Wings

“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.”