Lost in Flight

by Neeny Boucher

  Johnny looked at their father saying, “Dad. I got this. You go back to bed. Me and Dina are going to have a conversation okay?” Dad glanced at Christina for reassurance and she smiled at him. He made his way out of the room before Johnny said a word.

  “First, Dina don’t put this on Dad. He can’t cope,” Johnny said forcefully. “You know that and the building project – it’s my idea and my call. It’s about combining business and family interests. Mandy wants to be back closer to her family and I want to be closer to mine. I know you live in D.C., Dina, but I hoped maybe you’d consider moving back to Seattle with us.”

  Christina went to interrupt, but he put his hand up. “Second, Dad isn’t moving there. He wants to stay in Shanwick with Tessa, for now. He told us that on the way home today, but he’s happy we’ll be closer, and there’ll be a place for you - if you want it?”

  She didn’t know what to say, so she mumbled, “Thank you.”

  Johnny gave her a hard, calculating stare and smiled. “Dina, I know you and Riley have… history… but I’ve always hoped you’d work it out or at least come to some form of peaceful arrangement. I mean you two look like you’re getting on well now… so?”

  Christina pursed her lips saying, “We are, but…”

  “Sure,” Johnny said, “we are but… but what? Whatever happens Dina it’s up to you two, but if it doesn’t work out can you please try to end it amicably so none of us have to put up with the cold war anymore?”

  Christina looked at her brother and his mouth was quirking up at the corners. Johnny shook his head. “Dina, you and Riley… it’s like… I don’t know.”

  “Please don’t say star crossed romance, Johnny,” Christina groaned, “I’ve already had that bullshit from Gabby.”

  Johnny laughed. “Okay, I won’t say it, but you know Dina – when you two get on no one understands you better than each other. If you aren’t going to be together, maybe you can at least be there for one another without all the hate? I love you both. You know that right? But you: you’re my sister. Bottom line. I’d do anything for you – you just have to ask.”

  His eyes were sparkling and he said, “I’d even work with a few hints, but playing the stuck-up Ice Queen on a frozen tundra all the time is bullshit. How are we supposed to know how you feel if all you do is hide behind some glacial wall without talking to any of us?”

  Johnny patted the bed and she came, and sat beside him. He put his arm around her. “I felt like I lost everyone when Mom died. Everyone. Mom, Dad, you, Riley… I mean Dad was here, but he wasn’t present. It was like he’d died with Mom and you?” Johnny sighed and pushed his hair out of his eyes. “You were a mess and I didn’t have a clue what to do. It was like we were broken glass. It’s no one’s fault, but it was like we lost the heart, or something, out of our family. Maybe we can’t get that back or we have to try and rebuild something new, but I hoped – no, I hope – if there’s one good thing to come out of Gabby’s stuff – it’s that we’ve all reconnected.”

  He pulled her closer. “I missed you, Dina, like you can’t believe. This family, our family, it doesn’t work without you. After the rehab thing, I never thought we’d makeup. I was too stubborn and so were you. You know you can hit people like a freight train and if they’re in your way… BAM.”

  Christina laughed. Ugh. He was right. When she didn’t know how to make things right, she found it easier not to try. It was one of those things when she wouldn’t change the outcome, but maybe the process it took to get there.

  Johnny nudged her with his arm. “But I want you in my life Dina, especially now I’ve got a kid coming. I mean who’s going to show them how to wrestle properly? Not Gabby. She’s useless.”

  Christina knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t help herself and he’d introduced the elephant in the room that they never talked about. She grinned at Johnny. “I know this is a horrible thing to say,” she said.

  “Right,” retorted Johnny, “but you’re going to say it anyway.”

  “I think maybe I preferred you when you were on drugs. You were less astute and observant,” Christina said.

  Johnny’s eyes went huge and his mouth fell open. Shaking his head and laughing he growled. “You are such a bitch.”

  They both started laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe. “I’m sorry, Johnny,” Christina gasped, “I couldn’t resist. Did I ever tell you how proud I am of you for how strong you are and staying clean?”

  Johnny grinned at her. “Thanks, sis. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s a deal breaker between me and LiLi.” He shrugged and ran a hand through his hair. “She told me she’d leave me if I ever did drugs again and she would. And now we’re having a kid? There’s no way I’m going to screw it up, Dina.”

  “Hmmm,” Christina frowned. “Have I told you how much I like LiLi? You’ve done well, bro. It’s just… I wonder…”

  Christina glanced at Johnny whose eyes narrowed and was staring intently at her. “Wonder what?” Johnny snapped.

  She shrugged for affect, leaned over and whispered. “If she’s got a few screws loose to want to be hooked up with you.”

  “She’ll fit right in then,” smirked Johnny “all the Martin women are as crazy as cut snakes.”

  Christina knew it was coming, but missed it. Johnny grabbed a pillow and hit her in the face before she could block it. She tried to wrench it off him, but he hung on pushing her back. She grabbed a pillow and they started hitting each other with real force. To her satisfaction, Schubert the pervert, fired out the door in the pillow wars.

  Johnny fell back against the wardrobe and it burst open revealing her large selection of underwear. Johnny stopped and stared. “What the fuck, Dina?” Christina burst out laughing and had to lie down on the bed, providing Johnny the opportunity to hit her in the face over, and over again with the pillow. He teased her relentlessly about her “knickers” and made her laugh until her sides hurt, when he asked, “Are you incontinent or something?”

  Christina and Johnny got a few good hits on each other, and then lay back on the bed laughing. She heard Johnny say, “I’ve missed you, Dina. I really have.”

  She smiled. “I’ve missed you too. It’s been like an ache. I didn’t know how to make it right. I thought we might never make it right and I couldn’t work out where to start.”

  Christina had kept in contact with Gabby, mainly because Gabby wouldn’t take no for an answer. It might have been via email, Skype, text, or a phone call. Or her favorite, Gabby would turn up for a “surprise” visit, which usually meant she wanted to borrow money or was in trouble with Dad or Johnny.

  Dad and Johnny had made it too easy for Christina to distance herself. They never pushed if it was going to be too uncomfortable. When she’d fallen out with Johnny over rehab, it was simpler to just let things drift. It was a mistake and nearly cost her everything.

  Christina was still musing when she heard Johnny say, “Dina, we owe a lot to Riley – the band and Dad. We wouldn’t be as financially secure without him. I probably would have blown all my money on drugs,” he laughed and so did she, but it wasn’t funny. Not really and there was more than a little truth in his jest.

  “Riley took over our finances a few years back. First, it was just Dave and mine. Then, Lexie and Sam went with him too. We wouldn’t be where we are today without him. But seriously, Dina, if you don’t want us to build houses together – just say the word and we won’t do it.”

  She rolled over and looked at her brother. “I’m not asking you to break up with Riley,” she grinned, making Johnny laugh. “I’m not. I just wanted you to consider how I might feel when you’re making plans and where I fit in with it all.”

  “Do you still love him, Dina?” Johnny asked quietly.

  Christina didn’t say anything for a while and then nodded. “Of course, I love him. I’ve never not loved him, Johnny, which makes it harder. Loving each other has never been our problem. You see – if this doesn’t work out…”

 
; “But what if it does?” Johnny asked.

  “But what if it doesn’t?” Christina asked him back. They went around in circles arguing and laughing, and teasing each other.

  ********************

  “Johnny,” Christina said.

  “Mmmm.”

  “Um, has that cat ever done anything strange with you?”

  Johnny looked at her. “Like what?”

  “Um, like inappropriate… things,” she muttered with her head down.

  Johnny stared at her like she was insane and a freak. “No. Why?”

  “Well, it’s just that it did… something… not cool… before,” she finished lamely.

  “Such as?” Johnny asked, but she wasn’t going there with him either.

  “Just – something – strange.” She could tell Johnny was confused, but she wasn’t confessing this to anyone, except Riley. He would get it.

  It was weird, for the first time in a long time, it felt like they were teenagers again, before she’d run off with Riley, her mother died, Johnny did drugs and Gabby turned out to be a crazy-tree-protestor, nearly getting herself killed. Christina and Johnny had always been close as kids, even though they weren’t angels, and sometimes fought like cats and dogs. They always understood each other.

  She felt like that real connection was back between them. Time just disappeared and they sat talking most of the night. For a moment, he was just Johnny, her brother. Not the tattooed rock-star with the world at his feet or the problem brother that she had to boss around.

  Staring at Johnny’s tattoos, Christina shook her head. She didn’t understand the fascination with tattoos for people of her generation and Johnny was heavily tattooed. It had started in his teens and he described his body as the canvas of his life.

  He had a tribal sleeve with Native American motifs on his right arm and a spider web scar tattoo over his heart. On the right side of his chest, he had a Celtic cross, which was the first tattoo he got. The words “unity in music” in the Cherokee alphabet were down the left side of his body. He’d got that one in honor of their mother after she’d died.

  There was a new one down his left arm that she hadn’t seen before. It was another tribal sleeve and she blinked. Moving closer to Johnny, she grabbed his arm to get a better look. Johnny laughed and said, “Do you like it?”

  Christina decided men with tattoos must be part-peacock, with their preening and flexing of their markings, and their “oooh do you like it” questions. She stared at the tattoo. It was like Riley’s, except in the middle of his tattoo on the top of his arm, Johnny had some kind of bird-insect thing in it.

  “Um, yeah,” Christina lied, “it’s really intricate. What’s that in the middle of it?”

  Johnny grinned. “A dragonfly” and when it was obvious Christina didn’t understand the significance, Johnny chuckled. “Dragonfly is what you call heroin, Dina. I put my greatest weakness there to remind me what I survived and to keep away from it.” Christina nodded.

  “Yeah,” Johnny said, “a few of us have this tattoo. It’s kind of a survivor’s club. Jed’s got one, Sam, and a few other people, but you don’t know them.”

  She waited for Johnny to say something about Riley, but he didn’t. “Riley’s got one too,” she said quietly and looked into Johnny’s eyes.

  Johnny’s face went passive, but his eyes were roaming her face. “Yes, he does,” Johnny muttered.

  “What does he have in the middle of his one?” Christina asked.

  Johnny didn’t say anything for a while and Christina thought he wasn’t going to answer her. Finally, he said, “A nightingale.”

  “What does it mean, Johnny?” she asked, but he shook his head.

  “That little sis, you’ll have to ask him. Anyways, I gotta get some sleep.” He stood up and kissed her on top of the head, exiting the room as fast as he could. That was weird, she thought, but in the scheme of things, not as weird as some of the things that had happened earlier in the evening.

  Christina got up and made sure the door was shut so the creep-cat couldn’t get back in. She turned off the lights and lay down on the bed because it was too late to sneak out to Riley. Knowing her luck, she’d run smack bang into his parents and if she was going to do that, she would rather it wasn’t as the sun was rising and after she’d been molested by a cat.

  Even though she was tired, sleep eluded her because the thought of the nightingale kept running through her head. A nightingale, Christina thought? A nightingale? What did it mean?

  For some reason it pricked a memory, but she couldn’t place it. She was just drifting off to sleep when it came to her. She sat bolt upright in bed. Oh-my-god, she thought, no frigging way.

  The first time Riley had left her and disappeared, he’d written her a poem and in it, he’d called her his nightingale. He’d also described her in much less flattering terms accompanied by horrible macabre pictures. Christina decided not to go there because it always made her feel sick and guilty, and embarrassed. Really embarrassed about what came after with the Police and the town hating her, thinking she was a murderer.

  Now this, Riley had put a nightingale in the middle of his survivor club’s tattoo. He had equated her with heroin. He was saying he’d survived her in the same way Johnny had survived drug addiction and he’d had it memorialized on his arm. He was declaring she was hazardous to his health and everyone knew: Johnny, LiLi, Dave, Mandy, probably Bonnie if Mandy knew, the band members, Jed, Gabby – the list was endless. Everyone knew - everyone, but her - until now.

  Christina’s eyes filled with tears. She knew he loved her, but a part of him must also hate her. He’d declared, with that tattoo, that she was an unhealthy addiction to him and what were they doing? Did he think of their relationship as falling off the wagon? She’d wanted to know and now she did, but the knowledge wasn’t comforting. The sad irony was the only person she would seek reassurance from on this issue was the same one that thought she was poison.

  ********************

  Riley

  Riley woke up to an empty bed and a house with no food, so he made his way over to his parents to ransack the cupboards. Christina hadn’t turned up last night, so he figured she must have been held up. He decided on the way back to the farmhouse that he’d take his own advice – the one he’d given Andy – and start doing some old fashioned courting.

  He knew they still had major unresolved issues, but he was willing to try and work through them, especially if Christina was too. If not, then they’d both know and they could move on. It would stop the limbo they’d placed themselves in over their relationship. He needed to know: one way or the other.

  Andy was up when he got back and they had breakfast before heading over to the Martins. Andy wanted to set up their Internet security to make sure they couldn’t be hacked easily by outsiders. They waited until about 10:00 a.m. and went over, finding Jack, Tessa, Gabby, and LiLi, but no sign of Johnny or Dina.

  LiLi grinned at him. “They have late night, they sleeping.”

  Gabby rolled her eyes. “Late night? Dina woke the household up screaming about a stupid cat. I didn’t realize she was such a baby.” Hitting Andy on the arm, Gabby smirked. “Guess that’s what D.C. does to you?”

  “Hey,” Andy fired back laughing, “D.C. people are tough. We have to negotiate shark-infested waters, full of politicians.”

  Riley started making his way up the stairs and Gabby called out, “She’s in Johnny’s old room.”

  He grinned and waved a thank you. Opening the door, the room was dark and a mess. There was stuff all over the place and it looked like people had been fighting. She was sleeping on her back with her arms over her head, so he went and kissed her on the lips.

  She stirred, so he lay over top of her with his weight on his arms until she woke up properly. He kissed her longer and her eyes flew open. She made a “gahhh” sound into his mouth and tried to push him off. When she realized it was Riley, Christina grabbed him and held him close.
>
  “Hey sleepy-head,” Riley grinned, “it’s late for you. You okay?”

  Christina pulled a face and shrugged. “I had an interesting night, but I’m happier seeing you.” She took his face in her hands and kissed him hard, running her hands under his shirt. He shrugged his jacket off, threw his beanie on the floor, and kicked off his shoes.

  She sat up pulling his shirt off and undoing his jeans. This was the type of wake-up call that he liked. “Lock the door,” she whispered, “I need you.”

  Riley needed no further invitation, he ran for the door, slamming it shut and locking it. Christina was rummaging through her belongings and pulled out the largest box of condoms he’d ever seen. Christina grinned. “Compliments of the hospital” and he laughed.

  They flew at each other and he caught her in his arms while she wrapped her legs around his waist. “We’ll have to be quiet,” she whispered.

  “We’ll try,” he whispered back, “but I make no promises.”

  ********************

  “That wasn’t quiet,” Christina whispered. “Do you think anyone heard?”

  “Dina, we’ve been holed up here for hours. They’ll know what we’ve been doing.”

  “I know,” Christina hissed, “but that’s different than hearing it.”

  Riley started laughing and Christina giggled. He loved that sound and the way she looked right now. She was all messed up from sex and she smelled awesome. It made him want to grab her again.

  Riley had wanted to spend the whole day in bed yesterday at the hotel, but that hadn’t worked out, so he was taking his opportunities now. If people overheard them, he didn’t care. Their time had been interrupted enough: Martin family-interruptus, he thought, ruefully. He better get (re)used to it.