VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [38]
It matters because I like him, said an inner voice. And what mystified her was that, until now, she had completely hidden away from herself any attraction to him. She did know that she had thought about him a number of times since they had met. Not girlish daydreams or anything like that – mainly just curiosity. She knew he was unmarried; she had asked him point blank one time when they were flying, and he had told her. But that was about all. He kidded a lot in the plane, and talked about instruments and weather and so on, but in fact said very little about himself. Meanwhile, she had blabbed all kinds of things about her own life. He always listened politely, his reactions to what she said mostly hidden behind his Ray-Ban sunglasses. Now he was coming to her house, and she felt an unexpected – and somewhat unwanted – anticipation.
Amy began picking up the sections of the newspaper and straightening pillows on the sofa, while her mother followed her with a plate and a fork saying, “Here, eat something!”
The doorbell rang. Amy answered it, and there he was, umbrella in hand. No sunglasses, a rarity. He had nice eyes, she realized. Sky blue, appropriately enough.
She opened the screen door and stepped outside, saying, “Thank you for bringing this over. I’m sorry to trouble you.”
“Oh, it’s no problem. So you were working tonight?”
“Right. It never ends. The workload, I mean.”
Zelda appeared at her daughter’s shoulder.
“Mom, this is Tom,” Amy said, “Tom Dawson, the pilot.”
“Oh, how do you do?” asked Zelda.
“Very nice to meet you, ma’am,” said Tom.
Then, to Amy’s horror, her mother asked, “Would you two like some lemonade?”
Amy shot a look that said, Mom, I’m not twelve! And aloud: “Or maybe Tom would like a beer, or a glass of wine or something.”
“No, no,” he said, “lemonade would be just fine. Thank you.”
“Well, both of you have a seat,” said Zelda, gesturing to the old-fashioned swing suspended from the porch roof. “I’ll bring some right out.”
The swing had big fluffy pillows, which were comfortable but severely reduced the available space on the seat, and after they sat down, Amy was astonished at how close he was. He, too, seemed uneasy at the closeness, and he set the umbrella on the cushion between them, almost as a dividing line.
“So … do you live close by?” Amy asked.
“Not far.”
He described his neighborhood, and she knew where it was – a basic neighborhood of unpretentious houses a generation newer than her own. She tried to imagine what his house might look like, and into her mind popped an image of a yard and dwelling resembling a miniature Camp Lejeune. She almost laughed, but held herself to a smile.
“What are you smiling about?” he asked, as he also grinned even though he did not know the source of the humor.
“Nothing,” said Amy. “It’s just a nice evening. Did you have any trouble finding the street?”
He had not. At the curb was his car, a jet black Ford Mustang that looked as if it could set the pavement on fire. This must be his toy, she decided, because he always drove a clean but older pickup truck to the airport.
Zelda brought the lemonade on a tray, and Tom stood to take the two tall glasses, handing one to Amy.
“Would you like to sit down, ma’am?” he offered.
“Oh, no, I have things to do – like find where my husband wandered off to. And please call me Zelda.”
They sipped their drinks and talked, and they both began to relax. He opened up just a little, told her that he had not been born in North Carolina or anywhere in the South, but in Alaska. His father had been a bush pilot, operating out of some tiny airstrip east of Fairbanks. His mother had run the local post office, and his father, among the many duties of a bush pilot, delivered the mail to places where there were no roads. Tom had first handled the controls of a plane when he was nine years old, and had repeatedly and somewhat illegally flown solo as early as his fourteenth year to help out his dad, who suffered bouts of ill health. At age seventeen he was certified as a private pilot. At nineteen, a year after