Forget Me Not (Love in the Fleet)

by Ashby, Heather

“Okay, George. There’s good news and bad news from the class of ’56. The bad news is there’s an obituary. The good news is it’s not yours.” George howled with laughter. Daisy thought the humor a little dark, but found herself smothering a smile nonetheless.

  “Ah, the good Dr. Schneider.” Brian pulled out her chair for her. “I have some news for you too. My commanding officer received permission for the helicopter to land on the community center ball field next Thursday. I already cleared it with the YMCA. We can write it off as a Veteran’s Day community service activity. How about I come by the Boys and Girls Club, like tomorrow, and talk to the kids about Veteran’s Day?”

  “It’s not necessary.” Daisy avoided his eyes and focused on laying her napkin on her lap.

  “Oh, I think it is. If you want me to fly in next week, you need to give me some time with you—I mean, with the kids—in advance.”

  He turned back to George as the waiters served their entrees. “And speaking of Veteran’s Day, George, there’s a military assembly downtown on Monday. How does a military performance, complete with a Marine Corps silent drill team, sound?”

  “Ha! Just what I love. A silent drill team.” George felt for the edge of his plate.

  Brian laughed along with him. “Sorry, sir, I hadn’t thought about it that way. Maybe you could listen real hard and ensure all their rifle butts hit the deck at the same moment.”

  The men continued to laugh through dinner. Daisy didn’t see what was so funny about blind jokes. Or was she being a pill? Yes, that was it. She wanted to allow herself to be excited about seeing Brian. She wanted to go outside and relive those almost non-existent kisses in the Portside Manor parking lot. She wanted to kiss Brian again in the surf. But she restrained herself from leading him on in any way.

  “By the way, George.” Brian said when their plates were cleared away. “Navy plays Notre Dame this Saturday. I know you like to listen to the games on TV. Well, I thought it might be kind of fun if we watched a game together. You know, since we both played for Navy. I was planning to join some buddies at a sports bar and you’re welcome to join us, but you wouldn’t be able to follow it there. So I was wondering if you’d like to come over to my place and watch it. I’ve got a big screen TV.”

  “And I’d be interested in your big screen TV because…?”

  “Because I’ve got surround sound.” Brian beamed, looking right at her.

  Daisy so wanted to laugh at his antics. His gap-toothed grin charmed everyone at the table, including her.

  “Now you’re talking,” George said. “It’s a date. Care to join us, Daisy?” His question jerked her attention away from Brian’s teeth.

  “Oh, I hadn’t really planned on that,” Brian said with a self-satisfied smile on his face.

  “Don’t worry yourself, Lieutenant. I already have plans. You football jocks go ahead and have yourselves a fun, Navy football kind of day. Look, I can’t stay for dessert. I’ve really gotta run. I’ll see you next week, Captain Duncan.” She leaned down to give him a quick hug, then turned and walked out, putting a little extra wiggle in her walk. She didn’t have to look back to know that somebody was watching her ass and thinking about squeezing it. She knew, because all she could think about was him doing it.

  Sky propped his feet on the ottoman in George’s room and mindlessly flipped through a photo album. “Maybe I need to rescue another cat because I’ve run out of excuses to see her.”

  George settled himself on his leather sofa. “Ah, you’ve admitted you’re in love with her?”

  “I’m crazy about her, but she won’t give me the time of day.”

  “Maybe she’s afraid.”

  Sky looked up from the photo album in his lap. “Afraid of what? Me?”

  “I’m not really at liberty to share.”

  “Look, I know she was married to a pilot and it didn’t work out.”

  George leaned back in his leather chair and sighed. “That what she told you?”

  “Not exactly, but it’s pretty obvious there was a problem.”

  “Well, I can tell you this much. Your being a pilot might be an issue for her. Just means you have to work that much harder to show her you’re the right man for the job.”

  “Am I?”

  “I don’t know. Are you?”

  Sky shrugged. “I’m not sure. I don’t really know much about women. You’d think I’d be a little smarter after all the chicks I’ve dated. But Daisy’s different and…I don’t know. I’ve never felt this way about a woman before. Daisy’s special.”

  “I’ll second that. How old are you, son?”

  “Twenty-nine.”

  George’s mouth curved into a knowing smile. “Ah, there is that ‘almost thirty’ thing.”

  Sky laid the album on the sofa next to him and gave George his undivided attention. “What thing?”

  “Oh, just a stage. A phase. A burp in your otherwise orderly life. I remember thirty well. I mean, I was already married, but I questioned everything else in my life. Did I want to stay in the Navy? Did I want to keep flying? What had seemed so exciting at nineteen didn’t hold the same glamor any more. I realized it wouldn’t be too late if I decided to make some changes. I angsted over it for a year before I decided to stay put. Many young men see it as a time to make a change in their lives. Settle down. Get married. Start a family.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I’m that far gone. I’ve still got plenty of time.”

  “What are you looking at there, Sky?”

  “Your albums. I really like this one with the black and whites from your Academy days. That you? Number twenty-three on the football team?

  “It is.”

  “Oh, man, some things never change. Except for the color of the photographs. And this one over here,” he said as he reached for another album. “Must be when you were in ’Nam.”

  “Yup, that was my first deployment to a combat zone. 1960 if I’m not mistaken.”

  Suddenly, Sky looked up with an epiphany. “Wow, you really were my age once, weren’t you.”

  “Ha!” Mirth lit George’s blind eyes. “You think I’ve been old my whole life, don’t you, boy? Course you do. I thought that about every old person I ever saw when I was your age, and yes, I was your age once. Really and truly. It may shock you but I was once a baby and so were my parents, God rest their souls.”

  “I get it, sir. I mean, I really get it now. We each get a turn.”

  “Exactly, son. We each get a turn to experience the different stages of life. So enjoy it, because it’s not going to last forever. We get to be a child, our turn to be sixteen, and thank God that only lasts a year. Because one minute you’re sixteen and before you know it, you’re teaching your son how to drive. Then time moves exponentially, because the next thing you know you’re figuring out how to give your granddaughter a car for her sixteenth birthday, without your son saying you’re spoiling her.”

  It had just been yesterday when Sky got his license. Where the hell had the past thirteen years gone? And how had they disappeared so fast?

  “We get our chance to be wild college students, unless you go to the Naval Academy, that is.” They both laughed. “Then you get to be a bull-headed stud lieutenant, and the opportunity to grow up and be a captain in the Navy, or whatever. But I gotta tell you. For every young lieutenant longing to be a Navy captain some day, there’s a Navy captain longing to be a young lieutenant once again. But we each get our turn and then it’s someone else’s turn. So enjoy every minute of each stage, because there always seems to be somebody sneaking up behind you ready for their turn.”

  Sky was mesmerized. It was true. He had thought of George as someone who’d been old his entire life. Thinking of him as a young man was as weird as understanding that his own parents had ever been kids.

  “Eventu
ally we get the chance to grow old, if we’re lucky.” George’s blind eyes turned wistful. “My buddy, Joe Stanton—he’s there in those Vietnam photos—he didn’t get his chance to grow old. I guess he gets to be a young stud lieutenant forever. Although he never was bull-headed. Joe was a good man.”

  “Close friend of yours?”

  George sighed and turned his milky eyes to Sky. “He was my co-pilot. I lost him in a flight accident.”

  Sky felt as if he’d been hit in the chest with a hammer. Had somebody sucked the oxygen out of the room? He knew the color drained from his face and he was thankful George couldn’t witness his panic. He had to get out of there. Fast.

  “Um, sorry sir, but I gotta run. I’ll pick you up Saturday for the game.” He laid the album down and hauled ass out of there. His brain was locked and loaded on what George had said about his co-pilot and Sky was not prepared to share the response that was scrambling to shoot out of his mouth:

  You too, sir?

  Chapter 13

  Still a little shaken from last night’s conversation with George, Sky tried to focus on the task at hand. Mikey was in the pilot’s seat today, so Sky damn well needed to pay attention. He’d attempted to compartmentalize all personal problems before boarding the aircraft as he’d been trained to do, but George’s words kept trying to slip out.

  He was my co-pilot. I lost him in a flight accident.

  Even when the words didn’t succeed, images of dead pilots did.

  Sky glanced out the side window of the helicopter at the world below to try to eradicate that picture. Women in bikinis waved up at them from the beach. That helped.

  Daisy was playing havoc with the locks on his various brain compartments too. He was positive he’d stowed her away to think about after this flight, but there was her sweet face with those eyes the color of the sea, smiling at him the way she used to smile before he’d fucked everything up on the beach that day.

  Sky wondered what he’d been thinking last night at Portside Manor. Daisy was what? Supposed to be jealous that he was spending the evening with George Duncan? She obviously hadn’t given a flip. Just sat through dinner and let him make a fool of himself with his blind jokes.

  And now he was George’s number one date for the next week or so. And wasn’t that going to be awkward? Knowing George had lost a co-pilot and still carried the burden of it. He recognized the guilt in George’s face the instant he’d made his admission. The man who looked back at Sky in the mirror every morning was prone to that same haunted look, when he let down his guard. And now they were going to spend the whole freaking week together? Didn’t matter. No way was he going to discuss his flight accident. He’d moved past that.

  Hadn’t he?

  He was fine.

  Wasn’t he?

  The metronome in his brain swung back to Daisy. She hadn’t given him one word of encouragement last night. Just sauntered out with, he swore, a little extra shake to her tail feathers. He was simply not able to get through to her. Whatever her problem was, Daisy Schneider had more barricades up than the gates to a Navy base after a red alert.

  Mikey interrupted his thoughts. “Okay, let’s take a spin at ATIS.”

  “Roger. Stand by.”

  Sky turned on the Airport Terminal Information System to check on any pertinent local flight data: “Mayport Information Alpha, time one-four-three-zero Zulu...visibility two miles...ceiling broken two-zero thousand...Taxiway Delta closed for repairs...”

  “Sky, switch up tower freq.”

  Sky gave Mikey a thumbs-up. “Navy Mayport Tower. Cat Scratch Four-Seven-Five.” His focus settled back over him. Daisy and dead pilots had been secured.

  “Cat Scratch Four-Seven-Five. Mayport Tower.”

  “Tower. Cat Scratch Four-Seven-Five. We are three miles south, inbound, with Information Alpha, full stop.”

  “Cat Scratch Four-Seven-Five, you are cleared to land runway Two-Four abeam taxiway Bravo.”

  Sky crooned his usual endearments to Little Girl as Mikey pulled the Romeo into a hover, and then brought her down slowly. “Come on, Studley. Set her down nice.” She landed softly, first on her back tires and then settled onto the front ones. “There you go, sweetheart.”

  Mike took over. “Mayport Ground, Cat Scratch Four-Seven-Five, at Bravo. Request taxi to my line.”

  “Cat Scratch Four-Seven-Five, taxi to your line.”

  Sky kissed his open palm, then laid it on the dashboard and grinned at his co-pilot. “Come on, Little Girl. Let’s head home. Dinner’s waiting.”

  “I will never get over how you talk to this baby,” Mikey muttered.

  Sky kept his head on a swivel as they taxied to the parking line in front of the Hellcats’ hangar where a plane captain guided them in and the lineman waited to secure the aircraft with chocks. “Well, you gotta treat her nice if you want her to be good to you, little brother.”

  “Come on, Sky, I’m twenty-six. Do I always have to be the little brother?”

  “With me you do. I got two big brothers of my own. Trust me. I know what it’s like to be the baby brother. So I’m sure as shit glad to pick on Nick’s little brother while he’s not here.” He looked over at Mikey who at six-foot-four, stood head and shoulders over his own six-feet. However, sitting in the cockpit leveled the playing field.

  With Mike closely guarding the flight controls, Sky signaled the plane captain with a hand-slashing motion across his neck to indicate shutdown. In rapid succession, he then switched off the generators and brought the power engine control levers to idle. “Stick with me, kid, and I’ll teach you things you’ll never find in a flight manual or anywhere else for that matter.”

  “About handling helicopters?”

  “And women. Come on, you’re talking to the Skylark here.” Sky applied the rotor break and slowed the rotors to a stop. “Okay, fire’s are definitely out in both engines, killing APU.” This time he signaled the plane captain with three fingers in a slashing motion across his neck to let him know the auxiliary power unit was off. “APU Generator…off. APU Control...off. Battery...off.”

  They unhooked their harnesses, removed their helmets, and grabbed their flight bags before deplaning.

  “Okay, Little Girl is all yours, Quinn,” Sky called back to his aircrewman. “Tuck her in and tell her a bedtime story, will you?” And then he spontaneously leaned over and kissed the helicopter on the nose. “Night, night, darlin’. Sleep tight.”

  He jogged a little to catch up with Mike who was rolling his eyes at Sky’s antics. “Yup. She’s just like a woman to you.”

  “Hell, no,” Sky said as they entered the hangar, “I know exactly where I stand with this little girl.

  “So how are things going with the vet, Skylark?”

  “Ouch. Don’t ask.”

  “Ah, still not gettin’ any. It’s been a couple of weeks. Come on, man. What’s wrong with you? Still got the cat?”

  “Yeah. Now Daisy Mae knows how a girl’s supposed to behave. She loves me. I can’t sit down without her climbing all over me. You should see it. I got scratch marks on my knees from when I’m wearing shorts. She sits in my lap, purring and kneading her claws into my legs.”

  “But no scratch marks on your back from the good doctor, huh?” Mikey laughed and hung his helmet up in his locker.

  “Not yet.” Sky pulled off his flight gear. “It’s funny. My cat hates Daisy—that’s the vet…”

  “You named your cat after your vet?”

  “Yeah, what’s wrong with that? Anyway, Daisy Mae hates all the female staff at the clinic—and the chick I was seeing the night we found her. But the men? That cat goes to every one of the guys. And you know what she loves to do? She lies on her back, with all four paws going every which way and she sleeps that way. Now if I could get Dr. Daisy on her back. Ooh, baby.
”

  “Yeah, whatever, Sky. You’re so full of shit.” Mike laughed and walked out of the locker room.

  Sky glanced down at his watch. 1500 hours. Sat down, elbows on thighs. Exhaled disgustedly. Here he was talking about his cat as if it was the love of his life—not that he didn’t like her. And not that she wasn’t helping him sleep better. But there had to be more to life than this. What had he done to drive Daisy Schneider away? And was it even worth trying to figure it out?

  He looked right. Looked left. No answers in either place. And then and there he finalized his decision not to swing by the clinic, or drive to the Boys and Girls Club either. This relationship stuff was too much work. So the hell with it. He’d firm things up with the YMCA and do the fly-in next week. Then he’d be done with it—and her.

  It was obviously over. She’d made it perfectly clear last week that she did not want him in her life. He told himself she was probably lousy in bed anyway, probably reverted to an ice queen. He understood that line of thought was most likely bullshit, but it seemed to help momentarily.

  And his plan to get her back had backfired last night at Portside Manor. Course he’d passed a pleasant evening with George—until things got dicey there. So George had lost a co-pilot too. Sky whistled low. Not sure if he ever wanted to go there with the old man. He wondered if George had nightmares too.

  Oh, well. Another reason not to pursue things with Daisy. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about leaving her bed in the middle of the night.

  Yeah, loser. You’d have to get into her bed first before you could leave it.

  “Fuck it,” Sky said as he kicked his locker shut. He missed her. He missed Daisy so much, he’d carried around a dull ache in his gut all week. If this was what being in love was like, Sky wasn’t sure he wanted any part of it. And besides, he had his pride. Maybe he’d go out and party tonight. Find some hot chicks…

  But he didn’t want hot chicks. He wanted Daisy. So he’d just drag his sorry ass home with his tail tucked between his legs and spend the evening...? He knew he’d spend the entire evening thinking about her. Okay, so he’d pick up a six-pack. Shit. He’d still spend the entire evening thinking about her.