Positively Beautiful

by Wendy Mills

  Mom is excited about prom, so I guess that’s good even if my excitement is nil. I’ve got the dress and the shoes, and Mom actually made me an appointment to go get my hair and nails done tomorrow morning with Trina. Mom’s looking forward to prom, even though the chemo isn’t working and it doesn’t look like she’s eligible for any clinical trials, and they are having to radiate her hip just so she can walk.

  But she wants me to go, and I will.

  “Wow,” I say as Michael and I walk inside the Ford Pavilion at Zoo Atlanta and see everyone we know decked out in their finest, many of them swaying to a slow song on the dance floor. Michael’s hand is warm and firm on the small of my back and I try not to notice. I like Michael, but I still cry some nights holding Jason’s sweatshirt.

  Later, I’m sitting by myself at our table while Trina and Chaz dance and Michael has gone to the bathroom, presumably to dump more liquor into his punch. He pounded four beers on the way to the dance and has been steadily drinking since. I’m worried about him, but I don’t know what I can do. His mood has gotten darker as the night wears on, and I think about Jason’s open, sunshine-bright smile and my heart aches.

  “Erin,” someone says, and I look up to see Faith. She’s in a skintight pink dress and there’s no doubt she has me beat hands down in the body department. Rumor is she came with a college boy. Rumor is she made it into Stanford. Rumor didn’t mention her flushing her phone fifty times down the toilet. “Can I sit down?”

  “Uh, sure. Okay,” I say. What the … ?

  She perches on the edge of the chair. “Look, I know we don’t know each other very well, but I heard about your mom getting sick again. And I wanted to say I’m sorry. My grandmother just died of pancreatic cancer, and it was horrible.” She shudders, a delicate little tremor like a breeze through summer-soft petunias. “She wasted away until there was no meat left on her. It was truly awful. Sometimes I think she’s the only one in the world who really loved me without expecting anything back from me.” She looks down at her clenched fingers and swallows.

  My heart is beating hard, and the loud music and flashing lights are making me sick.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmur.

  “I knew you would … understand,” she says. “When I heard about your mom … how sick she was … I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. I really wouldn’t. I hope it all turns out … okay. That’s what I wanted to say.”

  She leaves and I close my eyes. Michael comes back and says something to me, I don’t know what, and I jump up and head blindly toward the bathroom.

  I sit down on the toilet and cradle my phone in my hands. I want to call Mom, but I know she is sleeping, and it’s not fair to wake her up just so I can hear her voice, to reassure myself she is still alive.

  My chest is heaving, and I’m afraid I’m having a heart attack. I lean over my knees trying to catch my breath. I cannot break down, I CANNOT break down. She needs me to be strong, and I CANNOT give up on her. I try to banish Faith’s words from my mind. She wasn’t being mean, the opposite in fact, but the thought that her grandmother died, that Mom could die, makes me want to throw up.

  I want to call Jason so badly I actually find him on my Favorites list and put my finger on his name. But it’s better this way, it’s better for him not to have to go through this. This is my battle, and I need to stay strong and not give up, never give up, because if I don’t give up on Mom, she can’t give up on herself. The only thing that gets me through every day is my belief that she can beat this, that no matter what the doctors say, she will be whole and healthy at the end of it all. If I lose that, if I picture the world without my mom, if I picture her dying, I think I will go insane. So I refuse, refuse, to think about any other alternative.

  I press my hands to my eyes and breathe deep for a while. I hear toilets flushing, girls talking, whispering about being felt up, hotel rooms booked for the after-dance party, and it all seems so bizarre to me that life just keeps going on.

  Finally, I put my phone back in my purse and go out to fix my makeup. I barely recognize the girl in the mirror. I have gotten taller, and the stomach pooch has disappeared. My hair is longer, past the middle of my back, and I’ve got it down, loose, dark curls framing my face. I am wearing a dress the color of bruised violets. It is my face that looks the most different, though. The roundness has melted away and I do not know the woman staring back at me.

  “Did Faith say something to you?” Michael asks when I come back to our table. He’s not quite slurring. “You can’t worry about her, she doesn’t mean ninety percent of the stuff she says. When she’s not trying so hard to be … I don’t know, a superstar at everything she does, she’s really pretty okay. Her mom rides her hard, texting and calling all the time.”

  I think about the pink phone in the toilet and I turn to look at Michael. Something clicks into place almost audibly in my head. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you? Wow. Wow.” Perhaps it should hurt, but it really doesn’t. I don’t feel that way about Michael. Not the way I still feel about Jason.

  He’s turning his steak knife over and over in his long fingers, concentrating on it. “She’s going places. I’m not. It would never work.”

  “What’s with you guys? Give it a chance, why don’t you? You don’t know what’s going to happen. Nobody does.”

  “I’d rather know in advance,” he says. “Saves time and … pain.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t,” I say with feeling. “I don’t want to know the future. Ignorance leaves room for hope.” And hope is sometimes all you have left.

  He turns the knife on its edge and presses the palm of his hand against the serrated blade. His face is expressionless and I can’t tell if it hurts him or not.

  “So, you’re doing what? Hanging out with me to kill time until she notices you again?” I say.

  “It’s not like that. I like you. I always have. You’re a cool person. I like what you have to say. I think you’re brave, you know, with everything you have going on.”

  Which is funny, because brave is the one thing I never feel.

  After that, the night goes better. Michael and I are more comfortable, and I even dance some, though I know the dork in me is never far away.

  “Isn’t Chaz just adorable?” Trina says as she dances up to me. What Chaz is doing on the dance floor is a lot of things (criminal? anatomically impossible?) but adorable is not the word I would have used. But I smile, because she is happy, and I hurt, missing Jason, but I’m still happy for her.

  She puts her arm around me and shimmies her hip into mine. “How you doing, girl?” she whispers into my ear. “I know this is hard. But try to have fun. She wants you to have fun.”

  I nod and smile, and give her a little push back toward Chaz. On my way to the punch, I run into Faith.

  “You know,” I say. “I’m trying to figure out Michael.”

  She looks at me sharply. “Good luck with that. I mean, no offense, I know the two of you are hot and heavy, but he’s a mess. I couldn’t care less what Michael is thinking anymore.”

  But the pain in her eyes belies her words. She does love him. Whatever happened between the two of them is dark and sad on her face.

  “He’s down,” I say. “Real down. I think he needs a friend. One that really understands him.”

  She sighs. “He talked about dying all the time after his dad killed himself. Everything changed, and I couldn’t bear the thought of him … doing something to himself. But I’m never really happy when we’re apart, either. It sucks. Love sucks. But … when I get him to laugh, it feels awesome. God, I don’t know.” She folds one little fist into the pink, shiny fabric of her dress.

  “Seriously? You made him laugh?” I stare at her in amazement. “I can’t even make him smile. You two are meant to be together. Truly. Why don’t you go talk to him? I’m heading to the bathroom, and I might be a while.”

  “Why are you … ?” She hesitates, and looks away.

  “Being nice when you
were such a jerk to me?” I think about it. “Because it took courage to come say what you did to me about your grandmother. It would have been easier for you to not say anything, and I have a lot of respect for people who don’t do the easy thing.”

  She looks a little taken aback, but then nods. “Thank you.”

  She goes over to Michael, and I go back to the bathroom. This time I let myself cry. How easy it is for them, how impossible for me.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Monday after prom, I go to the airport. Tweety Bird is fixed, good as new, and Stew took her up yesterday for the first time. He asked me to go—not to fly, just as a passenger—but I said no.

  I don’t know if I’ll ever fly again and I don’t want to be reminded of what I’m losing.

  Stew throws me a rag, and I start wiping down one of the planes, a two-seater Cessna 152 with its engine compartment open.

  “You decided?” Stew asks.

  “No.”

  He shakes his head and goes back to doing whatever he was doing under the cowling of the Cessna.

  I still haven’t decided if I’m going to go to the FAA hearing tomorrow. It was one thing to write a letter telling the FAA I wanted to appeal their decision, but when I got the letter back setting my hearing date … it all got real, then. If I don’t go, I’m guaranteed to never fly again. If I do … I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do it.

  “Why not?” Stew asks, his words muffled because his head is in the engine compartment.

  “I’ve got a seriously important hair appointment. Highlights, bob, the whole works,” I say.

  Stew pulls his head out and glares at me.

  I shrug. “I’m scared,” I say simply.

  “Yeah? So?”

  “I wish I were braver. I wish I could go out and do all these things and not be scared of it all. But I can’t. I’m not like my dad. He wasn’t scared of anything.”

  Stew doesn’t say anything for a while, and then he stands up and wipes his hands. He should look ridiculous with his big belly and tufts of scattered hair, but somehow he doesn’t. He points a thick, oil-stained finger at me. “Justin Bailey not scared? Girl, you don’t know what you’re talking about. He was a great aviator, one of the best I’ve ever seen. And before every mission, he would throw up. Puke his guts out. He was that scared. But you know what? Afterward, he got up there and did what needed to be done. I think you’re confusing bravery with stupidity. Stupidity is not knowing enough to be scared. Bravery is being scared but doing it anyway.”

  I stare at Stew openmouthed. I don’t know what to say.

  “If your dad was here right now he would tell you to get your butt to that hearing tomorrow because you need to fly. Just like him. You both need to be going somewhere to feel truly alive. I knew him well, and you’re just like him, even if you don’t realize it. I flew in the ‘missing man’ flyover at his funeral, you know. Three planes in formation where there should be four. We do it when a good pilot, a good man, dies. That was your dad. A good man and a good pilot, and I have a feeling he was a good dad as well. He would want you to do this.”

  I stay up most of the night writing. As soon as I get one draft done, I delete it and start over. Around four in the morning, I sigh, and close my laptop. I’m too tired to even brush my teeth, and without thinking I shut off the light. As the room goes pitch-dark, I feel the familiar panic start. My mouth goes dry and my heart starts thumping.

  Really? This is the girl who flew three hundred miles on her first solo, caught and cooked her own fish, and stayed in a tent in the middle of nowhere all by herself? This is the girl who has held her mom’s hand through countless chemo treatments, and her head as she’s puked afterward? And you’re still afraid of the DARK?

  I take a deep breath and make my way to my bed, guided only by the orange glow of my clock.

  And then, for the first time since I was six, I go to sleep with the lights out.

  The next morning when I go down for breakfast, Mom is lying on the couch with a glass of water and a thermometer. The new pain medicine they have her on is good stuff. The sight of her without eyelashes and eyebrows is still surprising, even though it’s been months. She looks so frail and small and old I want to take her in my arms and never let go.

  “Are you going to do it?” she asks, dabbing at her nose, which is always running. No nose hairs equals drippy nose.

  “I think so.”

  “Erin … I know I’ve not been all that supportive of your flying. I wasn’t on board with your dad’s flying either. This one thing that meant so much to him, and I never really shared it with him. I want you to know that if flying makes you happy, then it makes me happy too.”

  “Okay, Mom,” I say, leaning forward and kissing the top of her head.

  “It’s important to me for … for you to know you are capable of touching the world. Don’t live your life stingily. I did it for far too long. I can’t do anything about that now, but you can live better. Will you do that for me? Will you live your life to the best of your ability?” She is floaty with the medicine, but her eyes are blazing with determination.

  “I just don’t know … I don’t know if I’m brave enough to say the words I need to say. That’s what I need to do, but I’m still not sure I can do it.”

  “You can,” she says simply as I grab my bag and head for the door. “I know you can.”

  “At least that’s one of us,” I say.

  It’s as bad as I thought. A courtroom like in the movies, a judge sitting behind a big bench, me at one table by myself, and the FAA guy and a lawyer at another. Several other people are there, but the only one I care about is Stew. He nods at me as I go up the aisle, and I force a sickly smile. The judge begins the proceedings with a lot of mumbo jumbo, and says that he plans to give me some leeway due to my young age and lack of counsel.

  It goes downhill from there. People get up to talk about me, and they are condescending and brutal in their condemnation. I am unstable, they say, a threat to myself and others in the air. They drone on and on, listing my crimes, and then there’s a surprise. Mr. Jarad, dressed in a suit, comes to take the stand. I hadn’t even seen him come in. I close my eyes, because it’s one thing to hear strangers talk about me, but Mr. Jarad knows me and it will be almost unbearable to hear him say the same ugly things as these other people.

  Mr. Jarad states his name and profession, and it turns out he’s really “Dr. Jarad,” with a bunch of very respectable-sounding credentials. He talks about me, saying that he’s been seeing me professionally for a year and then he starts using big medical words that seem to boil down to me being a normal teenager who had been going through an incredible amount of stress in the days leading up to my flying away. The judge looks thoughtful after Mr. Jarad says in his medical opinion I am not a risk to myself or others, and that no, he does not think I would act in the same reckless manner again. As Mr. Jarad walks back to his seat, he winks at me, and I see that he’s wearing sneakers with his high-dollar suit.

  Then Stew gets up.

  “I knew her dad,” he says. “He flew in Desert Storm. She’s just like him, they’re aviators. It’s in their blood. She’s a numbskull for doing what she did, but, Jesus, who among us weren’t numbskulls at seventeen? When she’s in the air she’s more focused on flying than the majority of adults I take up. Grounding her, it’s like cutting the wings off a bird. See what I’m saying?”

  Then it’s my turn.

  “If you don’t mind,” I say, standing, my hands shaking so hard I have trouble fishing my notes out of my bag, “I have something I’d like to read.”

  The judge shrugs. “Go ahead.”

  I take a deep breath and look down at my paper.

  And then I speak:

  Flying solo was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. I practiced and practiced, but I wasn’t sure I could do it on my own. As long as I had my instructor in the seat beside me, I knew he would save me if I messed up. Maybe I wouldn’t solo at
all. It would be easier not to, it would be easier just to fly along for the rest of my life as a perpetual passenger.

  But in the end, I did it. I soloed. I can honestly say it was a disaster. You know that. That’s why I’m here.

  I think you want to know why I did it. I wish I could give you a good explanation, but I can’t. My mom was getting ready to start chemo again, I lost my best friend, I failed physics, and the guy I thought liked me chose another girl. It felt like life piled up on me all at once. You’re not interested in all of that. I get that. And I suppose, that’s kind of the point. Because when it came to flying, none of that mattered. When you’re in a plane, and a thunderstorm comes up and your instruments fail, and your motor stops, you can’t just go someplace else. You can’t give up. You have to keep flying.

  No matter what.

  Learning to fly, to live, is hard. You make mistakes, and you have to live with them, to forgive yourself. Someone once told me that to live, you have to be willing to make mistakes. Well, I made a big one. I know that. All I can tell you is that I learned from it. I know I can’t just check out when things get bad. I have to keep on going, for myself, and for the people I love.

  Hopefully that will make me a better pilot if you give me the chance. I’m not there yet. I still have a lot left to learn and I’m beginning to think that I’ll be making mistakes and learning from them the rest of my life. I want to keep flying. Things may go wrong, things may seem overwhelming, but I know now I can’t give up.

  I look up. The room is silent.

  “Please,” I say. “Don’t ground me. Let me keep flying.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The day after the judge decides to let me fly again, Mom decides she has to have Dino’s pizza to celebrate, and that I need to go get it immediately. I agree, say, “That sounds stellar!”

  We both know she doesn’t want pizza. We both know anything other than water, and a lot of times that too, comes back up immediately. She is trying for some sense of normalcy for me, and I play along because it makes her feel as if she is in control of something. She keeps talking about planning a big party for my eighteenth birthday next week, and I know it frustrates her that she just can’t. It’s too much right now.