Jim had a grin from ear to ear. Holding the plane steady in level cruise, he asked her, "How was that?"
Lourdes laughed.
"Okay." Jim did another one, only this time faster.
Nose up. Weightless. The planet rotated around them in a fast 360: up over their left wing, way overhead, then down below the right wing.
Lourdes laughed harder.
Still doing 165 knots, Jim pushed the throttle in all the way for a loop-and Lourdes watched Planet Earth disappear beneath their nose, everything turning to blue sky ahead, then the sun-
The "G" forces were lighter than Lourdes thought they would be in a loop and credited that to Jim's skill.
Jim closed the throttle a little over the back side of the loop, and Lourdes noticed the planet climb forward over the cockpit to take position beneath the nose again. Where it usually was.
"You're smooth, alright," Lourdes said with a grin.
"I try. So how are you doing?"
"Fine. No problems," Lourdes said.
Jim said, "Okay," and raised the nose, heading straight up for a hammerhead-gravity slowing them, eventually, nearly to a full stop in the air, where he hit his left rudder hard, swinging his tail up over his nose, then diving straight back down at the earth-next carving directly through a barrel roll, then a series of aileron rolls-
Lourdes was on her hands and knees in the grass by Jim's plane heaving, coughing, and spitting.
The guys next door had waited for their return, and they couldn't pass up some ribbing, which didn't help Lourdes deal with it.
"Didn't he keep 'her steady?" one gibed.
"It's alright, honey! Happens to all of us."
"You get used to it, Sweetheart."
Jim tried to defend her. "It was her first time aerobatic." Then to Lourdes, putting a hand on her back while she stared at the grass. "I'm sorry, Lourdes. I think I got carried away."
"Sith spawn!" Lourdes spat. "Darth Invader!"
CHAPTER 14
Lourdes leaned on a water fountain and slowly bent over to let some of the water spray on her face. Jim stood behind her dripping guilt.
They walked slowly toward a group of large tents.
They sat at a table in the Fightertown tent caf?, near the warbirds. It was early for lunch, and most tables were empty, but there may have nonetheless been twenty people in there eating burgers and fries, drinking soda pop.
"I'll be fine. I'm better already," she said, exaggerating.
"I'm glad," Jim said. "Want a warm soda?"
"No. I'll be fine," she said. "It's not the flu. I just have to wait another few minutes until my inner ear slows down. The nausea will disappear."
Jim nodded his understanding. He'd been there, too.
"I'm sorry about throwing up in your plane. I'm sure it'll wash."
"No problem. I'll get to it."
"Was that a transmit button on the stick?"
"Yeah, but I've been thinking of replacing it, anyway. It was sticking."
"Well, it's sticky for sure, now. And I was doing so well, there. Right up until it came on me. All of a sudden-you were so smooth. It's just me." She took a slow breath to steady her insides. "I'd probably be used to it in a day, if we did it again."
"You want to go up again?"
"No!"
"She's a little green?" a guy from the next table said as he got up to leave.
"Yeah," Jim said. "Did some aerobatics just now. Might have gotten carried away."
"Great!" the guy said. "What kind of plane?"
"RV-6."
"Fantastic. I do love those."
"What kind do you fly?" Jim asked the man.
"A P-51 Mustang. That one right over there," he said, pointing.
Jim looked at the man's paint job, even though it was a long way off. "Oooo, I can tell that one is sweet. Have you won any awards?"
"A couple. But now, mostly I just fly it."
"Forever," Jim said.
The man smiled and walked south out the front of the caf?.
"Whew," Lourdes exclaimed. "I'm feeling better. I'm getting over it faster than I thought I would."
"I'm so glad."
Lourdes put both her hands on the table in front of her as if they were on a keyboard, positioning her left hand over the imaginary A, S, and D keys and her right hand over imaginary number keys along the top row.
She looked at him with determination and slapped her right index finger down on the table.
His eyes widened.
She did it again, but this time with her right ring finger as well, followed by the middle finger, then her pinky.
He reached both his hands up onto the table in front of him, and slammed his fingers down in a systematic, repetitive order-one that may have appeared random to a passer-by, but which was in fact calculated to destroy her character.
"No!" Lourdes moved the fingers on her left hand to maneuver her character, and slammed her right-hand fingers down in a smart sequence, hitting what would be a #6 key and a #7, groaning with emphasis, sending Force energy to defeat him.
He looked like he was interested in carrying it on, but Lourdes quit and held still a bit. "I'm not all the way back, yet," she said.
"It's okay," Jim said. "Are you going to be able to eat some lunch? They have burgers-"
"No."
"-and also a nice salad? And maybe a warm soda might be nice?"
"Yes, that'd be fine," she said, thinking it may actually be.
He got up to go get it.
Some folks began trickling in for lunch.
Two older gentlemen who had been lounging at a near-by table spoke to her. "You a little airsick?" one asked.
Lourdes nodded.
"Where'd you fly in from?" he asked.
"L.A.," Lourdes answered. "But it's not that. He just took me up and 'twisted the tail off' his RV, and that did it to me."
"Oh, yeah," the other fellow said. "You've got to get used to it. What do you normally fly?"
"Me? I have a Cessna 150, down in the South Forty."
"Classic," the first man said, getting a nostalgic look on his face. "I soloed in one of those, probably fifty years ago. I could do anything in it."
"What do you fly, now?" Lourdes asked to be social. She didn't feel in the mood, but social convention at an airshow rather required it.
"We have an L-4," the first guy said.
"It's actually his," the second said. "I'm his 'ground crew,' reads: passenger and gofer."
"He helps with it. We're a team," the first said.
"An L-4?" Lourdes thought. "Dark green liaison plane from World War Two? Like a Cub design, right?"
"Yeah," the first said. "And I was in Dubya Dubya Two-Patton's Third Army, infantry-and I always thought it'd be nice to have one."
"Where'd you fly in from?" Lourdes asked. The question was always expected and always genuine.
"Milwaukee," the second said, with a big smile.
"So it only took us a week," said the first, teasing himself about the classic, slow airspeed.
Lourdes smiled for them, feeling better as well.
"I bet it was a beautiful flight," she said.
The men knew what she was referring to, as only other pilots could. "Yes, they both said," nodding. "As nice as seeing you two together, there."
"We've been watching you, thinking 'Oh, how nice,'" the second one said.
"Us?" Lourdes looked at Jim paying at the cash register. "We're not-" She caught herself.
"We just got here, so we got to go clean the bugs off the plane. Airshow stuff, you know. In case 'the general' comes by." The two men got up to leave and smiled broadly at Lourdes all the way out of the caf?.
Jim returned with their food. "And here's a nice salad for you with a little dressing on the side, warm soda," he sat down. "And here's a very calm burger and fries for me, and a bottle of water."
Lourdes looked at him, trying to understand how the two men had seen them. Together. As a couple. You're m
y man? she asked herself.
"Jim, I need to talk."
He smiled. "Love to," he said.
She took a sip of soda and opened the plastic cover on her salad, began to pick at it.
He took a big bite of his burger.
"You know, like, I can see that we're getting to know each other, but you have to know I'm about six shades of messed up these days, and I'm not in a good position to be getting into any relationship."
Jim stopped chewing and talked with his mouth full. "What's the matter?"
Lourdes picked at her salad, thinking.
"I'm coming on too strong?" he said. "I'm sorry. I'll back up." He started to reach out to her hand, but pulled his hand back.
"Just a kiss? No, it's not that. It's not you. Truly, it's me."
She noticed he wasn't eating.
"Eat, please? This isn't that bad a talk."
He began to chew again.
"It's- Didn't you notice I got here all messed up? I fly in here to Oshkosh with no tie-downs, few camping supplies?"
"Yes. I wondered, but didn't want to pry."
"Very nice of you."
"You're not the only one to show up with no tie-downs."
"Nice, also. But I- I don't know whether I'm coming or going, right now in life. I don't know if I want to be with you or not, or if you're even a good guy or not."
Looking concerned, he started to respond, but she interrupted.
"Sorry, I'm sure you're nice. But I can't think well, right now. I'm all messed up. I-" She thought for a second. "I've been hurt a lot, and I don't trust people so much any more. Truth be known: people scare me."
Jim looked at her. "I hear and respect what you're saying-and hopefully without minimizing what you're saying-I have issues, too. Truly. I think the only one who doesn't is the real Matt Damon. Who I know I don't look like. Much. Though I think I do a little around the eyes, now that you mention it."
She smiled at his humor.
"Yeah, you're great. Are you rich like him, too?"
"If he's poor like me."
"Pitty," she teased him back. "We could have been happy."
Lourdes looked at some guys chatting at the next table and asked them, "Hey guys: Do any of you have an extra hundred million dollars you could give to this guy?" She indicated Jim.
"No," came their responses.
"I left it in my other pants!"
"My wife blew it shopping!"
"The price of fuel-"
Shaking his head, it was his turn to smile at her.
"You do fine," Lourdes said to Jim, "really. But me? I'm a mess. Back in Los Angeles, I quit, you know. I gave up. You wanna know why I got here the way I did?" she asked him. "I'll tell you why-it's because I didn't plan on it. I got overloaded back in L.A. and one day, about three days before, I walked out. Leaving is one of the things I do best. I packed my little flight bag, abandoned my apartment, abandoned my car, got in my plane and flew away.
"I'm so overloaded, I'm two tons over gross. My airplane head won't fly any more. It can't. I'm so messed up, I make 'Wrong-way Corrigan' look like Neil Armstrong. I make Stephen Colbert look like Ben Stein. I've had problems ragging on me for so long I can't even remember when they started, and there's this other group that's had to make it all harder for me, whether they admit it or not, and now people don't understand me-even worse than they used to thirty five years ago, which was better anyway than they do now-and I'm about way-out-to-here sick of it!"
She held her hands over her head to show how deep it had gotten.
Jim sat quietly and listened.
She tried to speak quietly to keep surrounding tables from hearing. "I mean, I was at work in the E.R. one day, and suddenly I couldn't do my job any more. I didn't have it in me. And my husband left me ages ago, but it's all related, and I haven't dated anyone of any note in years because I'm so dejected, and- I'm getting to the point where I don't even know who I am, any more. I don't know what I want for supper. I don't even know where I'll find supper after I leave here. Except for my campsite, I'm homeless."
"You're a nurse; you can work anywhere. Just point your plane and go, and you're there."
"That's not it!" She scolded him quietly for missing it. "The plane will go, but I'm lost. You hearing me? I don't have a sense of anything in here." She tapped her sternum. "I'm gone, lost. I don't feel like I can connect with any place any more, let alone anyone. It's been too much for too long.
"And then here is this guy out of nowhere who latches on to me-"
He started to object again.
"-and I'm sure you're a great guy, but you are probably not as screwed up as I am, and you've probably got reasonable expectations which I am not gonna fulfill, and there'll be this schism.
"There's no way I have an emotional basis for a relationship right now. I don't even know what I want. I'd probably lead you on thinking you were the right medicine for me, and then one day-ppffffftt!" She stared at him, half afraid to say it. "One day, you'd wake up and I'd be gone. Poof, like that. Out of your life, never to even think of you again. Gone. I mean, who picks up and leaves like that? Me."
Jim waited and listened.
People walked by. Going to tables. Sitting at tables chatting while they ate. Leaving when finished.
Jim didn't say anything.
"I cannot do this," Lourdes continued. "I don't know how to do this. You're fairly well balanced, and you think something is developing here. But I'm afraid that you're just a salve over old wounds to me, and that if I ever find myself again- I don't even know who I am to find, and what will I be like when I find myself? I might not be interested in you. My whole outlook on life, myself, and you could all change when something comes together for me six months from now."
Lourdes was both glad and sad she'd laid so much on the table for Jim. Was something good just destroyed? Was a problem averted?
She played with her salad, dreading his response, not eating.
Jim studied her for a minute before attempting to respond.
"Do you hear me?" Lourdes asked, not meaning for it to come out sarcastically.
"Yes," Jim said. "I do. And I'm trying to think about what you're saying, trying to meld that with who I'm seeing you to be as well."
That mattered to Lourdes, because she rarely got a glimpse of how others saw her, and she thought he'd be genuine with her.
She took a chance. "Who do you see me to be?" she asked.
He kept studying her and finally shared. "Well," he paused, thinking some more. "It's hard to say, and I'm not sure I should."
"Go on! Get it out," she urged.
"Well, from the first moment I saw you crying in your plane, I knew something was up. The way you taxied in and followed me, all smelled like a pilot who knew what she was doing. But then when you shut the engine down, you cried as if you couldn't take it any more. And you seemed so delicate.
"And then, right after that, I began to feel that you were a lot stronger inside than it seemed, a strong-minded person who'd been carrying a heavy load.
"Who are you, to me? You're a cute little brunette whose been facing the world alone too long. You're a beautiful flower who stands and shines her petals brilliantly in the sun after a hurricane. Because you made it through. You're here. I see strength of character in you. I see a delicate nature that can appreciate new life, yet who has the strength to face a tornado. That's what I see. And I'm thinking, 'Who is this person who picks herself up over and over again after the worst life has to throw at her'? And I'm thinking, 'You.'"
"You are so kissing my ass," she said.
A guy at a neighboring table laughed. He'd been listening in. "Sorry."
Pilots at a fly-in were like an impromptu family, there for a family gathering.
"Yeah," he said to Lourdes. "But it's also true. I really mean it.
"Lourdes-" Jim re-thought, for a long time, until he finally spoke. "You know," he said, nearly in tears, himself.
She could se
e something was tearing at him inside.
"We could all?lose-" He stopped so he wouldn't cry, himself. "You know, we could all lose all this," he said, indicating everything around them. "We could all lose all this around us-our planes, our health, each other, our lives-at any time. One moment we're here, and the next we're gone, without any ability to think of ourselves or those we love, or to see how green the grass is, how lovely the paint job is on my plane," smiling sardonically, "or how nice it is to hear someone speak."
"Oh, Connie died!" Lourdes said, remembering.
"Yes, but it's not just her, it's all of us. Life will end for all of us, and maybe on a moment's notice. And it's so fragile. Yet we're alive, right now, Lourdes. We're here. We're the miracle of life. We can share this beautiful place! Because we're here- And then one day we won't be. It'll be gone. Because we'll die, and it'll all be lost for us.
"Just being here" he earnestly, stabbing his finger at the table, "is a joyous miracle we can't give up, even if it hurts sometimes. Give me one day with you, and I could spend the rest of my life with that joy that at least I had that good time. Give me anything at all, and I am grateful, because that's what life is.
"We love. We lose love. But we live!
"We have to, don't you see? We have to. Because if we don't, then we still die when that time hits, without it."
People all around in the caf? had stopped talking and were staring at them.
"I'm thankful you told me you may not stay. But you have to also know that the time we spend together makes life possible for me, and I'm- I'm just hoping you may be willing to let me be with you more. That you'd want to be with me. For as long as it lasts.
"And then one day, when it's gone-whether because you flew away or because you died-I'll miss you, but I'll be thankful I had you for as long as I did. Thankful to God for the chance to live this life and see you in front of me for as long as I could."
"Bravo!" people in surrounding tables raved for his inspirational speech.
Lourdes noticed they were all watching.
"You did it again," she said. She shrank in her chair and blushed again.
Jim composed himself and offered Lourdes a positive face: he smiled at the other tables, and when their applause died down, he told them as if he were an M.C. at the Oscars, "Everybody's looking? I feel like 'When Harry met Sally' and Meg Ryan has an orgasm for Billy Crystal in the restaurant."