Lone Eagle (7 page)

She'd been at school for three weeks before she finally wrote to Joe. It wasn't that she hadn't had time before that, but she had wanted to wait until she had some interesting tales to tell him. And by the time she sat down at her desk, on a Sunday afternoon, she had plenty of stories about school. She told him about the other girls, her professors, her classes, the food. She had never been as happy in her life as she was at Radcliffe. It was her first taste of freedom, and she was loving it.

She didn't tell him about the Harvard boys she'd met the week before, it seemed inappropriate, and was not something she wanted to share with him. There was one, a junior, Andy Scott, whom she liked very much, but he paled in comparison to Joe, who had become her
standard of perfection for all men. No one else was as tall or as handsome, or as strong, or as interesting, or as accomplished, or as exciting. He was a tough act to compare anyone to, and Andy looked like water to wine, when she compared him to Joe Allbright. But he was fun to be with, and he was captain of the Harvard swimming team, which impressed the other freshman girls.

Instead, she told Joe everything she was doing, and how happy she was there. Her letter, when he received it, was excited and exuberant and ebullient, all the things he loved most about her. And he sat down immediately when he got the letter, and answered her, telling her about his latest designs, and his latest victory over a previously insoluble problem. He told her of his most recent test flights. But he avoided telling her of a boy who had died the day before, in a test flight over Nevada. He had been scheduled to do the flight himself, but had reassigned it so he could attend a meeting. It was Joe who had had to call the boy's wife, and he was still feeling depressed about it. But he kept his letter to her light and filled with as much news and excitement as he could muster. And when he finished it, he was frustrated with himself. His letter seemed so dull in comparison to hers, his gift with words so much less facile. But he sent the letter to her anyway, and wondered how long it would take her to answer.

She got his letter exactly ten days after she had sent hers, and sat down to write to him over the weekend. She turned down a date with Andy Scott, so she could stay in her room and write Joe a long, newsy letter, and all of her roommates told her she was crazy. But her
heart was already engaged by the flyer in California. She didn't tell them who he was, or even much about him. She just said he was a friend, and told Andy that she had a headache. And nothing in her letter indicated that she had anything but feelings of friendship for him. She said nothing to give herself away, and she painted a number of amusing portraits for him, with clever words. He sat at his desk laughing out loud when he read her letter. Her description of college life was hilarious. She had a knack for seeing, and describing, the most outrageous elements of almost every situation. And he loved hearing from her.

Their letters went back and forth through the fall, and grew more serious as the war continued to worsen in Europe. They exchanged opinions and concerns, and she respected his views on the situation. He continued to believe that America would enter the war at any moment, and he was thinking of going to England again, to consult with the RAF. He said Charles had gone to Washington, and to meet with Henry Ford, who shared his point of view about the war. And then he attempted, at least, to amuse her as she did him. He was beginning to spend his days anticipating her letters, and anxious for them to come.

It was two months later, the Tuesday before the Thanksgiving weekend, when she got a phone call in the house she lived in on campus, and assumed it was her parents. She was going home the next day, and her mother probably wanted to know what time to expect her. They were having guests for Thanksgiving, and it was going to be a busy weekend. She had seen Andy for a quick cup of coffee the day before, and he had told her
he was going home to New York over Thanksgiving but would call her from there. She had had dinner with him once or twice over the past two months, but it hadn't gone anywhere. She was far too intrigued with her exchange of letters with Joe, to be interested in a college junior. Joe was far more exciting than any man she'd ever met.

“Hello?” she said, expecting to hear her mother's voice, and was startled to hear Joe on a remarkably clear connection from California. The girl who had taken the call had spoken to the operator, but she hadn't bothered to tell Kate that the call was long distance and not from her mother. It was the first time he had ever called. “What a surprise!” she said, blushing intensely, but fortunately he couldn't see it. “Happy Thanksgiving, Joe.”

“The same to you, Kate. How's everything at school?” He made reference to some outrageous story she had told him, and they both laughed. But she was surprised by how nervous she felt speaking to him. Something about their letters had made them both more vulnerable, and unwittingly more open to each other, and it was odd now talking to him.

“Everything's fine. I'm going home tomorrow. Actually, I thought you were my mother. I'm going to be home all weekend.” She had already written that to him, but it was something to say in the silence on the line.

“I know.” At his end, he was as nervous as she was. He felt like a kid again, in spite of all his efforts to appear confident with her. “I was calling to see if you'd like to have dinner.” He held his breath while he waited for her answer.

“Dinner?” She sounded suddenly off balance,“… Where?… when?… are you coming in from California?” She felt breathless as she asked.

“I'm already here actually. This trip came up at the last minute. Charles is in town, and I needed some advice from him. I'm having dinner with him tonight, and I could come up from New York sometime this weekend.” In truth, he could have waited for his mentor's advice, but he had wanted an excuse to come east, and had conveniently found it. He told himself it didn't mean anything, he was just coming to see a friend, and if she was too busy to see him, he would go back to California. But he hadn't asked her before he'd come east, because he thought it might be more compelling if he was already there when he called. It had been a clever ploy, and an effective one, but in truth he didn't really need it. She would have been thrilled to see him, and tried to keep her voice steady and unaffected as she answered.

“When do you want to come? I'd love to see you.” It was the voice of a friend, not of a woman who revered him. They were both playing their parts well, though not without a certain degree of challenge. This was new to him, and to her too. She had never had a grown man pursue her, and he had never before had these terrifyingly unfamiliar feelings for anyone.

“I can come up anytime you want,” he said, sounding free and easy, and she thought about it for a minute. She wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do, or how her mother would feel about it, but she thought her father might be pleased, so she decided to risk it.

“Would you like to join us for Thanksgiving?” She
held her breath after she asked him, and there was a brief pause at the other end. He sounded as surprised by her invitation as she had been to hear from him.

“Are you sure that would be all right with your parents?” He didn't want to intrude on them, or cause a problem. But he had no plans to be with the Lindberghs or anyone else for Thanksgiving. He was used to spending it alone.

“I'm sure,” she said bravely, praying her mother wouldn't be too angry. But they had other guests, and even though he was shy, Joe would be an interesting addition to the dinner. “Would that work for you?”

“I'd like that very much. I could fly up on Thursday morning. What time do you eat dinner?”

She knew that guests had been invited for five in the afternoon, and they would be eating dinner at seven. “The other guests are coming at five, but you can come earlier if you need to.” She didn't want him to have to hang around the airport all afternoon, waiting to come for dinner.

“Five will be perfect,” he said serenely. He would have come at six in the morning if she'd told him to. He didn't know why, but he was anxious to see her. After years of emotional solitude, he was deaf, dumb, and blind to his own feelings. “Is it very formal?” he suddenly asked nervously. He didn't want to appear in a suit if everyone else would be wearing a tuxedo. And if he needed one, he would have to borrow one from Charles, and send it back to him.

“No, my father usually wears a dark suit, but he's pretty stuffy. You can wear whatever you've brought with you.”

“Great, I'll wear my flight suit,” he teased her, and she laughed.

“I'd like to see that,” she said, and meant it.

“Maybe we can arrange for a short flight for you and your father this weekend.”

“Just don't tell my mother. She'll choke on her turkey, and make you leave halfway through dinner.”

“I won't say a word. See you on Thursday.” He sounded remarkably relaxed as she said goodbye to him, but as they both hung up the phone, they each found that their palms were sweating. She still had to tell her mother he was coming for dinner.

She broached the subject gingerly the following afternoon when she got home, and found her mother checking the china in the kitchen. She was well known for the beautiful table she set, and her elaborate flower arrangements. And she was distracted when Kate first walked into the kitchen, trying to assess her mother's mood.

“Hi, Mom. Need a hand?” Her mother looked over her shoulder in surprise. Kate was always the first to escape when she thought her mother needed help in the kitchen. She always said that domestic duties bored her, and they were demeaning.

“Did you flunk out of school?” her mother said with a look of amusement. “You must have done something really awful if you're offering to help me count china. How bad is it?”

“Couldn't it be that I'm just more mature now that I'm in college?” Kate said with an imperious look, and her mother pretended to think about it for an instant.

“That's possible, but very unlikely. You've only been there for three months, Kate. I think maturity starts to
happen junior year, and doesn't come full-blown until you're a senior.”

“Great. Are you telling me that after I graduate, I'll actually
want
to count china?”

“Absolutely. Particularly if you're doing it for your husband,” her mother said firmly.

“Mom… okay, okay. I did something in the spirit of what you always tell me Thanksgiving is about.” Kate looked innocent as she faced her mother.

“You killed a turkey?”

“No, I invited a homeless friend for dinner. Not homeless, but family-less.” It sounded reasonable to both of them the way she said it.

“That's sweet, darling. One of the girls in your house at Radcliffe?”

“A friend from California,” she hedged, trying to soften up her mother before she told her.

“It's perfectly understandable she can't go home. Of course you can invite her. We have eighteen people coming here for dinner, and there's plenty of room at the table.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Kate said looking relieved, at least they had room for him. “By the way, it's not a girl.” Kate held her breath and waited.

“It's a boy?” Her mother looked startled.

“Sort of.”

“From Harvard?” Her mother looked genuinely pleased. She loved the idea of Kate dating a boy from Harvard, and it was the first she'd heard of it. And only three months into the school year.

“He's not from Harvard,” Kate dove into the icy water, “it's Joe Allbright.”

There was a long pause as her mother looked at her with eyes full of questions. “The pilot? How did you happen to hear from him?”

“He called me out of the blue yesterday. He's visiting the Lindberghs, and he had nothing to do on Thanksgiving.”

“Isn't it a little odd that he would call you?” Her mother looked suspicious.

“Maybe.” She didn't tell her about the letters, it was hard enough to explain why she had invited him for Thanksgiving. She wasn't even sure why herself, but she had. And now she had to find some plausible reason to explain it.

“Has he called you before?”

“No, he hasn't,” she was able to say honestly. Her mother didn't ask if he'd ever written to her. “I think he just likes Dad, and maybe he's lonely. I don't think he has any family. I don't know why he called, Mom, but when he said he had no plans for Thanksgiving, I felt sorry for him. I didn't think you and Dad would mind. It's kind of the spirit of Thanksgiving,” she said blithely, and helped herself to a carrot from the icebox. But her mother wasn't entirely taken in, she knew her better, although she'd never seen her daughter look quite like that. But at fifty-eight, she hadn't entirely forgotten what it felt like to be wooed by an older man when you were young, or to be smitten. But something about Joe Allbright worried her. He was so remote and so aloof, and at the same time so intense. He was the kind of man who, if he turned his full attention on you, could be overwhelming. And even if Kate didn't understand that, because she had no experience with it, her mother
did, and that was precisely why she was worried about him.

“I don't mind if he comes to dinner,” Elizabeth Jamison said honestly, “but I mind very much if he's pursuing you, Kate. He's a lot older than you are, and not the sort of person I think you should fall in love with.” How did one decide those things, who to fall in love with, and who not? And how could one control it? But Kate only nodded at her mother.

“I'm not in love with him, Mom. He's just coming to eat turkey.”

“Sometimes that's how those things start, by being friends and becoming too familiar,” her mother warned her.

“He lives in California,” Kate said blandly.

“I'll admit, that makes me feel better. All right, I'll tell your father. And I hate to say it, but he'll be delighted. But I swear, if he offers to take your father up in some dangerous plane with him, I'll put arsenic in his stuffing. And you can tell him I said so.”

“Thanks, Mom,” she beamed at her mother, and wandered nonchalantly out of the kitchen.

“I thought you were going to help me!” her mother called after her just before the kitchen door closed.