Corcovado, Or Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars

"If you'd lived around my parents you'd understand."

"Your parents don't love you?"

"Oh, no...quite the opposite. They're just not what I'd call your normal mom and dad, that's all. And my grandfather has been holding things together recently. My parents are having issues."

"Alcohol?"

"Yup."

"Your mother?"

"No. Dad."

"Does he get mean?"

"No, just the opposite...he pulls away from life. I think he pulls away from Mom most of all."

"Why?"

"Well, I'm not supposed to know, but she works for the FBI, is assigned to some sort of special team."

"And what does your dad do?"

"He owns a chain of hardware stores in Vermont."

"Vermont?"

"Yup."

"Is that where you're from?"

"Yup."

"So, would you say he feels threatened by your mom?"

"Maybe, but I think it's more like he doesn't like what she's become. She's not soft anymore, if you know what I mean. Or... maybe she's not like what he thought a woman ought to be, and I think that caused him to, well...it's like his expectations caved-in on everything. I don't think this is the life he wanted to live."

"So he drinks - because of that?"

"I think so, yes, but I don't really know where that comes from."

"And what do you want to do? Fly?"

"Yup?"

"And your grandfather is teaching you to fly?"

"Yup. He was some kind of Ace in the first war, and he has a bunch of airplanes."

"A bunch? You mean, more than one?"

"Yeah, he has seven, including the airplane my father flew in the second world war."

"What?"

"Yeah, I know."

"And your father still flies?"

"Nope. He refuses to get near an airplane. Any airplane. He won't even look at...anything to do with the war."

"You have the most incredible eyes," she said, out of the blue. "They're like an eagle's."

He felt himself turning red, then shook his head and shrugged - all at the same time - which made her laugh.

"You don't handle compliments very well, do you, Jim...?"

"Well, you have the best legs I've ever seen."

She held her right leg up and pointed her toes toward the ceiling. "You think so? Really?"

"Really."

"I never thought I'd hear another man say something like that to me again."

"Well, I'm not exactly a man, Sara."

"Oh, yes you are. More than you know, Jim." She looked at him again, this time with something akin to real love in her eyes, then she got up and walked over to the window. "Oh my God!" she cried. "Come here!"

He ran to her side and she pulled him to her side, then she pointed out the window.

The sky was almost deep purple, the far rim of the canyon a striated canvas of oranges and reds and apricots, and the sight was so over the top it left him speechless - then he saw the rainbows. He put his arm around her then - and pulled her close - and they stood there for several minutes, locked inside their moment, mesmerized by the dance.

And as day turned to night she turned to him - and she kissed him.

"Would you show me your airplane in the morning?" she asked, and he nodded his head. "And...could I stay with you tonight...?"

"Oh, God yes. I didn't know how to ask..."

+

"...What is it, Dad? Why are you smiling like that?"

"I was just thinking of the sunset that night. Matter of fact, I don't ever think I'll never forget that day, or that night."

"So...you flew back the next morning? To the ranch...?"

+

They woke at five and she dressed them both, then hand in hand they walked down to the rim trail, and on out to Plateau Point. The sky was still full of blazing stars, and just the faintest line of deep purple lined the eastern horizon as they picked there way through the piñon. A few hearty photographers were already setting up out there, he saw, with huge cameras poised on massive wooden tripods - so he knew the view must be something else.

"I've come out here every morning," she said. "I wanted to share this with you."

They came to a low rock wall and she sat, then she pulled him close and leaned over his shoulder, her chin resting there, and when he felt her breath on his neck he was enthralled that another human being could make him feel so wonderful.

He turned to face her then, and he looked her in the eye.

"This has been the best night of my life," he said, resting his forehead on hers. "I can't even begin to tell you how much this has meant to me. How much you mean to me."

He felt her nodding head and she pulled him close, kissed him again, then she broke free and began running - for the rim.

He caught her within a few feet of the abyss, and he pulled her back as gently as he could.

"You're going to drive me to the airport, remember?"

"No, I've got to go now. Let me..."

"Alright, but if you go, you have to take me with you..."

Her eyes were unfocused now, drifting past the precipice... "Take you?"

"Yes, if you're going there," he said, pointing to the yawning chasm beyond the rim, "you have to take me with you."

The words cut through the pain and she came back to him, then she was in his arms, crying almost uncontrollably.

"I can't..." she sighed. "I love you too much."

"Then hang on to me. As tight as you can...and don't let go. Because I won't. Not ever..."

"Not ever?"

"No, not ever."

He wrapped his arms around her again and they walked back to their rock. Those moments with her were the most powerfully unsettling of his life, if only because there is no love like a first love. She drove him to the airport after breakfast, and she was duly impressed when he walked her out on the ramp and gave her the nickel tour of the old yellow Waco.

"So, you really weren't fooling, were you?"

"Nope."

"Oh, Captain, my Captain," she sighed. "I'm not sure how I'll survive without you."

"You don't have to," he said, wrapping her in his arms again.

"Yes I do, Jim. I came here to kill myself. I can't do that now. I just can't."

"Come to Santa Fe. Please," he said, pointing to the open cockpit ahead of his.

She shook her head. "You don't understand, Jim. I'm almost fifty years old, and you have your entire life ahead of you. I can't take that from you. I'd be no better than my husband if I did, and I hate him for what he did to me. To us, really."

"Sometimes living well is the best revenge, Sara."

"How on earth could you possibly know that?"

He shrugged again, then grinned at her. "I wish I could take you with me today. That I could show you what it is I love about flying."

She pulled him close again, held his face in her capped hands, then she kissed him hard. "You already have, Jim. You already have." She kissed him again, then held him in her eyes for a the longest time, then turned and walked back to the fence.

He did his walk around, fired up the old girl's systems and tuned in the Tuba City VOR, then taxied out to the end of runway three. He looked at the fence by the terminal as he took off, and he saw her standing there, waving, and he waved with his wings before he turned to the east, heading into the sunrise.

She walked back to her car, found the envelope he'd left on the dash and opened it. She saw his name and address on the hotel stationary and, at the bottom of the piece of paper, the only three words in the universe that could have possibly kept her from returning to the rim.

I Love You, he'd written, and yes, she had to admit, she loved him too.

And, she realized, she loved him too much to do this to him.

She folded the letter slowly and put it back in the envelope, started her Lincoln and drove back to the Lodge. Going to the restaurant overlooking the south rim, the same waitress came up to her table when she sat.

"What could I get you this morning?" the girl asked.

"Iced-tea. Blueberry iced-tea, I think."

The girl thought the smile in the woman's eyes looked different, and she wondered...

An hour later Sara walked to her room, and she called her lawyer in Los Angeles.

"Fred? It's Sara. Call Frank's lawyer, tell him I'll not contest this any further if he'll let me have the house on Maui, and ten million."

"You're sure? I think I can get you twenty, maybe more."

"The house and ten. I'm packing as we speak, heading to L.A. in a few minutes. I'll sign as soon as you've got everything ready to go."

+

He landed three hours later, taxied up to the Waco's hanger and found Pops standing there, waiting - and smiling.

Chapter 10

Ellis Patterson watched his grandson walk down the dusty road to the mailbox every afternoon when he got in from school; watched, from afar, the boy's demeanor as he stood by the mailbox, sifting through letters - obviously looking for something deemed beyond important.

And then, one day it happened.

Almost two months after Jim's Grand Canyon adventure a letter came, but Ellis did not see the reaction he'd been expecting. No, Jim read the letter, folded it neatly and slipped it back inside the envelope, then he turned and walked back to the house.

"Find what you've been looking for?" Ellis asked.

"Pops, I need to go to Hawaii."

"Oh?"

"A friend of mine is in trouble. I need to see her."

"I've never been to Hawaii," the old man said, grinning.

His mother was in Virginia, or so she said, doing - something, and Ellis hadn't heard a word from either her or his son for weeks now. It felt rather like Jim had been abandoned, left out here in the desert with him, but rather than resenting the intrusion he and the boy had only grown closer.

He'd taught the boy to drive, taken him down to the driver's license bureau and beamed with a father's pride when Jim passed all the tests on the first try - a perfect score on the written, of course - and now the boy was driving himself into school every morning...in a beat-up and battered war surplus Willy's Jeep...and they'd established a new routine all their own.

Jim did his chores in the morning while Ellis cooked, then, after the boy drove off to school he took care of business in the morning. He rode the fences almost every afternoon, watching the road for the Jeep's dust trail, then he'd make for the barn and cool down the horse while Jim did his homework. Usually around five they'd take a plane up, fly somewhere for an hour or so - and some nights they'd stop and have dinner, but most nights they got back to the ranch as the sun set, then they'd both head into the kitchen and whip up something to eat.

But not tonight.

++

They drove down to Albuquerque before sunrise the next morning, hopped on a United jet to Los Angeles, then, after a frantic dash through the huge terminal, on to a gleaming new 747 for the leg to Honolulu. Four hours later, they found the shuttle to Lahaina - a beat up Twin Otter - and another hour in the air found them disgorged and disoriented on the black tarmac of a tiny airport, literally in the middle of nowhere. Jim found a taxi and gave the driver an address, and a minute later they were on the last leg of their journey, driving around the southern rim of the island...to a sleepy hillside perched over the Pacific near a village called Wailea.

When Ellis saw the estate it was all he could not to whistle.

The main house looked like something ripped right out of Beverly Hills and planted here on this vast hillside, but there were several smaller houses surrounding the main, and at least two separate garages - that he could see, anyway - and almost everything was white. The main house was white, with green shutters and a gray slate roof - and with his builder's eye he wondered what that roof had cost. A half million? Probably more, because that roof had come from Vermont.

And there was a white Bentley parked up by the house just now, and the woman getting out of the car looked at the taxi as it drove up. When the woman saw Jim she smiled, then burst out in tears.

And when Ellis saw Sara Whiteman standing out there in the sun he very nearly passed out.

She had been, right after the war, one of the biggest Hollywood Stars ever - until she made those two movies with that singer - then she had married the bastard and disappeared. Now the divorce was in all the papers, for a while, anyway, then all that disappeared, too.

And now, here she was. And it was obvious his grandson meant something to this goddess.

When the taxi stopped she stood waiting for Jim, and, as his grandson opened the door... Ellis watched, stunned, as the boy went to the woman and took her in his arms.

He was standing by them both a minute later, when the two of them finally let go.

"Pops, this is..."

"Miss Whiteman," Ellis Patterson said, holding out his hand, "I'm Pops."

And the woman laughed at that, then took his hand and pulled him into a brief embrace, too.

Ellis swooned. Perhaps in disbelief.

How had his grandson fallen into this? And...how had this woman, this devastatingly attractive woman, fallen in love with his grandson?

A uniformed maid led the two of them to a little house behind one of the smaller swimming pools, and they unpacked after the maid left.

"You'd better shower, boy. You smell like too much road and not enough soap."

Then Jim had sniffed his pits and scrunched up his nose, tossing off his clothes and dashing to the shower without saying a word. He followed once Jim was under the water, then he asked the only question on his mind.

"You want to tell me about this?"

"About what?"

"What you're doing with one of the hottest movie stars around?"

Jim slid the shower door open and looked at his grandfather. "She's a movie star?"

"I'll be dipped in goddamn hog-shit," Ellis sighed, and that put an end to all his questions on the subject. He walked back into the little living room just as someone knocked on the door.

It was Sara, and her smile melted him on the spot.

"He's in the shower," he stammered. "I thought he smelled kind of like roadkill."

She laughed. "He did. So do you, as a matter of fact."

"There was no air conditioning..."

"I know, I know. That Twin Otter is beastly. Everyone arrives here smelling yeasty and dank, so I've got iced tea on the veranda. Would you care to join me now?"

"Sure."

And she led him past the pool - "This one's yours," she said, breezily, with the flip of a bejeweled wrist, "in case you feel like a swim."

The veranda overlooked the Pacific, and the arcing bay just below her property was simply stunning. Glasses were poured, ice already condensing on the tall glasses, and he saw crushed blueberries - and mint - were crushed on the bottom of each glass.

"I suppose you have a million questions for me," she began - without preamble.

"No, not really."

And that seemed to take her aback. "Oh?"

"Jim is kind of different, maybe a little special, but I'm biased so maybe not the best person to ask..."

"Special? How so?"

"He's decisive. Knows what he wants and goes after it. I think he wants you, so if you've got something along those lines in mind, be careful."

"I'm engaged. To an old friend in Los Angeles."

"Yes, I was afraid of that. That's why he wanted to come, I suppose."

She nodded her head, looked out at the sea.

"Mind of I ask what happened between you two?"

"Yes, I do."

"Do you want to talk with him - alone?"

"At some point, yes." She paused, looked down into her tea and smiled for a moment. "It's not so simple as you think, Pops..."

"Please, call me Ellis."

"No, Ellis, I can't do that. I'll always think of you as Pops. He loves you, you know?"

"We're close. I guess you know he's in love with you?"

"Oh, yes. And I love him more than life itself."

"That's an odd thing to say, Miss Whiteman."

She turned away again, sighed. "I'd be dead if not for that boy."

"I see."

"Do you?"

"Distraught over the divorce, your career. Yes, I think I can."

"Are you married?"

"My wife passed before Jim was born."

"No one since."

He shook his head. "I'm kind of a one woman kind of guy. I married for life, and besides, other things interest me now."

"And women don't fit into that life now?"

"Nope. Like I said, I'm a one woman kind of guy. Always have been."

"I guess that's where Jim's maniacal love of flying comes from."

"Maniacal? That's an interesting way of putting it."

"And - you disagree?"

"No, not really, but I'd use 'single-minded' instead of maniacal. I just don't think of a love for aviation as psychopathology."

"He has your eyes. Did you know that?"

"No, but then again, I never really gave it much thought. What makes you say that?"

"You don't miss much, do you?"

"I miss the movies you made, if that means anything at all."

"Do you? Why?"

"I thought you were the most gorgeous creature that ever walked the earth."

"Yes, age is cruel..."

"That's not what I meant."

"Oh? And just what did you mean, Pops?"

"That you should have never stopped making movies."

"Indeed. You think I still have what it takes?"

"I think you're still the most drop-dead gorgeous creature that ever walked the earth."

She smiled when she heard that. "Can I tell you a secret," she whispered.

He nodded. "Sure."

"This is all a ruse. I'm not engaged. I just can't, well, you know...?"

He looked at her features, at the smile in her eyes. "Well then, I don't suppose you'd care to marry me?"

And they both started laughing, but for the first time in years Ellis had surprised himself.

They were still laughing when Jim found them, on the veranda, holding glasses of blueberry iced-tea in their hands - while they looked out at a sun-dappled sea.

+++++

Of course, it had to be. It just had to be - because life is a circle, and if you run around in circles you always come back to the same place, time and time again.

Pops and Sara Whiteman married a few months later, and he continued to pull her out of her depression. Soon she was making movies again, and soon they had a house in Bel-Air and the whole Hollywood thing descended on their lives. And yes, soon a younger man came into her life, an actor, of course, and yes, soon she was on her way back to Reno. Pops moved back to ranch after that, but by that time Elizabeth and Jim had moved to Florida and he tried to find all his old routines but everything was different now. He'd lost focus, had fallen into the tender trap he'd been afraid of for years, and now the most important things lay disused and barren - and some, like Jim, were simply lost now, beyond his grasp - forever.

His son had some boat now, and the three of them were living on the thing! Elizabeth only worked on occasion now, James not at all, and word was Jim was still flying.

"That's good," Ellis said as he put the letter aside. He was sitting on the porch, looking at the entrance to the little box canyon where he'd first met that cat, a glass of blueberry iced tea on the little table by his rocking chair. The sun was high in the sky and he thought about Jim, and Sara, and a smile crossed his face...kind of like a cloud over the hot prairie - the sun with it's arms all around him...

He felt a shooting pain in his left arm, then sudden, overwhelming pressure in his chest.

"So, that's the way it's gonna be?"

He though he saw the cat just then, running from the rocks - for him - so he closed his eyes, and smiled at the night.

+++++

And of course the three of them, Jim and his parents, came for the funeral. They came by train, of course, and after their goodbyes were made, after Pop's body was taken away, they drove back to the ranch.

James drove down to the hangers and parked his father's old pickup in the shade, then he climbed down and walked over to the hanger where his old Mustang waited. He pulled the door open and walked around the beast, his hands caressing the bright, gleaming metal. Then, in sudden fury, he walked around her with purpose in his eyes. He checked tire pressures and fuel levels, then he pulled the chocks from her wheels and climbed into the cockpit.