Takeoffs and Landings

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  But maybe that was just because the other kids laughed at him running the bases. Mike and Joey imitated him: “Look at me! I’m the Michelin tire man!” “Oh no, I’m shaking the ground!”

  Lori thought back—what about when Chuck was younger? When he wasn’t fat? For a second, she caught a fleeting memory of her and Chuck and their dad playing catch in the backyard of their old house. Hadn’t Chuck been whining, “I don’t want it to hit me! It’ll hurt!”? And their dad had insisted, “Look, it’s a softball. You won’t get hurt. Just catch it.”

  She wasn’t sure if that was something she truly remembered or something she’d dreamed. Or just plain made up.

  Regardless, Chuck didn’t like sports now.

  The zoo? Chuck didn’t like animals. Pop had to remind him a million times a day to feed the hogs.

  The CNN tour? Chuck hated watching the news.

  Really, Lori couldn’t think of anything Chuck liked.

  He turned a corner and went into a glitzy, glass building. The sign said, HIGH MUSEUM OF ART.

  Art? Art?

  Lori looked again, almost certain she’d misread the sign. But, no. That’s what it said. Maybe the sign went with a different building. She actually went over and peered in a window. A sculpture of a little boy looked back at her, and a painting hung over his head.

  Chuck had gone into an art museum.

  He didn’t come back out, so Lori knew it wasn’t a matter of just using the bathroom.

  Was it possible that Chuck liked art?

  Lori didn’t know anybody who liked art. Plenty of her friends’ mothers did crafts—decoupaging picnic baskets, stenciling Christmas cards, needlepointing little signs with sayings like “A moment on the lips, an eternity on the hips.” But crafts weren’t art.

  Back when they were in elementary school, they’d had an art teacher come in once a week. She was old and smelled bad, and she’d yelled at Lori once for taking two sheets of green construction paper instead of one. (Lori hadn’t even known she’d taken two—they stuck together.) She mostly had them cut out things—construction-paper leaves in the fall, construction-paper wreaths at Christmas, construction-paper flowers for Mother’s Day. (Lori gave hers to Gram, because what was Mom going to do with them?) But there wasn’t even an art teacher in high school, not since the last school levy failed.

  So if Chuck had liked art all along, there was no way anyone would have known.

  Lori started laughing. Chuck likes art! Chuck likes art!

  Other people on the sidewalk were giving her strange looks and dodging around her. She sat down on a concrete ledge and kept laughing. Chuck liked art! She didn’t usually make fun of Chuck back home, preferring the “Ignore him and maybe he’ll go away” approach. But this was too funny not to share. She got up and went into the art museum; as she suspected, she could get to the museum gift shop without paying the admission fee. She bought a postcard with some armless sculpture on the front and wrote on it before she even left the shop:

  Dear Angie,

  Guess what? My big brother ( and I do mean big ) has a secret obsession. He’s been sneaking out to visit . . . art museums. Weird, huh?

  I’m fine. Miss you. Can’t wait to catch up on all the gossip when I get home.

  Love,

  Lori

  Lori didn’t have a stamp, so she tucked the postcard in her purse to mail later. She started walking out of the museum, but she looked back at the last minute, suddenly curious about what Chuck might possibly see in an art museum, anyway. Through the entryway to the main part of the museum, she could see half of a strange painting of someone with three eyes and two noses and a bluish face. It didn’t even look as good as the amateur paintings at the fine arts exhibit at the county fair.

  But Chuck was standing in front of it. His back was to Lori, so she watched him watching the picture. He was absolutely still; he didn’t so much as scratch his nose. He had the same posture the minister had before the altar at church, breaking Communion bread: straight, erect, reverent. And Chuck never stood up straight. He always slumped, his shoulders hunched over as if that would pull his T-shirt forward to hide his fat belly.

  Lori started giggling again, so she rushed out the museum door. But, out on the sidewalk again, she stopped laughing. This was weird. Maybe she didn’t want to send the postcard to Angie after all. Having Chuck be that weird might make Lori seem weird, too.

  Lori started walking down the street, suddenly wanting to get away from the art museum. But she didn’t know where else to go. The thought of going to the Coke museum all by herself wasn’t appealing at all. She knew how it would be: all these other families and clusters of friends and then Lori, by herself, with no one to mutter back and forth with: They make how much Coke a day? Did you ever think it looked like that being mixed up?

  Lori wandered down another street, aimlessly, hoping she’d see something else to catch her interest. She had money for shopping, after all; she had the whole day to do with as she wished. Lori tried to convince herself that that was a luxury, but she just felt forlorn. She had nothing to do and nobody to do it with.

  Lori wasn’t used to being alone. At home, she complained about it: “Why do I have to share my room with Emma?” “Why can’t Joey leave me alone while I’m doing homework?” “Gram, can’t you just stop chattering about your tomato preserves for five seconds?” (She’d never actually asked the last question—just thought it.) And at school, more happily, she always traveled in a crowd of friends. She could always count on having Angie or Breanna walking beside her, or Dana or Chelsea sitting behind her in class, passing notes when the teacher wasn’t looking. It would be horrible to be alone at school.

  It was worse in a strange city. Lori felt totally invisible, unnoticed. Nobody knew who she was. She didn’t matter to anyone here.

  But that’s what Mom was all the time—alone in a strange city. What kind of a life was that?

  For a minute, Lori was afraid that she’d asked the question out loud, because a black woman looked at her, then quickly looked away, just like Mom had looked at homeless people in Chicago. But Lori wasn’t that out of it—she would know if she’d moved her lips, and she hadn’t. She looked around.

  She was the only white person in sight.

  Something like panic started to rise up out of her gut, and she forced it down.

  So you’re the only white person. So what? It was getting close to lunchtime; the street was crowded. It was just a coincidence that this street was crowded with all black people. Except for Lori.

  Maybe I’m in danger. No—I shouldn’t think that. That’s racist. Lori felt like she was in danger, anyway. Her heart pounded, and she could feel the adrenaline flooding her system. She wanted to run, but she was still calm enough not to want to look silly.

  You’re not in any danger. Calm down. But she didn’t know that for sure. She wasn’t used to big cities. For all she knew, she’d wandered into some notorious housing project, and there was going to be a shoot-out between rival gangs any minute.

  There are nice stores all around you. These people are well dressed. Better dressed than Lori, actually. There were more Tommy Hilfiger and Nike logos than Lori had ever seen outside of a store before. Lori was staring so hard that she caught the eye of a teenaged girl walking past; the girl gave her a half smile and walked on.

  Would she have smiled if I was about to be killed? Or assaulted? Abducted? Raped?

  Lori started walking faster. In the next block, she saw a white man in a business suit. He didn’t even look her way. And then in the next block, there were as many white people as black. Lori wasn’t in any danger. She never had been.

  She sank weakly onto a concrete bench, her heart still thumping unnaturally. Her new shirt was drenched with sweat. What was wrong with her? The worst thing anybody had done to her was smile.

  But I was different. I was surrounded by people who weren’t like me.

  For no reason at all, Lori suddenly remembered someth
ing that had happened only the week before at a Junior Leadership meeting. Everyone was clowning around afterward, throwing water balloons and laughing about it. Lori was thrilled because Roger Stanton had aimed one right at her—did that maybe mean he liked her? It was a great game.

  Then one of the water balloons hit Chuck.

  Everyone got quiet. Chuck wasn’t even out in the playing area. He was sitting alone on the ground by a fence, waiting for Gram to come and pick them up. Whoever hit him had to have been trying.

  “Sorry,” Mitch Turland said. “I’m real sorry.”

  Another water balloon slapped the ground by Chuck’s feet and burst. Water splashed up in his face. Now he was soaked.

  “Oops,” Sam Shettles said. “Me, too.”

  Lori willed Chuck to laugh the whole thing off. Grab a water balloon yourself and start throwing. Make a big joke of it, she thought.

  But Chuck didn’t move. Another balloon zipped toward him, this one exploding against the fence rail right over his head. Chuck’s face turned red under the dripping water.

  No, no, Lori thought. Whatever you do, don’t cry.

  Gram had shown up in the pickup truck before anything else could happen. She’d made both of the kids get in the back because they were wet. Lori had sat there, the wind whipping hair into her face, the fireflies starting to rise over the cornfields on either side of the road. And she was just furious with Chuck.

  “Don’t you know how to play along?” she yelled at him.

  He didn’t answer.

  And Lori couldn’t understand him at all.

  But now—Lori remembered her panic, just a few moments ago, at being different. Had the Junior Leadership meeting felt that way to Chuck? Was that how he felt all the time, in all those places Lori felt accepted and admired—all the places she belonged?

  Slowly, Lori reached into her purse and pulled out the postcard she’d intended to send to Angie. She ripped it in half, then ripped it again. And again. She kept going until it was shredded, like confetti.

  Chuck forgot to eat lunch.

  He would have forgotten about meeting Mom at four, too, except that at three forty-five polite chimes echoed through the art museum and a classy-sounding voice announced, “We regret to inform the patrons of the High Museum of Art that we will be closing early today, due to our air-conditioning problems.”

  Chuck hadn’t even noticed that they were having air-conditioning problems.

  But the announcement forced him to look at his watch, then he took off running. Fifteen minutes. Could he get back to the hotel in fifteen minutes?

  He got turned around leaving the art museum and went the wrong way for three blocks. Fortunately, the round top of the hotel stuck up high above the buildings around it, so he navigated his way back looking up the whole time.

  His watch said 3:57 when he stepped onto the elevator. He was going to make it!

  Of course, Lori would probably tattle on him, anyway, for not staying with her. He gulped. He never got in trouble with Mom. But the art museum had been worth it. He closed his eyes briefly, and visions swam before his eyes—colors and strokes, portraits that revealed more than photographs, landscapes that made him long to travel everywhere.

  The elevator dinged on his floor and he hurried to the room. The door was just swinging shut.

  Mom was already back.

  He rushed in behind her, wondering how he could explain. How he could counter whatever Lori had already told Mom.

  Mom had her back to Chuck.

  “Where’s your brother?” she was asking. “Don’t tell me you two got separated. I thought I very specifically said—”

  Lori looked past Mom to Chuck.

  “Couldn’t you find the ice machine?” she said. “It’s right down the hall.”

  “Um—um—,” Chuck sputtered.

  “Oh, you forgot the ice bucket. Stupid!” Lori’s voice was teasing. But she flashed a defiant look at Mom.

  Chuck tried to figure out what was going on. Wasn’t Lori going to tell on him?

  Mom turned and looked back apologetically at Chuck.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was jumping to conclusions. I never said you had to tie your wrists together just to go get ice.”

  She slid out of her high-heeled shoes and collapsed onto the nearest bed.

  “I am all talked out,” she moaned. “How was your day? What did you two do?”

  “Just looked around some,” Lori said. “Saw the city.”

  Chuck squinted at Lori in confusion. She was covering for him. Why? She flashed him a look that very clearly said, Keep your mouth shut. Mom didn’t even notice because her eyes were closed.

  “Hmm,” Mom said. “Where did you eat lunch?”

  “Wendy’s,” Lori said smoothly.

  Chuck had never known Lori was such a good liar. Maybe she wasn’t lying. Maybe she really had eaten at Wendy’s. Only, she was making Mom think Chuck had been there with her.

  His stomach growled.

  “After lunch, it was so hot, we just came back here and swam in the pool,” Lori said.

  Lori looked him straight in the eye, daring him to contradict her.

  She knew.

  WHAT JOAN LAWSON WANTED TO SAY DURING HER SPEECH IN ATLANTA:

  I don’t feel like talking about time and the importance of living each day to its fullest. I want to talk about my kids.

  Something has happened. Something has changed.

  Chuck is still off in his own little world, but he sits there smiling when he thinks no one is watching him.

  Chuck—smiling?

  Why?

  And Lori—well, I won’t tell you how Lori behaved in Chicago. I’m ashamed. And I’m ashamed of myself for not telling her so.

  But here . . . in Atlanta . . . Okay, she’s still not really talking to me. But she and Chuck have something going on. They had a good day together. They’re actually speaking to each other.

  Maybe I was mistaken about the purpose of this trip. Maybe I expected too much, thinking I could mend my relationship with them. Maybe the best I can hope for from this trip is that Lori and Chuck can be friends with each other again. Like they used to be.

  What does my broken heart matter, if theirs are whole?

  I can remember them at three and four: overall straps sliding off their shoulders, bare feet covered in mud, sticks clutched in their hands like fishing rods. Lori, who always spoke for both of them, would announce, “Me and Chuck are catching supper.”

  It didn’t matter where they were—haymow, hog barn, tractor seat, cow pasture—Lori and Chuck were there together. Back then, I don’t think one of them would take a breath without telling the other one first.

  When did that change? With school? No—I can remember them waiting for the school bus together, hand in hand. It was after that.

  I think I know when they stopped being friends. I just don’t know why.

  It was the funeral.

  If you saw what I see in my mind, you’d cry. A little boy and a little girl standing beside their father’s freshly dug grave. The coffin has been lowered in, the minister has said his last “Amen.” Everyone’s leaving. The widow, her stomach huge with her fifth child, is trying to tell the children it’s time to go.

  “Come on, Chuck. Come on, Lori,” she says, trying to keep the tears out of her voice. “We need to go pick up Joey and Mikey at Aunt Louise’s house.”

  “No,” the little girl says.

  The girl’s grandparents talk to her. Aunts and uncles plead with her. Even the funeral director bends down on his knee in the mud and assures her that it’s okay to leave her father’s body right there in the ground, alone.

  “The part of him that matters is in heaven now,” the funeral director says. “He’s happy now.”

  “I’m staying here with Daddy,” the girl says.

  The minister comes back and tries to talk kindergarten theology, but his pleas are useless, too. The mother knows what has to be done. But,
newly widowed and vastly pregnant, she doesn’t have it in her to drag a six-year-old kicking and screaming from her father’s grave.

  We used Chuck instead.

  You should have seen him then. It’s hard to remember now, but he was scrawny beyond words. Small for his age. Heartbreakingly thin. We coached him like a little windup doll, and he went over to stand by Lori.

  “Daddy wants you to go home,” he said. “Come on.”

  That thin, reedy, little-boy voice. So brave. A person could cry for days, just remembering that voice.

  Lori sneaked her hand into Chuck’s. He bent his head toward her ear and they whispered, back and forth. And then, slowly, they began walking away from the grave.

  If I live to be one hundred, I’ll see them like that forever. Hand in hand. Lori was wearing her leftover Easter dress. Pink. Her hair was in ringlets with a big white bow. Chuck had his hair slicked back; he had blue suspenders holding up his checked pants.

  Those were not funeral clothes. They don’t make funeral clothes for six- and seven-year-olds.

  After a few minutes, Lori broke away from Chuck. She ran ahead and beat everyone else back to the car.

  That’s the last time I remember seeing them hand in hand or whispering or acting like they cared about each other at all.

  Of course, they’re teenagers now. Teenaged siblings don’t hold hands.

  Still.

  Don’t you wonder what they said?

  I can’t ask, of course. It’s better for them if they don’t remember.

  WHAT JOAN LAWSON ACTUALLY SAID DURING HER SPEECH IN ATLANTA:

  Every speech has to come to an end.

  I’m sure you’ve all heard speeches that felt interminable—I sincerely hope that this hasn’t been one of them. [Big grin. Pause for laughter from the audience.] But in life, as in speeches, you don’t want to be worrying about what you’ve left unsaid. When you reach that twenty-ninth minute of your half-hour speech, that’s not the time to start thinking, Oh no! I forgot to tell you . . . We have only so much time in front of the microphone, just as we have only so much time on this earth. When the time comes for you to walk away from the great podium of life, do it with your head held high, your shoulders back, and the words of your best speech still ringing in everyone’s ears.