Chapter Thirty-One Beverly
Chapter Thirty-One
Beverly
“Mark!”
I see my sun-kissed man waving to me from the airport window as soon as I step onto the landing of the stairs that are pushed up to the plane. I know he can’t hear me, but he waves back, and I’m sure he can feel my excitement at seeing him.
San Juan, Puerto Rico, is a warm relief after the chilly winter feel of London. Our flight to Miami was almost canceled due to an expected snowfall in England, but we took off before the cancellations started rolling in.
Joe had joined us in Miami and then he, Judy, and I caught a short hopper to the island.
I know they are somewhere behind me, but I’m eager to leave that gooey-eyed twosome behind.
“There’s my girl,” Mark says as soon as I am within arm’s reach. He wraps his arms around my waist and twirls me enough times that I have to hold my pillbox hat down before it flies off.
Hat be damned. He dips me, movie-like, right there in the terminal, and kisses me with matinee-idol smoothness.
Whether or not he wins the Olympics, the man is a gold-medal kisser. And this is just the variety that is here in public. What he’s like behind closed doors is a toe curler.
“Don’t you want to wait for your friends?” he says.
“We’ve got dinner reservations together. It’s been weeks and weeks since we’ve seen each other, and I want you all for myself right now.”
Mark hails a cab, and we’re off to our hotel. The travel agent in London recommended one in Old San Juan that is also by the beach, so we don’t have to choose between historical sights and tropical bliss. Though if I’d had to, it would be the latter, no doubt. There is something about the mix of Mark Oakley and sand in my toes that makes my heart palpitate.
“How was the meet?” I ask.
“Great. The boys did so well.”
This is what I love about this man. He would fly across an ocean and across a continent just to support boys like the one he’d been photographed with in Life magazine. There had been a national tournament for handicapped swimmers, and a call went out for coaches and mentors. So naturally, Mark responded.
“I think this is what I want to do full-time, Bev,” he says. “When my career as a swimmer is over. I want to be a coach. To children like this.”
I squeeze his hand as we whiz by the whitecaps on our right. “I think that would make you very happy.”
“But would it make you happy? I don’t know where we would have to move or how much it would pay.”
“I’m happy if I’m with you, Mark.” Lordy, two years ago, I would have spat such sweetness out of my mouth. But now, it was simply the truth.
“It won’t be Park Avenue.”
“I left Park Avenue. Voluntarily. Remember?” Mark had been unfazed when I told him about the life I’d had up until now. He may have worn a pin-striped suit on that flight where I met him, but he was not one to be buttoned up in one every day.
“Okay. I just don’t want you to wake up and be forty years old and have regrets.”
“Don’t age me just yet, Mark Oakley. I have seventeen more years before I reach that ghastly age.”
He looks at me and laughs. “You’re going to be fun to grow old with.”
“You’re going to sleep alone if you use the word old where I’m concerned again.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
But I smile. I would happily—well, almost happily—grow old with him.
We check in, and I immediately go to the balcony, just like I do every time I’m in Honolulu. I breathe in those ocean scents and feel a sense of home.
And nausea.
I sit down in the lounge chair.
Mark comes to join me, but then grows concerned.
“You look a little green, my love. Are you feeling okay?”
I shake my head. The mummy’s revenge, as I still prefer to call it, was only the beginning. Once that had subsided, I still felt sick to my stomach. All through London. I just never let on to Judy.
“What’s wrong? Should I call up a doctor?”
“No. There aren’t any medicines that will help me.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I don’t think I’m sick, Mark. I think I’m going to have a baby.”
At dinner, Mark watches over me like I’m a delicate porcelain vase. Another thing I would have winced at a couple of years ago. But I find it reassuring now. Our little secret.
I won’t tell Judy until I’ve confirmed it with a doctor. And until she’s put in for her transfer to Miami. I don’t want her to change her plans for me.
And her plans definitely include Joe Clayton. I look at them across the table, and she is radiating with happiness. I’m happy for her. That mess with her ex-husband was more than any woman should have to deal with.
“How is your room?” I ask them. “Did you get an ocean view?”
Joe clears his throat. “Rooms,” he corrects.
I raise an eyebrow. “Even now? It’s 1963, you kids.”
Look at me. I’m knocked up.
Judy blushes. “After we’re married. And Joe agrees.”
I shrug my shoulders. “I guess the world still needs some old-fashioned people. Balances everything out.”
Judy knows that I just enjoy razzing her. I think the world needs many more Judys and Joes. Which is why I wish they’d hurry up and reproduce. But I know they will soon enough. As soon as that wedding ring hits her finger, they’re not going to be able to keep their hands off each other. You can see the steam just brewing between them.
“So what’s the plan? After Puerto Rico?” I ask.
Judy looks at Joe and then at me.
“Well, my reinstatement date is official. Joe has the paperwork. So I’ll pick up some routes while I wait for the transfer to happen. Hopefully a few more to Hong Kong so I can get some dresses from Mr. Chan. And then some South American or European routes until—until we get married and I can’t work for Pan Am any longer.”
“Yeah,” I respond. “I’m going to call the SFO office tomorrow and get put back on the schedule. As many as they’ll give me to replenish all we spent on the trip. Mr. Wall Street might be thawing, according to my mom. But even so, I don’t want his money.”
Mark steps in and holds up a glass of champagne. We all do the same. “I think the only plans we should be making are to talk about what we’re going to do tomorrow.”
“Here’s to that,” says Joe.
We clink our glasses and take sips of the bubbly sweetness.
Joe pulls out a brochure. “I’ve been looking these over. What do you think?”
After the trip, Joe had to get back to work. Mark was flying up to New York to shoot a shaving-cream commercial. I think his endorsements as an Olympian were going to take better care of us financially than he realized. The man was positively chiseled and looked smashing in a photo. On film? Hot tamale, he’d probably melt the screen.
But our two days in Puerto Rico were ones for the books. Snorkeling, hiking in a rainforest, watching the sunrise on the beach. My nausea stayed at bay after Mark bought me some peppermints. What I really wanted was a cigarette, but I’d read in Reader’s Digest that smoking might actually be bad for you instead of the health stick it had always been purported to be. And I wasn’t going to take any chances.
We saw the men off to their respective planes, goodbyes difficult even though we were orienting our lives to be with them. For now, Judy and I were flying from San Juan to Mexico City and on to San Francisco. We hoped there might be openings for some stewardesses. Then it wouldn’t just be a free flight. We’d get paid.
The clerk in the Pan Am office looks at the roster and shakes her head. “We’re all set for those routes. But we are short for the San Juan to Philadelphia route. Short by two, in fact. A couple of girls called in sick and have to stay in Puerto Rico for a few more days. If you can take that route, we should be able to get you comped on a domestic airline to San Francisco.”
Judy and I look at each other. “I’m game,” she says. “Then we won’t have to go through customs with a Mexico City layover.”
“I agree.”
The clerk looks up. “The plane does make a quick stop in Baltimore to deboard some passengers. Is that still okay?”
“Baltimore to Philadelphia? That’s a puddle jumper. No problem.”
Judy gives it the thumbs-up. “How long is the layover in Baltimore?”
The clerk checks her records. “Almost an hour and a half. Looks like they’ll also be doing a pilot swap.”
“An hour and a half!” Judy says. “I could call Ronelle. It’s not too far a drive from Red Lion. I’ll bet she’d hop in the car to come see me. It’s been so long.”
“Aw, Judy, that would be wonderful for you. I’d love to meet her.”
“If she’s up for it. She’s pregnant. Five months along.”
“I can promise you,” I tell her, “pregnancy would not keep a good friend from seeing you.”
I don’t tell her that I can say this from experience.
There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Judy.