Wings

He laughed softly in the warm night air. “I think you just see it as very romantic. I'm not so sure they do. Believe me, to them, it's probably just a job.”

“Maybe,” she said, not wanting to argue with him, but knowing far more than she let on to. Flying was like a secret brotherhood, one she desperately wanted to join, and so far no one would let her. But for those few moments in the air today, when Chris had let her fly the plane, that was all that mattered.

She sat thinking of it for a long time, staring into the darkness off the porch, forgetting that Bobby was even there, and then suddenly, when she heard him stir, she remembered.

“I guess I should go. You're probably tired from gassing all those planes,” he teased her. But actually, she wanted to be alone, to think of what it had been like to fly the plane. It had been so exquisite for those few minutes. “I'll see you tomorrow, Cass.”

“Good night.” He held her hand briefly and then brushed her cheek with his lips before he walked back to his father's old Model A truck with “Strong's Groceries” written across the side. In the daytime, they used it for deliveries. At night, they let Bobby drive it. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

She smiled and waved at him as he drove away, and then she walked slowly back into the house, thinking of how lucky Nick was to be flying through the night, on his way to San Diego.

3

Nick returned to Good Hope from the West Coast late Sunday night, after dropping off cargo and mail in Detroit and Chicago. He was back at his desk at six o'clock Monday morning, looking rested and energetic. It was a busy day, some new contracts had come in, and there was always more mail and cargo to be moved around. They had plenty of pilots working for them, and enough planes, but Nick still volunteered for the longer-range trips himself, and the more difficult flying. It gave him enormous satisfaction to get in a plane, and fly off into the night, especially in rotten weather. And Pat was the perfect balance for him. He was a genius at running the administrative side of their business. He still loved to fly too, but he had less time for it now, and in some ways less patience. It annoyed the hell out of him when something went wrong with a plane, or they were delayed, or their schedules got loused up. He had no patience at all for pilots' quirks and little tricks, and he made them toe the line and be 100 percent reliable, or they never flew again for O'Malley.

“Ya better watch out, Ace,” Nick teased him now and again, “you're beginning to sound like Rickenbacker,” their old commander.

“I could do a lot worse, Stick. And so could you,” Pat would growl back at him, using Nick's old wartime nickname. His wartime history was every bit as colorful as Pat's. Nick had once fought the famed German flying ace Ernst Udet to a standoff, and brought his plane back safely even though he'd been wounded. But that was all behind them now. The only time Nick thought of the war was when he was fighting weather, or bringing in a limping plane. He had had a few close calls in the seventeen years he'd flown for Pat, but none as dramatic as his wartime adventures.

Nick was reminded of one of them late that afternoon, as they watched a storm brewing in the east, and mentioned it to Pat. There had been a terrible storm he'd gotten caught in during the war, and flew so low to the ground to get under the clouds, he had almost scraped the plane's belly. Pat laughed, remembering it; he'd given Nick hell for flying that low, but he'd managed to save himself and the plane. Two other men had gotten lost in the same storm and never made it.

“Scared the hell out of me,” Nick admitted, two decades later.

“You looked a little green when you got in, as I recall.” Pat needled him a little bit, and they watched the ominous black clouds gather in the distance. Nick was still tired from the long flight from the West Coast the day before, but he wanted to finish his paperwork before he went home to sleep. And when he walked back into the office with Pat, after checking the condition of some planes, he noticed Chris in the distance, chatting with Cassie. They seemed intent in conversation and neither of them noticed him. He couldn't imagine what they were saying. Nor did it worry him. He knew that the weather was looking too ominous for Chris to want to go up with him or practice solo.

Cassie and Chris were still talking after Nick disappeared back into the office, and Cassie was shouting at him over the roar of some nearby engines.

“Don't be stupid! We only have to go up and down for a few minutes. The storm is still hours away. I listened to all the weather reports this morning. Don't be such a damn chicken, Chris.”

“I don't want to go up when the weather looks like this, Cass. We can go tomorrow.”

“I want to go now.” The dark clouds rushing past them overhead only seemed to excite her further, “it would be fun.”