"You have compassion for them."
"It doesn't take much to get there from here," she said.
"You know what I think? I think you should go back to school over in K.C., and get a teaching degree or whatever they use in Missouri. What subject, I don't know. But I bet you'd fit in over at the High School."
She laughed. "I don't think so."
"We don't have a college in town."
"No, I mean: me? Standing in front of people for a living? I usually avoid the spotlight. Even good kids can be mean, and I'm damaged goods. I really don't need rumors and school talk about me-which will develop over time. I could never go back in there and face them."
"You mean like people wouldn't be mean anyway sometimes? No matter where you were, even in L.A.?"
"But I wouldn't want to face them. It would be humiliating."
Jim smiled at her again.
"Your humiliation circuit is hard-wired in, isn't it."
"On this, it is. It goes back to the discord I've mentioned," she pointed to her head. "I do think it's part of the brain that needs-to-be that is physically in discord with other parts of the brain that perceives my physical state, and the mis-firing hurts: some of it doesn't seem to function with other parts. Everybody thinks that's mythical because it's not obvious to any one else. Most scientists don't want to find it because the area of research is thought of as flaky, and those who are interested are grouping us together with you guys, so they say findings are not significant. Hello! They won't be if they don't separate the groups-and GRS no longer makes the difference."
"There you go again."
"Sorry."
"Good girl," Jim said. "But remember what I said about a little denial helping? I don't mean lying to yourself or faking your way through life. I'm talking about just being able to get through your days-enough 'positive thinking,' as it were, to face things seeing more of the bright side. Like, no matter where you are, people will think things and talk about you, right?"
"Yes," she admitted.
"Well, if you're not there to guide them, they get to think and say what they want. You show enough courage to be there, and now, all of a sudden, their thoughts are not independent. Now you influence them. They have their wrong ideas challenged by how you are, even if you don't discuss it-perhaps most importantly when you, in fact, don't discuss it. And you'd control the kids as their teacher. They don't want to piss the teacher off." He laughed. "If they're your fear? In a small town, you'd be in the perfect position to nip gossip in the bud."
"But they'd gossip and criticize after school."
"And you're not a kid in high school any more," Jim said. "Now, you can be one of the folks running the place. Grow. Believe your view and your actions matter more than you have thought in the past. Believe in yourself more."
"But I am not trying to be part of any social movement or trying to forge my way in society! I just want to live my life left alone, skating along day to day where people don't peg me. The only chance I've ever had at happiness is when people don't know!"
"So how's that working out for you? You carry your own pain in your head, you said. You just blew off everything you ever had, other than your plane and your good looks. Joan Baez wannabe. Are you planning to grow old alone and lonely? With a few memories of brief times when someone didn't know? News Flash: Even the staff in your nursing home will know, and you can't run from them. You better learn to deal with it now.
"Reality," he said. "Staring you in the face. As in: not running from it?"
For Lourdes, facing herself was the hardest thing she did every day of her life, so his words stung more than he knew, she was sure.
"You're together than most," he said, "and I think you'd be a good teacher. But it's your choice- Ah! You're bilingual! You could teach Spanish!"
"That's true."
Jim smiled broadly. "And the school could probably take you as a sub until you were official, whatever they do. Millie would know about that, more than me. Oh, and you're a nurse! You could also be the school nurse! You did E.R. work? What a valuable resource! We don't have any medical facilities in town. It'd be easy for you: scraped knees and runny noses. Like Hawkeye Pierce taking a job at the country club. The school would pray to you twice a week, and three times on Sunday.
"Oh, and on checking gossip? As the nurse, you'd know which kids had gonorrhea! Hawkeye would know how to use that."
They both laughed.
"I'm just kidding!" he said, holding his hands out to her in a "stop" motion.
"Hot lips," Lourdes said. "And I hear Frank Burns is cool in real life."
He laughed.
"See how things work out? This is all falling in your lap."
"I really don't think I could do that," she said.
"The humiliation," he said, simply.
"You've lived in town forever. Do they know about you?"
He seemed to consider the question. "I really don't know," he said. I've never heard of anyone bringing it up."
"So-"
"So why dig up that can of worms? I know how they treat me. I know I have respect, real friendship. You've seen it. I know there are people there I care for. And I know that no matter where in this world I am, whatever people thought would be there, too, because I'd be there, and it's in me. Now, if people were unkind or mean? I'd resist or leave. Because people don't behave the same in all places. But what do they know or think? It's only from whatever they see in me, and it's resulted after all these years-I do believe, without denial-in mutual respect."
Jim looked up to the heavens and crossed himself as if he were Catholic.
Lourdes laughed at him.
"It's amazing to me how life works out, sometimes," Jim said. "I couldn't plan all this. This is Wednesday, isn't it?" Jim asked.
"I think so," Lourdes said.
"God, I've only known you five days."
The afternoon airshow started with the announcer speaking to the crowd over the loudspeakers and planes flying over the runway trailing smoke, their engines warbling through maneuvers.
They slowly walked behind the FAA building on the flight line, when a strange contraption came around the corner.
Everyone in the area turned to look, and in spite of his sour mood, Jim broke out laughing. Which caused Lourdes to laugh.
It seemed like a Leonardo du Viking-esque ornithopter, with large flapping wings covered in something totally unrealistic, made of large tree branches and a bit of steel, powered by a small one-lung inertia-wheel motor that popped once every few turns 'round. The guy riding it was dressed like a Viking and seemed to be enjoying himself.
People smiled at it as it motored by at about two knots.
A crowd gathered around, so the 'pilot' stopped.
People gathered around even more.
Lourdes looked at Jim. He did still look whipped. Maybe she had gone too hard on him? She believed in what she said, but maybe she had spoken too harshly? Too much?
The guy talked to the crowd and demonstrated the ornithopter's 'flying' capability by revving up the inertia-wheel motor to full speed and pressing a lever, which moved something into the ground lifting a wheel.
The people laughed and joked. It was a good show.
Later that afternoon, still while the airshow raged, Lourdes and Jim strolled past a one-man band booth, that was surprisingly good. "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine?"
People stood around and watched. Some seemed to know the man and sang with him. Maybe he was a regular there? Lourdes wondered.
Lourdes worried about Jim. "How are you doing?"
"I- I'm sorry," he said. "You're just getting to know me, and I do hope you hang around long enough to find out. You?"
"I think- I feel like I'm in shock again," she said. "You being so great, and then this fight over such an ugly topic, and now we're seeing these happy things-but they feel false to me, now-like other people's happiness underscores my pain. I really feel badly."
"I do, too
," he said. "But we've got to get past it-or into it and through it-or something, if we're gonna work something out. Right?"
Jim's phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered it, stepping away from the one-man band.
"Hello?"
Lourdes followed and watched as he listened into it. His demeanor changed from their pre-occupation to genuine concern over the phone call.
"What happened?" Jim asked.
Lourdes paid attention.
"Which hospital?" Jim asked.
Jim gazed at the sky then back to Lourdes.
"Lemme think," Jim said into the phone. "Okay." Jim looked like he didn't want to make a decision. "Uh, Okay. I'll- Lemme talk to Lourdes." Pause. "Millie told you?" Pause. "That's up to her. But lemme talk to Lourdes and I'll call you back. But also- No. Forget that. I'll be there," he checked his watch and scanned the weather. "I think I can be there by seven tonight." Pause. "You okay, Sharon?" Another pause. "I'm not sure on the time, okay? But I think the weather is good. It'll take me some time to break camp. I'll call you. You call Millie?" He asked. Pause. "You know they got engaged? Good. You call Millie, and I'm coming. You hear? I'm on my way."
Jim hung up the phone.
Jim told Lourdes the story: "Sharon's husband, Benny-they have the next farm over, remember-has had a car accident, and he's in the hospital. Sharon says it's bad, but I can't really tell from her. But he's asking for me, and she is asking for Millie. They're friends, so all in all-I'm going to need to go."
"I understand," she said, concerned for them, but also sad about a lot of other things.
"I don't want to leave you," he said. "We have problems to work on, and we barely know each other, but I do need to go."
Lourdes' phone rang. She got it out. It was Millie. "Hello?"
Lourdes handed the phone to Jim.
"Right. Sharon told me. Okay. I'll go right there," Jim said, hanging up the phone and giving it back to Lourdes. "Millie's meeting me at the plane. I'm gonna go back there, break camp, and take her back to Greenhills. Oh! I can't get out of here. The airshow is going on. I can't take-off until the airshow is finished."
"That's six-thirty. Can you make it home while it's still light? Do you have lighting on your strip?"
"No lighting. Can't land in the dark. But I could land somewhere else and get there at first light in the morning."
"Or just stay here the night and go in the morning."
Jim thought.
He called Mike who was apparently already informed. "What do you think?" Jim asked him.
Lourdes tried to follow the conversation. They were walking toward Jim's plane, then turned to walk toward Millie's motor home, then turned to walk toward Jim's plane again.
"Okay," Jim said into his phone and hung it up.
"We're getting this organized. We're gong to leave this evening, after the show. There's some weather moving in from the northwest, and if we make some miles this evening, we can miss it for in the morning, too. You'll know where I am by phone. I'll keep in touch. And you can coordinate with Mike."
Lourdes looked a little confused by the arrangements.
"Mike will take the motorhome back down later tomorrow. Maybe you'll help him get it ready? He's a mess. He'll cram everything in there like a junk yard. He'll follow your lead, if you do it."
"Okay," Lourdes said.
"Remind him to take the leveling jacks off first? Millie usually does that."
"Okay."
Lourdes looked at her watch. It was about five o'clock. "The show ends in an hour and a half."
"Yeah," Jim said to himself. "No rush. We'll take this nice and easy. Do it right."
"As they walked toward his plane, nearly a mile away, Jim checked various weather sources on his phone. "There's the weather Mike was talking about." He showed Lourdes a prog chart for the next day, then showed her a current satellite view of the central United States. "But it's CAVU all the way there this evening. Here's the winds," he said, switching to a screen that showed them. "Good. Weather window."
Pilot speech was often clipped, trained-in to help prevent frequency congestion.
Lourdes knew he was all business right then.
Lourdes' phone rang. It was Millie, again. "Hello?" She paused to listen. "Okay. I don't think you need to take anything but a toothbrush, if you get caught in some motel for the night. There's not much room in the plane for all that other." Pause. "Right."
Lourdes hung up again.
Jim kept walking.
"Millie just wanted to connect, I think. She wanted direction."
"Good," Jim said, all business.
Mike and Millie were at Jim's plane when they walked up, and Mike already had Jim's tent mostly taken down. A patch of brown, flat grass lay where the tent had been for a week.
Mike was stuffing Jim's belongings into a large bag, all together: tent, stakes, poles, clothes, gear... "If you're taking Millie, you won't have room for all this other stuff," Mike said.
"You'll make a good pilot, Mike," Jim said.
Jim helped get his stuff together.
Millie and Lourdes watched the guys.
"Let me go get a ground crew organized?" Jim said. He left, walking northeast to the Homebuilt Ops shack.
When Jim returned, he had two ground crewmen in tow: one on a bike and one on foot, both in orange safety vests, and when the airshow ended for the day, Jim came over to kiss Lourdes goodbye, holding onto her desperately while he did so.
"I'm so sorry for everything," he said.
"I am, too," Lourdes said.
"It's just us. We are who we are. We've got to work with our issues. God, I wish we had more time because I need you."
Mike stood with a large bag off to the side, out of the way.
Millie sat in the passenger seat of Jim's plane, waiting.
It was a beautiful evening.
"I don't know what you'll do," Jim said, his face clearly showing his pain. He kissed her on the forehead and turned to climb into his RV-6.
With a signal from the ground crew, Jim started his engine and followed the biker to the runway for takeoff.
CHAPTER 27
Lourdes stood alone on the field with Mike and a thousand other people. Jim had taken off. He was gone.
She felt sick inside, as if the air had been sucked out of her.
Mike hefted his large bag full of Jim's camping supplies.
"Okay, Love. I'm not gonna like dragging this thing back to the motorhome," he said. "You wanna help me?"
"Sure," Lourdes said, trying to sound normal.
"I'll pick it up by the top, and you walk along beside me holding up part of the bottom? Anything you do will help. What we need is a-"
Another ground crew in an orange vest showed up in a John Deere "Gator," a two-seat, farm-green, wide-tire, workhorse with an open bed in the back. "I heard Jim had to bug out and that you had a lot of stuff. Want me to help you back to your site with that?"
"Thanks, Mate," Mike said to him.
Mike and the man lifted Jim's stuff off the ground and put it in the back of the Gator.
Mike climbed into the passenger seat of the two-seat "Gator."
"Come on, Love," Mike said to Lourdes, patting his lap. "It's a two-seater, so my lap will do."
Lourdes knew there was nothing else in his suggestion, so she climbed on, and the three of them rode to Camp Scholler to Millie's motorhome.
The whole time, Lourdes said nothing.
Mike said little.
"So he had to leave suddenly?" the driver asked while he drove past the control tower.
"Yes," Mike said. "A friend had a bit of a car wreck. He's taking his wife's friend home to be with her."
"I'm sorry to hear that," the guy said. "I hope he'll be alright."
"Yeah," Mike said. "Thanks."
"Jim's a good guy. You guys need anything else while you're here, you let me know. Or any of us. We all like him. He's a volunteer, here, too."
"We sur
e will, Mate. Thanks," Mike said.
Lourdes sat on Mike's lap and rode.
At the motorhome, the guy left them off with their stuff and a friendly farewell.
Folks were so nice, here at Oshkosh, Lourdes thought.
Mike opened a side hatch on the motorhome and threw Jim's bag into it. Closed the door. Then he turned to look at Lourdes.
"Alright, give it up. What is it?" Mike said in his British accent.
Lourdes knew what he was asking, but she still didn't say anything. No words at all.
"Soften you up with some dinner? I can do that. Come on." Mike headed to the car motioning for Lourdes to follow.
She followed on autopilot, without thought.
The steak house was full of people dining and talking, as usual, but they were able to get a booth along a wall.
Lourdes was glad they didn't have to sit in the middle of the room, her self-protective nature re-asserting itself. There was no reason for it, but she could see herself doing it, anyway. And she tended to be silent when she was scared.
Mike ordered dinner for himself, and when Lourdes didn't order, he ordered the same for her, too-fish and rice-getting a nod from her on the selection.
She sat there looking at the table more than him.
People around them carried on, happily dining and talking.
Mike stared at her, his normal, jovial manner gone.
In time, the server brought their food, and Mike started to eat.
Lourdes played with her food, eventually starting to eat.
"Bugger!" Mike said. "How am gonna get the Prius back?"
Lourdes still didn't talk.
"I've got to drive the motorhome back, and take the car, too. Oh no!"
Lourdes picked at her food.
"I guess I'll tow on its trailer like we did coming up here." He smiled and waited, looking at Lourdes. "You're not gonna talk to me, are you?" he asked.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't mean that."
"You know I weld," Mike said. "My art: I weld sculpture. And do large, mosaic tile figures for things like golf courses and hotels. And I also do web pages. I have a need to express myself, so I'm an artist."
"I'd love to see your work some day," Lourdes said, hoping that sounded like acceptable conversation.
"You could look on my website," Mike said. He fished out one of his cards and gave it to her. "It's all there, or the big stuff."