Chapter 7

When the call came that night I was half expecting it. The caller ID showed Max's number, and when I hit the Talk button I said, as gently as I could, "Are you okay?"

"Yes ... mostly yes. Could I come over, Derek?"

I thought about what Joe had said, and the danger to both of us it implied, and said, "Yes."

She was there in 20 minutes or so. I opened the door and let her in, and she shed her jacket – her leather bomber jacket again – and allowed me to carry it into the bedroom. And when I came back out, instead of sitting on the sofa, she was standing in the living room, looking like a lost little girl. She came toward me, and said, "Hold me, Derek."

I did. I gently put my arms around her, but she wasn't gentle at all. She held onto me as though I were her only hope of survival, and trembled against me. I realized, slowly, that she was crying. I wondered if a male pilot would have reacted that way, and decided that he wouldn't. He'd probably be in the Officers' Club, buying drinks for everyone, and making light of the experience. I wasn't entirely sure that this macho way of dealing with terror was better than Max's, which might not be outwardly big and brave, but seemed at least as honest.

After a few minutes she straightened up and stepped back, her hands coming to rest on my chest while mine were on her forearms. "I'm sorry, Derek. I was so scared up there, and I'm still shaking – inside, and sometimes outside as well."

"If you weren't scared there'd be something wrong with you."

"I know. I'm not complaining. I'm in a macho man's job, but I'm not going to pretend that I'm tougher and meaner and more manly than the men. I'm a woman, Derek, and I'm going to act and react like a woman."

"Just so long as you don't fall apart until you're safe."

"Oh, I'll never lose it in the cockpit." She laughed, shakily, but it was a laugh. "As long as that plane's strapped to my back I'm as cold and professional as Chuck Yeager. But if they hadn't insisted on taking me to the base hospital in an ambulance, I'd have had to sit down or faint. I was scared, Derek. I've never been so scared in my life. I knew what I was doing, and I knew I could land that aircraft – but in the back of my mind I kept wondering what would happen if I was wrong."

I took her hand and led her to the sofa, and pulled her down beside me. "If you were wrong, Max, you'd have punched out and we'd be talking about how scared you were."

"Would I?"

I looked at her. She was wearing a long-sleeved cowboy shirt tucked into a pair of jeans that were narrow at the waist, rose over her frankly female hips, and tapered down her legs to a pair of running shoes. "You're thinking," I said, "of pilots who are so determined not to lose $40 million that they crash when they ought to have gotten out."

"Exactly. That's exactly what I was thinking up there. I kept telling myself, 'I can't lose the aircraft, I can't lose the aircraft.' I knew I was close to the base – the bird went in while the gear was still going up – and I was absolutely determined to put the plane back down in one piece. And what would have happened if something else had gone wrong? I was so low that I might not have had time to realize that I'd lost it. I might have reached for the ejection handle just when I hit." She was crying again, and shaking violently. I gathered her in and held her, not saying a thing, stroking her blonde hair.

Eventually she pulled away, snuffling a little. "I'm sorry, Derek – I seem to have saved all my crying for your shoulder."

"That's what it's there for, Max."

"I'm glad it is. My roommates weren't much help – one's just out of F-15 training and thinks it's all a simulator, and the other is one of those 'I'm going to be tougher than the boys' types. Neither one of them can understand why I'm so broken apart right now."

"I don't understand it exactly," I said. "But that maybe isn't the point. I'll let you cry on my shoulder as long as you need to – tonight, tomorrow, the next day, next month, next year, however long it takes."

"Do you mean that?"

"Of course I mean it." I squeezed her close again for just a moment. "When you were up there, I was so scared you were going to crash."

"You were?"

"I've been through things like this before. I've heard pilots FOD an engine, or have one flame out, or have one come apart in flight – all sorts of things. And I've always wanted them to make it home safe. But I've never in my life been so scared for someone else as I was today."

"I'm sorry, Derek. I hadn't realized..."

I waited, but she didn't finish. "You hadn't realized what?"

She shook her head. "It's nothing."

I thought about pressing, but the last thing she needed was me trying to push. "Okay, Max." I brushed a lock of hair – almost white in the overhead light – back from her temple. And then I leaned forward, and kissed her there, on her temple. It was just a quick peck, but brothers don't kiss their sisters on the temple. I didn't know what I was to her, or what she was to me, but I knew that I was something other than a sort of brother, and she was more to me than my sisters.

She leaned against me, calmer now. "Would you mind if I just relaxed here for a while?" she asked.

"Not at all. In fact, if you can sit up for just a minute, I'll make things more comfortable for you."

"Okay," she said, and let me get up. I went into the bedroom and got one of the pillows from my bed, and a spare blanket from the closet. I brought them back to the living room.

"Lie down," I told her. She did, and I put the pillow under her head, and spread the blanket over her. She pulled it up to her chin, and left her arms outside, resting on top of the blanket. Her feet were up on the arm of the sofa, and I sat down there, where there was a little room. "If you can, Max, get some sleep."

"Where will you be?"

"For a while, I'll be here, with my book. I'm off tomorrow, so I don't have to go to bed. But if I do get tired, I'll go in the bedroom, and lock the door – for both our protection."

Her face relaxed somehow, and I could see what she must have looked like as a child. "Okay, Derek. Thank you." Her voice was childlike too, soft and full of unconditional trust.

So I went and sat in my chair, and read my book, and after a bit I heard a soft snore. I looked over, and Max was asleep, her golden hair spread out over the pillow, one hand flat on the blanket and the other curled into a fist. I looked at the clock on the microwave in the kitchen, which I could see from where I was. It was after 10 PM, so I turned on a table lamp, turned off the living room light, and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning and wondered what was wrong. Then I realized the bedroom door was closed, which wasn't at all usual, and then I wondered why – and then I remembered. I got out of bed, and put on some clothes. I unlocked the door and went out into the living room, where Max was still sleeping. She'd turned on her right side, facing the back of the sofa, and had pulled the blanket up around her shoulders. Her hair was spread around her, some of it lying across her cheek, and she looked like a beautiful young child huddled there in her dreams.

I'd heard the cliché about one's heart going out, and for the first time I understood it. It felt like everything inside me was trying to force its way out of me, to go to Max and hold her, comfort her, keep her safe and warm. I had no idea what was going on. I jerked myself away and went into the kitchen, where I took a bottle of Mountain Dew out of the fridge. As I leaned on the counter drinking it I tried to figure myself out. I knew Max was my friend. So was my reaction to her vulnerability one of friendship? I'd had friends before – some of them women – and I'd never had that sort of yearning toward them. But if it wasn't just friendship, what was it?

I didn't have the foggiest notion. I couldn't tell what it was. But I knew it was very real, for at that moment I could easily have climbed onto the sofa – if there had been room – and held onto Max and soothed her fears until she woke gently and unafraid.

That image scared me. I had no business thinking of Max that way. She was a friend, not my wife, and for me to lie down on the same sofa with her would have simply been wrong. She and I both were keeping ourselves for our spouses, and I wasn't about to endanger that for either of us.

What I did do was put my soda on the counter, and go into the living room, where I knelt down beside Max. The clock on the microwave said that it was just before 8 in the morning. I brushed the hair off her cheek, and let my palm rest there for just a moment. Her skin was so soft, like a baby's skin, and smooth. I kissed her temple, as gently as I could. And then I straightened up, and shook her shoulder. Her eyes fluttered and then opened, and she turned her head, and smiled when she saw me.

"Is it morning?" she asked.

"It is. You've slept pretty well."

"I did. I didn't think I would, but I did." She turned on her back, and pushed the blanket down far enough to free her arms. And then her left arm came up behind me, and pulled me down, and she kissed me – not on the cheek.

I was so startled that I didn't do anything for a moment, and then I pulled away – not with a jerk, for I'd learned that much about her, but firmly. "Max," I said, "we shouldn't."

She released me, and smiled gently. "If you had told me that I shouldn't, I'd be angry with you right now. But you said 'we, ' including yourself. You didn't put it all on me." At that moment she looked like a teenaged girl, no longer a child, but still sweet and innocent and unsullied by life's disappointments and hurts.

"It isn't all on you. If you knew what I've been thinking you'd slap my face. I'm not perfect either, Max."

"No, you're not, and neither am I. But I know that I care about you, Derek, more than I've ever cared about any man. And I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable."

I nodded. "It's okay, Max. It's just that there's so much that could hurt us. It's already questionable that I let you sleep here last night. We're both single, and from the outside no one can tell that we slept with a locked door between us. And..." I thought about how to tell her. "And there are rumors about us already."

She grabbed my hand and used it as a handle to pull herself upright. She turned on the sofa to face me, tucking her legs underneath her and keeping the blanket wrapped around her. "Rumors?"

"Yesterday, when you got into trouble, the way they got my attention was to tell me that 'my lieutenant' was in trouble. And afterward, one of the guys on my crew got me in a corner and told me that people are talking. Apparently they think we're meeting in the commissary, and going out on regular dates." I took a deep breath. "And now this. Max, I don't regret for a moment comforting you, and letting you sleep here. But at the same time, what's it going to do to our reputations? And if people are talking, sooner or later it's going to get back to people who have to enforce the regulations. We could both get into serious trouble."

She caught her lower lip in her teeth, looking down for a moment. When she looked back at me her eyes were bright, and it seemed that tears were just a moment away. "Derek, I have never wanted to hurt you, in any way. I don't want to ruin your reputation, or get you into trouble with the regulations. But I care about you, more than I know how to say, more than I know how to tell myself even. I can't stay away from you. I can't keep myself from calling you. Last night when I needed a shoulder to cry on, you were the only one I thought of. What do I do, Derek?"

Now it was my turn to look down, thinking. Eventually I raised my eyes to hers and said, "I don't know. I care about you too, Max – more than I've ever cared about anyone. I'm glad you thought of me when you needed someone. I'm glad you're here now. I love to think about you, I love to look at you, I love to talk to you, I love to be with you. You're the best friend I've ever had ... and maybe ... maybe more than that, I don't know. I don't want to be apart from you. But I'm scared. If things keep going I could lose my chance at chief, forever. And you could lose your chance to command a fighter wing. I was scared to death yesterday when you were trying to get back on the ground, but I'm just as scared now, thinking of what could happen to you."