5. Go Your Own Way #6
Once they parted, Charlie walked into her room and closed the door behind her. She sat down at her desk, picked up the phone in her room with the private line, and called the Caltech admissions office to accept her place.
The night before Charlie left for Caltech, Helen invited the whole Wickett family to dinner. In the end, Ed and Diane didn't make it. Ed was stuck at work and Diane was arranging the setup for the church fundraiser the next day. They thanked Helen for the invite and apologized.
But it was expected. Ed and Diane had never made it to dinner when Helen and Frank invited them. They always had other places to be.
Helen made Charlie's favorite, Friday-night chicken piccata, paired with green beans from her very own backyard garden. There was also pie cooling on the counter because Helen believed no goodbye should happen without pie.
"You're late!" Frank had called when the girls walked through the door, even though they were five minutes early. Charlie rolled her eyes at the repeated lecture she knew was coming.
"We're on time, Mr. Beckman."
"Early is on time and on time is late," Frank said, pointing his finger at her.
"You remember that when you get to California and those professors start expecting you in their labs at the crack of dawn.
" Charlie grinned and stole a green bean from the serving dish before Helen could swat her hand away.
Charlie did notice that Frank was quieter than usual, though.
She noticed it by the change in his rhythm, how he sat in his chair and ate slowly, how he laughed at Katie's jokes and smiled at Helen's stories with what seemed like subdued reactions.
There were moments when he'd pause mid-sentence to clear his throat, or set down his fork and press his hand against the table as though steadying himself.
At one point, he stood to refill his coffee and had to grip the back of the chair on the way up.
Helen's hand went to his back, just for a moment, the kind of touch that looked like habit but felt like vigilance.
Charlie saw all of it. She didn't know what to do with any of it yet, but she would always remember.
After dinner, Frank walked Charlie out to the garage. Just the two of them. He stood by the Cutlass and looked at the engine compartment, and Charlie thought he was going to say something about the car, but he didn't.
"You know," he said, "when I shipped out in forty-two, I didn't know what I was heading into. None of us did. But I knew I was good with my hands and I knew I belonged near engines." He looked at her. "You belong near engines, Charlie. Bigger ones than mine. Don't let anyone tell you different."
Charlie's throat tightened. She didn't trust her voice, so she just nodded.
Frank reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out something small. A metal pin, tarnished with age, shaped like a pair of wings with a propeller at the center. An Aviation Machinist's Mate rating badge. His rating badge, from the Enterprise.
"Mr. Beckman..." Charlie said.
"Don't you 'Mr. Beckman' me, Charlie. I want to give this to you. There's a difference between me giving it and you taking it." He pressed it into her palm and closed her fingers around it.
Charlie looked down at the pin in her hand. Over forty years of history in a piece of metal smaller than a quarter.
"Thank you, Mr. Beckman," she said.
"Frank."
Charlie looked up. "Sorry?"
"Call me Frank, Charlie. You've earned it, kiddo."
Charlie's eyes burned. She nodded, because her voice was somewhere she couldn't reach.
Frank turned and reached behind the workbench. He pulled out his copy of Rumours, the vinyl, the one they'd listened to together in the living room the winter Charlie was sixteen. The one with "Songbird" on it.
"You should have this, too," he said, holding it out to her.
Charlie looked at the album in his hands. The white cover, slightly worn at the edges. She knew every scratch on that record from every time she'd played it on the Beckmans' turntable.
"Frank, I can't take your..."
"You're not taking it. I'm giving it. There's a difference.
" He pressed the album into her hands the way he'd pressed the pin.
"That song means something to you. I saw it the first time you heard it.
" His thumb moved over the album's worn edge.
"Take it with you. Play it when you need to remember where you come from. "
Charlie held the pin in one hand and the vinyl in the other and couldn't speak for a long time.
"Thank you, Frank," Charlie finally said. Frank nodded, staring up at the sky above them.
"Take it far, Charlie."
"Take what far?" Charlie asked. Frank returned his gaze to her.
"Life."
Helen held Charlie in the kitchen doorway for a long time.
"You call us," Helen said into her hair.
"Every week. And you can always come home.
You know that, right? You say the word and we will find a way to bring you home.
" Charlie noticed Helen said "home" without explanation.
This home. With Frank and Helen and Charlie and Katie.
"That's my brave girl," Helen said, tears pooling in her eyes as she cupped Charlie's face and looked at her. Charlie smiled at Helen as her own eyes went blurry.
"Go knock 'em dead," Frank said from the side, and Charlie laughed, then looked at these two people who had, more or less, adopted her and her sister and changed their lives forever. She'd never be able to thank them enough.
"I love you guys," Charlie said as she wrapped her arms around both Helen and Frank together. She felt both of the Beckmans tighten their arms around her.
"We love you too, sweetie," Helen said, her voice thick.
"So very much, kiddo," Frank added.
Charlie opened her eyes and saw Katie standing to the side. She reached out her arm.
"Come here, Kit." Frank guffawed and turned his body slightly to make room for Katie.
"Make room for the boss!" Frank said as Katie ran into the fold and wrapped her arms into the group embrace.
"This has to be a family hug," Charlie said.
Because that's what they were. A family.
Katie was brave through the whole dinner. She was brave all the way through the goodbyes with the Beckmans. She was brave walking to their house down the sidewalk.
Four houses down.
She was even brave helping Charlie carry the last of the remaining packed boxes to her car before they called it a night. Boxes full of college things like textbooks, lab notebooks, and the drafting supplies she'd need for her first semester. The practical cargo of a life about to change.
But Katie wasn't brave in the driveway. After the last box was loaded, Charlie turned to say something and saw Katie standing by the passenger door, her chin shaking, her lips pressed together.
Then came the sniffle, and Charlie crossed the distance between them in two steps, wrapping her arms around her sister, holding on.
"I'm just a phone call away, Kit-Kat. Always. You know that, right?"
"I know." Katie's voice was small.
"I mean it. Anytime. Middle of the night. At the pay phone across the road from church. Doesn't matter."
"I know, Charlie," she repeated in a whisper. A moment went by before she spoke again. "I'm just going to miss you so much..." And that's when the tears really came.
Charlie held her tight for a long while next to her car, her eyes finally relenting and letting her own tears fall.
The next morning, Katie helped Charlie pack the last remaining suitcase. The personal things. Everything she owned that mattered fit in one bag. She didn't take tools or socket wrenches because she knew she'd be using the best in Caltech's labs.
Well, maybe she could fit her wrench into the side pocket.
Katie sat cross-legged on Charlie's bed and handed her things Charlie didn't know if she'd need.
Things like socks with Einstein's face on them and a flashlight that looked like a blaster from Star Trek.
Charlie made every attempt to fit in everything she could, the choices her sister was making mattering more than what she really needed in California.
When they finally walked outside, everything packed into the car, Katie grabbed Charlie's hand and pressed a cassette tape into it.
"This is for you." Charlie turned the tape over in her hands, seeing drawings of rainbows and stars, moons and spaceships, and all sorts of little doodles colored all over the cover.
"What's this, Kit?" Charlie asked.
"A mix tape. For you. For the long drive.
I made it myself, recording songs off the stereo when Mom and Dad weren't home," she explained.
"Well, Helen helped me a little." Katie grinned and Charlie laughed.
"The track list is written on the insert card.
" She took the card out and showed it to Charlie.
Charlie looked at the songs scribbled on the paper in Katie's careful handwriting. Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, Blondie, The Cars. All the songs they'd listened to in the garage, in the Cutlass, and in the dark when neither of them could sleep.
"It's to, you know, make sure you stay awake," Katie whispered. When Charlie looked at her, she was smiling and her eyes were bright. But Charlie saw what was underneath the smile.
With the tape in her hands and the insert between her fingers, Charlie reached out and pulled her sister in close for one last hug, wrapping her arms around her and kissing the side of her head.
"You take care, Kitty-Kat. Call me. Every day. I don't care."
"I know." A pause. "I will."
Ed and Diane stood by the front door. Ed shook Charlie's hand the way he shook the hands of men at the plant. Diane stepped forward, and Charlie expected the usual of the quick, performative embrace that checked the box of motherhood without actually entering it.
But Diane surprised her.