Shit fire! Wasn’t this just the very definition of Murphy’s Law: her confinement to quarters now over, Monica was finally back at work—only there was no work. Flight ops were canceled for the day, the flight deck cleared and prepped for the Big Event.
Oh boy, a hazing.
She knew she was supposed to be excited. The Crossing of the Line was a hallowed naval tradition, passed down through the seafaring centuries, something she’d treasure for the rest of her life. Blah, blah, blah. She just didn’t care. Kris was gone, and she was strung out on grief, confused by this pathetic high-school crush she’d just realized she had, and still burning with shame over her three-day banishment.
Halfway up to the flight deck she did an abrupt about-face and headed against the traffic, back into the ship’s interior. The phone down in her maintenance office had outside line access. Not supposed to be for personal use, but hey, this wasn’t personal, this was survival. If she didn’t talk to someone she was going to burst. Or punch someone.
She keyed in the two digits to get an outside line, followed by the US country code and the Pensacola number she knew by heart.
As she listened to the first ring her eye was drawn to the Harry Reasoner quote over her desk:
This is why a helicopter pilot is so different a being from an airplane pilot, and why in general, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts…
She could certainly use a few words from an “open, clear-eyed, buoyant extrovert” right now.
“Sloane Halsey.”
Monica felt the tightness in her chest relax at the sound of her brother’s voice. “Hey, Chub.”
“Buffy! How’re things goin’ with Papa Doc?”
“How’re things going at home?” she asked, ignoring the bait. “How’s Vanessa?”
“Oh, you know. She’s Vanessa.”
That she was. Their mother had always encouraged her children to call her by her first name. Very progressive. Monica had just felt cheated out of the chance to call someone “Mom.” She wished she and her mom could talk right now, woman to woman. Ask her how she coped with it when Gram died, and then when they lost Dad. Fat chance of that.
“How’s she doing, though, really?” she pressed.
“I ever find out, you’ll be the first to know.”
As close to an answer as she would get. All at once a fresh wave of grief swept over her. She realized she couldn’t tell Sloane about Kris, or how she was feeling. As much as she loved him, as close as they were, it wasn’t the kind of thing the two ever shared.
“Hey,” said Sloane. “You’d love it here.”
“Flight school?”
“The bomb,” he said. “You should think about it. Seriously. Much as I love flying, and you know I do, you can make a life here. The kids all look up to you. You’re makin’ a difference—and you’re pullin’ scratch up the caboose.”
She laughed. “Sounds mahvelous. Puhfectly mahvelous, Thurston.”
“SensAYshunal, Lovey. On the green at eleven, gee-and-tees at the club with the Hendersons at four, it’s just busy as beavers here.”
She laughed again. Amazing how quickly you could fall into the old routines.
“Hey,” he said, suddenly serious again. “Speaking of your pal Papa Doc.”
“Hey yourself,” she said. “And you really shouldn’t call him that.”
“Yeah yeah, so listen. One of the senior instructors here knew him from his student days. I got an earful last week over coffee. Guy was a real prick.”
“I’m shocked, shocked to hear that, Thurston,” Monica murmured. “You sure he didn’t say ‘a real prince’?”
“Ha-ha. So apparently the instructors didn’t love him any more than the other cadets did. And he wasn’t all that stellar a student, either—but the man had a ferocious work ethic. This guy, the senior instructor, says they kept trying to find reasons to flush him but he kept clawing his way back.”
“Why am I not surprised.”
“Anyway,” Sloane’s voice suddenly dropped to nearly a whisper. “This rumor went around, dogged him through his whole last year, nearly got him kicked out. That he went out with a girl, a first-year cadet, and things got…preppy.”
“Preppy?” Monica sat up.
“You know,” said Sloane. “Tried to cash in on his nonexistent charm?” He paused. “She claimed he date-raped her, Mon.”
Monica felt the blood drain from her face.
“When it got out, he said the whole thing was BS, the girl was jealous and made the story up to cause trouble, rank character assassination, blah blah blah.”
Oh, Jesus.
“This was years ago. Different times. Nobody believed her. Besides, Papadakis was an obnoxious jerk, but basically a straight-arrow, pole-up-his-ass kind of jerk and way too ambitious to pull a bonehead move like that.”
Silence.
“Hey. Hope I didn’t ruin your day.”
Monica realized she was gripping the phone so hard her knuckles hurt. “No. No, I’m fine. I’m…I’m not that surprised. I guess.”
“Yeah,” said Sloane. Another brief silence, then: “Hey, this has gotta be costing you a fortune. Ha-ha. Anyway, I should go. Listen, you let me know the moment you get your HAC qual, ya hear? We’ll pop corks over the phone!”
“I promise. ’Kay. Love ya, Chub.”
“Love ya, Buffy.”
The phone went dead.
Monica didn’t move.