The Hot Pilots (19 page)

“Ray guns?” Don smiled. “Is that the kind of Buck Rogers stuff the Air Force has up its wild blue sleeve?”

“If that’s what it takes,” Steve said belligerently.

“You’re living in a dreamworld.” Don chuckled.

Susan saw her husband smile at Robbie, but her son was not smiling back. Robbie was not appreciating the way his uncle was
being put on the defensive.

“You say that I’m in a dreamworld, but at least I’m out and around,” Steve told Don. “I’m not cooped up in a lab all day—”

“Oh, good,” Don said sarcastically. “But before we get to hear your war stories,
again
, since you’re the man of action around here you should be interested to know that we’ve heard that one of NASA’s priorities
is to select pilots to become space explorers. They’re calling them astronauts.”

“What’s that got to do with me?” Steve asked.

“Well.” Don smiled. “You’re a pilot, right? Doesn’t exploring outer space sound appealing to you?”

“Yeah, Uncle Steve, it sound’s great!” Robbie exclaimed.

“There.” Don chuckled, gesturing toward Robbie. “You’ve got your biggest fan here keen on the idea. I was thinking that maybe
you ought to try out to be one of these astronauts …”

“Oh, really?” Steve fumed. “Did you and my father discuss
that
without me, as well?”

“It’s just a thought, Steve,” Susan heard her father try to placate her brother. “Of course, if you’re not interested …”

He trailed off, sounding tentative. Susan wondered what was going on with her father. Usually he was so forceful, but tonight
he seemed to retreat the more her brother and her husband bickered.

“It’s obvious that these astronaut guys are going to be in the limelight,” Don was telling Steve. “So I thought you’d be interested,
that’s all …”

“What’s
that
supposed to mean?” Steve demanded. “That I don’t like hard work? That all I want to do is hog the glory?”

“You said it, I didn’t.” Don smiled.

“You gonna be an astronaut, Uncle Steve?” Robbie asked.

“Yeah,
Uncle Steve,
” Don mimicked gleefully. “You going to be an astronaut?”

“Stop it, Don,” Susan heard herself murmuring. “
Both
of you, please
stop
…”

“Listen, Robbie, the way NASA runs things, these guys aren’t going to be true pilots at all,” Steve was busy explaining to
her son. “They’re going to be like … glorified white
rats
… locked into tin cans …” Steve glanced angrily at Don. “Is that all you think I’m good for?”

“What I think you’d be
good for
is another topic,” Don said coldly. “My point at the moment is only that it would be good public relations for GAT Aerospace
if you tried out for the NASA program. If you’re really interested in helping the company you’ll do it. If not …” He shrugged.
“It’s time to put up or shut up, Steve. You’re either willing to pitch in, or you’re not …”

“You little
bookworm
—” Steve snapped.

“Steve!” Herman commanded. “Come on now, Steve, calm down … This is supposed to be a joyous occasion—”

Steve was glaring at Don. “Where does this
bookworm
come off telling
me
what to do?”

“Right.” Don nodded fiercely. “You call me names because that’s easier than admitting that you’re too selfish—that you’ve
always
been too selfish—to do the right thing by your family, and the company!”

“Like
you
do the right thing, you mean?” Steve demanded.

“That’s right, I do!”

“Stop it! Both of you!” Susan cried out, shocking them into silence. “Listen to yourselves, arguing like two little boys!
And you, Don! You should be especially ashamed of yourself. This dinner is supposed to be a celebration of the birth of your
son! What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you and Steve get along?”

She noticed Steve smirking and turned on him. “What’s so funny?”

Her brother leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, Don. Why not tell her why we don’t get along? Why don’t you tell
everyone
what’s really on your mind, old buddy?”

“What’s he talking about, Don?” Susan asked, totally confused.

“I don’t know what he means, honey,” Don said nervously. He glared at Steve. “Just shut up, will you?”

“No! I won’t shut up,” Steve replied, looking amused. “You’re pretty good at needling people, old buddy. You can dish it out,
all right, but you can’t take it. You know as well as I do the reason you hate me—”

“Shut up, I said—!” Don’s chair tipped over as he jumped to his feet. He was trembling with anger.

“What’s the matter, bookworm?” Steve taunted, the smile vanishing from his face. “I know you want to keep me out of GAT because
you’re afraid of the competition. Well, I don’t blame you. You sure turned out to be inadequate competition concerning—”

Don snatched up his wineglass and hurled its contents across the table, into Steve’s face.

“
Oh, my God
—” Susan gasped.

Her mother was ashen. Her father’s stunned expression had melted into one of deep grief. Robbie looked like he was about to
cry, and Don looked exhausted. He was still trembling, but his head was down and his hands hung limp by his sides.

Steve sat with the wine that had splattered the front of his shirt and suit jacket dripping down his face. “Well, I guess
I’ve just had one for the road,” he said mildly.

“You’d better go,” Susan heard her father hoarsely whisper. “Please, it would be the best thing …”

Steve nodded, wiped his face with his napkin, and stood up. “Thanks for a lovely evening.”

Steven Gold went upstairs to the guest room he was occupying, changed clothes, and packed quickly. He telephoned for a taxi,
and then went back downstairs with his valise, giving the dining room a wide berth. He was waiting for his cab at the front
door when his father appeared in the foyer.

“I’m sorry, Pop,” Steve said, setting down his valise. “I’m sorry the evening got spoiled—” He was choosing his words carefully,
not about to accept responsibility for what he considered to be Don’s fault.

“Where are you going?”

“I called a cab,” Steve said. “I’ll check into a hotel for tonight, and catch the first flight I can back to Washington tomorrow.”

His father was looking old and gray. Steve felt his anger draining away, to be replaced with compassion.
Fuck it
, he thought.
I can’t do much for him, but at least I can let him off the hook
… “Come on, cheer up, Pop.” Steve forced himself to smile apologetically. “It was my fault tonight.”

“No …” He put his hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Don shouldn’t have goaded you like that …”

“Pop …” Steve shook his head. “It was my fault, I tell you. The guy’s so thin-skinned. I should have known better than to
push him. I played with fire and I got burned, is all…”

“Steve?” his father began. “What you were talking about before …”

“What was that, Pop?”

“You were suggesting that Don had some reason other than the office to dislike you …?”

“Ah, that was just the wine talking,” Steve said quickly. “I was just shooting my mouth off …”

“Then there is nothing else?” his father prodded. “Nothing more I should know?”

Steve shook his head, grateful that he had another gift to give. “Nothing else you should know, Pop. I swear it to you…”

His father was nodding, looking satisfied. “The thing with Don, he’s as emotional as he is brilliant …”

“Yeah, sure, Pop …”
He’s brilliant and I’m dumb
…

“I haven’t had the chance to tell you, but Don’s devised a preliminary concept for a radio-controlled rocket engine,” his
father continued. “If it pans out, the engine will have the ability to fire repeatedly; not just once until it burns out.
An engine like that would allow ground control to actually steer a satellite into a different orbit.” He smiled. “We’re all
really excited about it.”

“Sounds great.” Steve smiled back lamely, thinking sadly that he wasn’t part of so much that was happening.

“I don’t know where GAT would be without Don’s innovation …”

His father was trying to explain something to him, Steve realized.
I was wrong. Don isn’t Pop’s “yes man”; it’s the other way around
…

Outside, there came the sound of tires on the crushed gravel drive. A motor idled. A horn blared.

“Pop, that’s my cab. I gotta go. Tell Mom I’m sorry for what happened.”

“Maybe you should tell her yourself …”

“I can’t go in there,” Steve said, his hand on the doorknob. He smiled wryly as he stepped out into the night. “I’m not used
to losing, Pop.”

It was close to four in the morning when Susan Harrision gave up on trying to sleep. Beside her in the double bed Don was
snoring soundly. He’d been absolutely contrite during the drive home. Emotionally and physically exhausted, he’d fallen asleep
as soon as his head had hit the pillow.

Susan was angry at her husband for what had happened, but she was angry at Steve, as well. Both men had done all they could
to humiliate and belittle each other in front of the family, and both men had succeeded.

The wine she’d had at dinner had left her with a parched throat and a headache. Every time she closed her eyes in hopes of
dozing off her restless mind replayed that terrible argument, setting her tossing and turning. She gave up and got out of
bed, stepping into her slippers and putting on her robe. She was on her way to the kitchen, thinking to make herself a cup
of tea, when she noticed light spilling from beneath the staircase door that led up to the attic.

She wrapped her robe around her against the slight chill as she opened the door and went up the stairs. The overhead light
was on. In the harsh glare of the bare bulb hanging from the roof rafters she saw her son in his red and white striped pajamas
and navy blue corduroy robe sitting cross-legged on an old Oriental carpet. Open beside him was a battered, black and green
steamer trunk plastered with travel stickers.

Susan took a deep breath. The attic smelled of dust and cedar and the past. That steamer trunk was where she kept her late
husband’s things …

“I didn’t know you knew about that trunk.” She tried to keep the resentment she was feeling toward her son out of her voice,
but Robbie must have heard it. He looked up at her with his father’s penetrating green eyes beneath his touseled black hair.

“Are you mad?” Robbie murmured.

“No … yes …” She smiled faintly. “Maybe a little … It’s hard to share,” she tried to explain.

Robbie nodded. “I’ve known about the trunk a long time. I’ve been going through it for a while now.” He paused. “Whenever
I’m alone …”

She saw that he had pulled out some of the newspaper clippings and photographs, and spread them on the carpet. Beside him
was the old shoebox in which she kept her husband’s medals, and his letters to her. She knelt down beside her son and pointed
to the shoebox. “Have you read those?”

Robbie shrugged. “I started to once, but they were all full of kind of mushy stuff … and … well …” He blushed. “So I didn’t
…”

She put her arms around her son and hugged him. “I appreciate that.”

Robbie didn’t reply. His fingers brushed over the yellowing, brittle scraps of newsprint that chronicled his father’s aviation
racing career, and then he picked up a small, faded, black-and-white snapshot of a smiling, tall, dark matinee idol of a man
in a tweed suit with too-wide lapels and baggy pants. The man was smoking a cigarette and standing on a beach. In the background,
bobbing in the water, was a spindly, single-engine, open-cockpit seaplane.

“This is my favorite one,” Robbie said.

“Mine too,” Susan confided. “It was taken in 1938. In Venice, Italy. At the—”

“Moden Seaplane Races,” Robbie finished for her.

“That’s right,” she said, surprised.

“That’s where you met him …”

Susan nodded. “How do you know all that?”

“I asked Grandpa once, and he told me.”

“I see …”

“Mom, do you ever come up here to look at all this stuff?”

She had the strangest impulse to lie. To say that she never did. “Sometimes …”

“When you do, does it make you feel good or bad?” Robbie asked, his green eyes searching.

“It makes me feel, a little
both
ways …”

He nodded. “If you could have him back again, would you? Instead of Don, I mean—?”

She closed her eyes. “I can’t have him back, Robbie—”

“I know, but if you could …?”

She took hold of her son’s hand and squeezed it. “When you get older, those kinds of make-believe games hurt, so you don’t
play them …”

He looked unconvinced. “Mom? When you look at this stuff, don’t you feel like you are choosing?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” This time she had no problem lying.

“Never mind.” He shrugged, and then gestured to the photograph. “If he was here, do you think that he’d be more like Don or
Steve?”

It was an intriguing question. “Why do you ask?”

“Because I want to
be
like him,” Robbie fiercely replied.

“I see … Well, your father was a very good pilot, but he was also a brilliant engineer…” Susan replied. “Did you know that
before he went off to the war he was working on a prototype jet engine.”

“Grandpa told me …”

“Your father would have been a little like both men, I think …”

Robbie frowned, puzzled. Susan knew he couldn’t accept the notion. Steve and Don had positioned themselves too far apart in
his eyes; the boy needed to choose one or the other; of course, he already had.

“I think he’d want me to be a pilot, like Grandpa, and Steve …” Robbie mused. “That’s what I think …”

“Maybe …”

“I don’t think he’d like Don at all.”

“Have you seen your father’s medals in the shoebox?” Susan asked, needing to change the subject.

“Yeah …”

“I’ve always intended that they would someday belong to you. What do you think?” she asked confidently. “Would you like them
now? To keep in your room?”