“Oh, how does that not surprise me?” Carlisle said.
Bing, bing, bing went the flight attendant call buttons; people started rustling around. There was the telltale sound of seat belts unsnapping, and Carlisle grabbed the PA speaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be landing momentarily and taxiing to the gate. Please use your flight attendant call buttons for emergencies only. And remain seated. The flight attendants will come back into the cabin to help you as soon as it’s safe to do so.” He clicked off. “I hate wind,” he muttered.
As the 767 eased into its parking spot and the jetway moved toward the door, passengers sprang to their feet, popped open overheads and filled the aisles before the captain had turned off the seat belt sign. It just infuriated him. He was already in a bad mood that was getting worse by the second. He grabbed the speaker again. “Clear the aisle so that flight attendants can assist the sick passengers!” he ordered. No one moved. “Please!” he nearly shouted into the PA. No one moved.
“Bastards,” he muttered.
“Come on,” Salads said. “It’ll be easier to get them off the plane and then help any sick passengers. You get the club soda and paper towels, I’ll get the door.”
“Swell. That’ll be such a great help,” he said sarcastically.
Salads patted his knee. “No problem, sweetie.”
“People are just so damned inconsiderate,” he pointed out.
“We better load more club soda,” she said, ignoring his futile bitching. “We’re going to be bouncing all over the country.”
“And ginger ale,” he added tiredly.
Carlisle was getting himself a little more worked up with every leg of the trip, until finally Thursday morning came and he was headed for the town house he had shared with Robert. His attorney was to drive him there; Ross Levine was just a little guy in his sixties—not exactly what Carlisle would term protection. And he’d only found one person to help, a guy he worked with who promised to show up at about noon.
“Have you decided exactly what you want to take?” Ross asked him. “Because I really don’t plan to stay all day while you pack your house. I just want to be certain Robert understands the legal situation and isn’t likely to give you any trouble.”
“Likely,” Carlisle said. He felt sick to his stomach.
“As long as you feel vulnerable, I’ll stay,” he said. “But I have other—”
“It’s all right, I understand. You have other clients. And I’m not as prepared as I should—”
“Try not to worry too much. It’s been my experience that once the boundaries are established and the law is clear…”
He continued talking, but Carlisle wasn’t really listening. Hang experience, this was battery, domestic violence. Once you finally named it and came to terms with it, you knew the beast for what it was. Robert was dangerous.
He knew he should have had a plan. He should have hired a moving company to meet him at the town house. What had stopped him was frazzled nerves and denial. He was watching the clock tick, the calendar pages slip off one by one, knowing he was running out of time. He was going to end up doing what so many before him had done—he’d leave much of his stuff behind just to get away clean. He’d probably never get his half of the equity….
His thoughts were distracted as they pulled into the neighborhood and found it as crowded as a block party. There was a big U-Haul truck backed into the drive, though the garage door was not open. He’d booked a U-Haul for later, after his friend arrived to help, so where’d this one come from? Cars and pickups were parked along the curb; people were standing around. Carlisle was totally confused. His first thought was that Robert was moving, stealing the furniture. But then he recognized Buck. Buck? A man of equal size stood on either side of him. And Nikki? And there was Dixie talking to some women. Mexican women? Who the devil were they?
His legs were like lead as he experienced that dreamlike inability to move. The scene started to slowly come into focus as he recognized Lydia, Drake’s former cleaning lady. Nikki started to walk toward Carlisle.
“Hi. We thought two things could be accomplished here today, with some help. One—we can get everything that belongs to you out of here and up to Las Vegas, where you’ll need it, and two, Robert will come to understand you’re not kidding, and you’re not alone. Not by a long shot.”
“You all came? How did you manage it? You work days, nights and weekends as it is.”
“Yeah, I know. This is going to be a treat. I called Lydia and she brought some friends. We’ll get them packing. Dad brought a couple of guys from Burgess Aviation to help load up the furniture. I’m guessing we’re out of here in two hours. After we get in, that is. That might be the most time-consuming part of this event.”
Carlisle glanced at the house. Ross Levine was walking up to the front door with his briefcase in hand.
“He’s home,” Nikki said. “He’s seen us all.”
“We had to tell him when we were coming,” Carlisle said. And then a slow smile spread across his lips as he saw the front door open and Ross begin a conversation with Robert. “Why do these things never occur to me?” he asked himself aloud. “Why didn’t I just do this myself? Gather up a small army to converge on him? Because if I end up suing him, which I will surely have to do, all these people will have witnessed him denying me entry to my own house. Denying me my possessions, which I have a legal right to.” The front door closed, Ross Levine came back down the walk, and within seconds the garage door lifted. “Why don’t I think of these things?”
But he knew the answer. The pathetic answer. When it came to this relationship, he acted like a victim.
But here were ten people backing him up. It gave him tremendous confidence. He walked into the open garage and through the door into the kitchen, where he found Robert. He couldn’t deny a slight wave of fearful nausea, but he was determined that it wouldn’t show. Nikki was beside him, and Buck quickly brought up the rear to stand behind him.
“Thanks for letting us in, Robert,” Carlisle said. “We’ll be out of here in no time and I promise we won’t leave a mess.”
Robert snorted and turned away. He took the cordless phone out onto the patio.
“That wasn’t too bad,” Nikki said.
“I so hope he stays on the phone out there till we’re ready to leave,” Carlisle told her.
“Why? He doesn’t seem too surly.”
“I’d like my last act to be plucking it out of his hand as I wave goodbye. It’s my phone.”
In a choreographed dance, Carlisle’s presence was removed from the town house. He pulled kitchen items that belonged to him out of cupboards and placed them on the table for Lydia and her friends to pack. In the bedroom, Nikki and Dixie packed his clothes in boxes. Given Robert’s meanness, it was amazing that he hadn’t thrown away these things, but then he never expected Carlisle to show up with a team and a truck. Truth be told, if this move had been up to Carlisle, it wouldn’t have happened with such smooth efficiency. In these circumstances, he had no objectivity, no courage.
It was not yet noon when the furniture and boxes were in the truck, which they also used to tow Carlisle’s car. Lydia and her friends left, and one of the guys from Burgess Aviation would drop Dixie and Nikki at the airport so they could get right back to Las Vegas. Behind the wheel of the truck was Buck.
Carlisle looked around the interior of the town house from the kitchen. He had taken the living room furniture, big-screen television, pictures, bedroom suite, most of the kitchen accoutrements.
Robert came in from the patio, a hangdog expression on his handsome face. Carlisle held out his hand for the cordless. He placed it on its base, unplugged it from the wall and wound the cord around it.
Robert’s hands were plunged deeply into his pockets, and that errant lock of dark brown hair flopped onto his brow. “Well,” he said. “Looks like you’ve taken almost everything. Even my heart.”
Carlisle surprised himself by
laughing out loud. “Oh, kiss my ass, Robert. There’s a lien on the house.” And then he got the heck out of there.
He jumped in the truck beside Buck. “You know, I can get to Las Vegas just fine. You don’t have to—”
“I promised the girls,” he said, putting the truck in gear and moving slowly forward.
“It’s really nice of you,” he said. “I know where they’re coming from. Even I would have expected me to be falling apart, a basket case, but oddly enough, I’ve never felt more—”
“Listen, buttercup,” Buck said, cutting him off. “Don’t tell me too much, okay? Because…You know.”
It was a five-hour drive. Carlisle was going to make him say it. “Because what?”
Buck let out a ragged sigh. “I’m sixty-six. Not only don’t I get the whole gay thing, I don’t much get the regular stuff.”
“That a fact?”
“Here’s what I get. You’re Nikki’s good friend, you treat the kids like they’re special, you have that occasional drink of Scotch with me and you seem to be a good person. Good people should catch a break now and then. That asshole should never have hit you, and you need to go to Las Vegas with your friends.”
Hmm, Carlisle thought. And he says he doesn’t get much.
Dixie and Nikki were using a couple of old standby passes for perfect attendance that Dixie hadn’t given away before taking her leave of absence from Aries. Because of this, they couldn’t travel in the jeans and tennis shoes they’d worn to help Carlisle move. They headed for the airport bathroom to change into the required business attire.
While Nikki finished fluffing her hair and putting on new makeup, Dixie waited in the gate area for the standby’s to be called. A man sat down beside her.
“How you doin’?” he asked in a thick New York accent.
She edged away a little. “Fine.”
“Heading for Vegas?”
“As a matter of fact.”
“Small world, ain’t it? I was just thinking about getting a drink. This flight isn’t going to board for a long time. Wanna join me?”
“Ah, thanks, but no. I’m travelin’ with someone.”
He chuckled. “Don’t it just figure? I finally get to fly for pleasure, and the most beautiful woman on the flight is already with someone.”
“You’re a pilot?” she asked.
He nodded. “Triple seven,” he said smugly. “American.”
She half smiled. He thought his prowess as a pilot was going to get him laid. Ha-ha-ha-ha. Boy, had he got a wrong number.
“Any chance I can get you to ditch him?”
Amazing. That was more brazen than the worst blockhead pilots she knew. It made her laugh. “Oh, my, does your wife know what you do when you’re out on the road?”
“I see you’ve met Rocky,” Nikki said. She’d come upon them without either of them noticing her. He looked up at her, his mouth hanging open in confusion. He clearly didn’t remember her, but then she had an entirely new look. “I thought you weren’t allowed to fly this airline, Rocky,” she said, still standing and looking down at him.
It took him quite a while, then his eyes slowly grew wide as he came to recognize her. Once he was sure, he simply stood and made his getaway. Not to the bar, but down the concourse and past Security at a very fast pace.
“You know that man?” Dixie asked.
“Remember that guy I told you about who was impersonating an air marshal?”
“No way!”
“Way. He’s not supposed to be able to get a ticket on Aries,” she said. “I don’t know if he did any time, but I’m sure there was a hefty fine and his name is on the watch list. I wonder how he managed it.”
“Well,” Dixie said thoughtfully. “He wasn’t an air marshal today. He was a triple-seven pilot for American Airlines.”
Eleven
Bob Riddle was the original meeting man. By keeping her ears open and instructing Dixie to do the same, Nikki soon learned that when Bob arrived in the morning, he handed Crue a list of calls to make and meetings to schedule. He met with pilots who had just been hired; he met with in-flight personnel—flight attendant managers—individually and in small groups; he spent a lot of time wandering around the corporate and finance end of the office building; and he had meetings with vendors who supplied everything from airplanes to airplane coffeepots. Nikki had no idea what he was doing, but he was doing it very busily.
Then one of his little projects saw the light of day. A fashion show was scheduled to be put on by a uniform vendor for flight ops and in-flight senior staff. They would have to make a selection for pilot and flight attendant uniforms immediately if they were to be ready for the first flight.
Ordinarily Nikki would not trust herself to choose anything dealing with fashion, but these were uniforms. They had hardly changed over the past forty years, with the exception of the occasional avant garde look—like hot pants and boots. So, how hard could it be?
Harder than she’d dared fear.
“Our objective at New Century Air is to accentuate the new,” said Reese, flight attendant and head of the uniform committee. “We want to be innovative. We want to stand out.”
That’s where the trouble started. The whole point was that pilots not stand out. Pilots were cool, detached, in control behind the scenes. At least that’s what the airline preferred the flying public to believe. The truth might not be good for ticket sales.
Bob Riddle had joined forces with Charles, the head of in-flight, and his committee of four flight attendants, who apparently had been longing to go to Mardi Gras for some time. Between them they had come up with some rather interesting ideas. The manufacturer had both sketches and mannequin models set up in the conference room when Nikki arrived.
The first outfit she saw was a turquoise suit for pilots with gold filigree on the sleeves and gold piping along the edges. There was a complementary one-piece fitted jumpsuit made of spandex for the flight attendants, including a wide belt with a large gold buckle. It reminded Nikki of something that might be worn by the crew of the Starship Enterprise.
“Um, have you taken into consideration that there is no longer a weight standard for flight attendants?” Nikki asked. She mentally noted that there were about three people she knew who would look good in that leotard—Dixie and two men. “And then there’s the maternity issue,” she added.
“We can find a way to deal with maternity, but we don’t intend to let our flight attendants get fat,” Reese said.
“Ah, then you intend to be sued?” Nikki asked. “I believe that’s an EEO issue.”
“It can’t be!” she argued, aghast.
“Let’s just move along,” said Charles. “There’s plenty here to see.”
Next they viewed a mannequin wearing a tan suit with red-and-black shoulder boards and gold buttons.
“That’s a favorite of mine,” Bob said.
“He looks like an Iraqi general!” Nikki protested.
“Look at the sketches for the coordinating flight attendant uniforms,” Reese urged. “They’re striking!”
“They look like female generals!” Nikki exclaimed. “Look, you have to know pilots, especially the men. They don’t like to get all trussed up. They tend toward conservative and comfortable clothing that’s easy to maintain.”
“I beg to differ, Nikki,” Bob said. “I’m a pilot and I very much favor a snappy appearance.”
“Bob,” Nikki said pleadingly, “turquoise spandex is way beyond snappy. That’ll get a union in here faster than low pay.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Charles said. “We have more sketches and actual mock-ups to look at.”
Nikki held her tongue. She sat quietly while being shown sketches of low-rider, bell-bottomed pants with paisley vests, multicolored layover shirts with Nehru collars, and her personal favorite pilot’s uniform, very loosely pleated pants, silk shirt and leather bomber jacket. Vintage forties. And for the flight attendants? One-piece, tightly belted silk j
umpsuits with extra-large shoulder pads. If there’d been a rag tied around the woman’s head, she would have been Rosie the Riveter.
“What does Joe say about these ideas?” she finally asked.
“He hasn’t been involved. Well, he had this idea that he wanted the first-class flight attendant uniform to differ somehow from the coach—but when we vetoed that idea he didn’t argue.”
“But you’re going to show him?”
“Eventually.”
“No, you have to show him now!” she insisted. “I don’t know that much about fashion, but—”
“That seems painfully obvious,” Reese said, a very superior edge to her voice.
“But,” Nikki went on sharply, “I believe these ideas stray too far from the public expectation, and that can’t be a good thing.”
“Let me show you one that was mocked up for me, so you can see what a real classy pilot looks like,” Bob said, exiting to change. “This one is a little more conservative.”
Nikki took advantage of his absence and dashed out of the room to summon Dixie. “Pilot costuming has gone out of control,” she said. “Call Riordan’s office, and if you can’t get him to make an appearance, at least see if you can get the Gatekeeper. And see if you can find Danny and Eric. I’m in trouble in there.”
When she got back to the room she fessed up. “I called Riordan’s office.”
“Now, what the hell did you do that for?” Reese demanded. “This job was delegated to us and we’re getting it done.”
Bob entered the room in a dark suit with gold accents, but Nikki didn’t really take it in.
“Sorry. If the boss goes for this, I stand corrected and will apologize—but this stuff is too far over the top for me to be comfortable with. I’m not dressing my pilots up in these costumes unless Riordan insists. And I am going to fight it.”
She then looked at Bob. He was right—he wore the most conservative uniform thus far, and even it was beyond belief. The double-breasted jacket was black, with two rows of large gold buttons running up the front—eight in total. Swirling gold piping made decorative loops up the sleeves, and there were gold stripes on the shoulder boards.