Chapter Twelve Nathan
Chapter Twelve
Nathan
Every takeoff is optional.
Every landing is mandatory.
—UNKNOWN
It’s go-home day,” I announce without my usual enthusiasm.
“To go-home day.” Vincent clinks his coffee mug with my thermos in the dark before starting the plane and switching on the lights.
Go-home day means we’re going to fly fast. It also means something will probably go wrong to prevent us from getting home on time. For once, I might actually welcome a delay to spend more time with a certain member of our flight crew.
As if on cue, Claire leans into the cockpit to hand us water bottles and a garbage bag.
Today is the first time she’s thought to give us these items without us asking, but it’s also the first time she doesn’t do so with a saucy grin.
In fact, she’s avoiding my gaze. Or is that a premature sense of loss I’m feeling?
She’s obviously not experiencing the same loss. She’s more likely excited to go home to her boyfriend this weekend.
While yesterday’s hike had brought us closer together in the moment, our lives are ultimately heading in different directions. I only hope that we are better people because of our time together. I believe I am.
I’ve found some peace with my past. I’m hopeful about the future.
“Door check,” Vincent says with the kind of brusqueness that indicates he’s more ready to get home than I am.
Sometimes the forward flight attendant will do this preflight part of the inspection for us.
It requires the cockpit door to be locked before checking the function of a secret button in the galley, which has to be held down for three seconds to unlock the door in event of an emergency.
It’s a safety feature in case both of us at the controls ever become incapacitated.
Should someone nefarious try to use the button to gain access without our approval, pilots have the power to prevent the mechanism from working and to keep our door locked.
The most it’ll probably ever be used on one of my flights is as an excuse for me to hang out in the galley with Claire this morning.
I climb from my seat, exit the flight deck, close the door, and wait to hear the click of the lock.
So much for getting a few extra moments with Claire.
She’s leaning halfway into the coat closet, organizing all the equipment stored in the deep space.
All I can see are her navy-blue skirt, black tights, and Mary Janes. I look away out of respect.
“Ready,” Vincent calls.
I thumb the button and hold it down. A little red light flashes the seconds, giving Vincent time to stop this process if necessary.
My gaze wanders back to Claire. Is she avoiding me, or is she as unaware of my presence as I am hyperaware of hers? I can’t ask her that, so I say, “Did you enjoy your first trip as much as I enjoyed it?”
She doesn’t answer right away but turns to look at me. It’s concentrated, as if she’d been saving up all our missed connections from the morning. On the shuttle she’d closed her eyes with the excuse of being sleepy, then on our parade through the tiny airport, she’d ducked into a bathroom.
The lock mechanism clicks. The flight deck door swings open. I need to go back in there to finish my inspection, but I’m not yet sure the forward flight attendant is fit to fly. Even if she didn’t just give herself a concussion, she might be mentally exhausted from the stress of her first trip.
“You okay?” I repeat.
She nods.
What happened to her easy banter? Maybe she’s dealing with something else unrelated to the airlines. Yesterday after our incredible hike, she’d been obsessed with calling her boyfriend to tell him about it. Maybe he broke up with her.
Yeah, right. Nobody is that stupid.
A customer service agent sticks her messy-do inside the main cabin door. “Ready to board?”
Claire blinks and shoots a confident grin to the agent. “Go ahead and start. I’ll be ready by the time the first passenger gets down here.”
Okay, so she’s not concussed. And in the three days since we started, she’s found confidence for her new career. I’m not sure why I’m receiving the silent treatment, but I knew this trip had to come to an end eventually.
I let Claire set out small water bottles on the first-class seats, and I take mine, wondering what exactly it is that I’m returning to. My dog. My house. My church. My hometown.
The last one gives me pause. I scratch my chin.
I didn’t even return to my hometown for Dad’s wedding, though that had been a simple courthouse affair. I wasn’t in a place to celebrate his new love, plus I had concerns of running into my ex and the guy she’d left me for.
But maybe I could get over my heartbreak the same way I encouraged Claire to climb the mountain yesterday. I may not be able to see all the stairs, but I’m capable of taking the next step.
Dad invited me home for Thanksgiving. I could take his new kids sledding on the hill by the gazebo and watch the entire Bavarian village light up as part of the town’s annual festival.
Last year Joey went with me. At that time I wouldn’t have imagined ever attending without her. When we broke up, I determined I’d never go again. I’d thought it would be too hard. But somehow the ache has dulled.
I put my thoughts on hold to focus on our takeoff, but the calm remains. Like when Dad took me skiing the first time and I fell off a ski lift—I’m waiting for the pain to kick in, but surprisingly, there is none. I’m more numb with shock than anything.
My newfound revelation doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to running into Joey, but I’m not going to give up other things I love simply to avoid her.
“Hey, man.” Vincent removes his headset from one ear to make our chat more intimate. “I got a deal on tickets for the Seahawks game November seventh. You free?”
I pause in checking gauges and adjusting the wing flaps. Vincent isn’t only asking me whether I’m free. He’s asking if I’m ready to attend my first Seahawks game since I proposed to Joey on the Jumbotron.
The truth is, I’ve stopped going places I love not only to avoid my ex but also to avoid my memories of her. Again I wait for this reminder to rip a scab from my injured heart. Yet my pulse continues at its normal rate. The wound has scarred over.
“I’m free.” In every way.
I wish I could thank Claire for her healing touch on my life, but she’s already acting weird enough without me sounding creepy by saying, “Hey, my attraction to you has given me hope for a future relationship.” So instead I sit across from her in the hotel shuttle, wait to catch her eye. Then I smile, and say, “Home, James.”
Her face lights up, and we’re back to the day we first met—when I was the one helping her. Vincent and Desiree took a different shuttle to the employee parking lot to drive themselves home, so it’s just her and me and a group of business professionals heading to their hotel.
She relaxes against her seat with a sigh. “We did it.”
She’s got that post-trip high—that feeling we get when all the work is done, we’ve bonded with our colleagues, and we get to go home to tell friends and family the stories we collected while away. Plus the ability to cook our own meals, work out in our own gyms, and sleep in our own beds.
Except she’s returning to a crash pad. Her bed isn’t her own.
“How long are you off?” I ask.
She grimaces. “I’m on call one more day. But I’ll fly home to San Francisco after that.”
I nod. That’s crash pad life. “Have you put in for transfer?”
“Yes.” She wrinkles her little nose. “I’m not sure how long I’m going to last if they don’t transfer me at the end of the month.”
She’s homesick already? I guess I was too when doing the long-distance thing with Joey. Yet so many people in this industry commute on an airplane to work. “It gets easier.”
“Hmm . . .” She looks out the window, watching our drive up the hill.
With this rain, a few of the local homeless have taken shelter in the covered bus stops, while others opt for sitting against buildings with umbrellas propped over their heads.
Traditionally Washingtonians wear waterproof jackets with hoods to maintain our anti-umbrella stance, but most of us don’t have to live in the elements like these folk.
I feel for them. At the same time I feel Claire’s fear of them.
The shuttle squeaks to a stop under the Marriott portico. We let the hotel guests jostle past first. Perhaps Claire thinks she’s going to be dropped off at her apartment again, but her Samoan protector isn’t driving today.
Which also means he’s not here to threaten me with bodily harm if I offer to assist her with her luggage. There aren’t any other flight attendants on board, so either I step in or she makes the journey alone.
“Come on.” I grab her bag down from the rack for her before retrieving mine. “I’ll walk you to your crash pad.”
She opens her mouth as if to protest but then glances out the window again and presses her lips together. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” My heart grows heavy because this is all I can do for her. One last walk in the rain after a workweek of hikes, boat rides, and sunset steak dinners.
She pulls up her hood, stacks her luggage, and joins me in rolling our suitcases through puddles to the top of the hill.
“This is nothing compared to the last hill we climbed,” she quips.
Apparently she’s also reminiscing. She looks around, wary at first, then softening at the sight of flowers still thriving in our mild fall temps.
“That hike makes me want to keep moving, and it’s so beautiful here, but I’m afraid to go jogging by myself. ”
We turn into the parking lot. I’m not sure which building is hers, so I let her take the lead. But then I stop. “Wait a minute.” Maybe there is something else I can do for her.
She pauses and tilts her head, as if to ask why in the world I’m stopping in the parking lot in the rain. The answer is that I want to show her my house before it’s hidden from view by a neighboring apartment complex.
I point. “See that blue house on the far corner?”
She peers. “With the white trim and black shutters?”
My pulse thrums at the idea of her stopping by. “Yes. That’s my place. And it’s guarded by a big golden retriever who loves to go on runs.”
Her eyes widen when my meaning sinks in. “You’d let me take your dog jogging so I feel safe?”
I shrug, as if it’s the least I can do. Especially after seeing that suspicious meetup in the elementary school parking lot last weekend. “Might be more effective than a soda can in a sock.”
She laughs and heads toward a staircase. “Hey, just because it’s a soft drink . . .”
A smile plays on my lips. We could have been good together.
If she and Wyatt ever break up, she knows where I live. And she has my phone number from when she sent the crew her Alamo photos. As for right now, I need to say goodbye. “It was nice working with you, Claire.”
She pauses at the bottom step and looks back at me. “Thanks for taking me under your wing.”
Another pun, this time a reminder that it’s my turn to fly away.