The Art of Crash Landing (33 page)

E
arlier this week a storm came through that swept away the last remnants of summer and today the air is crisp, the sky a watery blue with sunlight so bright it makes the maple trees glow like they're on fire. It's been a long time since I've been in school, but I think I'll always associate this time of year with the optimism of freshly sharpened pencils and limitless possibilities.
Anything could happen
, I tell myself, and it's the truth.

Although someone has obviously tried to clear away the storm debris, the tangle of dead branches pushed against the wrought-iron fence gives this section of the cemetery an unkempt look. A dog barks in the distance, playing backup to the Bible reading.

“Father Barnes looks good,” I say.

All I get from Luke is a quick sideways glance. He knows what I'm hinting at, but he's not spilling any beans. I'm curious about whether Father Barnes has sobered up and started going to AA, but whenever I bring up the subject directly Luke's response is to remind me what the second A stands for. My theory has been and remains that since I'm the one who first suggested he talk to
Father Barnes about getting off the sauce, that I deserve to know the outcome of that conversation. Luke's theory is that I should mind my own business. I prefer my theory.

“Don't you think he looks good?”

Luke puts a stern expression on his face, raising a finger to his lips to shush me as if I'm disturbing the ceremony, which is a pretty lame dodge seeing as how we can barely hear the priest's voice from way up here on the cemetery drive.

I'm sitting sideways in the limo passenger seat with the door propped open, and Luke is in his chair parked next to me. Even with my bum knee I could've made it down the slope to the graveside without a problem. But the ground is too wet to easily accommodate a wheelchair, and I didn't want Luke to sit up here alone. We're on the south side of the grave, but the poor graveside mourners face southeast, straight into the sun, and although there's a canopy, the shade it casts is nowhere near the chairs. So most of the guests are wearing sunglasses and that, combined with their dark clothing, gives the impression of a gathering of dangerous badasses. It's only the remarkable predominance of red hair that ruins the effect. It's hard for people with that many freckles to look fierce.

I'm tempted to mention this observation to Luke, but I keep my mouth shut. I think he finds my running gag about Father Barnes and AA only mildly irritating, but talking smack about his family might actually hurt his feelings and that's the last thing I want to do. Besides, I have some skin in this game as well. It's his oh-so-gingery extended family gathered around the open grave. But it's my grandfather they're putting in that hole.

O
n the way to the after-funeral reception, Luke and I are the only ones riding in the limo, the rest of the family members having
redistributed themselves to other cars to give directions to the out-of-towners. The black leather seat is wide enough for four, but Luke sits close to me rather than taking the other window. This is the second funeral I've been to this summer, and I'm pretty sure he knows I'm thinking about that. He reaches over and takes my hand.

When I left the hospital, it was Luke who picked me up, and I stayed with him for two weeks until I could walk without crutches. He took care of me, cooked for me, did my laundry, held me when I woke up sweating from yet another falling dream.

At this point, we're in a kind of holding pattern, Luke and I. Our relationship is clearly more than
friends with benefits
—or I should say remote-cousins-who-the-hell-knows-times-removed with benefits—yet I find myself reluctant to think of him as my boyfriend. Maybe that's because in my experience boyfriends don't stick around for long. Or maybe it's because I still think I'm too much of a pain in the ass to be with a nice guy like Luke. Or maybe it's because for the first time in years, the future feels wide open, and I'm hesitant to make any choice that might narrow that horizon. So I suppose if asked I'd have to say that although I'm happy right now, I'm not aiming to settle down in Gandy with Luke. And yet at the same time I also understand that what the doctor in the blue scrubs told me is true. We don't always end up where we're aiming.

T
he limo cruises along at a maddeningly solemn pace, and since I don't see any familiar cars on the road around us anymore, I have the feeling we'll be the last to arrive. The reception is at Trip's house, which I'm sure was Fritter's decision, not his. From what I've seen, Trip's idea of entertaining is to put an extra six-pack in the fridge and order pizza. The thought of him hosting a nice
reception is so ludicrous I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Good thing I'm invited; crashing it would surely be in poor taste.

We've become something pretty close to friends, Trip and I, although I think he still finds me just the tiniest bit aggravating. And sometimes, at unguarded moments, I catch him looking at me with a deep worry in his eyes. I've told him the fact that he was going to help Karleen counts for something, but he doesn't really hear me when I say it. I think all he can hear is the sound of his truck slamming into me. Of course, I'm not above taking advantage. I've got him mowing my lawn, and we share custody of Winston. During the day when Trip is at work, the dog is usually with me, but when I'm working nights or weekends at the True Value, Winston is next door, stinking things up. For Trip's birthday last week I gave him a bag of potpourri.

And I sold him the Malibu. I think my mom would approve. I never loved that car the way she did, and Trip gave me a great price. Guilt is a superior bargaining tool. The old white Toyota I drive now isn't much to look at, but it runs just fine and already has torn upholstery, so I can relax about that. And every once in a while, if it's been parked with the windows rolled up, it still smells like Queeg.

Q
ueeg didn't have lung cancer as it turned out; the biopsy was clear. What he had was walking pneumonia, the name of which I immediately disputed;
driving pneumonia
, I insisted. Queeg never walked anywhere.

The diagnosis seemed to perk him up, and once he got started on antibiotics, he got better for a while. But although his coughing cleared up, he was still chronically short of breath, so in early July doctors did more tests and found a blockage in his heart. When he told me of the scheduled angioplasty, the very first thing I did after hanging up with Queeg was call Fritter and ask for a loan.

T
he flight from Oklahoma City to Pensacola was unremarkable, except that it was the first time I'd been on an airplane so it was remarkable to me. Who knew that they could make seats even smaller than the ones on a Greyhound bus? When I arrived in Pensacola, I was astonished again. Nick was there early and waiting for me. Even though I'd called him the night before to tell
him when my flight would be in, I was sure he'd be late. But there he was, leaning against his car, his T-shirt a little tighter than it needed to be. When he saw me come out the terminal door, he opened his arms. His body felt familiar, and I hugged him long and hard.

Once Nick and I were in the car, the first thing I did was give him his guitar strap. I'd called him right after my accident and offered to ship it back, but Nick had balked at that idea, worried it might get lost in the mail. I remember thinking that was nuts, but as I sat in that car, watching him run his hands down the strap and then twist around to place it carefully, reverentially, on the backseat, it made perfect sense. He may have never loved me, but he was capable of love, at least for a collector's-item-near-mint-condition-brown-leather-guitar-strap-signed-by-Jimmy-Page-and-Jeff-Beck.

Mile after mile, Nick talked about his band, his job, his new girlfriend, sneaking glances at me as he spoke of her, to judge my reaction. I relaxed in the seat and let his self-absorption wash over me, comforted by the knowledge that I no longer loved this man. In fact, I couldn't imagine how I'd ever thought I did.

When we were getting close to Two Pines, and he'd quieted down a little, I broke the news. I wish I'd had a camera out and ready for when I told him that I was pregnant with his child; I'm not sure I've ever seen a better example of the expression
deer in the headlights
. I assured him that all I wanted was a few signatures to relinquish his rights. He looked relieved and then spent the time from that moment until we pulled up outside the gate at Two Pines explaining why it was very important that his new girlfriend not know anything about it.

Before I climbed out of the car, I leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, but he turned his face and surprised me with a full-on kiss. We both smiled and nodded. It felt like a good-bye kiss, and
that was fine. At the chain-link gate, I glanced back at Nick's car, still parked on the shoulder. I lifted my hand to wave, but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking in the mirror, fixing his hair.

Q
ueeg had assured me that the procedure was no big deal, and he didn't need my help, and it was probably true. Although I was off crutches at the time, I had still had a knee brace and couldn't drive a stick, so it was Min He who drove us to and from the hospital. She was the one who went to the pharmacy and the grocery store. Her solicitous behavior toward Queeg didn't exactly bleed over into her interactions with me, but I could tell she was glad I came.

I told Queeg what I'd discovered about my mom's past, but for the most part I kept the focus of our conversations off of me. I assured him that my injury was caused by minor carelessness on my part, that I was fine—no mention of the accident, the hospital stay, or my pregnancy. I told myself it would be better if he were completely recovered before I gave him any surprising news. I told myself that I'd be back for his birthday in September anyway, and by then my belly would be too big to camouflage. The truth, however, is I was too chicken for total honesty. I just couldn't bear to see a look of worry and disappointment on his still exhausted face.

For a week, we just hung out. We watched TV together; we ate together. Only three days after the procedure, Queeg was cleared to drive, so one morning we went crabbing in the bay, baiting the traps with chicken legs and when those ran out, hunks from a little shark somebody had caught and then left to rot in the sun.

We talked about nothing and everything. I told him about some of my new friends in Gandy, about my job at the hardware store, and he told me about a couple of trips he and Min He were planning in the fall. And we talked about my mother. If he
wondered why I was suddenly willing to talk about her, he never asked. We spent hours discussing her; I told him as many stories as I could remember from before he met her, and he told me a few about the two of them I'd never heard before. We brought her back to life that week. She lived in our conversations as powerfully as if she'd been sitting in the room with us.

T
he morning before I left, I asked Queeg if we could leave early and go to breakfast before going to the airport. As soon as we sat down in the sticky booth, I told the waitress that we were in a hurry and she did a good job making it quick. Since Queeg was the sort of person who liked to arrive at the airport extra early, he didn't make much of my request for speed, but when I asked for a to-go box and loaded up my uneaten sausage and a couple of biscuits left in the basket on the table, Queeg raised a brow. I suspect he was wondering if I really planned to take leftover biscuits and sausage through security at the airport, but he didn't say a thing. He's known me for a long time. He was used to me and my steady drip of bad ideas.

Queeg pulled out of the diner parking lot, heading east, and before long there were signs for Highway 30. When we got to the turnoff, I said, “Go south.”

“The airport's north,” he said.

“I thought we could stop by the beach.”

He glanced at his watch, frowning.

“We'll have plenty of time if you'll at least drive the speed limit.”

“I'm going plenty fast.”

“Are you kidding me?” I laughed. “You drive like a turtle.”

“What animal would you prefer?

“I don't know,” I replied. “A cheetah. A greyhound . . .”

“A rabbit?”

“Sure.”

He smiled and shook his head.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he replied, grinning. And then he put on his blinker, and we crawled onto the exit for 30 South.

I
t was only nine in the morning but there were already families arriving, staking their claims. At the far end of the beach, a man helped a little boy fly a kite, and a lady was jogging, a wet, sandy golden retriever trotting behind. Queeg and I left our shoes in the car and walked out to the water's edge.

We stood there for a minute, looking out at the horizon. I don't know how often he had come to Fort Pickens but that was the first time I'd been since that Christmas morning with Queeg, when he told me that this was where he'd laid my mother to rest.

“Hey, Captain?”

“Yeah, sweetheart?” he answered, still looking out to sea.

“The tortoise and the hare,” I said.

He turned to look at me and laughed. “That took you awhile.”

I was laughing, too. “Slow and steady wins the race.”

“Haste makes waste,” he added.

I don't know if they recognized the Styrofoam box I carried, or if they smelled the sausage somehow, but while we stood there the gulls had been gathering, wheeling above us, calling out, hopeful. I opened the box, divided the contents and held out half to Queeg.

He sighed, grumbling, as always, about the flying rats, but he reached out and took the food from my open hand.

And then we swung our arms in tandem, rising to our toes, tossing one scrap after another straight up into the hot July air.
And the gulls cried out to one another as they circled and dove, circled and dove, again and again, accepting each humble offering.

Q
ueeg and I kept in close touch the rest of that summer. Sometimes he'd call, but usually I'd be the one to call him, and that was a change for us. Although we played our customary roles—I'd tease, he'd laugh, he'd offer advice, I'd ignore it—I think both of us understood why I called so often. I was worried about him.

And then, early in the morning on the last day of August, I got a call from Queeg's number, but when I picked up, it was Min He on his phone. She was talking fast and crying, and I struggled to make sense of her words. But I heard her say Queeg's name, and then she said
sorry
, and I knew he was gone.

It was Labor Day weekend and hard to get a flight, but I shouldn't have worried. In the three days between her phone call and my arrival, Min He had taken care of everything—the obituary had been published, the death certificates ordered, and she had even, in accordance with his wishes to not be embalmed, already had Queeg cremated. He was waiting for me in a plastic box sitting on his kitchen counter. It was early evening when I arrived, and Min He invited me to her trailer for dinner. She wasn't exactly what I would call friendly, but I appreciated what she was doing. She was helping me because Queeg would have wanted her to. In the end, it was our love for him that mattered to us both.

I turned down her offer of her sofa bed, and asked instead for a key to Queeg's trailer. On the way from her trailer to his, I stopped by the metal table and chairs and sat down. It was much warmer than it had been when I'd last sat at this table with Queeg, but the damp air and the smell of the salt water felt the same, and when I closed my eyes I could still hear the gulls.

After the small memorial service, attended mainly by other
elderly residents of Two Pines, I drove Queeg's car to his attorney's office. The will was simple: there wasn't much, but it was mine. Perhaps the biopsy scare in June had gotten him thinking about his mortality because he'd sold the house—the one he'd lived in with us, then rented out, first to my mother and then after her death to other tenants. And he'd sold his trailer to Min He. Once I took what I wanted of Queeg's belongings, she planned to move it to the other side of the park to replace one of the old rentals. The thought of his trailer ending up back there, where we all began, still makes me smile.

Once everything was settled, I ended up with his white Toyota and almost ten thousand dollars. I signed a bunch of papers, one of which gave his attorney the right to act in my behalf regarding the estate. Once the death certificates were issued, the attorney would transfer funds, charge a small fee—it was all good. As I was leaving I asked the lawyer if when it was settled, he could please cut a check to Min He for $200. He agreed without even asking me why.

So I drove the Toyota back with Queeg's ashes buckled in the passenger seat. The trip from Pensacola to Gandy is only thirteen hours with a functioning transmission. But they were a long thirteen hours.

Right now Queeg sits on a shelf in the closet. The remaining tiny snow globe bird is sitting there, too, on top of Queeg's box. Sometime after the baby is born and I'm flying solo again, I'll drive Queeg back to Florida and take him out to Fort Pickens. I'm going to put him and that little white bird to rest in the sea with my mother. I'm going to invite Min He. I think she'll come.