Chapter Eleven
A s much as Selah wanted nothing more than to fulfill her dad’s dreams of piloting an enormous jet, there was something to be said about the hot-air balloon life. Somehow, even in the higher altitude, where the air was thinner, she could breathe easier. This height had a way of making all the stress slip away, letting her forget about her family’s bills and business worries and allowing her to re-center. She understood why people loved it and why, every time she had a scheduled flight on the books, her heart lifted. There was a bright spark of happiness in the knowledge that she got to go up again. The mechanics aspect may be simple, compared to a real cockpit, but hot-air balloon piloting truly was an art, and she was feeling better about her skills all the time.
It almost made the pain of missing Robert a little less. Although, she still missed those hours spent watching Star Trek or Galaxy Quest together or studying the pi-ball on frosty mornings with fresh coffee in their hands, or just discussing things going on in her life in general. While the hole in her heart remained, and she wasn’t sure it’d ever be filled, things were made easier when she focused on the things she could control. The flights, the business, making sure her mom stayed on top of things like paying the bills and taking care of herself. Some days, Selah felt as though she was doing the minimum and yet, she was exhausted by the end of it.
When she had trouble falling asleep, she lay there, thinking about pleasant things like Dex and that goofy crow of his. Her finger itched to send him some random text, wanting to take a chance to see if he was up and would still talk to her now that their shared event was over and there was no excuse to continue communication. Their chats were becoming a bad habit. It wasn’t smart to have one person who could turn her whole mood around, to become dependent on someone she would eventually have to part with. But it couldn’t be helped. She craved the connection with this man, regardless of what the logical part of her brain said.
One good thing was that business did pick up in the week after their event. So much so, she got to spend nearly every day in the air doing what she loved most. She returned to using The Blue Wonder as her main envelope. While it had seemed to be a good idea at the time to use Robert’s new, more colorful one, the prick of pain at Smith Rock had hit a little too strong. It took some clamping and grinding her jaw together to keep her emotions at bay. If she was going to get actual work done, it was better to keep things, like feelings, to a minimum.
Today she had a group of four people scheduled for a flight—a pair of friends and a couple who were celebrating their fortieth anniversary. It was common and more economical to combine groups of people whenever possible. A flight of two people, like those who wanted something more intimate, only happened if they were willing to pay extra. She preferred groups because it was chattier and full of energy, and it was less likely for her to get wrapped up in her own thoughts.
The flight went well until the older woman, one half of the anniversary couple, took a picture with her cell phone, placing it over the basket’s edge. Selah was about to remind the woman this wasn’t a good idea when the phone slipped from the woman’s hand, plunging to the ground below. The woman became irate when Selah didn’t follow her demands to land the balloon immediately so the woman could retrieve her phone.
The woman refused to listen to Selah’s explanation that landing on the spot wasn’t possible, nor was she going to radio her chase crew to go on a scavenger hunt in search of the phone. Getting mad and blowing up in response to an irate passenger, especially when Selah was responsible for everyone when they were two thousand feet above the ground, wasn’t an option. All she could do was flick every emotion off and maintain a piloting frame of mind, one that was emotionless and cool. This mode was becoming easier to switch to.
Either way, being yelled at by someone who was angry wasn’t fun. After the tour, Selah returned to the portable office trailer crabby and with a pounding headache. High Desert Tours was no doubt going to get a bad Yelp review, and there was nothing she could do about it.
With a resigned sigh, she took a seat at her desk, undoing the cap on her water canister so she could wash down a couple of pain relievers before tapping her laptop to life.
“Good God,” Naomi said, popping in through the door while pulling her long, wavy hair into a ponytail. “The witch finally left. She was trying to get me to agree to buy her a new cell phone. She thinks that our insurance should cover things like that. I swear that no one reads any of the pre-flight paperwork before they sign it. Are you feeling okay?”
“Headache.”
“Understandable. In fact, give me a couple of those.”
Selah handed over the bottle of pills. “We’re booked tomorrow, right?”
“Yup. It’s wild to be this busy this late in the season, but I’m loving it. You know, with fall just around the corner, I was thinking...”
Selah didn’t hear what her sister said next as she had pulled her phone from her pocket, revealing a text from Dex.
Did someone from the local Bend news station reach out to you?
“Hey, you didn’t hear anything from a local news station, did you?” Selah asked, interrupting her sister.
“No. Were we supposed to? Are we getting featured finally? It’s not fair that Soaring Over Oregon always steals the spotlight. This is why I think we should just switch to the new envelope. It caught a lot of eyes when we were doing that thing at Smith Rock. I keep telling you that.”
Selah responded to Dex with a negative answer.
They’ll probably be reaching out soon. I got a message from them this morning about doing some sort of news segment on Harper and the park and stuff.
That’s great!
They want to talk to you too.
Me? Why?
Selah would rather let Naomi handle this kind of thing, as she was better at it and way less awkward on camera.
I don’t know what kind of magic your sister did, but something worked.
Did you get your rich investor?
Not yet. But I also was contacted by some radio station in Colorado for an interview. Not sure what kind of a show it was, but they asked some weird questions.
Colorado? How would anyone there know anything about the event?
Like what kind of weird questions?
She watched the bubbles appear and then disappear again before he finally responded.
I don’t know. Just stuff I wasn’t expecting. It’s not that big of a deal.
Selah was curious, because maybe he was right and Hailey had done something magical for them. It would be nice for her youngest sister to finally do something to benefit the business for once, even if Selah didn’t consider it to be real work. “Have you been on Hailey’s Loop account lately?” she asked her sister.
“You know I stopped using that app. It was too much of a time suck.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, going to the barely used app that she’d only downloaded because Hailey kept sending her links to videos, and it was the best way to view them. She went to her sister’s page, clicking on the video with a thumbnail of Harper. The video was the crow with some kind of sparkly flashing filter, giving Harper different looks as though she was going to visit the bird version of a dance club or something. Sometimes different accessories and outfits were superimposed over Harper’s image, like a crown or heart sunglasses.
Her sister, Hailey, appeared in the corner of this changing imagery of sparkle vomit, wearing a feather boa and singing what sounded like some made-up-on-the-spot song. Her sister had a good singing voice, but this was some weird catchy jingle where she repeated the words “the crow” over some generic beats. Selah had no idea what she was even watching and clearly didn’t understand today’s youth. At least her sister ended the song with “Harper needs your help” and added a link to a donation page.
“What in the world was that?” Naomi asked her, while inspecting the ends of her hair.
“I don’t know. I just asked her to do a few simple videos of the event and that’s what she did.”
Her sister looked at the screen over Selah’s shoulder. “Wow, it got a lot of views, though.”
“Yeah, I guess people really like nonsense these days.” This was why it was better for Naomi to deal with PR for the company instead of Hailey or Selah.
Her sister laughed. “Hopefully, it translated into a lot of donations for that crow. Do you think that explains the extra business?”
“Maybe—but she didn’t even mention High Desert Tours. Why can’t she just do what I ask?”
“We’re your sisters. I think sometimes you forget that.”
She wasn’t sure this was true and the words annoyed her, which didn’t help her current bad mood. Before she could say anything in her defense, her sister said, “Wait... what video is that?”
When Naomi pointed to it on Selah’s phone, she accidentally touched it and it started playing.
It was filmed in Hailey’s bedroom, the camera set in front of her while she did her makeup, talking as though already in the middle of a conversation. “Gah, stop asking about R. No updates except hate him with my life.”
Selah was about to flick the video away, because she couldn’t care less about any of this, but before she could, her sister rambled on. “Besides, I have some new tea and this is delicious, so you’re gonna want to pay attention, besties. Okay, so, that video with the crow, my sister asked me to do that. This crow was injured and one of the park rangers rescued it and now he wants to do a rehabilitation thing to, I guess, rescue more crows. I mean, crows can be in my crew and are cool but, whatever, it’s weird.” Hailey moved on to applying eyeliner. “Well, this same park ranger actually took a ride in my sister’s hot-air balloon a few months ago. Remember, she’s a pilot for my family’s business and stuff. He took the ride because he was planning on proposing to his girlfriend. This is the guy.” An image of Dex from the Smith Rock event appeared behind her sister’s shoulder.
“Yeah, he’s nice, but so mid, like mid-mid. And a hot-air balloon ride proposal? Yeah, okay, like watch a TV show or something for some inspiration, friend, because, ugh, cringe. Anyway, the girl said no. She didn’t want to marry him. And then when they landed, the basket tipped over and my sister fell right on top of him. Literally. One hundred percent true story.”
Selah’s heart dropped, making her want to crawl into the deepest hole. What the hell was she going to tell Dex? She had told her mother about the failed proposal and what had happened afterwards, but she hadn’t told anyone else. Naomi had kind of been there and only knew some of it. It was clear her mother wasn’t the most discreet person and neither was Hailey. Either way, it was Selah’s fault her family was publicly humiliating him.
Hailey pulled out a tube of lip gloss, going back to putting on her makeup. “But that’s not the end of the story. Because he’s been totally making eyes at my sister, the same sister who was at his proposal rejection. I’m not even lying. Look at exhibit one.”
It cut to a video from the event and her sister had caught a moment where Dex happened to be looking off in the same direction of her balloon. He could have been looking at anything or nothing. The park was a large place with a lot of activity. Of course, it didn’t help that Selah herself seemed to be gazing in his direction at the same time. As if to emphasize the point, cartoon hearts were added to the video before it cut back to Hailey. “Yeah, and that happened all day. I mean, God, they weren’t even being discreet about it. And Selah is super insistent that there’s nothing between them, but like, be for real with us, sis. They went through this whole thing about why they’d never get together. Doth protests and all that. So is my sister secretly dating the crow park ranger guy? The same guy she had a front row seat for him getting his heart stomped on? Did something else happen on that balloon ride? Did the basket and her falling on him really happen by accident? Hmm.”
It cut to another video, this time taken from a slight distance away but showing the area near the restroom where Dex was leaning over her. They looked as if they were involved in an intimate conversation instead of something that could be innocent for a number of reasons that Selah couldn’t think of at the moment. “Gross. Seriously. Get a private hot-air balloon, you guys. Ha!”
Her sister then did several rapid air kisses by pressing her palms to her lips and said, “This has been your Hailey Tea Time, besties!”
Selah turned off the video, setting her phone on her desk before turning her focus on Naomi and crossing her arms. “Did you know about this?”
Her sister’s eyes widened as she lifted her hands in surrender. “No, I swear. I had no idea she—”
At that moment, the sister in question came parading through the door with an iced coffee drink in a teal tumbler. “Oh my God. I have to show you the color of this nail polish, because it’s about to become my whole personality—”
“What the fuck, Hailey? I am so pissed off right now, I don’t even want to look at you.”
Her sister paused, her shocked gaze switching between Naomi and Selah. “What did I do?” If she suspected the reason for Selah’s anger, she was doing a good job pretending to be ignorant because, by all appearances, she was perplexed.
Naomi cut in. “We saw the Loop video you did about Selah and the park ranger—”
“Oh, is that what this is about? Gah, you made me think it was something worse. You need to go touch grass, Selah.” Her sister collapsed in one of the office chairs, sliding into a slouched position as she took a sip from the straw in her tumbler while inspecting the paint job on her pointy, perfectly manicured nails.
“This isn’t a joke. That was a horrible video, and you need to take it down right now. I’m not kidding. I want it down. I can’t believe you would do something like that to Dex and me.” Selah hadn’t even perused any of the comments, which she was sure were riddled with commentary and would result in her becoming angrier. At this point, she felt bad for Dex for getting involved with the Moreno family. He didn’t deserve any of this. Maybe she did, though, for trusting her sister with this one small thing.
The straw popped from Hailey’s mouth. “I can’t do that, especially not without an explanation. Did you see the numbers on that post? If I take it down, it’s just going to make everyone suspicious, especially since it’s still making rounds.”
“Does it look like I care about your numbers? Take it down.”
“ You told me to work my magic. You said I could do whatever I wanted. I got the spotlight right on the event, just like you asked.”
“You think this is what I wanted? For Dex and me just to be tossed under a bus for your entertainment and social media clout? You were supposed to be helping us. If this is your idea of help, I don’t want it.”
“I was helping! Do you know how hard it is to cut through the noise and catch people’s attention? These days you have to either intrigue people or make them mad—”
Selah released a bitter laugh. “Oh, well, that’s just great. Congratulations, I’m mad. Do you not get it? Do you not understand anything? Maybe you don’t take this seriously because you can just stay with Mom and live off of her good graces forever, having her cater to you while you just do whatever you want and make your silly videos—the rest of us here are trying to keep the business afloat. And maybe it’s not important to you, but it’s important to me.
“Do you have any idea how hard it is for someone like us to be taken seriously in this business, or really any business? To be a young Latina woman trying to be a pilot? I’ve had to work my ass off. And you’re out there telling the whole world I’m crash landing baskets. With one video, you just threw away not only my reputation, but the business’s reputation—right into the shit can. And then what are we supposed to do? What is Mom supposed to do?
“And this is not even taking into account how Dex might be affected by all this. What am I supposed to tell him? That my sister blabbed his private business all over social media? That I can’t be trusted, either, because it’s my fault that I told Mom, and she told you. What if he gets in trouble at work for this? It’s easy for you, but this is our reputation that you’re playing with.
“We’re family. We’re supposed to have each other’s back, but it’s clear I can’t trust you to have mine.”
Her sister blinked for the first time, her eyes welling up with tears but none of them spilling over, and her expression still one of defiance. “You don’t know how hard it’s been for us since Dad’s been gone. What we’ve been going through. Not all of us can just pick up and move on as easily as you.”
Selah’s anger blazed hotter. “Excuse me? I don’t know how hard it is? I’ve been suffering right along with the rest of you.”
“Even Naomi says she’s never seen you cry.” Hailey flung an arm in the direction of their other sister.
Selah glared at them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I needed to have my heart laid out on a platter for you two.”
“Se—” Naomi started to say, but Selah was mad at both of them, mad at the whole damn, rotten world. In fact, she wanted to go into the barn and shred The Blue Wonder to ribbons.
Hailey wiped all the tears away with a hand, finding her footing again. “Sometimes I don’t get you, Selah. I really don’t. And I have been trying around here. Really trying. But you don’t see any of it. You want your sisters to have your back? When was the last time you saw us as sisters instead of just employees? And why does it even matter when you’re just looking to leave, anyways? Do you even care Dad is currently under a pile of clutter in Mom’s room? You were his Number One. You were chosen out of all of us, and you can’t get away fast enough. It was clear he loved you best and you weren’t even his real daughter. It wasn’t your father who died.”
Selah didn’t have anything left after that. She simply got up, walked out the door, and slammed it behind her.