Wings

“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.

“I don't want you to go,” she said unhappily, looking into the blue eyes she knew so well, with the small crow's-feet beside them. She couldn't bear the thought of losing him. She wanted to make him promise he wouldn't go to another war in Europe.

“I couldn't bear it if anything happened to you, Nick.” She said it so softly he could hardly hear her.

“We take the same risks every day,” he said honestly. “You can run into trouble tomorrow, so can I. I think we both know that.”

“That's different.”

“Not really. I worry about you out here too. Flying those planes is risky business. You're dealing with high speeds, and heavy machines, and altered engines at unusual altitudes. You're looking for problems and trying to set records. That's about as dangerous as you get,” he said grimly. “I keep worrying that you're going to crash somewhere in one of his damn test planes.” He looked at her seriously and they both recognized the danger. “Besides, your dad says women pilots can't fly worth a damn.” He grinned and she laughed.

“Thanks.”

“I know what a lousy teacher you had.”

“Yeah.” She smiled up at him, and touched his face with her fingers. “I miss you a lot… I miss the days when we used to hang out and talk on our runway.”

“So do I,” he said softly, and curled her fingers into his. “Those were some special times.” She nodded, and neither of them said anything for a long time, and then they walked along the beach for a while and talked about family and friends back home. Her brother hadn't flown since the air show, and her father didn't seem to mind. Chris was busy with school now. Colleen was pregnant again. To Cassie, it seemed endless. And Bobby had started seeing Peggy Bradshaw. She was widowed and alone with two small kids, and Nick had seen him more than once, driving his truck to her little cottage.

“She'd be good for him,” Cassie said fairly, surprised at how little she felt for him. It was only amazing that they had been engaged for a year and a half. They never should have been. “And now shell hate flying as much as he does,” she said sadly, thinking of the horrifying accident at the air show. It had been so awful.

“You'd have been miserable with him,” Nick said, looking down at her possessively. He wanted to stay right here and protect her, from being used, or endangered.

“I know. I think I even knew that then. I just didn't know how to get out of it without hurting his feelings. And I really thought I was supposed to many him. I don't know what I'm going to do,” she said, looking out at the horizon. “One of these days everyone's going to want me to grow up and get out of the sky, and then what am I going to do, Nick? I don't think I could stand it.”

“Maybe you can figure out a way to have both one day. A real life, and flying. I never have, but you're smarter than I am.” He was always honest with her. Most of them made a choice. He had made his. And so had she, for the moment.

“I don't see why you can't have both. But nobody else seems to believe that.”

“It's not much of a life for the other guy, and most people are smart enough to know that. Bobby was. So was my wife.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, “I guess so.”

They went back to her apartment after that, and talked some more. And he promised to tell her mother all about where she lived. And afterward she drove him to the airport. She got into the familiar Bellanca with him, and she almost cried. It was like going home. She sat there with him for a long time, and then finally, she got out, once he was on the runway.