Positively Beautiful (19 page)

“It's my thing,” I say.

He nods, and I get the feeling he understands.

I wait for him to get out. We've done a few touch-and-goes, which were perfect, but he just sits there. He seems to be having second thoughts about whether or not to let me solo.

“What?” I say.

He sighs. “Do like I've taught you. I know you can do this. You're one of the best students I ever had.”

“Wow, Stew, watch out, you may start liking kids if you're not careful.”

“Fat chance,” he growls and gets out. He slams the door and gives me a thumbs-up.

I yell “Prop clear” out the window and start the engine.

It feels good to concentrate on something, to not have to work so hard on not thinking about things. I've stripped it all away until my soul is bare, just a dull, impenetrable cube, small and icy, and I am locked inside.

I tell the tower November Six One Seven Niner Romeo is
ready for takeoff. They give me a runway, and I sit at the end of it and run up the motor until everything shakes. I do my last-minute checks and then take a deep breath and stare down the runway.

I'm scared. Real scared. But I want this, more than anything.

I release the brake and Tweety Bird roars down the runway and makes the leap into the air. One moment I am grounded, and in the next I am free of the earth and everything on it.

My heart pounds and I give a
whoop
of triumph.

“I did it, did it,
did it
!” I chant, but no one but Tweety Bird can hear me. That's okay, though, because this is my journey, no one else's. All the practicing, all the studying have led to this moment, and it's my moment alone.

The plane climbs steadily, and I feel completely in control as I check the instruments and respond to the movements of the air around me. Once I'm clear of the airport, I swing the plane in a wide turn, reveling in the heady sense of freedom. It's glorious. It's the best feeling I've ever had and I want it to go on forever. All the bad stuff in my head has been blown clean away and all that's left is pure joy.
This
is something I can control,
this
is something I can do well, when everything else I touch seems to turn to crap. Below me cars crawl along crowded streets like ants, but around me is open air and freedom.

I fly the traffic pattern, and then reluctantly prepare for the first of my three landings. My stomach clenches at the thought of going back down again, but I pick up the radio to tell the ATC what I'm doing.

And then … I put the radio down. I pull Tweety Bird in a steep turn away from the airport.

It takes a few minutes for them to notice. In those minutes, it's like I'm on a seesaw, teetering back and forth in my mind. Something has shifted inside me, and nothing is balanced anymore. I can't find the ground. I don't know if I
want
to find the ground, ever again. Everything is too hard down there, and I can't bear the thought of going back. I
can't
go back.

“Seven Niner Romeo, turn right heading Three Two Zero, the airport will be at twelve o'clock.”

They think I've lost the airport. They think I'm lost.

Maybe I am.

The radio continues to squawk until I turn it off.

It's just me and Tweety.

And I fly.

I'm not thinking much as I fly south. There's too much to concentrate on. I'm flying VFR, which means I'm flying by sight, so I have to look out for other planes. I'm supposed to be on the radio, talking to other planes and to airports when I get close to them, but I don't want to talk to anybody. I know where I am, because of the GPS, but I don't know where I'm going. Not really.

Just away.

I have plenty of gas, so I fly, and I sing at the top of my lungs, and sometimes it seems like Tweety chimes in with a rev of the motor or a whistle of wind. I'm blank. I'm empty. My brain is a mirror of the vacant pure blue of the sky.

I know this is bad, very bad. I should turn back, get on the radio, tell someone I'm fine. I don't know what Stew is going to do. I don't know if they've called my mother by now.
Thinking of Mom threatens to break me, because I don't want her to worry about me.

But she'll be better off without you …
It has been so hard for her to go through all this and worry about me too. And as much as I want to be there for her, somehow I can't. Not like she needs. I try and try, but I can't do anything to make her better, to ease her pain. And on top of that, I am adding to it. Because I can't seem to help myself. Things have slipped out of my control, like I'm on some sort of slide and keep going faster and faster to who-knows-where but I can't stop.

I don't have a plan. Well, yes, I do. I plan to fly as far away as I can. After that there's nothing. Maybe I will lie down and die. That seems pretty appealing. But short of finding some sleeping pills—

Why are you thinking about sleeping pills? You're more than a thousand feet in the air. All you have to do is let go of the controls and see what happens. It really wouldn't be your fault; it's not like you would drive yourself into the ground or anything. You could take your hands off the yoke and see what happens. Just like that. It would be so easy …

I find myself lifting my hands off the yoke, and Tweety is confused. She swerves a little to the right and then drifts slowly downward.

Yes, like that. Sit back and watch the trees get a little closer and what a way to go, right? Doing what you love? You and Tweety Bird. It'll be over quick, it'll be fast, and you won't have to wait for the next five, ten, twenty years for a lump to show up. Done. Finis. All over. Mom would understand, she knows, she KNOWS, KNOWS, KNOWS what hell is like and didn't she say maybe it would be
easier if she could just die? Easier. This is an easier way. There, the ground's getting closer and isn't that river pretty, shining in the sun like a glittering ribbon? Concentrate on that. Tweety will take care of everything. I wish Mom could be here …

“No!” I scream and snatch the yoke up. “No, no, no, no, no,
no, no, nonono …
” I'm screaming at the top of my lungs now, a wordless howl that goes on and on as I drive Tweety back up, up, up. Tears run down my face as all the bad stuff comes out through my mouth in a long shriek of fury and pain. Tweety begins wailing along beside me as I go up so fast the motor begins to strain and we roar together at the uncaring sky.

Somewhere in the middle of Florida I begin to run out of gas. I still have some, but if I don't land soon, then I won't.

I'm in the middle of the state, so mostly I see rolling fields and an occasional town below me. I don't want to land at an airport, even a small one, because I don't want to talk to
anybody
. This I know. This is all I know.

I see a long flat field below me and it reminds me of the field I almost landed in when Stew stole my keys forever ago. That day I was planning on landing on the field with no power. How much easier to do it with the motor running? I circle around and check out the field. It looks like maybe it's supposed to be growing something, but right now it's dirt mounded up in long furrows. About a mile away is a house with a big barn, but there's nothing, nobody around. I circle again and I'm lining up at the end of the field and getting lower and lower.

Either do it or don't. What does it matter either way?

I do it. I drop down onto the dirt and we bounce some and one big bounce slams my head into the ceiling. Something cracks and Tweety dips to the side and we crash to a halt in a cloud of dust. I rub at my head as I look out of the window. Somehow the ground seemed a lot smoother from the air.

I unbuckle and get out and immediately see I've damaged Tweety's landing-gear strut, the piece of metal that holds the wheels. It's bent and Tweety is drooping to one side. For some reason this makes me cry and I kneel beside Tweety and put my arms around her legs, whispering, “
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
”

After a while, I stand up. I grab my purse out of Tweety and kiss her nose.

“I'm sorry to leave you like this,” I say. “Someone will find you and take care of you, I promise.”

And then I walk away.

I find a dirt road and follow it. I don't know where it goes and it doesn't matter.

As I walk, I pull out my phone and look at the dark screen. I turned it off before I ever got in the plane. I don't want to turn it back on but I do.

I have twenty-one messages: ten from my mom, eleven from Trina.

I think for a minute and then send Mom a quick text: im all right pls dont worry. love u

I shut off the phone and keep walking.

Every once in a while a car goes by and I duck into the bushes. But that's only once in a while, so mostly I walk down the middle of the road, swinging my arms and singing. It's only when I see the drops falling darkly onto the white dust that I realize I'm crying.

I'm getting tired when I see a gas station ahead. I don't want to see anybody, but I'm hungry so I go in. A skinny woman with skin browned and furrowed by the sun sits behind the counter, her eyes glued to a small TV. She barely looks up as I put a Diet Coke, a bag of chips, and a sandwich on the counter. I hesitate over Mom's emergency credit card and use cash instead. They can trace credit cards. But that leaves me six dollars and twenty-six cents, so I'm going to be in trouble soon.

I use the bathroom, and as I'm leaving I hear my name on the TV. I stop, using one hand to keep the glass door from swinging shut.

“… authorities are saying that it appears the student pilot flew off course deliberately and are working to find …”

I let go of the door and it shuts with a clang of cowbells. I walk quickly away, and I'm not sure whether the crawling sensation on my back is my imagination or the clerk watching me.

I eat my sandwich and walk. It's hot, it's May in Florida, and before long I'm sunburned and extremely thirsty. My Diet Coke is long gone. I suck on a mint, but as soon as it's finished my mouth is dry again. It occurs to me I could die of sunstroke. I don't care much.

A car comes along and I'm too tired to get out of the road.

It's an old farm truck and the man inside is equally decrepit. He stops and stares at me.

“Where you going, girl?” he asks.

I nod the way I've been walking.

“There's nothing much for miles ahead. Did you run out of gas?”

I shrug.

“Get in, and I'll take you up to Alachua. There's a gas station.”

I think about it, “stranger danger” and all that, but in the end I just don't care. I get in and he offers me a drink from a soda bottle that's filled with clear liquid. I'm so thirsty I gulp it down. Thankfully, it's water.

He doesn't seem inclined to talk much, and neither am I. We roll along with the hot wind whipping through the truck and I tap my fingers on the windowsill to the songs still playing in my head.

After a while, he turns onto a two-lane paved road. We begin to see houses and a business or two, and then the gas station.

“You want me to take you back, or you got someone to call?” he asks as I get out.

“I've got someone to call.”

I watch as he drives off and I pull out my phone.

I've never called Ashley and it feels odd. Our relationship was in the Webosphere, and somehow it seemed meant to stay that way.

I listen to it ring and ring and a guy picks up.

“Hello?” he says.

I'm confused and almost hang up.

“I'm looking for Ashley,” I say after a moment.

A muffled silence, like he covered the phone with his palm, and then he says, “This is Ashley's brother, Jason. Is this Erin?”

I should wonder how he knows who I am, but I don't. “Yes. Can I talk to Ashley?”

“She's not here. She went fishing.”