Blue Skies

  So she had said to Nikki, “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry! I can’t! I have…ah…I have to go to my neighbor’s house. They’re welcoming me to the neighborhood. Isn’t that nice?”

  “Which neighbors?”

  “On the left. You know. That two-story.”

  “Oh. What’s their names?”

  “Um. Johnson? Jacobson? God, I can’t remember. Barb and John, I think. But I’ll get acquainted and tell you all about it tomorrow. Sorry, Nick.”

  “Maybe you could come over after? For a coffee? Say hello to Opal and show her what you’re wearing?”

  “Huh?”

  “She just loves your clothes. You know Opal. Deep.”

  “Oh,” Dixie said with a laugh. “I think I’d better pass. My boss has been working me to death and I’m tired. Tell your mom I’ll see her tomorrow, or at least on the weekend. And thanks for the invitation.” The doorbell rang. “Oops, there’s the doorbell. Probably some school kid selling something. Have a nice dinner.”

  “You, too,” Nikki said.

  Dixie put down the phone and hurried to the door. Danny stood there, flowers in one hand and wine in the other. “Welcoming committee,” he said.

  “You’re too sweet! You shouldn’t have!”

  “You’re cooking,” he said. “Of course I should have.”

  “You’re right, you should have. But I owe you big time. You’ve been such a great…” She looked for the right words. She didn’t want him to turn and run. He could be so easygoing and fun, then so shy and kind of withdrawn. “Support system,” she decided. “Here, let’s put these in water and let the wine breathe.”

  Dixie felt at a complete loss. She was used to being pursued, and now she found she had very little talent for pursuing.

  Danny looked around and whistled in appreciation. Pictures on the walls, books on the shelves, photos and potted plants in place. “You’ve been in here, what, less than two weeks, worked full-time and got all this done?”

  “And helped look after April and Jared, Nikki’s kids, when I was the only one around. Let me open this wine and then I’ll show you the rest.”

  The rest was a perfect little house for a single woman. Three bedrooms, one of them a large master with adjoining bath, and another made into another den for her desk and computer. There was a living room with fireplace, a dining room, kitchen and nook. The backyard was very small with what was known as a “spool” sunk into the ground at one end—a little bigger than a spa, a little smaller than a pool.

  As they passed by the dining room on this short tour, Danny noted that the table was set formally, with candles. After Dixie had arranged the flowers he’d brought, she’d added them to the table. Now she settled him in the living room with a glass of the merlot he’d brought, along with some hors d’oeuvres she’d prepared.

  “Dinner’s ready, but there’s no rush,” she said.

  So they talked, which was something they’d been doing, their conversations growing and becoming more and more personal. After that day Danny caught her hiding in the conference room crying, he’d started giving her a call to see how she was doing. He’d usually open the conversation by asking her if she’d heard any gossip about new planes lately.

  When he went off to Phoenix for training, he’d called every day. He’d give one excuse or another, asking for airline news or the number of calls from potential new hires, but after that sixty seconds of conversation they would talk about each other’s lives. And histories. For hours.

  A couple of times she’d called him. And she hadn’t used any excuses. She just said, Hi, and, How’s it going down there, we miss you up here.

  By now he knew how Dixie and Nikki had become friends, that Dixie was the youngest in her family, and her brother and sister were quite a bit older. He knew her family were all overachievers and she had very little interest in such intellectual pursuits. “I would teach school, if I had the chance,” she said. “But that has more to do with my love of children than a career goal.”

  And Danny had told her about his life, dull though he thought it was. High school, college, his degree in business for no particular reason—something to do while he pursued flying, his first love. He’d lost his father very young and his mother just a few years ago. No, there had never been any serious women.

  “I find that so unbelievable,” she said over dinner. “I would have thought you’d have been married or at least had a long-term relationship.”

  “Why would you think so?”

  “You’re so sensitive. So easy to talk to. So…I don’t know. Charming?”

  “Dixie,” he said, “you’re the one who’s easy to talk to. You’re so guileless and open that you bring out the best in others and make them seem charming. But it’s you.”

  “Oh, don’t be so self-effacing,” she chided. “You know you’re charming. And funny. When you’re not being tremendously kind and serious, you’re hilarious.”

  “What about you? You should be married….”

  “That was my plan,” she said. “Now I finally realize how stupid that was as a goal.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “You have to plan a life and fit your relationships into it. You can’t just plan to have relationships. I’ve wanted to be married since forever. It was the first thing I thought about when I started seein’ a man. No wonder I kept getting’ hurt. I probably ran them off.”

  Of course she knew better; you couldn’t run off a married man. Her problem was that in her desperation to find the right guy, she could make herself believe that every guy who seduced her was The One. She never looked at their motives carefully enough.

  “But you should be able to want something like that,” Danny said. “Marriage and children. It shouldn’t be considered old-fashioned to have that ideal as a dream.”

  She looked at him through the candlelight and just smiled. “See what I mean, Danny? That’s so sweet. I’m amazed no one has caught you.”

  Finally, Danny learned that Dixie had come to this town, this job, to get away from the life that had so disappointed her. One of the first things she told him about herself was that she was taking a hiatus from men, from dating, from the whole circus it had become. She was going to think about herself for a while.

  He was glad of that. It gave him this chance to be her friend. He’d never aspire to be her partner, but their friendship was bringing him more happiness than he’d had in years.

  They cleaned up the dishes together, and then with decaf and dessert, talked late into the evening. It was midnight before he finally said, “I’d better go and let you get some sleep.”

  “Yeah, I promised Nikki I’d go over to her house tomorrow and say hello to her mother, who’s visiting.”

  “And I’m going to drop by the office,” he told her. “See if I can get a little work done. The simulator put me way behind.” She walked him to the door. “Dinner was awesome, Dixie. You’re an incredible cook.”

  “We’ll do it again. Very soon.”

  “You have to let me take you out to dinner first.”

  “I accept!” she said enthusiastically.

  He gave her a little peck on the cheek, turned quickly and went down the walk to his car. She stood in the doorway and watched him go, lifting her hand to wave.

  I wonder, she thought. Will he ever be attracted to me as more than just a friend?

  Nikki left the office a little early on Friday. She went to the small municipal airport in Henderson to await Buck’s arrival. You could set a watch by Buck, he was such a creature of habit. Four-thirty on the nose, the Cessna 310 lined up for landing. He bounced around in the wind but put her down nicely, taxied in and cut the engines.

  Before he got out, he reached around behind him and opened the kennel door, letting Pistol loose. Then the two of them deplaned and tied the plane down.

  Pistol didn’t wait. When he caught sight of Nikki, his short little legs wound up and he charged toward the fixed-base office. She bent down and scooped hi
m up. “Hey, Pistol. How was your flight?”

  He answered by licking her face.

  “Well, to what do I owe this special honor?” he asked.

  “Opal is here,” she said. “She’s at my house.”

  Surprise registered on Buck’s face, much to Nikki’s relief.

  “So. You didn’t know.”

  “No. Should I have known?”

  “She said you two talk. That you’ve always talked. She knew you came up every weekend.”

  “Aw, Jesus,” he groaned. “That isn’t exactly so.”

  “Well? Do you or don’t you? Talk? Because I have a few other questions.”

  “Nikki…”

  “She drives me crazy, Dad. Now, if you two have some relationship that—”

  “Let’s just get a cup of coffee,” he relented. On the patio at Starbucks, where Pistol was welcome as long as he behaved, Nikki had a latte and Buck had his straight. “What can of worms has Opal opened now?” he asked.

  “Let’s start with her showing up, unannounced, with her suitcase, as though we should all have been expecting her. And acting as though she’s just part of one big happy family. And talking as if she has this chummy little relationship with you, and—”

  “I imagine she thinks she does,” he said, exasperated. “When she was nineteen, I found that quality so adorable.” He made a grunting noise. “It’s like this, Nick. She calls whenever she wants something, but she never asks for anything. The calls have come more often since Mayer died and she’s alone, and I have to admit, I let her talk without paying much attention to what she’s saying. Now and then I’ll even nod off, but that’s never really bothered Opal.

  “She does things and then makes out like it was your idea. She shows up and has fourteen reasons why you invited her and should have been expecting her. She talks too much, she’s meddlesome, and she exaggerates the truth….”

  “She lies!”

  “She isn’t a malicious liar. Like her saying we talk all the time. It’s not a malicious lie, because for her, all the time is whenever she wants to—but I’ve called her three times. When the kids were born and when Drake died.”

  “Really?” she asked, strangely mollified.

  “What’s got your undies all in a knot about this?” he asked.

  “God,” she said, annoyed. “Everything.” And nothing. There was nothing any different about Opal’s behavior now than during Nikki’s entire life. “If we had something a little harder than this coffee, it would be easier to articulate. She ran out on us, Dad. She left us but she won’t stay away. She keeps showing up to criticize and manipulate, and annoy the shit out of me. She calls Carlisle that charming young homosexual—”

  “I call him Tinkerbell.”

  “But you do that with affection, and he knows it.”

  “Has he complained about Opal calling him that?”

  She didn’t answer because the answer was no. “Why am I the only one who is completely bent out of shape by her?”

  “She annoys everyone, Nick, but you just cave in and let it drive you crazy.”

  “She complimented my taste and style when she saw the new house, but has she said one goddamn word about me being the chief pilot of an airline?”

  Her dad leaned toward her. “You think she has any idea what the chief pilot of an airline is?”

  Well, there. Of course not. Besides all the annoying things Opal was, she was also somewhat simple-minded. “What am I supposed to do with her?”

  “Let her stay awhile and spend some money on April and Jared. Don’t let her get too comfortable. She’ll get bored soon and go home where there’s bridge and mahjongg, her friends and shopping.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And I’ll be staying at the Station Casino right down the street. A little bit of Opal goes a long way.”

  She glared at him for a moment.

  “I’ll come to dinner and drop off Pistol for Jared. I’m a good sport, but I’m not crazy.”

  Fourteen

  Crucial to NCA’s certification was the flight attendants’ mini-evacuation, which would be timed and evaluated by the FAA. It took place after training was completed and before the pilots started their proving flights, and was one of the final hurdles before the airline could take on passengers.

  The test was done at night, and the purpose was to ensure that any group of randomly chosen flight attendants could find unblocked aircraft doors in the dark and blow the slides for passenger evacuation. The FAA required that all the flight attendants who had been hired and trained in the first class gather at dusk in a prear-ranged area at the airport. Two pilots, also evaluated by the FAA, would bring one of New Century’s 757s to the designated place, out of the range of airport ground traffic. The FAA would draw names to select four flight attendants from the gathering to board the aircraft, go through their checklists and do their demonstrations with safety cards, seat belts and oxygen masks, just as if this were a typical commercial flight full of paying passengers. They would secure the doors to close up the aircraft and take their seats. The pilots would likewise simulate a takeoff by doing all of their preflight work.

  The FAA inspectors would then take their places—two would already be in the cockpit examining the pilots’ performances, and eight positioned themselves in the cabin, one by each of the 757s exit doors. The inspectors each had a large peel-and-stick circle—four white, signifying an unblocked door, and four black, for a simulated blocked exit. When the pilots shut the engines down and killed the lights, simulating an emergency requiring an evacuation, each inspector would slap a sticker on his exit. With the aid of the emergency flashlights and floorboard running lights, the flight attendants had to find four unblocked doors, open them—not the easiest thing to do quickly—and blow the slides.

  All in eleven seconds.

  It was something of a tradition among start-up airlines for the entire employee group to show up for the event, and NCA was no exception. There was a carnivallike atmosphere in the air, and despite the fact that security was heavy, people arrived in droves, electric with anticipation. Nikki brought the kids, Carlisle was in town and wouldn’t miss it, and thankfully Opal could care less. The sun had not yet set when the crowd began to gather on the far side of the airport between two hangars.

  Some sixty flight attendants, dressed casually in jeans or sweatsuits and tennis shoes, were broken up into smaller groups, where they grilled one another on checklists, demo speeches and emergency procedure. They ranged in age from twenty-one-year-old kids with no previous airline experience to fifty-year-old, seasoned flight attendants furloughed from other carriers. The groups would occasionally burst into a cheer, not unlike team huddles at championship football games.

  The stakes were high. This test had to be passed, no matter how many times it took, and if the slides were blown, but the task exceeded the time limit, the cost of repacking them was four to five thousand dollars each, and couldn’t be done quickly. Twenty thousand dollars and another day delay for each failure.

  Nikki noticed that many of the pilots were present, including all her movers, Ken, Jeff and Sam. Dixie found them and joined the group, as did the Wrench, Mark Shows. When Crue arrived with her boys in tow, Nikki waved her over so the kids could be introduced to her two.

  The sun was lowering in the sky as still more people arrived. A group of FAA inspectors gathered and stood in a tight knot at the edge of the gathering.

  “Why aren’t you bringing the plane over, boss?” Jeff asked.

  “Danny and Eric are doing the honors. I wanted to be out here with my own stopwatch and my kids. They’ve never seen one of these mini-evacs.”

  “What about the inaugural flight?” Sam asked.

  “I’m doing that, with Danny as copilot, and these two in the back.” She put an arm around each of her kids. “I didn’t do this alone. April and Jared have really made it possible.”

  Someone shouted, “Here comes the plane!”

  Lumbering
across the ramp, its new paint job shining in the dusk, the rotating beacons, wing and taxi lights bouncing brightly along, the 757 approached—forty-four feet high and one hundred fifty-five feet long, able to hold as many as one hundred and ninety-five passengers. The cheers that rose from the crowd were loud and proud.

  Nikki cheered, as well, but for her, the greatest charge of excitement came from being with these people, the starters, all gathered in one place, rooting for the airline’s success. She felt a huge swell of emotion in her breast that she’d never experienced before. Even Crue, usually so reserved, was jumping up and down, hooting in excitement.

  “God, this is amazing,” Sam said, and Nikki realized he was standing beside her. She wanted to grab on to him, but resisted.

  “It’s infectious, isn’t it?” she said. “Indescribable, really.”

  He bent a little so that his head was at Jared’s level. “I’ve never seen anything like this, either. Pretty awesome.”

  “After they blow the slides, we can get on the airplane and go down ’em,” Jared informed him. “They’ll be thirteen feet from the ground. I can’t wait.”

  “The only way I’m going down one of those slides is if there’s an engine fire,” April said.

  Sam traded glances with Nikki. Jared knew every detail about this plane and many others. He was already flying with his papa. April knew her share, but the details of the plane were not nearly as important to her as, say, what the flight attendants would be wearing.

  “Hey, look who’s slumming,” Dixie said, sidling up to Nikki.

  Nikki glanced over to find Joe Riordan mingling with the troops, and beside him, in boots and rather snug jeans, was Jewel. She also wore something else they never saw much of—a smile. Not a big smile, but nonetheless…

  Before the airplane stopped and the chocks were placed behind the wheels, the first flight attendant was chosen—a female who looked to be in her thirties. Nikki hoped that meant she was experienced. The next was a young man who jumped around in a Rocky imitation to the cheers of his peers. Then came a very young woman, who was immediately enveloped in a group hug. And finally, a woman who was surely tipping the calendar at fifty and might even be the oldest new hire they had. She must have been laid off from another airline and very experienced, because at her selection, wild cheering rose up, as if she was their ringer.