and looked over at the house just behind hers, and for an instant thought she could just make out someone standing in the window, looking at her. That rattled her, so she stepped back, then went to the kitchen and poured a glass of orange juice.

She thought about calling Overton, wanted to talk to him but knew he wouldn't be home yet, but looked for her iPhone anyway, grabbed it and went back to the bedroom. She looked at the house again, saw D'Angelo's squad car parked over on the next street, then saw her walking around the back of the house, and she saw the figure inside again, looking at her, then at D'Angelo as she came into view.

A shot rang out, the window where the figure inside had been standing exploded, and Evans saw D'Angelo go down. Evans dialed 911, told the dispatcher what was going down, then ran to her closet and grabbed the Beretta she had purchased when in the Air Force. She ran through her yard and climbed the fence, ran over to D'Angelo.

The officer was injured and dazed, but was talkative.

"Fuck that sonuvabitch!" she yelled.

"Can you stand?" Evans asked.

"Can I fuckin' stand? Can I fuckin' stand...you bet your sweet ass I can stand, and I'm gonna go in there and fuck that fuckin' piece of shit with my fuckin' nightstick! Right up his fuckin' ass!"

"I called 911, there should be back-up getting here any minute..."

And they could hear sirens in the distance, lots of them, and D'Angelo took out her radio and called in the situation.

"Let's get you out of here," D'Angelo said, looking at Evans' Beretta. "If that peashooter of yours ain't registered you'll be going to fuckin' jail instead of that mutherfucker..."

The two of them got back over the fence and back into Evans' house, and it started raining police cars a few minutes later. D'Angelo joined the other cops when they stormed the house, and a few minutes later Evans saw a pale, overweight kid, maybe fifteen years old, being led from the house in handcuffs. 




Up In The Air – One Last Time



D'Angelo came back back to her house a few minutes later.

"That dude is a strange-ranger. Has a few pictures of you on his bedroom wall, lots of other women too, bunch of underwear and shit. Might be yours, maybe not. Who knows? Anyways, gonna need you to come down today or tomorrow, try and identify the stuff, make a statement, all that bull."

"Okay," Evans said.

"Say, yous okay?"

"I saw you get shot, I was terrified."

"You saw it?"

"Oh, yeah, bet your ass I did."

D'Angelo got on her radio, called her supervisor, asked her to come to Evans' house.

"This could be a long night, Miss Evans. You wanna call someone?"

____________________________________________

Overton walked into the house in Glen Cove, into the preternatural emptiness that had occupied the place for months. He walked in, into that withering past, and looked around the living room, the kitchen, only now the presence of two women hovered in the air. He felt locked inside some kind of vast conflict, a fight with no known boundaries, no objective, yet part of a war between souls, a battle beyond any simple denial of history. One soul having moved on, true, only now it was a memory fighting against time, fighting to remain in the mind of one so long loved. The other soul a living, breathing human being, one fighting for recognition against time and memory. 

A living soul longing for a place by fires banked down for so long that only the faintest embers remained.

He walked into the house, into the memory of sounds that lingered like an echo, shadows of laughter and sorrow fading from his mind's eye. In the kitchen, in the little niche beside the 'fridge, a covey of photographs -- and he turned away from them as though there was nothing more he could see in the images but the sorrow of her passing. He walked through the house, through fogs of lurking memory, pausing to look at the porcelain figurines she'd collected on their trips together, then at the exorbitantly-priced fabric on the re-covered sofa she'd simply had to have, yet everywhere he looked he saw her shadow, always hanging back in the shadowlands of memory. He found himself wondering if ghosts were real, and if she was still here.

He walked up the stairs to their room and went to her closet, opened the door. He'd not once looked in this sacred space in all the months since, and the smell of her -- the smell of lingering perfume and the cold leather of her shoes -- danced along the byways of memory, drawing him inward. He closed his eyes as waves of other nights washed over him, and suddenly he felt a longing for her touch, a visceral longing he'd denied himself in the countless nights since . . .

He sat in the little overstuffed chair in the little study tucked neatly off the side of the bedroom and looked out windows at summer's leaves waving in the twilight, and he felt his eyes filling with tears. He gripped the arms of the chair, tried to hold it back just a little longer, but it was no use. He started to cry, gently at first, but soon he was overcome with a sorrow bourn of what now felt like impulsive guilt. He felt like he had betrayed his wife.

First, he'd slept with a stranger, perhaps he had fallen in love. He looked away into the gathering darkness, thinking that he'd come home today and given away her car. Then, driving home from the dealership, he'd been overcome with the intense need to sell the house, to get rid of every remnant of their past, and finally, to turn his back on Peggy once and for all time. To simply move on. 

Then... 

Opposing tides pulled at him, and now caught in the rip he struggled to breathe.

He thought about the afternoon, about how he'd asked himself, when he turned down their street once again, how do you turn away from the past without sacrificing your humanity, even who you are? How do you turn away from memories so vast and -- uncontrollable? How do you turn away from your soul-mate, and then have the audacity to dream of any other future? Would Peggy always be there, he asked himself as their house hove into view, would her memory always be waiting for him in the shadows, always waiting to push aside whatever happiness he dared stake-out as his own?

Now, in the gathering darkness, he knew his first impulse had been the correct one, at least for him. He'd have to sell the house. Call Peg's brothers and sisters and have them come claim any memories they wished and cart them away, then broker off the rest and be done with it.

A clean break. That's what it would take to move on, and he knew it in his heart even as tears coursed down his face. She'd never leave him if he stayed here . . . she was everywhere in this house. Waiting around every corner, waiting to seduce him once again, pull him into the tender warmth of what had now become a fatal embrace. She'd always be in this house, watching -- and waiting --

He went to his closet and took out a large duffel and began putting clothes in it, then moved to his toiletries. He filled another much smaller duffel with vital papers and mementos of his flying career, then carried the lot down to the garage and the little silver SmartCar waiting there, and there he dumped the stuff, in the tiny space behind the seats. He plugged his phone into the charger after he started the car's tiny motor, and opened the garage door, then backed down the driveway. He stopped and looked at the house again, seeking validation perhaps, or at least understanding, but all he saw was her shadow lurking in an upstairs window, her face looking down at him, laughing as he backed out of the driveway.

His phone pinged when he stopped to shift into Drive, and he saw that it was Evans calling.

"Yo!" He said.

"Paul?"

"Yo!"

"Paul, something's happened over here, I need you to come over."

"Gimme an address," he said, firing up the little car's GPS NAV system and entering the information on the touchscreen. "Inwood? That's not too far. Maybe a half hour, depending on traffic."

"Good, see you in a few." The line went dead.

"Something's happened?" he said to himself. "That doesn't sound good." He put the little car in gear and took off, chasing directions the NAV system spat out. Jamaica Avenue to the Cross Island Parkway...and about forty minutes later he pulled onto Donohue and saw a dozen police cars in front of her address.

He jumped out, ran to her door -- which was open -- and dashed inside.

"Denise, what's going on?" he said when he saw her sitting on a sofa in the living room.

"Better come here, take a seat," she said, noting he hadn't changed out of his uniform yet. Every eye in the place was now focused on the four stripes on his sleeves.

It took a few minutes, but Evans told him what had greeted her when she'd arrived earlier that afternoon, and all the events that followed.

"So what about this creep?" Overton asked one of the sergeants in the room. "What happens to him?"

"Depends on how good his lawyer is. He could be in juvie hall for a while, or he could be home tomorrow. You never know. Depends on who the judge is, and how much money his dad's got."

"Swell."

"That's the reality, Captain. Ain't no more illusions these days. Perps got money, sooner or later they walk. Perps don't got money, they're going up river. Simple as that."

"What's his name, background?"

"A kid. Teenager, name's Alex Popov, Russian, his dad is, well, we're kind of shady on the background, but my guess is he's in the rackets."

"Swell. You'd better come with me," he said to Evans. "Not sure you should be staying here, at least until all this boils over."

She nodded her head. "Not sure I want to stay here."

"We're though here, Miss Evans, but that's good advice. Not sure about these people, or how they might react." one of the sergeants said. "And again, you really ought to consider an alarm system."

"Okay, I hear you. Will you let me know how Officer D'Angelo is?"

"Sure thing, and thanks for being on the ball, for calling it in."

She nodded, then turned to Overton. "I think the glass guy is just about finished back there. Let me pack up a few things, then maybe we can get out of here." They walked back to her bedroom, found the glass installer putting putty around the sash and getting his equipment together, so she went to her closet and began packing some things. "You live far from here?" she asked.

"Little less than an hour. Near Glen Cove."

She shivered, looked at the glass, then at the house across the way. "Not a real good afternoon, if you know what I mean?" 

"I can only imagine. Let's go."

The light was fading when they got out to Overton's car, and Evans pulled up short when she saw the thing. "This your car?" she asked.

"Yup, got it today, on the way home."

"Really? Why? I mean, what's it gonna be when it grows up?"

"Hah. Mileage is decent, and besides, I just got rid of one car."

"Oh, have another? A real car, by any chance?"

He shook his head. "Come on, let's get out of here."

She nodded her head. "Crap, Paul, there are already bags back there, where am I going to put these?"

He opened the hatch, shoved things around. "There. Will that do?"

Soon they were moving northbound across Long Island in heavy traffic, then fog started rolling in as they approached the north shore and soon they were rolling along at five miles per hour.

"You know, it's really not that bad," she said, indicating the car. "It's kinda like a Chihuahua. They grow on you."

"A Chihuahua? Gee, thanks. I think."

"So, where's your house?"

"Glen Cove, but I walked out of there earlier and never want to go back."

"Oh? Well then, where..."

"Just hang on a minute. We're almost there."

"There?" she said. "I don't see anything but water."

"Uh-huh." He made a few more turns, then pulled into a parking lot.

There was a thin layer of fog over the marina when he came to a stop, and from their vantage in the parking lot it looked a lot like a sea of masts planted on a field of misty snow. The boats were simply not visible in the clinging mist, only a glade of pale tree-like masts hovered in the distance, dancing silently above an unseen sea. 

Denise unfolded herself from the tiny car and looked out at the luminous landscape. It seemed a little unreal to her, decidedly unfamiliar, too. A silver moon hung over Long Island, just visible through the fog, and with the moon above and fog obscuring the view ahead, everything about the scene reminded her of the view out the cockpit at night, flying across the Atlantic. Except here she was, her feet on the ground, her roll-on bag in the back of this ridiculously impossible car, and now she was looking at a sea of sailboat masts.

And Paul Overton had just said he was not going back to his house again, which could only mean that he was going to live down here -- down here on a boat. They got out and he grabbed their bags and started off into the fog.

Not knowing what else to do, Evans followed her Pied Piper down to the water.

"Paul?"

"Yup?"

"Paul? I've never been on a boat before, any kind of boat, in my life."

"Yeah? So?"

"Yeah? So? Well, for starters, I can't swim."

"No shit? Well, cool. I'll teach you."

"Paul, is there any problem you feel you can't handle?"

He wound out onto a pier, stopped at a long, green hull and dropped the bags, fished around in a coat pocket for some keys, then he hopped aboard, clambered into the cockpit and fumbled around with a key. "I don't know, Denise. I think if you're patient enough you can find a good solution to just about any problem, but often the answer is right in front of your face, and always has been. I think we get into some lousy habits as we get older, and those habits obscure the answer." He turned and looked at her from the cockpit, looked at her standing there in the pale, misty moonlight, the cool seaborne breeze drifting through her hair, and there it was . . . The solution was so simple. This woman was so . . . right.

"I kind of thought you'd say that."

"So, you've never been on a boat? Ever?"

"Paul, I grew up on a cattle ranch outside of Alpine, Texas. The closest water, I mean not counting the bathtub, was the Rio Grande River."

"I guess that could make a difference." He chuckled as looked at her. "Well, anyway, some boats are better than others for living aboard."

"I'll have to take your word for that." She sounded dubious, so she turned on the concrete walkway and looked, really looked, at the sleek dark green hull, the name on the side -- 'Peggy Sue' -- clearly visible in the moonlight.

"Paul, this thing is huge!"

"Yeah?" he said as he fiddled with a lock down in the darkness. "Peg always said I was over-compensating, you know, for having a little pecker."

"You call that thing 'little'?" She heard him cursing, then a lock opened and he was moving boards of some sort, sliding a hatch open.

"Well, I guess 'little' is a relative term?" 

"Relative to what?" she said quietly, far too softly for him to hear. She heard his footsteps going below, switches being flipped -- turning on lights -- and a warm glow filled the space down below -- visible behind dewy port-lights, then a light halfway up the mast popped on and the scene around her filled with milky white light.

"Oh, come on. It ain't that big!"

"You heard that?"

"Hey, fair warning. Sound carries in fog." He came back up on deck, grinning. "Hand me the bags, would you?" He took them from her and put them in the cockpit, then came back and reached down for her: "C'mon, it's pretty slippery up here. Better give me your hand."

She reached up, took his hand, felt herself stepping into a strange new landscape of compound curves and awkward handholds, narrow decks littered with a million things to trip over. The dark planks underfoot were wet with dew; everywhere she put her hands she felt water. She followed Paul over the coaming, into the cockpit, and he stopped and held his hand out again until she was safely over the coaming, then he disappeared below. She stepped down into the cockpit, following him -- at least until she could see the interior of the boat from the companionway -- and she stopped dead in her tracks.

"Holy cow!" she said as she looked uneasily below. "This place would give termites a wet-dream!" She looked at the huge expanse of woodwork as she climbed down below. "What kind of wood is this? They must've chopped down whole forests to make this..."

"Cherry. Except the sole, uh, the floor. Those are teak planks."

"No kidding? And, uh, where are you?"

"Aft."

"You mean there's more? Just how big is this thing?"

"Told you. It's an overcompensation problem. Through the galley. Follow my voice!"

Evans walked through the galley and into a huge cabin in the very rear of the boat. "Sheesh, Paul, that bed's bigger than the one I have back, uh, well, you know."

"Yeah, I know. Sorry you had such a rough time."

She walked over and sat on the edge of the bunk. "This your room," she asked.

"I guess it is now."

"You and Peggy spend a lot of time down here?"

"Not as much as I wanted, but she was a good sport about it. Loved to just sit in the cockpit, soak up the sun. Anyway, I just moved it here from Mystic. Closer to Kennedy, so I can stay here now."

"Did you say sun? You mean...there's sun down here?"

"Yup," he laughed. "Not the best way to introduce you to the old girl, I guess." Overton looked at Denise, noticed a trembling lip and quivering eyelid -- all the classic symptoms of stress, and he reached for her, took her in his arms. Her hair in his face once again, he breathed her in, took in the scent of her and drifted back to Half Moon Street -- and the frank improbability of their coming together. 

He ran his hands down her back, drew closer still and whispered "I love you so much" into her ear.

She pulled back a bit, looked at him through smiling eyes. "You do, huh? Sure it's not just an infatuation?"

"It doesn't feel that way to me. I reckon you'd better get used to the idea."

"Paul, I don't ever want to get used to it. If I get used to it, I'll begin to take it for granted. And I don't ever want that to happen."

He nodded, brought her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips.

"Anyway, before I forget to say it, I love you too, Paul Overton."

Now it was his turn to smile. "That feels good. Hearing that word."

"Now, don't take this the wrong way, but the last time we showered was in London, and that was, like, twenty years ago. I stink, and I need a shower. I don't suppose there's one on this tub, is there?"

"Tub? A tub? You calling my baby a tub?"

"So. There's not, huh?"

"Well, no. There are two."

"Shit."

"And one is a bathtub."

"Double-shit."

"Well yeah, if you need to. There are holes for that, too."

"Paul?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Before or after?"

He smiled, began unbuttoning his shirt but she stopped him, and moved for his belt.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

She seemed better after one night aboard, less rattled and more sure of herself, but still he could see that yesterday's violation had gotten to her. While he cooked breakfast she more spoke gently but with assurance that things were alright, that the darkest part of the storm had passed, yet Overton felt some holding back, some reluctance within her words and movements. He felt a sharp chill while he watched her dress, and she was quiet the rest of the day. 

She seemed much better the next morning, yet the drive to JFK passed in near silence, and her mute depression during their briefing in the dispatch office had not gone unnoticed. That was cause for no little concern by itself, especially after the dispatcher pulled him aside and asked him about it.

"I think her house was broken into, some stuff with the police followed, and there was a shooting involved."

"Oh, that stuff over in Inwood? Read about it. So, that was her?"

Overton shrugged his shoulders. "Not sure, didn't read the papers yesterday."

And there it was, because there were policies about conduct in the cockpit that reached well beyond the confines of their time on the job. Simply living together now was in violation of about a half dozen company rules, and any actions they took that implied an improper relationship would be dangerous for them both. Marriage was out of the question unless one of them wanted to look for a position with another airline. Maybe, Overton said to himself, that was what was bugging her.

_______________________________

"United Two Three Heavy, taxi to position alpha and hold short of the active."

"Two three heavy -- holding short." Paul Overton backed off the throttles and tapped the brakes with his toes, and the 747 slowed to a stop. He watched as an American 767 charged down the runway, leaving swirling clouds of rain-borne mist in it's wake, then marveled as he always did when the Boeing's wing's loaded and the jet leapt into the sky. 

It was late that Tuesday afternoon when they pushed back from the gate, so United 23 was caught in the usual rush-hour pile-up of ground traffic waiting to take-off; now, after waiting for almost forty minutes on an unusually hot September day, Overton was as ready as this old Boeing to get the show on the road. And for this early autumn, mid-week flight, the old girl was less than a quarter full, and Overton enjoyed taking off under these conditions. So lightly loaded, these old 747s seemed to want to physically leap into the air and climb away from the restraining gravity of the earth -- and at nearly impossible angles. It was as if, he sometimes felt, these old birds wanted to get back into the currents that would carry them around the earth at will.

"Checklist complete," Evans said, her voice flat and dull, as if the words she spoke were full of hidden fear. 




Up in the Air



"You want me to see if they have an extra room free?" he asked when she came up behind him.

"I doubt I could afford it, Paul. I'll probably just head out to the Hilton later on."

"Okay. Why don't you go settle in over there," he said, pointing to some chairs in the lobby. "This won't take long."

She walked over and picked up a Sunday Times; they had until Tuesday afternoon free, and she wondered what plays were on. She looked around, saw the concierge desk and walked over. She asked about shows and tickets and picked up a brochure for a tour bus that circulated around the most popular sights all day, then walked to the front desk and Overton as he arranged to leave his bag with the Bell Captain.

"Room's not ready yet. Hungry?"

"Actually, Paul, I'm starving."

"Good. Let's roll."

A doorman held the door open and they walked out onto the sidewalk; a tepid sun was trying to break through low-scudding clouds that flew by just overhead, and they turned to the right and walked up the shallow incline and crossed the street at the first corner, then walked ahead a few more paces before ducking into another narrow doorway. Smells of frying bacon and eggs and sausage slammed into her, knocking all thought of anything else from her mind. She took a seat at a little table while Overton walked up to the bar; he came back a minute later and sat down.

"Hope you don't mind, but I just ordered a huge breakfast and some coffee and juice."

"Bless your heart. Read my mind."

He smiled, looked around the low-ceilinged room like he was looking at old memories, memories that had once been good friends, and she could see the cares of the world settle on his shoulders again.

"You come here often? I mean, to that hotel? Here?"

"No. Been a while, really. Peg and I used to come here."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Paul. I didn't mean to bring that up."

"Oh, I know Denise. Tomorrow's our anniversary. I just wanted to see the place again."

Overton's wife had passed away the year before, and only now was he getting back to something like his old self. He'd been very much in love, everyone knew, even after twenty years of marriage. They'd never had kids, Evans knew, and she'd often wondered why. Whatever the reason, he was alone now, and that was a bad fit for Overton. Some living part of Peggy in this world would have been a grand comfort to him. Now he often times reminded her of trees in autumn; the one true thing, the one person who above all else had defined his life had been stripped from him, and now he drifted like a reddened leaf on a quiet brook among the wayward currents of fading memory.

Plates of orange-yolked eggs and bacon appeared, the plates heaped with baked beans and broiled tomatoes and mushrooms. Evans attacked her plate with unbridled hunger while Overton looked on with amazed grace as she wolfed down her breakfast. He picked at his food every now and then, but mostly just sipped his coffee. He'd lost thirty pounds in the past year, and he'd never once in his life been considered overweight. His shirt collars were now obscenely loose and his uniform hung on his spare frame like a rag on a scarecrow, but he hardly ever ate anymore. He hardly cared anymore.

"You not going to eat?"

"Not too hungry this morning, Denise."

"Paul? Eat your goddamned breakfast."

He looked at her and shrugged his shoulder, took a bite of egg and a long pull from his glass of juice. "It is good, isn't it?"

"Goddamned right it is. And you need it, too, amigo."

He ate, tentatively at first, but soon he ate and enjoyed it. All of it.

"Whoa, Paul! Making up for lost time, aren't you?" She watched as he polished off his plate and finished his juice.

"Man, that felt good."

"Yeah. Food's a good thing, Paul. Try to remember that from time to time, okay?"

He grinned, first at the bare plate, then at Evans. "We ought to go to the hotel and see if we can change out of these things. They can get 'em cleaned overnight, too. Let's roll." He walked up to the bar and paid while she gathered her stuff, then they walked back down the hill to the hotel. His room was ready, his bag delivered, so he took the key and they rode the lift up to the fourth floor and made for the room. He opened the door and walked in, looked around at the ghosts that met him there, then went to his bag and pulled out his toiletries.

"You want a shower?" he asked.

"No, go ahead." 

He walked in and brushed his teeth, then threw on some jeans and a white polo shirt and slipped on a pair of old Adidas tennis shoes. He ran a brush through his peppered blond hair and a razor across the stubble on his face, then stepped back into the room. 

He stopped dead in his tracks . . .

"Shit! I thought you were going to shower!" Evans said. She stood bare-footed in the middle of the room in panties and a bra, and she turned a bright crimson as Overton stood open-mouthed, staring at her.

"Crap, I'm sorry Denise," he said as he retreated to the bathroom. He gathered himself in front of the mirror and looked at his reflection, but all he saw was her flat belly and smallish - though obviously very beautiful - breasts, and her perfect legs crowned by sexy white-lace panties. The sight had taken his breath away, and he shook inside at the thought of her standing out there, untouchable, almost unknowable.

"Alright," he heard her call out, "the coast is clear now."

He held on to the sink now, tried to shake the sight of her from his mind, then ran his hands under cold water and rinsed his face. He toweled dry again, walked out into the room and saw her standing by the window, looking at the building across the lane. 

"Is that place empty?" she said, looking at the red stone megaligth.

"Good question. Used to be an MI-6 hangout. You know, James Bond kinda stuff."

"No shit? Cool!" She continued to look out the window, refused to acknowledge what had just passed between them. She had a hard time understanding the wave of feelings that had washed over her while he stood there, open-mouthed, staring at her. She'd felt like taking her clothes off and sliding under the sheets, waiting there for him to come to her, wanting him, needing him. The realization had rocked her world, just as his presence behind her now made her weak in the knees. 'Why?' she asked herself. 'This doesn't make sense!'

"So, times flying. What do you feel like doing?" She heard it in his voice, too.

She turned around, faced him, saw the confusion on his face, in his eyes. She stepped forward, took his face in her hands and kissed him. She kissed him hard, ran her tongue into his mouth and a hand to his belt. She opened his jeans and freed him, moved her fingers until she held him firmly, then pushed him back to the bed, pushed him down, and she knelt there as if in absolution, pulled his jeans down, took him in her mouth. She worked him violently until he grew inside her warmth, then she stood and pushed her trousers off and mounted him. Her hands on his chest, her hair raking his face, she buried herself in their need and in writhing embrace danced to the ancient music until the universe exploded.

__________________________________

He seemed awkward afterwards, almost shy, like the rules of the game had been broken. Or had they just been rewritten? 

But how kind he was, almost too kind, holding her, kissing her face, telling her how beautiful she was, how wonderful this day had become. She kissed him again, felt the strangeness wash over her, then pushed herself up over his chest again.

"Come on, Paul. You promised to show me London, didn't you?"

"That I did, that I did. What do you feel like doing?"

She looked at him, looked at the innocence and happiness dueling with the sorrow and loneliness of the past year on his face. She lifted herself from his groin, felt the watery warmth of their love on the inside of her thighs and her belly stirred again. The impulse was overwhelming, undeniable . . .

She drifted down into this newness and looked up at him. "I'm still hungry, Paul. What do you think I ought to do?"

He smiled as she took him again, but this time she kept him in her mouth, working him frantically until he tensed, until his back arced skyward, and she took him, all of him, in her mouth. And still she couldn't release him: she swirled her tongue over him, felt the sticky warmth coating her tongue and her lips, felt him growing under the subtle glory of the movement that now defined their relationship, and she worked him over again and again until he regained his strength, then she mounted him again, took all he could give her, again.

Later, they stood in the tub and let hot water run down their bodies while they kissed. All the while, Evans felt pelted by gales of confusion, and every time she looked up into Paul's eyes she felt a quiet certainty she had never known in her life. She felt loved, and she felt in love. And these feelings washed over her like the betrayal they most assuredly were.

___________________________________

They walked along the Thames. Light traffic moved downstream on the brown water; the walkway upon which they wandered was as lightly peopled, and Evans in her uncertainty was glad of that. They had for a while held hands, but she soon pulled away from him, unsure of herself, unsure of the feelings that swirled in the air apparent. She grew wary of the implications that hid behind each passing tree; the sun settled behind walls of insinuating trees as they walked, the air growing cooler as they passed each passive sentinel, then streetlights winked on, calling out sudden shadows all around them. She stopped, moved to the wall and looked down into the swirling waters.

"Penny for your thoughts," he said.

"Probably not worth much more than that," she said, forcing a laugh. She looked upstream toward Parliament, toward Big Ben and the iconic truth that stood silently in the mist.

"Can you tell me about her?"

His words hit her like a blow to the stomach; she felt winded and at a complete loss as the implications of his words washed over her. She had labored under illusions of secrecy for so many years it stunned her to realize the transparency of her deceptions. She shook like a leaf in an errant breeze.

He looked at her, at the set of her chin, at the white-knuckled grip of her hand on the iron railing. My God, he thought, what illusions had she labored under?

"I didn't think it was so obvious," she said, finally, quietly.

"Rumors, really. Mainly the stews, you know; they gossip like hens. Hard to keep things secret in a small family." He laughed gently, then stepped to her side and put his arm around her shoulder. She didn't move away, and he moved his hand to her neck and softly massaged it. "I was kind of curious, you know. Why me? Feel sorry for the old man?"

She turned to him and he saw tears in her eyes, yet she reached up, stroked his face with the back of her hand. 

"You're really quite stupid, Paul. You know that?"

He might have felt wounded by her words but for the look in her eyes. "So I've been told. Peg accused me of as much on any number of occasions."

"I feel jealous of her," she said, and the brutal honesty of the emotion stunned her once again.

"Jealous?"

"Of the time you had with her. Of that life."

"Why?"

"I've always considered that life as something I would never know. Could never know. It's just not who I am."

"You could have fooled me this morning."

"Really? What did you feel when I, when we . . ."

"Surprise, in a way. But after I saw you standing out there, in your, uh, out of uniform, well, I wanted you, didn't know I could feel that way again." His words reached her, washed over her, and she leaned into him, kissed him. And she kissed him again.

"Paul? I don't know what we've started, but I know I don't want this to end."

He held her, held her as gusts of confusion and warm certainty washed over them. He looked over her to the sky above, to a 747 climbing from Heathrow and beginning its gentle turn southward out of the pattern.

"I think a lot of things changed today, Denise, but something about this feels so right to me. Something about you feels so . . . right."

She pulled back, looked up into his eyes again and nodded. "Yes. Right. That's a good word. But you now what?"

"Hm-m, what?"

"I'm hungry."

"Can't imagine why. It's only been ten hours." He looked at his watch, then at the river. "You trust me?"

"Implicitly."

"Good girl. Off to Brick Lane."

"Brick Lane?"

"Yip. Best restaurant in London. Kind of spicy, though, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, God!"

"He can't help you now, girl. You're all mine now!"

__________________________________

They woke the next morning in a dazed fog. They had started in on Kingfisher beers around seven and carried on into the early morning, then poured themselves into a taxi and into his room a little past two. Now they had twenty four hours to let the booze filter out of their systems before tomorrow's flight back to Kennedy, so today would of necessity be a sightseeing day. While Denise showered he called down to get the day's rail schedule out to Canterbury and back, then filled her in on his tentative plan while she dried off and he hopped in the shower.

They made their way to Victoria Station and grabbed a sandwich before walking down the platform to a local that made its way slowly to Canterbury; it was scheduled to get in a little after one that afternoon. They boarded and took a couple of facing seats in the tiny first class compartment and spread out their sandwiches on the table between them while the train pulled out of the station. Within a few minutes they were rolling across gently rolling farmland crossed with narrow stone-lined lanes; both looked out their window at verdant hills and distant steeples until, after almost two hours, the train pulled into Canterbury and stopped.

Making their way through the tiny station and across to the ancient wall that enclosed the village, they walked along an ancient tree-lined path until, rounding a corner, the old cathedral came into view.

"Oh my God," he heard Evans gasp.

"It's something, isn't it?" He looked at her, at the look of sheer astonishment on her face. These old cathedrals never failed to awe Americans, he thought. There was simply nothing comparable to them back home, and he suspected it reminded Americans of how new their country really was, and of how deeply European culture was rooted in a common -- and ancient - heritage. And these cathedrals were almost newcomers on the scene, he reminded himself; the ties that held this culture together were now almost two thousand years old. America was almost an afterthought to this old world.

He took her hand and they walked through a little residential neighborhood, then out onto a lively commercial street full of modern shops and huge throngs of people out doing their marketing. They stopped and browsed at market stalls full of produce and woolen goods as they made their way to the cathedral, then they walked through a timbered passage onto the cathedral grounds. Here, surrounded by green grass, the sheer mass of the structure was overwhelming. They walked down the crushed stone path toward the main entry and walked in.

Again, Evans stumbled to a halt; again, he heard her whisper an exclamation of simple incredulity. The nave stretched off into the distance under soaring vaults; explosions of random light scattered from the clerestories above and fell on the ancient stones below in psychedelic swarms. The scene elicited, he imagined, every thought and feeling the original designers had intended: overwhelming awe at the sheer majesty of man's interpretation of their God's greater glory. It was simply impossible to take in the scene and remain unmoved.

He walked down the nave to the transept and looked up; fan vaults framed the ceiling there, the delicate tracery above imparting a sense of movement toward heaven, and again he heard Evans take in a sharp breath as she absorbed the sight above. He kept moving, first to the altar and the adjacent choir, then the chapels beyond; he moved slowly yet purposefully, wanting her to see as much as possible in this brief time they had, wanting to share this moment with her as he had nearly twenty years ago with Peggy.

_________________________________

They made it back to London just before nine that evening and rode to the hotel in another taxi. He took her to an old Italian restaurant nearby he'd always enjoyed over the years, and the owners recognized him and sat with them for a while, accepting Denise warmly. They ate carpaccio and spinach and spaghetti carbonara, then walked through Leicester Square and looked at posters for shows before taking the tube back to the hotel. 

The flight home hung in the air that night like a bad dream; they knew what was coming and couldn't keep it from happening; they wanted, in fact, to do anything and everything possible to keep the sun from rising the next morning. 

They held hands for a while, then kissed. She led him to the bed and lay beside him, took his face in her hands once again and looked deeply into his eyes. Unable to restrain himself, he caressed her body until he felt her respond, then undressed her slowly and lowered his face to her belly. He nibbled tentatively, moved lower, took her in his mouth and tasted her, led her to the precipice and helped her over the edge, then was carried along in the currents as she lowered herself on his face and took him in her mouth. He buried his tongue inside her as she danced above, and before long he shuddered and came in her mouth. Again she swirled the warmth over and around his head; again she nursed him to renewed life and again took him to the edge - and over. He shuddered and trembled under her assault, then felt his body drifting away into the night, drifting toward the sunrise.

____________________________________

"United two-two heavy, taxi to position and hold."

"Two-two, roger," Overton replied, then he switched over to the intercom: "Flight attendants, arm and cross-check; prepare for takeoff." 

"Give me take off flaps," Evans said. It was her turn to do the takeoff and landing, Overton handled the checklist and callouts this time around.

"You decide on ten?" The flight today was full, the headwinds furious, so a full load of fuel was onboard as well. The 747 was loaded right up to the maximum permissible takeoff weight, just shy of a million pounds gross weight, and though the air was cool outside this afternoon, he knew this would be an interesting takeoff.

"Yeah. I think I'm going to start the run from back here, too. We're gonna need every inch of runway today."

"Okay. Flaps ten." He reached across the center console and moved the lever until ten degrees indicated, then set the departure control frequency on the secondary comms unit. A Singapore Airlines 777 on short final drifted by and settled onto the runway, it's wings sprouting spoilers above the blue smoke of screeching tires returning to earth.

"United two-two heavy, clear for takeoff. Contact departure on one two seven decimal one, altimeter two niner-niner five, wind two five zero at five."

"Two-two heavy," Evans said as she put her left hand on the throttle levers. "Well, here goes nothing." She advanced the throttles to near full takeoff power while still holding short of the runway; the grossed-out airliner shuddered then began to move ever so slowly. She dialed-in nose-wheel steering while the jet lumbered forward and expertly lined up on the runway centerline, then she shoved the throttles all the way to their stops.

To Overton the engines seemed to howl in protest as they tried to move the incredible mass down the runway. "God, she's slow," he said. "Fifty knots. Eighty. Got about half the runway left. One hundred . . ."




Up in the Air



"I'm gonna go with it . . ."

"V-one! Shit, baby, move it! Come on . . ." Overton inched up and peered over the panel; he couldn't see the end of the runway any more . . . they must be right on it! "Rotate!" he called out and the nose lifted imperceptibly. "Rotate plus five!" 

"Goddamn-this-pig-is-heavy!" Evans yelled.

Overton glanced out the left side window; the runway's end raced by seemingly just as the main trucks lifted from the concrete, and he halfway expected to feel them smash into the strobe towers just ahead. He looked down at the flight director: about seven degrees nose up and a rate of climb of two hundred feet per minute. "Gear up?" he asked as he switched frequency to departure control.

"Yeah, fuck, might as well! This is as close to a positive rate as we're gonna get for a while!"

"Hear that."

The radio blared: "Ah, United two-two heavy, say altitude please."

Overton laughed: "Two-two heavy, we've got one seven five AGL, indicating two five zero FPM."

"Two-two heavy, have you lost an engine?"

"Ah, two-two, negative, we're just a tad heavy this afternoon."

"Ah, roger, two-two. Climb at your discretion to five hundred AGL then turn right to one eight zero."

"Roger, five hundred then one eight zero," Overton replied, then to Evans: "We're gonna rattle some windows down there today." Looking down at the scene below, he could make out upturned faces on the streets and in a couple of backyards. "Two hundred indicated, now reading three-two-five FPM."

"Damn, Paul, I've never felt anything like this in my life! How about flaps seven?"

"Flaps seven, roger. Okay. Now three seven five FPM and nine degrees nose-up. Two fifteen indicated airspeed. Three fifty AGL. Okay, now four hundred FPM, passing three nine five AGL. Okay, coming up on five hundred AGL."

"Okay, flaps five please."

"Flaps five. Now five hundred FPM, five hundred AGL, two-two five indicated airspeed. I'd keep your turn pretty easy."

"Roger. How're the temps? Can I come back a little?"

"Maybe try ninety eight percent; temps look okay. Wouldn't go any lower yet. Probably have to write this up, though."

"Clean the wing, would you?"

"Roger, flaps up. Coming up on eight hundred AGL, two five zero indicated, now ten degrees up."

"Paul, have you ever had one this heavy before?"

"Yeah, once. Quito - on a hot day, too. Ass puckered-up so tight they were picking vinyl from my hole for a week. Okay, now one thousand AGL and two seven five indicated, heading one-one five."

"Man, I hate to say it, but I've really gotta take a dump!"

"Really? I did about five minutes ago."

___________________________________

They reached a decent cruising altitude about halfway to Iceland and powered back a bit, let the autopilot settle in, and they both heaved a sigh. Evans pushed her seat back and stood, then walked to the head. Overton could see the back and arms of her blouse; they were soaked through with sweat and he smiled.

Out ahead the sky was tracked with dozens of contrails headed west; off to the south dozens more pointed eastward. The sun hung high overhead and the cockpit grew uncomfortably warm. He adjusted the temperature, checked in with Oceanic Control and received clearance to climb another two thousand feet, then set the altitude bug on the flight director and watched the altitude display slowly climb again. The head door closed and Evans returned to her seat.

"Want to try lunch?" she asked.

"You know it. Those clowns at Heathrow know how to cook!"

She opened the lunch box and took out a couple of trays, one marked salmon, the other some bizarre form of curry. Without asking she passed the curry to Overton and they both laughed.

"I don't know if I can eat this crap without a beer."

"Well," she said, "first time for everything. Want a Dr Pepper . . . oops, no DP. Ginger ale or Coke?"

"Fucking limeys. You choose." 

She handed him the ginger ale. "Coke and salmon," she added, "breakfast of champions."

"I wonder what the hell you call shrimp masala and ginger ale?"

"Diarrhea?" 

"Oh, thanks ever so much. What's the fuel flow look like?"

She coughed, laughed a little, then reached up and checked a dial, flipped a rotary switch and checked another dial. "About one eight zero. Looking good."

"Go ahead and run a weight for approach when you finish that stinky fish."

"Stinky? You calling my fish stinky. I can't wait 'til you start blowing farts after another load of curry. Your seat's gonna catch fire."

He shook his head. "No respect. I just don't get no respect."

She laughed, then reached up and turned off the cockpit voice recorder. "Want a blowjob?"

Overton coughed down a choke and turned crimson, then looked up and saw the recorder was off. He looked at her for a moment, at the hungry look in her eyes. "You really like doing that? I mean, have we created a monster here?"

"I can't help it, Paul. I love it, the way it tastes, the way you feel just before. But I love it, you know?"

"Yeah, well. I've never even heard of anyone trying something like that up here."

"Just push your seat back and leave the driving to us!"

"You serious?"

"Paul, I'm horny as hell. Now push your seat back, goddamn it!"

He shook his head again, then double-checked the autopilot settings. She was out of her seat and getting on her knees behind the center console, licking her lips all the while; he hit the button and his seat rolled back, then he dialed in a little recline and undid his belt and the button on his trousers. 

Evans pulled the zipper down and pushed his briefs around until she freed him, then she engulfed him, worked him over with her mouth for a while, then pounded him with her fist. She kept at it for what felt like an eternity to Overton, then he felt his groin tightening, his back arching, and she pushed him so deeply down her throat he thought she would choke. She grasped him around the base with her fingernails as her head bobbed furiously; soon he heard her gulping ravenously as his seed flooded into her sucking mouth. 

Again she bobbed and swirled and he felt himself stiffening again, again he felt her standing, heard her zipper opening, and he felt her contorting around the controls, mounting him, and he gasped when her liquid warmth engulfed him. With her hands on his seatback she ground into him, her hips swayed and rocked, her head drifted back and snapped forward in complete abandon and within moments he felt her shuddering into her first orgasm. He held her hips down, tried to thrust against her weight without jamming his feet forward against the rudder pedals, then felt his own orgasm building. He moved his hands to her shoulders, held her down while he did his best to impale her, then gasped as his orgasm took over.

As he came back to earth he felt her dismount, then encircle him with her mouth again and clean-up the remains. She licked her lips as she stood, then made her way to the head again.

Overton looked at the instruments; everything was as it should be, but he knew now that nothing was. He looked down at the wreckage, tried to wipe up the mess in his lap before he zipped up and fastened his seatbelt again. She came back a minute later and leaned over, kissed him on the mouth, then took her seat. He tasted toothpaste on her breath and smiled, then without saying a word reached over and took her hand.

"Never again, darling. Alright? Now flip on the recorder."

"Sorry, Paul. But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, you know?" She reached up and hit the switch, then called out some fuel flow numbers and started working up some landing weights. She went to work on the pre-landing checklist while he made his way back to the head, and she smiled when he came back and stopped, leaned over and kissed her forehead. He bent closer still and whispered in her ear, and she looked at him while he climbed back into his seat. He sat and buckled himself in again, brought his seat forward and scanned the instrument panel. He felt her looking at him and tried as hard as he could not to look her way, but after a few minutes he gave in and looked at her.

There were tears running from her eyes, a smile parted her face, and he winked at her.

Silently the words formed on her mouth. He watched them form, watched them cross the air between them, felt her words wash over his parched soul . . .

I love you too. I love you too.

For how long had his life been up in the air, waiting, wanting to be reborn. How very odd to find love twenty years after he'd promised another woman his love 'til death do us part.

And they had parted, and with his wife's death his life too had seemed over.

But now this. 

It was all so very sweet.

He looked ahead, looked at the New England coast approaching beneath a carpet of puffy white clouds.

Maybe he was a fool to dare love another woman again. Their relationship would be complicated, he knew, but theirs would be a relationship of equals.

He looked at her again, then began calling out the checklist. He did so with a gentle smile on his face.

*

[Of course this is a work of fiction. All characters, incidents and descriptions of events are without any basis in fact, and any resemblance to any person is pure coincidence. AL]