In a Perfect World Read Free Page A

which might have been rolling in some lush green grass under a warm sun in a country far away.

CHAPTER TWO
     
    T he afternoon Jiselle announced her engagement to Captain Dorn, she saw them for the first time:
    The white balloons.
    She was driving on the Red Arrow Highway, which meandered along the Lake Michigan shoreline, back to Illinois from the small Michigan town in which her mother lived.
    She gasped when she glimpsed them.
    The balloons must have originated in Chicago. Now they floated in her direction over the lake, which rippled under them in bright brain waves. At least fifty balloons, their strings trailing silver tails behind them.
    Jiselle had heard of the groups of volunteers and activists who gathered every Sunday in cities all over the United States to set them loose—a white balloon for every victim of the Phoenix flu—but as yet she’d seen them only on television.
    They were controversial. There had been objections. Some said that the balloons served no purpose other than to scare people, that they were really about inciting panic. Not the compassionate expression they pretended to be, but an implicit criticism of the present administration, a political maneuver rather than a commemoration of the dead. Others said they were simply, purely beautiful.
    And, seeing them for herself that afternoon as she drove away from her hometown, Jiselle had to agree. The silent, swift, traveling emptiness of those balloons, their strings glistening loosely on the air as they lifted higher in a steady stream toward the sky. They seemed to be lifted in unison by a gust of wind, trembling a little against the backdrop of blue.
    Intellectually, Jiselle knew what they stood for, but like so many other things at the beginning of this surprising time, they appeared to her more as a wonder than a sign.
    She had never been so happy.
    Could she ever be happier?
    Even after the sharp words with her mother, and the dead man in his coffin, Jiselle could not help but feel lighthearted.
     
     
    Jiselle’s mother had asked her, “What kind of a woman agrees to marry a man she’s known for three months? A man with three children? A man whose three children she hasn’t met?”
    If Jiselle had been a different kind of daughter, or woman, she might have said, “The kind of woman I am, Mother,” but even as an adolescent, when her best friend was regularly screaming “I hate you, you bitch!” at her own mother, Jiselle was apologizing to hers for forgetting to say please when asking for a second helping of salad.
    She said, instead, “Mom, I love him.”
    Her mother snorted.
     
     
    Of course, it was more than that, more than love, or why marriage, why the rush? But how could Jiselle have explained to anyone what a strange wild mystery this was to her? When it came to imagining herself a bride, she’d given up! And then—Captain Dorn! The handsomest man in the land!
    He was a pilot with eyes the color of the grass in spring. When he stood in the threshold of the control cabin after landing a plane, men, exiting, would nod solemnly to him, offering their thanks. Women, smitten, made expressions of surprise, sheepish appreciation, when they saw him there. Leaning on the doorjamb of the cockpit, wearing his uniform, his jacket unbuttoned and all those dials and knobs behind him, Captain Dorn sometimes caused those female passengers to freeze in their places, open their mouths as if to speak, nothing coming out—love at first sight. Annette would elbow Jiselle and whisper, “Another one bites the dust.”
    A few always tried to come back to the plane, to see him again. (“Did I leave a book called The Single Woman’s Guide to Rome in my seat pocket by any chance?”) Sometimes they stalled near the gate of their arrival, waiting to catch another glimpse of him. He’d tip his cap. Flash his smile. Walk crisply past—those long strides, pressed black slacks, shining shoes. Sometimes a fluttering suit coat, sometimes a pilot’s