Julia nodded. The ramp was 1,700 feet above sea level, on the edge of the São Conrado Mountain. 1,700 feet. She was about to jump from a 1,700-foot drop with nothing but a strange contraption of fabric wrapped around a metal frame to hold her up.
“How many steps?” Suzi asked.
“Seven,” Julia repeated automatically, like one of her students saying what the teacher wanted to hear.
“When we get to the edge of the platform, keep running. No stopping, no stalling, no slowing down.”
“Keep running,” Julia echoed diligently. If she said it, she could do it.
“At the edge, you’re going to pretend that you’re taking another step right into the air. Don’t jump, because jumping will jerk the glider. You’re going to run and then let yourself fall forward. I’ll be right there with you, so follow my lead.”
Don’t jump, Julia repeated in her mind. But what if she did? What if she forgot? What if she couldn’t stop herself? Would they go tumbling if she messed everything up? She looked around for Blake but he was off with his own guide, going through the same routine.
No Blake, she reminded herself. All she had to do was fall.
And fall, and fall—was she seriously going to willingly run off the edge of a platform nearly two thousand feet up and keep running into the air?
She tried not to cry, because crying while both feet were still firmly planted on land would not bode well for the actual flight. Suzi gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “You see the ocean?”
The platform faced the sea, and before them the vast blue inhaled and exhaled below.
“It’s the most beautiful moment, when you’re running straight into the ocean and let yourself drop into the sky.”
Suzi really loved what she did, Julia realized. She stood atop this mountain countless times each day because she couldn’t get enough. There was beauty all around them, in the rich green foliage and the curve of the mountains and the bend of the beaches and the rise of the tall city spires. But looking wasn’t enough. Blake hadn’t wanted to take her to another view like the ones they had yesterday. This time, they were going to be a part of it all. It was his gift to her, not to witness but to experience everything herself.
She took a deep breath. “I can do this.”
“I know you can.” Suzi smiled back. Then she dropped her sunglasses down over her eyes. “Ready?”
After Suzi strapped them into the hang glider wings, Blake made his instructor crabwalk over with him to give her a quick kiss before they took off. The four of them were crammed together, the two guides helplessly strapped into their charges, the glider wings bulky and awkward behind them, while Blake gave her one last peck for good luck.
“Your boyfriend is very sweet,” Suzi said right before they lined up at the edge of the ramp.
He’s not my boyfriend, Julia almost said, but caught herself. “Yes,” she said emphatically. “When he’s not trying to kill me, that is.”
“Remember, seven steps, keep running, and don’t jump!” Suzi called, ignoring Julia’s comment about impending death. It would have been nice to hear one more round of encouraging words about how they were definitely not going to die, but it was too late, there was no time, Suzi was running and so Julia was running too, following in her footsteps directly behind her, the woman’s strong, petite body propelling them forward, the wings rising up behind. The edge of the platform was getting closer, there was nothing beyond but nothingness itself, and there was something she was supposed to do, something she was supposed to remember…
But it was too late, they were nearing the edge, and the platform was ending. She was going to fall. Everything tightened in her chest—
And then the next thing she knew she wasn’t running, she wasn’t jumping, but she wasn’t falling, either. Her toes hit the edge of the ramp one second after Suzi’s and her next step brushed through the air and for one terrifying second Julia braced herself for a sickening lurch and the spiral down—their glider wouldn’t work, the harnesses would be strapped in wrong, she didn’t run correctly, she jumped when she shouldn’t have jumped, or maybe she was supposed to jump and she’d misunderstood… But nothing happened.
Or rather, nothing happened and then everything happened at once.
It was so smooth she suddenly knew why it was called gliding. They ran off the edge of the platform, toward the water, into the sky, and when the ground stopped holding them the wings took over seamlessly.
Together in the harness their bodies rocked forward so they were lying on their stomachs, Suzi gripping the bar that helped her steer and Julia hovering above her. Their feet were connected to a strap that had hung loose when they were running but was now pulled taut, holding them up. Julia had thought it would be awkward, but it was okay hanging there, floating, supported by the straps and the air that buoyed them up as gently as if they’d been on land.
They started off facing the ocean, Suzi letting the air lift them up until they were even higher than when they started. And then the glider slowly started to turn, so smoothly Julia hardly noticed they were moving until she realized they were flying over land now, the whole expanse of the city laid out at their feet.
“Everything good so far?” Suzi called, and Julia gave a breathless shout, her heart hammering in her chest, so giddy she wanted to scream and whoop and pour out her lungs to the rolling hills so small below her.
“Let go!” Suzy shouted up to her as she shifted to keep the glider from giving in to the wind.
“What?” Julia asked.
“Let go! You don’t have to hold on!”
Julia realized she had been gripping the handles behind Suzi so tightly her knuckles were white.
I can’t, she wanted to say, but the wind was in her face, wisps of hair from her messy bun whipping behind her, and she couldn’t make the words come.
Gingerly she released one hand and let it hover over the handles, testing out the feeling. Her upper body rocked a little, but the harness was secure and Suzi’s capable arms kept the glider steady. In one rushed move, before she could change her mind, Julia let go of both hands and spread them out to either side like she was flying.
“Aiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee!” she called, a deep shout that came from her toes and up through her belly and out her lungs with the force of the sun and the wind and the forest and the sea, something long dormant inside her snaking out and stretching, breathing, testing its new legs and then running, leaping, flying deep within her, soaring through her mouth and her heart until she was breathless, laughing, so exhilarated that she couldn’t stop. She heard Suzi laugh along with her, encouraging her to keep her arms out and soar, and she knew, too, that this was also why Suzi did this. Not just for her own jump, but because no matter how many times she did it, it would always be the first time for somebody else.
It was the same reason Julia taught, going through identical problems year after year after year, because every time she did it there was someone new who was seeing it for the first time, getting it for the first time, finishing it for the first time in their lives. Watching it click for somebody else never, ever got old.
“We’re currently flying over the Tijuca National Park, which is the green you see here.” Suzi lifted one arm off the steering bar to point below them, and Julia’s breath caught, but the glider held steady and she made herself keep from grabbing back onto the handles. They were useless, of course, except for giving her the illusion of safety.
And maybe she didn’t need to cling to that illusion anymore. Maybe nothing was as safe as she wanted it to be. But maybe the things she saw as risky weren’t as bad as she thought.