“Can you point me towards one of them?” I was trying valiantly not to laugh at the poor girl.
She pointed across the lobby area to a hallway and a door. “Over there.”
“Thank you.” She went scurrying back to her other work, and I chuckled and headed over to the hallway.
I chuckled and turned towards the hallway and went down it. The first door was open and labeled “Executive Charters”, which sounded promising. I looked inside and saw a middle-aged man sitting at a desk looking over some charts, and wearing a semi-military shirt and slacks. I knocked on the door. He looked up and said, “Can I help you?”
“The girl out front pointed in this general direction and said the air charter companies were down here,” I said. “But I’m not sure she was sure.”
“Pretty little blonde, a bit ditzy?” I nodded. “That’s Brenda. A sweet girl but a real airhead.”
I grinned at the description. “I bet she makes up for it in other ways.”
He laughed. “I’m too old and married for that, but you are right. How can I help you? Looking to charter a plane?”
“Yeah, but I want to know how it works.”
“Well, have a seat. I’m Lloyd Jarrett.”
“Carl Buckman.”
“So, Carl, where do you want to go?” he asked.
“Well, first, I want to take my family up to Utica for a few days. After that, we’ll come home and I want to travel to the Bahamas. Can that be done?”
He nodded. “No problem. Just say when.”
“So, Lloyd, how does this work? For the last few years most of my flights have been one way. The Army made me climb on board and the Air Force made me jump out rather than land.”
Lloyd laughed at that. “Paratrooper?” I grinned and inclined my head in assent. “I know what that’s like. I have some buddies who fly C-130s for the Maryland National Guard and they occasionally do their two weeks a year down at Pope. You might have jumped from one of their flights.”
Lloyd had the look of a military man, with the stocky build and short hair cut of a pilot. “Maybe so. You?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I fly A-10 Warthogs for the Guard.”
“A fighter jock,” I said with a smile. “Well, I want to fly charter to a few places, and not commercial, so, again, how does this work?”
“Rates are based on the size of the plane and the distance we fly, usually expressed in a cost per hour and the number of hours. You usually end up with a flat fee on a flight. We take most major credit cards.”
Executive Charters had a mix of planes, with a couple of Beechcraft King Airs, a Learjet 25, and a de Havilland Twin Otter for cargo purposes. They also had access through a network of charter companies to larger planes, including Gulfstream IIs and IIIs.
“Do you normally get guys like me just asking to fly places?” I asked.
Lloyd shrugged. “Not so much, but it’s more like you’re younger than the norm, by far.”
“I’m in investments these days,” I replied, temporizing. No need to get into the money with everybody. I could always run the bills through ‘The Buckman Group’. I was starting to be thankful that Jake Junior had me start up the corporation.
Lloyd just nodded. “Still, most of our work comes through corporate travel departments, or a few high end travel agents.”
Now we were getting somewhere! What I had in mind for Marilyn and me would involve a high end travel agent of some sort. “Such as?”
Lloyd gave me a few names and numbers for some travel agents he had worked for, and then took me out to the flight line and showed me a couple of his planes. Eventually I thanked him for his time and took his card. Lloyd had been very helpful; maybe I could have the travel agent use his company.
I had lunch at a small place in Westminster, and then drove back to the town house. Marilyn was busy trying to feed Charlie as well as do the laundry, so I rescued her by taking my son. She thought I was getting off easy until he spilled his bottle all over me and then burped up the rest on top of that. I took him up to the bathroom and stripped off both our clothes and we took a quick shower together. I’m not sure whether he liked the shower or not, but it certainly seemed to fascinate him! I returned him naked and clean to his mother to redress.
“I can’t believe you gave him a shower!” she exclaimed. Charlie wriggled and giggled in his mother’s arms as she struggled to put a fresh diaper on him.
“Hey, a man’s got to do what a man’s go to do! He’s a natural at it! He’ll never want to take a bath now.”
“Men!” she exclaimed. She finished dressing him and then dumped him back in my lap.
I waited until Charlie got sleepy and then put him in his crib. Afterwards I grabbed the phone and started dialing a few of the travel agents that Lloyd had recommended. I made an appointment to meet one of them, a Taylor Hannity of Dream Vacations, at our house tomorrow afternoon.
I’m not quite sure why I selected Ms. Hannity from the names Lloyd had given me. Maybe it was because she didn’t seem to bat an eye when I asked her to meet at our home. The other two wanted to meet at my office or theirs, and were curious when I said I didn’t have an office. Ms. Hannity never missed a beat and simply asked for the address and the time to be there. Maybe she was familiar with the habits of rich people. Or maybe I needed to get an office to meet people in. I would have to give that some thought.
What in the world would I do with an office? What would I do there? Hide from Marilyn? That didn’t seem like a productive use of my time, even if I wanted to be productive, which I was ambivalent about to begin with. I sort of liked just goofing off!
Taylor showed up the next day at 2:00 in the afternoon. By then we had been in the town house for almost two weeks and everything was basically put where we wanted it to be. The walls were still white primer, but it was a good primer and simply looked like a stark white finish coat. I could live with it for a year, especially since the alternative was having Marilyn hector me into painting and wallpapering. If Marilyn decided she wanted colors, maybe that office idea would pay off after all!
The doorbell buzzed at us and I said, “I’ll get it,” and headed towards the door. I opened it to find a trim brunette in her mid-thirties holding an attaché case. “Hello. Ms. Hannity?”
She gave me a dazzling smile and held her hand out. “Call me Taylor. Mister Buckman, I presume?”
I shook her hand and nodded. “Call me Carl. Come on in… I turned and said, „Marilyn, our guest is here.“”
Marilyn came closer and said, “Ssshhh! I just put Charlie down for his nap. You wake him and he’ll be fussy for hours!”
“How old is he?” asked Taylor.
“It will be five months next week,” answered my wife.
Taylor smiled again. “That’s a good age. By this time next year this place is going to look like a war zone. Kids that age can get toys out faster than you can put them away!”
“This time next year I hope to have that problem in our new house,” I replied.
“Oh?”
I nodded. “Come on in. Let’s sit down and talk.” I led the way to the dining room. “Please have a seat. Can we get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”
“Coffee would be lovely, thank you.”
I’m sure it would be, if I knew how to make coffee. I don’t drink it, so I don’t know how. Marilyn smiled at me and said, “I’ll do it. You want some iced tea?”
“Please.”
She snorted in laughter at me, which mystified Taylor, and went to the kitchen. I smiled at Taylor’s quizzical look. “I can’t stand coffee and Marilyn knows it. I don’t even know how to make it.”
“Well, don’t go to any trouble on my behalf.”