The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

On the floor of the trailer, my eyes blinked open into dark.

"Leslie . . ."

I lay on the floor, breathing deep, my face wet with tears. She was still there, on the couch.

"Are you OK?" she said. "Wookie, are you all right?"

I got up from the floor, curled close as I could beside her, held her tightly.

"I" don't want to leave you, little wookie, I never want to leave you," I said. "I love you."

There was the faintest ripple through her in the night, silence for a moment that felt like forever.

"You what?" she said.

thirty-four

.LONG ABOUT two in the morning, discord forgotten, twined on our bed together in the midst of a talk about flowers, about inventions, about what a perfect life for us might be, I sighed.

"Remember my old definition?" I said. "That a soulmate is someone who meets all our needs, all of the time?"

"Yes."

"Then I don't guess we're soulmates."

"Why not?" she said.

"I don't have a need to argue," I said. "I don't have a need to fight."

"How do you know?" she said softly. "How do you know that's not the only way some lessons can get through to you? If you didn't need to fight in order to learn, you wouldn't create so many problems! There are times I don't understand you till you're angry . . . aren't there times you

don't know what I mean until I scream? Is there a rule that we can't learn except in sweet words and kisses?"

I blinked, startled. "I thought being soulmates was supposed to be every moment perfect, so how can soulmates fight? Are you saying, wookie, that it is perfect? Are you saying even when we clash, it's magic? When a clash materializes understanding between us that hasn't been there before?"

"Ah," she said in the golden dark, "life with a philosopher ..."

thirty-five

UR LAUNCH-time for the race next day put me twenty-third sailplane in line for takeoff, second from last. Full water-ballast in the wings, survival-kit aboard, canopy marked and turn-point cameras checked. Leslie handed me maps and radio codes, kissed me good luck, eased the canopy down. I locked it from the inside. I lay back in the contoured pilot's seat, checked the flight controls, nodded OK, blew her one last kiss, rocked the rudder-pedals side to side: Let's go, towplane, let's go.

Every launch is different, but every one is the same aircraft-carrier catapult-launch in slow motion. A great thrashing and roaring from the towplane out ahead on its towline, we creep forward for a few feet, then faster, faster. Speed gives power to the ailerons, to the rudder, to the elevators, and now we lift a foot off the ground and wait while the towplane finishes its takeoff and begins to climb.

Leslie had been mischievous this morning, generously cooling me with ice-water at moments I least expected. She was happy and so was I. What a spectacular mistake it would have been, to have insisted on leaving her!

Five minutes later, a climb on the end of the line, a dive to loosen the tension, and I pulled the handle for an easy release.

There was one good thermal near the airport, thick with sailplanes. I shivered in the heat of the cockpit. A cyclone of sailplanes, it was. But I was almost last one out and couldn't spend all day looking for lift. I was ginger on the stick, careful. Look around, I thought, watch out!

Tight turn. Fast turn. I caught the core of the lift, an express elevator on the way to the top . . . five hundred feet per minute, seven hundred. Look around.

My neck was sore from twisting fast left, fast right, looking, counting. A Schweizer slid in below me, turning hard.

She's right. I do create problems. We've had our bad times, but hasn't everybody? The good times are glorious, they just . . . LOOKOUT!

The Cirrus above tightened its turn too steeply, sank toward me thirty feet, its wing a giant's blade slashing toward my head. I jammed the stick forward, fell away, in the same instant dodging the glider below.

"You gonna fly like that," I choked, "you gonna get plenty room from me!"