Takeoffs and Landings(8)

“That’s all right, John,” Mom said. “We can always pick that up later. Our next flight isn’t until late tomorrow.”

Omigosh. Mom was even on a first-name basis with this black guy.

The black man—John—went on to other topics. He patted Mom’s hand.

“I hope we’ve managed to convey how thrilled we were that you were available to speak at our convention,” he said in a hushed voice. “Roger Palfrew heard you in Dallas last March, when you were at the NJR, and he came back and raved. He said there was no way he’d support us hiring anyone else for our June meeting.”

“Thanks,” Mom said. “I hope he didn’t make me sound too wonderful—I’d hate to disappoint you.”

“Oh, I’m sure you won’t,” John said reverently.

Lori watched with narrowed eyes. John was treating Mom like she was a celebrity or something. Famous. Lori felt like saying, Come off it. She’s just my mom.

Lori had never paid much attention to the groups Mom spoke to, but now she wondered. What was NJR, anyway? And what group was she going to be talking to here in Chicago?

They went down an escalator into a tunnel of sorts. Bizarre, Asian-sounding music was playing and a sculpture of lighted tubes swayed over their heads as they stepped onto what appeared to be another escalator. Only this one stayed flat, carrying them past arcs of changing colors on the walls. Lori turned to Chuck, finally stunned enough that she had to say something to somebody. With Mom and John up there chattering away like lifelong buddies, Chuck was her only choice.

“Is this weird or what?” Lori muttered.

Chuck didn’t even respond, just stood there staring with his mouth open. He looked mesmerized. Lori couldn’t stand it.

“Catching flies?” she asked. That was one of Pop’s expressions. She missed Pop suddenly. He’d be the first to agree with her that this tunnel was weird. He was all the time saying, “Never can tell what some fool will come up with next,” while he was watching TV or reading the newspaper. Lori could just picture him, announcing that while he shook the newspaper for emphasis, in disgust. If Pop saw even a picture of this tunnel, he’d laugh his head off.

Chuck mumbled something just then, and Lori leaned in closer to hear him. You couldn’t expect words of wisdom from Chuck, but after what she’d said on the airplane, she owed him.

“Huh?” she asked.

“It looks like the future,” he repeated.

Weird, Lori thought. Definitely weird.





By the time they got to the hotel, Chuck was in a total daze.

Already, it seemed a million years since he’d made a fool of himself, throwing up on the airplane.

At least the landing had made him only slightly queasy. And he’d been so worried about throwing up again that he’d forgotten to worry about dying.

The plane had dipped to the side a little, landing, and he’d caught a glimpse out the window. An ocean sparkled in the sunlight—no, it wasn’t an ocean, just a lake. He knew that much. But he’d never expected a lake to be so big. The downtown was just as amazing—all those enormous buildings. If they looked enormous from the air, what would they look like from the ground?

The sight made him feel big and small, all at once.

Then there was the airport.

He felt funny just thinking about the tunnel they’d walked through, going to get their luggage.

Lori had called it weird.

Maybe he was supposed to think it was weird, too, but he got mad hearing her say that. Didn’t she see? All those lights and colors, and the music—it was crazy and wonderful all at once. It made him feel like dancing or something, not that he had ever danced.

Were he and Lori looking at the same thing?

He liked all the different people around them, too. The man who met them had skin with the sheen of homemade chocolate pudding. The color was so rich and deep that Chuck had to keep telling himself not to stare. He thought about the box of crayons he’d had when he was a little kid. There’d been sixty-four in the box. Had that chocolate pudding color been in there, too? He couldn’t remember.

He didn’t know why it mattered so much, a little kid’s crayon. But it did.

The taxi driver was black, too, or what people called black, but his skin was a different shade entirely. When he talked, Chuck couldn’t understand him at all.

He bet Lori could, though.

“It’s the one on the left,” the man, John, was saying. “You can pull in at the circular drive.”

The taxi driver said something, and Chuck couldn’t make sense of a single syllable. But somehow, he knew the taxi driver was complaining. Don’t treat me like an idiot. Don’t you think I know what I’m doing? Who gave you the right to boss me around? Chuck was suddenly filled with deep respect for the taxi driver. If only Chuck could stand up for himself like that. He wished he could repeat the words the taxi driver had said. It’d be nice to toss out some foreign phrase the next time the kids picked on him at school or Pop yelled at him for forgetting to lock the barn.