Page 96 of Atmosphere

“You know, my friend Eileen has an airfield outside of Miami. Sometimes she uses her client’s Hawker 400 and takes her partner, Jacqueline, down to Costa Rica. Maybe we could do that one day. Hitch a ride with them.”

“Or borrow a plane and you can fly us.”

“Well, it’s funny you should say that…”

“Are you going to fly us somewhere?”

“Would you like that?”

“I want to watch you do it. I’ve never gotten to fly with you piloting before. To watch you up close. I want to see it.”

“Well, I know we don’t have enough time to take a big trip at the moment. But I had a more manageable idea.”

“Tell me.”

Vanessa smiled. “In a little over a month it’s going to be Labor Day weekend.”

Joan’s heart throbbed.

“Last year, at that time…we went to Rockport.”

“Yes, we did,” Joan said.

“And it was great.”

“Yes, it was.”

“And I thought maybe to commemorate that, I could take you out to dinner.”

“Okay,” Joan said. “Labor Day weekend, take me out to dinner.”

“But not just anywhere, obviously.”

Joan copied her tone, smiling at her. “Well, obviously, it’s an important dinner.”

She laughed. “What if I flew you to Glacier Park in Montana, and we ate under the stars?”

“What if we did, Vanessa Ford?” Joan said. She could not contain the smile that was erupting across her face. “What if we did!”

—

Vanessa flew a plane likeshe drove her car. Quiet, focused, and confident. There was an ease about the way she moved the controller.

They were flying over Big Bend National Park and Joan had her forehead against the window, looking at the immenseness of the mountain range below.

“I love it up here,” Joan said. “I don’t know how I spent so much of my life down there, quite frankly. What a chump I was.”

Vanessa laughed. “Sometimes, with both feet on the ground I feel lost,” she said. “Does that make any sense?”

“Of course it does,” Joan said.

“I find it easier up here. It’s quieter, there’s less people. I can be myself in a way that I’m not sure I can down there.”

Joan nodded. “That makes a lot of sense.”

“But I think I also find flying to be really…hopeful.”

“Hopeful?”

---