“Hey, if you aren’t spending a dollar a minute, you aren’t having any fun. Tonight I’m having fun. This one’s on me.”
“Is he always like this?” Judith asked Callie.
“When he’s on good behavior,” Callie told her.
“Okay, I have a question you are qualified to comment on. Do you think the law should be changed so that women can serve on all navy ships, in all career specialities?”
“Why not? There isn’t a job in the navy that a woman couldn’t do.”
“Come on, CAG,” Toad scoffed. “You can’t mean that! Can you imagine having women in the ready rooms? In the wardroom? The navy would never be the same.”
“It would be different,” Jake acknowledged. “But so what? We need their talent and brains, same as we need the abilities of the blacks and Chicanos. Sexual segregation is the same as racial segregation. People use the same arguments to justify it. People will see that someday.”
“You surprise me, Captain,” Judith Farrell said softly.
“Me, too,” Toad sighed gloomily.
Judith picked up her purse and stood. “Thank you for the lovely evening, Callie, Captain Grafton.” She walked away without a glance at Toad.
“Toad Tarkington,” Callie said. “You owe Judith and me an apology.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by that, Mrs. Grafton,” Toad said, reddening slightly. “But the CAG wanted me to get rid of her and I wasn’t making much progress on the romantic angle.”
The whites of Callie’s eyes became very noticeable and her lips compressed to a thin, straight line. “Thanks a heap, Toad,” Jake said disgustedly.
“Uh, well, I guess I’d better be shoving off.” Tarkington rose hastily. “Thanks for the fine meal. ’Night, Mrs. Grafton.” He tossed the last phrase over his shoulder as he marched for the elevators.
“Callie, I’m sorry. I thought Judith and Toad would hit it off.”
“Oh no you didn’t. You don’t like her.”
“She’s okay. A little strident. But she’s a reporter and I don’t need any reporters. I was hoping Toad could waltz her off for drinks and whispers, and you and I could be alone.”
Callie giggled. “She had you stereotyped.”
“Yeah, as a Mark One, Mod Zero military Neanderthal. All Toad did was act like one.”
Judith Farrell sat in a stall in the ladies’ room off the lobby with her purse on her lap. She smoothed a thousand-lire note and wrote on it in block letters, “The rabbit was good. You must try it soon.” She placed the pen back in her purse and made some noise with the roll of toilet paper. She flushed the toilet, and after washing her hands, handed the thousand-lire note to the rest room attendant on her way out.
The street was too dimly lit. Jake swore to himself when he realized his eyes were not going to adjust. He stumbled twice and felt Callie’s arm on his elbow.
“Ha! How does it feel to lead a blind man?”
“You just need some practice in this light.”
“Like hell. I just need more light.”
“Don’t we all,” she said mildly and tightened her grip on his arm.
“Why are we out here, anyway?”
“Because we both needed a walk.”
He relaxed a little when he realized he could see, though not very well. How the devil had he flown like this? It was a miracle he was still alive. He snorted again.
“Maybe it would be better if you put your hand on my arm and let me stay about a half step ahead.” They tried it, and it did work better. “See, you can feel me step up or down.”
“Yeah,” Jake said sourly.
“Don’t you wish you had eaten your carrots all these years?”
Jake found himself smiling. He swung her around and hugged her. Four blocks further on they came to a small bistro and sat at one of the outside tables under an umbrella labeled “Campari,” after a local wine. They each ordered a glass. Light from the window behind them fell upon the table and traffic rattled by.
“Do you want to stay in the navy now that you can’t fly?”
“I don’t know. That beach house sounds awfully good right now. But I’m not sure how it would wear in six months or a year. I’m afraid I’d go stir crazy.”
“You could always find something to do. Perhaps open a shop. Or go back to school for a master’s. Don’t think you’re going to sit and wait to grow old.” Her tone implied that if he did think that, he had better rethink it “Perhaps you could teach classes at some civilian flight school.”
“I don’t want to see and smell and taste it and not be able to touch it.” He sipped the wine. “But I guess I’ve nothing to complain about. Flying has been pretty good to me.”
“I guess it has,” she said. “You’re still alive, in one piece, reasonably sane.”
“Hmmm,” he muttered, seeing Mad Dog Reed sitting in his office, explaining why he should go on to other things. God, how many of those faces had he seen in the last twenty years? So many dead men, so many withered, malnourished, blighted marriages, so many kids with only part-time fathers or no father at all, so many talents squandered and dreams shattered when careers went on the rocks or promotions failed to arrive. What had all this … waste … what had it bought?
And Jake Grafton? What had he spent the last twenty years doing? Driving airplanes! Dropped some bombs in Vietnam, and we lost that one. Taught a bunch of guys to fly, pushed a few mountains of paper, and drilled a lot of holes in the sky. Made a lot of landings. Got promoted. What else? Oh yes, spent fifteen years married to a beautiful woman, but only was there about half the time.
And buried some guys. Attended too many memorial services and too many changes of command, too many retirement ceremonies, made too many false promises about keeping in touch.
“I’m glad,” he said at last, “that you think I’m reasonably sane.”
An hour later they watched the moon set from their hotel balcony. As it sank toward the sea it appeared embedded in the clouds, which glowed with a golden light.
“You know,” Jake said, “I guess it’s the flying I’ve always went back to.” The lower edge of the moon slid into the sliver of open space between the clouds and the sea. The sky with all of its moods and all of its faces was always new, never the same twice. But the flying, the flying — the stick in his right hand and the throttles in his left, the rudder pedals under his feet, soaring as he willed it with the engines pushing — the flying was pure and clean and truly perfect. When strapped to an ejection seat, encased in nomex and helmet and mask and gloves and survival gear, sucking the dry oxygen with its hint of rubber, he was free in a way that earth-bound humans could never understand. As he sat here tonight he could feel the euphoria and freedom once again as the flying came flooding back and he flew through an infinite sky under an all-knowing sun. Irritated with himself, he shook the memory off. “For what? I’m no wiser, no richer, certainly not a better person. Why in hell did I keep going back?”
“Because you couldn’t leave it, Jake,” Callie said softly.
“I’m not going to miss the night cat shots, though. I’ve had enough of those to last three lifetimes. I’m not going to miss the damned paperwork or all those long, miserable days at sea with no mail. And the ruthless, implacable bastards that make it all happen — the ‘results matter, everything else is bullshit’ crowd — I won’t miss them either.” He realized he was feeling his pockets for cigarettes. “I guess the bag is empty. Maybe I just never had any answers and am finally old enough to realize it.”
“Whom are you trying to convince?”
“Myself, I guess.” He examined his hands with the chewed fingernails, then remembered Majeska doing that not many hours before, so he stuffed his hands into his pockets. “We all go through life making choices, and each of us has to live with his choices, good, bad, or indifferent. But occasionally, every now and then, someone makes a mistake and finds that he can’t live with it. And he can’t correct it.”
“Not you, I hope?”
“A guy on the ship.”
“Someone I know?”
