Speaking of plane rides, my "Red High Heels" below was published somewhere, but I can't remember.
After dat, I'm gonna tell you what Lynn and I talked about.
Wish I knew how to double space the story below.
RED HIGH
HEELS
Meredith and
Peter were watching the original Hawaii Five-O on his upstairs TV in his blue
bedroom. They each had their own pillow. His had cost an unbelievable $250 at a
mattress store, while hers cost $20 at Kohl’s. She had tested it out on the
dusty floor by the men’s ties.
“Always a
beautiful day in Hawaii,” said Peter.
“Maybe the
two of us could go visit,” said Meredith, knowing the answer.
“You know me,
kid,” he said. “I don’t want to go anywhere except Cape May.”
“It would
really be fun living somewhere else,” she said.
“Don’t you
love your yellow house and living next door to the man in your life?”
“Of course I
do,” she said, snuggling against his gorgeous hairy chest.
After she
went home, she began to plan what to do. She would show him. As she walked to
the compost heap they shared, her thoughts cascaded as she poured out the
contents of the yellow pitcher: chicken bones, egg shells with bits of white
still inside, the ends of zucchini, apple cores.
Did she love
Peter? She supposed she did, but it was hard to really know. He was certainly
good to her. For her most recent birthday – she was twenty-six – he bought her
the complete short stories of John O’Hara with a black and white cover showing
O’Hara as a man with big ears and wearing a banker’s suit.
She pulled
out a suitcase with wheels from her basement, sneezing from the dust. She
packed lightly for she would only stay a couple of days and decide if she
wanted to move to Vermont, where her college alma mater, Goddard, was spread
out on acres and acres of what was once farmland. She’d stay in Kilpatrick
Dorm, for a small fee.
Her biggest
decision was what books to bring. Her father had given her “Random House’s Best
Sports Stories” and her mom, a pair of yellow silky pajamas with her initials
MLL monogrammed on her breast. Peter loved it.
A day later,
she was in the living room pacing back and forth when she heard the horn. There
it was, “Dave’s Limo” pulling into her drive. Peter was at work so there would
be no tearful goodbyes. She wheeled her red checkered suitcase onto the porch
steps and the driver hefted it inside.
Most of the
December snow had melted.
Five hours
later, she was aboard a small plane heading for the Plainfield, Vermont
airport. Her tray was down and she was sipping on a ginger ale to settle her
stomach. She returned the unopened foil pack of almonds to the flight
attendant, Neil.
Her book slid
off the tray with a thud. The plane careened back and forth. The pilot
announced, “We’re having some turbulence. Please put your trays up and buckle
your seat belts. Nothing to worry about.”
Meredith
looked out the window and remembered the green meadows of Vermont. A blonde,
she and her friend Wendy had once sunbathed in the raw one gorgeous summer day,
bringing with them Italian hoagies from the country store and Tastykake
Krimpets.
Everything
was now covered with sparkling white snow with iridescent crystals. What a
great decision she had made.
The speaker
above her head crackled with static for several moments as the plane seemed to
plummet downward toward the snow and ice.
There was no
doubt about it. The plane was about to crash.
Involuntarily,
screams poured forth from the passengers, herself included. Her blue earrings
shot out of her ears and luggage from the overhead compartments spilled onto
the passengers.
More screams
and then silence.
The plane
came to a stop like a dead bird in the Arctic. Meredith looked around. The old
lady next to her lay on the floor of the plane in a bath of blood. Her mouth
was wide open with fear as if she were watching a horror movie.
Meredith
cleared her throat. “Is anyone alive?” she called. “Hello! Hello!”
The pilot
must be alive, she thought, but the roof of the plane was squashed down like a
toy bucket.
She knew from
movies and TV shows that she must move as far away from the plane as she could,
lest it blow up.
She spilled
out the emergency door, but stuck her head back inside. “Please! Please!
Somebody answer me!” she called. She crawled back in on her aching knees and
saw the kitchen was right there. She helped herself to all the packets of nuts
and crackers that could fit into her coat pockets. Plus a cup of hot coffee in
a plastic cup.
She wore
Pantyhose and red high heels, the perfect thing, she thought, for wandering
around in the snow.
She caught
her breath away from the plane and sipped on the hot coffee, which helped clear
her head.
Suddenly an
orange fire ball bright as the sun filled the air. Meredith held her ears. For
sure, now, everyone was dead. Pulverized as if they were in a blender making a
chocolate milkshake. Her eyes filled with tears.
Her red high
heels dug into the snow as she looked toward the sky. Clouds were skittering to
the left, the west. She brushed away thoughts about how she and Peter had sat
on her screened-in back porch and made shapes of them – a lonely camel, a
snowman with a scarf on, and a dog scampering across the sky.
In fact, was
it her imagination or was that a real dog barking – or was it a wolf come to
eat her alive?
A huge white
dog ran up to her and jumped on her coat. She held out her hands and let him
lick her.
She was
saved.
The two of
them trotted toward a farmhouse, where he lived.
“Barney,”
said his master. “Who have we got here?”
“Meredith,”
she answered. “I was on the plane that crashed a little while ago. Did you hear
it?”
“Sure did.
You’d have to be stone deaf not to have heard it!”
She refused
to be hospitalized and persuaded the farmer and his wife to put her up for the
night. She also refused to take a plane back home.
Peter drove
up in his black Honda Fit.
Now she was
sure she loved him.
“Satisfied?”
he asked.
“Not really,”
she said. “But it’ll do for a start.”
...
Called Lynn and we talked about 45 minutes.
Told her I felt very close to Daddy, altho he did a few inappropriate things over the years.
...
Sent a thank-you note to my accountant that my tax forms finally arrived.
Gonna sit on the floor and sign everything.
I'm owed a check for about $500 which will be refunded to me.
Should I order some food from Ben and Irv?
