Wings

by Danielle Steel

  “I guess. But it feels weird to be one. I keep thinking to myself I'm just me… but they act as though… I don't know… as though I were someone else, someone I don't even know… and now they want to know everything, they want to be part of it.” It was almost as though they wanted to own her. And the thought of that made her uncomfortable. She had tried to explain it one night to her father, and he had reminded her that it would get worse after the tour. Look at the price poor Lindy had paid… his infant son kidnapped and killed… the price of fame could be frightening. But Pat hoped that Desmond would protect her.

  “You belong to them now, Cass,” Desmond said, as though he believed that. And stranger still, he seemed to accept it. ‘They want you. It's not fair to hold back. They want to share in your happiness. It's a nice thing to give them.” Desmond always seemed to feel as though he owed a great deal to the public.

  But she wasn't prepared for the intensity of their attention over the next six weeks until their wedding. She was followed everywhere, and photographed, at the hangar, in the office going over charts and maps with Billy, outside her apartment, on the way to work, in department stores, shopping for her wedding dress, and any time she appeared anywhere with Desmond.

  She took Nancy Firestone with her everywhere now, and sometimes she even tried to hide, with a big hat, or a scarf and dark glasses. But the persistence of the press was astounding. They hung off fire escapes and ledges, dropped from awnings, lay under bushes and in cars. They popped out at her constantly, from everywhere, and by early February Cassie thought they would drive her crazy. And for once, Nancy was of fairly little help to her. With anything. As organized as she was, Nancy seemed to have a lot on her mind, and she seemed less interested than usual in the details of Cassie's wedding. Desmond had told Cassie not to worry about it, and he was having Miss Fitzpatrick and an assistant handle most of the details. Cassie had enough to do just dealing with the press, and getting ready for the Pacific tour. He didn't want her too distracted by having to organize her own wedding.

  But when Cassie tried to talk to him about Nancy Firestone, he never took her seriously. She was trying to explain to him that she had the impression lately that Nancy was annoyed at her and she wasn't sure why. Nancy had been irritable and cool ever since she and Desmond had announced their engagement. And there was no rational explanation for it. Nancy herself seemed to spend less time with her, and on the one evening Cassie had invited her for dinner, she had insisted that she had to stay home and help Jane with her homework.

  “I don't know what's wrong with her. I feel awful. Sometimes I get the feeling she hates me.” They had never gotten as close as Cassie had once thought they might when they first met, but they had always been on good terms, and enjoyed each other's company when they worked together.

  “The wedding probably upsets her,” Desmond said sensibly, with the rationality of a man, analyzing the situation, “it probably reminds her of her husband. So she's backed off so as not to get too involved, or upset. It probably brings up painful memories for her,” he said, smiling at his bride. She was so young, there were a lot of things she didn't think of. “I told you, just work with Miss Fitzpatrick.”

  “I will. And I'm sure you're right. I feel like a moron for not thinking of it.” And the next time she saw her, she realized that Desmond's explanation fit completely. Nancy was short with her more than once, and a little brittle when Cassie asked her advice about some detail of the wedding. And from then on, for Nancy's sake, Cassie took Desmond's advice and kept her distance.

  She did her best to cope with the press herself, but at times they were truly impossible to deal with.

  “Don't they ever stop?” Cassie gasped one day, as she ran into Desmond's house through the kitchen, and collapsed into a chair, exhausted. She had been trying to move some of her things from her apartment, but someone must have tipped them off. They had arrived en masse before she ever got through the door, and from then on it was sheer circus.

  Desmond came in the front door half an hour later, and they besieged him, and finally he convinced her to come out and pose for a few pictures with him and get it over with. He had a great way with them. He always gave them just enough to keep them happy.

  “Are you nervous yet?” one reporter shouted at her and she grinned back at them and nodded.

  “Only about you tripping me on my wedding day,” she quipped back, and they laughed and shouted at her.

  “We'll be there.”

  Desmond and Cassie went back inside a few minutes later, and after that the reporters went away, until the following morning.

  Her parents arrived the day before her wedding day, and Desmond had arranged for a suite for them at the Beverly Wilshire. None of her sisters had come, finally. It was just too complicated with all of their children. And Cassie was especially touched that Desmond had asked Billy to be his best man. It was really going to be the home team at their wedding. Her father would give her away, even though the ceremony was being performed by a judge. And she had asked Nancy Firestone to be her matron of honor. Nancy had balked at first, claiming that one of her sisters really should be. But in the end, she'd relented after Desmond talked to her. They had selected a gray satin dress for her, and an exquisitely made white one for Cassie, by Schiaparelli. I. Magnin had made her a little hat to match, with a short white veil, and she was going to carry a bouquet of white orchids, lily of the valley, grown locally, and white roses.

  Desmond had given her a string of his mother's pearls and a spectacular pair of pearl and diamond earrings.

  “You'll be the bride of the year,” her mother said proudly as she looked her over at the hotel. There were tears in Oona's eyes, as she thought she had never seen Cassie look so lovely. She looked radiant, and very excited. “You're so beautiful, Cass,” her mother breathed, and then added proudly, “Every time I look at a newspaper or a magazine, we see your picture!”

  And the next day was all that they had expected. Photographers, reporters, and newsreel crews waited outside the judge's home where they were to be married. Even the international press were there. They threw rice at her, and flowers as the wedding party left to return to the Beverly Wilshire, where Desmond had arranged a small reception in a private room. There were even crowds outside and in the lobby of the hotel, because someone had leaked to the press that that was where they were going.

  Desmond had invited about a dozen friends, and several of his more important designers were there, particularly the man who had designed Cassie's plane for the Pacific tour. It was an impressive group, and the bride looked like a star in a movie. She was the most beautiful thing Desmond had ever seen, and he beamed as they danced a slow waltz to the “Blue Danube.”

  “You look ravishing, my dear,” he said proudly, and then he smiled even more broadly. “Who would have ever thought that the little grease monkey I met under a plane less than two years ago would have turned out to be such a beauty. I wish I'd had a picture of you that day… I'll never forget it.”

  She rapped his shoulder with her bouquet and laughed happily as her parents watched her.

  It was a perfect day, and after Desmond, she danced with her father, and then Billy. He looked very handsome in the new suit he had bought for the occasion. He was having a great time in L.A., particularly with all the money he was making. And he was enjoying some of the best flying he had ever done, in planes he had longed all his life to get his hands on.

  “You have a wonderful daughter, Mrs. O'Malley,” Desmond said warmly to his new mother-in-law. Cassie had bought her a blue dress the same color as her eyes, and a little hat to go with it, and she looked very pretty, and very much like her daughter.

  “She's a very lucky girl,” Oona said shyly. She was so impressed by Desmond's elegance and sophisticated air, she could hardly speak to him. But he was very polite to her and very friendly.

  “I'm the lucky one here,” he disagreed with her. And a little while later, Pat toasted them and wished
them many happy years and many children.

  “Not till after the Pacific tour!” Desmond qualified, and everyone laughed, “But immediately thereafter!”

  “Hear! Hear!” her father said proudly.

  Desmond had decided to let the press in for a round of pictures of them. They were in the lobby anyway, and he thought it was better to do it in a controlled situation. They arrived en masse, led by Nancy Firestone, and they got a very pretty picture of the bride dancing first with Desmond, and then her father. They made a big deal about his being a flying ace from the last war, and Cassie gave them all the details, knowing it made her father feel important.

  And then, finally, they escaped to a waiting limousine in a shower of rose petals and rice. Cassie was wearing an emerald green suit, and a big picture hat, and the photographs of her afterward were spectacular, as Desmond lifted her easily in his arms, and put her in the limousine. They were both waving from the rear window as they drove away, and her mother was crying and waving. Her father had tears in his eyes as he stood beside her.

  The newlyweds spent the night at the Bel Air Hotel, and the next morning they flew to Mexico, to a deserted beach on a tiny island off Mazatlan, where Desmond had rented an entire hotel just for them. It was small, but perfectly private. The beach was as white as pearls, the sun was brilliant and hot, there was always a gentle breeze, and at night they were serenaded by mariachis. It was the most romantic place Cassie had ever seen, and as they lay on the beach and talked, Desmond reminded her that some of the places she would go on her tour would be even lovelier and more exotic.

  “But I don't suppose I'll be spending much time lying on beaches,” she smiled at him, “or with you. I'll really miss you.”

  “You'll be doing something incredibly important for aviation, Cassie. That's more important.” He said it firmly, as you would to a child who was not paying attention to her homework.

  “Nothing is more important than we are,” she corrected him, but he shook his head.

  “You're wrong, Cass. What you're going to do has far, far-reaching importance. People will remember you for a hundred years. Men will attempt to follow your example. Planes will be named for you, and designed after yours. You will have proven that plane travel over vast expanses of ocean can be safe, in the right aircraft. A myriad of people and ideas will be affected. Don't think for a moment that it isn't of the utmost importance,” He made it sound so serious, so solemn, that it didn't even sound like flying. And she wondered sometimes if he attached too much importance to it, like a game that had stopped being fun and had become so vital that people's lives depended on it. Hers did of course, and Billy's, but still… she never lost sight of the joy of it. But he did.

  “I still think you're mote important than anything.” She rolled over on her stomach in her new white bathing suit, resting on her elbows. And he smiled down as he saw her.

  “You're too beautiful, you know,” he said, looking at the gentle cleavage between her breasts. She had a very exciting body. “You distract me.”

  “Good,” she said comfortably. “You need it.”

  “Shame on you.” He leaned down and kissed her then, and a little while later they went back to their room. He was amazed, and so was she, at how easily they had adjusted to each other. She had been afraid of him at first, and of what physical love might be, but he had surprised her by not forcing it, and spending their night at the Bel Air merely holding her, and stroking her, and talking about their lives, and their dreams, and their future. They had even talked about the tour and what it meant to them.

  It had allowed her to feel at ease with him, just as she always did. And it was only when they reached the hotel in Mexico the following afternoon that he permitted himself to undress her. He peeled her clothes gently away from her, and stood looking at her astounding body. She was long and tall and lean, with high round breasts, and a tiny waist that curved into narrow but appealing hips, and legs almost as long as his. He had taken her slowly and carefully, and in the past week, he had shown her the exquisite ecstasies of their joined bodies. And as with everything he did, he did it expertly and well, and with extraordinary precision. And she had been ready for him. She wanted to be his wife, and to be there for him, and to make love to him, and prove to him that someone loved him. She was healthy and young and alive and vital and exciting. He was much more restrained, but she pushed him to heights he had forgotten for a long time, and he found himself enjoying the unexpected youth and abandon she brought him.

  “I don't know about you,” he said hoarsely, after they made love that afternoon, “you're dangerous.” He enjoyed making love to her enormously, much more than he had expected. There was a warmth and sincerity to her, which added to her passion, surprised him and touched him.

  “Maybe I should give up flying, and we should just stay in bed and make babies,” she said, and then she groaned at herself, thinking that she was becoming just like her sisters. It made her wonder if this was what had happened to them; it was just so easy to be swept away, in the arms of a man you loved, and abandon yourself to the pleasures of the flesh, and their obvious rewards, in the natural order.

  “I always thought they were missing so much by marrying so young, and having so many kids,” she explained to him as they lay side by side on the bed, their bodies hot and damp and sated. “But I guess I can see now how it happens. It's just so easy to let things be, to be a woman, and get married and have babies.”

  But Desmond shook his head as he listened to her. “You can never do that, Cass. You're destined (or far greater things.”

  “Maybe. For now.” If he said so. Right now, she felt as though she were destined (or nothing more than his arms, and she didn't want more. That was enough (or her. Just to be his. Forever. Her sudden introduction to the physical side of him had swept her to a place she had never known, or understood before, and she liked it. “But one day I'd like to have kids.” And he had said he would be willing if that was what she wanted.

  “You have a lot to do first. Important things,” he said, sounding like a schoolteacher again, and she grinned, and turned over to look at him and run a lazy finger enticingly around him.

  “I can think of some very important things.…” she said mischievously, as he laughed and let her do as she wanted. The results were inevitable. And the sun was setting on their desert island when they fell from each other again like two bits of lifeless flotsam in the ocean.

  “How was the honeymoon?” the reporters shouted at them from their front lawn as they got home. As usual, they had somehow learned when the Williamses would be arriving, and as the limousine drove up, the reporters rushed forward. Sometimes it made her wonder how they always knew where they would be and where they were going.

  They could hardly get through the door into the house, and then as usual, Desmond stopped for a moment and spoke to them, and while he did, they snapped a thousand pictures. The one on the cover of life the next week was of Desmond carrying Cassie over the threshold.

  But from that moment on, for Cassie, the honeymoon was over. They had been gone for two idyllic weeks, and the first morning back, he woke her at three, and she was back in training in her North Star by four o'clock that morning.

  Their schedule was grueling and she and Billy were put through their paces a thousand times. They simulated every disaster possible, taking off and landing with one engine, then two, flying in with both engines cut, and practicing landing on the shortest of runways and in ferocious crosswinds. They also simulated landings in all kinds of conditions, from the difficult to nearly impossible. They also simulated long distance flying for hours at a stretch. And whenever they weren't flying, they were poring over charts, weather maps, and fuel tables. They met with the designers and engineers, and learned every possible repair from the mechanics. Billy spent hours practicing with the radio equipment, and Cassie in the Link Trainer, learning to fly blind, in all conditions.

  She and Billy flew hard and flew well; the
y were a great team, and by April, they were doing stunts that would have dazzled any air show. They spent fourteen hours together every day and Desmond brought her to work at four A.M., and picked her up promptly at six o'clock every night. He took her home, where she bathed, and they ate a quick dinner. Then he retired to his study with a briefcase full of notes and plans for the tour, and recently with requests for visas. He was also busy arranging for fuel to be shipped to each of their stops. And of course he was negotiating contracts now for articles and books afterward. Generally he brought papers for her to look over too, about weather conditions around the world, important new developments in aviation, or areas they would have to watch out for on the tour, given the sensitivities of the world situation. It was like doing homework every night, and after a long day of flying she was seldom in the mood to do it. She wanted to go out to dinner with him once in a while, or to a movie. She was a twenty-one-year-old girl, and he was treating her like a robot. The only times they went out at all were to the important social events that he thought were useful for her to be seen at.

  “Can't we do anything that doesn't have to do with the tour anymore?” she complained one night when he had brought her a particularly thick stack of papers, and reminded her that they needed her immediate attention.

  “Not now. You can play next winter, unless you've planned another record-setting flight. Right now, you have to get down to business,” he said firmly.

  “That's all we do,” she whined, and he looked at her with disapproval.

  “Do you want to end up like the Star of the Pleiades?“ he asked angrily. It was Earhart's plane, and there were times when Cassie was sick of hearing him say it.

  She took the papers from him, and went back upstairs, slamming her study door behind her. She apologized to him later on, and as always, he was very understanding.

  “I want you to be prepared, Cassie, in every possible way, so there will never be a mishap,” But there were elements they both knew he wouldn't be able to anticipate for her, like storms, or problems with the engine. But so far, he had thought of everything, down to the merest detail.