“What?”
“No way am I going to be the one holding you back from that job if you want it. I’m not going to be the reason you didn’t get your life’s dream.”
She folded her arms and glared at the console. Vern always slid down about two feet as four tons of water came on board. He’d arrive at eighteen feet, low enough to sink the end of his twenty-foot siphon hose. She’d be able to tell how full the tank was by how close he came to hovering at sixteen feet.
Denise had watched the others. Jeannie always bobbed slightly, the same way she flew; shifting up and down perhaps six inches as she loaded up. Emily’s altitude was rock stable. She arrived at eighteen feet, loaded at eighteen feet, and left from eighteen feet—no indicators from the outside as to how full her belly tank was. She peeled a
