Excerpt - Only One of Its Kind by Jane Toombs

"ONLY ONE OF ITS KIND"

Champagne Books www.champagnebooks.com

A Christmas short story



Excerpt:

Last of all, I had to tell Annalee about the trip with Hal. "Hope you don't have any dates for us the week before Christmas," I began.

She widened her golden eyes at me, then shut them and winced. "Not again, Arno. Please don't tell me you're flying off somewhere at Christmas time."

What could I say to her, my beautiful Annalee? In a way it'd be easier not to be here at Christmas, not to look at each other, knowing all our attempts to produce our own little Christmas angel had failed. But I couldn't say that. She'd begun to talk adoption, but I want my own kid, not someone else's. Wrong-headed, maybe, but I often am, much as I love Annalee.

"I've never been gone at Christmas before," I pointed out.

"Maybe not. But how about my sister's wedding? And the Gilbert's anniversary party? I'm getting fed up with having to break commitments because you suddenly get an urge for the wild blue yonder."

"This time it's strictly business. Hal Peterson is stuck with a demand trip to Central America, and he needs a pilot." Which was more or less true.

She told me where I could go, what Hal could do with the trip and where the plane could be put, permanently. Annalee has quite a vocabulary.

Then I got the silent treatment, with Rufus our cat glaring at me balefully. He hates it when we have a disagreement. The day before I left, visualizing her putting up the damn hokey tree and decorating it all by herself, I promised to be home in time to help her if it killed me. So then we had a tearful parting scene after all.

What worries my wife is that I'm going to crash. I've shown her statistics, even acted insulted because she doubted my flying ability, but nothing can convince her that small planes are safe. Though most private plane crashes are pilot error, try to convince Annalee. She sees them as instances of some huge hand plucking the plane out of the sky on a whim. Try to argue with that.