Up In The Air – One Last Time

"Alright," he heard her call a minute later, "coast is clear!"

He held on to the sink, tried to shake the sight of her from his mind, then ran his hands under cold water and rinsed his face. He toweled his face dry, walked out into the room and saw her standing by the window, looking at the building across the lane.

"Is that place empty?" she said, looking at the red stone megalith.

"Good question. Used to be an MI-6 hangout. You know, James Bond kinda stuff. Anyway, Ian Fleming used to hang out there."

"No kidding? That's pretty, well, interesting. Kind of makes all that fiction seem a little less so." She was tense, and continued to look out the window, refusing to acknowledge what had just passed between them, and perhaps because she was having a hard time understanding the wave of feelings that had washed over her -- while he stood there, open-mouthed, staring at her. She'd felt like taking her clothes off and sliding under the sheets, waiting for him to come to her, suddenly wanting him, needing him. The realization had rocked her world, just as his presence behind her now made her weak in the knees. 'Why?' she asked herself. 'This just doesn't make sense!'

"So, times flying. What do you feel like doing?"

She heard it in his voice, too, and wondered just what the Hell was going on.

She turned around, faced him, saw the confusion clearly on his face, in his eyes.

She stepped forward, took his face in her hands and kissed him. She kissed him hard, ran her tongue into his mouth and a hand to his belt. She opened his jeans and freed him, moved her fingers until she held him firmly, then pushed him back to the bed, pushed him down, and she knelt there as if in absolution, pulled his jeans down, took him in her mouth. She worked him violently until he grew inside her warmth, then she stood and pushed her trousers off and mounted him. Her hands on his chest, her hair raking his face, she buried herself in their need. Lost in this newness, this writhing embrace, she danced in the light of ancient music until the universe exploded -- then everything imploded into the womb of what had been created.

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He seemed awkward after, almost little-boy shy, like the rules of the game had been broken.

But perhaps they had just been rewritten?

And how kind he was, almost too kind, holding her, kissing her face, telling her how beautiful she was, how wonderful this day had become. She kissed him again, felt the strangeness wash over her, then she had pushed herself up over his chest again.

"Come on, Paul. You promised to show me London, didn't you?"

"That I did, that I did. What do you feel like doing?"

She looked at him, looked at innocence and happiness dueling with sorrow and loneliness, the gales of recent storms still plain on his face, in his eyes. She lifted herself from his groin, felt the watery warmth of their love on the inside of her thighs and her belly stirred again. The impulse to act was overwhelming, undeniable . . .

She drifted down into this newness and looked up at him. "I'm still hungry, Paul. What do you think I ought to do?"

He smiled as she took him again, but this time she kept him in her mouth, working him frantically until he tensed, until his back arced skyward, and she took him, all of him, in her mouth. And still she couldn't release him: she swirled her tongue over him, felt the sticky warmth coating her tongue and her lips, felt him growing under the subtle glory of the movement that was redefining the very nature of their relationship, and she worked him over again and again until he regained his strength, then she mounted him again, took all he could give her, again.

Later, they stood in the tub and let hot water run down their bodies while they kissed. All the while, Evans felt pelted by gales of confusion, but every time she looked up into Paul's eyes she felt a quiet certainty she had never known in her life. She felt loved, and more curious still, she felt in love. And these feelings washed over her like storm tossed waves spending their fury on a wall of rocks, over her like the summoning this most assuredly was.

They walked along the Thames as the afternoon passed. Barge traffic moved downstream on brown water; the broad paved walk along the river's bank was awash with people leaving work, and Evans in her uncertainty was glad of their anonymity. They had, for a while, held hands, but she soon pulled away from him, unsure of herself, unsure of the feelings that swirled in the air around her. She grew wary of the implications that hid behind each passing pedestrian; the sun settled behind veils of insinuating, sentinel-like trees as they walked, the air growing cooler as they passed each wary sentinel, then streetlights winked on, calling out to the sudden shadows that had appeared all around them. Calling out to what, or to whom? She stopped, moved to the wall by the river and looked down into the swirling darkness.

"Penny for your thoughts," he said.

"Probably not worth much more than that," she said, forcing a laugh. She looked upstream towards Parliament, towards Big Ben -- and all the iconic truth that Time held in it's fleeting grasp stood in silent witness, the tower's baleful eye staring down at her.

"Could you tell me about her?"

Her words hit him like a blow to the stomach; he felt winded, at a complete loss as the implications washed over him.

"I'm not sure," he said.

"You said tomorrow was, is, your anniversary?"

"Yes."

"I need to ask you something, Paul," she said, now slowly, carefully, "and I need you to listen to me, and not lie to me."

"Okay."

"I was worried about you. Last night. In the cockpit. Worried you might be, well, planning to do something."

"Oh? Such as?"

"Hurt yourself."

He looked at her, then looked away. "I guess I can understand that."

"I need to know. Am I right?"

He looked at her now, his eyes like focused beams. "No, you're not. Never in a million years would I, could I do something like that."

"So, why did we come here? Into town? You said you had something to do here?"

"I have something to do here, tomorrow," he said.

"Could I come with you?"

He looked away, looked downriver. "I think I'd be disappointed if you didn't. Given what..."

"What happened today? Between us?"

He laughed gently, then stepped close to her and put his arm around her shoulder. She didn't move away, and he moved his hand to her neck and softly massaged it. "I was kind of curious, you know. Why me? Feel sorry for the old man?"

She turned to him and he saw tears in her eyes, yet she reached up, stroked his face with the back of her hand.

"You're really quite stupid, Paul. You know that?"

He might have felt wounded by her words but for the look in her eyes. "So I've been told. Peg accused me of as much on any number of occasions."

"I feel jealous, of her," she said, and the brutal honesty of the emotion stunned her once again.

"Jealous? Why?"

"Of the time you had with her. Of that life."

"I don't understand?"

"I've always considered that kind of life as something I would never know. Could never have. It's just not who I am."

"You could've fooled me," he said.

"Really? What did you feel when I, when we . . ."

"Surprise, in a way, I guess. But after I saw you standing out there, in your, uh, out of uniform, well, I wanted you, but what got me was, well, I didn't think I would ever feel anything like that, ever again."

His words reached her, washed over her, and she leaned into him, kissed him. And he kissed her, again.

"Paul? I don't know what we've started, but I know I don't want this to end."

He held her, held her as gusts of cold confusion and warm certainty washed over them. He looked over her to the sky above, to a 747 climbing from Heathrow and beginning its gentle turn south, and out of the pattern.

He had made such a turn today. They both had. "I think a lot of things changed today, Denise, but something about this feels so right to me. Something about you feels so . . . right."

She pulled back, looked up into his eyes again and nodded. "Yes. 'Right.' That's a the word I've been hearing today, over and over, while we walked. But you now what?"

"Hm-m, what?"

"I'm hungry."

"Can't imagine why. It's only been ten hours." He looked at his watch, then at the river. "You trust me?"

"Implicitly."

"Good girl. Off to Brick Lane."

"Brick Lane?"

"Yup. Best Indian restaurant in London. Kind of spicy, though, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, God!"

"He can't help you now, girl. You're walking a different path today, if you haven't figured that out yet."

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He woke the next morning in a dazed fog; the room smelled of curry, very spicy curry, and Overton's gut felt like an inferno. He looked over, saw Evans in the bed and wondered what the Hell Peggy would do when she found out.

Then it all started coming back.

They had started on Kingfisher's a little after seven, and little fireball appetizers that hit like napalm, then got hotter -- then, with an eye on the 24 hour liquor rule, they had carried on into the early morning, then poured themselves into a taxi and back into his room a little past two.

Now, as he looked at her in the early morning light he realized it hadn't been a dream. Yesterday had happened. All of it. Now he looked at her and danced between guilt one moment, and incredible happiness the next. He jumped in the shower and cursed English plumbers for the billionth time, then brushed his teeth and climbed back into his jeans before digging fresh socks and another white polo shirt from his overnight bag -- and getting them settled 'just so.'

He ordered breakfast, then woke Evans, sat in a chair across the room and pretended not to watch her when she dashed to the head. He heard the shower come on, then heard her scream when someone, somewhere in London flushed a toilet and the water pressure fell to zero just as the water temperature went from 105 degrees F to 35 degrees F in the space of one one hundredth of a second. He slapped his knee and laughed until he coughed.

"Jesus H Christ!" he heard her scream, "the plumbing in this hotel sucks!"

"Nope, the plumbing in Great Britain sucks! It's legendary, just like the delightful attitude Parisian's have towards Americans."

She reminded him they had twenty four hours to let the booze filter out of their systems, before tomorrow's flight back to Kennedy, so, she added, today would of necessity be a sightseeing day. Overton, of course, had other plans, so he went down to get the day's rail schedule out to Canterbury and back, then when he got back to the room he watched the news while she dried off and got dressed.

"Are you always going to pretend you're not staring at my legs?"

"Yup. Always."

"Nice to know," she said, grinning.

"Yup. Predictability ain't all bad."

They made their way to Victoria Station and grabbed a sandwich to eat on the train before walking out the platform to a local that was scheduled to make it's way slowly to Canterbury, and was scheduled to arrive a little after one that afternoon. They boarded and took a couple of facing seats in the tiny first class compartment and spread out their sandwiches on the table between them while the train pulled out of the station. Within a few minutes they were rolling through gently rolling farmland crossed with narrow stone-lined lanes; both looked out their window at gentle hills and distant steeples until, almost two hours later, the little train pulled into Canterbury and stopped.

Making their way through the tiny station and across to the ancient wall that encircled most of the village, they walked along ancient tree-lined paths until, rounding a corner, the old cathedral came into view.

"Oh my God," he heard Evans gasp.

"It's something, isn't it?" He looked at her, at the look of sheer astonishment on her face, if only because these old cathedrals never failed to awe Americans, and that always got to him. There was simply nothing comparable to them back home, not even the new National Cathedral in Washington, and he suspected it reminded Americans of just how new their country really was, and of how deeply European culture was rooted in a common -- yet ancient -- heritage. And these Gothic cathedrals were almost newcomers on the scene, he reminded himself; the ties that held this culture together were now almost two thousand years old. America was an afterthought to this old world, because even Canterbury Cathedral was much older than America.

He took her hand and they walked through a little residential neighborhood, then out onto a lively commercial street full of modern shops and huge throngs of people out doing their marketing. They stopped and browsed at market stalls full of produce and woolen goods as they made their way to the cathedral, then they walked through a timbered passage onto the cathedral grounds.

Here, surrounded by open green grass, the sheer mass of the structure was overwhelming. He walked around for a bit, got his bearings and absorbed once again the sheer size of the building, then they walked down the crushed stone path toward the main entry and walked inside.

Again, Evans stumbled to a halt; again, he heard her whisper words of simple incredulity. The nave stretched off into the distance under soaring vaults; explosions of random light scattered from clerestories above and fell on ancient stones below in psychedelic swarms. The scene elicited, he imagined, every thought and feeling the original designers had intended: overwhelming awe at the sheer majesty of man's interpretation of their God's greater glory. It was simply impossible to take in the scene and remain unmoved.

The air was cool inside, and there were only a handful of Chinese tourists wandering about, their little camera-phones clicking away like crickets in twilight, but he paused here, paused once again to let the scale of the space register, then they walked down the nave to the transept -- and there he stopped. Directly under the center of the tower he paused and looked up; fan vaults framed the ceiling there, the delicate tracery above imparting a sense of movement toward heaven, and again he heard Evans take in a sharp breath as she absorbed the sight.

He kept moving after that, first to the altar and the adjacent choir, then the chapels beyond; he moved slowly yet purposefully, wanting her to see as much as possible in this brief time they had, wanting to share this moment with her in the same way he had nearly twenty years ago -- with PeggySue.

When they were done, he walked to a small door on the north side of the transept, then out into a little rose garden. He took off his rucksack and carefully opened it, then removed a little ceramic urn. He unscrewed the urn's copper lid, then walked around the rose garden spreading ashes over the petals, and when he was finished he turned, looked at Denise, saw her hands steepled over her mouth, tears running down her face, and he walked to her, took her in his arms and held her for the longest time.

"Thank you, my love, for sharing this with me," he said at last.

"Oh my God, Paul. No, please, let me thank you for letting me be here, to be a part of this moment. Oh my God," she said as she tried to wipe the tears away. "What a wonderful place to meet eternity."

He took her hand and kissed it, then they walked quietly away and into the evening.

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They made it back to London just before nine that evening and rode to Leicester Square in another taxi. He took her to an old Italian restaurant nearby, one he'd always enjoyed over the years, and the owner recognized him and sat with them for a while, accepting Denise warmly. They ate carpaccio and spinach and spaghetti carbonara, then walked through the Square and looked at posters for shows before taking the tube back to the hotel.

The flight home had hovered in the air all evening like a bad dream; they knew what was coming and couldn't keep it from happening; they wanted, in fact, to do anything and everything possible to keep the sun from rising the next morning.

When they got back to the room they held hands for a while, and he kissed her once, gently. She led him to the bed and lay beside him, took his face in her hands once again and looked deeply into his eyes, and she felt a connection to him now that was stronger than anything she had ever known. Unable to contain herself any longer, she cried when she drifted back over the day's events, and thanked him once again. He kissed her again, felt himself falling under her spell again, but soon he felt his body drifting away into the night, drifting toward the sunrise.

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"United Two-Two Heavy, taxi to position and hold."

"Two-Two, roger," Overton replied, then he switched over to the intercom: "Flight attendants, arm and cross-check; prepare for takeoff."

"Give me take off flaps," Evans said. It was her turn to do the takeoff, so Overton handled the checklist and callouts this time around.

"You decide on ten?" The flight today was full, headwinds over the Atlantic furious, so a full load-out of fuel was onboard as well. The 747 was in fact loaded right up to it's maximum permissible takeoff weight, somewhere just shy of a million pounds gross weight, and though the air was somewhat cool outside this afternoon, he knew this would be an interesting takeoff.

"Yeah, and I think I'm going to start the run from back here, too. We're gonna need every inch of runway today."

"Okay. Flaps ten." He reached across the center console and moved the lever until ten degrees indicated on the panel, then set the departure control frequency on the secondary COMMs unit. A Singapore Airlines 777 on short final drifted by just over the threshold and settled onto the runway, it's wings sprouting spoilers above the blue smoke of screeching tires returning to earth.

"United Two-Two Heavy, clear for takeoff. Contact departure on one two seven decimal one, altimeter two niner-niner five, wind two five zero at five."

"Two-Two Heavy," Overton said as Evans put her left hand on the throttle levers. "Well, here goes nothing." She advanced the throttles to near full takeoff power while still holding short of the runway; the grossed-out airliner shuddered then began to move ever so slowly. She dialed-in nose-wheel steering while the jet lumbered forward and lined up on the runway centerline, then she shoved the throttles all the way to their stops.

To Overton the engines seemed to howl in protest as they tried to move the incredible mass down the runway. "God, she's slow," he said. "Fifty knots. Eighty. Got a little less than half the runway left. One hundred knots. . ."

"I'm gonna go with it . . ."

"V-one! Shit, baby, move! Come on . . ." Overton inched up and peered over the panel; he couldn't see the end of the runway any more . . . they must be right over it! "Rotate!" he called out and the nose lifted imperceptibly. "V-r plus five!"

"Goddamn-this-pig-is-heavy!" Evans yelled.

Overton glanced out the left side window; the runway's end raced by seemingly just as the main trucks lifted from the concrete, and he halfway expected to feel them smash into the strobe towers just ahead. He looked down at the flight director: about seven degrees nose up and a rate of climb of two hundred feet per minute. "Gear up?" he asked as he switched frequency to departure control.

"Yeah, what the fuck, might as well! This is as close to a positive rate as we're gonna get for a while!"

"Roger that."

The radio blared: "Ah, United Two-Two Heavy, say altitude please."

Overton laughed: "Two-two heavy, we've got one seven five AGL, indicating two five zero FPM."