The Broken Lake (18 page)

When we finished picking out his outerwear, he insisted I get a few things as well. I just wanted a couple of sweaters and some boots. He wanted me to get a heated jacket too, but I passed.

“I’m used to the cold,” I told him. “I miss it, actually. I’m looking forward to freezing my butt off.”

“You should still get one. I don’t want to watch you freeze.”

“I’m an outdoorsy girl, remember?” He wasn’t convinced. “Seriously, Wes, I lived in Virginia. Winter was one of my favorite times of the year. I love the snow. I want to embrace it. I’m not going to be a wimp about it.”

He raised his brows and his lips parted almost like I’d punched him in the stomach. I looked at his face and realized I had insulted him.

“I’m sorry. You’re not a—I mean you’re
different
. That doesn’t count as being wimpy.”

He finally cracked a smile. I sighed in relief and then
my
lips parted when it hit me that he had been pulling my leg. He wasn’t insulted at all. I smacked his arm with my good hand and then said, “Ouch.”

“You’re going to have two casts if you don’t watch it.”

He grabbed my hand and, laughing, kissed it.

A nearby cough from the eavesdropping sales girl brought our attention back to our mission.

I loved winters in Virginia and I liked to ski, but didn’t care for fleece all that much. I preferred sweaters, so I picked out some that were really warm and cozy. I was excited, just thinking about being there. Although I still feared the cold because of Wes, I was kind of hoping for snow. It was beautiful, especially at Kerry’s chalet.

The whole back was windows and you could sit around the fireplace, sip hot chocolate, and watch the snow fall. It felt like being in a giant snow globe. I missed it, and I guess it showed on my face. Wes smiled again.

“What?”

“I just know you’re happy that we’re going, even though you won’t admit it.”

I didn’t respond, because I was still having major reservations, but I did reach up and kiss him on the cheek to show him that he might be right.

Then we, or should I say he, paid for our items and I nearly fell over when the guy behind the counter told us the total amount due.

“That’ll be $592.76.”

I was adding and multiplying frantically in my head while Wes casually handed over his credit card. Still mentally calculating, I snatched the receipt from the bag before he put it in the truck.

I felt like my mother, in a bad way. She always audited receipts whenever we left a store. I can only remember one or two times when she actually found an error, but that didn’t stop her. And here I was doing it.

“What are you looking for?” Wes asked.

“A mistake. Oh, I don’t know. I just can’t believe it cost that much.”

A thorough look-over of the receipt explained it. The most expensive items were the heated things. The coat alone was $230, and then Wes had bought gloves and socks. He had also picked out a couple sweaters, long johns, and warm pajamas.

One thing was for sure, we were prepared. We would be warm. We would have fun. At least, I hoped.

O
ur flight was set to depart Friday at 6:45 a.m., so I picked up Dawn the night before. Mr. Healey actually did some fact-checking by calling my mom to talk about the trip. She let him know that I had made the trip a few times before, it was a safe place, nice people, blah-blah-blah.

So Dawn was fine on the parent front, and including her seemed to please my mother. The thought of me hanging out with my friends made her very happy. Little did she know I was just setting the stage for some alone time with Wes.

We packed the Jeep before we went to bed and a 3:00 a.m. alarm had us at Wes’ by 4:00. Jackson had told his parents he was going camping for the weekend, and that wouldn’t have included me giving him a ride, so he arrived around 4:15 in his own car.

By 5:00, we all climbed into Wes’ Range Rover. I felt excited and nervous as we made our way to the San Francisco airport.

Wes took the initiative and struck up conversation with Dawn and Jackson. It turned out Jackson was a music buff and knew almost as much about artists from the ’60s and ’70s as Wes. By the time we pulled into the parking lot, I knew we would all get along perfectly.

Inside, we checked our bags, went through security, and headed through the terminal. Thirty minutes later we were boarding the plane. At my insistence, Wes had his heated coat in a carry-on bag, which he stowed in the overhead compartment.

“Window or aisle?” he asked.

“Aisle.” No hesitation.

He slid into the row, taking up the spot closest to the view I wasn’t looking forward to seeing. Jackson and Dawn sat directly in front of us, and no surprise, she hopped right in next to the window. She was eagerly staring out like an excited child.

I shook my head. “I hate flying,” I whispered in Wes’ ear, hoping not to alarm anyone else. There was no need to draw attention to the what-could-and-could-not-happen possibilities of flying.

“Really?” he replied. “Although, I don’t know why I’m surprised. You’re afraid of heights.”

“I hide it well,” I said.

And I do. I absolutely loathe flying in every way. In fact, my nerves were in a zillion knots at that moment, but I usually just sucked it up and took slow, deep breaths, not to mention the little pills my mom gets for me whenever I fly.

Like clockwork, I reached into my handbag and pulled out a sedative. I turned to see if I could flag down a flight attendant for some water, but the bottle was snatched out of my grip.

“Hey!” I turned to see Wes tucking it into his pants pocket. “Give those back.”

He was smirking. “You didn’t say ‘Swiper, no swiping.’”

“This is not funny. I’m doing my best not to embarrass you, here. I need those. Come on.” I reached over to try to dig them out of his pocket.

He moved my hand away. “You’re acting like a druggy.”

“I am not.” I pouted. “I’m just trying to relax.”

“You don’t need a drug to relax on this flight, at least not while I’m here.”

I cocked my head to the side and dropped my shoulders. “Wes…”

“I’m here. I’ll relax you.” He touched my nose with the tip of his finger. “Promise.”

We locked eyes in a brief staredown until I gave up, thinking of an easier avenue to what I wanted. I scooted to the edge of my seat and stuck my head between Jackson’s and Dawn’s headrests. “Dawn, do you have any Valium?”

My brief moment of hope ended when she turned and looked at me like I had two heads. “Why on earth would I want to be sedated?”

It was useless. I flopped back into my seat and let out a huge sigh. I knew I wasn’t getting my pills out of Wes’ pocket, and I wasn’t about to go asking other passengers for something. I was frustrated and irritated, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Wes watching me, smirking. I refused to look his way.

“Swiper,” I said, and then leaned my head against the headrest, buckled my seatbelt, closed my eyes, and tried to meditate.

I heard him chuckle, but refused to look at him. Within a few minutes, I felt him pull on my elbow until I was leaning into him. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and kissed my forehead. I ignored him, but didn’t pull away, and although I felt better on the inside, I wasn’t ready to admit that yet. After a few minutes, he started talking, his voice soft so that only I could hear.

“Remember what I told you my father did for a living?”

I didn’t answer.

“He flew planes, Sophie. He designed them.”

I opened my eyes. “He also died in a plane crash.
Hello
?”

“Yes, because he was trying out new designs. Things weren’t as controlled a hundred years ago like they are today.”

I closed my eyes again and buried my face against his chest. “It doesn’t change things.”

He kept talking. “Not to mention I’ve flown for, what, seventy years now? If you could see the planes I used to fly… My point is that I wouldn’t take you on a plane if I didn’t believe they were the safest way to travel.”

Eyes still closed, I muttered, “Not the point.”

I didn’t care about safety statistics. It just wasn’t natural to be jetting through the sky a million miles up. I didn’t like it. It wasn’t that I feared dying, necessarily. I feared the fall.

And it wouldn’t be such a big deal, if I could’ve just taken my pills. A little sedation was all I needed and I was good.

“All right, so I’ll stop talking about flying. How about…”

“No. Just be quiet for a minute. I need to clear my head.”

Giving me a gentle squeeze, he whispered, “Okay.”

After a few minutes, he said, “Do you really need them? I’ll give them back if you really…”

“Just shush…please?”

Call it reverse psychology or whatever, but I didn’t ask for the pills. My stomach was still in an uncomfortable knot, but everything else felt more relaxed. My brain felt warm and fuzzy and I knew it was because of Wes. I would’ve much rather absorbed his tranquility than any prescription drug.

Takeoff was always the worse. I hated how the plane felt as it struggled to climb. I dropped my head and pinched my eyes closed. By the time it felt like we were floating, I knew we had leveled out at our targeted altitude. Slowly prying open each eye, I saw Wes staring out of the window. He looked content, like when he’d taken me to see his race car hangar last fall. He was in his element, and suddenly I felt curious. Flying was something he was passionate about. And I had buried myself in his armpit, being a chicken, when it was a perfect opportunity for me to learn more about Wes. Not the Wes I know now, but the one I couldn’t remember or never had the chance to know.

I untucked myself from beneath his arm and repositioned myself so I was leaning on his shoulder. I tucked my arm under his and turned toward him. He looked away from the window, curious.

“So, tell me about your flying.”

He turned toward me, noticeably pleased that I had asked. Then he leaned in closer to isolate our conversation. “Like what?”

“Like everything. Like why I should be so happy to be flying in this particular one.”

“Well, my dad was part of the group of aircraft designers in 1896 that built steam-propelled models, and he also played a big role in developing the first planes to be propelled by an internal combustion engine. He was actually test-flying a gasoline-powered plane when he died.”

I could tell he wasn’t looking for sympathy, but I still gave his arm a soft squeeze.

“For a while, I envied my father’s death. It sounds weird, but as a child, I always imagined him having an exciting, wonderful life. Remember how I told you my mother never let me go anywhere or do anything because of the hemophilia?”

I nodded, listening attentively and watching his expression closely.

“Well, my mother had pictures of him standing beside all the different planes with their mesmerizing wings. I wanted to be there, in those pictures. Even though I knew they killed him, it didn’t matter. The pictures seemed so alive. So much more alive than I had ever felt.

“That was why I was so intrigued when I saw Amelia that day in London. The excitement in your eyes. They spoke to me and told me you loved where you were going. Almost like my father’s looked in those photographs, but more. Watching you made me feel so much all at once.” He trailed off, looking out the window again.

I squeezed his arm and snuggled closer to his shoulder. “That’s sort of how I felt when I crashed into you.” I felt him laugh, and then lean his chin into my hair. “So when did
you
start flying?” I asked.

“When I came to America. You know about the Ford Model T that Dr. Thomas bought me so I could loosen up, but I didn’t tell you about the flying. I spent quite a few years looking for exciting things to try. I raced cars, rode motorcycles—”

“Wait. Motorcycles? When?”

“1923.”

“They had motorcycles then?” I smiled, picturing what one might look like.

“Oh, yeah.” He smiled, and I wished I could see what he was seeing behind those eyes. “I had a Harley-Davidson.”

“What did it look like?”

“Well, picture a bicycle with a banana seat and tiny motor, without the pedals.”

I laughed out loud. “I
so
wish I could have seen you on that.”

He was about to continue when I thought of something else. “Why don’t you still have that? You kept your first car.”

He took a deep breath. “Because I wrecked it.”

“You crashed?” I popped up, although I don’t know why it bothered me now. Clearly, he wasn’t severely injured, as he was sitting next to me. Anyway, I shook the feeling.

“Yeah, I did. Someone drove right into me and ran over the bike with me on it. The bike was toast. The guy just kept going, didn’t even look back.” He paused. “I liked that bike too.”

“Were you hurt?”

“No. A little sore, maybe.”

Unbelievable. “So you traded the bike for a plane?”

He shook his head. “No, I stuck with cars for a while and then, in the summer of 1933, aircraft engineer Arthur Raymond designed the first twelve-passenger airplane for TWA. It was a DC-1.

“I followed his progress in the ’30s until he made the DC-3. It was a beauty. At the time, the Boeing 247 was getting all the hype because it took seven hours off the average 27-hour cross-country flight. But, when that DC-3 came out, that’s all people were talking about.

“Seeing that plane, just in a photo, was the first time since Amelia died that I almost felt excited again. I pictured my father standing beside that plane. Then I pictured me standing beside it.

“That’s when I told my uncle that I
had
to fly on one. So, in the spring of 1936, he took me to New York and back.”

“And?”

“It was amazing. We had seven stops and it took almost twenty hours total, but it was the wave of the future back then. You’d laugh if you saw it now. There’s so much more technology in the planes today. There’s backup system after backup system, and they practically fly themselves.”

Hmm. Well, I just hoped this plane would fly us straight to our destination and quickly.