Get Me to the Church on Time

8.

I thought that was the end of the Ditmas Playboys, but the next day at La Guardia, Studs was waiting for us at the top of the escalator to Gates 1–17. He had either cleaned or changed his uniform since the disaster of the night before, and his medals gleamed, though I noticed he had taken off the Nobel Prize.

At first I thought he was going to take a swing at me, but instead he took my hand.

“Your friend Wu called last night,” he said. “Right after you and what’s-her-name left.”

“Candy.” I said. “My fiancée.” She and Aunt Minnie were standing right beside me, but Studs wouldn’t look at them. Studs had always had a hard time with girls and grown-ups—which is why I was surprised that he had become so attached to Dr. Dgjerm. Perhaps it was because the brilliant but erratic Lifthatvanian Realtor was, or seemed, so small, or far away, or both.

“Whatever,” said Studs. “Anyway, your friend told me that, as far as he could tell, the Leisure Universe was cast loose and set off safely. That Dr. Dgjerm survived.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, we have a plane to catch.”

“What a nice boy that Arthur is,” said Aunt Minnie, as we boarded the plane. I felt no need to respond, since she was talking to Uncle Mort and not to me. “And you should see all those medals.”

The departure was late. I found that oddly reassuring. Candy sat in the middle, her eyes tightly closed, and I let Aunt Minnie have the window seat. It was her first flight. She pressed the urn with Uncle Mort’s ashes to the window for the takeoff.

“It’s his first flight,” she said. “I read in Reader’s Digest that you’re less nervous when you can see what’s going on.”

“I don’t believe it,” muttered Candy, her eyes closed tightly. “And how can ashes be nervous anyway?”

The planes may be old on PreOwned Air, but the interiors have been re-refurbished several times. They even have the httle credit card phones on the backs of the seats. There was nobody I wanted to talk to for fifteen dollars a minute, but I wasn’t surprised when my phone rang.

“It’s me. Did the plane leave late?”

“Eighteen minutes,” I said, checking my notes.

“Numbers don’t he!” said Wu. “Things are back to normal. I already knew it, in fact, because my calculations came out perfect this morning. I released the first moth in the rain forest at 9:14 AM, Eastern Standard Time.”

I heard a roar behind him which I assumed was rain.

“Congratulations,” I said. “What about Dr. Dgjerm and his Leisure Universe?”

“It looks like the old man made it okay,” said Wu. “If his Universe had crashed, my figures wouldn’t have come out so good. Of course, we will never know for sure. Now that our Universe and his are separated, there can be no exchange of information between them. Not even light.”

“Doesn’t sound like a good bet for a resort,” I said.

“Dgjerm didn’t think it all the way through,” said Wu. “This was always his weakness as a Realtor. However, he will live forever, or almost forever, and that was important to him also. Your friend Studs cried with relief, or sadness, or both when I told him last night. He seems very attached to the old man.”

“He’s not exactly a friend,” I said. “More like a childhood acquaintance.”

“Whatever,” said Wu. “How was your Honeymoon?”

I told him about the headache(s). Wu and I have no secrets. I had to whisper, since I didn’t want to upset Candy. She might have been asleep, but there was no way to tell; her eyes had been closed since we had started down the runway.

“Well, you can always try again after the ceremony,” Wu commiserated.

“I intend to,” I said. “Just make sure you get to Huntsville on time with the ring!”

“It’ll be tight, Irv. I’m calling from a trimotor just leaving Quetzalcan City.”

“An L1011? A DC-10?” The roar sounded louder than ever.

“A Ford Trimotor,” Wu said. “I missed the nonstop, and it’s a charter, the only thing I could get. It’ll be tight. We can only make 112 mph.”

“They stopped making Ford Trimotors in 1929. How can they have cell phones?”

“I’m in the cockpit, on the radio. The pilot, Huan Juan, and I went to Flight School together in Mukden.”

Why was I not surprised? I leaned over to look out the window, and saw the familiar runways of Squirrel Ridge, the airport, far below.

“We’re getting ready to land,” I said. “I’ll see you at the wedding!”

I hung up the phone. Aunt Minnie held the urn up to the window. Candy shut her eyes even tighter.