THE TARMAC SHIMMERED in the noonday sun. A breeze picked up earth from a plowed field and spun dust devils across the runway. Dean wiped grit from his eyes, as he and Emerson walked across the airport to the rounded buildings.
“You keep looking at the sky,” said Emerson.
“I have a bad feeling that my father and Steve Dubrowski are still following us.”
“What a strange family. Just meet with your father––”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! Sorry ... When I was seventeen, I realized my family is not ‘normal’ in any sense of the word. Even if they didn’t have a few peculiar habits, there’s still the birthday curse hanging over us. Also, Steve Dubrowski.”
“Is he your brother?”
“My father treats him like the son he never had, but no, we’re not brothers,” said Dean. “Steve was the perfect child who grew into the perfect man, according to my father. He owns a start-up in Silicon Valley, season tickets for the Giants, and a Corvette he restored after Liam Neeson drove it through a supermarket. He’s a black belt in kung fu, a licensed pilot, and speaks Chinese and Japanese. My father and he are literally bosom buddies. When my parents moved to California ten years ago, Steve packed up and joined them.”
“He sounds very good,” said Emerson.
“I’m sure he does, and that’s why it’s hard to impress your father with a first draft of an unpublishable book when he’s spending all his time at Steve Dubrowski’s Japanese estate in the Los Altos hills.”
Emerson linked arms with Dean. “I know one thing this Steve does not have.”
“What?”
Emerson hopped a few inches. “A beautiful wife from Kamchatka!”
“That’s true,” said Dean sadly. “But you’re a paper wife, and soon we’ll have a paper divorce. Which reminds me of the only stupid decision Steve Dubrowski has ever made in his life.”
“Not visiting Kamchatka?”
Dean shook his head. “Marrying my sister.”
A dozen old fighter planes were parked outside a green building shaped like half a barrel buried length-wise in the earth. For Emerson’s benefit, Dean pointed out a P-51 Mustang, a Marine Corps F4U Corsair, a P-40 Warhawk, a twin-engine P-38 Lightning, a Messerschmitt Bf109, and even a Japanese Zero.
“Must be an air show in town,” he said.
“This does not look like restaurant,” said Emerson, a hand on her hip. “It looks like shop in prison.”
Dean waved at the entrance door. “That sign says, ‘Kelly’s Kanteen.’ It’s an old word for a place to eat.”
Like a gentleman, he held open the squealing metal door for Emerson, but she stopped in her tracks and squinted at him.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Ladies first.”
“I thought you LIKE liked me! In Kamchatka a man always enters a building first, so he can receive bullet or fight with sock thief.”
Dean shrugged. “Okay, then.”
The interior was a sweaty haze of smoke and male conversation. Old men in faded green and blue military uniforms sat around round wooden tables, laughing and ‘carrying-on’ with loud assertions of overpowering fact. Posters of aircraft in muted colors lined the walls, along with flags of various nations and black-and-white photos of men in flying gear or touching the side of a plane. An old tune from the era of big bands and wide lapels played from an ancient phonograph on the bar.
A brisk wind slammed the door with a loud bang. Conversation stopped as twenty pairs of eyes turned to the new couple: Dean in a flight suit and Emerson in an Indian-like red sari and wedding veil.
At the bar, a gray-haired man in a blue serge uniform drained the rest of his beer and slammed it down.
“Back from Thailand so soon, Tony? Don’t expect to flog any more of your Asian love connections here. Half of us have already got one of your little beauties cracking the whip at home. Did you forget this isn’t Utah?”
The assembled men raised their glasses. “Here, here!”
“Wait a tic,” said the man. “Either some back-alley Bangkok surgeon has done a rubbish job on your face, Tony, or you’re not Tony.”
“I’m not Tony,” said Dean. “We’re just hitching a ride with him. On our honeymoon, as a matter of fact.”
“Prove it,” yelled a pilot in a grease-covered jumpsuit.
“Yes, prove it,” said the gray-haired man at the bar. “Give us a kiss. For luck and our own entertainment, if nothing else.”
Dean pecked Emerson on the cheek, bringing catcalls and boos from all the men.
“She’s not your gran,” shouted the gray-haired man. “Give her a right smack on the lips!”
Dean sighed. He put his arms around Emerson and kissed her on the mouth for a full five seconds, accompanied by cheering that shook the pictures on the walls.
At least it seemed like five seconds, but it could have been more because he woke up staring at the ceiling and a crowd of faces, including Emerson’s.
“He’s alive after all,” said the gray-haired man. “Must have some dodgy heart condition. Isn’t that right, old chap?”
The men helped Dean to his feet.
“He is not sick,” said Emerson with a smile. “I am just very good kisser.”
The men raised their glasses. “Here, here!”
The gray-haired man shook Dean’s hand. “Congratulations to you both. I’m Captain Ian Davies of the 99th Fighter Squadron, Reformed. Whatever you and your lovely bride would like is on the house.”
“99th Fighter Squadron?”
“That’s right,” said Captain Davies. “All of us chaps potter around this place and occasionally fly those beautiful ladies outside. It’s cracking good fun and mainly for charity.”
“And keeps us out of the house,” yelled a portly officer in a green uniform.
The men raised glasses. “Here, here!”
“Yes, quite,” said Davies. “Aircraft are much easier to control than women, especially as they get older. In any case, please have a seat.”