by Ben Bova
She thanked him and he watched from the car until she has safely inside the building's glass front door. Then he drove to his in-laws, narrowly missing a head-on collision with some jerk who skidded on the ice because he was driving too damned fast.
Dan did not see Dorothy the next day or the one after that. Somehow his work kept him busy out in the hangar or in Jace's rat's nest of an office, far from the quieter and more orderly corridors where the senior staff people and Dr Appleton's offices were.
She came to see him. Late one morning as he was unpacking the lunch he had brought with him, Dorothy appeared at Dan's office door. She was wearing blue slacks and a gold turtleneck sweater, completely covered from throat to toes. Yet she looked as sexy as a swimsuit model to Dan.
"I wanted to thank you again," she said, smiling brilliantly.
Startled to see her, Dan managed a weak, "Uh, it's nothing."
"The car was still there the next day. Nobody stole it."
"What was wrong with it?"
She shrugged, and on her it was a provocation. "The man from the garage said something about a distributor?"
Dan nodded.
"You're eating lunch in? Not at the cafeteria?"
He nodded again.
"Well, thanks again. I really appreciate it. You were my knight in shining armor."
Before he could reply she left. He sat there thinking that his two-door Taurus, stained and streaked by road mud and highway salt, hardly looked like the steed of a knight in shining armor. Then he realized that his hands were trembling.
The following week he happened to see her at the cafeteria and sat at the same table with her. Within a few days he had stopped making lunches for himself. No matter how busy he was with Jace he always took a lunch break. As often as not Dorothy was there at the cafeteria. She always sat with him.
"Do you want me to make you lunch?" Susan asked him when she finally noticed that he had stopped making his own.
"Uh, no. That's okay. I'll just grab something at the cafeteria." And inwardly he grinned at his double entendre.
He wished he could grab Dorothy even though he knew he would never try.
"I can fix a sandwich for you," Susan insisted. "I'm not completely helpless."
She was getting round, and instead of going to her mother's, her mother had started staying over with them.
Like having a live-in nurse, Susan had told Dan. Like having your mother-in-law living with you, Dan had silently retorted.
It was probably not inevitable but it happened anyway. Susan had gone to the doctor's for another checkup, accompanied by her mother. Late in the afternoon Sue called and left word that Dan should pick her up at her mother's home. She left the message with Dr Appleton's secretary.
Dorothy went down to the cold, drafty hangar where Dan and Jace were shoehorning a bulky gray electronics console into the equipment rack already crammed along the catwalk above the hangar floor. Down on the floor Major Martinez was supervising a crew of mechanics in blue Air Force fatigues, driving them like a muleskinner whipping his team up a steep hill. A big flat-bed truck was slowly backing into the hangar, the sawed-off cockpit of an F-22 jet fighter lashed down on its back. It was a brilliant winter day outside but the wind cut like a saber.
"Maybe Ralph'll freeze his balls off," Jace muttered. "Or better yet, maybe they'll turn Air Force blue. That'd be poetic, huh?"
Dan had had the foresight to wear a sweater under his tweed jacket; still his hands hurt from the cold. Jace had a thin leather windbreaker over his inevitable tee shirt.
Then he saw Dorothy running into the hangar, arms wrapped around her, hair blowing in the wind, covered by nothing more than a chocolate leather and sheer stockings. He noticed that her shoes were comfortable black sneakers, incongruous against the rest of her outfit.
By the time she had climbed the catwalk her teeth were chattering. She handed Dan his message; she had written it on a pink telephone message slip.
Dan felt his jaw tighten. Sue's off at her mother's again. He did not know why it made him angry. Mother Emerson was as kind and generous as she could be. He had nothing to complain about, really. Except that he wanted his wife home, with him, in the home he made for her, not running off to her mother every couple of days.
Then he saw that Dorothy was shivering.
"Here, take this." Dan pulled off his jacket and slipped it over her trembling shoulders.
"What about you? Won't you freeze up here?"
"I'll be okay," he said.
"But—"
"Go on," he told her. "Go back to your office where the sane people work. I'll pick up the jacket when I'm finished here."
She looked doubtful, but she said, "Thank you," and hurried back toward the warmth of the heated office building with Dan's jacket bundled around her.
Jace watched her go, then turned back to Dan. "Your mouth is open," he said, grinning.
Dan retrieved his jacket just before quitting time. He had intended to go back to the lab and work another hour or so, but as Dorothy smilingly handed him the rumpled old tweed coat he noticed that Appleton had already left; the boss's office was empty.
Suddenly he heard himself ask Dorothy, "Would you like to stop off someplace for a drink?"
Her smile changed subtly. "All right," she said softly, "under one condition: I'm buying."
Dan blinked with surprise.
"I owe you for the coat," Dorothy explained. "And for the ride home last week."
He grinned—foolishly, he was sure—and agreed. As they walked out to the parking lot together he realized that if she bought the drinks she would be under no obligation to him whatever. Smart girl. And she could end their little get together when she felt like it.
Dan suggested the Stratosphere, the tavern just outside the base's gates where the guys hung out. Dorothy suggested a place nearer to her apartment building. "It's quieter, nicer," she said. "The Strata's too noisy for me."
He followed her car into the city and parked on the tree-lined street behind her. It was a quiet residential neighborhood, five- and six-story red brick apartment buildings. The Greenwood Lounge was on the corner, a tasteful small neon sign glowing above its dark wooden door.
True to Dorothy's word, the lounge was quiet, Almost empty. People were in their apartments eating dinner at this hour in this neighborhood. They would come down for a drink and some conversation later. Soft music purred from speakers in the ceiling. The bartender had a financial news program on his TV by the cash register. Not like the smoky, raucous Stratosphere at all, Dan agreed, with its hillbilly music blaring and beer sloshing everywhere.
"I don't know this part of town very well," Dan said as they slid into a booth.
"It's just two blocks from my apartment building," said Dorothy.
"Do you come here often?" He realized it was an inane question as he spoke the words.
She shrugged. "Now and then."
A middle-aged cocktail waitress in a no-nonsense black dress took their drink orders: Dan asked for a bourbon and water, Dorothy for a glass of white wine.
"I thought you'd want a Margarita."
With a shake of her head, "You can't get a decent Margarita this side of Santa Fe."
"Is that where you were born? In New Mexico?"
She laughed and told him no. In Los Angeles. Their drinks arrived. Dan asked Dorothy if she had encountered any prejudice against Hispanics. She talked briefly about it. Dan found himself talking about his childhood in Youngstown, the kinds of prejudices thrown at you when you're weak and asthmatic and the brightest kid in class. Dorothy told him about the problems of being an attractive young lady.
"You have no idea how many wannabe photographers there are in this world," she said, with a scornful little smile.
The waitress returned to their booth. Dan ordered another round. Dorothy did not demur, but as the waitress went back toward the bar she asked, "Doesn't your wife expect you home for dinner?"
"She's staying with
her mother," Dan said, surprised at how bitter it sounded in his own ears. "She's used to me working late."
He walked her home after the second drink. She told him that their parking spots were safe until eight o'clock the next morning.
"Let's have dinner," Dan blurted as he recognized the front of her apartment building. He did not want the evening to end so soon.
In the shadowy light of the street lamps shining through the bare branches of the trees, Dorothy seemed to search his eyes for something. Or maybe she was searching herself.
"I can fix something for us," she said, so softly than Dan barely heard it. Then she added, more firmly, "I'm a pretty good cook."
They ended up in bed. They never got to dinner. Once Dorothy led Dan into her apartment they both seemed to forget everything else except each other. For the first time in his life Dan threw away all the rules and did what his hormones demanded, all the while amazed in a far corner of his mind that this gorgeous willing warm exciting young woman wanted him as much as he wanted her.
He felt incredibly guilty about it afterward. Stuttering that he had to drive all the way to his in-laws' house all the way out in Xenia, he fumbled himself back into his pants and shirt and shoes and made a hasty retreat toward his car leaving Dorothy smiling at him from her bed.
By the next morning he felt more ashamed of himself than guilty. He tried to avoid Dorothy all day but finally had to go past her desk. She smiled at him as if nothing had happened. When he tried to apologize over lunch, hunching over the cafeteria table and whispering his miserable little regrets Dorothy nodded solemnly.
"I know," she said. "I understand. It was my own fault, really. I wanted it to happen."
"What?" He felt stunned.
Dorothy lowered her eyes but repeated, "I wanted it to happen."
He did not know what to say. He was not certain he could speak if he tried to.
Tortured, fascinated, wretched, elated, Dan's affair with Dorothy deepened week by week as his wife's pregnancy advanced and she spent more and more of her time with her sisters and her mother.
Dan learned what addiction was like. He knew he was doing something terribly wrong, yet he could not find the strength to stop. They explored each other's bodies with the eagerness of teenagers. Dorothy constantly sought for new sensations, new ways of exciting them both. Dan began to wonder how much experience she had already had.
She laughed, beside him in bed. "In my neighborhood in LA they call it breaking the cherry. As soon as I started growing boobs the guys were all around me, sniffing like a pack of dogs. I picked the leader of the pack, and he kept me safe from the rest of them."
Looking up at the shadowy ceiling of her bedroom, Dan asked, "Then why me? Why am I so lucky?"
"Because you're the best man I've found here."
"But I'm married," he said.
"That's part of it. That makes you safe. We can have fun in bed and enjoy each other without worrying about getting tangled up in commitments and all that."
"So I'm protecting you from the other guys?" Dan did not feel like much of a protector.
"Kind of," Dorothy answered, turning toward him. "Everybody knows we're a twosome so the other guys don't bother me so much anymore."
Everybody knows except Sue, thought Dan.
He asked, "Don't you want a commitment? Don't you want to get married someday?"
"Oh sure, some day," she said vaguely. But not now, not yet."
"This can't last forever, can it?" he whispered.
"Us? No, not forever. But let's enjoy it while we can." And she guided his hand down the length of her body to her groin.
Dr Appleton found out, of course. He called Dan into his office one afternoon, firmly shut the door, and then went to his desk. Dan knew what was coming from the disapproving frown on his high-domed face.
"Dan, I don't want to interfere in your personal life, but I think you're heading for big trouble."
Dan had no reply.
"You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"
"Dorothy."
"What are you going to do about her?"
With a slow shake of his head, Dan said, "I wish I knew."
"All right, then," said Doc. "I'll tell you what you're going to do. You're going to stop this romance right here and now."
"That's what I ought to do," Dan admitted"
"You're going to be a father soon. You have a wife and a child on the way. Those are responsibilities you can't avoid."
"I know."
Appleton's stern visage eased into a fatherly sadness.
"Listen, son, we've all been through episodes like this—"
Dan's eyes widened. "Yes, even me." Appleton blushed slightly. "A long time ago. You've got to put an end to it, Dan."
Appleton did not threaten or shout or lose his temper.
He talked to Dan for almost an hour, more like an understanding father than an outraged employer. Dan felt grateful. And miserable. When he left the lab that evening, it was still a balmy springtime outdoors, just after Daylight Savings Time had started so that it still was something of a surprise to have the sun shining as he headed for his car. He drove to the Greenwood Lounge and Dorothy was waiting for him there in their usual booth.
His mind was in a turmoil. They ordered their drinks, and before Dan could say anything Dorothy asked, "When is the baby due?"
"Another two-three weeks," said Dan.
"How is Susan feeling?"
"Okay. Tired and cranky, but no real problems."
"Gracias a Dios," Dorothy murmured.
"Huh?"
She rested her long-fingered hand on his and it sent a tingle all the way up his arm. But her face was somber. She looked just as unhappy as he felt.
"Dan, it's time."
"Time?"
"For us to end this thing. It's getting too heavy. I don't want to break up your marriage, especially with the baby coming."
He grimaced. "Doc talked to you, too, huh?"
"Doc?" she looked genuinely surprised. "He hasn't said a word to me."
Feeling puzzled, Dan asked, "Then why . . .?"
"If we don't stop now I'm going to really fall in love with you and you'll have to choose between me and Susan and your new baby." Dorothy said it all in a rush, as if afraid that if she hesitated for even an instant the words would stop coming. "I don't want to be in that position and I don't want to ruin all our lives so we've got to stop seeing each other."
Dan opened his mouth but nothing came out.
"You know I'm right," she said.
"Yeah," he heard himself croak. "I know. But still—"
"Do you love me?"
"Yes!"
Dorothy smiled sadly and shook her head. "Wrong answer. You love your wife. And you will love your baby when it arrives."
"I love you too."
"Not the same. Not for a lifetime. It was a very good thing for a few months, Dan, but now it must end."
He knew she was right but still he did not like it. She started dating Major Martinez soon afterward. Dan thought Dorothy was doing that to keep him from trying to get her back. He felt angry, jealous. And incredibly grateful that no one kidded him about his love affair breaking up. No one even mentioned it.
Except Jace.
"She just used you to get Martinez's attention," Jace told him.
Dan wanted to hit him.
"Yep," Jace said, as casually as a man reading the time from a clock, "it was Ralphie boy she was really interested in all along. Friggin' hard-ass was too uptight to go after her, so she used you to make him jealous."
"That's not true," Dan said through gritted teeth.
Jace grinned at him. "Yeah. Sure."
Then Angela was born and he was like a man coming out of a dream. He was a father now, and he had a loving and lovely wife whom he had betrayed but he would spend a lifetime making it up to her and never again look at another woman and thank God Sue didn't know anything about Dorothy.
One of the
other wives told Susan, of course. At the wedding of Dorothy and Ralph Martinez. Susan was furious. She took her three-month-old daughter to her parents' home and refused even to speak to Dan on the telephone. Dan knew he deserved every bit of her rage. He wrote her long letters of abject abasement and apology, never once even thinking that he had any excuse to offer, any counter-accusation to make.
It took nearly four months. Dr Appleton played the peacemaker, even going to Susan's parents' home to ask her to relent and forgive Dan. "I introduced you two," he reminded her. "I feel responsible for you."
Grudgingly, Susan returned home and they slowly began putting their marriage back together. Dan always thought that if it hadn't been for Angela, Sue would have left him for good.
And Dorothy, married now to Ralph Martinez, never spoke to Dan again unless there were other people in the room with them.
CHAPTER 23
For the first time in many years Susan and Dan had gone to bed angry, spent the night in cold silence, not touching one another. Dr Appleton phoned at six a.m. with the news that an Air Force plane would pick Dan up at the Kissimmee airport at eight o'clock. Breakfast was tense, broken only by Dan's rummaging through the kitchen drawers for a road map that showed the airport. Susan knew she could print out a map for him from her computer files but she did not suggest it.
"I'll phone you when I land at Wright-Patt," he said tightly as he got up from the kitchen table.
"What about the office?" she asked. "Shouldn't you call Kyle and tell him you won't be in?"
Thinking of the plane waiting for him, Dan said, "Could you call? Please? I've got to run—"
She nodded. "It's too early for anybody to be at the office now, isn't it?"
"Maybe Jace," he said, going to the door" "But he won't even notice I'm gone for a day or two."
Like hell, Susan thought. But she said nothing.
"Give Vickie a buzz. Even if she's not there you can leave the message on her phone machine."
Susan said to herself, I'll phone Kyle. Not Vickie.
She went to the breezeway door and watched Dan gun his old Honda and back it out the driveway. This early in the morning the neighborhood looked like a movie set, clean and new and uncluttered. Neat lawns and shrubs of tropical hibiscus and oleander blossoming pink and red in November. Young trees planted at precise intervals along the curb side. Each stucco-covered house painted a pastel Florida pink or aqua or mint beneath its red tile roof. Not a soul in sight. No one moving about, except for Dan's car turning left, heading for the highway. The whole scene as flat as a studio sound stage, uninhabited, antiseptic, sterile as a Moon colony.
