Chapter 4

When the knock on the door came, I tossed the book aside and rushed to answer it. I usually check through the peephole, but this time I just flipped the deadbolt and opened it up.

I was glad I had. Max was there, her blonde hair glowing on her shoulders. She was wearing a sleeveless white blouse, and I could see that there were a few freckles on her shoulders. Just one button was open on the blouse, and I could see the hollow of her throat, and a small silver necklace, with a pendant representation of a dove. She had on her own pair of khaki pants – and a pair of sandals. I had guessed right!

She reached out and put a hand on my shoulder, and said, "Derek, you look marvelous."

"You look marvelous, Max," I told her. "I've never seen a more beautiful woman in my life."

"Then you haven't been looking at other women," she said, with a smile that lit up her whole face. "But I don't want you to start, not now. I don't like friends with wandering eyes – I need to be the center of their attention."

I considered her for a moment. Her words sounded almost possessive, but she was speaking of friends, in the plural. I wasn't sure how to take them, so I just set it all aside. "If you're ready, Max, I am."

"I'm ready. Lock up and let's go."

I stepped out, turned and locked up, and walked beside Max to her car, which she'd parked across from my apartment. All the spaces next to the building were full as usual, even during the day – I'd sometimes wondered when or if a lot of these people went to work – but there were spaces on the other side of the traffic lane which usually were available.

Max used her key thingy to beep her car open, and we got in. I fastened my seat belt, and she did too, pulling it tight in a way that I knew was a shadow of how she strapped an airplane to her back. A fighter pilot's belts are so tight that they don't talk about strapping into the plane – they say they strap the plane on, as though they're actually wearing the thing. She started the engine, and pulled out.

I had no idea where we were going until she pulled into the Garduño's on Academy. I'd thought she was going somewhere else, and she surprised me when she turned in. "You meant what you said about expensive," I told her.

"It's not the most expensive in town, of course, but I've checked enlisted pay scales. They don't pay you guys what you're worth."

"Shoot, Max, with the base hospital and the commissary and everything else, it works out."

"True, but I've seen the kind of hours you jet engine mechanics put in, and the heavy labor. And I'm sure you're not the only people in the unit, or in the Air Force, who work their butts off for peanuts." She was silent for a moment as she parked the car. "This country doesn't appreciate its military people. I've known that for a long time, Derek. I'm not in this for the money, for that matter – if I ever want to make a lot of money, I'll resign my commission and go to work for an airline. They've got us – you, me, and a host of other young people – working on and flying aircraft that cost anywhere from $40 million to a couple of billion, and they're giving us paychecks that aren't a lot better than Wal-Mart."

I looked over at her. "You know what? I don't do it for the money any more than you do."

She smiled. "I know it. Now let's go eat."

We got a table beside a window, a table with tiles set into the top. I'd been learning that Hispanics love color, and those tiles were very colorful – reds and greens and blues and yellows on a white background. I'd never seen a table like it, but that whole room – sort of a sunroom, though big enough for a dozen or so tables – had those tiled tables in it.

We looked at our menus, and I saw all sorts of things that either I was still learning about, or didn't know at all. I lowered my menu and looked at Max. "Do you know what this stuff is?"

"Most of it, yeah. Don't they have Mexican restaurants in Massachusetts?"

"I suppose they do, but I don't remember ever going to one. This stuff," I said, waving at the menu, "is beyond me. Give me a menu with lobster and scrod and stuff like that, and I'm okay, but I'm lost here."

"Scrod? I've heard of cod, but what's scrod – and can you say it in mixed company?"

I laughed. "I suppose it does sound a bit nasty, now that you say it. But scrod is a young fish that you've split and boned and cooked. Up in Massachusetts it's usually cod they do that way." I grinned at a memory. "I wonder if you've heard the rhyme about Boston?"

"What rhyme about Boston?"

"If I remember right it's a toast from like 100 years ago. It goes like this: 'And this is good old Boston, /The home of the bean and the cod./Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots, /And the Cabots talk only to God.' The Lowells and the Cabots are famous old families in Boston, richer than anyone else, at least back then, old money."

Max laughed at that one, slapping her hand on the table. "That is hilarious! I don't think there's anything nearly that good in Oklahoma – though of course we figure we're at least as good as Boston."

"Oh, there's one good thing at least that's come out of Oklahoma."

"Oh – what?" She'd walked right into it.

"Well, it's got freckles, and blonde hair, and—" I stopped because she was pretending to punch my lights out.

Grinning at me, she turned back to her menu. "Why don't I suggest something?" she asked. "I'd recommend we each get fajitas. I could get steak, and you could get shrimp – you being the seafood fanatic, it seems – and we could share, and whichever you like you could eat the most of."

"Sounds good to me." I closed my menu and laid it down. "What are you going to drink?"

"I don't know. I was thinking of a margarita."

"For a southerner, you sure like all this Hispanic stuff." I smiled at her. "But then I've learned to like Tecate, which is Mexican beer, so maybe I ought to hush."

"Oh, you definitely ought to hush." Max laid her hand on my arm. "But if you want to keep on talking, feel free. I'm enjoying you."

I shook my head. "Enjoying me, rather than enjoying being with me. I guess I'm the day's entertainment."

The waiter saved Max from having to answer that one. She ordered the fajitas – shrimp and beef as we'd talked about – and a margarita. I ordered the Tecate I'd talked about. The waiter took our order and the menus, and brought a basket of tortilla chips and a bowl of red stuff. "What's that?" I asked.

"Salsa, sir," the waiter said. "It means 'sauce.' It's spicy, and very good."

"I'll have to try it," I said, "though where I'm from spicy food is a novelty."

"Then when your fajitas come, be sure to try the pico de gallo. That's a condiment, a spicy one. Most people like it on their fajitas, along with guacamole and sour cream."

I smiled. "Sour cream I know about. And guacamole's that avocado stuff I've had here and there."

"It does have avocados, but there are spices in there too. I guess you're not from New Mexico."

"What gave it away – my ignorance?"

The waiter laughed. "That and your accent."

I looked at Max. "Where I'm from, she's the one with the accent."

"Oh hush," she said, slapping at my hand.

"I'll be back with your drinks," the waiter said, but I only half heard him, for I'd caught Max's hand as she pulled it back.

She pulled hard, trying to free herself, and I did let her go after a few seconds. "You've got strong hands," she said.

"I've been twisting nuts off of bolts for six years now. Your hands aren't weak either."

"Even with fly-by-wire you still need a bit of muscle to fly an Eagle. And HOTAS will at least give your fingers agility and a bit of strength."

"I bet it's interesting flying an F-16."

"I suppose so," she said. "I've never had the opportunity to get into a Falcon, but that side-stick controller's got to be nice, that and the angled ejection seat. I'd love to take one up and put it into a 9-g turn, and see how long I could hold it. The aircraft could hold it indefinitely, you know – the weak point is the pilot's ability to take the strain."

"I bet you could take it, Max."

"Maybe. Certainly I take a lot of strain flying an Eagle. You get to hassling with someone at flight level 300 and either you put yourself through it, or he gets on your six and stays there."

I smiled. "I bet no one gets on your six without having to work for it. And I bet anyone who gets there has to fight to stay there."

"I don't let anyone get tone on me if I can help it."

We were tossing Air Force jargon around without thinking about it, for though she was the pilot and I was only a jet engine mechanic, the terms were familiar. You don't work around fighter aircraft and the people who fly them without picking up a lot of the words and phrases that go into the art of aerial combat. Somewhere in there our drinks had arrived, though I didn't specifically remember that, and now I took a drink of my Tecate. "That's not half bad."

"One of these days I'll have to introduce you to German beer. They've got beer that you'll drink for the taste."

"That's the only reason I drink beer – I sure don't want to get drunk."

She put her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on her folded hands. "I think you've mentioned that your father was sort of a semi-drunk."

"That's probably a good way to put it. I don't have anything against alcohol – it's part of my heritage – but I have no desire to ever drink so much that I begin to lose control."

"I grew up in church – pretty rigid in some ways. We learned early on that Baptists don't drink and Baptists don't dance, and for a long time that was my attitude. But I realized that the Bible doesn't condemn either one. It does condemn drunkenness, and it does condemn the pagan rites that sometimes included dancing, but alcohol itself, and dancing itself, get some favorable mention in the Bible. And these days my dad will even have a beer every now and then – maybe once or twice a year."

"I never thought about all that. I've only been a Christian for a few years."

She nodded. "You mentioned your heritage – what is that?"

"Portuguese – I've got family all up and down the New England coast, mostly involved in fishing. My dad hated the sea, though, and moved inland, to Ware – west of Boston. Silly him, that's right close to Quabbin Reservoir, which is a fairly big piece of water. But all my uncles and aunts and cousins are in Humarock and Rexhame and Brant Rock and Green Harbor."

I leaned back while the waiter put plates of sizzling hot stuff on the table. I could see the little shrimp on my plate, and strips of beef on hers. There were tortillas as well – I recognized those – and forks. I watched Max as she forked her stuff into the middle of her tortilla. I saw bell pepper rings, and onions, in addition to the beef. I followed suit with mine, making sure I had some shrimp in there. Max rolled up her tortilla, and I did likewise; she bit into the end, and so did I. It was delicious.