My Year with Eleanor (21 page)

“You guys are so extreme right now!” Bill called out as they landed a few hundred yards away. “You'll never spell ‘extreme' with an E again. Just three X's from now on.”

“The first words out of my mouth in the air were, ‘Holy crap!' ” Jessica grinned. “I cursed through the entire free fall and spent most of the parachute ride apologizing to Timothy for cursing so much.”

Chris was more wild eyed than I would have expected of someone who'd done this before. “There's something innately comforting about having another human being attached to you,” he said. “But then that person betrays you by hurling themselves out of the plane while you're still attached to them.”

“How did this compare to the first time?” I asked.

“This skydive was more”—he paused, clearly searching for a safe adjective —“
extreme
than my first one. When I was screaming and plummeting toward the earth, I bet my tandem partner was thinking, ‘Wait, I thought the other guy had the girl attached to him.' ”

I inherited Jessica's instructor, Timothy, as my tandem partner. Bill was teamed up with an instructor named Sebastian, who is what you'd get if the Marlboro Man mated with the Old Spice guy and decided to raise their son in the UK. He clapped his hand so hard on Bill's slim shoulder that he stumbled forward a bit.

I leaned over to Bill and whispered, “There's no way you're getting through this day without receiving a fist bump.”

“There is an art or, rather, a knack to flying,” Sebastian said in his rugged British accent. “The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground, and miss.” He grinned naughtily.

Sebastian was six feet six and dazzlingly handsome, with twelve thousand jumps under his belt to Timothy's three thousand, but I was glad he wasn't my partner. As the four of us walked to the plane, I overheard Sebastian telling Bill, “It's not the dying I fear if me chute don't open—it's the livin'. Lyin' there on the ground, staring at my intestines, knowing I'm gonna spend the rest of me life in a wheelchair, communicating via the one eyebrow that still moves . . .”

When we reached the plane, Timothy pointed to a rectangular piece of metal just above the plane's wheel. It was a few inches wide and stuck out about two feet. “See this step? When it's our turn to jump, I'm going to first have you step out of the plane and onto that plank, but don't look down. When people look down, they tend to freak out. Look at the propeller instead.”

The
propeller
?
I thought, hoisting myself inside the plane. This was the best alternative focal point they could come up with? (“If you find yourself overwhelmed by the sight of the ground ten thousand feet down, set your mind at ease by focusing on the cluster of revolving blades a few feet away . . .”)

Again, no seats, just some flaccid safety belts attached to the floor. I scrunched into a ball in my designated spot with my back to the pilot's chair. Timothy was curled up on the floor directly in front of me, so close that our shins pressed together. I was shoulder to shoulder with Sebastian, who was on my left, while Bill squatted on the floor next to the pilot's seat where the copilot's seat would normally be. He was cautioned not to touch any switches on the dashboard or risk turning us into a newspaper headline. Looking out the window to my right, I could see Chris and Jessica waving as we rose from the runway and teetered off into the sky.

I kept waiting for myself to panic. To start crying and asking to turn back. But I was shockingly composed sitting there in this tiny plane—my third tiny plane this year—knowing that I'd soon be jumping out of it. Being afraid seemed almost . . . pointless. I remembered Eleanor recounting how, when Franklin was assistant secretary of the navy, he had her tour insane asylums and report back to him on the conditions.

“‘I cannot do this,' I thought. I was terrified of insanity,” she wrote. “Then I realized that I was the Assistant Secretary's wife. This was my job. I had to do it whether I could do it or not.” Fear was my job now. It was a place I had to go to every day, so why bother whining and resisting it?

“We're at five thousand feet now,” Timothy shouted over the engine. “Shouldn't be long.”

The day was windy, and the aircraft pitched boozily as the pilot struggled to keep us level. With the exception of the Shaggin' Wagon, the plane seemed like the least safe part of this operation. During one especially lively dip, I involuntarily grabbed Sebastian's knee. When we careened sharply to the right a minute later, I wrapped my arm around his entire leg.

“I bloody love this girl!” Sebastian crowed and everyone laughed.

I was actually eager to skydive now. Just get me off this plane. I reminded myself that in ten minutes this would all be over and I'd be back on the ground with Chris and Jessica.

“We're at eight thousand feet,” Timothy updated me.

This was my cue to turn around on my knees so he could position himself behind me and clip us together. Timothy pulled the straps tight. In the front, Bill was making his way onto all fours, trying desperately not to disturb any of the instruments on the dashboard in front of him. As Sebastian leaned over Bill to clip the two of them together, he pretended to vigorously sodomize him.

“Yeah, yeah,
yeah
!” Sebastian shouted with each mock thrust. “You like that, mate?!”

“About thirty seconds now,” Timothy said. He'd crouched behind me on the balls of his feet.

Just breathe,
I told myself, remembering what Dr. Bob had once told me about safety behaviors. “When people are afraid, they hold their breath,” he'd said. “They're trying to close themselves off from the fear, but trying to rid oneself of fear never works. I want you to breathe into the fear. Immerse yourself in it. As you inhale, imagine yourself taking all of that fear in.”

“We're at ten thousand feet!” Timothy chirped. “It's about that time!”

Bill and Sebastian would go first because they were closer to the hatch. Sebastian kicked open the door. Freezing wind rushed into the plane. The two of them positioned themselves in front of the gaping hole where the door had been. Clumps of my hair enthusiastically leaped into the air, as if waving farewell. Should I watch them jump? I didn't know if it was a good idea. I turned away, but watched out of the corner of my eye. Unable to resist, I turned back just in time to see Bill and Sebastian lean over and get sucked out of the plane at an alarming speed.

“Now it's us! Go! Go! Go!” Timothy urged. I inched toward the open door on my knees, pulling him along.

“Okay, Noelle, put your foot on the step!” he yelled.

I placed my foot on the metal board, staring hard at my shoe, blocking out everything else. There was something very soothing about seeing this sneaker, which was so familiar to me, while ten thousand feet above the ground.

“Good!” Timothy shouted. “Now stick your head out! I'm going to count to three!”

Still looking at the sneaker, I plunged my head into the ninety-mile-per-hour wind. During ground training, Timothy explained that during the countdown we were going to rock back and forth twice, then roll out of the plane on the number three.

“One!” We leaned out.

“Two!” We leaned back toward the plane.

“Three!” Timothy rolled us into the sky and then we were dropping headfirst at two hundred feet per second.

In the first few moments out of the plane, I had two thoughts. Every skydiver I'd talked to had told me, “There's no stomach drop like on a roller coaster. You feel like you're floating, not falling.” So my first thought was
They lied.
There was a stomach drop feeling. It was only for a second or two, but still. It was worth mentioning. I felt a flash of irritation at Chris and Jessica for not warning me. And while I didn't feel like I was dropping two hundred feet per second, “floating” was something of an understatement. I was very aware my body was hurtling toward the earth. My second thought was,
My God, this is high. I can't believe that I'm going to be twice this high at the peak of Kilimanjaro.

Then there was no thought. All of my senses were overstimulated. The sky and ground were twisting before me. I had no idea where Bill was. The sound was almost deafening. I was ripping through the heavens. The wind was pushing my cheeks and lips into an idiotic grin, which was pretty much how I felt. Timothy rotated us around to give me the 360-degree view. It had been overcast before, but now the sky was clear and the sun flashed between the clouds. I could see Fire Island and the bay twinkling in the distance. The horizon was a glowing circle around me that cast a pale, almost ethereal light over the earth. There was none of the harsh forest greens and deep ocean blue I was used to seeing from airplane windows. There was no geometric patchwork dividing the ground into sections. It was as if the world had been repainted using pastels. Everything blended together harmoniously.

“Wow,” I gasped over and over. My windblown lips could barely form the words. “It's. So. Beau. Ti. Ful.”

When Timothy tapped me to signal he was about to pull the chute, I couldn't believe forty-five seconds had already gone by, it had felt like five. Timothy pulled the cord. I'd been worried it would open with a painful jerk, but it was more of a gentle upward tug. For a few seconds, the roaring wind disappeared and I was surrounded by the most absolute silence I had ever known. The quiet was profound. Once again I was gasping in awe. Then the sounds of the parachute flapping in the breeze kicked back in and the moment was gone.

“What do you think of the view now?” Timothy asked. I'd almost forgotten about him back there.

I looked down. The ground still had that dreamy quality. It looked unrealistic. Yet my dangling legs looked too real. My black spandex pants, the Nikes—they were too much in focus, the colors too vibrant. They seemed ridiculously out of place against the soft-hued earth. I was reminded of the “outdoor” scenes in 1960s movies where they shot actors in front of prefilmed background footage, then turned on a fan to simulate wind.

“I did it!” I squealed.

“Here, hold these,” Timothy said, giving me the steering handles attached to the ends of the parachute. “I'm going to unclip your waist harness, which should loosen up your wedgie.”

Before I could respond, Timothy had unlatched my waist and I dropped about six inches. For a few startling moments, I thought I'd been cut loose. Then the shoulder straps caught me under the armpits. I looked up at the handles, which I was gripping with all my strength. Everyone had told me that the parachute ride was the nice part, but now I looked up at the handles and wondered,
What happens if I accidentally let go of them? Will we go plummeting to the ground?

“Now pull down with your left hand and steer us to the left,” Timothy instructed.

“To be perfectly honest, I'd rather you drive.”

He took hold of the toggles. “You can let go.”

“Do you have them?” I asked.

“Got 'em.”

“You're sure?”

“I'm sure.”

Still, I looked up to double-check that he had them before taking my hands off. A few hundred yards away, Bill and his parachute were completely horizontal as Sebastian took them on some wild corkscrew turns. They were dropping fast, too fast.

“Oh no!” I cried. “Are they in trouble?”

Timothy chuckled. “No, that's just Sebastian being a daredevil.”

I sighed with relief. “Okay, well, please don't do that to me.” Instead, we simply hung for the next four blissful minutes.

The airstrip appeared below us. I could see Chris, Jessica, and Bill, who had only jumped twenty seconds ahead of me, but who had reached the ground a full five minutes before me because of those corkscrew turns, bobbing up and down in celebration.

“Because it's a windy day we're going to come in pretty fast,” Timothy said. “Depending on how we're positioned as we land, at the last second I'm either going to tell you to sit or stand.”

Dude, we
were
coming in fast. Like,
really
fast. I felt as though I was about to jump from a moving car. When we were level with the trees, I asked nervously, “Sit or stand?” No answer.

“Sit or stand?!” I shrieked. The ground was a few feet away.

“Sit!” Timothy commanded. I held up my legs while Timothy's sneakers scrambled for purchase and eventually clomped to a halt.

“You did it!” Jessica squealed running over with Chris.

I was too bewildered to say anything. What came out of my mouth was a cross between a laugh and a horse whinny.

Bill was already deharnessed and drinking a soda. “Nice to have you back, Hancock,” he said, giving me a significant look so I knew he was referring not to our skydive but to our heated exchange at the end of the shark cage dive when he told me that I'd changed.

“Your corkscrew turns were amazing!” I told him.

“I was completely terrified,” he admitted, but quietly enough so only I could hear. “But I was afraid that if I said something, he'd just go faster.”

They gave us our “diplomas,” and we took a group picture in front of the skydiving sign. Afterward Bill clapped his hands together and said, “You guys want to do a nude one really quick?”

A half hour later we were at the train station. It was an outdoor platform, but we were sitting on a bench inside a covered waiting area. A giddy energy hung in the air, as if held in by the Plexiglas walls. Bill looked us over approvingly. “From where I'm sitting, I'm looking at three totally radical individuals right now. Look, we're so radical that lady won't even come in here,” he said, pointing to a woman talking on her cell on the platform outside. I pulled out my skydiving certificate. It read:

LONG ISLAND SKYDIVING CENTER