The Hot Pilots (10 page)

“Good idea,” Don said. “We ought to personally thank him for getting us out of this mess concerning Steve.”

“We owe Jack one big favor, all right,” Gold agreed. “And General Simon, as well,” he added. “It was Howie who pulled the
strings with the Air Force to get Jack the permission to recruit Steve …” He smiled. “And you know what, Don? I’m starting
to think this is all going to work out for the best, after all …”

“Good,” Don said evenly. “I wouldn’t want there to be any resentment between us concerning my insistence that you find a way
to keep Steve out of the company.”

Gold shook his head. “I admit that I was pissed at you for a while, but not now. You can’t imagine how excited and happy Steve
was sounding. This tour of duty with the CIA is going to be just the thing to give him the confidence he needs.”

“I want Steve to be happy.” Don nodded. “Happy, and
far away
…”

Susan Greene looked out her bedroom window, and saw her mother sitting by the pool. Now’s as good a time as any, she thought.
She grabbed a terry cloth robe, put it on over her bathing suit, and hurried from the room. She needed to go through with
this before she lost her nerve.

She ran barefoot down the hallway to the curved, marble staircase, and then she did something she hadn’t done in over twenty
years: She parked her rump on the banister and slid down it, catching a glimpse of herself in the foyer mirror as she landed
flat-footed, flexing her knees and wind-milling her arms for balance.

She burst out in exhilarated laughter, feeling such a tremendous rush of love for this house. Her father had bought it in
1927. It was a rambling, vine-covered, English colonial, sheltered behind stone walls in Bel-Air. There were gardens, one
with a splashing fountain, rolling expanses of lawn, a swimming pool, and a four-car garage. A caretaker lived above the garage,
and Ramona, the housekeeper who’d been with the family since Susan was a toddler, had a bedroom off the kitchen. A couple
of girls came in during the week to help Ramona with the cleaning.

Susan had moved out of this house when she was nineteen; that was in 1941, when she’d married Blaize Greene. The couple had
moved into Blaize’s little apartment in Santa Monica, near the pier. In those days Blaize, an RAF reserve officer, and an
engineer as well as an accomplished racer and test pilot, had been on loan to GAT in order to work on a joint American/British
fighter plane prototype. Soon after they were married, the RAF had called her husband back to England, to take fighter pilot
training at a base just outside of London. Susan had gone with him, and set up house in a rented flat near Russell Square.
For several months Blaize had been able to pull strings to be allowed to spend some nights and scattered weekends with her
in London. She became pregnant about the time he graduated from training school. She had only just begun to show when he was
assigned to a fighter squadron with the RAF’s Desert Air Force, in Libya …

It was after he’d been killed in action, and after her son Robert Blaize Greene was born, that she’d come back home with her
baby to California, to her parents, and to the warm and comforting embrace of this house …

She walked through the downstairs, passing through the big rooms with their fireplaces, parquet floors, high, gilded ceilings,
and mahogany paneling. She went out through the solarium’s french doors, to the flagstone patio landscaped with shrubbery
and redwood flower boxes.

Her mother, wearing a black tank suit and reclining on a duck canvas chaise longue beneath the shade of a eucalyptus tree,
heard her coming and looking up, smiling. Her mother had just turned fifty-four years old, but she seemed much younger. Her
appearance had a lot to do with it, Susan thought. Her mother still had a super figure, and wore her blond hair in a short,
touseled, Italian cut that emphasized her youthfulness, as did her outlook on life. Her mother seemed proud of the laugh lines
around her almond-shaped brown eyes and at the corners of her wide mouth.

Back in the 1920s and ‘30s, Erica Gold had been a famous pilot; a renowed aviatrix who’d helped conquer the skies along with
the likes of Amelia Earhart and Beryl Markham. Her picture had been featured on magazine covers; her exploits had been documented
in the newsreels. Today, her flying trophies and mementos were now proudly displayed in her husband’s office.

Her mother’s only imperfection—if you could call it that, Susan thought—was her nose. Her mother had broken her nose in some
tom girl stunt when she was little, and it had healed with a slight bump on it.

Susan’s father said that it had been that bump that had made him fall in love with her mother, first thing.

“I didn’t think you were still home,” her mother said. “I would have thought that since Robbie’s with his grandfather you
would have taken the opportunity to take off with Don on a beautiful Saturday like this …”

Susan shrugged, staring out at the shimmering, turquoise, rectangular pool. “I guess I wanted to talk about something.”

“About what?” her mother asked, putting aside her magazine.

“Don’s asked me to marry him.”

“Well! Isn’t that good news …?” Her mother smiled tentatively. “What did you tell him?”

“That I wanted to think about it …”

“And have you?”

“I think I’m going to accept.”

Her mother nodded. “You …
think
you are …” When Susan shrugged, her mother added, “Do you love Don?”

“I think I do,” Susan sighed.

“Suzy, dear…” Her mother coughed, then cleared her throat. “This is rather awkward for me to ask, but … have you had …
intimate relations
with Don?”

“Yes, Mother.” She grinned. “We’ve made love …” Wickedly, she paused.

Her mother rolled her eyes, exasperated. “
And?
”

Laughing, Susan said, “And it was fine. Seriously, we’ve been intimate for some months. I mean, we’ve certainly been going
together a long time,” she added defensively. “I guess I knew that Don was leading up to proposing to me. I guess I encouraged
it, but now that he has I’m suddenly not sure. I mean, I think about Don, and I like to be with him, but if you’re asking
me if I feel for him what I felt for Blaize …” She trailed off, shaking her head. “I’ve thought about it a lot. Maybe you
can
really
fall in love only
once
, and if, for whatever reason, that first love doesn’t last, the next loves will be imitations of that first time.”

“I don’t think it’s a question of verisimilitude as much as one of intensity,” her mother said. “First love is always the
sweetest.”

“Then
you
were very lucky,” Susan replied. “Your first love has lasted.”

“Thirty-five years.” She nodded.

“It was love at first sight between you and Daddy, wasn’t it?” Susan coaxed. “Just the way it was between Blaize and me?”

“Yes.”

“If something had happened to Daddy early on,” Susan began, “do you think you would have remarried?”

Her mother smiled. “I think that I
probably
would have, if the right man had come along.”

“But you wouldn’t have loved him the same way you loved Daddy, right?”

“I think that you just hit the nail on the head,” her mother replied. “You’re right that I wouldn’t have loved my hypothetical
second husband the way I love your father, but
I would have loved him
, or else I would never marry him. Likewise, I strongly urge
you
not to marry a man you don’t love.”

“Then what are you saying?” Susan demanded.

“I’m saying that you need to look inside yourself concerning your feelings for Don. To do that, you need to separate yourself
from the past—”

“You mean forget about Blaize? How could I ever—?”

“You don’t forget about him,” her mother gently instructed. “I’m only suggesting that you need to stop thinking about him
for a while, in order to think about what you feel for Don.”

Susan smiled wryly. “What if I told you I wanted to marry Don for Robbie’s sake? So that he would have a normal family; a
father…?”

“I wouldn’t believe it,” her mother said firmly. “You and your son are already surrounded by family, and besides, you’re too
strong a woman to think that way.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Of course I am. You’re my daughter.”

Susan had to laugh. How characteristic that last comment had been! “What you mean is that I can’t disappoint
not
because of who
I
am, but because of who
you
are.” She was aware of the bitterness in her tone. “It’s the same trouble that Daddy has relating with Steve: the chip-off-the-old-block
syndrome.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Erica asked coolly.

“That you mistake your confidence in yourself as confidence in me.
You’re
perfect, and
you
produced
me
, so
I
must be perfect, as if I were one of Daddy’s airplanes rolling off the assembly lines.”

“I don’t think I’m perfect, Susan.” Her mother frowned.

Why am I getting us into this?
Susan wondered. “Mother, please let’s not fight.”

“Fine …”

“I’m sorry I said what I did.” Susan realized that she really was sorry. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. I’ve been
feeling so moody…”

“It’s all right, dear.”

“Maybe I should see the doctor,” Susan mused. “I’ve been feeling so under the weather.”

“Because you worry too much,” her mother said. “But you know, you
do
have to be careful how to deal with Don,” her mother warned. “You must remember he’s very important to your father, and the
company—”

“Dammit, Mother!” Susan exploded. “I’m talking about love, not business!”

“You’re not being fair—”

“What does fairness have to do with anything?”

“Suzy, you’re being childish,” her mother scolded. She paused. “So what are you going to do?”

“Marry Don … I guess …” Susan shrugged.

Her mother looked troubled. “But you
do
love Don?”

“In my way, I really do.” Susan nodded, and allowed her mother’s relieved expression to relieve her own doubts, as well.

Steven Gold woke up to the smell of coffee, and glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand beside his bed. It was 11 A.M.,
Sunday morning. He was lying on his back, nude, beneath the sheet, in the bedroom of his apartment on Prince Street. Linda
Forrester, who was also nude, except for a pair of tortoiseshell eyeglasses perched on the tip of her nose, was sitting at
his bedroom desk, sipping coffee while she studied one of the assignment files she’d brought with her on this trip to Washington.

She’d flown in Friday night, and they’d spent the weekend together. Tomorrow she had an appointment to interview the First
Lady about the rigors of the campaign trail. Nobody doubted that Ike was a shoe-in against Stevenson in next month’s election.

Steve remained quiet. He didn’t want Linda, just now absently twirling her fingers in her shoulder-length, dark brown hair
as she read, to realize that he was awake. He liked watching her when she wasn’t aware of him, and not acting all flustered
and self-conscious …

She’d evidently been spending a lot of time at the beach, back home in Los Angeles. Her skin was tanned to the color of coffee
with cream, except for her startlingly white breasts and bottom where her bikini had kept away the sun. She was sitting perched
on the edge of the straight-backed desk chair, her sleek, pear-shaped ass splayed against the black leather upholstery. As
she leaned forward to turn a page, her white breasts bobbed, and a slight fold of belly appeared, bisecting her navel. When
she shifted her position, the chair’s leather seat made a soft, moist, kissing sound as it briefly adhered to her thighs.
Now she was bringing up one tawny leg and tucking it beneath her like a stork, to reveal her dark thatch.

She saw that he was awake and smiled. “Have you been watching me all this time?” she demanded, laughing.

“So I’m a voyeur.” Steve grinned. “A dirty old man.”

“Well, you’re dirty, all right.” Linda smiled. “But evidently not so old.” She gestured toward his erection, sticking up like
a tent pole beneath the sheet.

“Well, are you going to do something about this?”

She took off her reading glasses and tossed them onto the file, then stood up and came over to the foot of the bed. She grabbed
the top sheet and whisked it away. Then she pounced.

He hardly needed to fondle her before she was wet, and eagerly reaching for him. He tried to roll over on top of her, but
she murmured, “No,” pinning him back, and he remembered that lately she’d been liking it better when she was on top.

“How many times will this make?” she asked as she straddled him.

“Let’s see: twice Friday night, and five times yesterday,” Steve said, sighing happily as she impaled herself upon him with
a wiggle of her hips. “This is only number eight, but the day’s still young.”

She began to rock back and forth, reaching back to tickle his balls. “You have anything left in these?” she teased.

“Seek and ye shall find.”

Her pace gradually began to quicken. He reached up to pull her forward so that he could nibble at her pink nipples, and she
gasped, riding him even faster, her thighs flexing and hips pumping. They were both sweating now. The bed was rocking with
their exertions. He groaned and squirmed as she ground herself against him, their bodies making wet, slapping sounds. He heard
her first, soft moans, almost like whispers, and smiled. They were old flying buddies; knew each other’s sign language by
heart: Her whimpers told him that she was poised at the brink, and he took pleasure in concentrating on her; on starting her
on the downward slope until she was out of control.