Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SEVEN
“This is the strangest date I’ve ever been on,” Gareth said. “Also the earliest.”
My laugh was somewhat desperate. “Yeah, sorry about that. I didn’t realize.” I hadn’t realized a lot of things until I’d forwarded him the instructions from the business. We had also been instructed to wear warm layers, comfortable shoes, and hats. Hats were mentioned twice.
Gareth smiled. “All part of the adventure, right?”
I was grateful that it sounded like he meant it.
We shivered and sipped our coffee. He had brought two thermoses from home, a thoughtful gesture that boded well for our date, despite the temperature being forty-one degrees.
It was warm for a February morning but cold for an outdoor activity.
As requested, we were both wearing beanies.
His was plain and burgundy, and mine had a fluffy pom-pom on top.
When he saw it, he booped it and said I looked cute.
This was the first time I’d seen him in clothes that weren’t soiled from construction work.
He looked good, too, and I told him so. His expression shied with pleasure, which increased my attraction.
We had already chatted a bit about ourselves, but mostly we’d been making polite conversation with the three balloon company employees who were here with us.
Somehow, I had forgotten the obvious: We wouldn’t be on this date alone.
“You know,” he said, “I’ve always wanted to ask you out.”
This filled me with more warmth than the coffee, more than from exchanging compliments. “You have?”
“Yeah, but it felt inappropriate. Like asking for a server’s number in a restaurant.”
“It felt inappropriate for me to ask you out, too,” I confessed.
“Also, for some reason I was under the impression that you lived with a guy?”
“Ah,” I said.
“You did.”
“Yes.”
“And it’s way too early—in the date and in the morning—to talk about that.”
I laughed. “Definitely.”
The balloon envelope had filled with air, so the pilot lit the burner and blew fire up into it from the propane tanks.
The heat brought the structure upright. Up close, a hot-air balloon was a gigantic and impressive thing.
Suddenly I wasn’t sure I wanted to climb inside it.
Gareth also looked a touch queasy. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you? ” I asked.
“I’m not, but now I’m wondering if I am.”
“Thank goodness, because me too.”
“Why are we doing this again?” he asked.
“Because it’s free?”
“And remind me why it’s free?”
“Time to fly, kids,” Tom shouted. We’d already learned that he’d been piloting balloons since before we were born, so neither of us minded the diminutive.
We left our thermoses in the chase van and hustled forward so we wouldn’t disappoint him.
It surprised us both when the youngest member of the crew, whom I’d assumed would stay with the van driver, sprinted past us and hurdled neatly into the basket.
Tom caught our reaction and grinned. “Connor is a student pilot. He’ll be assisting me.
That’s why y’all got such a good deal today. ”
“I didn’t get the deal,” I said. “It was a gift.”
Tom guffawed. “Guess you’ve got a cheap friend.”
I didn’t bother to explain that Amelia Louisa Hatmaker was the one with the cheap friend, but I also couldn’t wait to relay Tom’s line back to her. I knew she’d find it funny.
“Don’t worry,” Connor said. He had a mustache, but just barely. A starter mustache. “I’ve only crashed once, and only two passengers died.”
Gareth and I laughed gamely at the hacky joke.
The gondola was taller than I’d expected, the top above waist height, and it had no door, for safety reasons. The whole thing looked as quaint and insubstantial as a wicker basket in a grandmother’s living room.
“No graceful way of doing it,” Tom said, enjoying our discomfort. “Just hop on in—and hurry up.”
Gareth and I threw our legs over at the same time.
I didn’t want to seem scared, and presumably he felt the same way.
He oof ed as he landed, and Tom clapped him on the back.
I got stuck midway, so Connor reached out to assist me.
Staggering over the side, I crashed into him, and then he crashed into Gareth and Tom.
Immediately it was apparent why: the gondola, which would have felt snug with three, was even more crowded with the extra pilot.
There would be no changing positions or moving around.
“Smile for the camera,” the van driver shouted.
“Oh my God,” Gareth and I chorused as we were spun around and crammed against each other in a Tom-and-Connor sandwich.
“We’ll make sure you get a copy of that,” Tom said.
“Now’s a good time for selfies,” Connor said, “especially if your camera or phone doesn’t have a strap. Two thousand feet’s a long way down.”
Our eyebrows simultaneously rose to touch our hats, both at the mention of the height and at the idea of taking yet another photograph together.
“It’ll probably be weirder if we don’t,” I whispered, and Gareth agreed, so I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture of us laughing in confusion and mild fear.
Tom finished lecturing to Connor behind us and stretched his arm above me to untether us, and then it was happening.
Liftoff was gentle—so gentle. I realized I’d been expecting something as extreme and lurching and windy as a biplane with an open cockpit, but leaving the earth felt smooth and effortless. Upward we drifted in a dreamlike floatation.
“I keep imagining myself falling out of the basket,” Gareth said.
“Just when I was feeling good about all this,” I said.
“You’ll probably be fine, though, since you’re shorter than me. More difficult for you to topple out.”
I pointed upward. “Hey, did you see how thin and flimsy that balloon fabric is?”
“Look how close it is to the fire,” Tom said, gleefully joining in.
“Now it’s your job to help us watch out for power lines, houses, trees,” Connor said.
We laughed again, but he added, “Not a joke. Four sets of eyes are better than two. Let us know if you spot any obstacles that you think we haven’t noticed.
” He had switched to serious pilot-in-training mode, and his fingers smoothed his faint mustache with authority.
I gave Tom a nervous glance, and he grinned at me again.
There was another explosive burst of fire above our heads.
Gareth and I startled and ducked, which launched Tom into a spiel about how it all worked: The hot air was less dense than the surrounding cold air, and that was why the balloon rose.
Navigation was all about climbing and descending to catch winds going different speeds and directions.
And eventually we would land… wherever we landed.
Every flight was different and unrepeatable, Tom explained, and that was why he would never tire of it.
This was the same reason why some people weren’t right for monogamy.
Their energy was restored by the new and unknown, so that’s what they would always crave.
That wasn’t me, though. I was only a visitor to this world, cutting across it like the balloon through the sunrise.
As titillating as it was to feel Gareth’s arm bump against mine, to be so close that I could smell the sharp cleanliness of menthol in his shampoo, I desired a lifelong relationship with a single person.
And when this was all over, that person would still be Cory.
What might my future look like with Gareth instead?
It was impossible to imagine, but I supposed this was because I didn’t know him.
More unsettling was that it was also difficult to imagine the specifics of my future with Cory.
When would we buy a house? What would it look like?
Where would we travel? How would we spend the rest of our lives?
The balloon was gliding over the mountains now, which were still cloaked in misty morning fog. The trees were mostly bare, but the view was majestic, and the basket felt safe and peaceful. The sky glowed in purples, pinks, oranges, yellows. Our shadow trailed below.
Connor monitored the altitude and wind speed and other things I didn’t understand while Tom observed.
Since we were traveling with the wind, we couldn’t hear it, and the only time we felt a breeze was when the altitude changed.
The flight would have been almost silent if not for Tom’s communications with the chase van and the occasional blasts of fire, which revealed the true purpose of the hats: to protect our scalps from the heat of the burners.
Gareth shifted to look at something and knocked into me. “Sorry. Are you okay?”
I was fine and told him so. We had been making accidental physical contact and apologizing since the flight began.
“How long have you two been together?” Tom sounded genuinely curious as opposed to professionally polite, and I understood at once that he’d been observing our body language.
“Uh—” Gareth began. He glanced at me, and we both squirmed.
“Well, we’ve known each other for a few years,” I said.
“But this is actually… our first date,” he finished.
We knew it was coming, and it did. Tom and Connor erupted with incredulous laughter. “In my forty-three years of flying, I’ve witnessed a lot of proposals and honeymoons,” Tom said, shaking his head, “but only a handful of first dates. I knew you two were special.”
“That’s a lot of cash to drop for a first date,” Connor said to Gareth.
“It was free, remember?” Tom chortled harder.
“And I asked him out,” I said, because I sensed Tom was the sort of man still clinging to outdated notions who would find this hilarious. He did.