The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [41]
“Come on, Georgia. Just one old sweet song!”
“You cheated on my best friend.”
“Yeah. I know. And she’s totally right to be mad. But she won’t even see me and I flew all this way…I’m not a rocket scientist. I need help figuring out what to do. Come on. I need some company and you’re the absolute best.”
Georgette sighed.
He said, softly sad, “Omni in half an hour? Room 1405. Really nice suite; I’ll get room service.”
“Brad, if you were the last man in my entire life who was going to ask me to come have a drink with him at his hotel—and, frankly, you very well might be—I would say no. Why? Because if I was on the Titanic, Annie would get me into a lifeboat.”
“Well, hey, give me a break. I can’t help it if I’m not ‘Women and Children.’”
“What?”
“And let me tell you, Annie was no piece of cake. It was always twelve o’clock high with her.” He had liked the sound of that phrase when he’d said it earlier to Sam.
Georgette hung up the phone. Brad figured he’d lost the connection.
***
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to notice that disloyalty made Annie angry. Her absent mother, her capricious father, her unfaithful husband, all had produced a young woman determined to bring down the gavel on Life until Life behaved in a dependable way. Annie was faithful. It was the gift she gave and that she wanted to receive. Georgette’s loyalty, Sam and Clark’s loyalty sat safe at the core of her and she loved them for it. The Navy’s dependability was one reason she had chosen the Navy. Its discipline was reliable. She wanted not only to defend her country but also to help keep it in order, the way she kept her closet in order—her shoes side by side on the shoe rack, her tailored uniforms, blue and white, evenly spaced, her slender white T-shirts and jeans ironed and in a row.
As a student at Annapolis, she’d beaten back inconsistency and fought against limits, including those of her own muscle and bone. She’d endured instructors who’d bullied her and classmates who’d harassed her. She had worked hard every waking minute of her four years at Annapolis. She’d graduated fit and trim and first in her class. The only clues to what it had cost her were the pale purple circles under her blue eyes and the pinched nerve in her neck.
When Annie received her commission, she made a pledge that she would never let the Navy down; in return, the Navy would never forsake her. After all, despite D. K. Destin’s complaints that the Navy had abandoned him, the truth was, they had shown up for him in the rescue helicopter, hadn’t they? And each time she’d landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier, the tailhook had grabbed the wire and the jet stopped. She believed that if she should by chance end up clinging to the wing of a plane in the middle of the ocean, they’d send a helicopter for her just as they had for D. K. She believed the Navy would be like Sam and Clark and Georgette. Reliable. Unlike Brad, unlike her father, she could count on the Navy. She trusted that she was someone who could be counted on. If she were asked to help, she would help; if she were asked to rescue…
Annie picked up her phone and called Georgette again, this time reaching her. “I just made up my mind. I’m going to fly the King of the Sky to St. Louis tonight and give it to my father.”
“What?”
“He needs it. I can’t bitch about his not coming through for me and then not come through for him. He’s dying and he needs help.”
Georgette took a loud breath. “Well, this emotional breakthrough of yours couldn’t come at a worse time.”
“What does that mean?”
“Have you looked out the window, Annie? My satellite dish just blew by your porch. Clark’s twister may be headed to Emerald. Sit still, I’m coming over.”
Chapter 13
Twelve O’Clock High
Pummeled by rain, Georgette hurried into Pilgrim’s Rest. The wind was blowing so hard that Clark had to help her close the door. He draped her soaked raincoat on the newel post.
“Clark, you may