VELOCITY - DEE JACOB [92]
That New Year’s Eve was Amy’s personal worst. Not only was she sick, she was, romantically at least, alone.
Late in October, Tom Dawson came to Amy’s house one evening, just dropped by unexpectedly. She could tell that he was antsy, restless – as he had been the past few times they had been together. He suggested they go for a walk, and once they were outside, he wasted no time.
“I’m going to be leaving soon,” he told her.
That stopped Amy in her tracks.
“And going where?”
“Africa.”
“May I ask, why?”
“A good buddy of mine is over there, a guy I knew in the Marines. He’s working for some outfit in sub-Sahara Africa. They need a pilot, and he thought of me.”
“How long are you going to be gone?” she asked.
“I don’t know. At least three months. That’s the minimum. Maybe longer. Depends on how things work out. If they like me, I like them, that kind of thing. I will be back eventually. I just don’t know when.”
“Oh, well that’s cool,” she said – coolly.
“Really? That’s great, Amy, because I didn’t know how you’d take it.”
“No, Tom, it’s not cool!” she said.
He folded his muscular arms across his chest and said, “Well, I’m going. I already signed the contract and faxed it back to them.”
“Tom, why would you think I’d just go along with something you decided completely on your own and that I didn’t even know about until now?”
He blinked his eyes a few times, as if the question made no sense whatsoever.
“You’ve never been a military wife, have you,” he said. “They put up with this shit all the time.”
“Well, they have my sympathy. Point of fact, I’m not a wife at all –”
“That’s right! And why shouldn’t I decide something that’s about my life?”
“There’s ‘decide’ and then there’s ‘discuss.’ And we could have at least discussed it!”
“We are discussing it! Right now!”
Amy shook her head, then decided to take a softer tack.
“Tom, why are you doing this?”
“It just seems like a good opportunity. Something different.”
“What about your flying business?”
“My business sucks, Amy. I really don’t make that much money doing charter flights or flying lessons. And with cost of fuel going up the way it has, everything’s been off. Heck, your company was the best client I had – and look what happened.”
“You’re bored, aren’t you,” she said, saying it like an accusation.
“All right, yes, I am bored. I just need a change.”
“From me,” she said, angry now.
“No, now come on, Amy! This has nothing to do with you.”
“Yes, I’ve picked that up,” she said. “This is all about you, and not about me, and definitely not about us. Well, you go right ahead, Tom. You go to Africa and have a nice life. Then maybe you want to try Australia. Hell, you can go to Antarctica and stay there for all I care!”
“I told you, I’ll be back!”
“Not with me, you won’t.”
She then turned on her heel and began walking rapidly back to her house. He jogged alongside her.
“You know, I didn’t think you’d be this pissed off,” he said.
“You were wrong! ’Bye!”
And she sprinted to her front door, went inside, and locked the door. The lingering image for her seen through the front window was of him standing next to the curb, those strong arms of his held out in exasperation, then dropping limply in hopelessness.
That had been it. No mournful good-byes, no letters, and no calls – not until Christmas Eve. He had called, but her cell phone had been turned off, and she had missed it. There was no voice mail; just his number in the missed-call log. She debated calling him back, and then decided not to. There had been nothing since.
On the day the fourth quarter financial report for Hi-T was finished, on a sleety Tuesday in January, Elaine Eisenway did her customary and thorough final review, then logged off and wrote down the password on a slip of paper. She folded the paper in half, and hand-carried it across the