“You weren’t ready, Erin. You know you weren’t ready. Redlo admitted he pressured you into flying.”
“I could have done it,” she said. “I could have.”
“Maybe so. Maybe you would have forced yourself.” He slumped against the back of the sofa. “Erin, I did it because I care about you. I didn’t want to see you go up there, putting yourself in that kind of danger. My job is preventing crashes!”
He stopped and drove a hand through his hair, turned his back to her, then turned around again. “Can you honestly stand there and tell me that you were looking forward to flying, that you could have just hopped back into the cockpit and dashed over to St. Louis without consequence? You were shaking, Erin, and I saw the fear in your eyes. You hadn’t resolved it yet.”
“All right,” she admitted through gritted teeth. “So I was nervous. I’ve been nervous before, but no one ever grounded me for it. I’m a responsible pilot. If I hadn’t thought I could do it, I wouldn’t have.”
“Then you would have taxied down the runway and frozen, like the other night?”
“No!”
“How can you be sure?”
“How can I ever be sure,” she blared, “if I don’t try? How can I resolve it if I’m grounded?”
“It won’t be forever, Erin,” Addison said in a half whisper. “Please, trust me. As soon as you can prove to me that you’ve come to terms with the crash and that you aren’t terrified, I’ll recommend that you fly again.”
“That’s it, isn’t it? The crash. This is your leverage to get me to tell you whatever you want to know. If you have this hanging over my head, I have to please you, don’t I? I have to cooperate, just to keep you from getting me fired altogether. What else do you want from me, Addison? What’s next? A little physical cooperation?”
He opened his mouth to fling a retort, but stopped short. His face seemed to pale as she glared at him. Then, quietly, he turned and walked out the door.
Erin stood frozen, more shaken and frightened by her own feelings than she’d ever been by the prospect of flying.
Chapter Eleven
Erin stood paralyzed beneath the hard, hot jets of spray showering down upon her. The heat made reality seem sharper, more painful. Tears of self-condemnation streamed down her face, mingling with the cleansing water. For the first time in her life, Erin had to admit that she didn’t like herself very much.
What had she been thinking? How could she have thrown sex up at Addison that way, when that hadn’t been the issue at all? It was stress, she justified. People did crazy things under stress.
She shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, drying herself roughly with a thick towel. Along with her self-condemnation—perhaps because of it—rose a fresh, blossoming anger. He had tampered with her life and left her without a career. How would she ever fly again?
She heard the front door closing, then the sound of Lois’s soft, tentative voice through the bathroom door. “Erin, I’m sorry,” she said hesitantly. “I heard about what happened at the airport.”
Erin dried harder with her towel and told herself she was done with tears. She wrapped herself in the towel and opened the door, letting the steam escape and the fresh air rush in to relieve the mirrors of their fog. Lois stood at the door, peering in. “Erin, are you okay?”
“Remember the NTSB investigator I told you about?” Erin asked as she headed for her room.
“Yeah.”
“Well, he’s the same guy Madeline sent to find me yesterday. The same one I went out with last night.”
Lois followed, her eyes wide. “The same one who got you grounded?” she gasped. “He seemed like such a nice guy. Just this morning you were saying what nice eyes he has.”
Erin retrieved the towel and went to the mirror, rubbing the wetness from her hair. “Yeah, well, just this morning I didn’t know he was going to turn on me. He overheard me talking to Frank, and he used my own words against me.”
Lois went to the bed and sat down. “I should have known he was too good to be true. The most attractive ones usually turn out to be jerks. I guess I just thought if I couldn’t find a real prince, then maybe you could.”
Erin began jerking the brush through her wet hair, her freshly scrubbed face glowing anew as she recalled the scene when he’d come here. Tears welled in her eyes again, but she forced them back. She wasn’t able to stop the trembling of her lips, however. “The thing is…he’s probably right. Part of me was enraged at his audacity…but the other part was…” Her voice trailed off into a shamed whisper. “…so relieved. Lois, how will I ever get over this fear if they won’t let me fly?”
Lois smiled suddenly. “Like I told you, there’s nowhere to go but up. And I was talking to Jack right before takeoff, and he offered to let you use his Cessna to get your confidence back. So see? You can fly. Addison Lowe can’t take that from you.”
Erin took a barefoot step closer to her friend, all anger draining from her face and leaving in its wake the beginnings of hope. “Jack offered that? Really?”
Relief danced in Lois’s pastel blue eyes. “Really. We agreed that if you take it up a few times, you can prove your confidence is back, and they’ll have to lift your suspension.”
Erin took a long breath and gazed thankfully at her friend. “Lo, you just might be a lifesaver.”
Lois sprang off the bed. “Jack said he was calling his wife before he left, to tell her. You can touch base with her about the details. The Cessna is yours as often as you want it.”
Something close to a smile brightened Erin’s face. “It’ll work,” she whispered. “I know it will. Thanks, Lo. You’re the greatest—”
Lois waved off the compliment. “Save it,” she said. “I need something more tangible than mush and gratitude. Help me get my presentation for the union members ready. I traded my next two trips, since the meeting’s tomorrow, and if you think you’ve lived with fear, you haven’t seen my knees shake when I address a roomful of people.”
“Anything,” Erin agreed. “We’ll start right now. And tomorrow you’ll knock ’em dead.”
“We both will,” Lois said.
Addison pulled the massive hangar door shut with all his might, letting the roar and thud reverberate throughout the big building. He flicked on the light, and grinding his teeth, marched to the tagged wreckage assembled on various tables and on the concrete at his feet. His crew had probably gone for a late lunch, so he was all alone in the bland building. Furious, he cursed the crash and this thankless job of his and his burdensome sense of responsibility.
But most of all, he cursed his passion and the anger Erin Russell had ignited in him…
Without thinking, he slammed his fist into a battered file cabinet, but the act did not help him to vent his anger. Instead, it merely heightened it. He bent double, clutching his bruised fingers.
She hated him now. And no matter what he did from this point on, he would always remember the day he robbed her of her career and made her despise him. The day he smothered out a little of himself.
He sat on the floor, leaning back against the corrugated wall, the rumble of aircraft outside vibrating in his heart and stomach. He hated himself. Not since Amanda’s death had he felt so low.
He ran his fingers through his hair, propped his elbows on bent knees, and looked up at the ceiling, as if he could see his wife’s pale, pretty face there now. I miss her, Lord, he prayed. I miss her so much. But there has to be more than quiet and loneliness. Isn’t there more, Lord? Isn’t there? Or am I too big a fool to find it?
The engines outside seemed to become still, the walls ceased to vibrate, and Addison, for a fraction of a moment, thought he felt a peaceful reply. There is more, Addison. There is more…
For the first time in several years, Addison knew the sting of tears.
Addison saw Erin the next day before she saw him. She was with Lois, standing in the coffee shop line behind her friend, wearing a trim blue dress that followed the lines of
her waist, then tapered out to midcalf. She looked more lovely than he’d ever seen her.
He wasn’t sure what propelled him toward her, when he knew he was the last person she wanted to see. But before he knew it he was in line behind her, reaching for the same salad as she.
Erin looked up at him and drew back her hand. Eyes the color of the setting sun glared at him, then darted away. “Sorry,” she said stiffly. “You take it.”
“No, you had it first.” He set it on her tray.
She turned away and looked toward the cash register.
“Listen,” he said quietly, “could we sit down…talk…?”
“I’m busy,” she said.
“Maybe later?” he asked.
“Later I’ll be working.”
“Is it working out all right? Scheduling?” he asked for want of anything better to say.
Erin turned her head slowly back to him, her cold eyes making him pale and sending a shiver curling down his spine. “I’m a pilot,” she said through her teeth. “How do you think it’s working out?”
Addison dropped his eyes, stepped back, and let her follow her friend to a table. His appetite lost, he left the cafeteria and headed back to the hangar.
No strike, no strike, no strike!” Lois called from the lectern at the center of the stage in the airport auditorium. “Not until all else has failed!”
Applause rose from the room where hundreds of Southeast pilots were gathered, and stunned, Lois watched the ovation. In the audience, she saw Erin cheering, and wondered if she looked as pale as she felt. Her knees were shaking as she gathered her papers, and she ran one moist palm down her skirt and cleared her throat. Besides the speech, Lois had survived Ray Carter’s evil eye, which could have murdered her if those daggers in his gaze had been real instead of illusory. Moments before Lois had stood up to speak, Ray had had the entire union spitfire angry and ready to strike. She’d had only passion and prayer—both of which proved invaluable.
Ray stepped up to the podium, dismissing Lois by turning his back to her. “All right, all right,” he called out impatiently. “Quiet, please.” He waited until the applause died down, then cleared his throat authoritatively. Taking his dismissive cue, Lois went back to her seat beside Erin.
“You’ve obviously just heard two very different sides to this issue,” he said. “Since most of you seem to have been persuaded by Lois’s tactics to…what was the word she used…compromise? Well, since most of you seem to believe that’s the path we should take, I’d like to make a recommendation that we hold off the strike vote temporarily—just long enough to meet with Mr. Zarkoff firsthand, so that he can prove to us that he isn’t going to budge an inch. This is open to discussion.”
One of the first officers near the front stood up. “Ray, I agree that we should hold off on the strike vote, but I wonder if it isn’t a bad idea to try to negotiate with Zarkoff ourselves. Maybe we should hire a professional negotiator.”
A round of mumbled agreement followed, before someone else stood up. “A professional negotiator has nothing at stake. He wouldn’t know us. I think we should have our own people there.”
Lois stood up, waiting to be recognized, but Ray flatly ignored her. Anger compelled her to speak anyway. “Excuse me,” she shouted. “But I’d like to speak. I think I have a compromise.”
“Another one?” Ray said in a patronizing tone. “Well, heaven forbid we should overlook another little compromise. Please. The floor is yours.”
Lois ignored his condescension and reminded herself of the success she’d had moments earlier. “I recommend that we hire a professional negotiator and elect a small bargaining committee of four or five to go to the table with him. That way, we’d have professional advice and expertise, while still keeping our own hands in and being able to speak for ourselves if the need arises.”
Another round of approving applause followed, and Lois sat back down, feeling a rush of dizziness. There, she’d said it, and they hadn’t ignored her or thrown tomatoes. At least, not yet, though she expected Ray to find something to launch across the room any minute.
“I move that we call a vote,” someone said.
“Seconded!”
Compressing his lips tightly, Ray Carter called for the inevitable vote to accept Lois’s recommendation. It would have been unanimous, except for the few diehards who were anxious to go on strike and “show Zarkoff who he was messing with.”
Lois felt relief and a moment of ecstasy at the progress she’d made…until she heard herself being nominated for the bargaining committee. When the vote was final, she found that she’d been elected…along with Ray and three others who were hostile, at best, to her cause. They would meet with the original committee of twenty for recommendations, they were told, then take their grievances and demands to their negotiator. And when the time came, they would each have to speak to Zarkoff on behalf of the other members.
Terror smothered out relief as Lois sat, paralyzed, imagining herself shaking like a marionette as she addressed Attila the Hun and “his people.” And if she lost everything for the pilots because of a paralyzing case of nerves, it would be her fault. Ray Carter wouldn’t hesitate to blame her, and she’d be tarred and feathered in one way or another.
The members buzzed out of the room when the meeting was over, but Lois stayed still in her chair.
“Lois? What’s the matter?” Erin asked. “You were great. You changed their minds.”
“They did accept all of my recommendations,” Lois muttered, staring vacantly ahead.
“So why do you look like you’ve been punched in the stomach?”
“Because I don’t want to be one of the five to go up against Zarkoff. This has gotten way out of hand, and I think I’m gonna be sick.”
Erin took her friend’s hand and stared into her face. “Lois, calm down. It’ll be fine. You’re the best person for the job, and you know it.”
Lois raised herself out of the chair. “Excuse me, Erin. I have to find some place to lie down. I don’t feel very well.”
Erin smiled sympathetically as Lois, dazed and still shaking, rushed out of the room to come to terms with her own version of terror.
Chapter Twelve
Terror wasn’t something Erin expected later that afternoon when she was off work and hurried over to the private Pioneer Airport to fly Jack’s Cessna. She’d expected to feel good about flying such a light aircraft, to conquer her fear as she took it into the sky…
Instead, that familiar, smothering panic cycled up inside her as she stood outside the plane, regarding it as if it were the enemy waiting to swallow her up and take her to her death.
Wind whipped her hair around her face as she stood on the small runway, glancing from side to side to see if anyone was watching her. A machinist strolled across the pavement, but he seemed oblivious to her fears. She swallowed the knot in her throat, held her breath, and took a few steps closer to the plane.
Slowly, she climbed in, closed the door, and leaned back against the seat. Why, her mind railed, did it feel like she was offering herself up as a sacrifice to a cruel, ominous sky?
Her breath came in shallow gasps, and her hands trembled as she went through the short checklist that all pilots knew like their names or addresses or Social Security numbers. Controls, instruments, fuel were all as they should be. With trembling hands, she started the engine to check the ignition system, then sat still, listening to it rumble beneath her. It was simple, she told herself. So simple. She’d flown one of these as a teenager. It had been as easy as riding a bike. Why couldn’t she do it now?
I can do it, she told herself. I can. I’m not going to let it beat me.
She tried to pull herself together and checked the interior to make sure the doors and windows were closed and latched, then set her props into takeoff position.
The plane was ready. All she had to do was radio the small tower, to make sure she was clear for takeoff. All she had to do was go down that runway, launch int
o the sky, and use those wings that seemed to be mercilessly clipped.
I’m a pilot. A good one.
But the affirmation didn’t help. She was paralyzed with the engine running beneath her, the fumes rising in blurs from the concrete, the oxygen seeming to thin out in the cockpit. Terrorized, she hadn’t even moved an inch.
“Oh, God, I know you didn’t give me a spirit of fear!” she cried aloud as tears filled her eyes. “So where did this come from?”
She would have given everything she owned for a portion of the peace she knew was her inheritance. But it seemed so far out of reach that she feared she’d never know it again.
Erin got out of the plane when she felt she could walk back into the small terminal without calling too much attention to her tear-stained face. She wiped her eyes, locked the plane, and gave it one last look. Sun glinted off the metallic surface and shimmered over the red stripe running from nose to tail. What was there to fear from this small plane? she asked herself. Nothing, her mind answered, but her heart concocted endless lists of irrational worries. “I’ll get you yet,” she told it, as if it were some animate force to be reckoned with. “I won’t be beaten.”
Sniffing back her misery, she walked to the terminal door, went inside, and stood frozen, suddenly realizing that Addison had been right when he’d had her grounded. He had saved her from more humiliation, or worse. If she had forced herself to go up, she might have frozen in the cockpit. He had known it. And he had done the right thing.
Wanting suddenly to talk to him and absorb some of the peace he had given her the other night, she looked around for a pay phone. Her hands shook as she searched her wallet for the phone number that Madeline had transcribed from the answering machine and stuck in her purse. Trying to control her breath to lessen the panicky waver in her voice, she inserted a coin and dialed.
Addison answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
His voice was quiet, his tone downbeat, and Erin almost hung up. But she was getting much too weary of running.