Sally put down the astronomy book. She’d studied the thing until her head ached. But looking at constellations in a book and finding them in the night sky were two entirely different things. No matter how well she memorized the pages, with their outlines of the mythical men and animals that the ancients had imagined navigating the heavens, she knew that once beneath the real night sky, she likely would see just stars.
She scooted her chair back and turned off her desk light. The doors to the adjoining latrine were open, and she could hear Twila and Geri in their bay on the other side, going over some homework problem.
Dixie, as usual, was nowhere in sight. She had vanished right after making a brief appearance in the library after evening chow. Dixie was a decent pilot but a mediocre student, yet somehow she got by. Sally had tried several times to find out where Dixie went on her evening missions, but her vague answers only deepened the mystery. Knowing her, Sally suspected a man was involved. How Dixie managed to slip past the MPs, she could only guess and hope that her friend didn’t get caught.
One person who never seemed to disappear was Waterman. Just prior to Emma Kelley’s death, the rumor mill had him away inspecting other airfields. But in the month since the memorial, he’d popped up often at Avenger. He’d taken no notice of Sally before the midair. But now, whenever their paths crossed, he looked at her hatefully. Graduation was near. She intended to stay out of his sight as much as possible and keep her nose to the grindstone.
Thinking about Waterman made her headache worse. She returned to the star charts and the instructions for the use of the bulky sextant through which she was expected to sight in order to navigate the sky at night. The sextant was a precision handheld instrument, but that did nothing to lessen the difficulty of its use. How she would ever manage to squeeze the thing and herself into the tiny observation bubble atop some bouncing airplane’s fuselage, then find one particular star through the sextant’s stubby telescope, knowing all the while that the safety of her plane and crew depended upon the absolute accuracy of her readings, she couldn’t imagine. But that’s what the army demanded she learn to do, and so somehow she would.
She took the tool and her leather flight jacket and headed outside with the intention of practicing one last time on the deep Texas sky, before falling into bed. It was November now, and the night brought cold that chilled the bones.
Her intent was to reach the darkness beyond the runways, but she’d taken less than two dozen steps when a familiar voice stopped her in her tracks.
“Out to battle the evil night vapors?” Bayard stepped into the diluted light from a bulb high atop the barracks. He grinned and raised his hands above his head. He wiggled his fingers to imitate something scary.
She knew he’d been drinking even before she spotted the bottle. The stench was overpowering. Ever since her father took up the habit, she’d been unable to stomach the smell of liquor. Drinking was a weakness. She’d seen the proof of that firsthand, and she’d promised herself she would never have anything to do with a man who drank. Now Bayard had given her a new reason to despise him.
She tried to move away, but he matched her steps. “Or maybe you’re rushing off to meet the boyfriend.” He snickered. “That’s a laugh, isn’t it? You having a boyfriend.”
Seeing him threw the switch to a thousand memories of her father. “I have a boyfriend!” she snapped. “Tex!” She immediately regretted the admission. Her private life was her own. But from experience, she knew he would forget what had been said once he was sober.
“You! A boyfriend?” He laughed loudly. “And I’ve got a hippopotamus in the hangar!” He was so amused with himself, she wanted to smack him.
“No way have you got a boyfriend,” he cackled. “Not unless he’s made out of steel.”
“What’s that crack supposed to mean?” She looked around. At any other time, a male voice would have brought a squad of MPs running.
Standing was becoming difficult for him. But his mouth still worked fine. “No man’s gonna have anything to do with you. He’d never survive. You’d skin him alive and boil his carcass. You’d pop him between two buns and slather him with mustard. You’d laugh every time you took a bite, too.” He made a hideous show of chomping air. “Lady, you’d scare cannibals!”
“Shut up!” She balled her fist.
Bayard wobbled closer. “If you’ve got a boyfriend, where’s he at?”
“He’s dead.” Sally wanted to kick herself the moment the words left her mouth.
“Ah, hah!” His legs gave way, sending him crashing onto his butt.
He looked at her blearily. “They rejected my novel again. I am a failure!” He waved a finger. “But you wouldn’t know anything about that. Because you don’t need anybody and nobody needs you!”
He reached into his shirt pocket and clumsily pulled out a picture of a child. Even in the dim light, Sally could make out enough detail to see that she was a beautiful thing, with curly blonde hair and a devilishly happy face. Except for the color of her hair, the resemblance to Bayard was striking. “This is my Rose.” He held the picture higher to give her a better view. “Skinner got me a pass to see her. I’m the only parent she’s got.”
Bitterness crept into his voice. “Natalie—that was my wife—died having Rose. Rose is only four, and she’s already lost her mother. If she loses me, she’ll only have my parents. No draft board is going to leave my Rose shipwrecked in this world!”
Sally wondered if she was becoming hard-boiled. Maybe she had buried her feelings for so long and had become so focused that she couldn’t feel pity even for a little girl without a mother. But the fact was that little Rose would have to face up to her own problems in her own way, if and when the time came, just as she had. And that had nothing to do with being hard-boiled. That simply was the way of life. She started to turn away.
“You think I’m just looking for a free ride, don’t you?” He pointed a wobbly finger. His voice rose. “My father wanted to be a writer but my mother wanted security. For forty years, he taught college literature and died a little every time someone published a book that he wished he’d had the courage to write. If I’d followed him like they wanted me to, the army might have given me a cushy office job. But I learned to fly, and here I am.”
He grabbed her hand. “You’re lucky nobody needs you, Sally. You’re even luckier that you don’t need anybody.” She wrenched free just as he passed out.
Dixie stepped from the deep shadows between the buildings, a trick of the unevenly spaced overhead lights. “I don’t wanna try to tell ya how to run your love life, honey. But if you’re gonna be sneakin’ men into the barracks, next time ya might try pickin’ one that’s still got some life in him. This one’s pretty well used up.” Her hair was in disarray and her lipstick smudged.
Sally felt a grim vindication. She had been right. Dixie was seeing a man! She reached for Dixie’s arm. “Where have you been? They’re gonna catch you one of these nights, sneaking around. And then where do you think you’ll be?”
Dixie jerked free. She stooped down and pried the nearly empty bottle from Bayard’s fingers. She examined the label contemptuously. “While you’re out man shoppin’ , try to find one with better taste in hooch. This stuff’s barely a step up from shoe polish, in my opinion. But like I always say, any port in a storm.” She tilted the bottle and emptied the liquid in one gulp and made a hideous face.
Sally snatched the bottle away and tossed it onto Bayard’s sleeping form. “You know that I did no such thing! He’s drunk, as you plainly could see if you weren’t drunk yourself. I’m waiting for the MPs so they can arrest him.”
Dixie looked at her woozily. “Arrest him! For what? For bein’ drunk?” She snorted. “Hell, you can’t arrest somebody for that. I’d get drunk, too, if Skinner was ridin’ me the way he’s been ridin’ him. He gets all the crap details. He flies his butt off from mornin’ to night. Hell, I’d be drunk, too.” She steadied herself against Sally’s shoulder.
“You are drunk! Come inside before the MPs find you.” Sally tried to start her for the barracks, but Dixie stood her ground. “No! I’m not gonna let you get him arrested. ’Cause everybody needs to get drunk once in a while. It’s a right, like votin’.”
Sally was becoming more frustrated and angry. She expected to hear the sound of running boots at any minute. She was trying to keep her voice down. “No, it’s not, and that’s a stupid thing to say! I’ve never touched liquor in my life, so I sure have never been drunk. And he has no right to be, either. He misses his daughter and somebody rejected his book and he doesn’t want to fly, and he’s using that as an excuse to crawl into a bottle. Instead of setting a good example for his daughter, he gave up and turned to alcohol. He’s a drunk! And he’s lazy! And he’s a quitter! And he deserves what he gets! Now come on before you get us both arrested!”
Dixie suddenly seemed to sober up. “I call that pretty hard-hearted, hon. Not everybody has your backbone, nor your armor-plated skin. Some of us need a little help gettin’ through life.”
“Don’t make fun of me, Dixie. I’m not in the mood.”
Dixie straightened to her full height. “I’m not. There’s usually a reason why people get drunk. His sounds like a pretty good one.”
Sally’s head truly felt like it was splitting, and she had no intention of listening to a lecture about alcohol from Dixie, who obviously had sampled more than her share. She gave her a shove. “There are no good reasons! Come on. Let’s go!”
“What about him?” Dixie indicated the snoring figure lying in the dirt.
“Leave him! Let the MPs haul him off.”
Dixie stopped. “Like I was sayin’ before, that’s pretty short on the milk of human kindness, don’t ya think?”
Sally snorted. “Look who’s talking. Remember those soldiers on the train? You’re the one who stole their money.”
Dixie didn’t blink an eye. “They were out to do the same to me—that Milton, anyways. He was cheatin’. Though not very well, as I showed him.” She indulged in a smile and nudged Bayard with her toe. “But this fella’s tryin’ to make somethin’ of himself, as well as be a father to a young’un, if I overheard right, and the world’s holdin’ him back. You can understand that, hon. We both can. So he did what normal people do when they’re frustrated and angry and feel helpless about their lives. Notice I said ‘normal people,’ which excludes you. He got to feelin’ sorry for himself and blew off a little steam in a bottle.”
Sally had had enough of this. Turning for the barracks, she said, “That’s pretty funny, coming from you . . . talking about the milk of human kindness and understanding and all. I’ve never known anyone in my life who looks out for herself as well as you. You’d stab a blind man for a pencil!”
Dixie responded indignantly, “There’s a difference between steppin’ on a bug that’s mindin’ its own business and just tryin’ to get along, and one that’s tryin’ to stick a stinger into ya. You oughta have learned that by now, hon.”
Sally didn’t want to hear any more. Nor was she comfortable with the rising tension between them. Suddenly nothing seemed right. She hurriedly crossed the short distance to the barracks door.
“Hey, hon . . .” Dixie’s voice cut the night air. “If you’re not careful, you’re gonna wind up bein’ just as narrow-minded and ornery as those relatives and neighbors of yours that you’re runnin’ so hard to get away from.”
Someone had parked a truck in the shadows of a nearby building. The last thing Sally saw as she angrily jerked her barracks door open was Dixie jockeying Bayard into its canopied cargo compartment to sleep it off.