Everyone, with the exception of Captain Daniel fucking Anderson and I, are on a first name basis. I’ve given up trying with him. If he wants to be a prick, that’s fine. I’ve been dealing with bull-shit attitudes from men my entire career and I have added him to the list. As long as he does his job, that’s all that matters.
“What can I do for you?” I ask, as I pound along.
“Eliza, I’m sorry.”
That gets my attention and I slow to a walk, trying to get my wind back. “For what, Captain?”
“For my attitude. I haven’t, uh, been exactly welcoming.”
“No, you haven’t. So, why the sudden change?” I ask, as we coast to a stop.
“French.” Boomer grins sheepishly. “He called me some bad names today.”
I smile slightly. “I see. And he has convinced you that I’m not the ‘Wicked Witch of the West’ after all?” I was never mad at Boomer. I just don’t understand why men have to be such jerks sometimes. If he is willing to stop being a jerk, then I’m willing to listen to what he has to say. With the exception of his attitude towards me, Teddy, and Linda, the lone women, Boomer seems to be a really nice guy. It’s just with the women, he is so standoffish that it’s almost insulting. If he is willing to move beyond whatever his personal hang-up with women is, the least I can do is not be a bitch.
“Something like that. I would, uh, like to make it up to you sometime.”
“Okay. Can we start by you not calling me Major all the time? My name is Eliza.”
Boomer smiles. “Okay, Eliza.”
I damn near come on the spot. Boomers million watt smile makes me weak in the knees. It should be against the law to be that good looking. For a while, I kind of had the hots for French. Then, I found out he has a steady girlfriend. Damn it.
As good looking as French is, he doesn’t have shit on Boomer. I smile back at Boomer. “Now, that wasn’t so hard was it?”
Boomer chuckles. “No. Not really. Uh. Listen, Eliza, uh, I was wondering if you would like to go see a little bit of Vegas. I don’t think you have been anywhere other than the hangar and the visiting officer’s quarters since you arrived.”
I hit Boomer with my best smile. “I would like that. I am getting a little stir crazy. I need to finish this run and then get cleaned up. So, pick me up, in two hours?”
Boomer smiles. “See you then.”
***
About two hours later, I hear a soft rap on my door. This is a business trip for me, so I didn’t exactly come prepared to party. I did bring one evening dress. I have let my hair down and put in my contacts, since I’m not on duty. I check myself in the mirror before I open the door.
I open the door and Danny is standing there dressed in khaki pants, loafers, and a snug fitting polo shirt. He looks good. “I’m underdressed,” Danny says, when he sees me. A big smile breaks out on his face.
I’m dressed in a knee length dress of the richest red. It has a deep plunge in the front and back. A slit up one side plays peek-a-boo with my thigh, as I walk. The dress is cut and fitted to show off my curves. While not fat, the military frowns on fat, I’m a full figured girl. The way I see it, if you got, you might as well flaunt it. “This is all that I have,” I say with shrug.
“Don’t change a thing.”
Danny gives me the nickel tour of Las Vegas. We hit a lot of the same spots as Teddy and I did, but I don’t mind. Teddy is good company, but Danny...bow-wow, grrr, meow! We stop for dinner at the Golden Steer Steakhouse, a local landmark. As Danny fills me in on the “who’s who” of those who have eaten there. I look around. I can almost see Elvis, Sinatra, and Joe DiMaggio.
“Tell me, Eliza, why are you in the Air Force?” Danny asks with an abrupt change in subject.
“What?” I ask, trying to keep up.
“Since I first met you, I have been wondering why you are in the military. If I may be so bold, you are simply stunning. Why aren’t you a model or a movie star or something?”
I can feel myself blush. “I don’t know about that,” I demure.
“Don’t,” Danny says. “One thing I have admired about you is your no-nonsense, straight shooting, cut the bull-shit attitude. Don’t play games. It’s beneath you.”
I grin. He has me pegged alright. “Okay. I joined because I wanted to. I grew up on farm with my hippy parents. I’m one of five kids, the youngest and the only girl. I have always been a tomboy. I joined AFJROTC in high school and liked it. I was the squadron commander my senior year. I went on to the Air Force Academy and here I am. My parents nearly shit when I joined AFJROTC. They practically disowned me when I went to the Air Force Academy. I joined after graduation. I have a PhD in software design and a Masters in electrical engineering. So, working at the Air Force Research Lab is like having the world’s biggest toy box.”
“Wow!” Danny says, his eyebrows going up. “That’s some Curricula Vitae. I’m impressed.”
“Yeah. The Air Force has been good to me,” I say, as the waiter walks up.
“Why is that?” Danny asks after we order.
“Why is what?” I ask, having lost the thread of the conversation while I drooled over the available steaks.
“Why did your parents disown you? Sounds to me like their buttons should be popping off their shirts.”
“Well, they haven’t disowned me, exactly. Remember I said they were hippies? Flower children of the seventies. War bad, love good. All that shit. I think they still believe that one of the required classes at the Air Force Academy is Baby Killing 101. They’ll never understand, so we don’t talk about it. It helps that my brothers are all on my side.”
“I’ll never understand people like that,” Danny says. “They have no idea what we do.”
I laugh. “I know. You can’t tell them either. All they know is I eat meat, vote Republican, and I’m an officer in the United States fuckin’ Air Force. They think I must be a brainwashed stooge of the military industrial complex. I love ‘em to death, but wow.”
Danny grins. “Wow is right.”
“So, dish. What’s your story?”
“I don’t have a story.” Danny says quietly.
“Now you don’t,” I say. “There must be more to Boomer Anderson than just flying F-16s.”
“Not really,” Danny says. “I’m a lot like you. My mom ran out on my dad and me when I was young. I can barely remember her face. My dad must have really loved her because to this day he won’t say a negative word about her. I haven’t seen her since. I went to college at the University of Texas, joined ROTC there, and got a degree in mechanical engineering. That’s it.”
“And now you fly jets,” I say.
“And now I fly jets,” Danny agrees.
“You like it?”
“Ohhh, yeah,” Danny drawls out. “Better than sex.”
I burst into laughter. “You’re not doing it right then.”
“What? Sex or flying.”
“Sex.”
“How would you know? Ever been in a high performance jet?”
“No, can’t say that I have.”
“Want to?”
“What? Fly in a fighter?”
“Yeah. I can make it happen.”
I think it over. That would be one for the memory banks. “Sure. I would love too. Would you be driving?”
“Of course.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Why what?”
“Why would you offer to do this for me? I thought you hated me.”
Danny is solemn for a moment. “I never hated you, Eliza. I just…never mind, it’s complicated.”
“Huh-uh. Come on. Spill it. I would like to know. If you didn’t dislike me, you gave a damn good impression.”
Danny obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, but silence is a powerful weapon. I wait him out. “It’s not you,” Danny begins, as he cuts into his steak. “I’ve just not had much luck with women.”
“Oh, that’s bullshit and you know it,” I say. “You probabl
y have to beat women off with a stick.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Danny says softly.
I grimace, realizing I have stepped in it now. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand. Forgive me for prying.”
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago. Mom leaving. Then, I was thinking about asking this girl to marry me, only to find out she was two-timing me. There have been a couple of others. For one reason or another, it always ended in disaster.”
The chick that was fucking around on him must have been stupid. If I could come home to that every night, I wouldn’t be able to fuck anyone else because my ass would be worn out. “I’m sorry, Danny. I didn’t mean to pry. You must know that not all women are like that, especially those that you just work with.”
“I know. That’s what French was giving me a ration of shit about today. He chewed my ass out but good. I guess I deserve it.”
“Well, with me anyway, don’t worry about it. In less than two weeks, I’ll be gone and you won’t have to deal with me anymore.”
Danny’s admission puts a bit of a damper on the evening, but I like him better for it. Yes, he was a prick, but at least I can sort of see where he was coming from. He’s obviously making an effort with me, so I’ll give him bonus points for that.
When he drops me off at my door, I offer myself to him. I want him to kiss me so badly I can barely stand it. He simply says goodbye and leaves. Damn him.
***
“You ready, Major?” Boomer’s voice says in my ears. It has been three days since our lone dinner date. Danny has made good on his promise and I’m sitting in the back seat of an F-16.
“Ready when you are, Captain.”
Boomer taxies the aircraft to the runway and a bomb goes off in my backside. The F-16 roars down the runway and Boomer pulls the plane into a near vertical climb. I expected him to do something like this, so I don’t scream. As we reach altitude, he pulls the plane over into a bone-crushing turn. I begin to grunt, deep in my gut, as I have been instructed. At the moment, I’m trying to prevent myself from blacking out. I manage to hang on, barely, as he snaps the plane over into a hard drive. I feel the plane shudder. Then, it becomes eerily quiet. We have just gone supersonic.
We spend the next twenty minutes dancing in the sky. I do end up blacking out, more than once. I also puke into one of the barf bags that I have been given. The flight surgeon had warned me that I would. He had told me that everyone pukes. Then, he told me to have peanut butter and bananas for breakfast. When I asked if they would settle my stomach he said, “No, they taste the same coming up as they do going down.” At the time I thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t.
I have always respected pilots and what they can do. Now, that respect has been multiplied by a factor of ten. No, make that ten thousand.
“Watch this,” Boomer says, as we dive down. We shriek over the desert floor. We are not even thirty feed off the ground. We pass a ramshackled pickup, heading up the road. As we blaze past, Boomer pulls up and inverts the jet. I watch the pickup spin off the road and into the desert.
I begin to giggle and, so help me, I can’t stop it. “He’s never going to get the stain out of that seat,” I chortle.
Boomer chuckles. “Best game around. Not one driver in a hundred can keep a car on the road when we come over them like that. I think it is the noise that gets them. They never hear us coming. When we flash over them and the sound wave hits, it’s Katie bar the door.”
“You’re not going to get in trouble for that, are you?” I ask.
“Naw. It’s like a rite of passage around here. If you haven’t been buzzed by a jet, you just haven’t been in Las Vegas long enough.”
“Ever happened to you?”
“Hell yes. The guys can spot my Porsche from fifty miles out. They go out of their way to do it to me.”
“Do you spin out in the desert?”
Boomer is quite and I have my answer. “Not since the first time,” he finally admits sheepishly.
***
When we finally bring the jet down, Boomer has to help me out of the plane. For some reason, my legs don’t work right. He and a laughing French have to help hold me up a moment until I can my legs under me again. The entire ground crew turns out and fires off precision salutes, as Boomer pins a pair of plastic kid’s wings to my chest. I have a rack full of ribbons, but I know I’ll treasure these silly little plastic wings above all the others.
That evening we have dinner with Ron and his squeeze, Kim. Danny is teased merciless by Ron that he finally has a date. Me. I don’t know if I look at it quite that way. I’m sure Danny doesn’t either, but he takes it in good humor anyway. We eat our steaks. Then, we drink beer at Ron’s house until late into the night.
I’ve never been married. I’ve had my fair share of dates with good looking men, but I can’t recall enjoying an evening more than this one. I know I’m not a pilot, but I feel a bond with these men. It’s one I haven’t felt with any of my other brothers and sisters in arms.
It is nearly midnight and the four of us are sitting in the darkness, enjoying the cool night air and sipping beer. Tomorrow is Saturday. I will be flying home to Dayton the following Wednesday. I’m ready to get home and see Tom, my cat. Other than that, I find I’m not really looking forward to leaving.
Ron and Kim are sitting a glider, gently swinging. Kim’s head rests on Ron’s shoulder. I smile as I watch. Those two are going to be married someday. I hope I get an invitation. Danny and I should be going. Ron and Kim have business to attend to tonight and Danny and I are holding them up.
“Ron, Kim, thank you so much for a lovely evening. I’ve enjoyed it very much,” I say, prompting Danny to take our leave.
We’ve enjoyed having you, Eliza,” Kim says, rousing herself. “Danny and Ron are thick as thieves, but it’s been nice to have another woman around,” Kim says with a pointed look at Danny.
Danny looks at the ground, perhaps in embarrassment. I wonder what the story is there. “If you get up to Wright-Patterson, look me up. I’ll set up a special tour of the museum, if you're interested,” I offer Kim. Nellis has the Thunderbirds, Wright-Patterson the Air Force Museum. Not exactly the same, but it’s the best I can do.
“Maybe we will sometime,” Ron says. “Twelve years in the Air Force and I haven’t seen it yet. That’s just embarrassing.”
“I’ll see you later, Kim,” Danny says, getting to his feet. “Thank you for feeding me, again.”
Kim smiles. She obviously likes Danny, so I guess he has worked through his issues with her, as well. Perhaps, for Ron’s sake, he has packed away his feelings. “Any time, Danny. Ron mopes when you’re not around for a long time,” she teases.
***
“You better drive,” Danny says as we walk to his car. “I think I’ve had a few too many.”
I’m probably borderline myself, but I’m in better shape than Danny is. “How will I get back to where I’m staying?” I ask.
“Just stay at my house,” Danny says. “I have an extra room.”
“And what will that do to the stone-cold-woman-hater reputation that you have?” I ask, but my heart speeds up at the thought of what might happen. What I hope will happen.
“I don’t hate women, Eliza,” Danny says with a sigh. “It’s just…complicated.”
“So explain it to me then,” I say as we sit down in his car and I adjust the controls.
“It’s like Kim. She’s Ron’s girl and I like her. I like her a lot. She’s good for him. He’s been more at peace in the last two years, since she has been around, than I can remember.”
“So what’s the problem with Linda or Teddy. Or me?” I ask as we pull out onto the road.
“I don’t know. I feel bad about how I sometimes treat Linda. She is damn good at her job. One of the best avionics technicians there is. But,” I wait while Danny thinks. “I don’t know!” Danny finally admits. “It is just so damn hard to let go of old prejudices.”
I have no idea wh
ere Danny lives, so I just drive, trying to let Danny work this out. I feel like there is some kind of breakthrough coming and I don’t want to spoil the moment. “Well, at least you are honest with yourself. You’re right. Linda is very, very good. You should be thankful she’s servicing your bird.”
“I am!” Danny says.
“Have you told her?” I ask as we begin to leave the lights of Las Vegas behind. The car is nearly full of gas. We’ve got plenty of time.
“No,” Danny admits. “I haven’t.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know! Because I’m an asshole, I guess.”
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