VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [58]
“Are you all right?” he asked, opening the door for her.
“Please,” she said, “just get this thing in the air.”
But it was rush hour in the sky as well as on the ground, and the wait to get clearance for takeoff seemed interminable. In her mind, Amy kept hearing Nigel berating her, over and over, as they waited. The sun was setting by the time they lifted into the air.
Tom finally turned to her to make small talk, but one glance told him to maintain the silence.
“I’m sorry,” Amy called out to him. “It’s been a really rough day. Maybe the worst day of my career.”
“Anything I can do?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Thanks.”
Amy put her face in her hands for a moment, then ran her fingers through her hair.
“Tom …”
“Yes, ma’am?”
She figured that she might as well tell him now; no point in waiting.
“I have some bad news. The group president I report to has told me that Hi-T is not allowed to use your services anymore. I’m really sorry.”
Tom turned in his seat and stared blankly at her.
“Everybody in the company has to fly commercial from now on,” she explained.
“Does your boss know that there are no commercial flights out of Highboro?”
“I don’t think that matters to him right now.”
“Well … shoot,” Tom said. “I guess that answers my question of whether or not to lease that second plane.”
They flew on and the sky deepened in color as twilight came. After ten or fifteen minutes, Tom turned to her again.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“A little. But I don’t have much of an appetite. Why?”
“Because I’d like to take you to dinner,” he said.
“Tom, I thought I made it clear–”
“If you’re no longer going to use the services of Dawson Aviation, ma’am, then there is no longer a business relationship between us, and with no business relationship, there can be no conflict of interest in me asking you to dinner, or in you accepting.”
She hesitated.
“Unless you have something against retired Marine aviators who know how to make lemonade when handed lemons,” he said.
Half an hour later, they were landing in Maryland beside Chesapeake Bay. Next to the airstrip within walking distance was a little restaurant that Tom claimed served the best crab cakes on the Eastern Shore.
“What a prick,” said Amy.
She was of course referring to Nigel Furst. In her curled fingers was a glass of Chardonnay – her second. With the help of the wine, she had told Tom about her day, talking freely, maybe too freely, but she did not care.
Tom, still having to fly, was drinking iced tea but was eyeing her wineglass – though not from envy; he was wondering if her grip would snap the stem.
“Yeah, well, the world sure has a lot of ’em,” he said. “Pricks, I mean.”
“I gave him my honest, best plan,” said Amy. “And it wasn’t good enough. All right, I was conservative. Maybe too conservative. But it makes me wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. I never liked Nigel, and now I don’t even respect him. Why am I even working for him?”
“I don’t know. To pay your mortgage?” Tom suggested. “To support your kids, give them a good life, and get them through college? To give yourself some financial security? Amy, you probably don’t want to hear this right now, but prick or not, this guy is your boss. You’ve got to do everything, as long as it’s legal and ethical, to accomplish whatever mission is given to you, no matter what the pressure. That’s your job.”
“Spoken like a true Marine.”
“Always,” he said. “It’ll always be part of me.”
Amy sat back and regarded him. Behind the good-natured humor and the overall competence his demeanor suggested, there was a resolute forcefulness. A sense that, whatever he had to do, whatever it took, he would get it done. She found herself admiring that quality, yet she also found it just a little frightening. She wondered what he would be like to be around on a daily basis.
“Well, I am not a Marine,” said Amy. “And I