Rafe Marquez, 62, retired air traffic controller, had his entire Saturday mapped out in the frayed leather flight strip notebook he’d carried for 32 years on the job. 7am coffee at the diner, 9am tree trimming in the backyard, 4pm stop at the fire department chili cookoff, leave promptly at 7:15 to catch the western movie marathon on his old cathode ray TV. He’d never strayed from a schedule in his life, not after three decades of preventing mid-air collisions by sticking to every written rule. His only real flaw, if you asked his only daughter, was that he’d let that rigidity turn him into a hermit in the four years since his wife passed.
He was leaning against a splintered picnic table, picking congealed cheese off the top of his chili, when the collision happened. His elbow caught the mason jar of sweet tea in the woman’s hand, ice sloshing over the rim and dripping down her bare forearm, soaking the cuff of her denim jacket. He fumbled for a stack of napkins, mumbled an apology, and only looked up when she laughed, a low, throaty sound that cut through the hum of the country band and the yells of kids chasing each other across the grass. It was Elara Hale, wife of the county commissioner Rafe had dressed down at a public town hall six months prior for slashing the fire department’s new truck budget to pay for a country club golf cart upgrade.
His first instinct was to step back, mumble another apology, and bolt for his truck. Instead, he blotted the cold tea off her arm, his knuckles brushing the soft, sun-warmed skin of her wrist, and caught sight of a tiny, faded tattoo of a single-engine Cessna tucked just below her palm. “Got that when I was 19,” she said, tilting her wrist so he could see better, her shoulder pressing against his bicep when a group of teens darted past carrying plates of crumbly cornbread. “Wanted to be a crop duster. My parents talked me out of it. Married Ken three months after I graduated college.”
Rafe nodded, pulled his old flight strip notebook out of his flannel pocket, and flipped to a page filled with his tight, slanted handwriting, entries for small private planes that had passed through the local airfield between 2001 and 2008. “I tracked hundreds of those Cessnas over the years,” he said, tapping an entry from 2003, when a local crop duster had lost radio contact for 12 minutes during a brutal thunderstorm. “Most pilots are half crazy. You would’ve fit right in.”
He could feel eyes on them from across the cookoff, Ken Hale glowering by the beer tent, a group of local gossips whispering behind their paper plates. Half of him screamed that this was a mistake, that he was going to get dragged into a messy public drama he wanted no part of, that he was already three minutes past his scheduled departure time. The other half couldn’t look away from the gold flecks in her hazel eyes, the way she tucked a strand of silver-streaked brown hair behind her ear when she laughed, the faint smell of lavender and wood smoke on her jacket.
“I left Ken three months ago,” she said, like she could read the conflict written clear across his face, leaning in so her mouth was close enough to his ear that her warm breath tickled the edge of his jaw. “Got a tiny cottage by the coast, 20 minutes from that little vintage airfield that does Sunday joy rides. I’ve been working up the courage to book a flight. Was wondering if you’d want to come with me tomorrow.”
Rafe’s first thought was of the 9am tree trimming he’d written in his notebook two weeks prior, the new set of pruning shears he’d bought specifically for the job sitting on his kitchen counter. He flipped to the page, tore the thin strip of paper out clean, crumpled it into a tight ball, and tossed it into the overflowing trash can next to the picnic table. “I’ll pick you up at 8,” he said, and he didn’t even flinch when he glanced at his watch and saw it was 7:18, three full minutes past when he’d planned to leave.
They exchanged numbers, her fingers brushing his when she handed him her phone to type his contact info, and she squeezed his wrist once before she turned to walk to her car, waving over her shoulder when she hit the edge of the parking lot. Rafe took a bite of his cold chili, realized it was far better than he’d given it credit for, and leaned back against the picnic table, leaving his notebook closed in his pocket for the first time in years.
