Exit Stage Left

by Nall, Gail

  “It doesn’t really matter,” Lucky says. “But math and physics are always good choices.”

  Let’s just say those aren’t exactly my strong suits. But maybe Amanda can do some intensive tutoring with me.

  We follow Lucky around the plane as he explains a bunch of physics terms and then shows us everything to check on before even climbing inside. Harrison’s got a notebook out and is actually taking notes, as if this is school. I pay attention—mostly—as Lucky describes proper tire inflation and how to check the fuel tanks. My brain is threatening to wander when he declares it’s time to get inside.

  Finally! I follow Harrison up the steps and emerge into the tiniest plane cockpit ever. Seriously, it’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic, because I’d already be climbing right back out the door. There are four seats total—two up front and two right behind them. The dashboard is covered in switches and buttons and dials.

  “Just like your car,” Lucky says, “except a little more complicated.”

  “Oh, I don’t have a license,” I tell him.

  Harrison puts an arm around my shoulder (quite the feat since there’s barely enough room for the three of us in this space). “Casey refuses to learn to drive.”

  Lucky removes the Colts cap from his graying hair and scratches his head. “You want a pilot’s license and you don’t even have a driver’s license? Well, if that don’t beat all.”

  I shrug out of Harrison’s arm and perch on one of the backseats. “So? Statistics show that planes are much safer than cars. I know, I looked it up last night.” Only a crazy person would willingly drive a machine that has such a high chance of ending in death or serious injury. Plus, a car would take me only to boring places, like Indianapolis or Louisville. A plane, however . . . With a plane, I could fly myself to Honolulu for an impromptu luau, or to Tokyo for some fresh sushi, or to London, to see what’s opening in the West End. And finally see my dad, since it’s not like he can be bothered to come here and see me.

  Lucky’s already launched into an explanation of all the gadgets and gizmos on the dash. Harrison’s right up there with him, nodding and asking questions. I really should pay attention so that I know how to fly this thing when the time comes. Fresh sushi doesn’t wait for a slow plane. Or a crashed one.

  “. . . since this is a 172, you don’t have to exercise the throttle before you get the engine started because the carburetor . . .”

  Exercise. That’s something I could stand to do more of. If only Harrison had let me keep ice skating on the list. Maybe I can convince him to scrub poker for something more active, like Pilates. Is there a future in Pilates? There has to be, otherwise, why would all those formerly famous actors be hawking their own personal exercise videos? I could totally do that. I’d major in physical education (just not the kind that involves balls), and then I’d just need some decent Pilates outfits and a professional-grade video camera and the right lighting. I could book slots on the Today Show and The View to show the world Absolutely Abs with Casey!

  The engines roar to life, which makes me stop dreaming about whether I’d look better in yoga pants or knee-length running pants.

  “All right, we’re clear to taxi on over to the runway. Who wants to take her up?” Lucky looks from me to Harrison.

  “Rock, Paper, Scissors?” I suggest.

  “How about Rock, Paper, Harrison paid for most of this?” He pulls those sunglasses down and gets comfortable in the front seat.

  “Fine. Never mind that the whole thing was my idea,” I say under my breath.

  “Sorry, can’t hear you over the engine of my plane,” Harrison says as he holds out his phone and takes a selfie.

  “All right, buckle up, everyone,” Lucky says. He passes us each these enormous headphones with a little mic attached. I put them on, and suddenly his voice is in my ears. He directs Harrison on how to steer the plane and we jerk forward toward the runway.

  “A little smoother, please,” I say as I poke Harrison in the back of the neck. Maybe I’m just a tiny bit annoyed that I’m stuck in the back when I should be Amelia Earhart-ing it up in the front.

  We stop when we reach the runway, and Lucky starts pointing to dials on the dash and talking about altitude and gyro and throttle and a bunch of other stuff that sounds like it’s straight from physics class. Physics is not exactly my favorite subject. If it wasn’t for Pre-calc, Physics would probably be my least favorite class. Although it might’ve come in useful here, so maybe I should’ve paid a little more attention. I’m definitely going to have to convince Amanda to tutor me. Maybe she can do long-distance tutoring when I’m in college-level physics at HCC and she’s off at NYU.

  “Did you get that, Casey?” Lucky’s twisted around in his seat, looking at me.

  I nod. “Yup, got it!” Sort of. Who knew flying a plane would be so technical and . . . physics?

  “And we’re ready to go.” Lucky speaks some kind of plane gibberish to the guy on the radio, and he comes back with more plane gibberish, and then Harrison moves the plane forward. Lucky talks about the flaps as I stare out the window.

  It feels like it takes forever to drive the plane from the hangar to the runway. When I get my pilot’s license and brand-new plane, I’ll snag a hangar that’s a hell of a lot closer. If I got one all to myself, I could throw parties in it during my off time from flying my famous clients to photo shoots and stuff. And I could take my friends up for impromptu flights to South Beach. Amanda, for sure, except she’ll probably squick out over the fact that I don’t like to vacuum my plane 24/7. Maybe Kelly and . . . no, because she wouldn’t be able to sit still. So that leaves me with Chris, who’d insist on bringing an entire buffet with him, and Harrison, who’d demand to fly the plane himself. Maybe I should just ditch them all and find some hot senior to fly around in my plane. Although there is Oliver . . .

  The ground moves into a blur as we speed up. I know I laugh at Harrison for having never flown before, but the truth is that I’ve been in a plane only twice in my entire life—both times to visit Dad when he was in New York. And that plane was about fifty times bigger than this one. And less bumpy. And Oh.My.God, is that the sky right in front of us?

  The nose of the plane lifts up as Harrison shouts, “Woooo!”

  My stomach drops as fast as the ground drops away below us.

  “We’ll climb at about five hundred feet per minute,” Lucky says.

  “Holy shit, this is awesome!” Harrison yells from the front seat.

  I pull my eyes from the front of the plane and look out the side window. There’s a bird, right next to us. And the ground, waaaaay down below. My head swims and everything starts to move in front of my eyes. I duck my face down to my knees and squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Casey, you all right? Do you feel sick?” Lucky asks.

  “Uhhhhh . . .” is all I can say.

  “We won’t stay up long. Just keep your head down, and there’s a paper bag back there in case you need it,” Lucky says. He turns to Harrison and adds, “I’ve only ever had one other person throw up in this plane. A little boy, about five.”

  Great. I have the stomach of a five-year-old. I grab that paper bag, just in case.

  “She’s got a thing about heights,” Harrison says.

  I peek up at him. He’s got one hand on the steering wheel–looking thing, like he’s too cool to drive the plane with both hands.

  “Harrison, please put your other hand back. I don’t want to die,” I tell him.

  “You’re not going to die,” he says, but he puts his right hand back on the wheel. “You’re just feeling sick.”

  “First time in a plane?” Lucky asks me.

  I’m looking at my knees again, but I shake my head no.

  “Sometimes these small planes are harder on folks than commercial jets,” he says.

  “Hey, so do you ever see another plane coming at you? What do you do if you see one?” Harrison asks.

  Images of planes crashing and exploding int
o fireballs that light up the sky for miles and miles float through my head, and I grip that paper bag a little tighter.

  After what seems like hours, Lucky announces that we’re going to take the plane down. He walks Harrison through the landing procedure while I concentrate on staying very, very still and not puking.

  The little plane bumps and rolls and turns, and then I feel the familiar ba-bump-bump of wheels hitting the ground. Wind rushes past the flaps and just as I’m sure Harrison is going to run us right into the control tower, the plane stops.

  And I lose the contents of my stomach into that little paper bag.

  Lucky asks if I’m okay (while he cranks the windows open), and Harrison pulls off his headphones and unbuckles his belt so he can check on me.

  “Was I that bad at flying?” he asks.

  “I’m okay, I think. And you did fine. Just maybe not so bumpy next time, all right?”

  “You know, you didn’t throw up until after we landed,” Harrison says. “So you can’t really blame that on me.”

  Lucky motions Harrison back up front and goes through how to shut the plane down.

  I lean back in my seat and close my eyes. At this rate, I’m never going to figure out what to major in. So far, everything’s either made me sick, tried to kill me, or destroyed other people’s masterpieces. And, if I’m honest, there’s no way I could afford to take more flying lessons.

  I suppose I should start learning how to brew the perfect pot of decaf, because right now, that’s exactly where I’m headed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kelly sits at the end of the back row of theater seats, pulling on one of her curls. It’s early. No one else is here yet for rehearsal. I should find something else to occupy my time, like figuring out how to find a band to join for the next item on The List, but I really need Harrison’s input on that. Kelly’s busy writing something as I climb over her legs to grab a seat.

  “Hey. What do you think about caviar for the party?” Kelly looks down at the piece of paper in her lap.

  “What party?”

  “The cast party, of course. After the first show.”

  “Oh yeah.” The cast party. I can’t believe I’d forgotten all about that, considering how much fun they usually are. “Caviar’s kind of expensive, isn’t it? And it sounds pretty gross, if you ask me.”

  “Hmmm . . . maybe we should have barbeque instead. Go for a downhome kind of theme. You don’t think Amanda would mind having bales of hay in her house?” She looks at me expectantly.

  “Hay? In Amanda’s house? Not in a million years.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe just the barbeque then.” Kelly draws a line through caviar and writes barbeque on her list.

  “Barbeque? For what?” Oliver stops next to Kelly and drops his bag onto the floor.

  “The cast party,” Kelly says. “Hey! Do you like avocados?” She points her pen at him as if his answer will determine the fate of the entire party.

  “Um, not really. It’s a texture thing.” He perches on the top of the seat in front of Kelly, anchoring himself with one worn-out Vans shoe against the armrest between me and her.

  “I thought everyone from California liked avocados.” She says California like it’s someplace really exotic, like Monte Carlo or Dubai or Manhattan. Although I suppose any place looks exotic next to Holland, Indiana.

  “Yeah, not me,” Oliver says.

  Kelly crosses out avocados, and I wonder what she was planning to do with them anyway. Have a bowl of them, the way people keep bowls of apples on the table?

  “So, are you like a fancy Hollywood person? Do you know Brad Pitt?” she asks.

  Oliver laughs. “No, but I think he took a riding lesson from my mom once.”

  Kelly’s mouth drops open. “Seriously? I want to know all about it.”

  “There’s not much to tell,” he says. He quirks up the corner of his mouth, and I know he’s putting her on.

  “Kel, he’s kidding.” I push his foot off the armrest just to show him he can’t mess with my friends like that.

  “I knew it was too good to be true.” She slides the menu into her bag. “I’m going to drop this in my car before rehearsal and grab a drink. You guys want anything?”

  I shake my head. And when she’s gone, it’s just me and Oliver. He pulls himself onto the back of the seat catty-corner to me. Neither one of us says anything for a moment. I feel like I need to fill up the silence with something.

  “So what did you do in California if you weren’t helping your mom teach celebrities how to ride?” I say at the exact same time he asks how my big plans went yesterday.

  “You first,” I say.

  “No, it’s ladies first, right?” He rests his feet on the seat next to mine and waits for me to answer.

  “Fine. We went flying. It was awful. I threw up.”

  “Wait, like in a plane?” When I nod, he says, “So, that’s what that explosion was yesterday.”

  I shove his knee. “Not funny. I didn’t even get to fly the thing. It was all Harrison.”

  “So what’s up next? Bowling?”

  Hmm. I might actually be good at bowling. I need to remember that one. “You’ll see,” I say as coyly as possible.

  “That sounds promising. Now I’m picturing burlesque.”

  It’s a good thing I didn’t take Kelly up on her run to the Alcove of Sin, because I’d be choking on my Diet Mountain Dew right now. “You did not just say that.”

  “No? Belly dancing, then.”

  “Seriously, I’m doing this stuff with Harrison. Picture that, okay?” Then I think he does, because his face kind of contorts, and then he starts laughing. It’s contagious, and I laugh until my stomach hurts.

  “Your turn,” I say when I finally catch my breath. “What did you do out in California? Besides theater.”

  He makes a face. “I’d rather talk about more things for you to try. I could come up with a whole list, you know.”

  My face goes warm as I imagine what else would be on that list, and I nudge his knee again. “Nope. If you keep stalling, I’m going to assume you were into something really embarrassing. Like macramé with your grandmother. Or maybe you’re secretly creepy and you pinned dead butterflies to corkboard.”

  He rubs his chin with his thumb and index finger, as if he’s giving serious thought to those possibilities. “Nah, nothing that interesting. Theater. Guitar. I dabbled in a dog-walking business last year—profitable but messy.”

  I’m dying to ask if he had a girlfriend, but there isn’t exactly a non-awkward way to do that. Besides, who cares if he had one? Except even the thought makes me a little jealous, never mind that I’m supposed to be focusing on my future.

  “My dad tried really hard to make me love basketball for years,” Oliver adds.

  “A good skill to have around here. Indiana’s like the basketball capital of the world.”

  “Except I kind of sucked at it. Not playing was about the only good thing that came from my parents splitting up and Dad moving to London. Everything else has been more in the not-so-great column.”

  “Like what?”

  He pulls his lips into a thin line. “We didn’t just move here because Mom wanted to be closer to her sister. She couldn’t afford the house, or the barn out there. She held out for about a year, and then she just couldn’t do it anymore. We had to move somewhere more affordable. My aunt fronted the money for Happy Valley, and we found an apartment that costs like a tenth of what our mortgage was in San Francisco.”

  “Doesn’t your dad help out at all?” Mine sends money every month. It’s part of the divorce agreement or something.

  Oliver grips the top of the seat on either side of him. “I guess. But it’s not enough.”

  “You’re really pissed at him, aren’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but not as much as I used to be, trust me. The only time I talked to him for a while afterward was to tell him exactly what I thought.” He loosens his grip on the
seat and gives me that crooked smile.

  “I get it. I don’t talk to my dad unless I have to.” I lean back and prop my shoes up against the back of the seat in front of me. “But not because he left us for broke.”

  “Because he’s a sewer-sucking slimeball?”

  If anyone else had said that, I would’ve been mad. But coming from Oliver, it’s different. And true. I don’t know what it is about him that makes me actually want to talk about this stuff. “Exactly. I mean, who just up and leaves the freaking country for a job when he could’ve had his pick of jobs in any city near here? Sometimes I feel like he just wanted to get away from me and Eric. Like we remind him of something he’d rather not be reminded of.”

  Instead of trying to reason with me or make me see Dad’s side of things—the way Mom always does—Oliver just nods. He slides over until he’s on the seat back right in front of me and puts one foot on each of my armrests.

  “Responsibility. Being a fucking grown-up and taking care of your kids. Dealing with the choices you’ve made. Who knows. Probably all of it and more we haven’t even thought of.” He reaches his hands out to me, and I take them. They’re warm and strong, and now all I can think of is that moment at the barn where his hand rested on mine and the one at the Ice Cream Palace when we were so close I could barely breathe. And all this is much, much better than thinking about what a prick my dad is.

  “You’re smart and talented and beautiful, and anyone who just walks out on you is not only a jerk, but should probably have their head examined,” he says softly. “Even if he does have really good taste in music.”

  I smile a little. I want to say something like that to him, too. Oliver’s dad is an idiot, and I want him to know that, but I can’t find the words. Not when he’s tugging on my hands to pull me up and looking at me with those soft eyes. I give in and stand up, letting him pull me closer, until I’m resting against his chest and he wraps his arms around me.