Her Birthday Celebration Was My Exit novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Trip File

In the hangar Ilaria finds her own copy of the Milan passenger manifest with Lisetta's real birth date, resigns in front of the crew, and back at the manor finds a receipt for Remo's grandmother's ring, resized from her size to Lisetta's.

I didn't comment.

I didn't call him.

On Monday morning I drove to Chicago Executive and let myself into the hangar with my own code for the last time.

The Gulfstream sat under the lights, white and silver, with the Salerno crest on the tail.

The line crew was fueling her for Capri.

"Morning, Captain," the lead lineman called. "You want her topped off for the long leg?"

"Top her off," I said. "Somebody's going to fly her."

He gave me a look and went back to the hose.

My locker was at the back by the parts cage.

There wasn't much in it. A spare uniform shirt. A headset. A photo of Pop and Tommy at Navy Pier, curling at the edges.

My flight jacket was not on its hook.

I packed the rest into a cardboard box.

Then, out of habit, I went to the shelf above the desk where the trip files lived.

Every flight I'd ever flown for the Salernos had a blue binder. Fuel slips. Weights. Manifests. Customs forms.

I took down the one marked MILAN, OCT 1-3.

I don't know why.

Some pilots bite their nails. I check paper.

The passenger manifest was on top, in my own handwriting.

One passenger. Castiglione, Lisetta.

I had copied her passport onto that line myself, at the counter at Linate.

She had stood there in her sunglasses and her silk scarf and didn't look at me.

Date of birth: 09 MAR.

I read it twice.

March ninth.

Not October tenth.

Behind it was the customs declaration from our fuel stop in Bangor, Maine.

Personal effects. No currency over $10,000.

Her signature at the bottom, a big looping L.

I remembered the moment. Her pen had skipped. She'd sighed at me like it was my fault.

Behind that were the fuel card slips I'd never looked at closely.

Four of them weren't fuel.

Linate, October 2. Three boutiques and a jeweler. Thirty-eight thousand dollars, give or take, all on the jet's card.

All signed with the same looping L.

I had left that card with the FBO for fuel. I'd assumed Remo told them she could use it.

I took out my phone and photographed every page.

Then I put the binder back on the shelf exactly where it had been.

Trip records stay with the aircraft. That's the rule.

I have always followed the rules. It was the one thing in that hangar that was mine.

I heard the cars before I saw them.

Three black SUVs rolled through the hangar doors like they owned the building, which they did.

Remo got out of the first one in a camel coat.

Lisetta got out after him.

She was wearing my jacket.

Four of his friends piled out of the other cars, the same ones from the terrace, laughing at something already.

"There she is," Remo said. "Lisi wanted a tour."

"I wanted to see where the magic happens." Lisetta turned in a slow circle, looking up at the jet. "So this is your office? It's smaller than I thought."

"It's a hangar," I said.

"And you'll be our waitress at forty thousand feet." She pouted at me. "Do you do the little warm towels? I love the little warm towels."

The men laughed.

The one with the pinky ring said, "She does whatever she's told. Right, Ilaria?"

The line crew had stopped working.

The lead lineman stood by the fuel truck with the hose in his hands.

I walked to the desk.

I took a white envelope out of my bag. I'd written it on Sunday night at Pop's kitchen table, on his paper, with his pen.

I took the aircraft logbooks off the shelf. Three of them. Airframe, engines, maintenance. Two years of my handwriting.

I carried it all across the hangar floor and put it in Remo's hands.

"What's this?"

"My resignation. Effective now. Those are the jet's logbooks. Give them to whoever you hire."

His face didn't change. His eyes did.

I turned to the line crew.

"For the record, guys. As of this morning, that aircraft has no pilot. Nobody is flying her on Tuesday under my name."

The lineman nodded once. Slowly.

The man with the pinky ring laughed, but it came out thin.

"Nobody quits the Salernos, sweetheart."

"I'm not a Salerno," I said. "I just flew for them."

Lisetta tilted her head. "Is she allowed to do that?"

Nobody answered her.

I held out my hand to her.

"Jacket."

"Excuse me?"

"That's my jacket. My name's on the pocket. Take it off."

She looked at Remo.

He was looking at me.

For one long second the whole hangar was so quiet I could hear the fuel pump ticking.

Lisetta laughed and shrugged it off her shoulders and dropped it on the floor between us.

I picked it up.

It smelled of her.

I put it on anyway.

Remo stepped close. His voice dropped so only I could hear it.

It was the voice I'd heard him use through the study door.

"You're upset. I get it. So here's what happens. Tuesday, seven a.m., you're in that seat. You fly us to Capri like a professional. Or don't bother coming back to my house."

I looked at him.

Four years. The hot dog stand. The night he'd taught me to dance in the kitchen in my socks.

"Okay," I said.

He waited for the rest.

There wasn't any.

I picked up my box and walked out to my car.

I drove back to Lake Forest to pack.

The manor was empty except for the guards at the gate and the housekeeper running the vacuum downstairs.

I took my suitcases out of the closet.

Four years of my life fit into them with room to spare.

My passport was in Remo's dresser, top drawer, where he kept everything that mattered.

I opened the drawer.

My passport was there.

So was a small velvet box I knew.

His grandmother's ring box. Dark green, worn pale at the hinges. He had shown it to me once, the first Christmas, and said "Someday."

I opened it.

It was empty.

Underneath it was a folded receipt from a jeweler on Oak Street.

Dated October 9. The day before our anniversary.

One antique platinum diamond ring.

Resize: from 5 to 7.

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