Wings

by Danielle Steel

  “You're going to let me fly that?” She beamed at him, and he nodded. “Wow! How about right now? Forget the press, let's go fly.” She beamed at him happily, and suddenly all her earlier concerns and hesitations were forgotten.

  He laughed. He loved the way she looked, and Nancy had let him know as he came in that Cassie had been completely cooperative with her. He was very pleased with both of them. This was the best publicity plan he had ever had, and he knew it. “Never forget the press, Cassie. They can make or break your business. Or mine at any rate. We want to be very nice to them. Always.” He looked at her pointedly, and she nodded, still feeling completely in awe of him. He was wearing an impeccably cut dark blue double-breasted suit, and brilliantly shined handmade black shoes. His blond hair was perfectly combed and everything about him was starched, ironed to perfection, and spotless. He was the most beautifully groomed man she had ever seen. And she watched him with utter fascination. Everything about him was calculated and preconceived, thought out to the nth degree. But she was too young to understand that. What she saw was the finished product, what he wanted her to see. And that was what he wanted to teach her, to show the world just exactly the face he wanted. The smiling, sunny, small-town girl, who flew better than any man, and dared everything, and then came tumbling out of the cockpit with a big grin, and a shock of perfectly combed red hair. She was going to have every man in the country in love with her in six months, if it even took that long, and she was going to be every woman's idol. In order to do that, she had to behave perfectly, look spectacular, and fly planes that made the toughest pilots tremble. He had studied everyone else's mistakes, and he didn't intend to make any of the same ones. Desmond Williams was not going to fail, nor was Cassie, if he had any control over her at all. She was going to become the biggest name the country had ever seen. He was going to completely create her. And in her own small way, just by making her comfortable and keeping an eye on her, Nancy Firestone was going to help him. He wasn't going to have all his dreams shot down, by having Cassie get drunk, or swear at someone, or look like hell after a long flight or get involved with some bum. She was going to have to be perfect.

  “Ready for the big time?” he smiled at her. She looked fine, better than that actually, but he could still see room for improvement. She had her own remarkable looks, but the suit was a little too big for her, and later Nancy would have to arrange for alterations. She was just a fraction thinner than he'd remembered, and her looks were stronger. She needed something just a little more glamorous, a little bit younger. And he hadn't realized when he'd met her in Good Hope that she had such a spectacular figure. He wanted to play to that without cheapening her, or even approaching the vulgar. But there was a look he wanted to achieve, and they were not quite there yet. But for a first run… she was doing fine.

  And she did far better than he had expected at the press conference, in the large conference room next to his office.

  Twenty members of the press had been handpicked by him, the impressionable ones. The men who liked girls a little too much, the women. None of the great cynics. And then he introduced her. She came in looking frightened and a little pale, and feeling a little strange in her new clothes and bright red lipstick. But she looked terrific in her new haircut and the green suit. And her natural good looks and warm nature sparkled.

  She enchanted them. He had given them the information about the air show, and she was very humble about it. She explained that she had hung around her father's airport all her life, working on engines and fueling planes.

  “I spent most of my childhood covered with grease. I only found out I had red hair when I got here,” she quipped, and they loved her. She had an easy style, and once she got used to them, she treated them like old friends, and they loved it. Desmond Williams was so ecstatic he couldn't stop grinning.

  In the end, he had to tear her away. They'd have sat with her all night, listening to her stories. She had even told them about her father not wanting her to fly, and only convincing him after the night she flew in the snowstorm with Nick, to rescue the wounded at the train wreck.

  “What did you fly, Miss O'Malley?”

  “An old Handley of my father's.” There was an appreciative look from the knowledgeable members of the crowd. It was a hard plane to fly. But they knew she had to be good, or Williams wouldn't have brought her out here.

  By the time she left them, they were calling her Cassie. She was totally unpretentious and completely ingenuous. And when she made the front page of the LA Times the next day, the picture of her was sensational, and the story told of a redheaded bombshell that was about to hit LA and take the world by storm. They might as well have written a banner headline that said, WE LOVE YOU, CASSIE! because it was obvious that they did. The campaign had begun. And from then on, Desmond Williams kept her very busy.

  Her second day in LA, Cassie “visited” all his planes, and of course the press was there, and so were the Movietone people for a newsreel.

  When the newsreel was released, her mother took all her sisters and their children to see it. Cassie wanted Nick and her father to see it too, but all she got was a postcard from Nick that said, “We miss you, Skygirl!” which annoyed her. She knew what she looked like in the newsreel, in the uniform she had to wear, but she knew he had to be impressed by their planes too. They were nothing short of fantastic.

  Her first flights were in the Phaeton they were working on, and then the Statlifter he had shown her. After that, he let her fly a high-altitude plane he was working on, to take extensive notes for their designers. She had gone to forty-six thousand feet, and it was the first time she'd ever had to use an oxygen mask, or an electrically heated flight suit. But she had been able to gather some very important information. Their goal was to convert the plane into a high-level bomber for the Army. It was hard work. And she scared herself once or twice, but she impressed the hell out of Desmond Williams. His engineers and one of his pilots had gone up with her, and they had described her flying as better than Lindbergh's. She was prettier too, one of them had pointed out. But that much Williams knew. What he was pleased to hear was that her flying skill was beyond expectation.

  She set an altitude record her second week there and a speed record in the Phaeton three days later. Both were verified by the FAI and they were official. These were the planes she had always dreamed of.

  The only thing that slowed her down was the constant press conferences and the photographs and the news-reels. They were incredibly tedious, and sometimes the press really got in her way. She'd been in Los Angeles for three weeks by then, and the press were already starting to follow her everywhere she went. She was becoming news. And although she tried to be pleasant to them, sometimes it really annoyed her. She had almost run over one of them the day before on takeoff.

  “Can't you keep them off the runway for chrissake?” she shouted from the cockpit before takeoff. She didn't want to hurt anyone and they'd frightened her by getting so close to the plane. But the men on the ground only shrugged. They were getting used to it. There was a frenzy about her like none they had ever seen. Items were printed about her constantly, and photographs. The public ate her up, and Desmond Williams kept feeding them exactly what they wanted. Just enough of her to excite them and keep the love affair alive, but never so much that they tired of her. It was a fine art, and he was brilliant at it. And Nancy Firestone was feeding him all the little personal details they needed. And she continued to be a huge help to Cassie.

  She was scheduled to do a commercial for a breakfast cereal for kids, and an ad for her favorite magazine, and when Nick saw it at the airport one day, he tossed it in the garbage. He was furious and railed at her father.

  “How can you let her do that? What is she doing, selling breakfast cereal, or flying?”

  “Looks like both to me.” He didn't really mind. He didn't think women belonged in serious aviation anyway. “Her mother loves it.”

  “When does she find time to fly?�
�� Nick groused at him, and Pat grinned.

  “I wouldn't know, Stick. Why don't you fly out and ask her?” Fat was surprisingly calm about all of it, now that she was out in California. The only thing he was sorry about was that she didn't have time to go to school, but she was flying some damn gorgeous airplanes. And he couldn't help being proud of her, though he never actually said it.

  Nick had thought of flying out to see her several times, but he hadn't had time to get away. With Cassie gone, he seemed to be doing more flying than ever, in spite of the useful presence of Billy Nolan. But business was booming at O'Malley's. And Fat recognized more than anyone that his daughter's sudden stardom probably hadn't hurt them. The reporters had turned up there a few times too, but there wasn't much fodder for them, and after a few photographs, and a shot of the house where she'd grown up, the wire-service guys had gone back to Chicago.

  Cassie's life on the West Coast seemed to move even faster than her planes. She could hardly keep up with herself, between test flights, and short runs to check out new instruments on planes, and meetings with engineers to explain their aerodynamics to her. She had gone to a few development meetings too, to better understand what direction Williams Aircraft was striving for, and Desmond himself couldn't believe the extent of her involvement. She wanted to know everything there was to know about his planes. He was flattered and impressed, and he was enormously proud of his good judgment. He had inherited an empire, which he had doubled in size in an incredibly short timespan. At thirty-four, he was one of the richest men in the country, if not the world, and he could have had or done almost anything he wanted. He had been married twice, and divorced both times, had no children, and the only thing he cared about, or loved with any passion at all, was his business. People came and went in his life, and there was always plenty of talk about his women, but the only thing that mattered to him were his planes, and being at the very top of the aviation business. And for the moment, Cassie O'Malley was helping him get what he wanted.

  He loved Cassie's remarkable understanding about planes, and her naive but clear perceptions about his business. She wasn't afraid to express herself, or even, when necessary, to confront him. He liked seeing her at meetings, liked the fact that she cared enough to be there. He was thrilled with the flying records she'd set too. She dared almost anything, within reason. The only thing she seemed hesitant about, and often balked at going to, were the social events, which he insisted were critical, and Cassie thought were nonsense.

  “But why?” She argued constantly with Nancy Firestone. “I can't stay out all night, and fly intelligently at four o'clock in the morning.”

  “Then start later. Mr. Williams will understand. He wants you to go out in the evening.”

  “But I don't want to.” Cassie's natural stubbornness hadn't been left in Illinois, and she had every intention of winning. “I'd rather stay home and read about his airplanes.”

  “That's not what Mr. Williams wants,” Nancy said firmly, and so far she had usually won the argument, but there were a few times when Cassie escaped her. She preferred walking on the beach, or being alone at night, writing letters to Nick, or her sisters, or her mother. She missed her family terribly, and the familiar people she had grown up with. And even writing to Nick made her heart ache. Sometimes she felt as though the air was being pressed out of her as she wrote to him and told him what she was doing. She missed flying with him, and arguing with him and telling him how wrong he was, or what a fool. She wanted to tell him how much she missed him, but it always sounded strange to her in a letter. And more often than not, she tore it up, and just told him about the planes she was flying.

  She never mentioned her social life to him, or to anyone, it didn't mean anything to her, no matter how much they wrote about it in the papers. Nancy had found a lot of young men to escort her, most of whom knew nothing about planes, and some of them were actors who needed to be seen too. It was all about being “seen,” and where she went, and who you were “seen” with. She didn't want to be seen with any of them, and most of the time, they just posed for photographs and then took her home, and she would collapse into bed, relieved to be rid of them. The only thing she really loved about her new movie-star life was the flying.

  And the flying was incredible. Sailing into the dawn in the Phaeton, breaking all records for speed, was the sweetest thing she had ever done, and probably the most dangerous. But much to her own surprise, with the incredible machines, she was honing her skills here. She was learning how to handle very heavy planes, learning how to compensate for any problems they had, signaling them to the engineers, and correcting them right along with them. Her input was valued here, her views, they admired the way she flew, and they understood everything she wanted. It was every pilot's dream to be in the seat she was in, and as long as she was in the air, there was no question about it. She loved it.

  She was stepping out of an Army pursuit plane with a Merlin engine on it for more speed, one afternoon, after a short flight over Las Vegas to make some notes for the design team, when a hand reached up to her and helped her down, and she was surprised to see it was Desmond Williams. He was as impeccable as ever, and his hair blew a little off his face in the soft breeze and he looked suddenly less rigid, and much younger than the other times she'd seen him.

  “Did you have a good flight?”

  “I did. But the Merlin engine was disappointing here. It still didn't give us what we wanted out of this plane. We have to try something else. But I've got some ideas I want to kick around with the design team tomorrow. The plane was pulling to port on takeoff too, which is a real problem.” She always thought of his planes, and the problems they needed to conquer. At night she dreamed of them, and by day she pressed them to their limits. And as he glanced at her, he was more impressed than ever with what he was hearing. She was a gold mine.

  “Sounds like you need a break.” He smiled at her, as she pushed her hair out of her eyes and smoothed her uniform. She still longed for her overalls sometimes, and the old days of never caring how she looked when she flew. To Cassie, it didn't matter. “How about dinner tonight?”

  She was surprised at the invitation, and wondered if he had something on his mind. Maybe he was unhappy with her. He had never invited her out before, and their dealings with each other had been strictly business.

  “Is something wrong, Mr. Williams?” She looked worried and he laughed at the question. She wondered if maybe he was firing her, and he shook his head and looked at her in amusement.

  “The only thing wrong is that you work too hard, and have absolutely no idea what a miracle you are. Of course nothing's wrong. I just thought it might be nice to have dinner.”

  “Sure,” she said shyly, wondering what it would be like to have dinner with him. He was so handsome and so perfect and so smart, and so rich, that he scared her. Nancy always said what good company he was, and how pleasant, and she seemed to know him well. But he still frightened Cassie more than a little.

  “What do you like? French? Italian? There are some wonderful restaurants in Los Angeles. I imagine you've been to them all by now.”

  “Yes, I have.” She looked him right in the eye, overcoming her shyness for a moment. “And I wish I hadn't.”

  “So I hear.” He smiled at her. “I understand you've been chafing at your social schedule.” He looked almost fatherly for an instant, despite his age, and Cassie could see why Nancy liked him.

  “That's putting it mildly. I just don't see why I have to go out every night if I'm going to fly for you at four o'clock the next morning.”

  “Maybe you should get a later start.” He said practically, but she groaned in answer.

  “That's what Nancy said. But flying is the important part. Going out doesn't matter.”

  He stopped walking with her then, and looked down at her, and she was totally surprised to realize how much taller he was. In more ways than one, he was a man of great stature. “It's all important, Cassie. All of it. Not
just the flying. But the going out too. Look what the papers say about you… what the public thinks now… how much they love you… Look how much that means, how much access that gives you to them, how much weight you carry with the public after only a month here. They want to know what you eat, what you read, what you think. Don't ever underestimate that. It's the power of the American public.”

  “I don't get it,” she said, looking like a kid, and he smiled at her. He already knew her better than that. He had an uncanny sense about people.

  “Yes, you do,” be said quietly. “You just don't want to. You want to play the game on your terms. But you'll get a lot more out of it in the end, if you play my way. Trust me.”

  “Having dinner at the Cocoanut Grove, or Mocambo, isn't going to make me a better flier.”

  “No, but it will make you exciting… glamorous… someone people want to know more about. It will make them listen to you, and once they're listening, you can tell them anything you want to.”

  “And if I'm asleep at home in bed, they won't listen?” She grinned, but she had gotten his point, and she was intrigued by it, and he knew it.

  “All they'll hear then, Miss O'Malley, is you snoring.”

  She laughed at him, and he left her at the hangar a few minutes later. He had promised to pick her up at seven o'clock, and said he would tell her later where they were going.

  She told Nancy who she was having dinner with when she got home, but she had already heard from Miss Fitzpatrick what her dinner plans were. There were no secrets at Williams Aircraft. And she suspected where he would take her, probably Perino's. Nancy helped her pick out a particularly sophisticated dress, and assured Cassie that it was just the sort of thing he really liked.