Falling in Love

  Lourdes and Jim turned and began perusing the huge hangar full of exhibitors and shoppers. Partitioned exhibitor booths were arranged in aisles angling north and south with everything imaginable. People were everywhere, talking and shopping.

  "Excuse me," Lourdes said to a passer-by playing with a G.P.S. "Do you know where I can get my Garmin updated?"

  "No, but if you use the app, you can find out I'm sure."

  "What app?" Jim asked.

  The man showed them on his smartphone. "You just download it, and you can find anything."

  "Are you kidding me?" Lourdes asked. She'd never heard of an app for an airshow, but this was Oshkosh.

  "Sure. No problem." He walked off.

  "Maybe I'll try that?" she said. She played with her phone and found the app, downloaded it. "My goodness, look at this."

  She showed Jim.

  "Nice."

  She put her phone in her purse and forgot about it.

  "Aren't you gonna look up the G.P.S. place?"

  "No," she said. "We'll find it when we get there."

  They wandered around the Exhibit Hangar area, in and out of all four big hangars and through the many exhibitor tents in the large area between them.

  Walking in the morning sun, sipping on a soft drink, Jim asked her. "So, tell me twenty questions?"

  "Ten," she answered playfully.

  "What is your favorite color?"

  Lourdes smiled at his little game.

  "If I tell you, you have to tell me," she said.

  "Okay. Your favorite color is blue."

  "No! I tell you mine; you tell me yours," she said.

  "Okay. Yours is?"

  "Light blue. Coincidentally like the sky, I suppose. Baby blue. Yours?"

  "Red."

  "I figured," she said.

  "How can you downgrade a cloud-based operating system to something sub-cloud?" he asked.

  She laughed. "I have no idea. Wish I could."

  "Me neither, and me, too," he said. "That's all I'd need is my doctor handling my case on his cloud-based tablet with my sensitive medical information flying off to God knows where."

  "Like that'd make your blood pressure go back down," she agreed.

  "I'm told you can opt out of using the cloud features, but I'm not sure the devices aren't still clouding data- Oh, never mind," he said. "Whatever happened to privacy?"

  "It's up there in the clouds with a few hundred thousand people in shared agencies, profiling, keeping it all 'confidential' except for the thousand places it can be legally shared."

  "What is your favorite song?" he asked.

  They wandered by the Lycoming display, engines set out for people to look at. They stopped to look while they talked.

  "You have a Lycoming in your plane," she said.

  "Yeah. And you're a Continental, but I don't know if there's all that much difference. Song?"

  "I don't know," she said, thinking about it. "Right now, it's probably 'Abracadabra,' because that guy was singing it and it's been on my mind. But I'd choose a lot of them. It depends on my mood."

  "I have the same problem, but I have to ask you this stuff. It's in the regs."

  "I like," she said, pausing to think while she looked at an engine he was looking at. "I like Enya, anything she does. Soft music. Carpenters. Barry Manilow. Joan Baez-"

  He pointed at her.

  "-all kinds of stuff. And Glenn Miller."

  "Glenn Miller, too? Oh- That was some time ago," he said.

  "Yeah, but I like the era. And it's not old-times wishes, there. It's current, still happening in some places. I think it's charming and romantic."

  "That's the problem I have, too," he said. "I like it all-especially if I go to a live concert. It always sounds better to me in person. But I've seen, maybe everything but Boston in concert: Styx, Aerosmith, Z Z Top, Bachman Turner Overdrive-loved John Denver, but didn't see him-the Doobie Brothers," he laughed. "Even Liberace in Vegas, back when."

  "Liberace?" she laughed.

  "True. He was a gas. He came on stage wearing this huge rhinestone cape, glittering under all the spot lights. We all cheered his lavishness. He waited until we were done applauding, and he asked us in his 'Liberace' way, 'Do you like my cape?' Everybody laughed." Jim smiled. "It was funny."

  They wandered around through more exhibitions, noting how wonderful everything looked, so clean and-presentable.

  "You see the Bose Corporation, right there?" Jim asked.

  "Yes."

  "I've been wondering if I should get one of those noise cancelling headsets sometime. And I ought to rig up a feed into whatever headset I have from my phone so I can listen to music in the background on long flights. I think if I do it right, it won't block out A.T.C. when they call. Or the F-16s, if I bust someone's airspace. I don't want to not hear them if they call me."

  "Um-" Lourdes looked at him sheepishly.

  "You've already done that in your plane?" he asked.

  Lourdes nodded.

  Jim laughed. "But songs, okay: I guess one of my favorites is Elvis Presley."

  Lourdes laughed. "Really?"

  "Yes, really. You know he learned to dance from Forrest Gump? It's true, 'Thank you very much,'" he said in a credible impersonation.

  Lourdes laughed at him.

  Jim looked around as if he was about to share a state secret.

  "Hello, Ma'am," he said to a lady passing by them, as if he was up to something he was obviously trying to hide.

  The lady smiled at him and moved on.

  Then Jim began his Elvis impersonation of "Heartbreak Hotel" not quite loud enough for everyone to hear. "Well, since my baby left me?"

  He made some air guitar noises for his band.

  Lourdes got goose pimples and looked around, embarrassed, to see if anyone was looking.

  Two people had noticed and were staring.

  "Jim!" She said to make him stop.

  "Elvis," he said.

  "Elvis!" she said.

  He stopped. The two people clapped at the impromptu concert, and he gave them a small bow, not quite obvious enough for everyone else to notice. "Thank you very much."

  Lourdes walked away.

  Jim kept up.

  "You're crazy?" Lourdes asked. "But good. You have a way with people, that's for sure. You ought to be on stage somewhere."

  "I am sometimes."

  "You perform?"

  "A preacher."

  "Right," she said.

  "Only once in a while. They make me share time with the school principal."

  "I don't doubt it."

  "But I don't want you to get the wrong impression."

  "Like what?" She turned to look at him.

  "'Don't be Cruel' is my favorite Elvis song. "So what's your favorite food?" he asked her.

  "Other than chocolate? Popcorn," she answered. "If it's crispy and crunchy. Sometimes both together, too. Yours?"

  "Pizza, I have to say. Black olive and beef."

  They rounded a row of exhibitor's tents and entered Exhibit Hangar B.

  "I was actually thinking of planting some, next year. There's a market for it."

  "Pizza?" she asked.

  "Yup. Think of it: rows of pizzas down range. Some with beef, some with pepperoni. Grow some for the freezer," he mused. "It'd be easier to ship. Harvest 'em all with a combine because they have those scissor things on the front."

  "And maybe some with garlic chicken and some with nothing, just cheese," she said.

  "You need a variety, just to keep Mike in check."

  "Are you a good housekeeper," she asked.

  Jim stopped one of the thousand passers-by, in front of Hangar B, and asked him. "Excuse me, sir. But do you happen to know what 'house keeping' is?"

  "Never heard of it," he said.

  Jim asked another behind him. "Excuse me, sir. But do you know what 'house keeping' is?"

  The man looked at Jim funny and walked on.

  Lourdes told a cl
erk in a nearby booth, "We're having a mental health emergency. Can you all 911?"

  The lady smiled at them.

  "Can't say," Jim said to Lourdes. "Oh! Oh, I remember. Okay. Sorry. Yes. Yes-" He feigned remembrance. "Yes. I am a good housekeeper."

  "I'm doubting that."

  "No, it's true. You know, in northwest Missouri, our main breezes blow from the west, so every month I open up the front and back doors-the house faces east, because it's on the west side of town, right across the road, facing town-letting the breeze blow through. Then I take out the leaf blower and blow the house out, starting in the west so as to use the wind."

  She laughed at him.

  "It's harder than you think," he said.

  "Because there are eddies?" she asked.

  "Yes. Then I take the water hose and rinse the floors, and leave the doors open to dry the place out."

  Lourdes looked at him aghast.

  "It's a lot more than I do for the barn," he said with a straight face.

  "So what's your favorite animal?" she asked.

  "Dogs," he answered.

  "You have one?"

  "Yeah. A German Shepard I-don't-know-what-all mix. Looks like a warewolf, but he'll lick you to death in ten minutes, if you hold still."

  Lourdes smiled. How cute! "What's his name?"

  "Moff Tarkin."

  "From 'Star Wars'?"

  "Yes. Mike named him. Then Connie liked it, and-"

  Lourdes broke into a laugh that grew and wouldn't quit. First she thought about that poor dog being called by the name of one the worst villains in 'Star Wars' history, the guy who destroyed Princess Leia's home planet, Alderaan. And then she thought about all the poor kids in town being terminally confused about good and evil-

  She tried to quit laughing. "What do you call him?"

  "Moff Tarkin."

  "Not 'Tark' or 'Moff' or something?"

  "No. Just 'Moff Tarkin.'"

  Lourdes' laugh kept coming. She slightly bent over, put the back of her left hand against her face-the she noticed people walking in and out of one of the Exhibit Hangars were staring at her, which only made it worse.

  She pointed at Jim while she laughed.

  "Me?" Jim said in self defense. "All I did was tell her about my dog-"

  Which made her laugh harder.

  Jim looked at her like she was mentally ill and he didn't understand.

  It was infectious. People around them got a big grin on their face on the verge of laughing, themselves.

  Lourdes squealed involuntarily and walked away to the west to try to avoid them.

  Jim followed.

  "He, uh," Jim called after her. "He likes cheese pizza."

  Thirty minutes later, Lourdes was approaching normal again. They walked through the "Fly Market" just southwest of the Exhibit Hangars.

  "So what's your favorite movie?" she asked to get her mind away from her laughter.

  "Can't pick just one. That really is gonna have to depend on the moment. Some in general? Maybe Star Wars series. Star Trek Series, including the new one, which was very good. 'Avatar.' The Jason Bourne series."

  She pointed at him for the Matt Damon thing.

  "Independence Day," he pointed at her.

  "'Top Gun.' 'Starman'-"

  "With Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen? I loved that show."

  "Yup. 'Blade Runner,'" he said.

  "I can identify with that. I'm kind of like a Nexus Two replicant, if you ask me. Or like 'Friday,' the artificial person from Robert Heinlein."

  "Oh, I enjoyed that, too."

  "Okay," she said, "and my movies? It's also got to vary with the moment, but I also loved 'Cloud Atlas'-"

  "Me, too," he said. "Do you think we knew each other in another life?"

  "Did Halle know Berry?" she asked.

  "Right."

  "No, do you really think we might have known each other in a prior life?" she asked.

  "To give the matter more serious consideration?"

  She nodded.

  "I don't know if the universe works that way. But I know it feels like it could." He seemed to think about it some more. "If so, maybe our spirits have our sexes-or genders-mixed up from birth or something- Or maybe we've been both through time, like they showed in the movie, and we're more in touch with some aspect of those lives that most people."

  "Mine definitely feels messed up somehow," she said.

  "Mine does, too," he said. "So maybe we're in the same boat from that perspective? But how may I have known you before? Okay," he said with certainty. "If the universe works that way, then I'd have to say it does feel like I've known you before and that we were hot for each other."

  Lourdes nodded. It made sense to her. "You think you were a male lover of mine?"

  "And you were someone I thought was sexy, maybe-but someone I think I wasn't supposed to have, perhaps. As if we weren't in the same social group at one time."

  "I could buy that-as if, maybe, you were the Lord of the castle, and I was a maid." She considered it. "Something like that could feel- It's not like now. But if we had a life like that, I could see how feelings from that experience could underlie my feelings."

  "So you look up to me?"

  "I might have thought you were a jerk," she said playfully. "Even if it was your castle."

  "Yeah, but you didn't, did you?"

  Lourdes smiled and withdrew slightly. "No," she finally said. "I didn't. I think I wanted you. I think, if this is true, that you were a bright spot in my life and I admired you-that without you, my life was empty servitude."

  Jim smiled and swelled with the good feeling that gave him. "And if I were to guess, I'd guess that I never really knew that before. So thanks for telling me."

  He touched her hand and leaned over to give her a little kiss on the lips and looked around. No one seemed to care. "Maybe I couldn't have done that so freely back then?"

  "Or this," she said, leaning up to him to give him a little kiss on the lips.

  They smiled at each other-his started to grow warmer, so she turned and walked on.

  "So," Lourdes said, "if 'Cloud Atlas' is right, then what are your lives about? In the movie, Halle's and Tom's were about social justice, I think. What would you guess is yours?"

  "Ah," he paused. "I'd guess it's about learning to be a leader, which also serves the cause of social justice, if I were to guess. The way I mean to do it, anyway. I care about people."

  Lourdes nodded.

  "And you?" he asked.

  "Um," she thought. "Well-" She walked on through vendor tents, looking at everything from T-shirts to tools and aircraft parts. "I think, pitiful by comparison as it may seem, maybe more at trying to survive. My life quests seem to be more at scrambling to protect myself and get the basics of life down. Were I to guess, I'd say I've had a few lives where I've been on the butt end of things. Hurt. Tortured. Or oppressed, or just painfully without, as if lives of squalor or never being able to get started."

  "Sounds base," he said.

  "Yes, it does. And I don't know where it's going. Many a times I've prayed to God to help show me why my life has to be so painful, why I can't get ahead, and he hasn't. I have no idea why I'm struggling this way other than dealing with something handed to me that I can't fully change. I sense it's important to carry through, but I don't know to what."

  Their walk took them by a hotdog stand, and he got one for each of them.

  "Thank you," she said.

  "If I were to think about this a while?" he said, "I'd think that you may wind up taking care of other people, later in some life, when maybe they feel they can't make it through-and you know they can because you sense in yourself that you also made it through difficulty. Which would also make you a leader, then. Their leader. Though caring would be your goal."

  "Possibly," she said, doubting she could ever feel good about more strife, even if she wasn't the focus.

  "And I think it'd matter to the people you help, Lourdes. Like t
heir life may depend on it. And that's something you should be able to feel good about: a knight who fights death to show people to safety."

  Lourdes considered it while she ate her hotdog.

  "I could see that in you," he said.

  "I also loved 'Love Actually,'" she said, walking again, "the Hugh Grant movie."

  "He was in 'Cloud Atlas' also," Jim said.

  "Yes. And 'The Holiday' with Cameron Diaz. 'Knight and Day' with her and Tom Cruise. 'The Family Stone'-"

  "I don't know that one."

  "With Sarah Jessica Parker?"

  "Nope."

  "A few years ago. It's very good. A family that comes together at Christmas. Like 'This Christmas,' a good one also?"

  "Sorry," he said. "Missed them.

  "Madea goes to Jail?"

  "Yup. I like Tyler Perry."

  "Okay. 'Message in a Bottle'?

  "Nope."

  "With Kevin Costner?"

  "Don't know it."

  "How about 'Dances with Wolves.'"

  "One of my faves."

  "'The Sound of Music'?"

  "Even Romulans know that one."

  They rounded a corner of a group of exhibit tents and started down another row.

  'The Music Man'-I also saw that one starring Dick van Dyke in Hollywood at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. 'On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.' I loved that with Barbara Streisand, and I also saw it at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, in L.A., with Robert Goulet."

  "Grand. I'd love to take you to a play, if you let me sometime?"

  Lourdes smiled at him.

  "You saw Dick van Dyke?"

  "Yes. Pantages Theatre, Hollywood. He was the star. He was funny," Lourdes mused. "Right in the middle of a bit with just him and his co-star on stage? He did his rubber-man thing when she was talking, and he got her laughing, so she flubbed her line. The audience just laughed! We didn't blame her; he did it to her on purpose, and we all loved it."

  "What a list!" he said. "So you really are a film buff like me-like us, I should say. There seem to be a few in Greenhills. You've heard Mike talk."

  "Yes."

  "Oh, look." Lourdes noted a sign over a booth that says they update Garmin G.P.S.s.

  Lourdes dug in her purse and gave the lady her Garmin. In five minutes she had it back, all updated.

  Lourdes paid her forty dollars and put her Garmin back in her purse.

  Outside, on the northeast corner of Hangar B, they found a refreshment stand and a picnic table. He bought them some lemon aid and they sat a while, sipping.

  "Good lemon aid. Thanks," she said.

  "What is your worst event in history, if you had to pick?" Jim asked as they walked through more exhibit areas.

  "Um," Lourdes thought. "Well, I think the Holocaust, World War Two. I mean the sheer cruelty of it, the masses of it, the thought that some kinds of people should be removed from the earth. That thought wasn't even a war for greed, bad as that is. It was just their personal fake-superiority that said others shouldn't exist."