Alex was a university professor with a Ph.D. in Renaissance literature. He tried to get Carlisle involved with his academic friends but had no interest in Carlisle’s airline buddies or even the Phoenix gay community. Alex preferred a quiet, intellectual life, while Carlisle wanted to have a little fun.
Along came Robert, a flashy wine-and-spirits sales rep who put the moves on Carlisle. To his shame, Carlisle was swept away a little too easily. It wasn’t true that gay meant easy. Carlisle had always been very discriminating; his good looks and sharp wit set him apart from the crowd and he did the choosing. But Robert was even more handsome, and they made a fetching couple.
After a brief and passionate fling with Robert, Carlisle left Alex. His friends endorsed the move. Robert was charming, funny, sexy. Men and women alike fell for him. “You have to be happy,” they would tell Carlisle. “You’ve outgrown Alex.” And “You have to follow your bliss.”
The only person who had not encouraged his breakup was Nikki. “You just don’t know how wonderful dull can be, Carlisle.” But why in the world would he have taken her advice? She never encouraged anyone in romance, probably because of the mess she’d made of her own love life.
It was amazing how short that “bliss” turned out to be. Robert was a fraud. He wasn’t charming, he was manipulative. Mean. Controlling and unfaithful and possessive. At first, Robert easily convinced Carlisle that their problems stemmed from the craziness of dealing with Alex, who’d become hysterical after Carlisle left.
But within a few months Alex had found someone new and left his ex alone. By then, Carlisle and Robert had had at least a dozen blistering fights, and Carlisle had been hit twice. Robert had been devastated that he’d lost control and swore it would never happen again.
Of course, it had.
Nikki and Dixie knew that Robert was an asshole, but of course they didn’t know all of it. It was Carlisle’s dirty little secret. He couldn’t stand the thought of being some sissy queer who couldn’t…wouldn’t fight back. It was killing him. Even Dixie had struck out at injustice. Why couldn’t he? It wasn’t as though Robert was so much bigger and stronger.
He folded up the last of his laundry, packed his bag, put it in the trunk of his car and drove out of the neighborhood. Thirty minutes later he was parked at the curb of an elegant neighborhood with large, expensive homes and tall, mature trees. He looked at the house, remembering every room, especially the huge gourmet kitchen. It was nearly five.
Alex’s small silver sports car came down the street and turned into the drive. Even after traveling across town, Carlisle still wasn’t sure he intended to talk to Alex, but when Alex stepped out of the car, briefcase in hand, he looked directly across the street at his former partner. As if he could sense his presence.
“Oh, well,” Carlisle said to himself, getting out of the car. Hands in pockets, he slowly crossed the street.
Alex looked well. At five foot eight, he wasn’t a big man, but he was well built and distinguished-looking, with a salt-and-pepper beard that set off his deep, penetrating aqua eyes. Had Carlisle really been worried about the age difference? Alex was fifty-three and appeared to be robust, in the peak of health. He nodded once toward Carlisle, holding his briefcase against his chest with both hands.
“Hi, Alex. I’m sorry to just show up without calling first.”
Alex shrugged.
“I won’t stay or get in the way. I wanted to say I’m sorry. For what I did to you.”
Alex simply lifted his brows and cocked his head to one side, as if asking without asking.
“I realized before much time had passed what a terrible…no, tragic mistake I had made. But I couldn’t do anything about it by the time I knew.”
“Why not?” Alex asked.
Carlisle just shook his head in a helpless way. “I just couldn’t. But it has become important to me that you know I’m very sorry. Think you might ever forgive me?”
“It’s not a matter of—”
“Hey,” a voice called.
Both men turned. Standing in the doorway of the house was a slender young man with what appeared to be a dish towel in his hands. He was very young. Alex was robbing the cradle for sure this time. “Would you like me to open a bottle of wine and put out some cheese and crackers?” the young man asked.
“No—No, thank you,” Carlisle called over to him quickly. “I have to run.” And to Alex he said, “Take care, okay?”
“You, too. You don’t have to be a stranger, you know.”
“Thanks. That’s decent. You always were so…classy.” Carlisle went back to his car and drove to his own neighborhood, but instead of going to Dixie’s house, he went to the one he had shared with Robert for the past three years.
Accepting his fate.
The next evening when Dixie came home from her trip, Carlisle wasn’t there. She checked around for his belongings. And she knew.
She called Nikki. “He’s gone. Again.”
“Damn,” Nikki said. “You’d think one of us would escape bad love before total humiliation forced it.”
“He didn’t even leave a note.”
“He’s embarrassed. He’s right around the corner.”
“Well, too bad. If he can’t even tell me he’s going back to Robert, he can just kiss my—”
“Don’t be mad,” Nikki begged. “Give yourself a little time, then call him. See if he’s okay.”
“I don’t care if he’s okay.” Dixie sighed. “He’s given up. But I’m not going to. I don’t care if I have to be alone till I die, I’m not getting back to that mean old game.”
Summer peaked, and the heat drove everyone indoors. Nikki divided her time between her job at the airline, the paperwork for the property sale and, gratefully, full-time motherhood. Buck chauffeured the kids around so they could keep their connections with friends from school and the old neighborhood.
Nikki saw little of Carlisle and Dixie, and she hadn’t seen them together since the day they’d helped her sort through Drake’s things. Neither of them would admit they weren’t speaking, but they hadn’t spoken.
Meanwhile, life at Buck’s was crowded and complicated. There was a definite difference between having the kids there two to four days a week and having them all the time. While no one was given to anal-retentive housekeeping in their family, even Nikki was starting to get edgy because of the constant clutter. She knew it was time to start thinking about finding a place of her own for her and the kids. A place her father could visit. Although Buck didn’t complain too loudly, he was sixty-six and set in his ways. The only real advantage to living with him was that Opal didn’t visit.
She had just begun to tumble around ideas in her mind about what kind of fresh start they needed when a name floated up in front of her. “Do you remember Joe Riordan?” Dixie asked her.
“Yeah, of course. I know him real well. Why?”
“One of the captains I flew with a month or so ago said he’s starting a new airline, in Las Vegas of all places. Danny Adams is thinking of leaving Aries to join Joe.”
“Really?” Nikki asked. “Why would he do that? He’s got a lot of seniority here.”
“I know, but he says he hates all them bellyachin’ pilots, whining about money all the time and threatenin’ to go on strike. It’s makin’ him think fondly of those good old days when everyone was having a good time. Workin’ hard but having some fun. Like back when Joe Riordan was runnin’ it.”
“That’s when I was hired,” Nikki reflected. “They brought him in to expand the company. He’s a deal-maker, a closer. Aries was about six aircraft strong and losing money. Riordan came in and tripled the size of the company in a year, then did it again and again. I was hired in that first big expansion. Under him I got a chance to work in management, first in training and then in flight standards. Hmm. I agree with Danny. That’s when it was fun. But starting an airline now? He must be crazy.”
But Nikki couldn’t stop thinking about it. It woke her up at ni
ght, preoccupied her at work, caused her to miss snatches of conversation. Five years ago, if anyone had suggested to her that she would even consider a job change when she had a perfectly good position as a 767 captain, she would have called him crazy. Even one year ago. Even six months ago.
But everything had changed—in her personal life and in the industry she had grown up loving.
When she told Buck the news about Riordan, he said, “Crazy like a fox. He’s got a whole country full of equipment to shop from—all the airlines have been cutting back, not growing. Jumbo jets that leased for two to three hundred thousand a month are available for fifty. There must be a couple hundred thousand talented airline professionals looking for work. The major airlines can’t compete—their costs have gotten too high while the ticket prices are too low for them to make any money. They’re dropping like flies….”
“Like three-hundred-ton flies…” Nikki corrected him.
“But can you make money in the business? Now and then you can make a fortune. JetBlue did it when they went public.”
Nikki looked at her dad. The thing about Buck Burgess was this—if you looked at him and didn’t know anything about him, you might think he was a janitor. Or a mechanic, maybe, from the black engine oil that was always under his nails. He wore jeans and boots, and in cold weather a navy blue quilted vest that had seen better days. His hats—all from aircraft manufacturers—were dirty and had serious sweat rings around the bill. And when he spoke, his words weren’t fancy and his grammar wasn’t always the best, but he was smart as a whip. Buck Burgess was one shrewd businessman.
And Burgess Aviation was a lot like Buck. It looked a little rough around the edges, but it was worth a fortune. Buck didn’t talk about the value of his business, and Nikki had never asked. But he had been the sole owner for a long time, and he employed charter pilots, instructors, mechanics, fuellers—everyone necessary to run a small airport. He had even managed to keep those who worked for him employed when the FAA and Homeland Security practically closed down inland air training and charter facilities.
In the end Buck actually encouraged Nikki to call Riordan; she had to give him a lot of credit for not discouraging the idea. After all, he risked losing close proximity to his only family, his grandchildren. And they were all so dependent on one another, especially now. But he said, “Las Vegas is just up the road and I travel easily. Besides, I’m cutting back on my hours at ops. I’m really not part of this equation.”
She decided not to talk to the kids about the possibility until she knew what Joe had going on. She might find the whole idea too risky. Besides, she’d never been very excited about Las Vegas and wasn’t too charged up about living there. She was just going to talk to Joe to get this crazy notion out of her mind so she could sleep at night.
“What in God’s name are you doing?” she asked him when she finally called.
He laughed at the sound of her voice, then said, “It’s a little like smoking. Just when I think I’m through, I gotta have another one.”
“I’ve heard the theory that it’s actually a good time to start an airline, but that’s just a theory. Give me one reason, one really solid, understandable reason why an otherwise intelligent man would take on something like this at a time like this?”
There was a pregnant pause. “Because, Nick, even the threat of terrorism can’t keep this from being a sexy business.”
Dixie wouldn’t call Carlisle. She was still angry with him for not calling her, too. There they were, at a standoff, in twin town houses a few steps and a right turn from each other. And Nikki had decided to go to Las Vegas for a day to visit with Joe Riordan and look at his operation, so she was unavailable. Which meant neither of them knew that Dixie had gotten a notice from her supervisor to come in for a meeting on her day off.
She racked her brain. She hadn’t called in sick, been late or cuffed a passenger. Supervisors didn’t call you in for a chat unless there was trouble, and she couldn’t imagine what she might have done.
“Hit him in the gut with a wine bottle?” Sonny asked her a few hours later. The director of Inflight Services was a perfectly nice woman whose job managing hundreds of flight attendants must be gruesome. “Gave him a concussion by slamming the door on his head? That ring any bells? Besides his, that is?”
This time Dixie had no chance to call on her beauty-queen training. Her face went scarlet. But the flush was as much from the shock of surprise as guilt. That was well over a month ago! She’d flown with Branch since then—and he’d had the gall to actually flirt with her.
“Remember?” Sonny prodded.
“Why, didn’t he fall down the hotel stairs and crack his noggin?” she asked, feeling the heat burn her face and tingle her scalp. She hoped her hair wasn’t standing straight up.
“He admits he was in a pickle,” Sonny said.
“Pickle? That isn’t what it’s called in Temple, Texas.”
“I’m not saying what he did to you was all right. But telling a lie in a relationship is certainly less dangerous than inflicting bodily harm.”
“I guess that would depend on the lie,” Dixie said sanguinely.
“Well, you’re lucky he didn’t call the police.”
“Hah! He couldn’t call the police!” she exclaimed, her voice rising a little wildly. “He would have had to tell his wife what he was up to!”
“So you did do that? Slam the hotel-room door on his head? Oh, Dixie, that’s very—”
“I didn’t say I did it. I said that if he said I did, and wanted to pursue that story by pressing some kind of charges, he would have had to tell his wife what would compel this single woman alone in a hotel room on a layover to slam the door on him. Could it be unwelcome advances?” Sonny was shaking her head. “When did he come to you with this complaint, Sonny? I’ve flown with him since his…alleged injury. And he came on to me like a bull. The slimeball.”
“I’m not sure when the complaint was written. The chief pilot brought it to me a couple of days ago. I could have pulled you off your last trip, but…Well, I think we can handle this now without involving the chief pilot any further. Don’t you?”
“Can I read it? His complaint?”
Sonny passed the sheet of paper to Dixie. She read slowly, carefully. Branch was completely shameless—it was all there. He admitted they were seeing each other, that he was married. Ms. McPherson knew of my marriage, but it was a surprise to both of us that my wife showed up on our flight to New York. Thinking Ms. McPherson might be upset, I went to her hotel room to make sure she was all right, maybe to apologize or try to console her, but we did not exchange any words at all. She answered the door in her underwear and hit me in the gut with an empty wine bottle, which caused me to double over. She then slammed the door on me, striking my head, causing a laceration and slight concussion. I assume she had drunk all the wine.
“Oh, he is such a pig,” Dixie said. “He told me he was going through a divorce. That he and his wife hadn’t lived together in a long time.”
“I believe you,” Sonny said. “But that’s not at issue.”
“He put in here that I answered the door in my underwear and drank all the wine. A gentleman does not do that.”
“That really doesn’t concern me at all.”
“I apologized to him. I thought this was behind us.”
Sonny, a spindly woman in her fifties with fire-engine-red hair, folded her hands on top of her desk and looked at Dixie over the rims of her reading glasses. “Dixie, this is over the top. You could have killed him.”
“Pffttt,” she pooh-poohed. “He’s a Texan. His head is made of lead.”
“Seriously. I think it wouldn’t hurt for you to talk to someone. Just in case there is a deeper issue going on here.”
“I’ll consider it,” she said dismissively. But inside she was thinking perhaps she should see a shrink, because for the first time in all the years of bad breakups, she felt as though this once she’d gotten even. And it felt pre
tty good. It would feel a whole lot better if she wasn’t being reprimanded for it.
“Well, you’re going to have plenty of time to think about it, Dixie. Thirty days on the beach,” she said, meaning Dixie was being suspended. “Without pay.”
“Sonny! Wait a minute—”
“I’m serious, kiddo. I know you were pissed off, and I don’t really blame you, but we can’t have one employee attacking another with a blunt object. Thirty days will encourage you to think of alternative solutions to your…uh…relationship problems. Of which, if you don’t mind me saying so, you seem to have many.”
Dixie stood abruptly. “I mind you saying so! You don’t have to add insult to injury. You think I want it this way?”
“Can I make a suggestion, Dixie?”
“Can I stop you?”
“It might be time to take a break from men. Seriously. A significant break. Get some counseling. Work out some things. You’re a beautiful girl—”
“A thirty-five-year-old girl!”
“Okay, woman, forgive me. But it’s true—you’re beautiful, bright, dedicated, loyal…You deserve better than this. It wouldn’t hurt to try to figure out what it is that sets you on such a self-destructive path.”
Despite Dixie’s efforts, tears began to gather in her eyes. Did the fact that she was so often lied to automatically suggest she pursued liars? How in the world was this her fault?
“Perhaps you fall in love too easily, too naively….”
Okay, there was that little problem. But she was trying to quit!
“Because you really are far too wonderful a person to end up in so many of these situations, Dixie,” Sonny said. And there was no question she was sincere.
“Thanks,” Dixie replied weakly, feeling her nose grow pink and her eyes turn liquid. “Is that all?”
“I’m sorry, Dixie. It’s what I have to do.”