Page 100 of Sexy as Sin
Andy finished his monotone recitation of emergency procedures, which didn’t sound nearly as unlikely as the flight attendant saying, “In the event of a water landing, the life jacket is under your seat. Pull on the red tab to inflate,” and you thought, “In the event of a water landing, we’re all dead anyway, mate. I don’t think I’ll be doing any bobbing in the sea, life jacket or no.”
Andy said, “Hang on,” and began to unhook ropes from the black handles on the outside of the basket, which Tom caught and began to coil. Crystal, who’d been nearly hopping up and down and gazing imploringly at Jamie, said, “I’m sorry, but I need to... I’ll be back straight away. I can’t...” She got a leg over the basket and began to climb down the outside, her feet reaching for the black handles, and Andy shouted, “Oi!” and lunged for her.
The basket began tilting under her weight, a meter off the ground. Tom grabbed for a line and dragged his weight against it, the basket rocked in his direction, nearly throwing Willow out and into Tom, and Crystal lost her footing and fell a meter and a half, hitting the ground with a cry on one palm and both knees, then staggering to her feet.
Tom was desperately dragging at the rope, the basket tilted farther, and Andy was manipulating the burner closed, shouting, “Hang on!” Willow did, and thought only semi-hysterically that it was a good thing Azra wasn’t seeing this. Pilot error? Passenger error, more like. Crystal was such a wet little sook.
Eventually, they were on the ground again, and Amanda was bent over Crystal, who was holding her wrist. “I’m fine,” Crystal said, a few tears staining her cheeks. Of course, she cried prettily. “So stupid. And I still need to use the loo.” She tried to laugh. “I don’t want to go up, though. I’m sorry, Willow. I can’t. You go instead, Amanda. Please. You’ll look beautiful for the film, and I... I can’t.”
Andy looked like he wanted to mutter, but he didn’t. “You’re welcome to come,” he told Amanda, “as long as you sign the release. Or you, Tom, if Amanda’s willing to drive the chaser. But we need to catch the dawn. If we wait much longer, the winds will pick up, and we’ll have to abort. If you’re OK,” he added to Crystal. Willow thought,I’m guessing you’re meant to report this, mate, and that you won’t. Though it was as minor as you can get, and as much her own bloody fault,and glanced at Brett.
He was standing with his arms crossed, frowning, opening his mouth to speak, so she said, “I hope we can still go up, as long as Crystal’s OK. I’ve been looking forward to it. I can’t imagine you’ve actually ever come to grief, Andy.”
“Do me a favor,” Andy said. “I wouldn’t be in business if I had. I take risks on my own time, not with clients, and I’m still standing. Safest mode of transport there is, as long as you judge the wind right and don’t hit power lines. Which is why we leave now, or we don’t leave at all. Let me know what you want to do, and we’ll do that.”
Amanda asked Tom, “What do you think, darling?”
He said, “I’ve gone up dozens of times. We can go another day, the two of us. We should give Crystal a lift to A&E for an X-ray anyway, if her wrist is still bothering her.”
“It’s better,” Crystal said, bending it back and forth. “A sprain at most. Honestly, I’m sorry to be so stupid. Just... a lift home, maybe. I’ll put some ice on it. Surely nobody else has to go, though. Willow and Jamie can do it. They’ll look good being filmed.” She laughed, sounding giddy now that she was back on the ground. “Young, and like a happy couple.”
“Don’t be silly,” Amanda said. “I’m quite happy to go up.”
“Are you sure?” Tom asked. “Wait for me instead. I can’t come. Somebody has to drive the chaser. Dunno why we’ve never gone up together before this. Maybe we should do it for our anniversary.”
“We haven’t done it because I was working, most likely,” Amanda said, with one of her brittle smiles, and Willow, for once, felt sorry for her. “But I’m here today, I have the time, and why not? Surely I deserve to live a little.”
“Right, then,” Tom said. He asked Crystal, “Do you think your wrist would be OK for an hour? You could ride along with me and rest it.”
“I... I think it would.” The words were breathy little puffs, and Crystal was still holding her wrist. Brett could have offered to take her home, but for once in his well-mannered life, he didn’t. Willow’s own feelings were pretty straightforward. She was glad Crystal wasn’t getting fussed over, that her big brown eyes and heart-shaped face weren’t working. Maybe she was the stand-in for every snippy, superior girl at cooking school, the ones Willow had cooked rings around, and maybe she wasn’t. All Willow knew was, in this moment, she didn’t like her. Crystal wasn’t actually looking at Brett, but Willow had not a doubt in the world that if she’d been alone with him, she’d have tried it on.
“I’m going, then,” Amanda announced. “Substitution.”
Andy already looked bored again. “No dramas. As long as we start now.”
Tom went over to the van and brought back a clipboard and pen, and Amanda scribbled her name on the release, then handed it and her own puffer coat to Tom before she stepped through the wicker door and into the basket with evident satisfaction. She was, Willow noted with only a little amusement, wearing a sapphire-blue silk sweater and a gorgeous mother-of-pearl pendant with a blue pearl in its center, and had her hair in a French twist and a pair of oversized sunglasses covering her eyes, like she was vying for Most Polished Person In a Balloon. She was wearing flat shoes, too, ones Azra would have approved of, with pointed toes in a sort of brown zebra print, unlike Willow’s cludgy trainers. Had she wanted to go all along?
Easy answer. Of course she had. Her voice had sounded tight when Willow had told her about the plan last Thursday. Willow had thought it was the aftermath of landing the Dean wedding without her efforts, that she knew she should congratulate Willow and couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. Now, it seemed more likely that she hadn’t been happy about Willow asking Crystal and Jamie to go up instead of her, the firm’s owner and theobviouschoice to star in a video for her website.
Oh, well.
Maybe Willow shouldn’t have enjoyed the ride without Brett with her. Pity she’d been born for thrills.
When Andy fired up the burner again, the rush of warm air was like sliding into a spa tub, or something better—sliding into Brett’s pedestal bath while the heat from the fireplace warmed the air and the snow fell outside in huge white flakes. And when the last ropes fell away and the gondola left the ground at last, it was like no plane ride ever. There was no jolting sensation, just a gentle rise, like ascending in a dream.
The first time she remembered flying—between some posting or other when she’d been five or six—she’d looked down at the puffy white clouds and thought how soft they seemed. If you could lie on them, she’d imagined, they’d pillow you, and you could pull their edges around you and snuggle down. That was exactly how she felt now. The sight was exciting, of the ground dropping away as the balloon headed south over the paddock, the basket seeming nearly to brush the tops of the gum trees, but the feeling was pure waking dream.
“A bit of drama,” Andy said as they drifted so close to the treetops, they nearly brushed against them, “just to show you we can.” He seemed to have lost his grumpiness along with the ground, as if his spirits, too, were buoyed by the balloon. “Southeasterly wind, which will take us through the hinterland. Need anything from me, mate?” he asked the cameraman.
“No worries,” the cameraman, whose name Willow didn’t know, said. “You fly it, and I’ll shoot it. Just don’t put us on the ground.”
Beneath them, the earth dropped away, but not much. They skimmed the folds of emerald hills and paddocks neatly bordered with hedges. The earth shone in the mellow dawn light and looked like the prettiest model railroad layout in the world, and the shadow of the balloon startled a flock of woolly sheep into a gallop. Willow laughed and pointed with nobody to care that she was doing it, and didn’t feel like a fool at all. To the east, the pearly-pink light changed to gold, and she watched it and was glad to be here.
The wind wasn’t blowing, or they were moving with it, and her hair remained tucked in its knot. Above her, the flame roared into the balloon. Beside her, Jamie looked out across the sloping hills to the sea, seeming to forget to be brooding and mysterious, and Andy operated his burner to rise or descend and said nothing. It was exhilaration, and it was peace.
“How does Tom know where we are?” she asked Andy as they neared the coast. “Surely you can’t fly back, not if we’re being pushed with the wind. It’s not like a... a sailboat, where you can tack.”
“GPS,” he said. “And Tom knows the roads.”
