Kendall Properties. By the time we made it through Aldie, stopping at the light at Gilbert’s Corner—the turnoff for Route 15 toward Leesburg—I was baffled. The smooth-talking GPS told him to turn right on 15, south toward Haymarket and Gainesville.
“
He smiled. “I never said we were meeting a real estate agent. You said that. I told you, it’s a surprise. You’re going to like it.”
He didn’t clue me in until the GPS directed him to make another left toward Manassas.
“We’re going to Manassas Airport,” he said. “I’ve rung your friend Chris Coronado. He’s taking us up in his helicopter so we can get a good view, not just of my place, but of the whole region.”
Ever since I fell through the rotted floorboards of an old tree house when I was eight and broke both arms, I’ve been scared of heights. Even climbing a ladder still frightens me. The thought of getting into a helicopter—a giant glass bubble—was terrifying.
“W-we are?” I stammered.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ve never been in a helicopter before.” Maybe I could talk him out of this without admitting my acrophobia, but he was clearly oblivious to my growing panic.
“That’s fantastic,” he was saying, “because you’re going to love it.”
We drove through the entrance of an industrial park, following signs on the narrow twisted road to the small regional airport. A chain-link fence separated us from a series of corrugated metal warehouses belonging to freight and passenger service companies.
“Destination is straight ahead,” the disembodied GPS voice announced. “You have arrived.”
Mick stopped the car and called Chris on his mobile phone. “Hey, mate,” he said. “We’re here.” He covered my hand with his. “Don’t be nervous. I do this all the time.”
I nodded wordlessly as Chris drove up in a golf cart, waving a hand over his head by way of greeting. He did something to a panel in the wall and the gate slowly slid open. The Mercedes followed the golf cart onto the tarmac and Chris gestured for Mick to park next to the hangar door of a warehouse with a red and white sign that read “Coronado Aviation. Aerial Photography, Cargo, Observation, Sightseeing, Surveying.”
Mick picked up an oversized book of regional road maps from the back seat of the Mercedes as I got my cane. Together we walked through the open hangar door into the warehouse. The helicopter looked more fragile than I remembered.
“We’ll take the MD-500,” Chris said. “It’s fueled and ready for takeoff, if you two are ready.”
“Why are we taking a book of road maps?” I asked. “We’re going to be in the air. Don’t tell me you need to look at a road map to see where we’re going. Don’t you
“She’s a bit jumpy,” Mick explained to Chris. “Never been in a helicopter before.”
“It’ll help get your bearings in the air,” Chris said, “if we follow the roads.”
“You’re going to look at a map
He smiled and competently patted his head and rubbed his stomach. “I can multitask,” he said. “Don’t worry, Lucie. If I can fly night-blind in the dark over your vines, flying today with unlimited visibility is a piece of cake.”
The men pushed the helicopter outside and moved it to the take-off area. Chris climbed in first, then he and Mick helped me inside.
“Breathe,” Mick murmured in my ear. “I haven’t heard you breathe since we sat down.”
Chris passed us headsets and went through his checklist. Then he switched on the engine and asked for takeoff clearance as the blades began to rotate over my head. I closed my eyes and the helicopter lifted off the ground.
It was noisier than I expected and the only way to communicate was through the headsets.
“You can look now, love.” Mick’s voice sounded so close it could have come from inside my head. “And if you can unclench your fingers from my wrist for just a second, I’ll get the maps.”
The view was nothing like what I expected. Chris said we were flying at an altitude of about twelve hundred feet, but it was—at least to me—surprisingly easy to see what was going on below us on the ground.
“Okay, that’s Route Fifteen down there.” Chris glanced over his shoulder at us and pointed to the road. “The way you would have come. We’ll turn left at Gilbert’s Corner and head west on Mosby’s Highway.”
“We really are following the road map, aren’t we?” I said.
He nodded as Mick squeezed my hand. “This is where you come in. You’ve lived here almost all your life. I want to see this place through your eyes.” His voice was a caress in my ear. “You know where we are. Show it to me.”
And so for the next hour we crisscrossed the land George Washington had once surveyed, following the silver thread of Goose Creek as it meandered through Fauquier and Loudoun Counties. We flew mostly over the region known as the Mosby Heritage Area, the stretch of Route 50 that began in Aldie and ended in the pretty village of Paris on the edge of the eastern side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The highway acted like a needle on a compass to orient me and gradually my jitters subsided and I grew more confident in pointing out farms and landmarks, explaining their history as we moved steadily west toward the peaceful-looking mountains that dominated our view. Here the land was almost all rolling hills, pastures, and farmland, the boundaries outlined by split-rail fences and divided like a giant checkerboard by stacked-stone walls.
We flew over the old Goose Creek Bridge and I showed Mick where, in June 1863, the forces of Colonel J. E. B. Stuart tried unsuccessfully to hold off the Union cavalry that was pushing toward the Shenandoah Valley. Ten days later the two armies met at Gettysburg.
“You all right?” Mick asked at one point. “You seem calmer. At least you’re not digging into my hand and drawing blood anymore.”
“Oh, God, was I really?” I asked. “I’m so sorry. You know, we’ve seen everything but your land. Now it’s your turn with the map.”
“That won’t be necessary. You know where to go, Chris,” Mick said. “Let’s fly over Lucie’s place first.”
Chris banked the helicopter and we crossed Mosby’s Highway again. I could see our shadow on the ground as we swooped, graceful as a bird, over the bucolic scene below.
We flew over my toy-sized house, the vineyard, and all the buildings and barns. I saw the grove where I’d found Georgia, and from the air, the distance to the barn where Randy’s band had practiced seemed like a hop, skip, and a jump.
“So there it is,” Mick was saying.
“There what is?”
“Were you woolgathering?” He put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. “Look over there. My land. That’s our common property line. Yours and mine.”
“What are you talking about?” I was stunned. “Did you buy the Studebaker place? That’s a stud farm. There’s not a vine anywhere on that property. It’s completely set up for horses.”
“I know. But someday there’ll be vines,” he said. “The owners and I agreed on a price last night. I’m signing the documents early next week.”
“Are you serious? How can you do that so fast?”
He looked pleased with himself. “It’s the only way I do things. I like results. Besides, it’s a cash deal. It speeded things along.”
“Folks, I hate to interrupt, but I just want to let you know it’s time to head back,” Chris said. “We’ve been out for about seventy-five minutes.”
“Fine,” Mick agreed. “We’ve had our tour. Cheers, Chris.”
“Oh, my God, are we running out of fuel?” I sat up and craned my neck to get a view of Chris’s gauges. “Is that why we have to go back?”
Chris said, “No,” as Mick said, “Of course not.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me?”
“We’re safe as houses,” Mick assured me. “There are FAA standards about how little fuel you can have left before you’re required to land. Relax, love. We could fly to Richmond with what we’ve got left.”
We touched down, surprisingly gently, about ten minutes later. I refused to get out of the helicopter until the blades stopped turning. Then Mick lifted me into his arms and set me down before retrieving my cane.
