Higher, Further, Faster

by Liza Palmer

  So, we wait.

  And life kind of goes back to normal, whatever that is.

  Study sessions in McDermott, yelling That’s Flickerball at Pierre whenever we get the chance, and trying to stay out of Jenks’s way. I’d been fully expecting him to come back over to me at the next Soaring class and ask if I’d learned anything at the air show like he’d asked.

  I had my answer—more of a speech, really—all planned. It was going to be this masterwork of a monologue that used his direct quotes—which I can recall verbatim, since they’re burned into my memory—as jumping-off points to disprove everything he said. It starts out, I took more than a cursory glance, sir… then wends its way around talk about relics, the future, and evolution. I even practiced where in the speech to look him straight in the eye and where to pause for effect. I was kind of hoping he’d approach me at the air show so I could take a moment to dramatically look from him to the actual Thunderbirds as I talked about how it was he who no longer belonged, not us. Which is when he would burst into tears and admit how blind he’s been, and then I’m both right and happy (because there’s no logical reason those two things can’t coexist) as the rest of the Soaring class, led by Wolff, lifts me on their shoulders right after thanking me for finally taking Jenks down a peg.

  But Jenks hasn’t so much as looked my way for the last several weeks. And the sick part is…I kind of miss it. What I didn’t tell anyone, not even Maria, is that I want Jenks to either hate me or admire me. I don’t know what to do with indifference.

  “You heading over?” Bianchi asks, catching up to me on my way over to Soaring.

  “Yeah,” I say noticing he’s holding a notebook in his hand. Not one that I recognize. “What’s that?”

  “I found it in my last class. It’s Noble’s. Was wondering if you’d give it to her later at the dorm,” he says, handing me the notebook.

  “Oh, sure,” I say, taking it.

  “I had to kind of page through it to find out whose it was, though, and—” I look over at him. “I swear it wasn’t snooping. I was honestly just looking for a name.”

  “Yes, I have met you before, Bianchi.” He looks over at me. “You’re talking to me like I don’t know that you’d never snoop in someone’s stuff.” I shrug. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Oh. Well…right,” he says, nodding firmly.

  “So you found Noble’s notebook and…?”

  “Did you know she wants to be an astronaut?” he asks.

  “What? No way,” I say, not really thinking Noble wanted to be anything except chronically annoyed.

  “I know. I thought Del Orbe was the only person we knew who was planning on going to NASA after this,” Bianchi says.

  I nod. “Right?”

  “They’d be lucky to have them both,” Bianchi says. He looks over and quite rightly is a bit thrown that I’m now looking up at him with a goofy smile on my face.

  “What?” He swipes at the corners of his mouth. “Do I have toothpaste, or…?” He swipes at his nose.

  “No, and also it’s two thirty in the afternoon. Why would you have toothpaste on your face?”

  “Let’s just move on,” Bianchi says, taking one last pass at his face.

  “I was just going to say that I was wrong about you,” I say. Bianchi looks down at me, shocked.

  “What?” he asks incredulously. “Did I just hear Carol Danvers admit she was wrong? That alone is worthy of a Thunderbird flyover.”

  I bark out a laugh. “Carol Danvers can also take back the nice thing she just said if you’d like.”

  “No, it’s—” Bianchi smiles, almost to himself. “Thanks—it…I don’t know, it means a lot.”

  I smile back. “You’re welcome.” Bianchi and I arrive at class just as everyone is gathering.

  “So you’ll get Noble her notebook?” he says to me.

  “Yep.”

  “There’s just a lot of personal stuff in there. I wouldn’t want…I just don’t want it to get in the wrong hands, you know?” I nod as Bianchi peels off toward the far side of the field, where his group is set up for Soaring, throwing me one last backward glance. I hold up Noble’s notebook and give it a little wave, signaling that I will remember and will get it to her.

  “Airman Danvers.” Jenks. I stop. Stand at attention. Salute. “What items is a fourth-class cadet supposed to have when attending Introduction to Soaring?” I quickly and efficiently rattle off the items we are supposed to have with us during class.

  “So you know the rules, yet you insist upon not following them,” he says as he paces in front of me.

  “Sir?” I ask, not sure what I’ve done wrong.

  “The notebook,” Jenks says. I see out of the corner of my eye Noble walk past, clock me and Jenks in a situation that looks like it’s about to be me getting in trouble, and then the horror on her face as she sees the notebook in my hand that she recognizes as her own. A notebook filled with such private things that Tom Bianchi made sure to hand-deliver it to someone who could get it to her as discreetly as possible.

  “Yes, sir,” I say, keeping my voice as neutral as possible.

  “Is this your notebook, Airman Danvers?” Jenks asks. I feel Noble’s gaze on me, her entire face reddening, even as I keep my eyes forward and my features impassive.

  “Yes, sir,” I say. Out of the corner of my eye I see Noble’s entire body deflate, the relief washing over her. Jenks begins to circle me, his hands clasped behind his back, thumb twitching. I brace myself.

  “Several weeks ago I tasked you with something.” I can see Maria and Pierre in the distance.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What was it I asked you to do?”

  “To take a cursory glance at the esteemed pilots at the air show and finally learn just exactly how fundamentally I don’t fit in,” I say, repeating his words verbatim, just as I’d practiced. But somehow I don’t think the rest of my speech is about to go as planned.

  “And is Cadet Instructor Wolff correct? That despite your inability to follow simple orders you can actually be taught?” I see Wolff strapping in one of the other airmen for their fourth and final hop in the glider. I was all set to go up third. Today was supposed to be awesome.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what did you learn?” The notebook is heavy in my hand.

  “You were right, sir,” I say.

  The slightest of smiles ghosts across Jenks’s face. “I must say I am pleasantly surprised. Please, do go on.”

  “That after a cursory glance it does appear that I do not, in fact, fit in with those esteemed pilots, but—”

  “But?” Jenks’s lip curls.

  “I took more than a cursory glance, sir.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And tell me, Airman Danvers. What did you find?”

  “That you are a relic, Captain Jenks. And it is you who does not belong among those esteemed pilots.” I make eye contact with him. “Not me.”

  Not the speech, exactly. But something…

  I wait. I wait for the tears and the hoisting onto shoulders. I wait for the thrill of being right to firework all over my body. Instead—

  “Relic, derived from the Latin word reliquiae, meaning remains. I am remains? Perhaps it is the thirteenth-century definition you are referencing used to describe the remains of a holy person or a martyr. While I do think quite highly of myself, I do not imagine myself to be a holy person nor a martyr. Do you?” Jenks begins to circle me, hands clasped lazily behind his back. “Sadly, Airman Danvers, your low intelligence has led you to choose the wrong word and, once again, humiliate yourself.” Jenks begins to walk away. “Shame, really. Feels like you actually practiced that speech.”

  And everything goes…RED.

  “Maria and I are going to try out for the Flying Falcons!” I yell after him, unable to stop myself. Captain Jenks doesn’t even deign to turn around.

  “Unless you have somehow managed to get your private pilot�
�s licenses since last we spoke, Danvers—”

  “We got them,” I lie, the words tumbling out.

  Jenks turns around, his lips curling into the faintest of smiles. And in that instant, I hear Mr. Goodnight’s blaring stall horn. And I know that I’ve pulled up too early. I didn’t trust myself to feel the break. Again. I needed to be right. More important, I needed to prove him wrong.

  “So you and Airman Rambeau think you’ll be trying out for the Flying Falcons after all.” I flick my gaze over to where Maria is now watching, unmoving—her life in my hands as the plane spins out toward the ground. What have I done?

  “Yes, sir,” I say, trying to calm down and wishing I could take it all back.

  “Well, then let’s see if this old relic can do anything to keep that from happening,” Jenks says. He looks from me over to Maria, and I see his disdainful gaze hit her like a truck. Then he shakes his head, turns, and walks on.

  Soaring class is a blur. I can’t focus. I need to talk to Maria. Make it right. Do something. Take it back. Fix this.

  As class ends, I run over to her.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, catching up to her. She looks over at me. Her face is creased in hurt and confusion.

  “Why? Why’d you do it?” she asks. Her voice is a wounded plea, and I almost wish she was furious instead. Facing her anger would be easier than facing her sadness. It breaks my heart.

  “I don’t know—I…Captain Jenks—”

  “Captain Jenks. I am so sick of hearing about Captain Jenks. You keep knocking on that door and all you’re going to get is bloody knuckles. He is never going to open that door and welcome you in. Ever.” Maria steps closer to me. “You need to decide how long, and just what you’re willing to sacrifice, in order to keep believing that his way is the only way.”

  I’ve thought this countless times, but hearing someone else make this observation about me just emphasizes how lousy I feel about letting this happen, that despite how far I’ve come, here I am, falling prey to old ways once again. “Maria, please.”

  Maria takes my hands and squeezes so tight. “I love you, Danvers. I really do. But you need to figure this one out on your own.” Maria runs to catch up to Bianchi and Pierre, who have been waiting respectfully just outside of earshot, leaving me wretchedly and rightfully alone.

  “I love you, too,” I say to no one.

  “Yeah, okay,” Noble says, appearing as if from nowhere.

  “It’s…” I meekly point in Maria’s direction, but then…“Never mind.”

  “I believe you have something of mine,” she says, looking down at the notebook clasped in my hand.

  “Oh, yeah.” I hand the notebook to her.

  “You didn’t have to do that, you know,” she says, unable to meet my eyes.

  “Yeah, I did.” I watch as Maria, Bianchi, and Pierre turn the corner and disappear into campus. Noble flicks through the notebook, scanning its contents, making sure everything is just as she left it.

  “I saw my whole life pass before my eyes when I thought Jenks was going to get his hands on it,” Noble says, stopping at one point in the notebook. Her gaze softens and her fingers gently fix and shift something folded and hidden in its lined pages. “It’s so stupid. I don’t even know why I keep it.” She looks up, and with a decisive sigh, hands me the folded-up piece of paper.

  “You have a right to know what you were protecting,” she says.

  I take the paper. It feels like tissue, so delicate and hopelessly fragile. I carefully unfold it to find a child’s colorful drawing of a little girl with flaming-red hair dressed up as an astronaut, floating among the stars. I stare at the drawing, my eyes welling with tears. The little girl’s stick arms, the zigzagging circle of a body, the wobbly red smile that traces the width of her giant head.

  “It’s wonderful,” I choke out.

  This is what I’ve forgotten. This is who I’ve forgotten.

  My entire childhood was spent drawing pictures of me and planes. In planes. Next to planes. As a plane. Walls and refrigerators overrun with them. Stacks and stacks. Stick-figure arms wide, wobbly smile taking up my whole giant potato-shaped head. Soaring in the Crayola-blue sky along with round, puffy clouds and a banana-yellow sun that wore giant, oversize sunglasses.

  I hand Noble back her drawing. She carefully folds up the paper and places it delicately back in the middle of the notebook. She closes the cover and pulls the book up to her chest, her arms tightly crossing over it.

  “You going to be okay?” Noble asks.

  Such a simple question.

  I’m tempted to throw back some completely adequate answer about being fine. Be glib, be cool. Shrug off all that I’ve learned about myself since coming here until after I find out if I passed my private pilot’s license test and after I try out for the Flying Falcons and after I get everything I’ve ever wanted.

  But none of that matters if this is who I have to become in order to achieve it.

  My mind flashes back to Noble’s treasured drawing. Back to my own childhood bedroom completely wallpapered in drawings of a future where the only thing I wanted to do was fly.

  No Jenks. No proving myself. No knocking on some door that’s never going to open. I remember the wobbly smile taking up the most space on the page.

  Joy.

  “I’m working on it,” I say.

  WHEN I GET TO OUR USUAL TABLE IN THE MESS hall, there’s a full-blown argument going on over whose family serves up the best meals. It’s not the first time we’ve run through this game—when you’re homesick, comfort foods are normally the first things that come to mind.

  “You guys are insane,” Del Orbe mumbles through a mouthful of roast beef. “If you all ever had even one bite of my dad’s infamous sancocho—” His burbling voice cuts off when I slide into my place at the table next to Maria.

  There’s a beat of silence as the group stares into their plastic trays, and I feel my face heat. I’ve ruined it: the only group of people I’ve ever been able to call true friends. Me and my stupid, uncontrollable temper. I can’t fly away from this. I can’t drive away from this. I can’t run away from this.

  Maria speaks first.

  “Del Orbe, please. You haven’t tasted cuisine until you’ve had my grandmother’s gumbo,” she says loudly. She elbows me and gives me a smile out of the corner of her mouth, and I sag with relief as unshed tears pool in the whites of my eyes.

  Amidst the cacophony of protests and rebuttals that Maria’s comment inspires—as she knew it would—while Pierre describes the mouthwatering oxtails his grandmother lovingly made for him, and Bianchi counters with stories about his grandmother’s gnocchi, I remain silent, letting these familiar voices wrap around me like a cocoon while I berate myself for risking this for my own selfish pride.

  By the time dinner is over and we burst through the mess hall doors, walking toward McDermott Library for our nightly study session, I need space. I grunt my apologies and peel off toward…somewhere else. Anywhere else. My friends—gracious, wonderful human beings that they are—might be over how I acted, but I’m not. It’s made me think, and I do my best thinking alone.

  What I want is to sit on a picturesque bench and gaze at an awe-inspiring sunset. My hair could swirl out of the confines of its bun, taking romantic shape in the breeze, and a single tear could trail dramatically down my face as I finally grasped the full depth and expanse of the meaning of life.

  Instead, I find myself perched on a jagged boulder out behind Mitchell Hall, the only breathtaking thing I’m gazing at being the overflowing dumpster filled with the garbage from dinner. I did luck out on one thing, though. Someone in the kitchen is bumping a pretty solid mixtape. And try as I might, I’m finding it impossible to dive to the melancholy depths I’d hoped for with this peppy, cheery rhythm playing. I try to unpack how I got here as the cassette tape rattles through its unintentional pep talk.

  My mind goes blank.

  Minutes pass.

  I even go s
o far as to air-drum along to the beat, trying to give my brain a boost. But in the microscopic fragment of time between songs, a burning sensation forms in my chest and begins to crawl up my throat. And before I can lose myself in the next song, its fire engulfs me.

  The tears feel like they’ve come from somewhere so deep that it scares me. Nope, not going to go there. No. Thank. You.

  I go into fix-it mode immediately. My head hurts as I force myself to hone in on the reason for all this, or, at the very least, a cohesive list of explanations for why I’m upset, matching each one with a possible solution. But I can’t. I’m panicking and spiraling, and the only thing I can pinpoint is that I’m sad and scared. And I don’t know why.

  What is wrong with me?

  “Come on, Carol,” I choke out, wiping my now-drenched cheeks with my sleeve.

  Flashes of Maria’s face. She was so hurt at how I betrayed her confidence in my rashness, but still so kind. The sobs burst out of me at just the thought. A little voice inside gets louder and louder: You don’t deserve such kindness, Carol Danvers. You’re a fraud and everyone knows it, Carol Danvers. You’re not good enough, Carol Danvers.

  Stubborn to the last, I stand up and try to walk off the pain, as if it were a pulled muscle or a strained hamstring. Pacing back and forth, the choked sobs turn into sharp, angry breaths as I start getting frustrated with my inability to feel better, craft the perfect apology to Maria, and move on.

  But I can’t move on. Because I don’t see a path. The one I’d mapped out all those years ago…I’m not welcome on it. Jenks doesn’t want me there. They don’t want me there.

  Why don’t they ever want me?

  I’m a good pilot. I’m at the top of my class. I’ve let myself learn and worked on myself. I’ve waited for the break and held the nose. I’ve trusted myself and built my character. I’ve kept my integrity and stopped trying to prove myself all the time.*

  “Why isn’t it working?” I desperately growl to no one. I sit back down on the boulder and run my hands over my low military-issue hair bun, finally letting my hands drop and burying my face in the cover they provide. I take a deep breath. And another one. And then I let myself sink down into the treacherous quiet of my own mind.