Kansas Summer

"You're Too Young To Say 'I Love Her'"

It upset Jenna greatly when it was time for me to go home; my dad needed help closing the store and taking inventory at the end of the day. I thanked Jenna many times for her hospitality and for teaching me how to play Go Fish. She walked with me out to the truck and opened the squeaky door for me.

“Again, thank you,” I repeated for probably the umpteenth time this afternoon. The funny thing was, I didn't even think it odd that she was doing these things for me. I felt tempted to ask her to do something with me for the weekend, but I thought it was too early to ask; we had only really started talking today.

“So, are you doing anything this weekend?” I was flabbergasted and taken aback. Did she just ask me out or something? I wasn't quite sure what to say to be honest.

“I'm a little busy helping my dad run the store, but I'm free in the evenings after closing. Did you have something in mind?” That would have to do. Yes, let her decide where she wanted to go or what she wanted to do, because I hadn't a clue.

“Well, I could teach you how to play Blackjack! That's pretty easy!”

I would've groaned if it was anyone else, but when it was Jenna, I found that I couldn't refuse. “That sounds good. Maybe I could even cook you dinner. That way, I wouldn't feel guilty for you having to feed me like you did today!”

Jenna giggled. “That's quite alright! Sure, so Saturday night? Oh, and my parents and sister will probably be here then, so could you make dinner for them too?”

“That's not a problem. And yes, Saturday night sounds perfect.” The truck starts after I turn the key in the ignition; it doesn't turn over at all. I wave goodbye to Jenna, mouthing “Thank you” again. She mouths “Drive safely!” back. The engine revs as I turn the truck back onto the highway, and away we disappear from Jenna's view into the reddening Kansas twilight sky.

I drive by the airport, just to check up on my plane. I must be spoiled rotten if I have both a plane and a truck while I'm still in high school, but I know that I am not. Of course, I can't fly the plane by myself until I turn seventeen in sixteen months, but on occasions, my dad and I will take it up; he was the one who bought it for me with mom's insurance. “She told me that you needed a plane when you grew up,” he would tell me, “and when you go to college, this is your promise that you'll come home every weekend!”.

I take the left turn off of Highway 27 onto Caldwell Avenue right before I hit the outskirts of Goodland; Caldwell Avenue runs right by the airport, and I can see the plane clearly if I'm going slow enough. It's always easy to spot our plane; ours is the only Piper out of perhaps ten other planes based here. Cessna has a base in Wichita, so all of the people who fly out of Goodland (except us) have them, since they are relatively inexpensive. However, my dad thinks that Cessnas fly terribly, and he had a Piper when he was growing up, so that's the reason we have one now.

And it's not like we have any fancy business jet, it's more or less a piece of junk that flies. It's painted in an awful green and orange stripe job from the '60's that makes me want to puke every time that I see it, but it doesn't make a difference when I'm in the cockpit because I can't see it. We are fairly poor (even though we had my mom's insurance, my dad insists on living small), so we paid for probably the oldest plane imaginable, so old in fact, that the model lacks the wheel pants that streamline the unretractable gear. Because of that, it doesn't get the gas mileage that the newer models do, but we never take it farther than a hundred miles from Goodland, so it doesn't make a huge difference.

Because of its odd color scheme, I can pick out the plane at a distance of a mile on a clear day, and it's not difficult to see from the road. I drive a little slower than usual as I drive by the hangars, and I can see between hangar one and two our ugly geezer of an airplane tethered there, enjoying the colors of the sunset. A loud buzz fills my ears as a pencil-thin Swearingen Metroliner of US Airways, the evening flight to Denver, lifts off from runway 30. I salute to the captain, who I know doesn't see me. Smiling, I accelerate away down the highway, only to slow down as I hit the center of town.