Mirage(3)

I shrug the what’s up shoulders and am met with a stern look. “Be right back,” I whisper to Dom when she crooks her finger at me.

“I don’t like to see that.” She points vaguely in the direction of Dom and leads me to the office. “This is a public establishment. A business. Our business.”

“He’s my boyfriend, Mom. That’s my business. We were just goofing around.”

“Yes, but must you crawl all over each other in public like a couple of monkeys? It’s unseemly.”

I always laugh when Mom uses that word. It’s a carryover from growing up on Cat Island. “Unseeeemly,” I tease, imitating her island accent. Like clockwork, when I laugh, Mom laughs. And my mother doesn’t just chuckle. Her laugh is full-bodied and carbonated. Her laugh is dark, sticky soda. We can never stay mad at each other.

She smacks me on the rear with her clipboard and shoos me out of her office as my father walks in. I touch his arm tentatively, but he slips away like an eel, busying himself with a pile of mail on the desk. I stare, trying to think of something to say to engage him. Dad slices the top of an envelope, shakes the letter open, and smiles broadly. It’s the sun appearing from behind a curtain of clouds. The drop zone is the only place I ever see my dad’s real smile. I stay because I want to know what’s in the letter that has made it appear.

“The good news,” he says, “is that we’ve made the short list of locations for the X Games.”

“And the bad?” Mom asks, her painted nails resting on his shoulders.

He rubs his forehead. “If we don’t get that event, our doors will close for good.”

We all sigh. I knew things were tight, but I had no idea they were that critical. This place can’t close. It’s our life and the only thing holding Dad’s PTSD in check. It keeps him focused on something other than his injuries, his losses, his bad dreams. His razor pain. “What do we have to do to make sure we get it?” I ask, squaring my shoulders in a reporting for duty kind of way.

My question brings his gunmetal gray eyes to meet mine. “We need to get their attention. We need a huge big-way when they come to scout the DZ??—??so many jumpers in the air that the formation will look like a spaceship landing. It’ll take every experienced jumper we know to pull it off.”

“I want in,” I say, a pebble of hope lodging in my chest. When he shakes his head, I firmly tell him, “I’m ready.”

“No,” Dad answers in his first-sergeant voice while riffling through stacks of mail on his desk. “I assess your readiness. You’re too young, too inexperienced, and this is too important. I need perfection. Absolute precision. It’s not personal; it’s business. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I mumble, but it is personal. Do people have to be willing to die in order to earn his respect? Is having a penis a prerequisite for his regard? I back out of the office right into Dom’s outstretched arms. He whispers in my ear, “Come with me. I’ve got something to show you.”



Dom’s motorcycle growls when he revs it, and he motions for me to climb on. I settle into the leather seat, wrapping myself around him. I love the feel of his hand cupping my outer thigh and the way my heart slams into my back when we take off. I have no idea where we’re going, but he’s bypassed the airport gate, so it would seem the mystery location is on the field somewhere.

Steel airplane hangars flash by in neat rows. It’s like we’re driving up the pages of a book: every sentence another row of evenly spaced hangars. Some are singles, some double wide for larger planes. They are uniformly imperfect. We turn left at the second to last row. This is the forgotten sector of the small municipal airport. In fact, the last time I was in this section was a year ago, to help my dad hang a new windsock. You know, the little things I’m qualified to do.

Dom cuts the engine and rolls to a stop in front of one of the larger hangars. He kickstands the bike and hops off. I slide forward into the warm space his body left on the seat and fondle the handlebars. “I want one so I can ride whenever I want.”

“I got something you can ride.” Dom’s dimples are in the on position as he smiles playfully. I roll my eyes. “Come with me,” he says with a gentle kiss to my nose.

I follow him to the side of the hangar where there’s a regular door. Dom fishes a key from his jeans pocket and slides it in the keyhole.

“Whose hangar is this?” I ask.

“I found out from the airport manager that it’s on the abandoned list. They’re trying to locate the owners?—?some kind of ultrareligious nutjobs who leased the hangar and then just disappeared. The airport is trying to serve them an eviction notice because they haven’t been paying.” He pulls me into the dark hangar. “The contents will be auctioned off if they can’t locate the owners. Until they do, it’s our secret hideaway.”

“Our secret hideaway smells like mice and dust,” I say, crinkling my nose. As my eyes slowly adjust to the dim light, I see a large motor home filling the space behind Dom. It’s covered with a powdery layer of grime, but it’s obvious how nice the RV is. Metallic lavender and silver paint glints in the shaft of sunlight from the open door, which Dom moves to close. As he does, the triangle of light slinks back into the shadows, and we’re left standing together in the hushed room with only an occasional airplane engine whirring outside.