Falling(6)

“I guess we’re boarding,” he said to the flight attendant standing on her tiptoes to reach into one of the carriers in her galley. Jo turned, her eyes lighting up with surprise as Bill stooped to hug the petite middle-aged woman. Her fluffy black coils tickled his cheek as a familiar vanilla scent rose up from her dark brown skin.



* * *



“It’s my signature scent,” Jo said. “Same as my mama and her mama before that. See, when a Watkins girl turns thirteen, all the women in the family gather to celebrate her. No men allowed—just the ladies. We sit in the kitchen. We talk, we cook, we just… feel the generations of female.”

It was music, the way she spoke. Bill delighted in every dragged-out vowel, hanging on to the hilly cadence and unpredictable word emphasis. He always asked about her childhood because he loved hearing her faded East Texas accent get stronger, as it always did, when she talked about her past. Bill finished his beer, indicating to the bartender they’d like another round.

“I’ll never forget Great-Grammy taking the Dr Pepper bottle out of my hand and setting it there on the kitchen counter,” Jo recalled, smiling into her wineglass like she was watching the memory play out. “Lord, that woman’s hands. She wasn’t a big woman, but those hands…

“Anyway, she didn’t say a word, she just handed me this shiny gold box with this royal-blue bow. I knew what it was, we all did. I remember my fingers sliding that bow off so careful-like, and when I opened that box—there it was. My very own bottle of Shalimar. I smelled it. It smelled like my mama. And her mama. It smelled like what I was and who I would become.”



* * *



“I didn’t know you were on this trip,” Jo said.

“I picked it up last night. They were out of reserves so O’Malley asked me to help out.”

“Look at you on speed dial with the chief pilot,” she said, smiling all the while to the boarding guests.

“See? You understand what that means. Could you please explain it to Carrie?”

Jo raised an eyebrow. “Well, that depends. What are you missing to be here?”

“Scott’s Little League season opener. After I promised him I’d be there.”

Jo winced.

“I know,” Bill said. “But what was I supposed to do? It’s not like I’m an absent father. When I’m home, I’m home. I’m present, I’m there. I just happen to have a job that means when I’m at work, I’m away. I’ll make it up to him when I get back.”

He waited for some sort of validation, but Jo just kept pouring her first-class pre-departure beverages. She looked up after a moment.

“Oh, I’m sorry, were you still talking to me? I thought you were explaining all that to your wife. Or to your son. Or to… yourself.” She picked up the tray of drinks. “You’re not wrong, honey. But you are working it out with the wrong person.”

Jo was right. Jo was always right.

“You want coffee?” she asked over her shoulder on her way to deliver the drinks.

“C’mon. You know the answer to that.” Bill ducked into the cockpit.

“Boss man!” Ben said, the men shaking hands as Bill took the left seat. Black and gray buttons and knobs covered nearly every surface in the tiny space. Occasionally, a flash of red or a pop of yellow. Those buttons were the messengers of something gone wrong—the gate-crashers to a quiet flight.

“Sorry I was late,” Ben said. “Even on a Saturday, fucking LA traffic.”

“It happens,” Bill said, reaching for the hand mic in its cradle to the left of his seat. He cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard Coastal Airways Flight four-one-six with nonstop service to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. My name is Bill Hoffman and I have the privilege of being your captain on today’s flight. With me in the cockpit is First Officer Ben and we have a terrific in-flight team serving you in the cabin, although they are here primarily for your safety. Jo is up front, Michael and Kellie are in the back. Flight time today will be five hours and twenty-four minutes and it looks to be a smooth ride. If there is anything we can do to make this flight more pleasant, please don’t hesitate to let us know. For now, sit back, enjoy our in-seat entertainment system, and as always, thank you for choosing to fly Coastal Airways.”

“Did you see Kellie? The new reserve in the back?” Ben asked.

“No, why?”

Ben stopped punching coordinates into the flight management guidance computer to make a few lewd gestures, his hips driving the message home. Bill shook his head with a snort. The days before Carrie, when he too had been a skirt-chasing first officer, seemed like another lifetime. Ben stopped abruptly as Jo entered the cockpit with a steaming cup.

“You want coffee, hon?” she asked the first officer, passing the cup to Bill, not needing to ask to know he took it black.

“No, ma’am, but I will take a drink once we get to the bar in New York.”

“Correct,” she said with a nod and a finger point. “We’re good to go back here, just waiting on two. Y’all mind a visitor while we finish up?”

Bill turned to see a young boy peering out from behind Jo’s legs.

“Sure, come on in,” Bill said as Jo left, shifting in his seat to beckon the boy forward. His father crouched behind him, whispering encouragement into his ear.