“Three months. But who’s counting, right?”
“I got bills to pay, too, OK?” Larry said. “I got a knee needs replacing. I got a kid needs braces. Five grand to get her teeth fixed so when she turns sixteen, I can stay up all night debating whether to take a shotgun to her pimply little prom date after he brings her home four hours late, or de-ball him with a pair of channel locks.”
“You know, Larry, I’m no psychotherapist, but I believe those would be called issues.”
“What about the fucking money you owe me, Logan? What about those issues?” He grabbed a socket wrench from the tool cabinet and climbed back up the step stool, pissed and in pain. “You know, Logan, I used to think you were a funny guy. You obviously think you’re a funny guy. But your bullshit’s getting pretty goddamn old. You’re a grown-ass man. Stiffing honest people. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
I was. And then some. If I’d had the dough, I would’ve paid him every penny I owed him right then and there. But what little I had in the bank was barely enough to cover next month’s rent on my apartment, let alone the rent I owed Larry for the cramped, converted storage room I sublet from him in his hangar and called a flight school. The Ruptured Duck, my four-seat 172 with its unreliable radios, hail-dimpled wings, and faded orange, yellow and white color scheme that practically screamed 1973, the year the plane came off Cessna’s Wichita assembly line, was the only inanimate object I owned of any value, and I’d already borrowed against it — twice.
“Look, I’ve got a government pension check coming in,” I said. “We’re talking $920. I’ll give you half as soon as I get it.”
“Sure you will.” He shook his head with disgust and disappeared once more into the Beech’s engine compartment. “You need to find yourself a job, Logan, a real job, cuz this flight instructor gig obviously ain’t working out too good for you.”
What can you say to the truth? I said nothing.
“I hear they’re hiring over at Sears,” Larry said.
“They’re always hiring over at Sears,” I said.
A banner the size of a toboggan hung from the wall above my desk. In red, white and blue letters, it said, “Above the Clouds Aviation — Flight Training, Whale Watching and Aerial Charters.” I’d paid a graphic artist sixty-nine bucks to design and print it out, splurging for three colors instead of two. The artist offered to throw in some smiling cartoon whales jumping out of the water and cute little psychedelic-colored biplanes zipping through rainbows and around cotton ball clouds, but I figured the FAA would take one look at all of that extraneous garbage, assume I was smoking crack — like the artist — and revoke my pilot’s license. I stuck with the basics.
A woman was standing below the banner, flipping through my “Babes and Bombers” wall calendar, smirking at all the photos of hot chicks posing with hot warbirds. The calendar had been a birthday gift from Larry, back when I could still afford to make the rent, before the economy took a dump and prospective student pilots disappeared like shadows from a passing cloud. She looked up as I entered.
“I know you,” she said with a cloying smile.
Some faint new lines around the eyes. A slight softening under the jaw. Not bad for six years gone by. She wore a sleeveless gray silk pantsuit and a black lace camisole that showed more cleavage than I really needed to see. Her feet were clad in patent leather high heels with Wicked Witch of the West toes. A Kate Spade satchel hung from her right shoulder. Her hair was a shade redder than when I last saw her, and shorter. She wore a gold wedding band. No other jewelry. No makeup. She needed none. My ex-wife, Savannah Carlisle, was still every inch the heartbreaker I unfortunately remembered all too well.
“The devil must be wearing thermal underwear,” I said.
Her smile faded. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Outside your attorney’s office. That morning we signed the papers.”
“I said I’d see you again when hell froze over. I was upset that day, Logan. I’m sure you could understand, under the circumstances.”
Her eyes were liquid mahogany, her gaze as penetrating as ever. I wondered if she could hear my heart slamming around under my polo shirt.
“You cut your hair,” I said.
“And you didn’t.”
She approached me slowly, shoulders back, accentuating her breasts, maintaining eye contact while biting her lower lip — classic signals of carnal interest. I was hoping she was going to wrap her toned arms around my waist and admit how much she’d missed me, what a terrible mistake she’d made by leaving. The biggest mistake of her life. But as she drew closer, I could see that her pupils were barely dilated.
She reached out and gave my beard a playful tug.
“Very Grizzly Adams,” Savannah said. “I think I like it.”
“Whew. What a relief. The first thing I said to myself when I grew it was, ‘Gee, I wonder what my insignificant other would think?’”
“Still the same sarcastic jerk. Some things never change, do they, Logan?”
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to make love to her or crush her exquisite throat with my hands. A man doesn’t lose so rare a woman as Savannah Carlisle without craving and loathing her the rest of his life.
“Still modeling?” I asked, doing my best to keep things civil.
“Nobody wants to see a forty-two-year-old woman walk the runway, not in a string bikini, anyway. Actually, I’m doing a fair amount of counseling these days.” She dug a business card out of her bag and handed it to me. In Ye Olde English script it said, “Savannah Echevarria. Life Coach.”
“That’s rich. You, of all people, telling people how to manage their lives.”
“You always did enjoy putting me down, didn’t you?”
I would’ve apologized but I was in no mood. I parked myself behind my desk and shuffled through a stack of outdated airworthiness directives like it was important work.
“So,” Savannah said, glancing around, “seems like you’re doing well.”
“Me? Top of the heap. Couldn’t be better.”
I was amazed my nose didn’t go Pinocchio on me. All she needed to do was take one look around my stuffy, windowless “flight academy” to see that things could’ve been way better: A card table littered with a dozen dog-eared Jeppeson flight manuals. A cheap plastic fan and a couple of green plastic lawn chairs from Kmart. A decrepit, Vietnam-era metal desk and an Army surplus filing cabinet, olive drab. A computer so old, I had to just about shovel coal into it to make it work. I resented the hell out of her showing up, invading my space, inviting herself back into my world without fair warning. But it was my own fault. I’d left the door unlocked. In the sun-kissed, seaside enclave of Rancho Bonita, with its red tile roofs and Italian climate and verdant hills overlooking the Pacific—“California’s Monaco” as the city’s moneyed minions like to call it — most everybody leaves their doors unlocked. At least they claim to. Admitting otherwise would be to concede that Rancho Bonita, like Los Angeles — its bloated, apocalyptic neighbor 120 miles down the coast — has a crime problem. Heaven forbid anything should undermine property values in paradise.
“So,” Savannah said, “what made you decide to grow out your beard?”
“Just trying to walk a different path, that’s all.”
“A different path. Sounds vaguely Buddhist.”
“I dabble.”
“Are you serious? Cordell Logan, a Buddhist?”
I shrugged.
“Don’t tell me you’ve gone vegetarian, too.”