Her Last Flight(75)
Octavian said, “Not anymore. They called it quits a year or two ago, didn’t you hear?”
Under the table, Sophie had kicked him, and he’d cleared his throat and changed the subject. But it didn’t matter. Irene had already heard that news. Of course she had.
Among the guests at the party, besides the Rofranos, were a couple of movie executives, the mayor of Burbank, the president of the Lockheed Aviation Company, and the editor of the Los Angeles Times. George was nothing if not methodical about his guest lists. They were all sympathetic to Irene. She had to explain the accident five times, had to describe the injury to her arm, had to express enthusiasm for the upcoming lecture tour, had to chitchat over four courses served in the dining room by the housekeeper.
She was used to all this. George and Irene entertained guests three or four nights a week when they were home, and of course a lecture tour meant countless fried chicken dinners with mayors and aviation enthusiasts and the ladies of the town lecture committees and their curious banker husbands. In response, Irene had invented a character named Irene Foster, Aviatrix, who could make patient, polite conversation with all these people and win glowing reviews for her All-American character wherever she went. Irene played this character night after night, like an actress in a long-running Broadway play. She played it now, even though she was exhausted and sick with worry about a man she had loved eight years before.
Only Sophie Rofrano knew the effort it cost her. But then Sophie Rofrano was eight and a half months pregnant and her husband was extremely protective of her. They sat next to each other at the other end of the table, where Irene cast envious glances. She had always envied the Rofranos. Without being attached at the hip or anything like that, they were deeply and affectionately in love. Octavian Rofrano was a reserved man, not easy to talk to. His face, as he made conversation with the woman on his left, crinkled earnestly, as if he were in pain. But when his wife asked him a question from his other side, his expression changed. He turned to her and bent his head—Sophie Rofrano was a small woman—and it was obvious that the rest of the room, the rest of the world maybe, held not the slightest pinprick of interest next to what his wife was saying, at that moment.
Then his expression changed again. He stood and walked around the table to murmur something in George’s ear, and George jumped up and said Of course! Irene looked at Sophie and Sophie looked at her and pointed, smiling, to her middle. Irene rose and went to Sophie, reached her just as Octavian reached her, and together they helped Sophie from her chair, though she tried to brush them away, laughing that she had done this before, she was perfectly capable of walking to the car. The news rippled around the room. Luckily they were just finishing dessert, and the party ended by everyone waving off the Rofranos on their way to the hospital to have their baby, just like they were newlyweds.
It made Irene think of her own marriage, which took place in the town clerk’s office, and how she and George had flown away on their honeymoon from Rofrano’s Airfield in Irene’s airplane, while half the city’s press waved them off. Irene had been furious at this publicity stunt and George had promised not to do anything like that again without asking her first. They had spent their wedding night in Yosemite and started a lecture tour the next day, flying together from city to city to make the most of the newspaper coverage, and Irene had been so busy with flying and speeches and George had been so busy with the logistics and the glad-handing that they were bemused to realize, on the sixth day of the tour, that they hadn’t yet consummated the union.
After the Rofranos left, Irene made her excuses and went to bed with the newspaper. She read the article about Sam three times and learned that the accident had occurred on landing, just as hers had, although the cause could not yet be determined. The engine had gone up in flame and Sam had been burned, but not seriously because they had been able to pull him free within minutes of the crash. He was unconscious but had woken up in the ambulance. He remained at the hospital in a serious condition. That was all, except that it seemed he was now seeing some other film actress, a brunette, who gave a tearful statement to the press before going to the hospital to comfort him. Irene set the newspaper aside and reached for the lamp, just as George walked in, removing his necktie. He took off his jacket too and came to sit on Irene’s bed in his shirtsleeves. He laid his hand on her leg.
“I thought you’d gone to sleep by now,” he said.
“I was reading about Sam.”
“Terrible thing. We’ll send flowers.”
“Any news about Sophie?”
“Not yet.” He shook his head and whistled. “Five kids. That’s something. A real handful. I guess it’s a good thing you’re not the maternal type.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Who says I’m not the maternal type?”
“You?” He laughed. “Anyway, you don’t have the time for babies. You’re Irene Foster, remember? You’re leaving on a lecture tour in less than two weeks, and after that it’s back to flying. Planning the big one, that’s next. We’ve been planning that for years, the solo circumnavigation.”
Irene sat up. “What if I’m sick of it all, George? The whole circus. The lectures and the derbies and the stunt flights.”
He stared at her. His hand remained on her leg, just above the knee. He had unbuttoned his shirt an inch or two, and unlike Sam he looked fresh and unlined, enthusiastic for life. George had never minded being Mr. Irene Foster. Why, he’d relished it! A few days after the wedding, when the Los Angeles Times had referred to Irene as Mrs. George Morrow, he had telephoned the editor personally and corrected him. Irene would be keeping her name. She would be keeping her career. She’d gotten married, that was all, and her new husband had thrown himself into the business of burnishing her image, arranging her lecture tours and her flying schedule, her books and articles, her promotional contracts, her everything.