Chapter 3

I was off duty by the time Max returned from her flight. I knew when she returned because she called me on my cell phone while I was eating a pizza I'd picked up on the way home.

"Hello?" I said as I picked up the phone, muting the TV. I hadn't looked at the caller ID and so I got a surprise. At her instigation we'd exchanged phone numbers before leaving the bar, but I had never expected anything to come of it.

"I'm down again, Derek. I thought you'd like to know I made it safely."

"I'm glad you did, lieutenant—"

"Derek, no one can hear you. You are alone, right?"

"Right," I said, turning the TV off.

"Then why don't you call me Max?"

"Because you're an officer and—"

"I hate to keep interrupting you, but I know that. I can read rank insignia as well as you can."

I put the crust of my pizza on the plate, and put the plate on the end table. "I'm sure you can, lieutenant, but you're trying to take me places I shouldn't go."

"You didn't mind calling me by my name when we had a beer together." Her voice sounded ... sad? angry? I wasn't sure, but it certainly wasn't happy.

"That was different."

"Oh? In what way, Derek?"

I was speechless, because in truth it wasn't different. But having taken a position I was reluctant to abandon it.

"Look, I don't mean to make you uncomfortable. But I really don't see why you can call me by my name at a corner table in public, but not from the privacy of wherever you are over the phone when no one's ever going to know." There was no question now – Max was angry and sad both. Her voice had that roughness, and that edge, which goes with such an emotional state.

I rubbed my forehead. "I'm sorry, lieutenant – Max. I'm trying to be professional on the job, and this friendship is making that so difficult, and maybe I'm overcompensating. I don't know. I'm all confused right now."

"I know. I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have pushed you. It's just ... it's just that I don't like anyone, except my family, the way I like you, and for you to refuse to call me Max feels like rejection."

"I'm not rejecting you, Max." I had no idea what I'd be rejecting her from, but that was another matter.

"I know, Derek. I know. But that's how it feels."

I rubbed my forehead again – it felt like a headache was coming on. "Look, why don't you come over here? This isn't something I can really make sense about over the phone. Are you hungry?"

"Yeah. Flying is work, and I'm ready to eat. Look, I've got to debrief, and turn in my equipment and the aircraft log, so it'll be a while. It'll be a bit late, in fact. Do you have to work tomorrow?"

"Yeah, but I'm pulling afternoon duty. I'll have time to talk, if you do."

"I'm not on the flight schedule till 1800 tomorrow, so I will have time." That was 6 PM.

"Okay," I said, "I'll order another pizza – since that's what I've got already. What do you like?"

"Pepperoni and green chili."

"Ewww! I thought you were from Oklahoma."

"I am," she said with a chuckle, "but I've gotten hooked on chili. What are you going to get on your half?"

"I think I'm going to get two whole pizzas – and mine will have Canadian bacon and extra cheese."

"Canadian bacon? Puh-leeze! And you think my taste is bad?"

I laughed. "I do indeed, Max. Your taste is horrible."

"Well, then, I just won't share my pizza with you. I've got to go – we're at Ops now – but I'll see you just as soon as I can get there."

"Sounds good. I'll be waiting for you. Um, you know where I live?"

"Oh! I plumb forgot!" It was the first Oklahoma expression I'd heard, though her accent was always there. "You'd better tell me."

I did, and then we hung up. I looked at the pizza I hadn't yet finished. "You're going into the fridge," I told it, "because Max is coming over." It felt good to call her Max. She might not believe it if I told her, but it felt very good. I just wished that I could do it all the time, anywhere. I wanted that more than I wanted anything.

It was getting late when Max knocked on the door – it was past 7:30. The pizzas had arrived just before 7, and I'd put them in the oven, still in their boxes, with the knob turned to Warm. They'd stay warm that way, and shouldn't dry out much – and when I opened the door and showed Max in, and pulled the pizzas out, I found I was right.

I got plates out of the cupboard, and put a roll of paper towels between us on the table, and set out the pizzas. We each took a slice, and bit at the same time. We grinned at each other, and then I remembered something. "Max, I completely forgot – what would you like to drink?"

"Water, if you've got it."

"Out of the tap is all."

"Hmmm ... do you have any sort of juice?"

"I've got some cranapple in the fridge."

"That'll work just fine," Max said.

I got up and fetched glasses – red plastic pebbled glasses, for single young airmen don't need much and don't have much to spend anyway. I poured juice, put the bottle back in the fridge, and put the glasses on the table. When I sat down I found that Max had lifted her glass and was waiting on me.

"To friends," she said.

I lifted my glass, and bumped it against hers. "To friends," I said, and we drank.

"We are friends, right?" she asked when we put our glasses down.

"Well, I like you a lot, Max – so much that I do call you by your name, sometimes at least, even though you're an officer. But it's awfully fast..."

"I know. I've been thinking about that. And the only answer I have is that God meant us to be friends. There's no other explanation I can come up with for how fast this is going."

I thought about that while I chewed a bite of pizza. "I know we're both Christians. But is this really what God wants, or is it something else?"

"How do you mean, Derek?"

"Well, we're both in the Air Force. We both swore an oath to obey the orders of our superiors. And one of those orders is 'no fraternization.' But where we are, eating pizza together, calling each other by our names ... we're fraternizing, Max. We're breaking regs and violating our oaths right this minute. And Romans 13 tells us to obey the law. We're violating that too."

"I see your point." She put her pizza down and took a paper towel from the roll, wiping her hands slowly. "I really believe God's brought us together. But you're right – He wants us to be true to our word, and to obey the law. So how do we resolve this?"

"If I knew that, Max, I'd be the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and not a senior airman jet engine mechanic."

"Speaking of that, how long have you been in?"

"Six years."

"And you're still just a senior airman?"

"Yeah." I made a quick decision. "I got into some trouble at George – I didn't pay much attention to my bank balance, and bought whatever I wanted at the moment, and bounced a few checks. I got an Article 15, and had to miss a promotion cycle. I didn't put on airman first on schedule, and so I didn't put on senior airman on schedule, and so I couldn't WAPS test for staff on schedule."

"I wonder if WAPS testing is better or worse than the officer promotion system."

"I wouldn't know, Max – I'm just a dumb enlisted troop." I smiled because I didn't mean it. "It seems fair enough to me – time in service, time in grade, and the right score gets you a promotion. If you lack one of the qualifications, you don't get the next stripe, and if you don't keep going up you go out and make way for someone who'll work to qualify."

She shrugged. "Whatever. I've never been happy with any promotion system I've known about or could dream up. They all have flaws in them." She looked at me across the table. "I'm sorry to hear about your trouble. Have you tested for staff sergeant yet?"

"Yeah, and passed. It wasn't the highest score, but it wasn't the lowest either. Right now I'm waiting for promotion orders. We just don't have any slots for staff sergeants right now, and since I just got here I can't hope for a PCS to a base where there are slots."

"Look here, Derek, if you get permanent change of station orders before I've known you for a while, I'm going to be very unhappy." She smiled, but I had the feeling she was just telling the truth.

"I won't – I haven't been here long enough." Stateside assignments are generally anywhere from two to four years, though overseas they tend to be shorter. "But I've got to tell you, if I got PCS orders before I'd known you for a while I'd be unhappy too."

"You know how to get to a girl, don't you?"

"Max," I said, "whatever you may be, you're not a girl. You're a woman, an officer, a pilot, beautiful – but not a girl." I could feel myself blushing furiously at the last adjective I'd used.

Max smiled across the table. She must have seen what I felt, for she said, "I do believe you're red, Derek."

I felt hotter than ever. "I'm not used to telling women they're beautiful."

"I'm not used to men telling me I'm beautiful."

"You are, though."

She nodded. "I'm probably being prideful, but I've thought so too. You know how we fighter jocks are – humility isn't our strongest characteristic. But I really do think I'm at least attractive."

"You are, Max. I'm not coming onto you, no way, but I've never seen a more beautiful woman in my life."

"Thank you, Derek. That's very sweet."

I was getting red again – if I'd stopped being red from before, which I wasn't sure of. "I don't know how sweet I am, but I am honest." As I said it I remembered what we'd talked about earlier, about the regulations and the thirteenth chapter of Romans, but I put it aside. "I suppose I could have kept my mouth shut, but since I opened it I had to tell the truth."

"And I appreciate it. In fact, I'm going to call on your honesty. Don't you think my freckles are too much?"

I looked at her freckles – and then realized that I was staring at her face, at that creamy white skin, at the narrow nose and high cheekbones. My eyes lifted involuntarily, and I looked into those hazel eyes, which I realized were looking back into mine. "Max," I said, in a shaky voice, "I think your freckles are absolutely perfect."

She reached out and took my hand. I didn't look down. Those hazel eyes were, for the moment, the center of the universe. "Thank you, Derek. You're sweet, and you're kind, and you're a wonderful man. And I'm afraid that I..."

"Afraid that you're what?"

"Nothing."

"It's not nothing, Max."

"Okay, it's something. But I can't tell you, not now and maybe not ever. Just take my word for it that if I told you, you'd be flattered."

I thought about pushing, but even if we were Max and Derek, eating pizza in my apartment, acting like we were equals – we weren't equals. She was an officer, a pilot, who would one day command others. And I was an enlisted man, who might someday supervise others but would always be inferior in pay, in status, in social standing to her. Max might be my friend, but she was definitely a superior officer, and pushing was one thing I couldn't do. So I said, "Okay, I'll take your word for it. I wish I knew, but..."