Flygirl Read online

  The rough air passed and the plane settled back at altitude. “Well, you know, he said some stuff…in the cockpit.” He looked at Tris, eyebrows raised.

  She barely knew the guy sitting next to her, the man she’d once thought of as a friend. Who she helped at O’Slattery’s that night. The man she turned away in Vienna before his behavior had worse consequences than just a bruise.

  This stilted conversation was excruciating, so she tried to move it along.

  “Yeah, I know. The ‘cunt’ remark. Did you tell Zorn about that?” And did you tell him what you did? The Luxembourg sit-uation had so many moving parts, all tenuously lumped together. Like the story each crewmember told was part of a stack of lemons arranged in a grocery store display— prod one and they’d all tumble to the ground.

  “Well, you know, not too cool of him. You were doing the best you could under the circumstances.”

  Tris couldn’t believe his arrogance. She was about to ask him what he would have done differently when the Astral hit a huge air pocket, bounced up three hundred feet, and dropped back down. Both pilots instinctively moved their hands to guard the yoke and power levers. But Tris could only shadow Ross; he was the pilot-in-command.

  Their sleeping passenger was knocked awake. “We’re ok, just some turbulence,” Ross called to the executives and then picked up the conversation right where he left off. “So, with the airport guys asking questions, the passengers bitching, and Deter, you know, losing it a little, Zorn and me, well, we never got around to talking about who was actually, you know, up there.” He paused. “Instead of me, that is. But we did talk about Deter. You need to tell Zorn and Willett about it. Deter shouldn’t get away with…well, what he said.”

  He spoke as if the facts supported no other conclusion.

  “That’s what you want me to do, is it? Tell Zorn all about Deter. Does he know who flew the leg?”

  Ross recoiled as though he’d been struck. “Hell, who cares? There was no magic to what was happening upfront. The gear light finally came on. Not like it was a flight maneuver that required an experienced crewmember.” He nodded toward the gear indicators, all extinguished now that the gear was up and locked.

  Tris swallowed hard and looked away, as if searching for some stunning retort in the vast expanse of the sky just outside the cockpit window.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong, of course,” he said again. “But the real story was Deter. You know, him losing it like that. That’s the real story,” he repeated, his head nodding with conviction.

  Tris closed her eyes. All the compliments and encouragement Ross had given her since she joined Tetrix eight months ago. The tips, the shortcuts, the support, the real training as opposed to Deter’s “aw, hell, just watch me” approach. She was just starting to fit in at Tetrix, and it was primary due to Ross. He was popular, a leader. He always treated her with respect in the hangar, in front of the other guys—in public.

  Tris realized now that she was just another co-worker, someone Ross could easily dismiss with an eye roll.

  She wondered if he’d gone out drinking last night.

  “What do you want from me?” Tris remembered the plan she and Danny agreed on. Low profile. Get the type.

  “Right. Ok. So, you’re gonna talk to Zorn?”

  “Yep. Today. As soon as we get back.”

  “Look, I’m not asking you to lie. I’m not. But I talked to him a couple of days ago. He never asked who was upfront on the way to Lux. And it doesn’t matter. I can’t tell you what to do. But I’d really appreciate it if he could go on thinking that. You know…”

  “Have you talked to Deter? He knows you weren’t up there. What’s he going to tell Zorn?” She raised her hands slightly and let them fall hard back into her lap. No way Deter would lie for him. Of course, who could predict what these guys would do.

  “Deter’s on vacation. By the time he gets back, he’ll have to deal with his own issues. I mean, he’s the one who really fucked up.”

  “Ok, I’ve had enough of this crap. Why weren’t you upfront on that leg?” She deserved to hear him say it. It was time for the truth even if it was just between them. But Ross’s face remained blank.

  “Tris, look. I’m really sorry about coming to your door that night. I was out of it. I shouldn’t have done…what I did. I apologize.”

  “Well, ok. Thanks. But why was I in the right seat? Why?” Tris pulled against her shoulder harness for emphasis. She could unclick it. She would be free. But there was nowhere to go.

  Ross put his fingers to his lips to quiet her. Obviously, he didn’t want the passengers to hear. She shook her head.

  “We wanted to give you a leg!” he said brightly, his synthetic smile firmly in place. She couldn’t believe how brazen he was, floating such patent bullshit. Tris finally recognized the fake grin for exactly what it was: the look of a good old boy covering his ass.

  “Who cares whether you were up there or not? And, seriously, pilots call in sick all the time. Luckily, you had another pilot there to take the leg. So what? Why lie?” Tris tried to reason.

  “No, no, no, I’m not asking you to lie. I mean, I don’t think he’s gonna ask you about who did or said what with the gear thing, you know. I don’t think he’s gonna ask who was where. I think he wants to hear about Deter,” Ross continued as the aircraft bumped along. The turbulence was continuous now as the big red ball on the radar screen grew bigger, moved closer.

  The voices of every flight instructor, every airline trainer, and every single captain she flew with at the commuter, including Bron, ran in a continuous loop in her head. ‘It’s what’s right, not who’s right.’ ‘Take responsibility. If you fuck up, fess up.’ ‘Tell the truth about what happened, or next time someone dies.’ Trite, but remarkably powerful, conversational shortcuts that rang all too true.

  Tris caught a glimpse of Ross, his eyes cast down. For a split second, she felt his defeat. Just as quickly, his façade had returned. And her emotions hardened.

  While she tried to figure out the best way to tell him to go to hell, he continued casually.

  “And, you know, I’m really looking forward to flying right seat for your type rating. If I’m in trouble, Zorn could pull me from the schedule. Hell, Zorn could decide to fly it himself!” He put his hand on his lips, as if ashamed of them for what he just implied. Then he smiled and winked. “Or he can send you with Deter.”

  The hours she’d spent in the right seat of the Astral, listening to Deter, Ross, even Basson bloviate about what it took to be pilot-in-command. The knowledge, the judgment, and skill to fly maneuvers to the tightest possible tolerances. The ability to make decisions, stay calm during calamity. And the one thing they left out: a little deception.

  Tris glanced at the ominous red ball on her radar display. A storm was surely coming.

  Forty-Five

  THE SECOND TRIS entered the pilot area, Deter flashed her a look that would have instantly turned a river to ice. This latest version of his withering, reproving gaze startled her with its sheer force. She thought she’d memorized every expression he had—impatience, frustration, anger, arrogance. But this was pure hate.

  He sat in his cubicle with his coat on. She and Ross had just flown in on the Astral, and he wouldn’t be flying the Gulfstream. He must have been called in, probably about Luxembourg. She knew he hated coming in on non-flying days. Yet, the level of his anger spoke to something much more than that.

  “Hey, Ed, what’s up? What brings you in today? Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”

  A vein throbbed in his neck. “Patricia.”

  Huh? Since when? She waited for more. Nothing came.

  Then Ross breezed in, carrying a can of Mountain Dew and a bag of pretzels.

  “Hey, Larry. How are ya, buddy?” Deter smiled at him.

  “Good.” Ross looked around to make sure no one else was around. “Meeting go ok?”

  Deter gave Tris another hard look. This had to be about Luxembour
g.

  “Ok, considering I had to cut my vacation short for it. I’m gonna try and salvage the rest of this day. I’m outta here. Talk to you soon,” Deter said and clapped Ross on the shoulder on his way out. “Thanks, man. Good to see you.”

  “You too,” Ross said gaily to Deter’s back, simultaneously rolling his eyes in Tris’s direction. Ross was playing both sides, and she despised him for it.

  Zorn walked in and stood by the flight-planning computer. “Hello, Tris. Excited about training?”

  “Yeah, I am. It will be nice to get the type. I’ve been working hard.”

  “I know. I know. Everyone’s had nice things to say.” He glanced quickly at Ross. “Just remember, Tris, the type rating is a license to learn.” Then he added, “Let’s talk when you get a minute. I’ll be here.” He walked away without waiting for a response.

  Tris couldn’t put it off any longer—Zorn wanted to question her about Luxembourg.

  “I’ve gotta head outside and finish up,” Ross said, sprinting back into the hangar.

  Tris thought she understood loyalty. When she was a child, loyalty was as simple as not telling on someone. As she got older, it became more complex, about taking sides, being in someone’s camp, their clique.

  Over the last few years, Tris had learned about loyalty from studying, teaching, and flying with imperfect people. Aviation taught her that you have to trust the guy—male or female—sitting next to you not to file away every mistake you made or exasperated thought you expressed to use against you later. If they did, you couldn’t work with them. In the cockpit of an airplane, distrust killed people. It was that simple.

  Such were her thoughts as she sat in the small, smoky con-ference room listening to Zorn wax on about his version of loyalty.

  “We need to avoid, uh, drama here, Tris. You know, everyone needs to support the professional way we do things here at Tetrix.” His words had no relation to the way things were. They sounded like undecipherable taxi instructions from a deranged ground controller.

  Bron used to say that when things went bad, like an accident or aircraft damage, the first thing to do was duck, so people pointing fingers at each other didn’t poke you in the eye. Tris agreed, adding that people pointed fingers at everyone but themselves.

  Early on, role models like Diana, Bron and Danny helped Tris to develop her sense of responsibility as an aviator. She’d always taken whatever part of the blame she was responsible for if something went wrong. Ever since she was a child, Tris was the first to say, “I’m sorry.” It cut off arguments. People liked to think they’d won—and she’d let them.

  “Remember, Flygirl,” Bron would say when Tris over-apologized, “you didn’t sink the Titanic!”

  But it was Zorn who spoke now, not Bron.

  “You know, Tris, your primary duty is to the company. The company that brought you here, took you out of the cockpit of a turboprop, and put you in an Astral.” He might as well have said, “space shuttle” the way the word “Astral” glided out of his mouth on magic breath.

  Clearly, he’d found out about Deter. But how? The passengers? Ross? Had to be Ross. Ross was in deep on this one. And that would explain why Deter had ignored her earlier. He probably figured she’d ratted him out. Ross continued to disappoint. She was equal parts pissed off and melancholy.

  Not particularly bright in the best of circumstances, Zorn was out of his element trying to talk his way around the issue. His allusions to Deter’s outburst were about as subtle as a bird blasting into the windshield on takeoff.

  “Well, we understand that it was very, uh, tense in the cockpit. Was it?”

  “Oh yeah. Very. We couldn’t get the gear down.”

  “And, you know, Tris, in the heat of the moment, sometimes people say things they wouldn’t otherwise.”

  “Right. Of course.”

  It was the community she’d been fighting to be a part of that worried her. Ross might be trying to set Deter up. Deter obviously thought she’d complained. Now Zorn treated her like she was a landmine he had to tiptoe around.

  Deter was an asshole. She could barely tolerate being with him before Luxembourg, and he was completely unapproachable earlier today. But he came to work and did his job. He expected that she would do hers. Once she had that type, the second the ink dried on her Temporary Airman Certificate, her training was officially over. Deter would be just another line captain to her. Until then, though, she had a choice to make.

  Danny was right. If she brought up Deter’s explosion, it would never be told the way it really happened. As pilot after pilot gossiped, facts would get muddled, part myth, part mystery. All of a sudden, the story would be that she’d attacked him in the cockpit during an engine fire, or started crying because he asked her to lower the gear. No. That kind of talk would color any job interview she ever had, be the subject of hushed conversations when she walked into crew rooms. And if she tried to explain, it would be just as Danny had said.

  She played the woman card.

  As much as she’d love to stick it to Deter, she couldn’t do it, not like this. The very idea was dirty, unseemly. Tris wondered when Zorn would shine a light in her face to get her to break down, but this wasn’t an episode of Perry Mason.

  Then again, maybe Zorn wasn’t as stupid as she thought. Unable to dazzle her into throwing Deter off a cliff with his interrogation techniques, Zorn moved on to something he could win.

  “Tris, who was in the right seat on the leg to Luxembourg?”

  Zorn had her attention. He must already know.

  She thought about Ross, whom she once believed respected her. But she was just a potential conquest to him. A target.

  And then she remembered another conversation with Zorn, months ago at her interview. When she had the chance to come clean about her training problems at Clear Sky—and didn’t.

  Loyalty, yes. But first and foremost, self-respect. And that meant the truth.

  “I was.”

  Zorn leaned in, his eyes narrow. “Without my permission?”

  This information had consequences for people. Possibly even for her. Definitely Ross. She simply nodded.

  Zorn was building momentum. “Did you ask if I gave per-mission for you to fly? I’m the one who assigns crew.” He visibly attempted to puff his chest out beyond his belly, but only strained the buttons on his shirt.

  Tris was fueled by the kind of confidence that only comes from the unembellished truth.

  “I didn’t even know I was flying until we got to the airport that day. Deter told me when we arrived at the terminal. There was just no time to question the PIC’s decision to put me in the seat.”

  She hit Zorn squarely in his moral code. Nothing was more important to him than the final authority of the pilot-in-command.

  Tris heard the faint sounds of movement in the hallway, probably Ross loitering outside the room. He would want to know what she’d said to Zorn. She hoped he was gone by the time Zorn finished up with her. She and Ross couldn’t speak freely around Zorn anyway.

  Ross was scheduled to sit in the right seat for her check ride. Whatever the consequences to Ross or Deter from that crazy leg to Luxembourg, she hoped they’d be over and done by then. Nothing could change the past, although that was precisely what Tris wished for every single day.

  Suddenly, Zorn flashed a chilling smile, gathered his papers and headed toward the door.

  “Thanks, Tris. Good luck in training.”

  PART IV:

  WHAT’S RIGHT

  April 1998

  Forty-Six

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND, Dev. How can we work this out if you aren’t here?” They’d been on the phone for ten minutes, but it seemed like forever. Ross forced himself to hold his temper, keep his frustration in check.

  “Aw, Larry, really? Don’t you get it? It isn’t about me…” That’s how she got him, every time.

  “Cut the crap, Devon. James is fine. Well, he was. He keeps asking me when I’m coming out to j
oin you guys on vacation. Yeah, vacation, while school’s in session. I’m sure he knows what’s going on.”

  “All I’ve told him is that we’re spending some time on the ranch.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet your dad is filling in the blanks for him!” After all these years, Devon’s father still didn’t think Ross was good enough for her.

  It gnawed at Ross, how things had turned for him and Devon. He had to remember to remove that happy-go-lucky family picture from his desk at work. They’d taken it on the beach in Maui, their first Hawaiian vacation with James. It was, what, five years ago? They’d been so in sync then.

  The photo used to cheer him, motivate him through the difficult trips, the days he had to spend on the road with nothing but dead time in front of him. Now it just mocked him. The happy family in that photo was long gone.

  “Can I please speak to my son?”

  She didn’t answer, but he heard her call to James in the background.

  “Dad?” James asked. He sounded taller. How much had he grown since the last time they were together?

  “Hey, pal. What have you been up to?”

  “I’ve been horseback riding every day, Dad. I rode Jet and a new horse that Granddad bought named Bruno. When are you coming?”

  “Soon, son.” He walked over to the fridge and pulled out a beer. Ross hesitated, but only briefly before tossing his head back and letting the amber nectar trickle down his throat. “But you and Mom may be heading back this way soon.”

  “Do we have to drive? Buddy threw up in the car, and it still smells.” James whined like he did when he was small. It sounded like nails scratching a blackboard and usually made Ross cringe. Today it made Ross miss him more.

  “Well, we’ll see. I think so. When you get back here, how ’bout you help me shampoo the rug and the upholstery? Sound like fun?”