Airfield (6 page)

"Where did my mother go? With him?"

"I don't know. We wrote and asked if she wanted to come down to us. Our letters never got answered. Beatty, no one even told us when you were born."

Clo gets up abruptly. Snapping the gas jet handle to Off, she says, "Look at this. I've gone and scalded the milk. I swear ... Beatty, Collin is my brother and your father and I love him, but I can't forgive him for that, for not telling us you were born. Now, where is that sugar?"

"Here," I say, handing it to her. "Did you mind so much? You were pretty young."

Clo laughs at that, an embarrassed little sound. "Nine. I suppose I had half a crush on my glamorous big brother—and him not passing along such important news seemed a kind of betrayal." The smile goes away. "Besides, I was old enough to see how much my parents were hurt. It didn't make sense. Collin had always been..."

Clo pauses to choose her words. "Kind of the joyful noise in our house, barging in and out with friends when he was younger. Then sending silly notes from flying school, and afterward from this place or that—California, Missouri, New York. Only, after that one postcard ... it was as though he chose to drop out of our lives."

She fills our cups and hands me one. "Here, see if this is sweet enough. I still don't understand what could have made Collin change so." Clo seems to catch herself. "Beatty, I apologize. I have no business talking about your father this way, even if he is my brother. And if your mother was a pilot, I never heard."

"Well, I'm going to ask Dad the first chance I get. Next week, maybe, if he comes for my birthday."

Clo says, "Beatty, I don't want you disappointed ... but your father isn't much for talking about things he doesn't want to discuss."

"I know that," I tell her. "But I'm not much for being put off, either."

Which makes my aunt smile. "That's something I found out long ago!" She blows across her cup and sips. "Now, is that all that's on your mind?"

"Actually ... Clo, do you think country boys have to always stay country boys, or can they change?"

My aunt's answer is a long, protesting groan. "Beatty...!"

 

We talk so late that Clo lets me sleep in the next morning. The 9:45 eastbound plane overhead wakes me up, and I'm still having breakfast when Julie Elise and Leila walk in.

"An easy life, girl," Leila teases. "What happened to you yesterday? You find someplace more interesting than the Mirage?"

Julie Elise doesn't wait for my answer. "Finish up, Dallas," she orders. "We've come to show you Muddy Springs's social life!"

Leila's got her dad's farm truck, and the three of us squish together on a seat lumpy from long use.

"Where to?" I ask.

"The tank."

It's just outside of town, not a man-made tank at all, but a wide, natural pool of water ringed by rock ledges. There's no one there when we arrive, but Julie Elise says, "Just wait."

"Is the water too deep for wading?" I ask, starting toward it, but I back off when Leila calls to be careful, there's snakes.

"So, Dallas," Leila asks, once we're stretched out and comfortable, "do you have a boyfriend?"

Julie Elise interrupts, "Listen!" She lifts her head for a better look down the road. "Isn't that Milton's car?"

Moments later he pulls in, and boys seem to erupt from the jalopy's doors. Julie Elise says, "I told you."

Then several more girls arrive, and after that the day kind of blurs into horseplay and pimiento-cheese sandwiches, iced tea, gossip, and flirting. And the boys do a little fishing, though they don't catch anything big enough to keep.

Julie Elise and Milton, who apparently were the hit of a high school talent night, occasionally launch into a hilarious routine about two fast-talking vaudeville stars, and I almost laugh myself silly listening to them.

It's midafternoon when Leila says, "Beatty, you never answered about whether you have a boyfriend."

"No one in particular," I say. "One of the things that's good about moving around is that you get to meet a lot of guys."

"That sounds a little wild," Julie Elise says, grinning at me.

But Leila persists, "Hasn't there been anyone you wanted to see more of?"

"Not yet. None I thought was that special."

I've been watching the fun around me, but now the scene seems to shift a bit, moving over to make room for other scenes: Moss puzzling over that assortment of radio parts; trudging to town after a job; boosting Millie up on the airplane wing with us last evening.

I wonder if Moss really did give thought to helping out at the airfield. It would be good for him.

 

By the time Grif comes home for supper I've decided to bring it up myself. "He'd work just for some food, until he finds a real job," I explain. "And I'd help Clo with the extra cooking."

"Beatty," Grif says, "you don't have to sell me. Moss was raking the walk when I got there this morning, and he's been finding chores to do since."

Clo asks, "Then where is he? If he's working for food, he should be here to eat."

"He didn't want to intrude. I split my lunch with him, and when I go back I'll take him something more."

Feeling a bit thrown off balance—somehow I hadn't expected Moss to take things on himself so fast—I ask, "But ... What about Millie? What did he do with her?"

"Said he left her at the caboose, feasting on grasshoppers. Clo, can we spare a bit extra for the dog, too? I wish we had a way to pay the boy real money."

F
RIDAY OF THE
next week is my birthday. I find a small, flat box on the breakfast table with a card saying, "For a special girl as she turns fifteen." It's got everybody's name on it, all my aunts' and Grif's and Dad's.

"Aren't you going to undo the tissue?" Clo asks, her eyes shining.

I can't imagine...
Carefully, I unwrap a lady's watch, a silver rectangle of filigree around a face with hour and minute hands so delicate they look like lace.

"Oh," I say, "it's beautiful. But how can I—I mean, how can—" I stop, uncertain how to ask if, when times are so hard, this hasn't cost more than should be spent on me.

Clo says, "And, Beatty, I'm supposed to tell you from everyone, 'Happy birthday.' Your father included, though he'll tell you himself this evening."

"Oh, Clo..."

"He called from Dallas to say the afternoon flight won't have an extra seat, so he's catching a bus over instead. He's planning to stay for the weekend."

"Really? So he's done being mad?"

"I guess."

 

Mrs. Granger, the airport director's wife that Clo's been getting to know, comes by in late morning with a card and an embroidered handkerchief. "That's happy birthday from me and Mr. Granger," she says.

For lunch Leila and Julie Elise take me to the malt shop, where there's a lot of joking—the boys all want to know if I'm just Sweet Sixteen or if I'm Sweet Sixteen and Never Been Kissed?

"Fifteen," I tell them. "I'm exactly fifteen."

Milton says that wasn't the working part of the question.

And in the early afternoon, as I'm riding to the airport to see what's going on there, I meet Moss walking up the highway. "Hey," I call as we near each other, "where are you going?"

The tips of his ears reddening, Moss says, "I heard it was your birthday. I thought to take you these."

Then I realize what's he's carrying, a bouquet of wildflowers, stems wrapped in wet newspaper.

"Moss, where did you find them? They're lovely."

Before I think about what I'm doing, I give him a quick peck on his cheek. It's just like the ones I gave Clo and Grif over the watch, just a quick thank-you, but it startles us both as much as being touched by a hot cinder would have.

Quickly I step back. "They're lovely, Moss," I tell him again. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"I should go back to the cabin so I can put them in water," I say, and he nods, but neither of us actually moves. Not until Millie comes bounding out of the field with a stick she wants us to throw.

 

For my birthday dinner, Clo makes a pot roast, along with new potatoes and peas. Also, she's traded some hand sewing for eggs from the chickens that the tourist court owners keep out back. Now the whites are in an angel food cake, the yolks baked into the sunshine yellow of ladyfinger layers.

"Which cake do you want candles on?" she asks.

"Both."

The table is already pretty with Moss's flowers arranged in a canning jar, and Clo's got me setting it with party napkins she's made from scraps of material. "Anything else I can do?" I ask.

"Just go watch for your father. He ought to be arriving any minute."

The words are hardly out of her mouth when Muddy Springs's only cab drives up. Dad pulls out his overnight grip and hands me postcards he's picked up in Memphis and Saint Louis, Shreveport, Atlanta.

"I should start a collection," I say. "Thanks."

Clo brings out a pitcher of ice water and tells us to visit while she finishes up inside.

As soon as Dad's settled in a lawn chair I say, "Dad, I was talking to the airport mechanic the other day—"

"Kenzie?" he asks. "How did you run into him?"

"—I just did. And he told me he used to fly some with my mother. Why didn't you ever tell me she was a pilot?"

The late-day sun is coming in sideways and strong against one side of Dad's face, and now its warm glare shows his jaw tightening. "No reason," he says.

"But she was one? That's true?"

Dad doesn't deny it, but he doesn't volunteer anything extra.

"Why won't you tell me about her?" I ask. "I know I've never asked much, but I didn't need to as long as I could picture her looking like anybody else's mother—sick, of course, and the picture was hazy, but it made sense. Only now I'm hearing she wasn't like other mothers. Flying ... Dad, that's what you do..."

"Don't be foolish, Beatty," Dad snaps. "What she did wasn't the same at all."

I try to get him to explain, but Dad backs off, and when Grif's car pulls in the tourist court, Dad practically springs up to greet him.

"Happy birthday again!" Grif calls to me. "See who's with me?"

Moss looks as if his cleaning project the last couple of hours has been himself. His skin is shiny from scrubbing, and he's wearing what I'm pretty sure is an old pair of pants and a shirt of Grif's, now starched and ironed.

I see Clo noticing appreciatively, though she doesn't say anything.

"Beatty, introduce your friend," Dad tells me.

"Hello, sir," says Moss.

 

Clo's dinner is wonderful, though I feel sorry for Moss. Dad must think he's a boyfriend of mine who needs interrogating.

And, of course, Moss doesn't have good answers for things like "What's your father do, Moss?" and "How far along in school are you?"

Moss doesn't try to dodge the questions, though. "My pa's an automobile mechanic," he says. "Only there weren't work at home all last year, so he went lookin' for it elsewhere."

"And you?" Dad asks.

"I guess I need work more 'n I need school."

For some reason—I suppose because of how Dad is examining Moss—I notice Moss's grammar more than I usually do, and I wish I could stop his mistakes.

When Clo asks, "Moss, a second piece of cake?" and he answers, "I'm obliged. I ain't had none like this ever," I cringe for him.

"Beatty?" Clo asks.

"Yes, please," I say. "I
haven't
had
any
like this in a long time, either."

Moss flushes, and I realize I've hurt instead of helped.

Still, when Dad asks where he's living, Moss begins, "I ain't—" Then he backs up to say, carefully, "I don't have any real home right now, but—"

Interrupting to keep him from mentioning that abandoned caboose, which I know would make Dad uneasy, I risk asking about the other thing that's been on my mind. "Dad, that woman who almost flew me down, Annie Boudreau? Where did you know her from?"

For a moment I think Dad's going to get angry again, but he doesn't. Instead he answers shortly, "She was one of your mother's cronies."

"Why would she care how I'm being raised?"

Clo says, "Beatty, it's natural if she was a friend of your mother's that—"

But Dad cuts her off. "It's not her business."

Embarrassed silence follows until Grif thinks to tell about that plane coming down in the farm field last week.

"Yeah? What kind?" Dad asks.

Moss says, "It was a Lockheed Vega, sir. Kenzie told me."

Dad laughs. "So you've met Kenzie, too! He put you to work? I've seen him do it even to a pilot."

I start to tell Dad that Kenzie's had me busy also, but Moss answers first. "Not put me to work, exactly," he says. "But we fixed an oil pump together. It was pretty new, but there was—were—a couple places—a couple
of
places where it was worn..."

Dad frowns. "Did Kenzie say what caused the wear?"

And then Moss is sketching something on a scrap of paper. "What we figured," he's telling my dad, "see, the worn places was—were—inside here, and—"

Dad asks, "But how did you go about fixing it? I'd have thought the whole thing would have to be replaced."

"Oh no, sir," Moss says. "We just overhauled—"

"Beatty," Clo says, getting up, "should we leave the guys to the mechanical talk?"

 

Moss and Grif leave in time for Grif to meet the 10:35 mail flight, but even after that Clo and Dad and I sit outside visiting. The two of them get going on stories from when they were kids. "Remember, Collin, that time you got sent to your room without supper and climbed out the window and down a grapevine, only to stumble on the cat and break your arm..."

"You can't remember, Clo. You weren't even born yet."

"But I've heard about it often enough from Maud and Fanny. And heard how, even while you were yowling in pain, you couldn't stop laughing about how surprised the cat was..."

It reminds me of what Clo told me about my dad when he was young, that he was a joyful noise.

I don't glimpse that side of him very often. And when I do, it's usually at a time like this, when everybody sits outside and retells old stories, waiting for a summer night to cool. I've heard the stories told the same way at Fanny's house, on the porches at Grandpa's and Maud's, on the lawn of the boardinghouse where Clo lived after Grandpa died and before she married Grif.