It didn’t matter how many times Jaxon Wheeler had gone up in the chopper. Every single time, he double checked to make sure the barf bags were well-stocked, even though they rarely needed them. Of course, today would be the unlucky day he’d forgotten to check, caught up in a phone call with his accountant until the last minute. Time was money, and the Burton family hadn’t come all the way from Bowling Green to have their chopper tour cut short. So, he’d gotten the plump couple and their two equally plump kids all fastened in the chopper, hopped in the co-pilot’s seat and gave his pilot Benny the go-ahead to take off.
They’d not been in the air five minutes over the rolling hills of the Bluegrass before he heard the dreaded, “Hurrghhhh.”
He glanced at Benny, who was already grimacing and would likely also lose his lunch if they didn’t get this contained. The family of four filled the row of passenger seats. Rick, the Dad, looked confused, still playing with his helmet strap and “testing” the microphone with little hellos at random intervals. The mother Barbara was pale and clinging to her husband’s arm for dear life. The girl, Jenn, had the typical don’t give a shit attitude of a teenage girl, paying more attention to her mobile phone than the stunning views. Finally, Jaxon found the culprit. Lance, the boy - maybe ten or eleven – had turned an unnatural shade of green. His cheeks inflated and deflated with every, “Hurrghhhh.”
Rick chanted, “Hello? Hello? Testing, hello.”
“We can hear you fine!” Benny said. “Jaxon, get a bag for cryin’ out loud!”
“Hang on!” Jaxon slapped around the back of Benny’s seat until he found the storage pouch with their helicopter info and emergency landing pamphlets, but no barf bags. He fought against his seat harness, stretching his arms behind him to discover there were none on the back of his seat either. Crap – they’d had the chopper detailed that morning, so whoever had shined the chrome and buffed the leather had also forgotten to return the barf bags to their proper places.
Lance was already covering his mouth. It would spew between his fingers, and then Jaxon would have to pay double for detailing.
“Good Lord almighty,” Jaxon muttered. He grabbed the first thing he could think of – his own cap from his head, screen-printed with his company’s Pie in the Sky logo – and shoved it at Lance. “Here, use this!”
Lance grabbed it and promptly puked into the baseball cap turned barf bag.
Rick grunted and clamped his eyes shut. “Glad he didn’t eat the mega burrito for lunch.”
Jaxon held his breath, focusing ahead so he didn’t have to see the regurgitated whatever-it-was the kid had eaten. His boot slipped on something in the floorboard. He knew what it was before he even looked. A clean stack of barf bags.
“Figures.” Swallowing down the nauseous taste of irony, Jaxon handed a barf bag to Barbara. “Very carefully, take the cap and put it into the bag.”
Barbara unclamped her fingers from her husband’s arm and nodded. Luckily the contents didn’t spill out from the cap as she folded it like a taco and eased it into the bag. She rolled the top of the bag over, which would help to contain both vomit and smell. Poor Benny was red-faced, breathing shallowly through his teeth. Jaxon searched the console and found a bottle of hand sanitizer. He handed it to Barbara, who quickly rubbed it on her hands and passed it around to the others. Soon the chopper smelled less like a bad night out and more like a hospital.
“You good?” he asked, cupping Lance’s shoulder.
The kid gave him the thumbs up, looking less green with each passing second.
Jaxon sighed with relief and faced forward in his seat again. “Okay, we’ll continue with the tour if you all are fine with that.”
“Yep, go ahead!” Rick yelled into the headset, making Jaxon wince.
“You can speak at a normal volume, Mr. Burton.”
“Okay,” Rick whispered.
Jaxon’s mouth twitched. From the corner of his eye, he could see Benny grinning and resisted popping him a good one. Some days these air tours were hardly worth it, but they paid the bills.
Barely.
He assumed his smooth tour guide voice. “Below us to your right is the Eastern edge of the Daniel Boone National Park. Back in 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt signed a proclamation to establish a national forest in Kentucky. It was called the Cumberland National Forest, but in 1966, was renamed the Daniel Boone National Forest. Today, it spans twenty-one counties across private and state lands in eastern Kentucky. If you’re looking to hike anywhere within the 700,000 acres of National Parkland, you’d best check in at a ranger station first to get trail maps and updates on weather and road conditions. Creeks can flood and wash out footbridges, tornadoes can spin up with very little notice. And then there are all the snakes, bats, mosquitoes, black bears and the occasional mountain lion.”
“Wow,” Lance mused, his sickness giving way to planting his face against the window, eyes wide in wonder. “Anyone ever get lost down there?”
“Oh yeah. Even Daniel Boone himself got lost a time or two. Though when he was asked about it years later, he said, ‘I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.’”
The entire family laughed at that one, even the cell phone addicted teenager. The rest of the half-hour tour flew by as Jaxon got into the ‘zone,’ engaging the Burtons with his practiced wit made wittier by his love for the land. Sure, it was hard work, sometimes tedious. But he got the chance to show tourists from near and far just how amazing this region was from a bird’s eye view. Kentucky was often overlooked, even by its natives, as a redneck, less-than-ideal place to live. Jaxon loved showing folks the side of Kentucky he knew and loved and hoped each tourist would walk away with a greater respect for the Bluegrass.
Once they landed and everyone had piled out of the chopper, Rick gave Jaxon’s hand a hearty shake. “Man that was cool. Sorry about the…”
“Don’t worry about it. Benny’s got it.” Jaxon looked over his shoulder. Benny glared back and carried the barf bag, scratching his cheek with his middle finger. Jaxon held back a laugh.
The kids were talking ninety miles a minute about the bats and bears and who’d die first if stranded. Barbara smiled at them and gave Rick a peck on the cheek.
He put his arm around her and hugged her tight. “You have fun, babe?”
“Oh yes!” She turned her bright, happy eyes on Jaxon. “And thank you for such a wonderful tour.”
“My pleasure.” He reached for the cap on his head, only to remember that it wasn’t there. “Y’all have a safe trip home. Come back when you can.”
“We will for sure,” Rick said, giving Jaxon another overly-enthusiastic handshake.
The family made their way to their SUV as Jaxon’s sister Harper pulled up in her pink Toyota pickup. She jumped out and waved. “Hey bro, how’s it going?”
“Fair to middling, you?”
“I’m just lovely, thank you. I have your new brochures from the print shop.” She patted her big, beaded cross-body purse.
“Thanks.”
She hooked her arm in his and practically skipped along beside him as they headed into his office. Harper still had some tomboy left in her. She loved t-shirts, jeans and her scuffed sneakers. He’d only seen her in a pair of heels once when she went to prom. But he did envy her free spirit, how she, never worried about tomorrow. He did enough worrying for the both of them.
Jaxon sank into his chair at the desk, tossing his sunglasses onto the pile of bills he’d have to prioritize soon as he got the nerve.
Harper put on some coffee, grimacing at the brown-stained carafe. “Come on, Jax. What’s eating you?”
“Besides the mosquitos? Not much, just…thinking.”
“About?”
He looked out the window, where the Burton family had just pulled out of the parking lot. “I don’t know. That family today. After the airsickness…”
Harper stuck out her tongue. “Yuck.”
“Yeah it was bad, but after that, they had a really good time together.”
“You’re a good tour guide, Jax. Of course they did.”
“Sure, but it was nice, you know, how they all got along.”
“And there’s no reason you can’t have that, too.” Harper shook some powdered creamer and Splenda into a foam cup. “I really wish you’d use ceramic, Jax. These things never break down in the landfill.”
He waved off her greenie speech. “I don’t know, sis. This place isn’t exactly raking in the profits, and I sure as hell don’t want to be like Dad, with a wife who has to work three jobs just to keep government cheese on the table.”
Harper poured two cups of coffee and handed him one, then hopped up on the desk. “First of all, you are not Dad, secondly you have to give this place time. It hasn’t even been five years yet. That’s the magic number for any small business. And you really have to leave the stone ages and embrace the internet. Social media, bro, that’s where it’s at.”
Jaxon growled and let his head rest against the back of the chair. “You know I hate that junk.”
“You’re not even thirty yet, and you act like you were born in the sixties. Like it or lump it, you have to adapt. And if you ever want to have a wife and two point five kids, you shouldn’t wait until all the conditions are right, because here’s a news flash. The conditions will never be perfect. There are a hundred girls in this town who’d love to hook up with you, if you’d give up your monkish lifestyle and ask them out already.”
As aggravating as Harper could be with her advice, Jaxon couldn’t help but smile. It was just him and her and their frail mother left in their little family. Even though Harper was his little sister, she took on the role of mother hen while he worked to keep their mother fed.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Why don’t you make me a list, and I’ll start calling. We’ll get a dozen lined up like that stupid show Mom watches.”
Harper cackled, almost choking on her coffee. “The Bachelor?”
“Yeah that’s the one.”
“I don’t think you need to resort to reality show dating. What you need is a woman who can put up with your total lack of environmentally friendly products.” She set her coffee cup down and picked up her cell phone. “Oh that reminds me. One of my college besties is moving here soon. Remember Lena Bosko?”
“You mentioned her a time or two. Is that the potty-mouthed Polish chick?”
“Her parents are Polish. She’s totally Brooklyn through and through, and still a potty mouth. But she’s super sharp and really fun, once you get past the snark, and she’s taking a big chance moving all the way here for her career. Maybe…” She slid off the desk and grabbed her purse.
“Maybe what?”
“Never mind. You two would never get along. Just remember what I said.” She ruffled his hair and skipped to the door. “I gotta run. Making spaghetti tonight. Bring the breadsticks.”
“Yeah, sure. See ya.”
Jaxon spun his desk chair from side to side, trying to remember what Harper had said, but his mind kept landing on the same thing. Lena Bosko. He’d caught a glimpse of her once when he’d picked up Harper from college on a weekend. Dark eyes, dark hair, plump red lips and the kind of curves a man dreams of exploring for hours on end. Shame she was as abrasive as a scouring pad, but maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe he could get another glimpse of her and admire her curves from afar. What could go wrong with that?