At first it looked like a thunderhead, an anvil-shaped cloud developing over the mountains. The weather had been predicting heavy rain all week. Today it was a 70 percent chance. On Tuesday it was a 50 percent chance; on Monday, 30 percent. As though the weather service could will a thunderstorm from the drought by adding 10 percent to their predictions until nature gave in.
When they saw the gray filling the sky Darla figured maybe the forecast finally was right. She said, It looks like we’re going to get some rain.
Tommy said, Looks like a brush fire to me. Big one, too.
He sipped his beer and watched the slow-moving wall. This was their outside time. Every evening at sunset they sat on the little balcony and watched the day disappear behind the big retirement building across the street. The mountains rose above it in the distance, and the cloud slowly obscured them. Darla and Tommy used to make fun of the old people hobbling in and out of the big tower.
Darla said, The weatherman’s been predicting rain all week. Thunderstorms. That would be nice for a change.
Tommy burped. If those are thunderclouds I’m a flying monkey.
He’d gained weight since the surgery, his athletic frame adding its first surplus pounds. He looked older. She tried to see through the soft new layer and see the high school quarterback she’d married. He’d be thirty-nine in a month. She knew age eventually would catch up even with Tommy Zottner. It was the suddenness that surprised her.
He took a long breath through his nose and exhaled. Do you smell that?
Smell what?
Take a deep breath, you’ll smell it.
She sniffed the air, and tried a long inhalation. She smelled the oil from the street, dry pungent oak leaves, a vague hint of dog shit from the sidewalk.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Try.
It would help if I knew what I was trying to smell.
Do I have to give you all the answers?
He crushed the empty can and tossed it in the big orange Home Depot bucket that served as a trash can.
He heaved up from his beach chair. The surgery made it so he stood with his left leg comically straight. Sometimes when he walked he looked like a mime walking against invisible wind. An oversize, flannel-shirted mime.
Get you another, he said. It wasn’t so much a question as a statement of intent.
Actually I think I’ll switch. Stoli rocks.
The sun’s still up, you know.
Thought you were tired of having all the answers.
He let that one hang and gimped through the living room to the galley kitchen. On the cracked sidewalk across the street Darla saw Pee-wee, the stray black and orange tortie the retirement tower’s residents had semi-adopted. He rubbed along the cement wall until he found an old man’s leg to wrap himself around. She took another sip and smiled at the cat.
She called over her shoulder, Pee-wee’s here.
Tell him hi for me, Tommy said from the kitchen.
He came back out with two beers and a rocks glass with two ice cubes filled a half-inch from the top and garnished with a lemon wedge. She took the drink and held his cans of Coors while he engaged the intricate mechanics of sitting. Then she gave him the beers and he cracked one.
The vodka went down cold and exploded hot in her stomach. It felt good.
Tommy said, Okay, you’ve got to be able to smell it now?
No.
You just swigged vodka. That screws up your sense of smell. Give it a minute.
She sipped. I can smell just fine. I smell smog, eucalyptus, dog shit, and you.
You can’t smell worth a damn, because if you could you’d smell sage smoke. Can’t miss it. We’d have fires up in the canyon when I was a kid. I’d know it anywhere. You’ll smell it. Just don’t drink for a minute.
I’m not drinking, I’m having a drink. And I’d like to meet this doctor who told you vodka messes your sense of smell.
Wasn’t a doctor, it’s something everyone knows.
Apparently not everyone.
Just give it a minute. Humor me.
She set her glass on the little red plastic table next to his leg. He was wearing sweatpants even though it was still 90 degrees. The scar ran up his inner thigh from just above his knee to above his groin. He wore long pants because every time he saw it he wanted to put his fist through a window. Darla knew this because he’d done it twice.
Tommy opened his second beer. He didn’t take his eyes of the gray sky. She followed his gaze. In ten minutes he’d go inside and resume his latest Netflix binge. She would sit out here with a book and her iPod and wait for him to fall asleep before having a cry. She’d give herself a few minutes to feel the emptiness and then she’d finish her drink and go inside.
Ten more minutes until he’d heave himself up and limp back into the living room. Even on such a beautiful evening. The sunset was beginning to color the sky.
She said, Maybe we should barbeque. It’s been a while since we’ve done that. I can run to the store and get a couple steaks and a few more beers.
Probably up along ridge. Idiots walk up there smoking cigarettes or weed and don’t think twice about pitching a butt into the brush. Maybe some other night. Do you smell it yet?
I’m supposed to smell sage, right?
Sage smoke. Like how the kitchen smelled the night I burned that chicken.
God, that was funny.
It was funny after the Fire Department left, you mean.
I don’t know, that part was pretty funny, too. You offered the lieutenant a drumstick for his trouble.
It was the least I could do. Though if I’d known they were going to send us a twelve-hundred-dollar bill I would’ve shoved the whole damn chicken up his ass.
Tommy—
I’m just saying, we pay taxes so we can have a fucking fire department, and that fire department sends two engines and a motherfucking hook-and-ladder to a smoke detector. It’s all the public union bullshit, and they have the fucking audacity to send me a bill for it.
Forget it.
Sure, forget it. You forget it. You’re not the one who had to pay the fucking bill.
I offered.
Yes, you did, and it was very sweet of you. But I wasn’t about to make you pay for my idiot mistake. But yes, it was very sweet of you. Just the principle of the thing drives me fuck-all nuts. But seriously, now, can you smell anything?
Tommy Z., so help me I will throw the rest of this drink in your face.
Not much of a threat, there.
Her glass was nearly drained. There was a vague rumble from sky. It sounded like thunder, thought Darla. It would be nice for him to be wrong. He needed to be wrong. After three months he’d forgotten how to risk even that.
She stood to refill her drink. Get you another?
Make it two.
Now who’s drinking?
Just trying to keep up. Besides, I need to dull the pain. He winked.
So do I.
Is that so? Good to know how much it hurts you.
I didn’t mean that and you know it.
Sure, I know it. Remember, I have all the answers. He turned and looked down at the street. Looks like Pee-wee’s angling for some old folks’ chicken.
You just have to be like that, don’t you?
Like what?
Like that.
The same way I’ve always been?
You know, Tommy, that’s what worries me.
She let that one hang this time and went to the kitchen. She put four ice cubes and cut the Stoli with some water. A little extra lemon juice. She took three beers from the fridge.
The thunder grew louder, and it echoed off retirement tower. Only it didn’t rumble and recede the way thunder did. It was also coming from the wrong direction. It sounded as though it came from the west, not the hills where the gray wall was still growing.
Tommy said, All right, how about a friendly wager?
Sure, I like winning bets.
Take it easy. I’m trying to right the ship here.
All right.
A wager.
What kind of wager?
I’ll bet you a beer that’s a brush fire.
A beer?
Sure. If I’m right, you have to walk to the store and get me a beer of my choice. If I’m wrong, I get yours.
You’ll walk to the store?
Why not?
A large plane flew low overhead. It was bright orange and red with two wing-mounted radial engines that bellowed like an old World War II bomber.
Tommy said, And there we have it. That’s a Catalina, an old warbird they’ve converted into a water bomber. Flying toward the fire.
Are you okay?
Sure, I’m always okay.
Don’t fool.
I’m not. I’m always okay.
It’s been a while since you’ve been okay.
Makes two of us.
Well, aren’t we a barrel of monkeys.
Flying monkeys, remember.
A second plane rumbled overhead. The same orange and red paint, the same pregnant bulge in its belly where it carried water. She watched it helplessly.
Tommy whistled between his teeth. Whoo-ee. Must be a fast mover.
Baby. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, baby.
No, it’s okay. I like watching ’em. God, those are some beautiful old airplanes.
All airplanes are beautiful.
I don’t know, there are some honkers out there. No one’d ever call a Super Guppy a beautiful airplane.
It does what it does perfectly. There’s beauty in that.
Fair point.
I just know sometimes watching them—
I said I’m okay.
It’s just with all the time you spend inside.
I said I’m okay, not that I’m interested in a discussion.
The planes flew in formation toward the gray in the sky. They banked gently to the north, seemingly in no hurry. There was a five-dollar bill sitting in her little jewelry box in the bedroom. The planes continued in their pattern.
They weren’t flying towards the gray but turning away from it. They continued their lazy turn until they were heading up the coast. She watched them for a long time, until they disappeared, first the sound of their engines, then the planes themselves, and finally the faint trail of exhaust they left in the sky.
Tommy wasn’t deterred. Probably heading out to pick up more water. Means they already made a run. Must be a real big one goin’ up there.
Tommy—
Don’t. Don’t ruin it.
The airplanes—
Yeah, the airplanes.
I know what it does to you.
I said don’t ruin it. I’m about to win a bet.
Darla watched the sky. At that moment there was a new rumble in the distance. This time it came from the gray. There was a flash of lightening, and a few seconds later another rumble.
Darla said, If that’s not thunder and lightning, then I’m the flying monkey.
Wait.
What?
Damn it, just wait. Just—
There was a flash from the clouds, and a second rumble. The two planes reappeared, low against the mountains. A bright pink plume streaked the air behind the lead plane. It banked sharply away from the mountain. The second plane rolled in and repeated the first one’s run a short distance downhill.
As it banked away another lightning bolt shot skyward, and the thunder swallowed the roar of the water bombers’ engines.
Tommy shook his head. I’ll be damned. What are the chances?
So who wins?
We both win, and we both lose.
Sounds about right.
He smiled and hefted himself out of his chair. Guess I owe you a beer. Back in a flash.
As he headed for the door, he planted a small kiss on her forehead the way he always did when he left the apartment. Except that he hadn’t done it in two months.
Tommy.
Yeah.
How about getting some steaks while you’re out.
You always have to push things, don’t you?
The way I’ve always been.
Well, then. What the Hell. Steaks it is.
You know, Tommy, I always thought they were beautiful airplanes.
They were indeed.