The Painted Table(63)

He tells her he only used a tether while perfecting the burner regulator, but not anymore. The three are cramped for space. When he’s licensed, Kenny says, the FAA will probably limit him to one passenger. The information does not give comfort.

Saffee grips Jack’s hand more tightly. The January air is cold; the silence is startling. She tugs the hood of her oversized, fake fur parka more tightly around her head.

“What are we, Kenny, about three thousand feet?” Jack asks. Saffee notices that Jack’s glances to the ground are brief. He’s doing this, even though he’s afraid. Kenny agrees with Jack’s estimate.

In the past, Saffee’s fears have generally been about silly things—speaking to teachers, dogs yipping at her heels. She used to be afraid of the cavernous university library—and now she works there. Progress. But free-floating in a hot-air balloon? Her heart beats quickly—strangely, she senses that exhilaration is ruling over fear.

When Saffee asks if Kenny has had any close calls, he is dismissive. “The basket touched power lines once,” he says. “They arced, but it was no big deal.” Saffee and Jack squint at the ground below, looking for telephone lines.

There is a singey smell and a flicker of sparks on Saffee’s shoulder.

“Oh no!” she yelps. Jack and Kenny slap her parka several times with their leather gloves. It happens quickly, and then is over.

“No worry—just sparks from the burner,” Kenny says.

There are two quarter-sized black spots where the “fur” has burned away. She doesn’t miss that Jack looks relieved. So is she.

“As if dangling from a balloon under a winter sky isn’t thrill enough, now this adventure will be even more exciting to tell my grandchildren,” she says, then gulps, mortified. Her face turns hot, not because she imagined falling in flames three thousand feet, but at the thought of grandchildren. She is careful not to look at Jack. She’s never thought of herself with children, and certainly not grandchildren. Anyway, one story of fire in a family is enough.

Thirty minutes later they touch down on the frozen ground and help Kenny coax air out of the collapsing billows, until a friend, his spotter, arrives with a pickup truck to assist with the loading. Saffee and Jack thank their trusty pilot; Jack thumps him on the back. Saffee can tell he’s as happy as she to be on the ground. Hand in hand, they begin the mile trek back to Jack’s car, walking over lumpy black furrows of earth spotted with light snow.

“I’m proud of you, Saffee,” he says. “That was a challenge. And you did it.”

Saffee bubbles over. “Well, you did too. Today will always be a special memory.”

He gives her a significant look and then says he’s disappointed about one thing. He had wanted Kenny to let them go up in the air alone.

“Alone? Are you kidding? We wouldn’t have known how to fly that thing!”

“I wanted him to show us and then just let us go. Wouldn’t that have been more romantic, just the two of us? The silence. The view.” Jack stops walking. “You see, well, I mean, up there I wanted to give you this”—he reaches into an inside pocket of his jacket—“instead of in the middle of some farmer’s field of dirt. But I guess it is better to propose with both feet on the ground.”

Her breath catches. Jack hands her a small white drawstring bag made from kidskin and closed with a satin ribbon. She takes off her gloves and opens it with shaking hands. Inside is the most beautiful diamond ring she has ever seen.

“It was my grandmother’s wedding ring,” he says. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Mind? It’s so beautiful.”

“My mother inherited it when Grandmother died about three years ago. I bought it from Mother. For you.”

He slips it on her finger. Saffee’s feet are not on the ground. The field around them spins. Is this too good to be true?

“Why, Jack?” she demands. “Tell me, why in the world would you want to marry me?”

“Because I love you, of course.”

“And I love you, more than you could ever know. And I’d love to marry you. But why in the world would you want to marry me after all I’ve told you?”

“Well, let’s see.” He pretends to be deep in thought. “I guess, like I’ve told you before, I like the way you laugh at my jokes.”

“Be serious! You’re the one who taught me how to laugh and how to have fun, but marriage is more than jokes and fun. I hope there’s more reason that that.” She smiles. “You better not be counting on my cooking, because I don’t know how.”