Such a Rush(4)
Author: Jennifer Echols

And I wasn’t done. Watching my mom’s signature on the lease, I copied the S in Sheryl onto the permission form. It wasn’t a perfect imitation. My hand shook. But Mr. Hall wouldn’t have her signature on file for comparison like the school did. I copied heryl. I was going to get in trouble for this. It would come back to haunt me, I knew. I copied the J in Jones. The alternative was to stay on the ground and never go up in an airplane. I copied ones. Go ahead and fork over my last dollar to my mom so she and Billy or whoever her boyfriend was that month could fund a party with my money, he could get a new fishing rod and a shotgun, they could pawn it all for beer money or for crack if he was one of those boyfriends, then try to win the money back at the Indian casino in North Carolina. I underlined Sheryl Jones just as she did, like an eighth grader still in love with her own signature.

I pocketed the form. With the magazine under my elbow, I locked the trailer door behind me and walked to work. I skirted just beyond reach of my neighbor’s chained pit bull, prompting the dog to bark and lunge maniacally at me. As I popped out of the forest, into the long, wide clearing, the barking was drowned out by an airplane engine. The World War II Stearman biplane that Mark’s uncle once used for crop dusting was coming in for a landing.

Mark had told me that his uncle, Mr. Simon, had bought three Air Tractors just recently—the ugliest planes I’d seen at the airport yet, with ridiculously long noses and harsh angles, painted garish yellow. Now that Mr. Simon used those monstrosities for crop dusting, he’d converted the biplane back into a passenger plane so one of the crop-duster pilots could give tourists a joyride.

The biplane was beautiful, the huge motor in the nose balanced by the long wings above and below. It looked like it had soared out of a time machine. I watched it sail downward and held my breath for the crash—but planes always seemed to me like they should crash. None of them had actually crashed while I’d been a witness. The biplane skimmed to a smooth landing and slowed. I tripped and realized I’d stumbled out of the long grass and onto the asphalt tarmac.

Way in the distance, the men of the airport lounged in rocking chairs on the office porch. Mr. Hall. The Admiral, an actual retired admiral who looked anything but in his cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirt. Mr. Simon, looking exactly like the owner of a crop-dusting business in overalls and a baseball hat from an airplane manufacturer. Another retired Navy guy—Heaven Beach was a popular place for them to settle. The jet pilot for one of the local corporations. As I drew close, several of them turned to watch me.

As I reached hearing distance, all of them watched me, and they fell completely silent. I was sure they were staring at the copy of Plane & Pilot under my arm. I hoped my elbow covered the label with the airport address. I stepped under the awning.

Mr. Hall said, “Hello, Leah.”

“Hello, Leah. Good afternoon, Leah,” came a chorus of voices.

I grinned blankly, staring past them at the runway, as I backed through the glass door.

The town sent one of their maintenance guys, Leon, to take care of the airport when I wasn’t around. He put chocks under airplane wheels just fine, but he didn’t have the greatest telephone skills, and I’d made him promise never to touch the files because I wasn’t a hundred percent sure he could read. I took the keys and the airport cell phone from him. After he left, I listened to the messages he’d let go to voice mail. As I called a man back about renting a hangar and went over the lease agreement with him, my skin caught on fire. If I got caught forging my mother’s name on Mr. Hall’s permission form, I couldn’t very well claim I was only fourteen years old and didn’t understand what was legal in paperwork and what wasn’t.

I tried to forget it and play friendly airport hostess as I greeted a millionaire jetting in for a weekend vacation with his family. I called the town’s only limo service to come pick them up. I made fresh coffee in the break room. I wiped the whole office down, even the empty rooms. After the old men left the porch and I was pretty sure nobody was watching, I slipped the copy of Plane & Pilot back onto a table in the lobby.

For the last hour and a half the office was open, I sat in a rocking chair on the porch in the hot afternoon, watching the occasional air traffic. The office was set slightly ahead of the straight line of hangars. Beyond the brick corners of the building, I couldn’t always see who was prepping a plane to go up. I loved when an engine suddenly roared to life, startling me, and the plane taxied to the end of the runway. It revved its motor, then sped toward me and lifted with no additional noise at all, like a car driving up a hill, except there was nothing underneath but the runway and then grass and then trees and then—I couldn’t see where it went.

At two minutes until closing time, I lit a cigarette. Mr. Hall’s truck still sat outside his hangar, but he might close up and go home at any moment. Then I would lose another night of sleep and go through this whole ordeal again tomorrow. I had told him I would be back today with my signed permission form, but maybe he didn’t believe I would get my mother to sign it. And he would be correct. Please don’t leave.

Exactly at closing time, I stubbed out my cigarette in the urn of sand outside the office door and walked over to the Hall Aviation hangar. I’d learned the hard way yesterday not to bang on the outer door, because this just annoyed Mr. Hall. The screech as the door opened was warning enough for him. I walked on in. Beyond the shadows of the airplanes, he looked up from his desk inside his bright glassed-in office in the corner and swept his hand toward the empty seat.

I dug in my pocket for the money and the permission form, unfolding them and handing them over as I sat down.

He set them aside without looking at them. “You’re back.”

“Yes, sir.” Why had he placed my money and the form to one side? Did he already know the signature was a fake? I forced myself to calm down and concentrate on his face, as if I actually wanted to have a conversation with him.

He was in his late forties, like the parents of fourteen-year-olds ought to be. I could tell his hair used to be blond and curly like Grayson’s, but it was turning white, and he’d cut it so short that it looked almost straight. I could also tell he used to be hot like Grayson. The traces of a strong chin and high cheekbones were still there in his weathered face, but he seemed to have gained a lot of weight quickly. His face was misshapen with it now, and the roll didn’t sit right around his gut.

“I figured you’d be back,” he said. “How are you liking your job over at the office?”