The Eleventh Man - Ivan Doig [108]
"I don't damn know. I do not know, Ben, how can I? I'm going to be faced with a man I haven't seen in two years, it'll have to decide itself from there." Watching her from across the table, he listened desperately, trying to determine if he was hearing ground rules of wingwalking again—Never leave hold of what you've got—or something more hopeful—until you've got hold of something else. Cass was gazing steadily at him as she finished up. "If you were him, you'd feel entitled to that much."
"If I were him, I'd hate me."
"Hey, don't get going in that direction." She shook her head in warning. "If anyone is going to be accused of messing up a marriage, start with me. Nobody held a gun on me and said, 'Go fall for that dishy war correspondent in the fleece jacket,' did they. I could have looked the other way and stayed in the rut I'm meant to for the rest of the war, one more pilot going nowhere."
"Come off that, will you?" he appealed. "Since when doesn't having a squadron count? I sure to Christ don't have one. You aren't anybody's idea of a pilot going nowhere."
"Not now. Wings on my brisket, bars on my collar, I'm a pretty good imitation of a fighter plane jockey on these ferrying runs, you bet I am. But what happens the minute the boys come marching home? Is the good old Army Air Corps going to treat WASPs like guys? No sign of it so far." Cass jerked her glass up to her lips, found it empty, and set it down disconsolately. "I want the war over as much as anybody, but the war is what keeps me in that cockpit. There's a pisser, isn't it? And Ben?—us, chronic us? How do I know I could keep up with you after the war? If we did stay together? You're probably going to be famous—what am I saying, you're famous or next thing to it already—"
"Only as long as bullets are flying."
"—and all in the damn world I'm good for is handling one half-assed kind of fighter plane."
He lurched his chair forward. "Cass, we can't put together life after the war until the sonofabitching thing shows us it's going to be over, but we can stick together until we can figure out—" Breaking off, he peered across at her and demanded, "Are you bawling? Because if you are, I'm afraid then I'll have to."
"Damn you, Ben Reinking," she said, fierce but snuffling. "I haven't had a crying jag since I was eleven years old." She wiped her eyes, then her nose. "Until you."
For some moments he gulped back moist emotions of his own. Why of all the people in this war did the two of them have to be on the receiving end of something like this? What was wrong with backing away from this and snapping up an Adrianna instead, sweetly available and nowhere near as troublous? What was wrong with him? "This is just crazy hopeless," he said at last, his expression pretty much fitting that description itself. "I'm stuck on you even when we're doing our double damnedest to have a fight."
"Swell," Cass sniffled, "that's me, too." She straightened herself up so sharply it jarred the table. "There's another kink to this, you know," she went on, wiping the tears away with determination now. "Dan's not the only one they keep throwing out there to get shot at, is he. I don't pretend to know squat about what the types in Washington have you doing. I just herd airplanes. The wear is starting to show through on those stories about the team, though, isn't it? I don't need to tell you that's getting to be an awful lot of dead heroes. Your guys are catching hell. And you're always going to be plunked right out there with them, Ben, you and just a pencil and paper, brave as anything—"
"I don't feel brave. I'm just doing it."
"—while every fool on the other side tries to draw a bead on you. Look what just happened to your pal the Marine. It could have been you. I am never going to be in favor of that part of your Tepee Weepy doings, you'd better know."
"Listen, they've got me under orders the same way you are, and I—"
"It isn't quite the same." She slapped the table