Wings (23 page)

She was uncomfortable about it the next day, when she saw the newspaper on her way to work. The photograph somehow managed to convey the impression that she was involved with him, which she certainly wasn't. But there was something very intimate about the way he looked at her, as she stood next to him, and yet nothing inappropriate, or even faintly romantic, had ever happened. He was her boss, the man who had “discovered” her, and given her a great opportunity. And she was grateful to him for that. But there was absolutely nothing else between them. She wondered if anyone at work would make a comment about it, but no one did, until three days later when she got a call from Nick. He was flying a mail run to San Diego that night, and he could come up to see her the following morning. It would be Saturday and she was free to spend the day with him. She was supposed to go to a charity ball with one of Nancy's young friends that night, but for Nick, she'd gladly cancel.

“So, is Williams giving you the rush, or are you falling for him?” he asked bluntly after he told her he'd meet her at her apartment as soon as he came up from San Diego.

“What's that supposed to mean?” She was annoyed at his assumption.

“I was in Chicago yesterday, Cass. I saw the picture of you two in the paper. Looks pretty cozy.” There was an edge to his voice she'd never heard there before, and she didn't like it.

“I happen to work for him. And he took me out to dinner. That was it. He has about as much interest in me as he has in his engineers, so knock it off.”

“I think you're being naive. And those didn't look like work clothes.” He was angry and jealous, and sorry her father had ever let her come out here. The flying she was doing for Williams was too damn dangerous. But it wasn't just the flying he was upset about. It was the look on Desmond's face as he looked at her in the photograph in the paper.

“It was just a business dinner, Nick. He was just being nice taking me out. He was probably bored to death. And believe it or not, those are my work clothes.” She was referring to the slinky black dress she'd been wearing. “My chaperone buys me everything, and they send me out every night like a trained dog to show off and get my picture taken. They call it public relations.”

“Doesn't sound like work to me. Or flying.” He was consumed with annoyance, and the loneliness of not having seen her in over a month. He had been aching to see her. But she hadn't had time to get home yet. It had shocked him to discover how much he missed her. He felt as though he'd lost a limb, or his best friend. And he didn't like the idea of Williams taking her out to dinner.

“We'll talk about it when you're here,” she said quietly, sounding more grown-up than she had at home. She had already changed, but she didn't know it. And she had already acquired a lot of big-city polish. “How long can you stay?”

“I've got to be out by six o'clock. I've got to get back with some mail.” She was instantly disappointed, and she would have no excuse to cancel her “date” to go to the ball to benefit children with infantile paralysis.

“Well, we'll make the best of it. Try and get here early.”

“As early as I can, kid. I'm not flying the fancy stuff you are.”

“You don't need 'em. The way you fly, you could fly egg crates and get more out of them than anything I see here,” she said warmly.

“Stop flattering an old man,” he said, sounding mellower than he had at the beginning of the call. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

She could hardly wait, and she was up as usual at three-thirty, anxious for him to arrive. It seemed endless, before he rang her bell at seven-fifteen that morning. She flew down the stairs and threw herself into his arms so hard she almost knocked him down. He was stunned by the sheer beauty of her, and the force of her affection. She had missed him too, even more than she'd realized. She missed their confidences, and their long talks, and their flying.

“Hey, wait a minute, you… give a guy a chance, before you knock the wind out of me…” She was kissing him and hugging him, she was like a lost child who had finally found her parents. “Hey, it's okay… it's okay…” There were tears in her eyes as she clung to him, and he held her so close he wanted never to let her go. She had never looked as good to him, or felt as good in his arms, and he had to force himself to step back and release her. He would have liked to stay that way forever. “Wow… don't you look fine.” He smiled. He noticed the new haircut, and the makeup, and she was wearing beige slacks and a white sweater. She looked surprisingly like Hepburn or Hayworth. “You don't look like you've been suffering,” he teased, and then he whistled when he saw the apartment. “My, my… talk about hardship…”

“Isn't it great?” she beamed at him, and showed him around. He was very impressed, and he had to remind himself that this was the little girl he had known since she was a baby. This was not some movie star he had just met. This was Pat O'Malley's daughter.

“Looks like you got lucky, Cass,” he said fairly. But he also thought she deserved it. There was no reason for her not to have all this. But he still worried about her. “Do they treat you right?”

“They do everything for me. Buy me clothes, feed me, I have a maid, she's the nicest woman you've ever met. Her name is Lavinia. I have a chaperone named Nancy, who buys me clothes and sets up everything for me, like all the events I have to go to, my escorts, the people I see.” She chatted on and Nick looked at her strangely.

“Your
escorts?
They set you up with men?” He looked startled, and none too pleased, as she served him the breakfast she had made for him, and fried some eggs while he waited.

“Sort of. But not really. Some of them aren't really… I mean… they don't really like women, you know… but they're friends of Nancy's, or she knows who they are. Some of them are actors who need to be seen, and we… I… we go to events, or parties and get our photographs taken together.” She looked embarrassed as she explained it to him, it wasn't the part of her work she liked best by any means, but after Desmond's explanation the other night, she was trying to accept it. “I don't like doing it, but it's important to Desmond.”

“Desmond?” Nick raised an eyebrow as he ate the eggs she had made him. They were delicious. But the sudden mention of Williams in such familiar terms made him stop eating.

“He thinks public relations is the most important thing in business.”

“What about flying? Is that important to him, or do you even get to do that?”

“Come on, Nick, be fair. I have to do what they ask me to. Look at all this,” She waved around at the spacious modern kitchen and the rest of the apartment beyond it. “Look what they're doing for me. If they want me to go out and have my photograph taken, I owe
it
to them. It's not such a big deal.” But he looked angry as he listened.

“That's bullshit, and you know it. You didn't come out here to be a model, or go to finishing school, Cass. And the only thing you
owe
them is to risk your ass testing their planes, and break any record you can. That's what you
owe
them. The rest is up to you, or at least it should be. Williams doesn't own you, for chrissake. Or does he?” He looked at her ominously, and she shook her head. He made her feel ashamed for going along with the plan. But she
did
feel she owed it to them, and she could also understand what Williams wanted. He wanted her to become a star, in order to further her career in aviation, and publicize his planes. That wasn't totally wrong, and the other women in aviation had done their share of it too. You did what you had to.

“I don't think you're being fair,” she said quietly.

“I think you're being used, and it makes me mad as hell,” he said, pushing his plate away, and then taking a sip of his coffee. “He wants to use you, Cass. I can smell it.”

“That's not true. He wants to help me, Nick. He's already done a lot for me, and I just got here.”

“Like what? Take you out dancing the other night? How often has he done that?”

“Just that once. He was being nice. And he was trying to explain to me how important it is to do the social things too, because Nancy told him how much I hate it.”

“Well, at least I know you haven't been completely snowed by him. How often have you been out with him?” he asked pointedly, and she looked him square in the eye when she answered.

“I told you just that once. And he was totally polite and respectful. He was a perfect gentleman. He danced with me twice, and it just so happened that the second time he danced with me they took our picture.”

“And that was an accident, I suppose.” He marveled at her innocence. It was all so obvious to him. He had thought it a great opportunity at first, but only if their main focus had been on her flying. All this social nonsense, and going out, and courting the press told him something very different. It told him Williams was using her in a much broader sense. And he knew she was too young to understand it. And what more did Williams want from her? Did he want her for himself? As young and naive as she was, she would be inevitably dazzled by him and Nick suddenly realized he didn't like the prospect of that either. She was too young to be involved with a man like him. And besides, Desmond Williams didn't love her. Nick had said all this to Pat, and even suggested that Williams might have unsuitable designs on her, and he had tried to rile Pat up about it. But her father was under Oona's spell and she was completely enthralled to be seeing her daughter in newsreels. And Pat wouldn't have done anything to interfere with it. She was safe, she was well, and from what she said in her letters, they were treating her like royalty. She even had a chaperone, so how unsuitable could that be? And they were paying her a ransom on top of it. What more could she ask for?

“Don't you realize,” Nick went on, pressing her, “that either the guy has the hots for you, or he set it up to look that way by taking you someplace where you'd be seen, and photographed. He probably tipped them off that he'd be taking you there. So now America has more than just a pretty face to fall in love with, they have a romance. Dashing tycoon Desmond Williams courts America's sweetheart from the Midwest, girl next door and flying ace, Cassie O'Malley. Cassie, wake up. The guy is using you, and he's great at it. It's working. He's going to make you the biggest name there is, just to sell his goddamn planes and then what?” That was what worried Nick. What if he married her? The thought of it made him feel sick, but he didn't say that.

“What difference does it make? What's wrong with it?” Cassie didn't see all the dangers he did.

“He's doing it for himself, for his business, not for you. He's not sincere. He doesn't give a damn. This is business to him. He's exploiting you, Cass, and it scares me.” Everything about Williams, and his plans for Cassie, scared him.

“Why?” That was what she didn't understand. Why was he so against it? And why was he so suspicious of Desmond Williams? He had done only good things for her, but Nick saw other dangers.

“Look what happened to Earhart. She got too big for herself, she did something she never should have… a lot of people thought she wasn't capable of that last trip, and she obviously wasn't. What if he sets you up for something like that? What if that's what he's leading up to? You'll get hurt, Cass…” He felt his heart squeeze as he thought of it, and all he wanted to do was take her back to Good Hope where he knew she'd be safe forever.

“He's not doing that, Nick. I swear. He has no plans for me. At least not that I know of. And I'm a better flier than she was anyway.” It was an outrageous thing to say, and she laughed as she said it. But Nick took her seriously, as he sat there and watched her. She had gotten still lovelier in the month she'd been away and she didn't even know it.

“You are faster, as a matter of fact. And you don't know what his plans are. This guy isn't doing it for small potatoes. He's got his eye on the big time.”

“Maybe you're right,” she said, doubtfully. Maybe he did have a world tour in mind. “If he mentions anything about one, I'll tell you. I promise.”

“Be careful.” He frowned at her, still worried about her, and lit a cigarette, as she closed her eyes and sniffed the familiar fumes of his Camels. They reminded her of her father's airport… and of Nick… and the old days, of meeting at the airfield in Prairie City. Just sitting there with him made her desperately homesick, for him, and all the people she loved there. But she had missed him almost more than anyone.

In the end he relaxed, and enjoyed the fact that he was finally with her again. Being away from her for so long had almost driven him crazy. And day after day, he had thought of new plots that Williams might be hatching to exploit her. He finally stopped nagging her about Williams's plans for her, and the fact that she was being used, and they had a nice afternoon. They went for a long walk on the beach, and sat on the sand in the August sun, looking out at the ocean. It felt good just sitting side by side again, and they sat for a long time together in silence.

“There's going to be a war in Europe soon,” he said prophetically, when they started chatting again. ‘The signs are as clear as that sun up there,” he said unhappily. “Hitler won't be controlled. They're going to have to stop him.”

“Do you think we'll get into it eventually?” She loved talking to him about politics again. She had no one to talk to here. She was too solitary and too busy. Nancy talked to her about clothes, and her “escorts” just posed for pictures.

“Most people think we won't get into it,” he said quietly. “But I thing we'll have to.”

“And you?” She knew him well. Too well. She wondered if that was what he was telling her. That he felt the same pull he had felt twenty years before. She hoped not. “Would you go?”

“I'm probably too old to go.” He was thirty-eight, and not old by any means. But he could have stayed home if he'd wanted to. Pat was too old to fight another war. But Nick still had choices. “But I'd probably want to.” He smiled at her, his hair flying in the salt air, as hers did. They were sitting side by side on the sand, their shoulders touching and their hands. It was so comforting to have him near her. She had relied on him for so long, and learned so much from him. She missed him more than anyone at home, and he had found that her absence was like a physical ache that still had not abated.