For Love Of Lessons
Shelley J Alongi

 

Andrew leaned on the wrought iron fence in front of his house watching his three neighbor girls come toward him on roller blades. They stopped in front of the fence, the youngest waving to him.

“Hello, Mr. Crance,” the older one chimed out respectfully.

“Hello Anna, Karen, Jeannie!” He acknowledged all of them with a smile. His hands were dirty; He had been pruning roses today. The sun peeked through the clouds on this early, spring morning, and he looked skyward.

“Is Miss Annie home?” the youngest one wanted to know, her eyes wide.

“No, she’s at work.”

He transferred his gaze from a white cottony cloud formation and rested it on his neighbor’s daughter.

“We came to ask if she had any cookies!” said the youngest one, unabashedly. The oldest girl put a withering look upon her sister.

“Oh, it’s okay,” laughed the pilot, “I think she does have some.”

“Why aren’t you at work, Mr. Crance,” said the second oldest one.

“Time off. Pilots get time off because of their schedules.”

“You’re a pilot?” asked the oldest one, coming closer, guiding one of the girls’ hands from between the bars where it strayed to pick one of Andrew’s roses.

“You mean to tell me,” Andrew laughed, “after all this time and buying all that candy from you, that you didn’t know I am a pilot?”

He gently cut the rose from the bush and pushed it through to her younger sister, winking as if he had done something mischievous. Karen winked and smiled back, holding the prize to her nose and pulling in its gentle fragrance.

Andrew brought his attention back to Anna, who was speaking earnestly to him, her two younger sisters seemingly forgotten.

“I want to be a pilot,” she said, almost hesitantly.

“Do you?”

“For the airlines.”

“Well, that’s a good thing. Come to the airport when you’re old enough and I’ll teach you.”

“I will. Mama says we don’t have enough money, but I’ll find it somewhere.”
“Yeah, you will, Anna. You’ve always been ambitious.”

“I want to fly jets!” said the girl, dreamily.

“Do you? Well,” he smiled, “I don’t fly jets, but we’ll get you started. Flying jets takes a lot of work, Anna, but if anyone can do it, it’s you. You have so much determination, I don’t think anything will stop you.” He nodded. “Yeah, you come see me.”

The younger girls looked longingly toward the house.

“Ah, you want those cookies! Come on!”

He wiped his hands on his old, faded jeans, and nodded in the direction of the house.

“We won’t trouble you,” said the older girl, wanting to go into the house.

“Oh, no trouble! Come on in!”

He opened the gate, let them in.

“Leave those blades outside, girls. They’re not good on our floors, okay?”

They obeyed him and wiped their feet before going into the house.

Andrew led the girls into the airy kitchen. The window that stretched above the sink let in a brilliant stream of sunshine, cheering the place up as it cast its shadows on the floor. The girls showed more interest in the table with its flowers in the center and cookie tray.

“Hey, no, no!” admonished the older girl. “You sit down. Keep your hands to yourselves. This is Mr. Crance’s house. You behave!”

They did.

“You want tea?” asked the pilot.

“Yes, please,” said Anna looking with more interest at the magazines than the cookies. Her eyes begged to open the magazine.

“GO ahead,” said the pilot, “I understand.”


Anna had never been in this house. She caught a glimpse of pictures on the wall.

“Planes?” she said in utter delight, “on the wall?”

Andrew nodded and smiled, understanding her fervor.

She sat silently drinking tea and flipping through the issue of the magazine. Military planes, civilian planes, old planes, they were all fascinating. The girls, awed by the new house, behaved for their sister, and perhaps twenty minutes after entering this new abode Anna shepherded her charges back onto the porch. Waving goodbye to Andrew who had gone out to return his gloves, dethorner, and shears to the garden shed, she purposed to return to the house and ask if she could please see the pictures.

The next day Andrew sat at the kitchen table looking through some charts, plotting out by hand the route for his next IFR flight plan. He pushed aside the printed pages and his laptop as the doorbell rang. He stood up, his bear feet coming in contact with the soft carpet. He looked over at the clock hanging above the computer desk. 2:00. Walking past the tiled hall with the high ceiling, he stretched, put a hand through his blonde hair, sighed.
He went to the lace curtain and pulled it back. There she was, standing on his front porch. He smiled. He gestured for her to stay and then proceeded to the door and unlatched it. It opened gently, admitting a gentle, cool breeze. The white screen door separated the pilot from the girl.
“Hello, Anna.”

Anna stood on the step, caught Andrew’s gaze, and returned his friendly smile. She held out a white basket covered in pretty paper and tied with a red ribbon.

“What have you there?” he opened the door. “Where are your sisters?”

“They are all at home taking a nap. I asked my mother if I could please go and see if you were home today and she said yes if I didn’t bother you or stay too long.”

“Oh, you’re not bothering me, honey, it’s quiet around here. I’m just sitting here plotting out some flight plans. Won’t you come on in?”

The timid young girl so confident when caring for her sisters suddenly seemed about to run. Andrew quickly opened the screen door and put a hand on the basket and guided her gently into the house before she could slip silently away.

“I know why you’re here,” he smiled, locking the screen door, “you want to see those pictures, don’t you!”

She nodded.

“Ahhh, yes, I remember when I was sixteen. My uncle took me to the airport because I was just drooling over a Cessna.”

Anna looked up at him, was warmed by the friendly expression in his eyes.

“Your uncle was a pilot?”

“Hmmm. He was. You want to see some pictures of him?”

“Yes, I’d like to see them.”

She stood for a moment, looking at the tapestry that hung on the wall. The red roses held by a child reminded her of the peace she sometimes wished for at home. It was true she had asked her mother if she could come see the pilot, and it was true that her sisters were taking a nap. But she sometimes wondered what it was like in this house with only a husband and a wife being so nice to each other. She saw Andrew looking at her with concern.

“I like the picture,” she said, pointing to the wall tapestry.

“It was my roses in that picture. A friend of ours took it and made this for us.”

“It’s very nice.”

Andrew wondered if there was something more to it than that, but his attention was soon distracted by the basket in her hand. He took it from her hand and led her into the kitchen.

“I am sorry to come when Miss Annie isn’t here. I know she’s a teacher but we’ll be gone later on tonight and so this was the only time I could come and see you. And I figured I’d better do it now because you’ll probably go back to work soon and I won’t have a chance.”

“Pretty smart there, Anna. I’d say you’re on your way to becoming a pilot. Already think like one, take your chances when you can, and think fast on your feet. Actually I do go back to work on Monday; John wants me back on the flight schedule so you are right. Here, come on in and have a seat.”

He pointed to the cookie tray on the table.

“I told Anne you girls came over yesterday and she made more cookies. I told her you were kind of drooling about the planes and well she thought you’d be back. Would you like to have more tea? Or maybe Coca-Cola” We have some.”

“Yes, please, thank you.”

Her over emphasis on being polite made him smile a bit. She stood awkwardly with the basket, and so he came and took it out of her hands.

“Which one would you like. Hey you don’t have to be so shy. You’re not shy. Here sit down. Let me take this basket. It’s very pretty.”

He put the basket on the table, slid it to the side, and poured her tea.

“It’s cold today,” he said, trying to ease her discomfiture.
His smile warmed her and the cup he put into her hand made her feel less chilled and more at ease.

“It’s got cookies and stuff in it. My mom gave it to me to bring. We’d like you to have it.”

He pulled the colorful, flowery paper rapping off the basket. He sniffed the tempting fragrance of chocolate chip cookies, apple tea, and spice cake. He nodded in appreciation.

“Thank you. Your mother is very kind. You’ve lived here a while, I didn’t know she cooked.”

“Yes. She works for a bakery.”

They sat down across from each other. He stirred sugar into his cup, catching a glance of the dark skinned girl wearing the white T-shirt and red knee length shorts. He pushed the cookie tray toward her.

“Here help yourself. Did you know it was my birthday a week ago? March 15. I’m getting up there so you better come see me when you’re old enough for that flight lesson!”

She sat back in the swivel dining room chair, warming to his congeniality, feeling less awkward.

 “So tell me how you got interested in planes.”
Anna glanced quickly back to the pilot, her gaze having strayed to a picture of an obviously younger Andrew with a woman and a small girl.

“I saw my older brother flying a plane at the airport. He lives a long ways off, in Missouri somewhere and so we don’t se him often.”

“That’s my sister and her daughter, Sara. Sara is a pilot, now. It’s catchy you know.” He glanced mischievously at her. “Better stay away, you’ll be flying, too. Did you say your brother lives in Missouri? I’m from Missouri. Came here a long time ago; twenty years.”

“Uncle Greg is from St. Louis. He flies a Piper Comanche.”

“Not a bad plane.”

He got up and gestured toward the living room.

“You ready to see those pictures?”

Anna swallowed her last sip of apple tea from the pretty flower scalloped cup and followed the pilot into the living room. She stood beside him, glanced around to see the paintings of ocean, and landscapes, and what looked like the lights from a plane as seen from the ground.

“That one,” said the pilot, following her gaze to a C172, “used to be my plane. I crashed it thirteen years ago. It’s how I met Annie.”

“You took a picture of it?”

“Sure, before it crashed into a fence; missed a house by that much!”
His hands contracted to show just how narrowly he had escaped the fate of so many others more or less experienced than he. She stood back, even more amazed than she had been before coming into the house.

“I’ve always wanted to be a pilot,” she enthused, “I always admired you and I never got the courage to ask you about your work, not even when you bought all that candy from me! I can’t wait to take lessons! I have my driver’s permit and I’m almost sixteen! I’m coming down there as soon as I can and asking for you!”

“You do that,” he said, smiling and understanding her enthusiasm for the little planes that seemed to sweep people above their existence and give them a taste of something God had meant for birds. Flying was an art, a fragile thing, so much could go wrong, and yet so much could go right! She fastened her eyes on the picture of the white Cardinal that still hung above the couch, the first one Anne had seen and that had witnessed their courtship and now their marriage.

“That plane?” she asked, gesturing to the Cardinal. “That’s your plane?”

“No. It was my Uncle’s plane. He’s the one who introduced me to flying when I was sixteen.”

Anna glanced around the room, and spying the clock, she started.

“I have to go now, Mr. Crance. I did not realize it was so late. My sisters will be waking and well my mother did instruct me not to take too much of your time.”

Andrew made his way to the bookcase that lined one wall and thumbed through some of the magazines on it. He removed a glossy new magazine with an older plane on it.

“This is a Beechcraft Bonanza, a 1966 moddle here. Take this and look at it.”

He walked her to the door. She reached out and took the magazine.

“Come back and see me again. I’ll teach you about the planes on the wall and we can start your lessons early.”

She clutched the magazine as if it were some prized possession. She would take care of it. As she walked away, Andrew felt as if he had come full circle, passing along the torch of interest in the craft that had brought him so much pleasure over the last twenty-three years. Over the years he had taught many pilots and had made many nervous people feel more comfortable with flying in small planes. But this was different. This was fresh, young youth simply curious about an incredible opportunity, and though money would be spent to help her become proficient at the craft, Andrew would be involved in the very beginning of the process. He smiled as he shut the door and returned to his charts. He would enjoy this immensely. He felt like a very lucky man.

      
      

 

 

Copyright © 2003 Shelley J Alongi
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"