Danielle Steel - Wings

They stayed on Easter Island for only one night, to rest up for the long leg the following day to Papeete, Tahiti. And this time they managed to just barely shave the record. They traveled two thousand seven hundred miles in seven hours fourteen minutes, without a single problem.

Landing in Tahiti was like arriving in Paradise, and as Billy looked out at the girls lined up along the runway in sarongs, waving at them and carrying leis, he let out a whoop of glee that brought Cassie to gales of laughter.

“My God, they're paying us to do this, Cass? Oh, baby, I don't believe this!”

“Behave yourself, or they're going to put us in jail if you go out there looking like that.” He was practically panting and drooling. He was like a big funny kid, and she loved flying with him. More importantly, he was an outstanding navigator and a brilliant mechanic.

In fact, he had picked up a noise he didn't like just after they took off from Easter Island. And after paying suitable homage to the local girls, he wanted to come back and check it out. When they cabled home that night, they mentioned it, but assured everyone that it was by no means a serious problem. They were giving them daily reports of their progress, and were relieved to be able to announce that they had just broken another record.

In Papeete, almost everyone spoke French, and Billy spoke just enough to get by. There was a dinner given by the French ambassador for them, and Cassie apologized that she had nothing to wear but her flight suit. Someone lent her a beautiful sarong instead, and she wore a big pink flower in her hair when Billy escorted her to dinner.

“You sure don't look like Lindy to me,” he said admiringly, putting an arm around her as they walked from their hotel to the embassy. But the relationship between them was strictly one of brother and sister. And as they walked along the beach afterward, talking about the trip, Cassie said sadly that she wished Nick could be there. Papeete was a magical place, and the people were wonderful. It was the most beautiful place she'd ever seen, and she resisted any comparison to her honeymoon in Mexico. That was a memory she wanted to forget now.

She and Billy sat on the beach late that night, talking about the people they'd met, the things they'd seen. The dinner at the embassy had been impressively civilized, and even in a sarong she felt somewhat out of place, though less so than she would have in her wrinkled flight suit.

“Sometimes the things we do still stagger me,” Cassie said with a smile, fingering the flower she'd worn in her hair that evening. “I mean how did we get so lucky? Look at the plane we're flying all over the world… the people we meet… the places we go… it's like someone else's life… how did I get here? Do you ever feel like that, Billy?” She felt so young sometimes, so old at others. At twenty-two, she felt like she'd had a lot of good luck, and not much bad luck, all things considered. But that was the way she saw things.

“I'd say you paid a high price for this trip, Cass… higher than I did,” he said seriously, thinking of her marriage, “but yeah, I feel like that. I keep waiting for someone to grab me by the scruff of the neck, and say ‘hey, what's that kid doing here? He doesn't belong here!’”

“You belong here,” she said warmly. “You're the best there is. I wouldn't have done this without you.” The only other person she could think of who she would have liked to fly it with was Nick. Maybe some day.

“It's gonna be over too soon, you know that, Cass. I thought of that when we got here. Zip… it's over… gone… you plan and practice and sweat for a whole year, and then whoops… ten days… it's over.” They were almost halfway there already, and Cassie felt sad thinking about it. She didn't want the trip to end so quickly.

They walked slowly back to their hotel after that, and she said something to Billy that surprised him. “I guess I should be grateful to Desmond for all this… and I am… but in a funny way, it doesn't seem like his trip now. He told all those lies, and did all his scheming, but it's our trip. We're doing it. We're here. He isn't. Somehow, all of a sudden, he doesn't seem all that important.” It was a relief for her, and Billy was glad she wasn't tormenting herself about the rotten deal she'd gotten from her erstwhile husband.

“Forget him, Cass. When we go back, all of that will be history. You'll have all the glory.”

“I don't think the glory is ever what I wanted,” she said honestly. “I just wanted the experience, to know I could do it.” But not enough to ruin someone's life for.

“Yeah, me too,” he agreed, but he was also realistic about the hullabaloo that would come later. “But the glory won't be bad either.” He smiled boyishly and she laughed, and then looked at him seriously.

“I was going to file for divorce before we left, but I decided to wait until after the trip, just in case some nosy reporter got wind of it. I didn't want to screw things up by moving too soon. But all the papers are ready and signed.” She sighed as she remembered going to the lawyer's office. It had been a painful experience telling him what had happened.

“What are you going to get him on?” Billy asked with interest. He could think of at least half a dozen things, none of them pleasant, starting with adultery, and ending with breaking Cassie's heart, if that was officially grounds for divorce now.

“I guess fraud, for a start. It sounds terrible, but the lawyer says we have grounds.” And then of course there was Nancy. “I think we're going to try to come to some quiet, mutual agreement. Maybe a divorce in Reno, if he'll agree to it. At least then it would be over quickly.”

“I'm sure he will,” Billy said wisely. And then they left each other for the night, and met again over breakfast on the terrace the next morning.

“What do you say we tell them they can have their plane back, and we just stay here?” He smiled happily at her, eating an omelet and croissants, and a big cup of strong French coffee, all served by a sixteen-year-old native girl with a breathtaking figure in a pareu.

“You don't think you'd get bored?” She smiled as she sat down next to him. She liked it here too, but she was excited about moving on, to Pago Pago, and then Howland Island.

“I'd never get bored,” he said, smiling up at the girl and then glancing happily at Cassie. “I think I'd like to end my life on an island. What about you?”

“Maybe.” She looked unconvinced, and then she smiled at him over coffee. “I think I'll probably end my life the way I started it, under the belly of an airplane. Maybe they could build me a special wheelchair.”

“Sounds great. I'll build you one.”

“Maybe you'd better check out the North Star first.”

“You mean I can't lie on the beach all day?” He pretended to look shocked, but half an hour later, they were both going over the plane with a fine-tooth comb in all seriousness. The jokes were over. And predictably, the photographers, and the visitors, came to watch them.

They were carrying a huge load of fuel on the North Star , and very little else except emergency supplies, a radio, life jackets, life raft. They had everything they needed. And the temptation was great at each stop to bring home souvenirs from their travels. But they had no room, and they didn't want to weigh the plane down with a single ounce of anything that was not absolutely essential.

They shared a quiet dinner that night at the hotel, and watched an extravagantly gorgeous sunset, and then they took a walk on the beach and went to bed early. And the next morning, they took off for Pago Pago.

They made it in four and a half hours, and this time broke no records. But it was easy flying, all except for a small noise Billy thought he heard in one of their engines. It was the same thing he'd heard the day before, and it was oddly persistent.