Cloudy Skies over Miami
Susan Wigden
Smashwords Edition
Tex Ware
Everett, WA
© 2010 by Susan Wigden
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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Cover photograph of Charles Montalbano and graphics editing by Bruce Wigden.
Photographs from bigstokphoot.com:
South Pointe Towers – Daniel Koreniewski - July 27, 2009
Airplane – Gary Unwin - Feb. 20, 2006
ISBN-13: 978-1-935500-24-7
Print Book ISBN-13: 978-1-935500-14-8
Print Book Library of Congress Control Number: 2010934127
I would like to acknowledge:
My appreciation, love, and thanks to my husband, Bruce, who assisted with the editing of this book, and who designed the cover. Without his devotion and encouragement, this book would not have been possible.
Many thanks to Ray Ruppert, of Tex Ware for working countless numbers of hours in editing and for being available to me at all times.
Thank you to Mr. Cannizzaro, the principal at I.S. 75 in Staten Island, and to my own wonderful Dr. Bianchi for allowing their names to be part of this story.
Praise and gratitude to Staten Island's, Charles Montalbano, whose winning essay, "Why Books are Magical," landed him on the cover of this novel.
A special thank you to my family, whose names I used as some of the characters in this story.
And always, my love goes out to my son, Lee, who appreciates his family and understands the meaning of love.
Chapter One
Mom thinks that paying a whole lot of money for a birthday card is not practical. So it comes as no surprise to me when she hands me a birthday card with a picture of two skunks holding two red balloons. Cool, don’t you think? OK, so between you and me, I display the card on my desk for about seven minutes. Then I put it in the third drawer of my desk along with the other things I don’t know what to do with. Truth is, the card came from a half price store on Victory Blvd. Mom and I were together when she bought it along with shoelaces for Dad – brown ones.
I don’t much care about cards, or for that matter, skunks holding red balloons. As far as brown shoelaces, I never knew they existed until that day in the half price store. Now, when I think about it, Dad’s brown shoes and laces always do match. So I guess brown shoelaces have always existed. Anyhow, the whole point of explaining about the card is to give you the details leading up to the gift inside. It is a roundtrip airline ticket for one to Florida.
Now this does come as a surprise – a big one. After all, it isn’t every birthday that I get a vacation for a present. This sure beats last year’s flannel pajamas.
“Mom, Dad, are you guys for real?”
Both of them nod their heads, as if to say, “Yes.” This nodding of the head thing they do, I’ve seen before. It’s like they are in perfect sync. Up. Down. Up. Down. Until one of them gives in and speaks. This time it’s Dad.
“Josh, we think you’re responsible enough. That’s why we’re not going with you.”
Now, this has me wondering. Me? Responsible enough? Only last night, I bit into a cookie that was actually a refrigerator magnet.
Mom continues talking to Dad. “Many children fly alone.”
Dad agrees with her. “Honey, it’s done all the time.”
I’m thinking, Hellooo – I’m here. Talk to me. But hey, who am I to complain? We’re talking Florida!
Mom looks confident when she says, “I’m sure you’ll enjoy the experience of flying alone.”
“You mean by flapping my wings, Mom?”
She laughs aloud. “The flight attendant will take good care of you.”
I turn to Dad. “How will I get to the hotel?”
Dad looks confused. “The hotel?”
“Umm – yeah, like I’ll need to sleep somewhere.”
Mom giggles. “Sweetie, you don’t think we would let you stay by yourself, do you?”
“Well, uh –”
Dad becomes serious. “Josh, we’ll explain. Grandma and Grandpa purchased a lovely condo in Miami. It has three bedrooms, and one is a guest room. They’ll meet you at the airport and you’ll go back to their place.”
“So, I’ll be staying with them all week?”
Mom can tell that I seem concerned.
“Uh, for an entire week? I don’t know about this.”
“Sweetie,” she says. “You’ll go to the beach and to the pool. It’s not like they’ll be right next to you every second of the day. Besides, you haven’t spent time alone with the two of them in a long while. You’ll have a blast!”
I start thinking to myself. Miami in the winter is kind of cool. My own room. A pool. The beach. The sun. White sand. I’ll be the envy of all my friends. Besides, what else would I do this winter break? Go with Evan bowling, or play computer games with him. I’m twelve now. Yep, one week in the sun is just what I need.
“Mom, Dad, how much did the airfare cost you?”
I wait for an answer, but they’re both shaking their heads sideways, as if to say, “No.” Left side. Right side. Left side. Right side. This time it’s Mom who gives in.
“We’re not going to tell you. It’s a birthday gift. We just want you to have a great time. Now come on, let’s get your summer clothes out from under your bed.”
Both of us go to my room. Mom bends down and from underneath my bed, she pulls out my storage bin. As she opens the lid, I tell her, “I can still smell last summer on my clothes.”
“Go ahead, sweetie, take out whatever clothes you’d like. I’ll bring the luggage up from the basement.”
So here I am, packing my shorts and tank tops, when outside it’s twenty degrees.
Chapter Two
It’s a few minutes after five in the morning when my alarm clock buzzes. Getting up at this hour is like torture. Outside, it’s still dark and inside, the house is cold. I drag myself out of bed and force my way down the hall. Two feet away from the bathroom, I launch my first morning burps. They sound the same each morning, but usually they begin two hours later, after breakfast. I can’t explain the sound, but if I really had to, I would say they sound like a scared chicken. Mom is already in the kitchen and she hears me.
“Sweetie, is that you?”
“It’s the dog, Mom.”
She laughs, because we don’t have a dog. “What do you want to eat?”
“Nothing, Mom, I’m not up yet.”
“You should eat something.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not good to fly when your stomach is empty, Josh.”
“Mom, my stomach is not empty. Last night before I went to sleep, I ate the four leftover slices of pizza that were in the fridge.”
“Oh my! Then you must have indigestion.”
I walk into the bathroom, close the door, and turn on the shower. Ah! This feels good. I wonder how Mom could think I’m old enough to board an airplane by myself, but not old enough to understand my own burps. Go figure!
By the time I finish showering, Mom and Dad are dressed and speaking to one another in low voices. It’s difficult to hear what they’re saying through the door, but I can tell they are nervous whispers. Ever since I can remember, they did that.
When I’m dressed, I walk out of the bathroom, and then I notice Dad reading and re-reading my flight schedule. He looks pale, as though he himself would benefit from the sun. Mom looks equally nervous, and that makes sense because they always feel and do the same thing at the same time. She’s holding a blueberry muffin from Holterman’s Bakery in her hand, “Sure you don’t want anything to eat?”
“Nope.”
“But Josh, these are your favorite muffins.”
“Not at this hour, Mom.”
Dad clears his voice. “Uh hum – we’re very proud of you, Josh.”
“For what?”
He shrugs his shoulders, but I know what he is thinking. He’s thinking that I’m brave enough to go on an airplane by myself.
“Dad, I’m only a passenger. It’s not like I’m the pilot.”
Mom asks him if he has the boarding pass.
His smile is odd. It looks like he’s about to go in his pants. “Sure do. Here it is,” he says as he taps his shirt pocket.
“I’ll hold it, Dad.”
He looks at Mom and she looks back at him, but that’s it.
Dad has this serious look on his face. He looks as if he were about to decide whether we should move to Mars. I have seen him look this way many times. Just the other night Mom asked him if he wanted mashed or baked potatoes and he took this question very seriously. So, it doesn’t come as a surprise to me that he would need to put a lot of time into deciding if I should be able to hold my own boarding pass.
“Hey, you guys, if you think I’m responsible enough to go alone on a plane, then I also should be responsible enough to hold my own boarding pass.”
They start the head nodding again. Up. Down. Up. Down. Obviously, they both agree with me, and of course with each other. Mom gives in. “He’s right. He should be the one to hold his own boarding pass.”
Here they go again, talking to each other about me when I’m standing right in front of the two of them; not like it matters, because this is Florida we’re talking about!
I watch Dad as he reaches his hand into his shirt pocket. His movement is slow and I can tell he’s hesitant. “Here you go, Josh. Put it somewhere safe.”
“Yep.”
I turn around and head back to my room. They follow me and stare at me as I unzip the outside compartment of my luggage on wheels. The only sound that’s heard is the zip-zip-zippering. As I slip the boarding pass down inside, they both say, “Good.” I’m thinking they are getting too weird, and the sooner I’m outta here the better off we’ll all be.
“I’m ready.”
Mom asks, “Do you need the bathroom?”
“Why? Isn’t there one in Miami?”
She laughs that forced laugh that I’ve heard many times. Dad checks his watch and then looks up at the clock on my dresser. I wonder if he expects to see a different time.
“OK Josh, let’s go.”
The second we walk outside, the freezing air bites my face and immediately my nose begins to run. Wiping it with my hand, I say, “I won’t miss this. That’s for sure.”
We make a mad dash for our car, and as Dad clicks the trunk door open, I lift up my luggage and place it inside; then we all get inside the car and we’re off to the airport. The huge thermometer on Richmond Avenue reads nineteen degrees. Dad says, “Do you believe how cold it is?”
I wonder why he always asks such obvious questions, but I am way too preoccupied thinking about the Florida sun, so I don’t answer his question.
Neither does Mom. In order to pass the time in the car, I turn on my iPod and listen to my music. Listening to music makes the forty-five minute trip to the airport go fast and before I know it, we arrive.
Let’s face it. The details of what happens in between arriving at Newark Airport and the actual boarding are boring. Nobody ever wants to hear about that part of the trip. Except, I have to say that Mom and Dad acted as if I were going to a foreign country for ten years. I think I should cut out telling you about all the things they were both saying and how they were both talking at the same time telling me the same things over and over again. Come to think of it, I’m not going to bother telling you about the “goodbye Mom and Dad” part either, because if I went into it, well, then I’d be forced to talk about how strange the two of them sounded. So, here is where I skip to the actual part when I take off my sneakers and place them, along with my luggage, inside this plastic crate. The crate begins to move down a conveyor belt, and it’s being x-rayed just like my left foot the time Mom thought I broke my ankle attempting to skate. It turned out to be a bad sprain.
Anyhow, I walk through a metal detector and as I look down at my feet, I notice the big toe on my left foot sticking through my sock. It looks like an alien and the truth is I forgot the last time I actually used toenail clippers. I start to think about removing both socks so that the one sock with the hole isn’t visible, but then I notice a man in a white shirt wearing a badge.
“I’ll be assisting you onto the plane,” he says.
“Oh, yeah. All right. Thanks.” I get the feeling he’s noticing my toe through the sock and I don’t know whether or not to say something or act like it isn’t there. I decide to say, “Oh wow! I have a hole in my sock.”
He gives me a half grin and then says, “Not a problem, young man. You’ll still be allowed to fly.”
I don’t know if I should laugh or not because he looks so serious. Then, in a matter of seconds, I see a woman at the end of the conveyor belt opening my luggage. Her hands are working quickly, and she already has the main section open. I don’t say a word. Instead, I watch as she goes through all of my stuff. The man, who is there to assist me, tells me that metal was detected inside my luggage.
Now I have to say something. “Metal. What kind of metal?”
“Looks like we’ll soon find out, young man.”
And then, right there in front of lots of people, I see the woman lift a silver frame out from inside my luggage. Oh no! Please tell me I am not seeing this! It’s a photo of me with Mom and Dad. Mom must have sneaked it in between my clothes when I wasn’t watching. I’m telling you she really thinks I am going to a foreign country for ten years. Besides, I’m going to my grandparents. They have plenty of pictures of all of us. I feel my face get hot and I know I must be red. What next? First a hole in my sock and now this. Luckily, the woman didn’t make too big a deal about it, she just stuck the frame back in between my clothes and zipped up the case.
I don’t know who is following who, so I continue to walk next to the man with the badge, as if I knew where I am going.
“You can wait right here on this line, young man. You will be boarding shortly.” Then, almost immediately, he takes off.
Chapter Three
There’s a long line of people walking carefully onto the plane. I’m somewhere in the middle of this line, but I can hear several friendly voices welcoming the passengers. After a few minutes, it’s my turn to be at the front of the line. I smile at the pilot and co-pilot as they welcome me aboard. Both look like the action figures I used to play with when I was six years old. By the way, I keep them in this torn dusty carton in the top of my closet ― not the pilot and the co-pilot, the action figures. Anyhow, I wonder how many guys it takes to fly this thing.
But – where is the flight attendant who is assigned to me? He must be somewhere on this plane. I hope!
The passengers are busy finding their seats. It looks to me as if most of them know what they’re doing. They are the ones who are probably used to flying. One woman is completely blocking the aisle. She has the overhead storage bin open and she’s shoving a huge brown case inside. Obviously, it doesn’t fit because the lid won’t stay closed. She begins to pound on it with her right hand.
I’m carefully reading all the seat numbers when one of the guys comes over to me and introduces himself as Wayne. Wayne, as in the flight attendant assigned to me for my personal needs. I look at him. He has what Mom would call a pleasant face. After Wayne introduces himself to me, he asks the woman if she would like some help.
She gives him a nasty look, and then in an angry voice she says, “Why would you think I need help? Just because I almost broke my hand trying to slam this thing shut, doesn’t mean I need help.”
She gives it one more pound with her fist and then says, “There you go. Did it. Now I can sit down!”
Wayne acts as though this conversation never took place. He probably has experience with all types of people.
“Here, I’ll get this for you, Josh.” He bends down and lifts my luggage up onto the overhead storage. His muscles also look like one of my action figures.
It takes some time before the passengers settle into their seats. I’m in a window seat, located somewhere in the middle of the plane. This is the part I don’t like. It’s before takeoff and you sort of don’t know what to do. I decide to check out the magazines in the back pocket of the seat in front of me. Oh yeah, this should make interesting reading: Every Person’s Guide to Retirement, How to Paint Your Barn, or Nineteenth Century Women’s Clothing.
Hmm – think I’ll pass.
Suddenly, the situation changes. A woman sits down next to me, and her little boy sits down in the aisle seat. This kid is not in his seat a minute when he says, “Mommy, I want to sit next to the man.”
The man? Who’s the man? Oh, that’s right. To this kid, I’m the man.
I listen as the woman says, “Sure baby, you can sit wherever you’d like.”
All right, so this kid’s seat is changed and now he’s next to me. Did I mention he’s holding a huge lollypop with colored swirls? He is. And it’s dripping with spit and it’s running onto his right hand, which is a little too close to me. His lips and cheeks are a blend of rainbow colors and it looks weird.
I look around and notice that everyone is now sitting down. One of the other guy flight attendants is standing at the front of the plane and he begins to talk. He’s doing the routine talk: The one about exit doors, overhead oxygen, seat belt demonstration, and how our seats turn into a flotation device. To be honest, I’m not paying much attention, because at this point my main concern is the sticky, dripping, spit-on lollypop that’s like one inch away from my left elbow.
I hear the woman tell the kid that the plane is about to take off. That’s when he asks her, “Mommy, can I sing a song?”
“Sure baby. You can sing whatever song you would like.”
We’re not even off the ground when he begins. His voice is loud and horrible, and – oh no, he’s singing the alphabet. The letters are out of order and spit is pouring out of his mouth faster than rain off an old roof.
His mom is already reading the Nineteenth Century Women’s Clothing magazine. Like is that something anyone would find interesting? She doesn’t seem to care that his voice is not only annoying, but downright irritating. Also, this kid has turned his sticky lollypop into a round dancing creature, and he’s swinging it in the air. I’m thinking I want to shove the thing in his mouth to quiet him, but I don’t think it would be a cool move.
The engine of the plane makes its usual sound. That sound is not one I could easily describe, but if you’ve ever waited for your flight to take off and then you hear the engine, you’ll always remember how loud it is. As it makes its way into the sky, my ears start to pop. I’m hoping my hearing is affected in a way that at least benefits this situation. Just as I’m thinking that, Wayne comes by to ask me if everything is all right.
I hesitate and then say, “Yep.”
The mother of the kid puts the magazine down on her lap, turns towards me, and says, “Are you alone on this flight?”
“Yes.”
“Is this your first flight?”
“It’s not my first flight, but it’s my first time flying without my parents.”
Smiling, she says, “Good for you!”
But that’s not where it ends. She attempts to interrupt her kid’s singing.
“Tommy –”
“A B C D F G E H J K N O P –”
“Tommy, baby –”
“A B C D F P T O R N K L Z –”
“Baby, stop. Listen to Mommy.”
For one second the kid shuts up. I’m thinking she’s going to tell him he’s too loud, or too stupid, or too annoying, or too sticky. Instead, she says, “Tommy, why don’t you ask this nice boy to sing the song with you.”
No, tell me I didn’t hear this! Say it isn’t true. The kid stops moving his dancing lollypop and hands it to me. I shake my head, no, but it’s too late. He throws it on me. I glance down at my beige pants and already there’s a small, wet, red, spit-spot. Nice!
“I’m so sorry. He’s at that stage,” says his mom. “Give it to me.”
“I, uh, it’s sort of, well –”
She leans her right hand across the two seats and says, “I’ll pick it up. It’s sticky.”
“Uh, yeah. Thanks.”
She lifts the lollypop up off my pants and just as she is ready to move her arm back, little Tommy here, bites her and then laughs.
“That’s not nice, baby. You’re going to make Mommy cry.”
As soon as little Tommy hears the word cry, he does. It’s the kind of cry that is so painful to hear that I’d rather have my teeth drilled. On top of his crying, his mom asks me my name.
“It’s Josh.”
“Tommy, look, your friend Josh is going to sing with you.”
“I ,uh, well, singing isn’t my –”
What’s going on here? Little Tommy is quiet and looking at me, and then he says, “Sing. Sing man. Sing. Sing man. Tommy hit you if you no sing.”
His mom smiles at me. Her eyes are begging for help. So I say, low, “A b c d e f g h i j k –”
“No man. No. Tommy no yike that! Do yike Tommy – A B E F G H K L –”
In between little Tommy insisting that I sing like him, he is busy picking his nose. He has an entire finger up his right nostril and it’s scary because I don’t have a clue what he’s going to pull out of his nose. I’m trying to distance myself, but distancing yourself in an airplane isn’t an easy thing to do. I try not to look in his direction, so instead I stare out of the window at the clouds.
Wayne appears. “Is everything all right here?”
I’m thinking I need to get up and out of this seat. “Wayne, I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Sure Josh. Come with me. I’ll show you where it is.”
I say thanks to Wayne and I really do mean thanks. I lift myself up from my seat, say excuse me to little nose-picking, bad-alphabet-singing, Tommy and his mom, and then I follow Wayne to where the bathroom is located. He tells me about the occupied sign and that I’ll need to wait.
“That’s all right. I can wait for as long as it takes.” In fact, I’m hoping the person in the bathroom takes about two hours and I can make believe I’m waiting the whole time. My luck – a woman comes out of the bathroom and it’s my turn already.
Once inside, I slide the little occupied sign to the right, so that anyone who needs the bathroom knows not to come in. Now if you’ve ever been inside a bathroom on an airplane, you know that it’s small and silver and you feel like you’re in a microwave. Now what?
It takes one minute to wash my face. I’m done and standing here. There’s a knock on the door. I open it and see Wayne. “Josh, are you all right?”
I answer with, “Uh-huh!”
“I’ll walk you back to your seat. We will be flying into some turbulence and everyone needs to be seated.”
Mom said the flight attendant would take good care of me, but waiting for me outside the bathroom is more than I expected. Besides, if he wants to be nice he should leave me in there until we land. He has to know how horrible it is for me to sit next to little Tommy. I follow Wayne back to my seat, hoping that both Tommy and his Mom are asleep. No such luck. He’s eating pretzels – gross.
Wayne spots some pretzel crumbs on my seat. “Let me clean this up for you.” He stretches his long arm across the three seats, and with a napkin, he picks up the crumbs. This confuses little Tommy.
“Tommy prepsils. Tommy prepsils.”
His mom tells Wayne that Tommy is trying to say, “Tommy’s pretzels.”
Wayne shows lots of teeth when he speaks. “Isn’t he the cutest thing –”
Yeah. Real cute. Real, real cute! I look down at my watch. We’ve been in the air for half an hour. We have approximately two hours and fifteen minutes left.
I sit back down.
“A B E G C D F – sing. Sing.”
His mom cleans the wet, thick, lumpy, pretzel crumbs off his fat face. “He’d really like it if you sang with him.”
“OK. A b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z!”
And then, something awesome happens. He falls asleep. His mom whispers, “Thanks,” to me.
Peace. I close my eyes and then I too, drift off into a quiet sleep.
In what seems like no time at all, the pilot’s voice wakes me. “Cloudy skies over Miami with a temperature reading of seventy-eight degrees.” It takes a little while for me to come to my senses. When I do, I realize I’ve had a wild dream.
I sort of remember the whole thing because I was awakened by the pilot’s voice. Once I begin thinking about why I had this dream, it makes me laugh. I was wearing rainbow-colored pants, a matching shirt, and my nose was stuck to my friend Evan’s nose. We were both in our schoolyard at I.S. 75 and a little kid was giving us a homework assignment to write an essay on what our plans are for our retirement. The entire time our principal, Mr. Cannizzaro, was singing the alphabet song, and at the same time handing out pretzels to pilots – crazy wild! One of the flight attendants interrupts thoughts of my dream.
We’re instructed to keep our seat belts fastened during landing. Tommy’s mom whispers, “Have a nice vacation.”
I’m thinking it’s already nice, because I’m through with little Tommy. Right about now is the part when my stomach takes a dive. It feels like one of the rides I went on last summer, when the carnival came to the parking lot at the Staten Island Mall. That night my friend Evan’s dad told us not to go on anything that would cause Evan to throw up. Evan promised us he would not throw up, and I believed him. His dad said, “Making a promise about not throwing up isn’t possible,” but Evan insisted he only throws up when he goes on rides that move fast. So we went up on this tilt-a-whirl thing and once we were strapped in, Evan asked me if I thought the fact that he ate a corn-dog would be a problem. I should have known at that moment his dad was right and I should have taken off the strap and busted loose. The thing is everything happened so fast. The way this plane is heading down to land, it feels just like that ride. The one where my knees became the target of Evan’s half-digested corndog and his dad later said, “I told you so!”
It’s when I hear, “Thank you for flying with us and enjoy Miami,” that I know my vacation is starting.
Everybody knows that another boring part of the vacation story is the details of what happens when you walk off the plane. I’m going to skip that part and get right to where the family pickup begins. Uh – actually the family-and-friends pickup.
It begins with the sound of Grandma’s voice. The voice that stands out above all others.
“Joshy – Joshy – Yoo-Hoo –”
“Stop yelling his name all over the airport, Doris.” That’s Grandpa. Thing is, his voice is just as loud.
I run to them. First, Grandma kisses me. Then she kisses me again. A woman standing next to her says, “Now he’s got lipstick all over his cheek.”
Grandma magically produces a tissue and starts to spit on it.
I’ve seen this before and panic. Quickly, I grab it before she can spit and rub my cheek with it. At the same time, she introduces me. “Joshy, this is my best friend Anna, and her husband Al.”
Anna’s smile is wide. “Your Grandma has told us so much about you.”
Grandpa rubs me on my back and then he says to Anna, “What about me? I told you plenty of things about him, too.”
That’s when Grandma says, “Stop being so technical. Joshy’s here and that’s all that matters.”
Her friend tells her, “Don’t forget what you have for him.”
Grandma shrugs her shoulders. “I’m glad you reminded me.”
Attached to Grandma’s left arm is a long white sack with a picture of a flamingo. She digs her arm deep inside the sack and lifts up a package wrapped in wax paper. Grandma loves wax paper.
“It’s a cheese sandwich. Your Mom called me to say you didn’t eat anything for breakfast and she was concerned about your stomach.”