Wings

“Maybe I should give up flying, and we should just stay in bed and make babies,” she said, and then she groaned at herself, thinking that she was becoming just like her sisters. It made her wonder if this was what had happened to them; it was just so easy to be swept away, in the arms of a man you loved, and abandon yourself to the pleasures of the flesh, and their obvious rewards, in the natural order.

“I always thought they were missing so much by marrying so young, and having so many kids,” she explained to him as they lay side by side on the bed, their bodies hot and damp and sated. “But I guess I can see now how it happens. It's just so easy to let things be, to be a woman, and get married and have babies.”

But Desmond shook his head as he listened to her. “You can never do that, Cass. You're destined (or far greater things.”

“Maybe. For now.” If he said so. Right now, she felt as though she were destined (or nothing more than his arms, and she didn't want more. That was enough (or her. Just to be his. Forever. Her sudden introduction to the physical side of him had swept her to a place she had never known, or understood before, and she liked it. “But one day I'd like to have kids.” And he had said he would be willing if that was what she wanted.

“You have a lot to do first. Important things,” he said, sounding like a schoolteacher again, and she grinned, and turned over to look at him and run a lazy finger enticingly around him.

“I can think of some very important things…” she said mischievously, as he laughed and let her do as she wanted. The results were inevitable. And the sun was setting on their desert island when they fell from each other again like two bits of lifeless flotsam in the ocean.

“How was the honeymoon?” the reporters shouted at them from their front lawn as they got home. As usual, they had somehow learned when the Williamses would be arriving, and as the limousine drove up, the reporters rushed forward. Sometimes it made her wonder how they always knew where they would be and where they were going.

They could hardly get through the door into the house, and then as usual, Desmond stopped for a moment and spoke to them, and while he did, they snapped a thousand pictures. The one on the cover of life the next week was of Desmond carrying Cassie over the threshold.

But from that moment on, for Cassie, the honeymoon was over. They had been gone for two idyllic weeks, and the first morning back, he woke her at three, and she was back in training in her North Star by four o'clock that morning.

Their schedule was grueling and she and Billy were put through their paces a thousand times. They simulated every disaster possible, taking off and landing with one engine, then two, flying in with both engines cut, and practicing landing on the shortest of runways and in ferocious crosswinds. They also simulated landings in all kinds of conditions, from the difficult to nearly impossible. They also simulated long distance flying for hours at a stretch. And whenever they weren't flying, they were poring over charts, weather maps, and fuel tables. They met with the designers and engineers, and learned every possible repair from the mechanics. Billy spent hours practicing with the radio equipment, and Cassie in the Link Trainer, learning to fly blind, in all conditions.

She and Billy flew hard and flew well; they were a great team, and by April, they were doing stunts that would have dazzled any air show. They spent fourteen hours together every day and Desmond brought her to work at four A.M., and picked her up promptly at six o'clock every night. He took her home, where she bathed, and they ate a quick dinner. Then he retired to his study with a briefcase full of notes and plans for the tour, and recently with requests for visas. He was also busy arranging for fuel to be shipped to each of their stops. And of course he was negotiating contracts now for articles and books afterward. Generally he brought papers for her to look over too, about weather conditions around the world, important new developments in aviation, or areas they would have to watch out for on the tour, given the sensitivities of the world situation. It was like doing homework every night, and after a long day of flying she was seldom in the mood to do it. She wanted to go out to dinner with him once in a while, or to a movie. She was a twenty-one-year-old girl, and he was treating her like a robot. The only times they went out at all were to the important social events that he thought were useful for her to be seen at.

“Can't we do anything that doesn't have to do with the tour anymore?” she complained one night when he had brought her a particularly thick stack of papers, and reminded her that they needed her immediate attention.

“Not now. You can play next winter, unless you've planned another record-setting flight. Right now, you have to get down to business,” he said firmly.

“That's all we do,” she whined, and he looked at her with disapproval.

“Do you want to end up like the Star of the Pleiades?“ he asked angrily. It was Earhart's plane, and there were times when Cassie was sick of hearing him say it.

She took the papers from him, and went back upstairs, slamming her study door behind her. She apologized to him later on, and as always, he was very understanding.

“I want you to be prepared, Cassie, in every possible way, so there will never be a mishap,” But there were elements they both knew he wouldn't be able to anticipate for her, like storms, or problems with the engine. But so far, he had thought of everything, down to the merest detail.

Even Pat was vastly impressed by what she told him of their preparations. The man was a genius at planning and precision. And more so at public relations. Even if he was compulsive about all his plans, he had her safety in mind, and her well-being.

And as a reward for her hard work, he took her to San Francisco for a romantic weekend in late April, and Cassie thoroughly enjoyed it, except for the fact that he had set up three interviews for her when they got there.

Their publicity stepped up radically in May. There were press conferences every week, and footage of her flying in newsreels. She and Billy made appearances everywhere: on radio and at women's clubs. They did endorsements and posed for photographs constantly. She felt sometimes as though she had no life of her own anymore, and in fact she didn't. And the harder they worked, and the closer they got to the tour, the less time she and Desmond spent together. He even went to his club a few hours at night sometimes, just to get a breather. And more often than not, by late May, he read papers in his study until he fell asleep there.

She was so sick of it that he suggested she go home for a weekend in May, for a break, and she was relieved to go. She was also happy to see her parents. This time it meant not being with Desmond on her birthday, but he gave her a beautiful sapphire bracelet before she left and told her they'd be together for the next fifty. Even she didn't feel it was a tragedy to miss this one. She was too tense now before the tour to enjoy it much anyway. And she and Desmond seemed miles apart these days. All he cared about was the tour.

It was ridiculous; she was turning twenty-two years old, married to one of the most important men in the world. She was one of the most celebrated women herself, and she was feeling restless and unhappy. All Desmond talked about was the tour, all he wanted to do was read about it, all he wanted her to do was pose for pictures, and spend fifteen hours a day flying. There was more to life than that. At least she thought so, but he didn't seem to know she was alive these days. And in some ways, she wasn't. There was certainly no romance in their life. Just the tour and its myriad preparations.

“How much goddamned flying can we do?” she complained to Billy on the way home. He had decided to come with her for the long weekend. “I swear, sometimes I think I'm beginning to hate it.”

“You'll feel better once we get under way, Cass. It's just rough waiting to go now.” The tour was only five weeks away, and they were both getting tense about it. Cassie could feel it. And on top of it, she had been married for three and a half months, and she felt as though she were no closer to Desmond than before they got married. Their nights together certainly weren't romantic, she thought to herself as they flew east, but she didn't say anything to Billy.

Instead they talked about the press conferences Desmond had set up in L.A. and New York. And he wanted them to go to Chicago for an interview after the weekend, but so far Cassie hadn't agreed to do it.

“God, it's exhausting, isn't it?” She smiled at Billy when they were halfway there. She was glad she was going home. She needed to see her parents.

“I figure that later we'll think it was all worth it,” Billy encouraged her, and she shrugged, feeling better.

“I hope so.”

They flew on in silence for a while, and then he looked at her. She had looked particularly tired and unhappy lately. He suspected that the constant pressure from the press was getting to her. They were a lot easier on him. But they devoured Cassie, and Desmond never seemed to protect her from them. On the contrary, he liked them.