“But if you can’t get a job flying,” she said, “maybe you keep your airport office job, work on your hours and your degree, but do it more slowly, as you save up your money. You don’t have to get that license the day you turn twenty-three.”
“True.” But if I didn’t get it at twenty-three, I would never get it. That life was too hard, always looking to the future and never living in the now, saving for an impossible goal. Thirty years later I would still be working in the airport office for minimum wage. There would be a rumor that I had been a pilot once, but most people wouldn’t believe it, looking at me.
“Yeah, I understand now,” Molly said.
Really?
“Maybe Alec and Grayson’s company won’t go under like you so gleefully expect,” she said, “and you can keep your job with them for a long time.”
“And continue to be the airport whore.”
“It’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it.”
We’d reached the beginning of the motels. Because we were still on the flophouse end of Heaven Beach, the signs out front boasted ridiculously low room rates, and the pools were small and stained and green.
I said, “Tell me the rest of your story, which is not nearly as interesting as my story. You finally connected with a guy at the café, and he had to go to bed. Aw.”
“Aw.” She poked out her bottom lip sympathetically.
“Will you see him again?”
She took in a slow breath and exhaled before she spoke, as if considering her answer. Which was not like her. “I think he’s going to be really busy this week.”
“But you were all excited about him a few minutes ago. You drove over to my mansion at eleven o’clock at night to tell me about him.” As I uttered the words, I realized they probably weren’t true. Maybe the boy didn’t even exist. Molly always had an excuse like this—she had to see me so she could tell me about a cute boy, or a dorky thing her mom had done, or something she’d seen on TV—but a lot of times when she came over, she was really checking on me, or getting me out of the trailer for a little while. Or casually driving me back to the café and feeding me, as if I didn’t know what was going on. I played along.
“I was excited about him,” she said, “but he seems awfully vanilla next to your whore story.”
“He does. Let’s trade places.” Now I was the one speaking before I thought. I sounded ungrateful and jealous and bitter. Which I was, but nobody wanted to hear that. I opened my mouth, thinking hard, forming a genuine apology.
She opened the console between us, brought out a white paper bag, and set it in my lap. “Warm chocolate croissant.”
“Oh!” My cry of ecstasy at a pastry was so heartfelt and genuine that I burst into laughter.
She glanced over at me with her eyebrows raised like she was worried about my sanity.
“Shut up.” I tore off a big bite of flaky croissant filled with gooey chocolate sauce and stuffed it into her mouth, purposefully smearing it across her cheek. “Mmph,” was all she said. Her mouth was full, and her dad’s chocolate croissants were that good.
And we were right to silence each other with food. It was better that we never apologized to each other. Then we’d be admitting that we were wrong and we owed each other something. That’s where people got into trouble.
“Look, genuine whores.” She nodded out the window at a couple of teenage girls crossing the street in front of us, both with bad blond dye jobs, both in ill-fitting, low-cut T-shirt dresses exposing the real or fake tattoos on their chests. One girl wore cheap heels and one was barefoot.
“How do you end up like that?” Molly asked me, not the whores.
I didn’t know whether they were really whores. There were plenty of whores on this end of town. But there were also lots of trailer park girls from farther inland, vacationing at the beach. Those girls and the whores looked about the same. Peering at these specimens, I decided they were tourists because they seemed happy.
As Molly pulled through the intersection, I changed my mind. The girls had reached the corner and were shouting at cars.
Talk about trading places. I wouldn’t even be trading if I were in those girls’ place. I would be taking a very small step. A girl ended up like that by growing up like me. She made the mistake of tangling with the other people around her. And she never ducked through that fence to the airport.
Not that it seemed to be doing me much good at the moment. I’d resisted working for Grayson. I was alarmed at being blackmailed. I resented having to throw myself at Alec. Yet in the end, I’d given in, hadn’t I? I wasn’t much better than those streetwalkers.
But the thought of reporting to the Hall Aviation hangar in the morning sent a little thrill through me. I would fly again for the first time in two months. Such a rush! I would get involved in Grayson and Alec’s game with each other. It was like starring on a TV reality show where I’d probably be publicly humiliated—but that was better than watching the show on TV at home, or not being able to watch it at all when the TV went missing and the trailer fell silent.
And I would see Grayson again. He needed me. He was using me. He didn’t have a crush on me, yet I could still feel his hand on my knee. Watching the whores shrink in the side mirror as Molly sped down the street, I put my own hand on my knee and rubbed my thumb back and forth, feeling that rush all over again.
six
I concentrated on that rush of feeling, relying on it to push me along, step by step, up the path through the trailer park, into the orange sunlight of early morning, across the long, wet grass that stuck black seeds to my ankles. I would see Grayson. I would fly a plane. Those were reasons to keep walking toward Hall Aviation and the beginning of my charade with Alec.
I’d fretted over what to wear: something innocent that Alec would like? He probably dated cheerleaders who wore pink and slept with teddy bears. Or something super-whorelike to make an ironic point to Grayson? At the tail end of fifteen minutes of trying on clothes, then standing on the toilet and leaning way over to see my torso in the mirror above the sink, I decided I’d better not risk angering Grayson and driving him to spill everything to my mom. I’d worn what I would have worn if everything were normal, everybody were still alive, and I was working for Mr. Hall instead of his son. Admittedly, hmmm, this was kind of whorelike after all, short shorts with a sexy cropped T-shirt cut to fit loose, which I would take off in the plane to reveal my bikini top underneath. The plane wasn’t air-conditioned, and the cockpit would heat to a hundred degrees up near the sun.
Where the tarmac started, I veered toward the pavement to step out of the cold grass. Huge hangars sat to my left, one of which was Mr. Simon’s. I passed it warily, looking through the vast doorway while trying not to look like I was looking. I didn’t want another confrontation with Mark this morning—or ever. Men shifted inside the hangar, but I didn’t recognize Mark’s quick movements. I doubted he could have made it in this early if he’d continued the bender he’d been on last night.
Recalling all the shit I’d been through in the past week with him, in a sex-for-flying exchange I hadn’t fully understood, I decided I couldn’t do this all over again with Grayson and Alec. Yet I kept walking, my flip-flops trailing dew across the asphalt embedded with white shells. I needed to lose these cold feet before I reached the Hall Aviation hangar. I didn’t want to flirt with Alec. He was crazy handsome, but I’d never been attracted to him like I had to Grayson, and the thought of flirting with him made my stomach hurt. I reminded myself I hadn’t flown in two months, and my whole future as a pilot was on the line.
As I passed the airport office, I picked up my pace. The yellow Piper already sat on the tarmac in front of Hall Aviation. The small side door and the wide front doors of the hangar were open to the morning, and the strange beat of alt-rock spilled out. I’d always kept my eyes and ears open when I went into the hangar and the boys were there. They played interesting music, wore T-shirts for bands I’d never heard of, and read books t
hat were making the rounds at their high school but would never travel as far as Heaven Beach. I felt silly for looking up to the boys. They were from Wilmington, not New York City. I was from the armpit of the tourist industry, though, and it was all in your perspective. I kept my eyes and ears open around Molly for much the same reason. Her old friends in Atlanta were always clueing her in on the latest. She still was not as cool as these boys.
I stepped through the side door, on high alert. But the boys both sat in lawn chairs in front of the red Piper and had their heads bent to breakfast in boxes on their laps. I felt a pang of jealousy mixed with hunger, all one and the same for me when I hadn’t eaten breakfast. With the prospect of Alec asking me out on a date that night but no iron-clad plans for dinner or a ride into town, I’d carefully hoarded the Chinese leftovers. I dared not waste them by gorging myself on them for breakfast.
“Heeeeeeey!” I called in a parody of some girl who was not being blackmailed and was naturally sweet and gave a shit about other people. I walked toward Alec and put my arms out.
Startled, he set his breakfast aside on a nearby tool bench and stood to hug me. He was just as handsome as I remembered him, his hair bright blond, his face round and friendly. He didn’t beam at me, exactly, but the default setting on his face was a half-smile, and he managed that for me. “Hey, Leah!” he exclaimed, wrapping both arms around me and squeezing briefly. “Long time no see.”
Then I turned to Grayson, who wore his shades and straw cowboy hat in the gentle light of morning. I didn’t want to hug him or touch him. I was angry at him for manipulating me. But in that moment, it seemed strange to hug Alec and not him, especially when Alec must know Grayson and I had talked recently. How else would Grayson have hired me? I prompted Grayson, “Heeeeeeey!”
He looked up at me without moving his head. For a split second he glared at me over his sunglasses.
Then he set his breakfast aside too and stood. “Heeeeeeey!” he replied in an unenthusiastic imitation, more resigned than sarcastic. He came in for a hug and slid his hand very slowly across my bare waist where my T-shirt rode up.
His hand trailed heat and seemed to take forever, though its passage across my skin was one motion with his body coming closer, moving in for the hug. His other arm curved around my back, and he brought me in tight within his arms for a fraction of a second before letting me go. He backed into his chair again and picked up his breakfast.
As an afterthought, he slid another takeout box from a table, handed it to me, and gestured for me to take a seat on the empty sofa.
And I was still standing there, dazed, wondering what the difference had been between Grayson’s hug and Alec’s, and fighting my attraction for the boy who meant to sabotage me.
I eased down very carefully onto the sofa. I’d always been wary of it because dust rose when anyone touched it. The boys and Mr. Hall had never seemed to give it much thought, probably because fifteen years ago, way before the divorce, when they all lived here in Heaven Beach together, it was in their den. Only after I’d sat down did I notice the logo on the takeout box in my hands. “Oh! This is from my friend Molly’s parents’ café. Do you guys know Molly?”
Grayson shook his head without looking at me.
“Tall? Auburn hair? Probably some inappropriate glitter on her face at seven in the morning?”
Alec shook his head without looking at me.
Giving up, I opened the box, and oh, a ham-and-egg biscuit waited inside with a cup of cold fruit and a warm chocolate croissant. To have been so hungry and so bereft while walking across the tarmac, and now to be presented with Molly’s dad’s warm chocolate croissant, not as warm as the one in Molly’s car last night but still flaky and gooey enough… it was so good that I knew something bad was about to happen.
I gazed at Grayson in his lawn chair and tried to catch his eye to thank him for the food, but he was absorbed in his own croissant.
I dug into my breakfast before my reverence got weird, like I was at church. “I’m so excited about flying!” I exclaimed between bites. “I haven’t flown in a while.”
Both boys stopped chewing and looked up at me. I hadn’t mentioned Mr. Hall’s death. I hadn’t needed to. For the past two months I’d gotten used to walking around in my own space, where I was the only person who had known Mr. Hall and missed him. But when I’d stepped into the hangar, I’d entered an alternate universe where other people were thinking exactly like me.
If Alec was going to be convinced to ask me out, I needed help out of this awkward situation. I thought Grayson would help me—interject a comment, something. But he just stood and wandered into Mr. Hall’s little office in the corner.
After chewing and swallowing, Alec finally said, “I hadn’t flown in a while, either. I took one of the Pipers up last night and flew some banner practice runs, just to make sure I could still do it.”
“I heard you,” I said. Then I wished I hadn’t said this, because I was reminding him that I lived in the trailer park.
This time Grayson did rescue me. He came back from the office, handed me a clipboard with forms attached, sank down into his lawn chair, and took a long sip from a large paper coffee cup with his eyes closed.
I looked down at the W-4. “You’re taking out taxes?” I couldn’t hide the dismay in my voice. As a pilot, I’d be making three times as much per hour as I’d made when I was the airport gofer. In my mind I was already socking that money away without giving up a fourth of it in taxes.
“Surprise. It’s the law,” Grayson said, picking up his takeout box again.
“I know,” I said. “I just—”
“Didn’t think I was smart enough to figure out how to withhold taxes?”
I couldn’t believe he was picking a fight with me when he’d said he wanted me to go out with Alec. But he was looking at me very intentionally with angry accusations in his gray eyes.
I muttered, “Didn’t think you’d bother.” I tore off a big hunk of my chocolate croissant and stuffed it into my mouth, half-afraid he would take my breakfast away.
Alec tried to ease the tension this time. “Grayson’s been studying the taxes. Reading a book on business tax law for idiots. They make a great pair.” He slapped Grayson on the back.
Grayson grimaced. At first I thought Alec had slapped him so hard it hurt—but even if he had, Grayson wouldn’t have shown pain. These boys didn’t play that way.
Then I realized Grayson was showing a sort of pain. It wasn’t the slap on the back but Alec’s words that had hurt him. Alec had implied that Grayson was an idiot and irresponsible. Grayson would have embraced this characterization five months ago if it had gotten him out of a chore for Mr. Hall. And now it hurt.
When Grayson didn’t laugh or slap Alec back, Alec leaned forward and looked up into Grayson’s face, trying to meet his eyes. Suddenly Alec gave up. “I’ll ask Zeke if he needs help with the banners and then get going.” He rose from his lawn chair with the default smile on his face. “I’ll see y’all at break.”
My mouth was stuffed full. I swallowed quickly. “Bye, Alec!” I called brightly, but by then he’d disappeared through the wide door facing the runway. I turned to Grayson. “That was not successful,” I said quietly. “You’re not helping.”
He glared at me. “What do you want me to do? Get you a room?”
I was on the edge of standing up, throwing my half-eaten breakfast in the garbage, and stomping out of the hangar. To hell with Grayson, and Alec, and my career as a pilot, and food. I could swallow a lot of insults, but not directly to my face. That was too much like a threat, and it called for an immediate reaction, like someone kicking in my trailer door.
Seeing the look on my face, he widened his gray eyes at me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
“Then you need to get more,” I said, “and stop insulting me for doing what you are making me do.”
“You’re right,” he grumbled. “I meant t
o say that I don’t expect him to jump you the first time you walk into the hangar. It might take a few days for him to ask you out. A few hours, at least. Possibly in a more romantic setting that doesn’t smell this strongly of avgas.” He took another bite, proving that the smell of fuel didn’t bother him any more than it bothered me, then nodded to my breakfast. “After you finish, you can take the orange Piper up. Fly for about two hours and then come in for a break.”
“I might not need one that soon,” I said. I wasn’t sucking down coffee like Grayson was, and I was used to spending hours in an airplane without a pee.
“Take one anyway.” Grayson’s voice rose like he was angry at me for talking back.
I swallowed my resentment along with my biscuit. Mr. Hall would have kept tight control over me when I came to work for him too. But Grayson was not Mr. Hall. Grayson didn’t know this job much better than I did.
“Remember,” he said, “in an emergency, drop the banner over an unpopulated area. What matters most is,” he touched his thumb, “other people,” he touched his pointer finger, “you.”
“Then the airplane, then the banner,” I finished for him. “I know, Grayson. You and I learned this at the same time. You don’t have to repeat it to me.”
He squeezed the armrest of his lawn chair so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “If I don’t repeat it, who’s going to?”
The hangar wasn’t empty. It contained the lawn chairs, the sofa, lots of filing cabinets and worktables and equipment, the red Piper, the orange Piper, and the white four-seater Cessna. But the hangar seemed huge and empty as Grayson’s voice rang against the metal walls. Any other time in the past three and a half years, I would have known he was imitating Mr. Hall. Now I knew he wasn’t. As my skin went cold, I wondered whether he heard how much he sounded like his dead father.
An engine started just outside the hangar, Alec in the yellow Piper, taxiing away. That loud rumble canceled out Grayson’s echoing voice. Grayson talked over the noise. “Nobody can crash this week, do you understand? If anybody crashes, all of this is for nothing. You can complain, Leah, but at some point—at this point—I am in charge, I am blackmailing you, and shut up.” His gray eyes were narrow and his jaw was set. He’d backed down and apologized to me after his comment about getting a room. He wasn’t backing down this time.