Broken Wings (8 page)

Addison couldn’t help answering the question that wasn’t addressed to him. “That’s a matter of opinion,” he said. “If you want to know mine, I think red paint becomes you.”

Erin turned around, and her smile instantly faded. “How did you know I was here?”

“I went by your apartment. Your roommate told me.”

She grabbed a rag draped over the ladder and began wiping her hands self-consciously. Her formerly open expression hardened into a defensive mask. “Well…I can’t answer any more questions now. I’m busy. It isn’t the time.”

“I’m not here to ask you questions,” he said, stepping closer and lowering his voice to keep from arousing too much curiosity. “I came to see if I could con you into having dinner with me.”

“Dinner?” she asked.

“Yeah. You do plan to eat tonight, don’t you?”

“Well…” She looked around her, at the work yet to be done before the children would start home. “Not until I’m finished here. Besides, I’m not dressed. I—”

“Do you have an extra brush?” Addison asked.

“What?”

“An extra brush. For me.”

“But…you’ll ruin your clothes. You’ll—”

“Come on, let me help. I’m not too bad with a paintbrush, you know. My specialty is model airplanes, but I think I can handle this. And afterwards we’ll go get a hamburger where no one will care if we’re covered in paint or not.”

Erin glanced self-consciously around her, picked up a dry brush, and reluctantly handed it to him. “I don’t know. I really don’t want to talk about the crash tonight…”

“I told you. It’s strictly pleasure. I just hate to eat alone.” There, he thought. Short of begging, he’d used every argument he had.

She glanced at him in his khaki slacks and his yellow shirt and thought how she’d love to see them covered in paint smears. It would serve Addison right. “Okay,” she said with a sigh. “But remember, you asked for it.”

Chapter Nine

L
ois grinned all the way to her meeting at the way Madeline had sent Addison to find Erin. But that smug feeling disappeared like a blue sky overtaken by storm clouds as soon as she found herself among the committee of angry pilots more than ready to scream “strike.”

“He has to know we mean business,” Ray Carter, the committee chairman and union president, said as he paced the floor. “Without a strike, he isn’t going to listen.”

“It’s blackmail, that’s what it is! We shouldn’t strike, we should sue!” someone else said.

“Let’s strike
and
sue!”

Lois sat mutely with a stack of photocopied articles on her lap, very much aware that these other pilots—older, wiser, more aggressive, more experienced in the industry—would scoff at her arguments. She hadn’t been joking when she’d told Erin that no one ever listened. It was true, and now she wondered why she’d agreed to serve on the committee, when the decisions were all but made. It didn’t matter if she disagreed. She would simply be one of those responsible for any consequences the union suffered because of their decisions.

“Lois,” Ray asked suddenly, pivoting around in midstep and pinning her with his eyes. “You’re the only one here we haven’t heard from. Are you with us or not?”

“On suing, striking, or both?” she asked, her mouth going dry.

“Any of it.”

“Well, I think we should consider our options first.”

“If you have any, let’s hear them. You came in here with an armload of
something.”

“Well…” Lois looked down at the stack of articles, and wished she’d never brought them. This crowd would snuff her out before she even began to speak. “These aren’t options, really. They’re more like consequences.”

“Consequences? Like what?”

Lois stood up, hoping her height of five feet ten inches would lend her courage. It had always served her well before. “They’re articles about the TWA flight attendants’ strike,” she said, passing them out to the others. “We’re all aware of the fact that forty-five hundred flight attendants lost their jobs and still haven’t gotten them back. The owner considered them expendable, and they were replaced.”

“True,” a man named Degall agreed. “But the circumstances were different. Flight attendants don’t require years of training and experience. Besides, in their case negotiations weren’t handled well, and their demands were too high.”

Ray Carter stepped closer to her, his eyes full of disbelief. “Are you saying we shouldn’t act? We should accept what they threw out to us and not do anything?”

Lois shrank slowly back into her seat, trying to avoid the fire that had an excellent chance of spreading wildly. “No, of course not. I’m just saying that we should learn from history. Not make the same mistakes.”

“Just what
do
you suggest?”

“I don’t know,” Lois said. She cleared her throat. Her voice was rasping, as it always did when she felt backed into a corner, but she forced herself to go on. “It just seems to me that we need to agree on exactly what kind of cuts we
will
accept, because we know we have to accept something. The flight attendants and machinists have. And we’ll have to negotiate. That’s obvious. I just think we should avoid talking strike for a while.”

“Well, if we don’t talk strike, what threat can we hang over Zarkoff’s head? What motivation will he have to give us what we want?” Ray asked.

Another relatively quiet member of the committee, Larry Miller, piped up. “If Zarkoff doesn’t care whether we go on strike or not, then a strike threat isn’t motivation.”

“Right,” Lois added, her courage building now that she had an ally. “Look at it from his point of view. Some of you, the ones in this room with seniority, are making a lot of money. If he can get us to walk out and can hire all new pilots at starting pay, he’ll save millions.”

“But if we all refuse to fly, he can’t run the airline,” someone said. “And then he’ll
lose
millions.”

Voices of approval added to that sentiment all over the room, and Lois sank back into her seat.

“We have to give him a threat,” Ray said. “And to do that, we have to call a strike vote. We have to get the members behind us.”

“All right,” Larry, Lois’s ally, said. “But if we’re going to make that recommendation, I move that we also allow Lois to point out her side of the argument to the members, so that they can make an informed decision. And these articles need to be distributed first to each member.”

Silence reigned, and Lois felt her throat constricting. Not her. Not a planned presentation in front of hundreds of pilots. Sure, she could stand up spontaneously, utter an argument or two, but to be one of the scheduled speakers? Oh, her mouth would glue itself shut and she wouldn’t be able to get a word out. Besides, they’d never listen…never…

“I…I think someone else could really do a better job . ..,” she began.

“All right,” Ray conceded grudgingly, ignoring Lois’s objection. “It couldn’t hurt to present both sides. Lois, have your argument ready for the Friday meeting. I’ll see that each member gets the articles well in advance.”

They’re not listening to me now,
Lois thought on a wave of panic.
I’m trying to tell them I can’t do this, and they just…won’t…listen!

“Now let’s talk about recommendations for negotiations. What
will
we accept? Bottom line,” Ray demanded.

Lois felt dazed, and suddenly she knew the panic Erin spoke of in the cockpit. Hers always came on a podium…the dry palms…the cotton throat…the stuttering…the palpitations…the dizziness…It was terrible to have strong convictions that needed voicing, yet to be as anxiety-ridden as she was when she had to plan to speak.

The rest of the meeting seemed a blur as she tried not to think about her presentation. Briefly, she wondered if Erin would consider swapping skins for a while. She’d feel much more comfortable copiloting in Erin’s place than standing up in front of hundreds of pilots and presenting the unpopular side of this argument!

T
he sky in the mural took on a special life of its own as Addison worked with his paintbrush. He didn’t make fun of Erin’s amateur sketching on the canvas, or of the smaller children’s attempts at helping. He seemed to realize without being told that the mural was for the kids, by the kids, and about the kids.

“So,” he asked, when he climbed off his ladder to change colors. “Did you do all these murals around here?”

“We sure did,” replied ten-year-old Zeke. He’d been one of the first kids they’d reached at the center, and had since become a little preacher to the other kids. They’d even held his baptism in the youth center’s swimming pool.

Erin glanced at Addison, knowing he’d been addressing her. They exchanged pursed smiles.

“They’re good. It sure beats the heck out of graffiti scrawled all over the walls.”

“Why do you think we started it?” the kid asked before Erin could answer again. He took his arm and pulled him toward the edge of the mural. “See right there? I painted that. It’s downtown Shreveport, and I painted that cross in, and all them people prayin’ and stuff. It’s about hope, this whole mural is. Prayer gives you hope. Did you know that?”

Addison’s grin slowly faded as he began to take the boy more seriously. He stooped down and examined the area of the mural Zeke was showing him. “Yeah, I know it,” Addison said. “Prayer does give hope. It’s gotten me through some tough, tough times.”

“Me, too, man. My big brother was shot down on Jackard Street last year. Man, talk about prayin’. I didn’t think I’d ever get over it.”

Addison looked up at the rough kid. “Who taught you about prayer, Zeke? Your mama?”

Zeke laughed. “No, man. I taught
her.
She didn’t know where to turn when my brother died. But I knew, ’cause Erin told me.”

Addison’s eyes gravitated up to Erin’s, and she smiled self-consciously and turned back to the mural. “Zeke’s been a real blessing around here,” she said.

“I can see that.” When Zeke went back to painting, Addison climbed back up the ladder. Erin couldn’t help watching him. His pants were ruined, with paint smudges everywhere. Green paint was smeared across his shirt. And a decidedly attractive blot of red decorated one jaw. For the most fleeting of moments, she allowed herself to make the mental note that red paint flattered him, too. But just as quickly, she shoved the thought away. She couldn’t be attracted to the man who would nail Mick. She wouldn’t allow it.

“So…are you going to have dinner with me to keep me from having to eat alone?” he asked, as he painted in a bird flying overhead.

“Well, I—”

“Can’t,” Zeke cut in before Erin could get out the words. “Mama’s making spaghetti. But you can come if you want.”

Addison dropped his brush and tried to maintain a straight face. “Thanks, Zeke. No, I’ll have to take a rain check.”

“Sure?” the kid asked. “Since you hate to eat alone and all?”

In spite of herself, Erin couldn’t help being moved by Addison’s efforts not to embarrass the boy. “Tell you what, Zeke. Since you can’t make it, how about I keep Addison company while he eats?”

“Okay by me,” Zeke said, with an indifferent shrug. “If it’s all right with him. You two’ll have to work that out yourselves.”

“What a good idea,” Addison said, eyes dancing with laughter. “But I don’t know, I’ll have to think about it. I kinda had my heart set on spaghetti.”

Erin tried in vain to suppress her grin. He was good at this, she thought. Melting her carefully constructed ice barriers was too easy for him. “I’m sure Zeke’ll give you a rain check. And by the way, I’m not changing my clothes,” she informed him. “If I go, I’m going just like this.”

“That’s okay,” he said, going back to his painting. “I like to go out with colorful people.”

A
lthough she had threatened to dine dressed—and painted—as she was, Erin had really expected to go in and change when she took her car home. But Addison, who had followed her in his car, had other plans.

“How’s this?” he asked, driving up to the Sonic Drive-in.

“Wow,” she deadpanned. “You really know how to impress a girl, don’t you?”

He laughed. “There’s a price for getting me covered in paint. You’ll have to eat in the car.”

“No problem,” she said, lifting her chin like a trooper. “I happen to like the food here.”

“Then you aren’t insulted?”

Erin turned her painted palms up. “Hey, who am I to criticize, when you gave up Zeke’s mom’s spaghetti for a burger with me?”

“It was a sacrifice, you know.”

“I know.”

Their eyes met in the dusk of the car, and they both smiled. A moment of understanding passed between them, without thoughts of the crash or the airline or the investigation to intrude.

Then, just as quickly, came the unbidden defensiveness she clung to like a shield, reminding her that, in many ways, he was the enemy.

“You know,” she said, deliberately shattering the moment, “I may be wrong, but I think you’re supposed to push that button to order.”

“I know.” He smiled but didn’t take his gaze from her. “Listen, I was thinking. Why don’t we go over to those picnic tables to eat? It’s a nice night…”

“You won’t be ashamed to be seen with a painted lady?”

“Don’t forget, we match. It’ll give everyone who sees us something to talk about.”

Erin shrugged. “I’m used to that.”

He pressed the button, and a voice asked for their order. “What’ll you have?” he asked her.

“Whatever you’re having,” she said.

His eyebrows went up a notch. “We’ll have a couple of burgers, no onions…two fries, large…two large cokes, and a Butterfinger Blizzard with two spoons.”

“Will that be all?” the voice asked.

“We’ll start with that and see how it goes,” he said.

The order taken, they left the car and wandered over to a picnic table. The wind was brisk but still held the warmth of a tropical fall. A subtle dusk fell over the picnic area, the twilight sky clinging to daylight while inviting the night. Addison leaned against the table and smiled down at Erin as she slipped onto a bench. Confused, she looked up at him, amused at the paint smudge on his chin, amused at his choice of restaurants, amused at the glimmer of delight in his eyes. Again, she told herself not to enjoy him, and her smile faded as her gaze drifted away.

“I liked seeing how at home you were with those kids,” he said. “They treated you like you were family, and you had them so interested in the project.”

“Kids love to paint,” she said matter-of-factly. “Those murals are their own personal touches to the center. We all like to be around something that’s a little bit our own. It keeps them off the streets, using their time constructively.”

“But it’s more than that. You’re sharing your faith with them, aren’t you?”

“That’s what it’s all about.”

He gazed at her for a moment. “How’d you get started doing that?”

Good, she thought. A safe topic that didn’t involve intimacy of any kind. “A few years ago the local youth council came to the company in a big promotion for Big Brothers volunteers. It sounded like a good idea to me, so I asked if they could use a Big Sister. I started out with a thirteen-year-old girl who had a lot of problems, and I really got hooked on her.” She chuckled and propped her chin on her hand. At another table, several yards away, a baby cried. The mother picked it up, and the child hushed. “It was amazing to see how a little caring could change someone,” she went on. “When my church was involved in building the youth center last year, I thought working there a couple of days a week might be rewarding.”

“Has it been?”

“Are you kidding? Some days it’s my lifeline. I don’t have to take my problems there. The kids don’t judge or pry…at least not intentionally, and heaven knows some of them have problems much worse than mine. Of course, it isn’t all a picnic. Some of those kids are rough…troublemakers, always bucking authority, starting fights…” The thought of Jason and T.J.’s fight flitted through her mind.