Pick looked at Colonel Porter.
“By your leave, Sir?”
“Certainly,” Porter said, and put out his hand. “Thank you very much, Pickering,” he said. “I hope you understand why what happened here today was worth all the effort, and your time?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Good luck, Mr. Pickering,” Colonel Porter said, and then added, “Good evening, Mrs. Culhane. My compliments to your father.”
“Thank you,” Martha said. She put her hand on Pick’s arm. “Ready, Mr. Pickering?”
A dark-maroon 1940 Mercury convertible was parked just outside the front door of the Club. It was in a spot marked RESERVED FOR FLAG AND GENERAL OFFICERS.
Martha had the driver’s door open before Pick could open it for her. He went around the rear of the car and got in the front. Martha ground the starter, but then put both of her hands on the top of the steering wheel and looked over at him.
“I had to come see you,” she said. “But you don’t have to come with me.”
“I’m here because I want to be,” he said. “And besides, I thought your father, your father and your mother, wanted to see me.”
“I lied about that,” she said. “I lied to Colonel Porter. I told my father I was going to see… a friend of mine, and that I might stay over.
I don’t think Colonel Porter knew I was lying; I’m sure my father did.”
“What do you want to do, Martha?”
“I want to get it settled between us, once and for all.”
“I thought we’d… I was pretty sure you had… already done that.”
“So did I, but here I am.”
“I don’t think this is the place to have a conversation like this,” he said.
“Neither do I,” Martha said, and put the Mercury in reverse with a clash of gears.
When they passed out of the gate onto Pensacola’s Navy Boulevard, Pick asked, “Where are we going?”
“The San Carlos,” she said, without looking at him.
“Well, at least I can get a drink. That was really tea Colonel Porter gave me.”
“I’m going to drop you off in front,” Martha said. “You’re going to go in and get a room, and then meet me in the bar.”
“Why doesn’t that sound like the schedule for an illicit assignation?”
She laughed. “Because it isn’t. We’re going there to talk. You know, I’d forgotten that about you, that you’re really funny sometimes.”
“We’re going to talk, right?”
“I can’t think of anyplace else to go, and I want to look at you while we’re talking.”
“Well, you could pull to the curb and turn the headlights on, and I could stand in front of the car.”
She laughed again.
“I’ve really missed you.”
“I could tell by all the letters you didn’t answer.”
“Four is not very many letters.”
“It is, if none of them get a reply.”
Martha dropped Pick off at the front of the white, rambling, Spanish-architecture San Carlos Hotel. (A good many Naval Aviators (and some Army and Air Force pilots, too) have fond memories of the San Carlos Hotel…. And so as I was actually writing this chapter (September, 1992), I was saddened to hear over a Pensacola radio station the news that the San Carlos is to be demolished and turned into a parking lot, all efforts to preserve it having failed. Since I thought that at least some of my readers would be interested to learn of this tragedy, I’ve added this footnote, which has nothing whatever to do with this story.) He walked into the lobby and looked up at the stained-glass arching overhead. All its pieces were intact. This was not always the case.
Sometimes, exuberant Naval Aviators and/or their lady friends caused pieces of glass to be broken by bombing the lobby with beer bottles. The Navy bombed the Marines, or vice versa. And sometimes the Marines and the Navy bombed instructor pilots.
He walked to the desk, and smiled when he recognized the man behind it, Chester Gayfer, the resident manager.
“Well, look what the tide washed up,” Gayfer said. “When did you get back, Pick? It’s good to see you.”
“How are you, Chet? Good to see you, too.”