Adventures with Max and Louise (27 page)

“When I was in high school,” I began, wondering how much to tell him, “I dreamed that you rescued me. It wasn’t this exact scenario but very, very similar.”

“I bet your ankle didn’t swell up this bad,” he said and laughed.

I shook my head. “No, but it’s funny. To have this happen like this after all those years of wondering, you know?”

“I guess,” he said, as if unsure how to react. I sensed that behind his concern there was an undercurrent of something wrong. Turns out he was feeling guilty.

We were silent for a moment as if both assessing what I’d just said. I felt a distance grow, although I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

I saw the doctor trudging toward us in the snow. He stopped to talk to the ski patrol. Chas saw them too and glanced at his watch.

“There goes our dinner reservations,” he said sharply. He motioned at the window for the doctor to hurry up, but it was too dark outside for him to see us.

Watching Chas, it struck me how different his life was from mine. The world falls into place and marches neatly according to Chas’s plans. The lawn is always mowed, dinner is served on time. People show up like clockwork and do what they are supposed to do. Chas works for his father as his father did before him. When Chas’s father hears a bump in the night, he calls security. My dad grabs his flashlight and gun.

As I look at Chas’s athletic body folded into the helicopter seat, I understand why my confession about high school confused him: he doesn’t need fantasies to get through life. For him, life is enough. Maybe I need to be more like him: shed my Diner X persona and become Molly Gallagher, published author, a woman who flies in helicopters on her way to national television appearances. It wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It could be wonderful.

The helicopter banks to the south, causing the sun to hit Chas’s eyes. He blinks, turns to me, and offers a smile full of warmth and promise. I grin back. He really is perfect.

“Are you nervous?” he asks.

I smile giddily. “Very.”

He pats my knee. “Don’t be. You’ll be awesome.”

Charlotte looks on, pleased. This morning’s contempt has been erased by the prospect of meeting Katie Couric. My career lifts me from the pond scum level of this morning to protégé and suitable girlfriend for her son.

“Hhhh-mph!” Louise grouses.

Taking a sip of my latte, I ignore her, concentrating on the traffic snarls below. From this altitude everything is a toy.

“What you need,” Louise starts out, “is a man willing to tell his mother to shut up. Did you see him back up from her this morning? That ain’t a good sign.”

I resist the urge to scream, “What I need is for you to shut up!” Instead I squeeze Chas’s knee. “This is awesome. My first helicopter ride.”

“Glad you like it. Aren’t you going to call your family and tell them where you’re going?”

“Right, good idea. Thanks.”

“He’s trying to get rid of you so he can get back to work,” Louise says. “On Saturday!”

Max blurts out, “Would you bloody well shut up, Louise? ’e’s being thoughtful. And, anyway, she’s not going to marry the bloke, just snog him.”

“She’s already done a hell of a lot more than snog, which, by the way, is the granddaddy of all stupid British words.”

As I call my family and friends to tell them about the
Today Show,
Max and Louise bicker. “As if you Americans don’t take the cake on useless slang: suck face, neckin’, first base, mashin’, canoodlin’, and the most idiotic of all, cuddlin’! What a bloody moronic word that is! Sounds like a couple of ruttin’ panda bears.”

I’d love to intervene, tell them both to shut their traps, and let me enjoy the last bit of my first helicopter ride, but Chas and Charlotte are watching me. Chas has a look of wistfulness, as if wondering what we’d be doing now if I’d opted to stay put; Charlotte looks like she’s sizing up a new room to decorate. I grit my teeth, hoping I look content. Having Max and Louse inside of me is like riding with toddlers.

“My point is, she should pick someone nicer than Mr. Ken Doll for her first time, that’s all.”

“ ’e happens to be rich; rich and nice. The two sometimes go together, you fascist. Get over it.”

“That Wolf is a much better man.”

“Ach! You just like ’im cause ’e’s poor. Tell you what, snog ’im yerself.”

As we approach Seattle, the helicopter pilot leans over, shouting something over the throb of the engine to Charlotte. She nods, checks her watch, and makes a phone call, during which she shakes her head. “No, that won’t work,” she says insistently three or four times. After five minutes of head shaking, she smiles brilliantly and tucks her phone into her purse. Exhilarated, she shouts something happily back to the pilot.

Leaning toward me, she squeezes my arm as if I’m her new best friend. “I used an old friend of ours to get special clearance to land at the Pike Place Market. Liz and I chatted. It’s going to be part of the segment. Isn’t that fun?”

“Fun? Me getting off the helicopter?” A cold lump of fear forms in my chest. This is the opposite of fun. Visions of YouTube postings dance before me: Diner X Tumbles. Clumsy Cook Lands.

She nods enthusiastically. “Won’t it be just too fabulous?” I am struck by her Liz-like mannerisms.

“But my ankle,” I protest over the thrum of the engine. My hangover has been trumped by abject fear.

Charlotte smiles serenely and pats my arm. “Ankle, shmankle, darling, the show must go on.”
Of course. You skied with a broken arm.

I beg Chas with my eyes for backup, but he frowns in the other direction, absorbed in a work-related phone call.

“I’m not saying a dang thing,” Louise gloats. “I said all I need to say.”

As the helicopter reaches Elliott Bay, I get a glimpse of the Pike Place Sanitary Market sign in red neon, a beacon that has survived countless incarnations since its inception in 1939. As the helicopter descends, I remember my eight-year-old self, clutching Mom’s hand tightly as we weave our way through the pickups double-parked in the wet cobblestoned streets. Mom used to let me go with her to buy fresh fish from the monger on Friday mornings for that night’s meal. In the cold predawn, her warm hand was my guide, my anchor.

The mist off Elliott Bay would engulf us in gray soup as the farmers worked furiously, backing up their trucks with careless speed, shouldering boxes of lettuce, flowers, apples, and bottles of cider. As Mom guided me carefully down the narrow brick walkways, I could hear farmers chat quietly as they smoked: Hmong, Vietnamese, Thai, Spanish, and English. It would be hours yet before they unfurled the canvas dividers separating their stalls. They’d lean over with faint grins, proffering a freshly cut apple toward a shopper with promises of “freshest,” “best quality,” and “no better deal.” We always ended our trips at the Three Sisters Bakery. I can still hear her voice: “One huge coffee, five sticky buns, two for here, and a hot chocolate with extra whipped cream for my little helper.”

T
HE SCENE BELOW
me now is light-years away from those trips with Mom. What would she make of her middle daughter appearing on the
Today Show
? She’d be thrilled and telling me not to be nervous because I’m just as talented and smart as any TV host, and they’re lucky to have me, by golly. As I watch the throngs of people lining the brick streets below, I can hear Mom’s slight Irish lilt under her broad American accent. Although she came from Belfast when she was only ten, her accent popped up whenever she was very tired and sentimental. Dad loved teasing her, waltzing her around the kitchen, thick with the scent of corned beef on St. Patrick’s Day, singing “My Wild Irish Rose” until she begged him to stop.

Under the Pike Place Sanitary Market sign, there is a makeshift stage littered with cables. Two small figures sit on chairs, presumably Katie Couric and Matt Lauer. Technicians in identical navy blue NBC windbreakers crisscross the stage carrying clipboards and cables. As our helicopter swoops into view, the crowd looks up.

I watch the pilot from my seat, able to make out the corner of his forehead, nervously aware of the impossibility of what he is about to do. From our height, the buildings seem as tightly packed as sardines. The old brick roads, built for model T’s, are as narrow as rope. I close my eye and, say a fervent prayer that the propeller can squeeze between the buildings without clipping their sides.

As we land, a feeling of numb unreality settles in my brain. I am flying into Seattle to appear on the
Today Show
. I will be sharing recipes and chatting with Katie and Matt. I am a published author with a high-octane (crazy) publicist who lands me gigs talking to world-famous people. I’m in a helicopter with a handsome man I’ve had a crush on for a decade who seems to adore me. This can’t be my life. I slip my hand up my sleeve and pinch hard. Yep, that hurts. No, I’m not waking up. A talking bird could appear outside the helicopter window and start singing Céline Dion’s greatest hits with backup from Cher. Sure, that could happen too. In two hours my life has entered the realm of anything is possible.

As if sensing my spinning mind, Louise’s voice comes to me in honeyed tones. “You just settle down and enjoy the view, child. Just think of it as a real good story to tell the grandchildren. Life won’t always be like this, so enjoy the ride while it is.”

Her words settle me, like Mom’s hand on my shoulder years ago, steering me safely through the excitement of the market. As the ground grows closer, I realize I need an anchor, a combination of both Max and Louise. Looking at Chas, his square chin resting on freckled knuckles, his serious eyes scanning the scene, I realize I want someone who knows when to hold and when to let go. I can hear Chas saying, “It’s your call,” his voice gentle and kind. He’s grown up a lot since high school. What a nice surprise.

I really need a quiet place to think, to mull through all the images and thoughts flying at me, but the helicopter skims Elliott Bay and into the canyons of Seattle buildings. The blurred crowd turns into individual faces. The reddish-hued buildings become brick. Charlotte shifts in her seat, watching me for a moment as if to gauge how I am handling the pressure. What I’d really like to do is scream, “I’ve changed my mind; I can’t do this. Take me home!”

Instead, I smile.

Chas leans over, and tries to talk over the noise of the engine. “I’m turring yaouta tnnnnght?” is what I make out.

“What?”

“Tonight, I’m taking you out!” he yells. “Something quiet, okay?”

I smile and nod, hoping I’ll make it through this without my hangover knocking me sideways. The latte helped. “Great!”

He gives me a huge grin before turning back to the window. As the throngs of people turn their faces expectantly toward us, even Chas seems impressed.

The helicopter lands on a makeshift helipad on the cobblestones of the Pike Place Market, amid throngs of tourists and curious bystanders crowding a temporary barricade. Normally, I’d be among them, wondering who the celebrity is in the helicopter. Martha? JLo? Madonna? Surprise, folks, it’s just little old Diner X, the girl everyone will soon agree was better off when there was some mystery to her. I can see the
P.I.
’s vicious TV columnist, Morton Wilder, typing out the venomous headline “X Marks the Spot for Talk Show Boredom.”

“Would you shut yer bleedin’ piehole?” Max grouses. “Everyone loves a local gal done good; you know it as well as I do, luv.”

“Don’t matter what people expect. They’re getting you. And you aren’t tryin’ to be anyone you’re not. There’s your strength, girl. You take that and a strong faith, nothing can stop you.” Louise hums, deeply and slowly, “Amazing Grace,” which immediately calms me. I take a breath and look down.

A small plywood stage is in the center of the teeming crowd, near the huge bronze pig statue. A yellow tape barricade circles the stage. From the window, I can make out Katie Couric’s famous blond strands whipping around in the helicopter’s chop. The audience members lean into one another, asking, I imagine, who is disembarking. I will disappoint them all. The helicopter touches down on an intersection free of people and cars. I’m surprised by the force of the jolt and jerk back a little. Chas squeezes my hand again.

“Ready?” he asks.

“No!” I want to scream but manage a tight smile.

A police officer moves forward to open the cabin door. I feel myself recoil. I don’t want to leave what little comfort this tiny cabin offers. It reminds me of a war movie where one guy always panics before jumping from the plane until his screaming buddies shove him out into the sky bright with gunfire. I am that scared soldier, scrambling to the back of the tiny cabin, clutching my war buddy with every ounce of strength in my body, hollering, “I can’t do it!”

“Don’t worry what they’re thinkin’,” Max reassures me. “This is your moment, luv. Enjoy it. They don’t come along like buses.”

“You are woooonderful!” Louise says, elongating the word like a song. “Just go be yourself. This is a hometown crowd, sweetie; have fun!”

In an effort to calm my racing heart, I take a deep breath. The cop pulls the door open. Wishing he was one of my dad’s buddies from the precinct, I hunch at the door, eyeing the people suspiciously. Now I know the curiously cowed feeling that celebrities must have at the limo door, knowing the hungry lions await.

The pilot leans back in the cabin and shouts, “I got a three-minute clearance here, so anyone onboard after this is going back up. They are all over me.”

Charlotte fluffs the collar of the periwinkle blouse she’s loaned me until it stands up on the back of my neck like hers. All I need is a bubblegum-size necklace of pearls, immaculately pressed chinos, and a flawless French manicure, and we’d be twins. “You look fabulous, darling,” she coos. “Don’t worry.” She squeezes me with her bony hand. “I know a winner when I see one.”

I stuff the impulse to tell her that she didn’t treat me like a winner this morning but instead thank her graciously, telling her, “I’m sure you’d do a better job out there than I would.”

She ducks her chin and fluffs her bob. “Well . . . you’ll do fine, just fine.”