Tall, Dark And Difficult

by Patricia Coughlin

  “I couldn’t complain. Every dozen or so passes with the mower, she’d appear with a cool washcloth for me to wipe my face and a big glass of cold lemonade. Real lemonade,” he informed her.

  “But of course,” she agreed with exaggerated formality. “We are talking about Devora, after all. And it had to be made in that stainless steel pitcher with the red handle…”

  “And the dent on the side,” he finished for her as their gazes touched in one of those rare instants of total affinity.

  He exhaled deeply. “This really is bringing back some memories. First Gus, then mowing the lawn and Devora’s lemonade.”

  “Do you suppose she bought the car from Gus?”

  “Beats me. I know I didn’t keep in touch the way I should have in recent years,” he acknowledged, regret a rough edge in his voice. “But Devora always seemed so…self-sufficient, so sensible.”

  “She was.”

  “You call it ‘sensible’ for a woman to suddenly decide to learn to drive at the ripe old age of—”

  “Sorry, can’t help you there,” she replied. “She was already getting around like a wild woman when I moved to town five years ago. And just for the record, I do consider it sensible and self-sufficient on her part.”

  “She was plenty self-sufficient without wheels,” he argued. “I can’t for the life of me imagine what made her change her mind after all those years.”

  “I can,” Rose said, a sudden insight bringing a smile of astonishment to her face. “Love. Don’t you see? Devora and Gus were secret lovers.”

  “Lovers?” He sounded more than astonished. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is that so? Then, what’s your explanation? I say Gus gave her the car after his stroke, when he moved to Willow Haven and could no longer drive it himself, and Devora learned to drive so she could visit him there whenever she pleased, without anyone knowing about it.”

  “That’s so far off base, it doesn’t even bear discussing.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…because…we’re talking about Aunt Devora, and she wasn’t the type to take a ‘secret lover,’ especially not Gus O’Flaherty.”

  “And why not?” demanded Rose. “Gus is a wonderful man. He’s witty and intelligent and kind and—”

  “I’m not denying that. The Gus I remember was all those things, but he was also…”

  “The hired help?” she suggested, when he hesitated.

  “More or less, and as great as she was, Devora had that uppity streak about her at times. I just don’t see it.”

  She couldn’t hold back. “I do. It makes perfect sense, all of it—the car, their friendship, the interests they had in common. Devora was devoted to her gardens, and Gus knows everything there is to know in that regard. Even now he keeps his hand in.” She told him about Gus and his beloved dahlias.

  “Did you say dahlias?” he enquired, and she nodded. “Didn’t you also tell me that Mr. Saturday Night grew dahlias?”

  “Uh-huh.” She tried to suppress a grin and failed. “Did you know that Gus is also a whiz at dominoes? Taught me everything I know.”

  “So you’re telling me that Gus O’Flaherty is Mr. Saturday Night?” Now he sounded astonished, and a little bit indignant.

  “You idiot,” she said, laughing. “There is no Mr. Saturday Night and there never was…except in your imagination. I’m telling you that you now know all there is to know about how I spend Saturday nights.”

  “You sure reeled me in,” he acknowledged, his smile grudging.

  “Only after you baited the hook yourself,” Rose reminded him.

  “Yeah, I guess maybe I did. Damn, I don’t know whether to feel relieved or annoyed as hell.” He said it without rancor.

  Just the idea that relief was among the things he felt upon learning she wasn’t seriously involved with another man pleased her more than it should have. She was still savoring the remark, when he spoke.

  “If the Gus O’Flaherty I knew played dominoes, I don’t recall it,” he said. “I do know that he also did inside work for Devora. He was the one who built those glass-front cabinets in the pantry. I remember standing right beside him with the nail bucket and handing them to him, one at a time. And I remember her calling him the time she was poking around the fireplace in her bedroom and dislodged a bee’s nest the size of a watermelon.”

  “Good heavens, that must have been awful.”

  “It was pretty scary,” he acknowledged.

  “All those bees.” She shuddered.

  “The bees were bad, too,” Griff countered, deadpan. “I was scared because it was the first time I ever saw Aunt Devora all…‘atwitter,’ as she would have put it. First time I ever heard her scream, or saw her sweat, for that matter. Or cry. Then Gus showed up, charging up the stairs like a one-man cavalry brigade. He got rid of the nest and got Devora to stop crying, and the world resumed normal operations.”

  “And you don’t think he was her lover? Her knight in shining armor?”

  “No, I don’t. I think she was a woman accustomed to having someone handle the messy details of life, and Gus was the logical one to call on to handle that one. Period.”

  “Clueless,” she muttered.

  “Delusional,” he muttered in return. He laughed then and shook his head. “Man, that was a long time ago. Almost thirty years.” He whistled softly. “Damn, thirty years.”

  “Better watch out, Griff,” she teased. “It’s a sure sign you’re getting old when you start saying things like Where did the time go? and It seems like only yesterday.”

  “It does seem like only yesterday. Sometimes anyway,” he added, his tone taking on an edge of cynicism. “Other times it feels like…another lifetime. Someone else’s lifetime.”

  She knew better than to push or pry. So she simply drove.

  “It was Gus who got me hooked on flying,” he revealed out of the blue. “He would take me up to Quonset…you know the old Army airfield at Quonset Point?”

  She nodded, familiar with the former military base about fifteen miles up the coast.

  “The guard at the gate was an old war buddy of his. Gus would tell me stories about when they’d been stationed in Italy together. Great stories. His friend would wave us through, and we’d park at the edge of the field and spend hours watching planes take off and land.”

  “That explains the hours sitting on the hood,” she guessed.

  Griff nodded. “Today you’d probably think twice about letting a kid that age go off with a stranger, but there was nothing like that about it.”

  “I don’t know. I think even then Devora would have been wary, unless she knew the man in question very, very well. Intimately, even.”

  He sent her a quick, quelling look. “And we’d eat,” he added, grinning at the recollection. “Gus brought the food, and it was always the same—meat loaf sandwiches. And sarsaparilla, the real thing, and we swigged it right from the brown-glass bottles. Something Devora would never have approved of.”

  He spoke slowly, as if the process of remembering were a private archeological dig, with pieces having to be unearthed and brought to the surface painstakingly and one at a time, to be examined.

  “You know, I never really thought much about it back then,” he went on. “Maybe because Gus always had the food waiting on the back seat when I got into the car. But it was definitely Devora’s meat loaf in those sandwiches.”

  “Ah, a meat loaf connoisseur from way back.”

  “Hey, don’t knock meat loaf. It’s right up there with franks and beans on my list of specialties.”

  “Would it come before or after frozen burritos?”

  He shot her a look of indignation. “Ingrate.”

  “I’ll work on broadening my horizons, I promise.”

  “I’ll help by making dinner for you tomorrow night.”

  Rose glanced his way, positive the invitation was not serious.

  “I mean it,” he said, reading her mind.

  “Gee, t
hat would be…great.” Suspicion furrowed her brow. “What’s on the menu?”

  “I think I’ll let that be a surprise.”

  “Do you have to smile at me like Hannibal Lecter when you say that?” she griped.

  “You have my word of honor—no fava beans.”

  “I’ll count that among my blessings.” She brushed her hair back from her face. “How did we end up talking about food, anyway? That’s right, Devora’s meat loaf sandwiches—which I will refrain from pointing out are one more argument for my side.”

  “Your restraint is admirable,” he offered, his tone droll.

  “I work at it. So how did Gus know you wanted to be a pilot when you grew up?”

  “He didn’t. Back then, I didn’t know myself. I think the first time we drove out there was because Gus wanted to catch up with his friend. Looking back, I think maybe he was killing time, looking for some way to entertain this poor kid who’d been shuttled off to Devora’s for the summer. Who knows? Maybe at first he did it more for her sake than mine, to give her a break.”

  She peered at him, letting her silence make the point this time.

  “Whatever his reason,” he said firmly, “everything changed for me after that. I changed. From the very first time I watched a plane go up, and felt the vibration of the engines and that swelling feeling in my chest and my head, I was hooked. It was like my heart went up with it, and I made up my mind then and there that someday I would, too.”

  “And you did…spectacularly, I might add.” Her admiration was sincere. “It’s not many people who figure out what they want so early and stick with it.”

  “I guess I ought to consider myself one of the lucky ones,” he countered, cynicism creeping back into his voice. “I definitely stuck with it. I never wanted to do anything but fly. As soon as I was old enough, I bugged my mother until she let me take lessons and get my pilot’s license. Then the only thing that mattered to me was getting better, getting good enough to fly solo, then to fly for the military and then to fly the best they had to offer.

  “For a while, I thought nothing could even come close to matching the rush I got flying combat missions, but I lucked out again. Something did. I found out that the only thing that could get me more pumped than flying the best combat craft, was flying it first…‘while the ink was still wet on the design’ was how we put it.”

  “Devora sometimes mentioned your work as a test pilot. She worried, of course, but she was also very proud of you, and rightfully so,” Rose added, aware of the increase of tension in the air. “It always sounded to me like a very dangerous, high-risk way to earn a living.”

  “That’s the point,” he retorted. “Risk. It’s a test pilot’s job to reduce the level of danger and risk for the pilots who’ll be flying the plane when it really counts…in combat. And just for the record, it’s not about earning a living at all.”

  “I figured that out just listening to you. It’s obvious that it’s much more. More like a passion. A labor of love.”

  He nodded, facing straight ahead. “A labor of love. Yeah, I guess you could call it that. Only it’s not just that I loved flying. It’s…”

  His hesitation prompted her to glance his way, taking in his balled fist and the rigid set of his jaw.

  “It’s that I loved being a flyer,” he said finally, the stark words underscored with regret in a way that turned Rose’s heart inside out. “Hell, I didn’t just love it. It’s what I was.” He gave a short, harsh laugh. “Are you ready for the punch line? It turns out that’s all I was. Was being the operative word. But then, you’ve probably already figured that out, too.” He shoved the cane against the door with a bitterness that was unmistakable and heart-wrenching.

  She hesitated, knowing how important it was to choose her words, even her inflection, with care. Anything that smacked of pity would make him recoil for sure. She had a hunch that false cheer and false hope would also be met with contempt.

  “Look,” she said finally, “I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t have much experience in the high-risk department. None, actually, unless you count climbing a ladder, which is sort of my own personal Mount Everest. When I see troubled waters, my first instinct is to smooth them, not dive in.”

  “I’d say that makes you a whole lot smarter than me.”

  “But this isn’t about intelligence, is it. It’s about passion. And that happens to be something I do understand, how something can be a true labor of love. And because I do, I think I can also understand, at least a little, how it must feel to have to give that up.”

  He still didn’t look at her, but at least she didn’t sense that he was throwing up the barbwire barricades.

  Heartened, she asked, “Is that what happened, Griff? Were you injured somehow and forced to retire because of it?”

  “More Gs than I could handle, that’s what happened.” His voice nearly shook with disgust—most of it directed toward himself, would be her guess.

  “I never had a problem with G force before. Not in all the hours of lab tests, not in training, not in combat.” He slammed his fist against his left thigh.

  These memories were not being excavated with care, but with contempt.

  “I was flying an F-15 Eagle—”

  “Is that like a jet?” she risked interrupting to ask.

  He looked indignant. “It’s not like a jet. It is a jet. The F-15 is the fighter jet, as far as the military is concerned. It’s the perfect mix of power and grace, moving faster than the speed of sound.”

  “I see.”

  His look suggested he doubted that, but he continued, anyway. “It was a routine test flight, BFMs—that’s Basic Fight Maneuvers, the kind of moves I could make in my sleep. The flight plan called for me to make a sharp turn over the ocean. I received an in-flight modification so that the turn came sooner and was even sharper—but even that wasn’t unusual. The turn should have maxed-out around six Gs. Instead it went over seven.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “It was that day,” he retorted. “I’d handled more than that before without G-lock. I guess my luck just ran out.”

  “What’s G-lock?”

  “The technical term is Gravity-Induced Loss of Consciousness. The extreme pressure changes at high speeds force blood away from your heart and brain. There are techniques and equipment a pilot can use to counter the effect. Most of the time they work.”

  “And when they don’t?”

  “You black out. G-lock.”

  “And that’s what happened to you? You blacked out? All alone up there, going who knows how fast? How could they take a chance like that with—?”

  “Taking chances is the whole point of test flights. I knew the risk going in.”

  “So you crashed? Into the water? Was it awful? What am I saying? Of course it was awful.”

  Her sputtering caused a small, indulgent smile to form on his lips. “Actually, I don’t remember. The one nice part of G-lock, my brain never recorded the worst of it. I do know the plane was a total loss, to the tune of fifteen million.”

  Rose realized she was clenching the steering wheel, the same way she would clench the theater seat armrests during the climax of an action movie. But there was no confusing what she was feeling with excitement or entertainment. The pain in the man beside her was too raw, too all-encompassing not to share.

  “Did you…how could…” She tripped over her own words, wanting to know it all, and right away.

  He laughed, but without any real amusement. “Lots of questions, right? Unfortunately, I don’t have any definite answers for you…or for myself. The official report by the crash analysts purports that as improbable as it is, I somehow regained consciousness in the seconds before contact with the water and automatically pulled the ejection handle.”

  “It sounds like your guardian angel was working overtime that day,” she told him.

  “That was more or less the unofficial consensus of the experts. All I know is I woke up in the hospi
tal.” He pounded his left thigh. “And in more pain than I knew was in me. My leg got the worst of it, broken in eight places, a shattered kneecap and damage to every major tendon. There were also some broken ribs, a collapsed lung and a bruised spinal cord. You come out of a plane at 730 miles per hour, and you take some hits.”

  “I can’t believe you made it…that you’re sitting here…or walking at all.”

  “Early on, the doctors warned me I might not walk again. They wouldn’t even discuss flying, which is the only thing I wanted to hear about, so I just filled in the blanks my way. I made up my own recovery plan and spent eighteen lousy months at their mercy, learning to breathe and crawl and roll over…all the way to walking again.” He grimaced. “With a damn cane—temporarily, I told myself. At first, I was just glad to be walking under my own power.”

  “And now you’re not?”

  He shrugged. “Now I figure that as far as it counts, the plane wasn’t the only thing wasted that day.”

  “I’m not going to say that’s ridiculous, even though it is. Griff, I really don’t know what to say. I can’t even imagine what it was like for you. The physical pain alone must have been horrible, but to have the threat of never walking again and the end of your career hanging over your head at the same time…”

  She had the most intense urge to stop the truck in the middle of the road and take him in her arms. She settled for taking one hand off the wheel long enough to squeeze his shoulder. “You’re pretty remarkable, you know.”

  “So I’ve been told,” he returned, his voice too smooth, too even. “A testament to what hard work and being stubborn as a mule can accomplish. Too bad it was all for nothing.”

  “Nothing?” exclaimed Rose. “Look at you. You look…wonderful. I meant to say…healthy. Strong. You can walk, and you may prove to be right about the cane being a temporary thing. God knows there’s plenty of proof that when you make up your mind to do a thing—”

  “I can’t fly,” he snapped, loudly enough that the words reverberated in the small confines of the truck and hung in the air between them. “I don’t get to make up my mind about that. Someone else does.”