room table? Hi, Ricky,” she said, extending her hand to him with characteristic directness. “Hab’m seen you in a coon’s age.”
“Hey, Miz Redding. It’s been quite a while, sure enough,” Rick said, gazing in frank admiration at the fit of her blouse as she continued holding his hand.
“Cordelia, please, darlin’. I ain’t gonna be Miz Redding for another twenny-thirty years, I hope. Well, let’s see what we can do about catchin’ me up on what you been doin’. Y’all head on back; Floyd and Margie’re already here, and Gene Debs.” In what Linda hoped was conscious parody of Vivien Leigh as Scarlett, she slipped her arm inside Rick’s. “We’re right behind ya.”
Of several changes that Buster and Cordelia had made to the interior of what Jack continued to think of as his grandfather’s house, the most notable was a large, window-filled room that extended into the backyard, in which they’d installed an elaborate mahogany bar, its back bar portion dominated by a two-foot model of a blue-and-white NASCAR Chrysler 300, Mercury Outboards and the number 300 emblazoned on its side. His uncle Gene Debs stood behind the bar, pouring what appeared to be Manhattans into the glasses of an attentive, youngish couple who sat on two of several matching barstools. The stools, Jack noted, had both backs and arms. All they need now, he thought, are seatbelts. Seeing the new arrivals, Gene Debs pointed a finger at them, his standard method of greeting. Jack returned it, saying “Hey, GD; Margie, Floyd. Y’all remember Rick Terrell, and this is Linda Green.”
“And besides bein’ a fine-lookin’ woman,” Gene Debs told Margie and Floyd Simmons, “which is plenty by itself, she’s a pretty fair pilot, if them touch-and-go’s she’us shootin’ the other day’re any indication. I know it’us her and not you, Jackson, ’cause she’us droppin’ it in at a sensible spot on th’ runway. I can always tell it’s you when I see propwash strippin’ leaves off th’ trees.” Setting up three additional Manhattan glasses, he filled them with brown liquid one after the other with an expert’s hand, a deft wrist motion cutting off the flow as the third one filled.
“I’m still a believer in what you told me along time ago, GD,” said Jack. “Runway behind you’s no help at all.” Passing glasses to Linda and Rick, he winked at them as he raised his own.
Nor is th’ simultaneous runnin’ outa airspeed, altitude and ideas; all very good lessons, and like all wisdom, open to misinterpretation. I had a hifalutin’ wingman one time, little smartass JG from California, used to call me ‘the monsignor of misinterpretation,’ just because every now and then I’d switch off the damn radio insteada listenin’ to th’ damn fool shit- ’scuse me, ladies- they’d be throwin’ at us. If he’d ever flown with you, I’da had to give up th’ title.”
“Maybe you ought to just share it with the rest of the Redding menfolk, GD,” Cordelia, arm loosely about Rick’s waist, said with a memsahib’s smile. “Y’all all hear just exactly what you wanta hear outa what everybody else says. Pap was the best of all at it; matter of fact, I’m not sure he ever heard a damn thing I said to him.”
He heard it, all right, Jack thought; he was just too damn much of a gentleman to comment on it. “Well, GD’s absolutely right about one thing; Linda was the one shootin’ those touch-and-go’s the other day, and she is a pretty fair pilot. Better than that, for the number of hours she’s logged.”
“I heard y’all met in Miami,” ventured Margie Simmons. Her voice, rather deep for a woman’s, cut through the conversation in a way that was quite out of proportion to its volume. The head teller at Bisque’s First National Bank, she’d developed the knack of being heard, the ever-so-subtle implication being that when she spoke, so did the Bank. “Is that right?”
“Yep,” said Jack, thinking
“Hey, Miz Redding. It’s been quite a while, sure enough,” Rick said, gazing in frank admiration at the fit of her blouse as she continued holding his hand.
“Cordelia, please, darlin’. I ain’t gonna be Miz Redding for another twenny-thirty years, I hope. Well, let’s see what we can do about catchin’ me up on what you been doin’. Y’all head on back; Floyd and Margie’re already here, and Gene Debs.” In what Linda hoped was conscious parody of Vivien Leigh as Scarlett, she slipped her arm inside Rick’s. “We’re right behind ya.”
Of several changes that Buster and Cordelia had made to the interior of what Jack continued to think of as his grandfather’s house, the most notable was a large, window-filled room that extended into the backyard, in which they’d installed an elaborate mahogany bar, its back bar portion dominated by a two-foot model of a blue-and-white NASCAR Chrysler 300, Mercury Outboards and the number 300 emblazoned on its side. His uncle Gene Debs stood behind the bar, pouring what appeared to be Manhattans into the glasses of an attentive, youngish couple who sat on two of several matching barstools. The stools, Jack noted, had both backs and arms. All they need now, he thought, are seatbelts. Seeing the new arrivals, Gene Debs pointed a finger at them, his standard method of greeting. Jack returned it, saying “Hey, GD; Margie, Floyd. Y’all remember Rick Terrell, and this is Linda Green.”
“And besides bein’ a fine-lookin’ woman,” Gene Debs told Margie and Floyd Simmons, “which is plenty by itself, she’s a pretty fair pilot, if them touch-and-go’s she’us shootin’ the other day’re any indication. I know it’us her and not you, Jackson, ’cause she’us droppin’ it in at a sensible spot on th’ runway. I can always tell it’s you when I see propwash strippin’ leaves off th’ trees.” Setting up three additional Manhattan glasses, he filled them with brown liquid one after the other with an expert’s hand, a deft wrist motion cutting off the flow as the third one filled.
“I’m still a believer in what you told me along time ago, GD,” said Jack. “Runway behind you’s no help at all.” Passing glasses to Linda and Rick, he winked at them as he raised his own.
Nor is th’ simultaneous runnin’ outa airspeed, altitude and ideas; all very good lessons, and like all wisdom, open to misinterpretation. I had a hifalutin’ wingman one time, little smartass JG from California, used to call me ‘the monsignor of misinterpretation,’ just because every now and then I’d switch off the damn radio insteada listenin’ to th’ damn fool shit- ’scuse me, ladies- they’d be throwin’ at us. If he’d ever flown with you, I’da had to give up th’ title.”
“Maybe you ought to just share it with the rest of the Redding menfolk, GD,” Cordelia, arm loosely about Rick’s waist, said with a memsahib’s smile. “Y’all all hear just exactly what you wanta hear outa what everybody else says. Pap was the best of all at it; matter of fact, I’m not sure he ever heard a damn thing I said to him.”
He heard it, all right, Jack thought; he was just too damn much of a gentleman to comment on it. “Well, GD’s absolutely right about one thing; Linda was the one shootin’ those touch-and-go’s the other day, and she is a pretty fair pilot. Better than that, for the number of hours she’s logged.”
“I heard y’all met in Miami,” ventured Margie Simmons. Her voice, rather deep for a woman’s, cut through the conversation in a way that was quite out of proportion to its volume. The head teller at Bisque’s First National Bank, she’d developed the knack of being heard, the ever-so-subtle implication being that when she spoke, so did the Bank. “Is that right?”
“Yep,” said Jack, thinking
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