On the Wing (14 page)

Uh-oh. Another whiff. I glanced out the window. The pond was still there. The brook was still there. Okay. Maybe.

With a winning smile, Stephanie handed each of us what looked like a slim paperback book, a novella, perhaps. The title of this little book was
The Story That Is Jack and Jennifer's.
Albertine and I, polite little fools that we are, accepted the book with thanks, opened our copies, and began to read. After a moment, we raised our eyes, looked across at each other, and exchanged the look that we refer to, privately, as “whassup wit dis shit?”

The little book had several chapters, with titles that matched the divisions of a conventional menu, such as “Appetizers,” “Soups,” “Salads,” and so on, but the nod to convention ended there. This was the first item in the Appetizers chapter:

Yucatán Honeymoon Midnight Snack

When Jack and Jennifer met, they knew that it was the real thing almost from the start. I guess you could say they had stars in their eyes, because they never gave a thought to the serious side of life together as a couple, all they could see was happy times, and nothing but love and happiness ahead. Of course, they were broke, but did that matter? Not at the time. They had a dream, and they were the dream. It was the dream of Jack and Jennifer, 2gethah 4evah. Young and foolish, maybe, but they haven't changed one bit … except that they're not quite as young as they were, though lots of people say they haven't aged at all, and they feel they owe it all to the love they have for each other. Because they were so broke, there wasn't any chance that they were going to have a big wedding or an elaborate honeymoon. Instead, they moved into a small apartment and locked themselves in for a few days away from the world, pretending that they were luxuriating at a lavish Yucatán resort. That was their honeymoon. It wasn't really a honeymoon, it was “playing honeymoon.” Just like a couple of lovestruck kids. Call them irresponsible, but they hadn't had the foresight to stock the refrigerator for their adventure! They were determined not to leave their honeymoon haven, so there would be no trips to the 24-hour Kwikie Pickie for something to throw in the microwave. They had to improvise with what they had. Just think about what's in your refrigerator at home, and imagine living on that for a week. Toward the end of that week, you're going to have to get pretty inventive! That's the secret behind Jack and Jennifer's unique approach to cuisine—and that's how the Yucatán Honeymoon Midnight Snack was born.

Stephanie was not hovering but she was lurking in a corner not far from our table. I turned in her direction and smiled. She returned my smile and stepped fetchingly to our table.

“Excuse me—” I began.

“Yes?” she said, turning on the charm.

“I've just started chapter one, and I wanted to know if I will eventually find out what is actually in the Yucatán Honeymoon Midnight Snack.”

With a coy twinkle in her eye, she said, “Why don't you order it and see if you can guess? I'm sure you'll like it. It's really quite delicious.”

“Is there meat in it?” asked Albertine.

“Are you a vegetarian?” Stephanie asked pointedly.

“Sometimes.”

“Okay, well in that case, I will tell you that there is no meat in that particular item.”

“Can you tell me anything that is in it?”

“Jack and Jennifer feel that a meal is a story,” Stephanie explained with practiced patience, “and a story ought to surprise and delight. You will enjoy your time with us so much more if you allow yourself to be surprised—surprised and delighted.”

“What if I'm allergic to something?” I asked.

“What are you allergic to?”

“Penicillin.”

“There isn't—ah—hmm—just a minute.”

She walked off in a charming manner.

“Al, let's get out of here,” I whispered.

“Shouldn't we let ourselves go and enjoy the experience?” she asked. “Surrender to the charm? Allow ourselves to be surprised and delighted?”

“We could go back to that Kap'n Klam.”

She knit her brows and pouted. “Is this the man who wanted to travel without a map?” she asked. “Is this the bold venturer I married, erstwhile Birdboy of Babbington?”

“You know, Al,” I said with the sigh that I use to signal that I have surprised myself with a profound insight into one of life's little mysteries, “reflecting on my feelings about Vern's—not just Vern himself and his habit of teasing strange kids—”

“You said it,” she muttered, “not I.”

“—but also the uneasy feeling I had standing there in the entrance, as soon as I had entered Vern's, I think I understand the popularity of chain restaurants like Kap'n Klam in a way that I never did before.”

“We're not having dinner at Kap'n Klam.”

“Okay, okay.”

Tension crackled and snapped across the table, tension between the desire to follow a route—the comfort of the itinerary—and the impulse to roam farther afield—the romance of the open road. The surprise was that our poles had been reversed again, as the poles of the earth are said to reverse from time to time. I was supposed to be the one who wanted adventure, surprise, the uncharted; Albertine was supposed to be the one who wanted the plan, the itinerary, the strip map that doesn't even show the interesting area beyond the straight and narrow.

“Okay,” I said again, “but—”

“I owe you one,” she said.

And so we ate our way into the narrative of Jack and Jennifer. It was an experience that tasted like the last days of a winter that refuses to yield to spring, the last days before summer vacation when you're in the sixth grade, or the last few minutes before the dentist releases you from the chair. Take your pick.

*   *   *

LATER, IN BED, at one of the motels at the interstate intersection, after Albertine had paid her debt, she said, “Let's watch the movie.”

“Aren't you sleepy?” I asked.

“Not yet.”

“You're usually sleepy after we—”

“I know. But tonight I'm not. Let's watch the movie.”

“Okay.”

We had skipped dessert at Jack and Jennifer's, but we had been sent on our way with something like dessert. Jennifer herself had promised us, as she handed it to Albertine, that we would find it “sweet.” It was a DVD entitled
Jack and Jennifer's Dream.

“Do you think it's erotic?” I asked, peeling the shrink-wrap from it.

“I'm trying not to get my hopes up.”

I loaded the video into the DVD player and hopped back into bed with Albertine.

The dream opened with a shot of Jack and Jennifer in bed, smiling out at us.

“Hi!” said Jack, giving us a hearty wave and squeezing Jennifer.

“Hi!” said Al and I right back at them. I gave her a squeeze.

“Jack and I wanted to thank you personally for becoming a part of the Jack and Jennifer Experience,” said Jennifer.

“And we want to tell you about our dream,” said Jack.

“It's a dream about making people feel at home,” said Jennifer.

“Hmmm,” I said. “I smell a pitch coming.”

“Cynic.”

“I bet I'm right.”

Jack and Jennifer didn't let me down.

“That's right,” said Jack. “At Jack and Jennifer's our goal is to make you feel at home in our home, as our guests.”

“As our friends,” said Jennifer.

“As our family,” said Jack.

“And someday we want you to be able to ‘Come Home to Our Home Wherever You May Roam,'” said Jennifer.

“That's our dream!” said Jack.

“Someday there will be a Jack and Jennifer's literally everywhere!” said Jennifer.

“Even in your home town!” said Jack, pointing right at me.

“We should have gone to Kap'n Klam,” I grumbled.

“You see,” said Jack, still apparently addressing me personally, “if there's a Jack and Jennifer's in your town, and you dine there—”

“—and we really, really, really hope you will—” said Jennifer.

“—then when you're far from home, traveling, journeying,” said Jack, knitting his brows in sympathy for the lonely traveler, “and you come upon another Jack and Jennifer's, just like the one back home, you are going to feel as if there's a bit of your town, your rightful place, right there, wherever you are, wherever you happen to be.”

“The warm, welcoming, and familiar coziness that is at the heart of the Jack and Jennifer Experience will make you feel as much at ease in the threatening world as you feel at home, not because you actually are at home, of course, but because you can retire for a time to a refuge, a little bit of home, an island of the familiar in the stormy sea of the strange,” Jennifer assured us.

“And you can help us make this dream come true,” said Jack.

“Yes!” squealed Jennifer. “You can get behind this dream!”

“You can literally buy into it,” said Jack.

“The first Jack and Jennifer's franchises are available now. If you've ever heard people brag about how they ‘got in on the ground floor' or ‘happened to be in the right place at the right time,' this is what they were talking about,” said Jennifer.

“You could be me,” said Jack, again pointing that finger at me.

“And you could be me,” said Jennifer, pointing at Albertine.

“This is getting scary,” she said, pulling the covers over her head.

“I'm turning it off,” I said. “You can come out now.”

She peeked out cautiously, saw that the television screen was dark, then raised herself on an elbow and said, “By the way—”

“
Mm?
”

“I've been meaning to ask you something—”

“Mm?”

“Didn't Vern offer you any advice?”

“He didn't have to.”

“You mean that it was implicit in everything he said?”

“Yes.”

“‘Beware of gravy'?”

“Exactly.”

Chapter 13

Wireless

I sing the Body electric;

The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.

Walt Whitman,
Leaves of Grass

I ARRIVED IN SWEETWATER in a bad mood. It was Vern's fault. In the morning, I was rolling along all right, thanks to
Spirit
's sweet little engine—and I should say in praise of her, just in case she's listening, that her engine was strong and steady, and that she was remarkably stable for a two-wheeled winged craft on the ground. I could have said it to her then, and if I had I might have had a pleasant day, but the memory of Vern's teasing, taunting, and mockery spoiled it all. I'd lost face back there at Vern's. I knew it and I felt it. I was ashamed of myself for having been bested by the old bastard, and a part of me, not the best part, wanted to return to Vern's and take revenge. Throwing a brick through a window of his diner was the best plan I could come up with. It allowed for a quick escape, if
Spirit
was willing. The likelihood of my returning to Vern's and hurling that brick diminished with distance, but my shame and anger grew throughout the day. I turned my anger on the closest target:
Spirit.

“What's the matter?” I asked her, leaning forward to make sure that she heard me. “Not in the mood for flying today? How unusual!”

“Why do you always talk to my engine?” she asked petulantly.

It wasn't what I had expected.

“I'm talking to you,” I said.

“No, you're not. You don't talk to me—you talk to my engine.”

“I do not,” I said firmly.

“Yes, you do,” she insisted. “You lean over and talk to my engine.”

“It's just that when I lean forward—”

“You act as if my engine were all there is to me.”

“Maybe it is,” I snapped. “The rest of you doesn't seem to be good for much.”

“That was cruel,” she whimpered.

I was immediately sorry for what I had said, but I tasted blood, and I wanted more.

“Your wings are worthless,” I said in a taunting voice that I hadn't heard myself use since I was a child. “I don't know why you even have them.”

“Don't get nasty,” she said plaintively. “Please.”

I was winning—but I was beginning to feel like a heel.

“What's the matter?” I snarled, or attempted to snarl. “Can't take the truth?”

“No,” she said, “I can't,” and I would have sworn that I heard her sniffle. “I'm a failure, and I know it. I'm too heavy. I'm ungainly. I'm fat and ugly.”

“No,” I said, caressing her tank. “You're not. You're beautiful.”

“That's all?”

“All? Beautiful? Isn't that enough?”

“I knew it!”

“What?”

“You do think I'm fat.”

“No!”

“You said it!”

“I didn't!”

“You implied it. You said ‘beautiful,' not ‘slender and beautiful.' You think I'm fat. You hate me because I'm fat and I can't fly.”

“No, no—”

“You're always talking about it, always teasing me about it, always—”

“It's just that—I wish—I wish I could feel the lift. Don't you? Don't you think it would be wonderful to be above the world, to be able to see far ahead of us, take the long view—”

Something like a sob escaped from her.

“Of course I do!” she wailed. “What do you think I'm made of? Can't you see that I'm more than metal and fabric and nuts and bolts, that I have feelings, desires, yearnings—just like you?”

“I—well—no—actually—”

“Don't you realize that you've given me all your emotions, that the yearnings I feel are your yearnings, the disappointment I feel is your disappointment!”