“A time to reflect. A time to learn how to fly, for crap’s sake, and try for glory and find out all the other cool stuff you can do.”
I sigh and throw a pair of socks into her suitcase.
“I’m not like you, Ange. I can’t do what you can do.”
“You don’t know what you can do,” she says matter-of-factly. “You won’t know until you try.”
I change the subject by lifting up a black silk nightdress that she’s laid out with her other clothes.
“What’s this for?” I ask, gawking at her.
She snatches the fabric from my hand and stuffs it at the bottom of her suitcase, her face expressionless.
“Is there a sexy Italian boy you never told me about?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer, but her pale cheeks take on a rosy glow.
I gasp. “There is a sexy Italian boy I don’t know about!”
“I have to get to bed early tonight. Long flight tomorrow.”
“Giovanni. Alberto. Marcello,” I say, trying out all the Italian names I can think of, watching her face for a reaction.
“Shut it.”
“Does your mom know?”
“No.” She grabs my hand and pulls me down to sit on the bed. “And you can’t tell her, all right? She would freak.”
“Why would I say anything to your mom? It’s not like we hang out.”
This is big. Angela is usually all talk when it comes to boys, nothing serious. I picture her with a dark-haired Italian boy, darting hand in hand down a narrow street in Rome, kissing under archways. I’m instantly wildly jealous.
“Just don’t, okay?” She squeezes my hand hard. “Promise me, you won’t tell anybody.”
“I promise,” I say. I think she’s being a tad melodramatic.
She refuses to say anything more about it, closes up tighter than a clam. I help her pack the rest of her things. She’s leaving really early in the morning, driving to Idaho Falls to catch her first flight at some ungodly hour, so I’ll have to say good-bye tonight. At the doorway to the theater, we hug tightly.
“I’m going to miss you most of all,” I tell her.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll be back before you know it. And I’ll have tons of new information for us to chew on.”
“Okay.”
“Keep sharp.” She mock punches me in the arm. “Learn to fly, already.”
“I will,” I sniffle.
It’s going to be a very lonely summer.
The next night I drive to Teton National Park after dinner. I park the car at Jenny Lake. It’s a small, quiet lake, surrounded by trees, the mountains towering over it. For a while I stand on the shore as the setting sun glimmers on the water before it drops beneath the horizon. I watch a white pelican glide over the lake. It dives into the water and comes up with a fish. It’s beautiful.
When it’s dark, I start to hike.
The quiet is unbelievable. It’s like there’s no one else on earth. I try to relax and breathe in the cold, pine-scented air deeply, letting it fill me. I want everything in my life to fall away and simply enjoy the strength of my muscles as I climb. I go up and up, out of the tree line, closer to that big, open sky. I climb until I’m warm, and then I look for a good place to stop. I find a perch on the side of the mountain where the earth drops away. The map calls this spot Inspiration Point. It sounds like a good place for my experiment.
I climb out onto the perch and look down. It’s a long drop. I see the lake reflecting the moon.
“Let’s do this,” I whisper. I stretch my arms. I summon and stretch my wings. I look down again. Big mistake.
But I’m going to fly if it kills me. I have to fly. I’ve seen it in the vision.
“Gotta be light,” I say, rubbing my hands together. “No big deal. Light.”
I take another deep breath. I think of the pelican I saw over the lake. The way the air just seemed to carry it. I spread my wings.
And I jump.
I drop like a rock. The air rushes my face, sucks the breath out of my lungs so that I can’t even scream. The trees reach up for me. I try to brace for impact, although I have no idea how exactly one is supposed to brace for impact. I haven’t really thought the whole thing through, I realize a tad too late. Even if the fall miraculously doesn’t kill me, I could land on the rocks below and break my legs, and nobody knows I’m out here, nobody will find me.
Just jump off the mountain, I scold myself. What a great idea, Clara!
But then my wings catch and open. My body wrenches down like a skydiver’s when the parachute finally deploys. I wobble awkwardly in the air, trying to get my balance. My wings strain to bear my weight, but they hold me. I sweep out and away from Inspiration Point, carried by the wind.
“I’m flying,” I whisper. I suddenly feel so incredibly light, relieved that I’m not going to die, high on adrenaline and the pure thrill of feeling the cold air holding me, lifting me. It’s the best feeling of my life, bar none. “I’m flying!”
Of course, I’m not flying so much as coasting over the treetops like a hang glider or a freakishly large flying squirrel. I think the birds in the area are dying laughing watching me try not to crash. So I’m not a natural, not some beautiful angelic being winging my way heavenward. But I haven’t died yet, which I consider a plus.
I push down with my wings once, trying to go higher. Instead I swoop farther downward over the trees until my feet nearly brush the top branches. I try to remember a single thing I’ve learned in all those hours in aerodynamics class, but I can’t translate any of that stuff about planes—lift, thrust, drag—to what my wings are doing in this moment. Flying in real life isn’t a mathematical equation. Anytime I try to change direction I overdo it and careen around wildly in the air and my life flashes before my eyes before I get it all under control again. The best I can do for now is to flap every now and then and angle my wings to keep me in the air.
I come to the lake. As I pass over it, my reflection is a blur of shining white on the dark moon-touched surface. For a moment I see myself as the pelican skimming the water. I sweep down and feel the lake’s coolness ripple through my fingers. I’m dancing with the sparkles of the moon. I laugh.
I’m going to do this, I tell myself. I’m going to save him.
Chapter 14
The Jumping Tree
My seventeenth birthday is June 20. That morning I wake up to a completely empty house. Mom’s back in California for the week, working. Jeffrey’s been pretty much AWOL the entire week. He just passed Driver’s Ed and got his day license (when he learned that in Wyoming, fifteen-year-olds can legally drive during the day, he was even more over California), and I haven’t seen much of him since—he’s too busy cruising around Jackson in his new truck, compliments of dear old Dad. My only clue that he’s still alive is the growing pile of dishes accumulating in the sink.