"You're insane," Bree said.
The three of them were standing in the dusty parking lot outside of a building with a sign on the side that read Sky Jump! A few dozen yards away was a wide-mouthed landing strip, with a small blood-orange plane waiting. Nick grinned. "Not at all." He pushed ahead through the door.
Bree looked at Amanda. "He's insane."
"Yes he is," Amanda agreed with a laugh, "But c'mon. You'll be glad you did it." She pulled Bree through the entrance and they followed Nick up to the reception desk, where a lanky guy sat, playing solitaire on the computer.
"Hey," Nick said, "I wanna jump out of a plane, please. I believe you have reservations? The name's Carter."
It was a mild evening in Lexington. Jackie and Harold Sr. were sitting on their porch after dinner in their rocking chairs. Jackie was knitting a sweater for Harold Jr. and a quiet country song played from the radio that sat between them on a stout table. The phone rang inside the house and Jackie slipped her knitting needles into the ball of yarn beside her and moved into the house. "Where are you going?" Harold asked, tilting his head to watch her go, unable to hear the phone.
"The phone's ringin'," Jackie answered.
"Say what?" Harold cupped his ear.
"THE PHONE IS RINGING," Jackie shouted. She'd reached the kitchen and picked up the phone from the receiver. "Littrell residence," she greeted the caller.
"Gram? It's Baylee."
Jackie's hand clutched the counter and her breath shook.
"Hello?"
"WHO'S ON THE PHONE?" Harold Sr. yelled into the house from his rocking chair.
"Baylee?" Jackie asked quietly, her voice barely escaping her, "Baylee honey how are you?" Her hands came to the phone, holding it like it was a precious metal. It had been almost fifteen years since she'd heard from any of Brian's remaining family.
"JACKIE! WHO'S ON THE PHONE?!" Harold shouted again.
"IT'S BAYLEE," Jackie yelled to him.
"WHO???" Harold yelled.
"BAYLEE," Jackie answered him. She turned away from the kitchen door and pressed the phone tighter to her ear. "Baylee, honey, is everything okay?"
Baylee was sitting on the floor in his apartment, notes spread around him of things he'd thought of throughout the day. He'd spent a good time thinking and trying to figure out exactly how to get Brianna home and it had occurred to him that the best thing he could do was catch up to her and forcibly -if it came to that- drag her back. The only place he knew for certain that he could track down that they would absolutely not skip on the trip was Brian's parents' house.
"I guess so," he said slowly. He licked his lips. "Gram... I know it's been a long time, I just --"
"A long time?" Jackie laughed sadly. "Dear, a long time is a week or two. This has been a decade and a half."
"I can't hear for a whallaloo anymore, Jackie," came his grandfather's voice over the line, "I thought when I was out there that you said Baylee was on the phone."
"Baylee is on the phone," Jackie replied.
"Is everything alright?" Harold Sr. asked.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Jackie answered. She turned back to Baylee. "Is everything alright?"
Baylee wondered absently how it was that neither of them had heard about Nick and Bree in the news. It was literally on every TV channel and magazine cover he'd seen in the last week. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Has Nick or Bree been there?" he asked.
"Nick?" Jackie asked, "Nick Carter?" she laughed, "Oh sweetie, Nick Carter hasn't been here in sixteen years." She paused. "Baylee, what is going on?"
"Nick Carter?" Harold's voice echoed through the phone, "What's Nick Carter doing calling us?"
"He isn't calling us," Jackie said, "Baylee is on the phone."
"Baylee's calling?"
"Yes, Harold," Jackie replied, "Baylee is calling us."
"Why's he calling us? He hasn't called in fifteen years."
"I don't know, that's what I'm trying to figure out."
"FIFTEEN YEARS," Harold Sr. yelped.
"I know dear," Jackie replied.
"Is everything alright?" Harold asked.
"I'm trying to figure that out honey," Jackie answered. "Baylee, is everything alright?" she asked again.
Baylee felt like he was going in circles. "Can I come up and visit you, gram?" he asked.
"Visit us?" Jackie asked, incredulous. She covered the phone. "Harold! He wants to visit us."
Baylee sighed. "I was thinking maybe I could leave tomorrow and drive up there..."
"Of course you can visit us," Jackie announced, breathless. "Please."
The little yellow plane was vastly different than the Boeing she'd rode across the country to Nick's house the week before and Bree clung to the arm rest between her and Amanda. It didn't help any that all she could think as the plane rose from the ground and she looked out that she wasn't going to ride the plane back to the ground. No, instead, she was going to jump out of it.
"Aren't we going too high?" she gasped, her heart crawling up into her throat. Nick patted her knee. He looked nervous, too, though, and didn't offer any condolences.
They'd spent the morning and early afternoon in a "class" at the Sky Jump building and had been fitted into jump suits, harnesses, and helmets by mid-afternoon. The professional jumpers had come in and they'd been introduced to the three guys they would be tandem jumping with, and Nick had paid extra for a DVD to be made of the jump so there was a fourth guy with a video camera. A video camera! thought Bree, He's gonna jump to earth with a video camera!
"Any final words?" the video camera guy asked, shoving the cam into Bree's face.
"Final words?" she demanded. She looked at Nick, "I thought you said this was safe?"
"He means like before you jump," Nick said, shaking his head and laughing. He turned to the camera guy, "This is for my friend Brian! We made a jump like this sixteen years ago and today we're taking his daughter out of the plane to learn how to fly!" Camera guy was satisfied with that and leaned back, fiddling with the strap that held his camera to his chest.
Amanda leaned over to Bree. "When we made the jump with your dad, Nick went first, then me and Brian were left on the plane... and we started fighting." She'd been thinking about it as they'd risen in the air, that old feeling of worry that Brian was on the verge of revealing her secret to Nick had worked a knot into her stomach. She realized she could still feel the nervousness of him leaning down over her in the seat, his face right in her face, his eyes angry with zealous protection against any one who would hurt Nick Carter. He means nothing to you like he means something to me! Brian had shouted. She could almost smell his breath and cologne.
"What did you fight about?" Bree asked.
"Brian loved you so much Nick," Amanda yelled over Bree's head, not answering the question directly.
Nick looked up. "What?"
"Brian," Amanda said. "He loved you so fucking much."
Nick smiled a shaky sort of smile and looked away, out the window.
Amanda turned to Bree and said more quietly, "He'd found out that I was a reporter and he was so angry with me... By that time, though, I'd changed. They weren't just celebrities anymore." She stared at the door of the airplane as the pro jumpers were prepping to open the door. "Brian and I fought in the air," she said, "But by the time we hit the ground we were friends."
Bree bit her lip. "So the jump means a lot to you then," she said.
"The jump changes things," Amanda replied.
Bree nodded.
"Let's get you guys harnessed up," shouted one of the pro jumpers, and the three of them stood and they were getting latched to the jumpers and the guy with the camera gave the thumbs up that he was ready to go and they gathered at the door. "Ready?" shouted the jumper Nick was attached to.
Nick looked over and saw Bree's eyes were closed. "Keep'em open," Nick commanded. She opened her eyes and looked at him, wild eyed. "Okay we're ready," he yelled.
Bree felt her pro jumper lean backwards towards the nothing outside of the plane and she thought about Amanda's words, about how the jump can change things and she thought in that last split second of a moment, between the leaning of her jump instructor and the actual feeling of gravity sucking her downwards through the air, of her mother. Of everything in the world that Brianna knew, of everything that could be changed, she wanted the relationship between her and Leighanne to be changed.
And then they were falling.
Bree felt the instructor twist in midair until they were facing the ground and far below, the earth stretched out like a blanket. It looked so similar to what it had looked like from the plane window, but somehow different, like another world. The air felt thick, like floating on top of a body of water. This is what my father sees of the earth, she thought to herself, picturing Brian looking down across the world from Heaven itself.
She thought of Leighanne. Leighanne, who would have a fit if she knew that Brianna was falling through the sky from a plane, who would never have let her do this. She wondered if she'd known before he did it that Brian was doing it. What would I do without you? Leighanne always demanded of Bree whenever she did something that had worried her mother. And Brianna realized maybe Leighanne just couldn't take losing Brian again. Maybe that's why she'd given her his name. You're the last thing your father ever gave me, Leighanne always reminded her.
Bree felt tears on her cheeks as she fell, the air pushing them off her skin. She pictured the tears falling through the air and landing, like rain drops, below.
When their instructor pulled the cord that released their parachute, she felt the balloon catch the air and their speed slowed considerably, until she was danging beneath it. She felt like one of the floating seeds from a dandilion, once it had turned white and the wind had carried it away from its stem. They drifted, floating a couple dozen feet over the tops of the colorful bells of Nick and Amanda's chutes. Goosebumps rose along Bree's arms. And then they were landing, the earth was beneath her feet, and she collapsed to the grass as the parachute fell, landing around them on the ground, until she was enveloped in the colorful fabric, pressed safely against the earth she'd fallen to.
And she realized, as she lay under the colorful tent, almost unwilling to move to escape from it, wishing to feel the way she felt in that instant for all of her life, that Amanda was right. The fall had been changing, and she was glad that she'd done it.
