charged across the parking lot so quickly that the others had to trot in a vain attempt to keep up.
“What?” Seeing them all hunching under their umbrellas, Will remembers the rain. Funny, he hadn’t noticed it on the way to the car. It’s still coming down, dull and steady.
“Just chuck that in here,” he tells Kit as the young man arrives at his side with the other large bag. Leanne steps forward with her box.
“Oh yes, get that inside before it gets wet,” Carol says. Will tosses it lightly on top of one of the suitcases and she raises her eyebrows. He sees her make up her mind not to speak.
“Okay, everybody in,” he says, trying to sound hearty and unconcerned. For a moment, as Kit and Leanne move to opposite sides of the van, it’s true. He is unconcerned, and hardy enough to stand out in the rain for the rest of the day, if that’s what’s required to move things forward. He pauses, an impulse of defiance making him reluctant to climb into the van, as if doing so will indicate weakness, a triumph of the weather over him.
“What now?” Carol says. He can see her leaning forward to look back at him around the driver’s seat.
He reaches into his pocket for the keys. “It’s just a little water,” he says, climbing into his place at the wheel. “It’s not like you’ll melt.”
Kid Flyboy kept after the instructor: “When am I going to get my engine failure?” He couldn’t stand that Will had shown him up with a beautiful dead-stick landing. But the next day was their last day of ground school. The morning was all lectures. Will squinted at the screen for a while, finally giving in and getting out his glasses. He thought he saw Kid Flyboy smirking into his notebook. Let him smirk, Will thought. He needed to see the instructor’s PowerPoint slides. They were going over the electrical system, an area where Will had learned to be slow and deliberate. All those circuit breakers to memorize.
Learning the new autopilot interface was even worse. After lunch, they were seated at computers for the electronic tutorial. Will could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead. His neck itched, his chest itched underneath his shirt; he shifted forward and back in his seat like a restless high-schooler. He hated this part. Inthe old days, there was an actual physical connection between the pilot’s controls and the rudders. Now it was fly-by-wire, electronics and software sending your signals for you, computers butting in on the instincts you’d honed over a lifetime.
At the end of it, he felt exhausted, though he’d been sitting all day. His eyes were wrecked from staring at the blue screen, and his head was beginning to ache. He drove his rental car from the training facility to the hotel and pulled into a parking place. For a moment he sat there immobile, hands on the wheel, thinking about dinner. The idea of driving to a depressing chain restaurant and sitting at a table alone was unbearable. He got some chips from the vending machine and went to his room. He undressed and turned on the TV, but the endless election coverage made his jaw tense up and his heart pound. He switched around until he found sitcom reruns: Seinfeld or Frasier. He didn’t really pay attention, but he found the familiar cadences, the building crescendos of dialogue followed by canned laughter, comforting. He turned the sound down low as he started drifting off to sleep.
When the telephone rang, he jumped. People rarely called him when he was in training, even though he gave everyone his number. To his surprise, it was Margaret. She sounded like she’d been crying, though she tried to hide it. She explained that she and David were having a fight. She just needed someone to talk to.
He tried to be comforting, to say things that were blandly helpful. He couldn’t help but wonder why she was confiding in him. She had never done so before. It made him nervous—it would be too easy to say the wrong thing—but deep down he
“What?” Seeing them all hunching under their umbrellas, Will remembers the rain. Funny, he hadn’t noticed it on the way to the car. It’s still coming down, dull and steady.
“Just chuck that in here,” he tells Kit as the young man arrives at his side with the other large bag. Leanne steps forward with her box.
“Oh yes, get that inside before it gets wet,” Carol says. Will tosses it lightly on top of one of the suitcases and she raises her eyebrows. He sees her make up her mind not to speak.
“Okay, everybody in,” he says, trying to sound hearty and unconcerned. For a moment, as Kit and Leanne move to opposite sides of the van, it’s true. He is unconcerned, and hardy enough to stand out in the rain for the rest of the day, if that’s what’s required to move things forward. He pauses, an impulse of defiance making him reluctant to climb into the van, as if doing so will indicate weakness, a triumph of the weather over him.
“What now?” Carol says. He can see her leaning forward to look back at him around the driver’s seat.
He reaches into his pocket for the keys. “It’s just a little water,” he says, climbing into his place at the wheel. “It’s not like you’ll melt.”
Kid Flyboy kept after the instructor: “When am I going to get my engine failure?” He couldn’t stand that Will had shown him up with a beautiful dead-stick landing. But the next day was their last day of ground school. The morning was all lectures. Will squinted at the screen for a while, finally giving in and getting out his glasses. He thought he saw Kid Flyboy smirking into his notebook. Let him smirk, Will thought. He needed to see the instructor’s PowerPoint slides. They were going over the electrical system, an area where Will had learned to be slow and deliberate. All those circuit breakers to memorize.
Learning the new autopilot interface was even worse. After lunch, they were seated at computers for the electronic tutorial. Will could feel the sweat breaking out on his forehead. His neck itched, his chest itched underneath his shirt; he shifted forward and back in his seat like a restless high-schooler. He hated this part. Inthe old days, there was an actual physical connection between the pilot’s controls and the rudders. Now it was fly-by-wire, electronics and software sending your signals for you, computers butting in on the instincts you’d honed over a lifetime.
At the end of it, he felt exhausted, though he’d been sitting all day. His eyes were wrecked from staring at the blue screen, and his head was beginning to ache. He drove his rental car from the training facility to the hotel and pulled into a parking place. For a moment he sat there immobile, hands on the wheel, thinking about dinner. The idea of driving to a depressing chain restaurant and sitting at a table alone was unbearable. He got some chips from the vending machine and went to his room. He undressed and turned on the TV, but the endless election coverage made his jaw tense up and his heart pound. He switched around until he found sitcom reruns: Seinfeld or Frasier. He didn’t really pay attention, but he found the familiar cadences, the building crescendos of dialogue followed by canned laughter, comforting. He turned the sound down low as he started drifting off to sleep.
When the telephone rang, he jumped. People rarely called him when he was in training, even though he gave everyone his number. To his surprise, it was Margaret. She sounded like she’d been crying, though she tried to hide it. She explained that she and David were having a fight. She just needed someone to talk to.
He tried to be comforting, to say things that were blandly helpful. He couldn’t help but wonder why she was confiding in him. She had never done so before. It made him nervous—it would be too easy to say the wrong thing—but deep down he
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