James Huston - Fallout

That first night as they drank coffee, Luke could see her evaluating everything about him. He realized that someone without a lot of self-confidence had no chance with her. But he didn’t care a bit what she or anyone else thought about his name, or his heritage, or his boots. If she didn’t care for any of those things, fine. Even if she was good-looking. So he just held steady and watched her. He thought her small eyeglasses, obviously chosen for their look, were quirky and impractical, and her short, midriff-exposing, spaghetti-strapped top and sexy capri pants were “incongruous”—he’d used the word once he found out what it meant—with her role as a corporate lawyer. And if anyone was part of the machine against which the band had been raging, it was probably the corporations that used Third World nonreading slaves to build things no one wanted but were persuaded to buy through the companies’ clever marketing campaigns.

She’d loved that and had thrown back her head in beautiful laughter that seemed to bounce off her perfect teeth like musical notes off crystal. He told her that her long, curly blond hair was also not the usual sign of a corporate lawyer, and he insisted on seeing her business card.

They had dated on weekends, when Luke would drive his Corvette to the Bay Area from LeMoore. They would go to Marin County, or Sausalito, or just ride the ferry around the bay. He’d fallen for her more deeply than he’d ever imagined possible. It left him short of breath. The thought of living without her was inconceivable. He knew by the second month of dating her that he wanted to marry her, but it took him another six months to work up to hinting at the possibility to gauge her reaction. She’d laughed again, but it was her encouraging, “what a great idea” laugh, that life is good, and this idea will be part of the wonderful, enchanted life she seemed to be leading. Luke knew he was completely outclassed. She was from a higher plane in almost every way. But she loved him, and he knew it, and he wasn’t the kind to catalog all the ways she was better than him. No point. If it didn’t matter to her, he wasn’t going to let it matter to him.

He had asked her to marry him right as his squadron tour was ending, just as he was rolling to his shore tour. They knew they would have a chance to be together every day. The timing was perfect. Then he got his dream assignment—he was asked if he wanted to be an instructor at TOPGUN. He was thrilled. So was she, until she learned TOPGUN wasn’t in San Diego anymore. Fallon, Nevada, he’d told her, and her enthusiasm had evaporated.

She didn’t want to leave what she was doing, and after days of agonizing over how to solve the problem, they’d arrived at a compromise. She would keep her apartment in Palo Alto and come to Fallon every Friday afternoon through Monday morning. They had agreed that practicing law in Fallon, Nevada, simply wasn’t the same as practicing law in the heart of Silicon Valley, in Palo Alto, California.

But she knew that he was going to stay in the Navy. He was determined to be a commanding officer of a Navy squadron and ultimately of a nuclear aircraft carrier. He loved flying in the Navy and wanted to make it a career. She’d breathed in deeply and said she didn’t know how, but she would make it work. They would make it work.

Now he had to tell her that all their plans were being turned upside down.

“You’re home,” Katherine said from behind him, surprising him.

“Hey,” he said. He turned to see her. She looked terrible. Her face was drawn and pale, and her long blond hair was more disheveled than usual. She was dressed in a business suit, but she looked as if she’d been camping. “How you doing?”

She stood next to him and put her head down on her arm on the counter. “Sick.”

“Flu?”

“No,” she said.

He frowned.

“You sitting down?” she replied.

He looked at the stool on which he was obviously sitting. “Looks like it.”

“Morning sickness.”

He stood and stared at her, openmouthed. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” she said, trying to smile. “I did the test after you left this morning. I got dressed and tried to get to the airport and just lay on the bed. I couldn’t make it.”

Luke put his arm around her. “That’s unbelievable!” he said, groping for exactly the right words but coming up short. He hugged her.

“Nothing will be the same now,” she replied. She looked at his face closely for the first time and saw something there. “What’s wrong?”

“I got the board results today.” He sat again.

“What did they say?” she said, sitting on the stool next to his.

“Gun’s going to put a letter in my jacket.”

She knew exactly what that meant. His commanding officer would put a letter, in his personnel file, that would say he’d been found wanting in the evaluation conducted of him relating to an accident. She also knew that no one had a great career in naval aviation after such a letter. It was as effective as a court-martial.

“Why?”

“I didn’t exercise enough ‘judgment’ or ‘leadership.’ The accident wasn’t my fault, but if I had exercised sufficient leadership, I could have avoided it. Believe that?”

“But what could you have done?”

“They say by trying to bank to the right instead of pushing the nose over I caused my left wing to go up and hit Mink’s. I should have just pushed over and headed down. I could have avoided the whole thing. But more important, we shouldn’t have been doing a photo op on the way back from the graduation hop.”

She shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry, Luke. That’s just wrong.”

“I’ve got to get out.”

“That’s completely unfair. Can’t you appeal it?”

“Probably some way, but nobody’s going to overturn a CO. It’s just his thing.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She pushed her hair away from her pale face. “So now what? Airlines?”

Luke rolled his eyes and shook his head as he stood and put his empty beer bottle on the counter next to the sink. “I’d rather cut myself with glass than fly around in a cylinder the size of a submarine. That’s not even flying.” He thought about it again, as he had several times during the day since hearing the result of the board, knowing it was what he would end up doing. “If I get out now, I’ll never fly fast jets again.”

“You could fly in the reserves.”

“Not with a letter in my jacket. They’d treat me like a leper—if they let me in at all.”

“We could move to the Bay Area and live off my income. You could be a kept man,” she said, trying to smile.

“Very funny.”

“I’m sure you could find a job in Silicon Valley. You’re an EE. If you could stagger in the door of a few high-tech firms, you’d have fifty job offers in a day for three times what you’re making right now . Just post your résumé on the Internet at a couple of the bulletin boards and sit back and decide which job you want.”

“You think I’d get my own cubicle?”

“If you’re really lucky.” She got a glass of water out of the dispenser in the refrigerator door. “So what do you want to do? We always thought you’d stay in until you were old and gray. It was the only way I’d get you out of my hair occasionally. Now you’ll be home all the time. What will I do with you?”

“I want to fly fast jets. Fighters. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

“You just said there’s no way.”

“Exactly.”

She looked at him, not sure how to encourage him. She shrugged as she drank her water. “So that’s it? Your life’s over? You’ll be like Joe DiMaggio telling everybody about how great you used to be for the rest of your life? Maybe you could get a job with Mr. Coffee.”