"After what?"

""After you told me you loved me."

"You mean like in the movies, when they do it slow motion, when the man and the woman run-float toward each. other, normally on Some beach?"

"I guess," he said.

"I didn't feel like it," she said. "Did you?"

"I don't know," he said. He put his hand out and ran the balls of his fingers against her cheek. She put her hand up and caught them and kissed his knuckles, very tenderly.

"I don't have a whole hell of a lot of experience in what I should do after I tell a guy I love him she said. "Actually, I have zero experience."

"Baby," he said.

"That isn't the only thing, romance-wise," Marjorie said, "that I have zero experience in." It took him a minute to take her meaning. And when she saw on his face that he finally understood, she nodded. "Ain't that amazing? I thought it was time to add that to this equation." He touched her face again, and she caught his hand and held it there, then suddenly pulled away and sat up.

"I think we have an audience," she said, gesturing with her head toward the door to Base Ops. Jack turned and looked. The Green Beret Major and the Air Force Lieutenant were standing in it. The Major had his arms over his head, hands joined, in the gesture a winning prizefighter makes.

Marjorie spun the MGB's wheels as she backed out of the parking spot, and again as she started down the street.

"I don't care," Jack thought aloud, "if the whole damn world knows."

"It's not a spectator sport!" He wondered where she was driving him. She was obviously familiar with the base. But, on the other hand, she just might be escaping from their audience.

"If Uncle Craig flew you up here," she said, "obviously your car is still at McDill."

"You're a regular Sherlock Holmes."

"Well, I suppose then that the thing to do is go get the car," she said. "I can drive you to the airport and you can fly down there and be back tomorrow sometime."

"Oh, to hell with the car. I'd rather be with you."

"Or," Marjorie said. "We can both fly to Tampa and get your car and drive back tomorrow." She met his eyes.

"What about your mother?" he asked. "What would she think, do, if you just didn't come home overnight?"

"I think she had a pretty good idea that if I came down here I might not come home," Marjorie said-quietly.

She turned to look at him, looked into his eyes longer than was safe for someone driving a car, and then turned her attention back to the road. The tires squealed and she jerked the MGB back in the right lane. There was a blare from a Buick's horn, and Jack heard someone angrily shout, "Goddamned dumb broad'! Keep your eyes on the road."

"Or we can go to a motel right now," Marjorie said. "And worry about the car tomorrow. "

"Oh, Jesus Christ!"

"What's the matter?"

"I'm very afraid that no matter bow I respond to that it will be the wrong way."

"Give it a shot," Marjorie said. "I'm playing hardball Are you?"

"I'll wait as long as you want me to," Jack, said humbly; and then blurted, "Oh, Jesus, Marjorie, I want to so bad it hurts."

She looked at him again.

"There's motels all along the beach," she said. "And just for the-record, that was exactly the right answer." They passed the MP guard shack at the base entrance to Hurlburt Field. As they turned east on Highway 98, an airplane made its approach to "Hurlburt's Runway zero. five, the runway abuts the shoreline highway. The aircraft flew over the beach and then the highway at no more than a hundred feet, the roar of its twin engines deafening. Jack was in love, but he was a pilot. He had to take his, eyes from. what he was absolutely convinced was the most beautiful and perfect female God had ever made when he held the path of the airplane, and he watched it until it was out of sight.

"That's one of them, obviously," he said. "One of them what?"

"The B-26 that just landed was, I'm sure, one of those were sending to the Congo. It looked brand damned new, and there wasn't a mark on it. Identification numbers, I mean."

"I thought they had to have identification numbers," Marjorie said.

"They do," Jack said.

"Are you going to the Congo?" she asked levelly. "Is that what you're doing here?"

"I'm not going," Jack said. "Right now I am delighted the United States Military Establishment does not let me fly their airplanes."

"Thank God!" Marjorie exhaled, and then; jokingly, added, we can go back and look if you like. I mean, if you're getting scared or anything. . ."

"Oh, no," he said.

(Two) Ocean Breeze Motel Fort Walton Beach, Florida 2105 Hours 10 July 1964 "Hang on a minute, will you?" Jack Portet said to the telephone and then covered the mouthpiece with his hand. "How far are we from Eglin Air Force Base?"

"It's right here," Marjorie said.

"This is Captain Portet of Air Congo," he said to the telephone. "Any chance that my wife and I can deadhead?" He was stark naked, leaning on the wall of the motel room with his hand on his hip. She was in bed, stark naked, but with a sheet pulled modestly over her. He had told her she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life, and she thought, looking at him now, that he was beautiful, even if the word didn't seem appropriate for a man.

She had been more than a little surprised at how easy it had been for them, and at her reaction afterward. No regrets. No embarrassment. She had always believed that she had an overdeveloped sense of modesty, and all of a sudden being naked with a man in a motel room seemed to be the most natural thing in the world. And the second time had been better than the first. And the third better than the second.

Jack smiled happily at her.

"You're very kind," he said to the telephone. "Thank you very much." He hung up and smiled at Marjorie. "I can't believe I'm saying this," he said, "but get out of bed and put your clothes on. We're on an Eastern flight to Tampa in fifty-five minutes."

"You're not Captain Portet of Air Congo, and I'm not your wife," Marjorie said. "If anybody finds that-out, what happens?"

"I've got an Air Congo ID card," Jack informed her just a little smugly. "My father, you will recall, is Chief Pilot. And if anybody questions you-and they won't-I guess I'll just have to make an honest woman of you." She threw the sheet away from her, aware-and pleased that he was watching her hungrily, and lifted herself out of the bed.

"I'm tempted to say to hell with the Jaguar," he said.

"Put your pants on, Captain Portet."

The Eastern plane was nearly empty. The pilot came back shortly after they took off from Eglin and eyed Jack suspiciously.

"Captain Portet?"

"That's right."

"Are there two of you?"

"Me and my dad," Jack said. "He's Chief Pilot."

"OK,' everything falls in place. I met your Dad in-either Cairo or-in Beirut. It was Beirut. I got a chance to do three months as an IP for Air Lebanon when they got their first DC-6s. He was there doing something for them for Air Congo."

"I remember," Jack said. "The ones they bought from Mexicana?"

"Right," the pilot chuckled. "They still smelled of tac'os. "You working when we make Tampa?"

"No," Jack said. "On sort of a vacation."

"Dolores," the Captain said to the stewardess. "Give these people some of the good booze. His father's an old friend of mine." He reached over and gave his hand to Marjorie. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Portet."

"Thank you," Marjorie said.

"I like the sound of that," Jack said when the pilot had gone back to the flight deck. "'Mrs. Portet.' How does "it set with you?"

The stewardess showed up with splits of champagne before she had to answer.

When they got to Tampa they took a cab to McDill and picked up the Jaguar. And then, because they agreed it would be nicer to drive in the morning, and they were tired, and they'd had all that champagne on the airplane, they went to another motel. The next day, Saturday, they drove far up in the Florida panhandle as far as Panama City and took another motel room. Marjorie needed underwear and a bathing suit, and Jack insisted on going to a small shopping mall with her to buy it; The only way she could have kept him from paying for it would have been to cause a scene, so she gave in. Afterward; in the car on the way back to the motel, she realized that she had very much liked his shopping with her, shaking his head until she had picked a bra and panties that pleased him and then grinning happily when, she showed him a nearly translucent set in white that was probably never going to make it home, much less through a -trip inside-a washing machine.

They swam and made love and ate dinner and made love and walked on the beach and made love and slept in each other's arms. And she wondered if he had made her pregnant. And-she wondered what she would do if he had. She decided after a while that though she really hoped she was not, if she was, that was it and she wouldn't be sorry. Monday she would go to a doctor and get a diaphragm. She hadn't gone before for the simple reason that she never had the intention, pre-Jack, of sleeping with anybody. She wondered if what had happened between them qualified as "saving it till marriage." At eight o'clock, after Jack had wakened and they had made love, and he was happily singing in the shower, she called her mother and told her she was sorry she hadn't called, but she had gone to Tampa with him to get his car and there hadn't been time, and that she would be home late that night.

From her mother's response, she knew that her father was in hearing, and from her mother's tone of voice, she knew her mother, knew what had happened between her and Jack. She was embarrassed, which she expected to be, but not ashamed, and that surprised her.

And she was not surprised when Jack talked her into staying over and leaving early. in the morning.

"Or, if you want, I'll follow you up there and face the Gen'rul tonight," Jack said. "Aside from tearing me limb from limb, what can he do to me?" Her father, Marjorie thought, was not going to be angry with Jack. He was going to be disappointed with her. That was probably going to be worse.

They checked out of the motel, drove onto Eglin Air Force Base, reclaimed her car, and took a motel on the beach a thousand yards from the fence around Hurlburt Field.

Early in the morning she told him that she was going to have to talk to her father, maybe after talking to her mother-who she was sure was on their side-and that she didn't want him to come. to Rucker until she told him he could. He agreed, but she knew he. would come whenever he wanted to anyway.

They went to a McDonald's for breakfast.

Marjorie sensed Jack's eyes on her and looked up from her Complete $1.29 Breakfast.

"Now that we're back in the real world," Jack said, "eating plastic food from plastic trays. . ." She smiled, as much with her eyes as her mouth.

"Yes?"

"I think we had better get right at the subject of me making an honest woman of you. When you see the Gen'rul, I mean."

"I already was honest," Marjorie said. "And you making a woman of me was everything, thank you very much, that I hoped it would be."

"At this hour, and in this place," Jack said, "If that's what you would like, I am perfectly willing to get on my knees and make a proposal right out of True Romance. Even if that means soiling my nice clean uniform by kneeling in the" spilled coffee." She laid her fork down and took his hand.

"Oh, Jack."

"May I take that as a yes?"

"No," she said. "Not exactly."

"What?"

"Comment ra va, Jacques?" a male, Spanish-accented voice said.

Jack looked up at the man standing by the table. There was confusion on his face for a moment.

"Jesus H. Christ!" He got to his feet and put out his hand.

"Enrico, what the hell are you doing-wherever we are-here?" Enrico de la Santiago smiled warmly and then gave Jacques a quick hug. He didn't respond directly to the question. Instead he said, "I saw you come in, but I just didn't think. . ."

"Sweetheart, this is a friend of mine from the Congo-Enrico de la Santiago," Jack said. "Rico, this is Marjorie Bellmon, my . . we were just discussing what exactly is our relationship. . ."

"You said it," Marjorie said. "Sweetheart. If you're who I think you are, Jack's talked a lot about you. I'm happy to meet you."

"You are very beautiful," de la Santiago said.

"Thank you," Marjorie said.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Jack demanded.

"I don't work for your father anymore, Jacques," de 13' Santiago said.

"Now you fly B-26s, right?" Jack said, suddenly understanding. "Unmarked B-26s. And how do you like Hurlburt Field, home of the Air Commandos and God alone knows what else, Senior de la Santiago?"

"Jack, for God's sake!" Marjorie protested.

"Jacques, don't ask me more," de la Santiago said. "Please."

"It's all right, Rico. Just as soon as I get Marjorie to agree to marry me, I'm going out to Hurlburt myself."

"And they didn't tell you to watch your mouth?" de la Santiago asked.

"He says a lot of things without thinking," Marjorie said."

"How long have you been here?" Jack asked de la Santiago.

"I came in last night~"

"From the Congo?" Jack interrupted.

"Yes," de la Santiago said after a moment's hesitation. "And took a motel." He nodded to indicate across the street. "And now I am going to call a taxi and go out there."

"I've got a car," Jack said. "I'll take you out there. But you really picked a lousy moment to walk up. Marjorie here was just about to tell me why she won't exactly marry me."

Marjorie colored, just visibly, and her eyes flashed at Jack, and she glanced at de la Santiago. "I'm not going to go run off to some justice of the peace with you," she said evenly. "Which is what I think you had in mind."