Before the Fall(116)

Teterboro was a private airport twelve miles outside Manhattan. GullWing kept a hangar there, its corporate logo—two hands crossed at the thumb, fingers spread like wings—was emblazoned in gray on the flat tan siding. The hangar office was closed on Sunday, except for a skeleton crew. Charlie took a cab from JFK, bypassing the city to the north and coming in on the George Washington Bridge. He tried not to look at the meter as the fare rose. He had a Platinum Amex card, and besides, he told himself it didn’t matter what it cost. This was for love. Peter had given him the flight’s itinerary. Scheduled time of departure from New Jersey was six fifty p.m. The plane was an OSPRY 700SL. They’d take the short hop to the Vineyard sans passengers, board their charter, and head right back. They wouldn’t even need to refuel. Charlie figured that gave him at least five hours to find a private moment with Emma, to pull her aside and touch her cheek and talk the way they used to, to take her hand and say I am so sorry. To say I love you. I know that now. I was an idiot. Please forgive me.

And she would, because how could she not? What they’d had was special. The first time they’d made love she’d cried, for God’s sake. Cried at the beauty of it. And he’d f*cked it up, but it wasn’t too late. Charlie had seen all the romantic comedies these chicks swooned over. He knew that perseverance was the key. Emma was testing him. That was all. Putting him through his paces. It was Female 101. She loved him, but he needed to prove himself. To show her he could be steady, reliable, to show her that this time it was storybook. She was the fairy princess and he was the knight on the horse. And he would. He was hers, now and forever, and he would never give up. And when she saw that she would fall into his arms and they’d be together again.

He showed his pilot’s license at the Teterboro security gate. The guard waved them in. Charlie felt the nerves in his stomach, rubbed his face with his hand. He wished he’d remembered to shave, worried that he looked sallow, tired.

“It’s the white hangar,” he told the cabbie.

“Two sixty-six,” the guy told him after they came to a stop.

Charlie ran his card, climbed out, taking his silver roller bag. The OSPRY was parked on the tarmac just outside the hangar. Floodlights from the building made the fuselage glow. He never got tired of the sight, a precision aircraft, like a gleaming thoroughbred, all thrust and lift under the hood, but smooth as butter on the inside. A three-member ground crew was gassing her up, a catering truck parked near the nose. A hundred and four years ago two brothers built the first airplane and flew it on a North Carolina beach. Now there were fleets of fighters, hundreds of commercial airliners, cargo planes, and private jets. Flying had become routine. But not for Charlie. He still loved the feeling as the wheels left the ground, as the plane surged into the stratosphere. But that didn’t surprise him. He was a romantic, after all.

Charlie scanned the area for Emma, but didn’t see her. He had changed into his pilot’s uniform in the bathroom at JFK. Seeing himself in the crisp whites steadied him. Who was he if not Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman? Wearing it now, he wheeled his roller bag into the hangar, heels clicking on the asphalt. His heart was in his throat and he was sweating like he was back in f*cking high school, angling to ask Cindy Becker to prom.

Jesus, he thought. What is this chick doing to you? Pull it together, Busch.

He felt a flash of anger, the rage of an animal against its cage, but he ignored it.

Squelch that shit, Busch, he told himself. Stay on mission.

Then he spotted Emma in the second-floor office. His heart rate multiplied.

He dropped his bag and hurried up the stairs. The office was a catwalk overlook built into the hangar. Staff only. Clients never even entered the hangar. They were ferried directly to the plane by limousine. It was the strict written policy of the company that employees keep the behind-the-scenes process of GullWing Air invisible, nothing that would burst the bubble of the traveler’s luxury experience.

To reach the office you had to climb an exterior flight of metal stairs. Putting a hand on the grip railing, Charlie felt his mouth go dry. On impulse, he reached up and adjusted his hat, giving it a slight cock. Should he put on the aviators? No. This was about connection, about eye contact. His hands felt like wild animals, fingers twitching, so he shoved them in his pockets, focusing on each stair, on lifting his feet and putting them down. He had thought about this moment for the last sixteen hours, seeing Emma, how he would smile warmly and show her he could be calm, gentle. And yet he felt anything but calm. It had been three days since he’d slept more than two hours straight. Cocaine and vodka were what was keeping him smooth, keeping him moving. He went over it again in his head. He would reach the landing, open the door. Emma would turn and see him and he would stop and stand very still. He would open himself to her, show her with his body and his eyes that he was here, that he’d gotten her message. He was here and he wasn’t going anywhere.

Except it didn’t happen that way. Instead, as he reached the landing, he found Emma was already looking his way, and when she saw him she went white. Her face. And her eyes went giant, like saucers. Worse, when he saw her see him, he froze, literally, with his right foot hovering in midair, and gave a little…wave. A wave? Like what kind of idiot gives a faggy little wave to the girl of his dreams? And in that moment she turned and fled deeper into the office.

Fuck, he thought, f*ckity, f*ck f*ck.