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in her throat and turned into a cry she tried to hold inside. Dear God, this was toc weird, too fucking over-the-top weird. This was not exactly your runof-the-mill way to pass the time, sitting in a car talking to a box full of your dead best friend. Finally she wiped away the crying tears and the laughing tears with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, looked at her watch, and saw it was time to go into the charter office.
     
    “I figure if you’re graying at the temples, you must have been doing this for a long time,” she said to the pilot, noticing how high-pitched and nervous her voice sounded as the two of them walked out through he glass doors to the tarmac. He was a husky man in his fifties who hadn’t said a word but “Howdy” when they were introduced, and it he knew or cared who Cee Cee was she couldn’t see it in his eyes. Now, as they made the long walk across the airfield, she jabbered unthinkingly in her terror, trying to elicit some assurance from him, but there wasn’t a shot this guy was gonna make it easy for her.
    “I’m a real white-knuckler,” she tried. “I worry about every noise. Once on a flight to New York, I heard this snap and then a hiss and I grabbed my piano player’s hand and said, ‘Oh my God. What was that sound?’ and he said, really calmly, ‘It was the sound of the stewardess opening a cola can!’ Hah! Of course there probably won’t be any stewardesses on this flight though, so I guess I don’t have to worry.”
    They were moving in the direction of a herd of small planes
     
    I’LL BE THERE

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    grouped together like a bunch of seagulls on the beach. Their whiteness flashed the sun’s glare in Cee Cee’s eyes, and when she could make them out clearly she said eeny meeny miney mo, trying to figure out which one of those metal pieces of crap was about to fly her out over the ocean.
    “The plane’s a Cessna one seventy-two,” the pilot said, stopping at a funny-looking little job with the wings high up on the top. The silly
    little son-of-a-bitch airplane was almost as tiny as a toy. Not exactly
    the streamlined craft in which she thought she’d be sitting slouched tragically in the co-pilot’s seat when she’d pictured herself doing this, and it occurred to her there was still time to back out of it. To hand the pilot the box of ashes and a big wad of dough, say, “Good luck to you,” then drive down the coast to Big Sur and watch as he flew over.
    “We’ll fly out down the coast, somewhere over Big Sur, and that’s probably the best place to do what you want to do,” he said, unlocking the door on his side first.
    “What are those things?” Cee Cee asked pointing to two small
    wheels that extended on either side of the plane.
    “That’s the landing gear.”
    “Thank God,” Cee Cee said. “I thought they were training wheels.” She laughed. The pilot didn’t.
    “We’re taking this particular airplane up,” he said, “because the passenger window opens, and in my instructions it says you wanted to disperse the ashes yourself rather than have me or one of my assistants do it. So when it’s time for the dispersal, I’ll slow down the speed of the plane so you can open the window safely, and I’ll teach you now how to hold the box below the window level to get the ashes to blow out to sea.”
    The pilot climbed into his seat, then leaned over and unlocked the passenger door, and Cee Cee stood for a moment, afraid to get in, wondering why she couldn’t just go back to L.A., stand on the Santa Monica Pier and open the box lid.
    “I can assure you,” the pilot told her, seeing her expression, “I’ve been flying these planes for a long time, and they’re perfectly safe. Safer than your being on the freeway.”
    “You’ve obviously heard about my driving,” Cee Cee said. Again he didn’t crack a smile, and looked as if he wasn’t planning to. Maybe ever. “Let’s go for it,” Cee Cee told him and climbed into the plane

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IRIS RA INER