Her Birthday Celebration Was My Exit novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Captain

"Why?" I said.

He unfolded his arms.

"Because somebody's going to fly your first trip in the right seat and watch you do it," he said. "I wanted it to be me."

"You're going to hate it."

"I'm going to love it." He pushed off the doorframe. "I'm going to call you Captain the whole way there and back. You're going to hate it."

"I'm going to love it."

The hangar guys sewed my stripes on.

All four of them, on both shoulders of a brand-new white shirt, in the hangar office with the space heater going.

The lead did the stitching himself, with a needle he usually used on seat covers, his reading glasses on the end of his nose.

"Straight," he said, biting off the thread. "Can't have a captain with crooked stripes. Bad for the airplane."

On March twenty-fourth I walked into the crew room at four-fifty for a five o'clock show.

Ryder was already there with two coffees.

He handed me one.

"Morning, Captain."

"Morning, First Officer."

"What's our alternate today, Captain?"

"Kotzebue."

"What's our fuel at Nome if we hold for thirty minutes?"

"That's my question. I ask that one."

"I know." He grinned into his coffee. "I'm just seeing how it feels on the other side."

He was a perfect first officer.

He called every checklist before I asked for it.

He read back every clearance.

He said "Yes, Captain" so many times the dispatcher started saying it with him.

Over Norton Sound the clouds broke, and there was Nome on the edge of the white sea.

The wind was out of the north again. Gusting twenty-eight, straight across runway twenty-eight.

I looked at the numbers.

Then I looked at him.

"Your leg," I said.

"You're giving it to me?"

"I'm giving you the chance to embarrass yourself. Big difference."

He laughed so hard he had to key the mic twice to answer the tower.

He landed it.

Upwind main first, then the other, then the nose, right on the centerline paint.

He sat back in his seat.

"Well?"

"Not bad," I said.

He made that grunting sound.

It was definitely a laugh.

The weather didn't come in. There was no reason to stay.

The trip was an overnight anyway. The schedule said so.

We walked to the roadhouse through the long blue evening with our flight bags over our shoulders.

In late March the light hangs on up there until nearly nine.

The moose rack was still over the door. The woodstove was still going.

Same six tables. Same waitress.

She looked at my shoulders. Four stripes.

Then she looked at Ryder's. Three.

"Huh," she said. "Chili's reindeer. Pie's blueberry."

"Two of each," I said.

We got the table by the stove.

Our knees touched under it right away. Neither of us pretended they didn't.

"In November I sat in this chair and told you about the candles," I said.

"I remember."

"You laughed."

"You put the keys on a cake," he said. "I'd never heard anything like it. I knew I was in trouble before the pie came."

"You had me washing out by Halloween."

"I had me washing out by Thanksgiving."

I looked at him across the table.

He looked back.

"You had rooms across the hall from me," I said. "Last time."

"I remember that too."

"We stood at our doors for a full minute."

"Longer."

"And you said, good landing today, without even turning around."

He put his spoon down.

"I'd have turned around," he said. "If I'd been sure you wanted me to."

"I wanted you to."

"I know that now."

The waitress put down two slices of pie and two forks.

She walked away without a word.

We didn't eat the pie.

At the front desk there was one key on the counter.

I picked it up.

Ryder looked at it.

"Just one?"

"I'm the captain," I said. "I booked the rooms."

Upstairs the hall was narrow and creaky. The same two doors faced each other.

I unlocked mine.

I didn't go in.

I turned around and looked at him.

"Get in here, First Officer," I said. "That's an order."

He came in.

"Yes, Captain."

He shut the door behind him and turned the lock.

I put my hand flat on his chest, over the wool of his uniform sweater. His heart was going hard.

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