Come Fly Away With Me

Flying in Out of the Blue

Parker Peters

As Parker Peters glanced at his Apple Watch for the thirty-seventh time in the last ten minutes, he hummed under his breath. The digital watch still reported the time as 1:40 pm-the same as the last two times he checked.

The communications tuned to 119.850, the transponder for Denver Center, and the navigation computer showed the flight plan from Waynoka, Oklahoma, to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Parker's eyes scanned the Garmin aviation panels-the Cessna TTx, affectionately named Velma, performed as well as ever.

Mentally, he reviewed every aspect of flight safety. He checked all pressures and gauges, and for the billionth time since takeoff, Parker calculated the mileage based on how much fuel they used.

Since the red gauge hadn't moved a millimeter, Parker knew he still had a long flight ahead of him. His hands tightened on the worn leather grip of Velma's yoke, took a deep breath, and started to go through his checklist again.

The hum of the Continental six-cylinder twin-turbocharged engine corroborated the instrument scan and comforted Parker despite his unscheduled role as 'Charter Pilot to the Stars.'

He glanced momentarily to his right, but his passenger remained turned away. As she stared out the right-hand passenger window into southeastern Colorado's empty, grassy nothingness, Sabrina Stanton adjusted the headset that held back her long, auburn hair.

The world-famous entertainer and multi-platinum recording artist Sabrina flipping Stanton sat inches from him. He could not believe she asked him, a nobody from a nowhere town, to fly her to Salt Lake City for the NBA All-Star performance.

She's probably on drugs or something, he thought. As a smile curled the corners of his lips, Parker stifled an incredulous laugh.

Sabrina Stanton is on his plane. Sabrina. Stanton. Parker wanted to bang his head against the dash-just to make sure that he wasn't hallucinating or anything.

He wasn't sure if it was a blessing or a curse to be exactly in the wrong place at exactly the right time.

Maybe he shouldn't have given in to Miss Stanton's sweet-talking, left her stranded with her broken-down luxury jet, and gone about his business, but at heart, Parker was a gentleman, so he caved.

Parker looked at her again and frowned.

Something crazy must have happened on the jet, but according to his impromptu passenger, all he needed to know was that it couldn't fly. Still, he got the sense that the pop star wasn't at all disappointed that Velma could only carry one passenger-even though it left her annoyed manager and hacked-off boyfriend/fiancé/someone-like-that behind, but so far, no complaints.

Parker realized that he still stared at the side of her head and jerked back around. Hastily, he went through his flight safety checklist to take his mind away from his passenger and back to the flight. Finally, he checked the fuel gauge, realized it moved barely a centimeter, and sighed. He looked down at his watch: 1:41 pm.

******

Out of the corner of his eye, Parker noticed a frown flit across the singer's brow. The small plane caused her to tense at the smallest pocket of turbulence.

Parker struggled not to smile as she scrambled for a handhold and slammed her eyes shut. Her lips moved, but the drum of the engine drowned her out. Parker wondered what exactly she was muttering-a prayer or whatever curse came to mind at that moment.