Takeoffs and Landings Read online

  Chuck never had understood that saying.

  They left Marshall Field’s without buying any dresses.

  They went to another store.

  Chuck liked the open middle section of the mall, but being in the stores themselves made him feel strange, like he wasn’t getting enough air to breathe. Didn’t these people ever long to see even a blade of grass? Something real?

  Lori and Mom were fighting about something else now.

  “I just want to know, why’d you have to go and name me Lori?” Lori asked. “It sounds like somebody’s mother. Why not Courtney or Brittany or Brandi? Something like the other kids?”

  “Your father liked the name Lori,” Mom said softly, and that shut Lori up.

  “Why did you name me Chuck?” Chuck said, before he could stop himself.

  Mom and Lori both turned to look at him, like they’d forgotten he was along.

  “You were named for Pop,” Mom said. “Charles Frederick.”

  “Oh,” Chuck said, retreating. He knew he was named for Pop. Didn’t Pop remind him of that all the time? “Don’t know how someone named for me could forget to grind feed. . . . Don’t know how my own namesake could forget to do night work.” What Chuck had really meant to say was, Why Chuck? Why not Charles or Charlie or even—Chuck had heard this nickname once on TV—Chas? Chuck imagined he would somehow have been a different person, if only he’d gotten a different name. As a name, Chuck was pale and pasty and flabby—a fat boy without a spine. Buckteeth and a burr haircut. Chuck. A Chas or a Charlie would be popular, everybody’s pal. A Charles would be dignified somehow. A true Charles would be somebody.

  Chuck couldn’t possibly be a Charles.

  But then, neither could Pop. He’d gone by his middle name since he was born.

  “Do you mind all this shopping, Chuck?” Mom asked. “You’ve got to be bored silly. Are there any stores you want to look at? Any clothes you need?”

  “No,” Chuck said, looking at the floor. “But would you mind if—?” The racks of clothing pressed in around him. Was Mom offering him a chance to escape? “Would it be okay if I went off by myself for a little bit? I could meet you wherever you want me to be by lunchtime.”

  “Well . . .” Mom hesitated. Chuck could tell she was thinking about Lori disappearing the night before. He hoped she was thinking, But that was Lori, and this is Chuck. And Chuck’s a boy. It’s not so dangerous for him.

  It was strange for Chuck to even hope that people would see him as more responsible than Lori.

  “Okay,” Mom decided. “Meet us, um, back at this fountain at twelve thirty.”

  Lori gave Chuck a look like she wished she were the one splitting off. Chuck felt triumphant. I got something and Lori didn’t! Now, that was a first.

  He walked out of the mall into the fresh air. Actually, the air wasn’t all that fresh, and there still wasn’t a blade of grass in sight. But Chuck could see the sky now.

  The sidewalk was crowded, but nobody paid the slightest bit of attention to Chuck. Chuck liked that. Everyone ignored him at school, too, but that was a different kind of ignoring—it was like they were all just pretending to ignore him, so they could jump all over him and make fun of him as soon as he did something dumb.

  Chuck decided he didn’t want to think about school right now.

  He watched the faces of the people coming toward him. Nobody smiled and said, Hi, like they always did in town back home, but most people looked pleasant enough. Gram had warned him about big cities: “Your mom doesn’t think a thing about it, but they’ve got muggers who will rob you blind, right in broad daylight, and no one will even stop to call the police.” Chuck patted his front pocket, where he’d tucked a twenty-dollar bill. But his jeans were so tight, it would take some real doing to get that money away from him. He wasn’t going to worry.

  Chuck wandered carelessly for a while, crossing the street when he had the light, turning the corner when he didn’t. He didn’t have a destination in mind. He was just glad to be away from home, away from Mom and Lori’s strange fight. He didn’t dare hope for anything else.

  But then he walked under an elevated train track, and a building appeared in front of him. It was like a miracle or a mirage or magic. He read the words carved in stone three times, because he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.

  He had walked right up to the Art Institute of Chicago. An art museum.

  If anyone had asked him if he’d wanted to go there, he would have said no. If he’d even known it existed, he would have veered in the other direction. But being there was enough of an invitation.

  Breathing fast, Chuck began climbing the stone steps.

  Another airplane.

  Lori marveled at how familiar everything seemed: the pull-down table, the tiny window with its miniature shade, the button that lowered the seat back, the flight attendant demonstrating how to use the oxygen mask. This was only her second flight, but already she felt like an old pro at flying.

  She was seated on the aisle this time. She looked up and down the other rows, and everyone else seemed comfortable with flying, too. It was weird to think that all Lori’s life, when she’d been going about her usual routine—doing algebra homework, watering the 4-H hogs, washing the dishes for Gram—there had been all these people in the air above her. It was another world.

  Mom’s world.

  Lori never really thought much about where Mom was when she away—she was either home or she wasn’t. And when she wasn’t home, she didn’t exist.

  But that wasn’t how Lori had always thought of things. She could remember years and years and years ago, the first few trips Mom took. Then, Lori had asked Gram every five minutes, “Where’s Mommy now? What’s Mommy doing now?” She could almost see herself, maybe seven years old, sitting on the kitchen floor playing with her Barbies while Gram pulled loaves of bread out of the oven. Her hair stuck out in two ponytails on either side of her head, and she was asking Gram, “Is Mom cooking supper right now, too? What’s she going to have for supper?”

  And every night after Gram tucked her into bed, she’d lay in the dark, vowing, “I’m not going to sleep until Mommy comes home. If I stay awake, she’ll come home now.” When Mom was away, it was like there was always some part of Lori tensed and waiting, even when she was at school, when she wouldn’t have seen Mom anyway.

  She’d been at school when Daddy died.

  But Gram promised that Mom was coming home. Gram said Mommy was just taking a short trip, and then she’d be back, and she’d probably never go away again.

  Only, Mom kept going away. Her one night a month turned into a couple days every other week. And that turned into a week away for every week at home. Now it seemed weird when Mom was home for a whole week at a time.

  Not that Lori really paid attention.

  Lori remembered the exact moment she’d stopped caring. It was a night years and years ago, when Mom got home late, after bedtime. Lori was still awake, and Mom came in to give her a good-night kiss. Lori should have thrown her arms around Mom’s neck and whispered, I missed you. I love you. I’m so glad you’re home. But Lori squeezed her eyes shut and pretended to be asleep.

  She’d already gotten a good-night kiss from Gram. She didn’t need another one.

  Now Lori sneaked a glance over at Mom, in the middle seat. Mom had her head back and her eyes closed, and Lori wondered if she might have even fallen asleep. Every few seconds she winced, as if she had a headache or bad dreams.

  Lori figured she was responsible for any headache Mom had. And probably the bad dreams, too.

  You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Lori thought to herself, but it was Gram’s voice she heard in her head: I didn’t raise you to be rude. If it really had been Gram talking, she would have thrown in a Bible verse, too—about disobedient children getting what they deserve.

  I wasn’t disobedient, Lori thought. I was just . . . curious. I was just asking questions.

  But she knew how she’d sounded, all
day long. Even Chuck had been giving her strange looks. Lori went to school with some kids who believed in demon possession—really believed in it, brought it up every time there was any in-class discussion—and Lori briefly wondered if she could blame that. She thought about touching Mom on the arm and apologizing: I don’t know why I was such a brat today. I’m sorry. Maybe I was possessed by demons.

  Maybe she would have apologized—not with the excuse, just flat out—if Mom had really answered any of her questions. But she hadn’t. She’d changed the subject, she’d evaded, she’d given those one-sentence half replies: “No, I don’t want you to marry young.” “No, I don’t regret marrying your dad.” “Your father liked the name Lori.” They were answers that pushed Lori away. They built walls, not windows.

  They made Lori angrier than ever.

  The plane was taking off now. Mom opened her eyes and leaned away from Lori, pointing out sights on the ground to Chuck. Their heads totally blocked the view for Lori, but she didn’t care. She hated Chicago. She’d been terrible there. Her face burned just thinking about it.

  She thought about what her friends would ask her when she got home: Was the shopping great? Were the guys cute? Did you have fun? And she’d give the same kind of nonanswers Mom had given her.

  Suddenly Lori wished fervently that she was back home with her friends, right now. She could be on the phone gossiping about Jackie Stires’s pool party, figuring out whose parents could drive them to the movies on Saturday night. Everything at home seemed so simple suddenly. There were rules there. You cleaned up after yourself. You didn’t flirt with other girls’ boyfriends. You ignored Mike and Joey’s roughhousing unless it looked like they were going to break something. You kept your eyes on your own paper when you were taking tests at school. You said, “Please” and “Thank you,” and you didn’t tell anyone what you were really thinking.

  Why had Lori suddenly felt there were no rules in Chicago?

  She winced as the plane turned sharply, knocking her against the arm of her seat. Then the plane leveled off, following a straight path.

  They were on their way to Atlanta now. Maybe Atlanta would be better.

  Mom had gotten Chuck those airsickness bracelets, and he had them on, but it didn’t matter: there was no way he could be sick now. He wasn’t even scared, and here he was, staring straight down at the ground, thousands of feet below him.

  If I die now, I wouldn’t care. I would die happy, he thought. But he would care. There was a whole world he’d discovered today, and he intended to see more of it.

  Come on, plane, don’t go down, he thought, as if he could help the pilots. But the plane was in no danger of going down. It climbed up and up and up, until all he could see was clouds.

  “Pretty cool, huh?” Mom said beside him.

  Chuck nodded. Suddenly he wanted to tell Mom where he’d gone today. But he couldn’t. When she’d asked, when they met back at the water fountain in the mall, he’d just said, “Oh, I just wandered around. Saw the city.” And then Lori had said something nasty, and Mom got distracted, so he didn’t say anything else. Which was fine. He didn’t want anyone ruining the day for him. He could just hear Lori: You went to the art museum? Why?

  Never in a million years could he have explained to Lori what it had been like to stand in front of those paintings and feel what the artist had been trying to show him. He’d seen paintings before, of course—copies of them, anyway. One of the kids in their 4-H club had that lady with the strange smile—Mona something . . . Mona Lisa?—hanging up in their bathroom. In their bathroom! But that whole family was kind of weird. The dad was a professor at some college an hour away. Everybody knew professors and people who commuted that far weren’t normal.

  What Chuck had seen in the art museum was different from looking at some lady’s picture hanging over a toilet. At the art museum, the paintings were treated reverently—framed just so, hung just so, lighted just so. And people practically tiptoed around.

  At first, Chuck had been afraid that someone would tell him he didn’t belong, maybe even kick him out. He’d practically trembled when he paid his money at the front desk. He waited for the thin, dry-looking man to push his sweaty twenty-dollar bill back and sniff, No hicks allowed. But the man only made change and handed him a brochure, and Chuck was free to look at whatever he wanted.

  He didn’t see any other farm boys in jeans and John Deere T-shirts walking around, but nobody seemed to care. One of the security guards even gave him an encouraging nod as he walked from room to room.

  Chuck had stood in front of a big red painting for a long time. It was the kind of thing that Gram and Pop would have mocked as “modern art.” They’d seen something like it on TV once, and Pop had scoffed, “Did some kindergartener make that?” But Chuck felt like he was falling into the color, it was so intense. And he, Chuck Lawson, who never understood anything at school, understood that painting.

  “Like it?” a voice said.

  For the first time, Chuck noticed a man standing beside him. He had a goatee and a ponytail. Pop would have scoffed at him, too. Chuck was afraid the man was making fun of him—as if someone with a ponytail could never see someone like Chuck liking a painting like that. But the man looked serious.

  “Yes,” Chuck said simply.

  “Good,” the man said.

  And that was all, but it was the best conversation Chuck had had in years.

  Mom had more to do in Atlanta than she had in Chicago.

  “I’m busy until four o’clock today, and then there’s the banquet this evening,” she said over breakfast. (They were eating at McDonald’s. Did that mean something?) “Will you two be okay on your own?”

  “Sure,” Lori said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Chuck said.

  Was it just Lori’s imagination, or did he sound enthusiastic? Chuck never sounded enthusiastic about anything.

  “Well, try to stick together,” Mom said, almost nervously, wiping the remains of an Egg McMuffin from her lips with a napkin. “This is a big city, you know.”

  “We know,” Lori said, too sharply. Mom gave her a look but didn’t say anything. Lori instantly wanted to apologize. That was silly, though—why should she apologize for saying, “We know”?

  Lori wondered if Mom didn’t really have that much more to do in Atlanta. Maybe she was just tired of hanging out with Lori and Chuck.

  Lori wouldn’t blame her.

  But Mom had explained that this was a convention of people who gave speeches; Mom was here to talk about how to speak in public. Lori had seen the brochure herself—Mom was leading seminars called “Why Should Anyone Listen to Me? Figuring Out Your Message” and “It’s Mine, All Mine: Capturing an Audience’s Attention.” And she was giving the keynote address at the banquet that night. So Mom wasn’t lying when she said she’d be busy.

  Lori should probably be impressed that all these people who gave speeches would want to listen to Mom. But she couldn’t help wondering, Why did Mom bring us along if she’s just going to work?

  They went back to the hotel room and Mom left for the conference. Lori brushed her teeth. The whole day stretched ahead of her like an empty calendar page.

  “Want to go to the Coke museum with me?” she asked Chuck through a mouthful of bubbles. She spit in the sink. “The hotel guidebook says Coke was invented here, and they have a museum showing the entire history. At the end, they let you drink all the Coke you want.”

  She felt so virtuous asking Chuck to go somewhere with her. Maybe that was how she could make up for being so nasty to Mom. She’d be nice to Chuck all day long—no matter how hard that was. She wouldn’t even think about the possibility that someone might mistake them for girlfriend and boyfriend. (Okay, she’d already thought of it. But she wouldn’t think about it again.) It’d be like . . . paying back God. By the end of the day, her conscience would feel as clean as her teeth.

  But, “No,” Chuck said slowly. “I’ve got other plans.”

  Pl
ans? Chuck had plans? In a city he’d never stepped foot in before in his entire life?

  “Oh,” Lori said. “Um. Okay.” She hesitated. Her conscience was at stake here, after all. “But didn’t Mom want us to stay together? Can I—?” She was out on a limb now. But she kept going. “Can I go with you?”

  She was almost pleading. Chuck looked panicked.

  “No, no. You’d be bored. Or something.” He gulped. “And Mom didn’t say we had to stay together.”

  Lori’s pride prevented her from truly begging. She was practically speechless, anyway. What could Chuck be up to?

  “Well,” Chuck said. “Guess I’ll be going. See you later.”

  “Yeah,” Lori said.

  He tucked his plastic credit card-like hotel key in his pocket and went out the door. Lori stared after him. The door shut in her face.

  “Okay. Fine,” Lori said.

  She grabbed her own key and went out the door behind him.

  She didn’t really intend to follow him, but when her elevator arrived in the lobby, she saw him just going out the front door. She ducked behind a flower arrangement bigger than the outhouse Pop still kept out by the barn. And then, when she felt sure Chuck hadn’t seen her, she inched across the gleaming marble floor and went through the revolving door herself.

  Chuck was tall as well as big—at fifteen, he’d already topped six feet—so it was easy keeping his dark head in sight. She bumped into people once or twice and almost stepped out into traffic at a busy intersection when Chuck crossed on a yellow light. But he never looked back, so she stopped worrying about being spotted.

  All the way, she kept playing guessing games with herself about where he was actually going. The Olympic Park? One of the sports stadiums? Chuck had never cared about sports. He wouldn’t even play in the softball games they always had before 4-H meetings in the summer.