Chapter 5

I didn't see Max again for three weeks or so. She called me a couple of times, and I called her a couple of times, but our schedules didn't mesh, and she never drew "my" aircraft. I did spot her once as she stepped to her aircraft, but she was out of easy calling range even without the sounds of a busy flightline. I might not have recognized her, were it not for that blonde hair, more white than golden, which even in its regulation bun was unique among all the women of the world.

And then I was in the commissary shopping, on a Saturday less than two weeks before Christmas. My parents were gathering with assorted relatives in Massachusetts, and though I would have loved to go I didn't have enough leave time accumulated to make it worthwhile. I'd spent an entire month of leave en route from George, and I'd only been at Kirtland a little while. I didn't even if know if I had any leave time at all yet. If I did, it certainly wouldn't be worth the trouble of taking it. So I'd sent my parents a Christmas card, and was shopping for myself – slowly, a little bit at a time, along with my regular shopping.

I was in the sugar aisle when I felt a hand on my shoulder, and then Max's slightly husky voice was in my ear. "Derek! How are you?" She sounded very happy.

I turned, and she was grinning at me. "I'm fine. And how are you?" I realized I was grinning too, for I was glad to see her.

"Well, well. We've been getting in a lot of flight time before we suspend flight ops for Christmas. I'm piling up the hours."

"You'll be able to go for IP in a bit."

"One of these days I'd like to try that. And I'd like to do a tour or two as a test pilot at Edwards. But only as stepping stones to that wing command." She finally took her hand off my shoulder. "What are you doing for Christmas?"

I grabbed a bag of sugar off the shelf and put it in my basket. It was a small bag – there's only so much you can carry on a motorcycle, even with saddlebags, and I had to watch the balance too. "I'm planning on buying some expensive bread, and slicing up a ham, and stuffing myself on sandwiches."

"You can't be serious." Her Oklahoma accent made it sound like cain't.

"But I am. I'll go home for Easter, probably – Resurrection Sunday, they call it at church. But right now I don't have the leave time to go home."

"Well, shoot, that's not right."

"But it's the way it is, Max." I didn't realize, until it was out of my mouth, that I'd addressed an officer by her first name right out in public, with officers and enlisted people all around. I blushed, and was glad we were both in our "glad rags."

"You're turning very red," Max whispered to me, leaning closer and letting me get a whiff of her perfume – lilacs, it smelled like.

"Sorry," I muttered.

"Anyway," she said, drawing back and speaking normally again, "we can't let you have such a blah Christmas. Your shop's closing for Christmas, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I'll be on standby, with a few others, just in case, but none of us will be on duty Christmas Eve or Christmas Day – we'll only pull a half shift on Christmas Eve day."

"Then it's settled. My parents are coming in from Midwest City, and you'll celebrate with us."

"I can't do that."

"Oh, yes you can," she said. "I've been working things out. My roommates are all going on leave, so I'll have the house to myself. I'm going to cook dinner, and my parents will be there, and we'll open presents – and you're going to be there, Derek."

I knew what the end result was going to be, so I decided to grin and bear it. "Is that an order, Max?"

"No – but I could make it one."

"Well, it wouldn't be a lawful order, so I could legitimately refuse it. But if you made it an invitation..."

Max laughed, that loud braying laugh of hers which was totally unselfconscious. "All right, smart mouth, I hereby officially invite you to the Bois d'Arc Monster Christmas Day and Dinner With My Parents."

"Then, Ms. Bois d'Arc, I hereby officially accept."

"I told you it was settled," she said. "Now about shopping ... I propose we combine our efforts, put it all in my car, and let you get more at one whack."

"Makes sense," I said, and began moving items from my cart to hers. "I love my bike, Max, but it's tough doing much shopping while riding it." After I'd put all my stuff in our cart I realized it hadn't been necessary, but I wasn't about to move it all back.

"I figured that out – remember, I've got that university degree." She waved her ring at me, the yellow stone in it – surely an imitation, as big as it was – flashing light. I assumed it was an imitation of topaz, but I wasn't sure, and it seemed to me that there might be more than one yellow birthstone, though it had been a while since I'd seen a list and I wasn't sure about that either.

"Yes, ma'am, you're the flying genius." I set my cart to the side. "Since you're so smart, where do we go next?"

"Push the cart, and I'll show you," she said, and proceeded to do just that.

We shopped and talked, about nothing much at all, until we got to the register. When we were in line she said, "Let me pay for all of this at once, and we'll sort out what you owe me later."

"That works," I said, "but I tip the guy."

"That works too." She put her hand over mine as I held the handle of the shopping cart. "Let's do this. You go on home, and I'll take the lot to my place, unload my groceries, and then bring your stuff and the receipt over to your apartment. And then we can decide how much you owe me. I'm sure that 29% interest will be acceptable to you."

I snatched my hand out from under hers, and – greatly daring – punched her lightly on the shoulder. She was wearing a black leather jacket, what they call a bomber jacket, over what looked like a t-shirt. I could have swung a lot harder before it would have hurt her through that thick leather. "I'll interest you in a spanking if you're not careful," I said – in a low voice. I might be foolish enough to let her continue pushing our friendship, but I wasn't a complete idiot.

Max looked at me speculatively. "I'm almost tempted to let you try it," she said. "At the very least you'd get some serious exercise."

"I might at that," I said, and just then the line moved and we were next. I began putting things on the conveyor, and the cashier began scanning them, and Max and I were too busy paying attention to what we were doing to banter any further.

I got home in the early afternoon light, and stood in the parking lot for a minute with my helmet under my arm looking at the Sandia Mountains. I'd never seen anything like them anywhere. I'd done a little bit of research on them, and found that they were the uplifted half of a fault. The other half was under thousands of feet of sediments deposited by the Rio Grande. Sandia Crest – the Sandias have no peaks as such – is about a mile above the city, and the other half is about six miles beneath the valley, so the vertical separation between the two blocks of stone that form the fault is enormous. There are still earthquakes along the Rio Grande Valley, lifting the east side of the fault and lowering the west by small increments. And out on what they call the West Mesa there are the Albuquerque Volcanoes, extinct now, but the whole Mesa on which they sit is their lava. Further west, bulking on the horizon with its jagged triple-peaked shape, is Mount Taylor, another extinct volcano.

I went on inside, and found a Mountain Dew in the refrigerator. I twisted the cap off and drank a healthy slug. I remembered that when we'd decided I was inviting Max out for a beer, she'd ordered Dr Pepper when we'd switched to soft drinks. I wondered if she drank DP all the time, the way I did with Mountain Dew, or switched around.

I wondered what her parents were like. I felt like she'd bulldozed me into meeting them, but it was a pleasant sensation. I was finding that I enjoyed a strong woman. My sisters were gentle, sweet, kind women. No one ever walked over them, but they weren't outwardly forceful. They got their way, when they wanted to, without making a fuss about it. Max was different. She went at things head-on. I suppose it must be a characteristic of people who made good fighter pilots. When you're flying $40 million worth of airplane, training to shoot down other airplanes, you can't be shy about going on the attack. If you hesitate, you wind up under a parachute hoping the PJs get to you before the enemy does.

I'd finished the Mountain Dew without realizing it, and went to the kitchen to toss the bottle in the trash. Just then I heard a knock on the door, and when I looked through the peephole I saw a freckled face looking back at me.

"It took you a while," I said when I opened the door.

"I got a quick shower, and put together some supplies," Max said as she stepped in. I saw that she was holding two fistfuls of plastic bag – some of which must have been my groceries, and some of which must have been the supplies she'd mentioned.

I'd worry about the supplies later – just then I grabbed bags from her. "Is that heavy, Max?" I asked her.

"Not now. But if I'd had to hold it much longer it could have gotten that way."

I set the bags I'd grabbed on the counter, and Max put the ones she still had beside them. While I searched them for my groceries, she put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. "What's that for?" I asked her.

"Oh, just seeing how it feels." She had a grin on her face as she sorted through bags, no doubt selecting the supplies she'd spoken of.

"And how does it feel?" I asked, and then turned to put the sugar in the cabinet in order to hide my blush.

"Not bad."

I didn't say anything, just kept on putting things away.

"'And it felt good for me too, Max – in fact, I'd like to do it again, '" she said, obviously saying what she wanted me to say.

"Max!" I said, appalled at the words she was putting in my mouth. I looked at her, and saw that while she was still grinning, there was something else in her expression. I wasn't sure how to classify it, but it seemed to me, in that intuitive way you read expressions, that there was some sort of desire or longing there.

"That was the natural reaction, Derek, but you didn't say it."

"Oh, brother. Here I am, already behind the promotion cycle, with a lieutenant in the Air Force kissing me on the cheek and saying she thinks I want to do it again. Max, are you the woman my mother warned me about?"

She laughed. "I don't know. Did she warn you about Christians who are adamantly moral, and kiss their friends on the cheek out of sheer affection?"

"Well, no."

"Then in that case, no, I'm not." She had gotten all her supplies out now, and wadded the plastic bags together. "Where do I put these?" she asked me.

"In the trash," I said, and pointed.

She tossed them in, and arrayed what she had on the counter. "The reason I got a shower was I had an inspiration. I'm going to fix you Max's Famous Oklahoma Beefburgers."

"I've had a hamburger before."

"Yes, you have." She turned her back to the counter and leaned her elbows on it. She was wearing a sleeveless emerald green blouse now, and I saw her upper arms swell – not the fleshy swelling of some women, who have no muscle tone, just an accumulation of fatty tissue around the shoulder joint, but a swelling of muscle under the female layer of under-the-skin fat. "But you've never," she said, "had a Beefburger. These are special."