Not this year. This year, he wanted first. And Nadine was the defending champion, and he had beaten her — in practice, anyway. Of course, if he was gonna do that, he’d have to be better, ‘cause they were gonna use the same ’rang. The new Takahashi Silk Leaf he’d bought had added ten or fifteen seconds to their best times, and the blue beast was the way to go, no question. And she had beaten him as often as he had her, so it was not a sure thing. And on any given day, the wind could be hinky, the thermals might go weird, and you could get a great throw or a bad one. No way to tell until the moment of truth.
Nadine put her pack down and started rolling her shoulders. You couldn’t throw without warming up and stretching, that was a good way to injure a joint or tear a muscle. Even if you were real limber, you could strain something, and you didn’t want to do that in general, and certainly not when you were going to be competing in the Nationals.
“Don’t see any Indians or wagon trains,” Tyrone observed as he used his left hand to pull his right elbow up and back over his head. His shoulder popped like cracking a knuckle.
“Doesn’t look like it’s gonna rain, either,” Nadine said.
“God, I hope not. That would be awful.”
After a couple minutes, they were loose enough. The sun was shining, it was warm, but not too hot, and the wind was mild. A great day for flying.
Michaels might have felt better a few times in his life. His wedding night. The day his daughter was born. Even the first time he and Toni had been together in this very bed, but this had to rank right up there with the best. Toni was back, and the two of them were naked under the sheet. That went a long way to smooth the turbulent waters he had been in lately.
“What time is it?” she asked, sleep still thick in her voice.
“Eight.”
“You’re late for work.”
“I called in sick.”
She grinned. “I have to go pee.”
“Go ahead. I’ll make the coffee. Meet you back here in a few minutes.”
“Um.”
He had already started the coffee, and was able to snatch a couple of cups and be back in bed before Toni returned from the bathroom.
“That was fast,” she said, taking one of the heavy china mugs. She inhaled the vapor. “Mmm.”
“So, you want to talk some more about how stupid I am?”
“You’d have to call in sick for a few more days to exhaust that one.”
“Okay. How about, what now?”
“We could take a shower together.” She smiled over the top of the mug.
“Oh, yeah, I can line up with that. But I meant something a little further ahead.”
“We could come back to bed after the shower?”
“Uh, Toni…”
“I know, I know. Let’s just let everything else wait, okay?”
He nodded. He didn’t want to push her. But he also didn’t want her to get up and dress and leave, either.
“Enough talk,” she said. “Actions speak louder than words, remember?”
“Really? Maybe you better show me. I kinda don’t remember.”
She threw her pillow at him. “You better remember!”
“You think the kids will be all right?” Howard asked.
“You want me to drive?” his wife said. “You know you can’t worry and drive at the same time. This is the village of the happy nice people, John. At least compared to where we live. They are in a crowd full of people playing with boomerangs, for God’s sake, they’ll be fine.”
They were driving through a tunnel on Highway 26 that led into downtown Portland. The walls of the tunnel were white tile, and they were pristine. Not just white — there wasn’t any graffiti painted on them. Clean.
“This is the cleanest town I’ve ever been in,” she said, echoing his thought. “No trash, no beer bottles, it’s like Disney World.”
Somebody honked, just like somebody always seemed to do in a long tunnel, just to hear the sound it made. He nodded in the direction of the honker.“Yeah, too bad they can’t get rid of the morons.”
“Stay in the center lane,” she said as they exited the tunnel.
It was a pretty city. There were more buildings than he remembered from his last visit, and the views of the mountains were not quite as open. Mount Hood still had snow on it, even in June, and to the left Mount Saint Helens did, too. He’d talked to people who’d lived here when the volcano blew its top off, back in the spring of 1980, and it had apparently been quite impressive.
The initial blast had not only blown powdered rock upward, it had spewed outward, knocking down trees, a “stone wind” that had scoured everything in its path. The explosion created ash and snowmelt pyroclastic flows that had filled lakes and rivers, knocked out bridges, buried a tourist lodge — empty, fortunately, save for the old man who ran it and refused to evacuate. Most of the people who died had been inside the safety zone established by the state, and it could have been a lot worse.
According to an old staff sergeant Howard knew who had been in town when it blew, the volcano had looked like a nuclear blast, great clouds of pulverized rock boiling into the stratosphere. The wind hadn’t been blowing toward the city that day, so they’d missed the big ash fall, though they got some in subsequent eruptions. It was like living next door to a concrete plant when that happened, the sarge said, fine clouds of gray dust swirling in the streets like powdered snow. Jets had to detour around the city when the ash was at its heaviest; it would eat up the engines otherwise, and car air filters clogged and had to be changed within a few hours. People wore painters’ masks to keep from choking on the stuff. It was hard to imagine it.
And you couldn’t tell by looking at it now.
“Stay in this lane.”
“I heard you the first time. Who’s driving this car, me or you?”
“You’re driving. I’m navigating. Clearly the more important job.”
Howard grinned. Was there anything more wonderful than a bright woman? Even if she was shining that brightness into a place you’d rather keep dark sometimes, that didn’t detract from her radiance.
“Yes, ma’am, you are the navigator.”
She smiled back, and looked at the car’s dash-mounted GPS. The little computer screen showed a map.
“Stay on this street — Market — until you get to Front Street, then turn left. Immediately get into the right lane, and turn right on the Hawthorne Bridge. The restaurant we want is called Bread and Ink, and it’s thirty blocks east of the Willamette River.”
“Begging the navigator’s pardon, ma’am, but that’s pronounced ‘Will-lam-it,’ not ‘Will-uh-met.’ Accent is on the second syllable.”
“Ask me if I care.”
“Just trying to keep the navigator honest, ma’am.”
Howard’s virgil chimed. He pressed the receive button. “Yes?”
“Hi, Dad. This is Tyrone. Just calling to check in. We’re fine here. Everybody is fine, no problems, and how are you?”
“Nobody likes a smart-ass, Tyrone.” He shook his head. “But thanks for calling.”
Tyrone put on his airline pilot’s voice: “Ah, roger that, parental unit two-oh-two. We’ll, ah, be standing by here for, ah, your return. That’s a discom.”