In the Foothills of a Bad Decision: A Geography Lesson
On the East Coast, conflicts with the land are mostly manmade, the Beltway, for example. Traveling west, the scenery shifts and changes. Mountains rise out of the plains, jutting into the sky. Their peaks are jagged and glacier pocked. Older and suffering from the effects of erosion and time, the mountains in the East are different. Millennia ago, glaciers swept down from the north, shearing the mountaintops. The Appalachian mountain chain is not comprised of the original peaks, but of their roots, the hardy rocks that survived being packed down in ice and snow.
Unlike their western counterparts, the Appalachian chain is lower. In the early part of the century, engineers discovered that they could build roads over them. What could not be conquered by going over, they burrowed through. There were, they saw, ways to traverse the mountains. The advent of technology made the engineers realize that whatever problems the mountains first posed to the original settlers, those problems were no longer insurmountable.
Before the mountains lies the Piedmont. It's the foothills. It sits in the shadows of the once large mountains, never quite achieving their heights. Never leveling out, either. Like an anteroom in an office, the Piedmont marks a type of waiting room in the land.
On a perfect summer day, the hills still green and the air a deep, clear blue, his plane made lazy loops in the sky. The yellow wings were a sharp contrast against their backdrop. He had taken to the air to help clear his head. He couldn't decide whether to make the phone call. Since Catherine didn't know that he was planning to call, it didn't matter how long it took him to call her. Why he was hesitating, he didn't know. He had resolved his feelings for Mac. It didn't even bother him that she hadn't called him. Or that she barely spoke to him aside from what office politics demanded of her. He didn't mind.
So really, he couldn't understand the hesitation. There was a beautiful woman at the end of the call. A possible dinner date that could evolve and grow into something else in the future.
Obviously, Mac was okay with their new arrangement. He had even seen her smile. Granted, it wasn't directed at him. He wasn't even really meant to see it, but he just happened to be staring out his office window and there she was. He tried not to notice the smile. It was one of her softer smiles, the kind reserved for special occasions. He didn't know what prompted it, but a part of him, the part that had always hoped they'd untangle messes in their lives and then entwine their lives, wished it was directed at him.
He shook his head lightly. He had come up here to make a decision about his future and Catherine Gale, not dwell on Mac and his past. Which, he supposed, was a part of his problem with Mac, she was so firmly entrenched in his past, and the years he wanted to make a part of his past, that he couldn't build a future with someone who constantly reminded him of it, of them. Catherine was another problem altogether. A fixable problem with an easy solution. He didn't know her very well; but first dates were invented to overcome that very dilemma. And he may never know her as well as he knew Mac, but that was the point.
Beneath his biplane, the terrain was growing hillier and rockier. Green hills were giving way to more Alpine scenery. The mountains were absorbing the foothills until they became indistinct from each other. He glanced down at his instrument panel. It was time to turn around. He had a call to make.
On the East Coast, conflicts with the land are mostly manmade, the Beltway, for example. Traveling west, the scenery shifts and changes. Mountains rise out of the plains, jutting into the sky. Their peaks are jagged and glacier pocked. Older and suffering from the effects of erosion and time, the mountains in the East are different. Millennia ago, glaciers swept down from the north, shearing the mountaintops. The Appalachian mountain chain is not comprised of the original peaks, but of their roots, the hardy rocks that survived being packed down in ice and snow.
Unlike their western counterparts, the Appalachian chain is lower. In the early part of the century, engineers discovered that they could build roads over them. What could not be conquered by going over, they burrowed through. There were, they saw, ways to traverse the mountains. The advent of technology made the engineers realize that whatever problems the mountains first posed to the original settlers, those problems were no longer insurmountable.
Before the mountains lies the Piedmont. It's the foothills. It sits in the shadows of the once large mountains, never quite achieving their heights. Never leveling out, either. Like an anteroom in an office, the Piedmont marks a type of waiting room in the land.
On a perfect summer day, the hills still green and the air a deep, clear blue, his plane made lazy loops in the sky. The yellow wings were a sharp contrast against their backdrop. He had taken to the air to help clear his head. He couldn't decide whether to make the phone call. Since Catherine didn't know that he was planning to call, it didn't matter how long it took him to call her. Why he was hesitating, he didn't know. He had resolved his feelings for Mac. It didn't even bother him that she hadn't called him. Or that she barely spoke to him aside from what office politics demanded of her. He didn't mind.
So really, he couldn't understand the hesitation. There was a beautiful woman at the end of the call. A possible dinner date that could evolve and grow into something else in the future.
Obviously, Mac was okay with their new arrangement. He had even seen her smile. Granted, it wasn't directed at him. He wasn't even really meant to see it, but he just happened to be staring out his office window and there she was. He tried not to notice the smile. It was one of her softer smiles, the kind reserved for special occasions. He didn't know what prompted it, but a part of him, the part that had always hoped they'd untangle messes in their lives and then entwine their lives, wished it was directed at him.
He shook his head lightly. He had come up here to make a decision about his future and Catherine Gale, not dwell on Mac and his past. Which, he supposed, was a part of his problem with Mac, she was so firmly entrenched in his past, and the years he wanted to make a part of his past, that he couldn't build a future with someone who constantly reminded him of it, of them. Catherine was another problem altogether. A fixable problem with an easy solution. He didn't know her very well; but first dates were invented to overcome that very dilemma. And he may never know her as well as he knew Mac, but that was the point.
Beneath his biplane, the terrain was growing hillier and rockier. Green hills were giving way to more Alpine scenery. The mountains were absorbing the foothills until they became indistinct from each other. He glanced down at his instrument panel. It was time to turn around. He had a call to make.
