His eyes were twinkling. “Has Terri told you as much about me as she’s told me about you?”
At this Jackie laughed. The FBI didn’t know as much about criminals as Terri had told her on the phone about Edward Browne, and Terri had emphasized repeatedly how interested Edward was in Jackie. “I think he’s been in love with you from afar for a long time,” Terri said. “He knows a lot about you and has asked me thousands of questions.”
“And no doubt you’ve made me out to be a saint,” Jackie said.
“Did you expect me to tell him about your bad points?” she asked, then said something that made Jackie groan: “He loved seeing my scrapbook about you.”
So now Jackie wondered exactly what Terri had told this man. “Yes. Terri could not stop talking about you. The only thing she left out was whether or not you have any tattoos.”
Again Edward looked puzzled. “No, none,” he said seriously. “Oh, I see. You’re referring to the fact that I was in the navy.”
Jackie was referring to nothing at all, just trying to inject a little levity into the situation, but she had not succeeded. The arrival of the salads kept her from having to explain.
“I guess we can skip the talk of our early lives,” he said. “Of course with you it’s easier since you are a world renowned figure.”
Jackie hated it when people said that. It made her sound as though she didn’t need what other humans needed: love, companionship, warmth.
For a moment Edward toyed with his salad, and Jackie watched him. She didn’t know him at all, of course, and she had accepted his invitation in a fit of pique, but as she looked at him, she thought, This is the type of man I should marry. This man was perfect: perfect age, background, education. This was a man she could introduce to the world and everyone would say, “What a wonderful man your husband is!”
“Do you miss your husband as much as I miss my wife?” he asked softly, so softly that Jackie almost didn’t hear him.
His question was from his heart, so Jackie answered from the same place. “Yes,” she said, then waited for him to speak again. There was an air of sadness about him, a romantic air, she thought and again realized why Terri and the other women were trying so hard to get him married.
“You know what I miss the most?” When she shook her head, he continued. “I miss having someone who knows me. My wife and I were married a very long time, and she could look at me and say, ‘You have a headache, don’t you?’ Every year at Christmas our grown children give me slippers and ties, but my wife gave me little ships in bottles or scrimshaw carvings of ships, because only she knew of my dream to sail around the world when I retire. She bought all my clothing in exactly my taste, cooked just what I liked. It took us many years together to reach that stage of comfort, and now it’s what I miss the most.”
Jackie was silent for a while as she thought of Charley and how he’d also known so much about her, both good and bad. “When my husband wanted me to do something that I didn’t want to do, he knew just how to wheedle me into doing it.”
Edward smiled at her. “Cora always spent too much money. Not on herself but on me and the kids. Sometimes I’d get furious at her, but she always knew just how to soothe me.”
As the salad plates were taken away, Jackie knew that they were talking about loneliness, the great loneliness that one felt after having been close to someone and then having lost that person. They were talking about the things that they missed. Like the affectionate names Charley had called her. On the day she met Charley, he’d called her an angel and she’d liked that very much, but after a week he stopped calling her his angel. A year or so after they were married she asked him why he’d stopped. Charley had smiled and said, “Because you, my dear, are not an angel. You are a little devil.”
Jackie feared that she was attracted to William because of her deep loneliness. Wasn’t a warm body better than no body? She and William were actually ill-suited, weren’t they? He was too set in his ways for her, wasn’t he? There were too many differences between them, weren’t there?
“What are you planning to do in the future?” Edward asked.
“I’m expanding my freight and passenger service with William Montgomery as my partner.”
“William Montgomery? Oh, you mean little Billy?” He chuckled. “But I guess he’s not so little anymore, is he? How old is he now?”
“Twenty-eight,” she said as she gripped the stem of her wineglass.
“These children do grow up, don’t they? Doesn’t it amaze you that one day you see a child riding his tricycle and the next day he’s getting married?” He smiled warmly at her as the waiter delivered the entrée. “Of course there’s our own mirror, too. One day we’re laughing teenagers and the next we’re middle-aged.”
Jackie tried to share his smile. Was it a shock to every woman the first time she heard herself referred to as middle-aged? Jackie guessed that thirty-eight was middle age, but the term still seemed more suitable for her parents than for her.
“You didn’t have any children, did you?”
“No,” Jackie answered softly. The way he asked the question made her sound as though her chances were over.
He looked down at his plate, and she could see that he had something he considered important to say. “The woman who marries me will get to have children.”
“Oh?” Jackie asked encouragingly.
“Yes.” He smiled warmly at her, obviously liking her enthusiasm. His wife had always felt sorry for any woman who didn’t have children. She said that a woman without children was “incomplete.” “I have a son and a daughter in Denver, and I am proud to say that I have two grandchildren—a boy six months old and a girl two years old. Beautiful, brilliant, talented—” He cut himself off and laughed self-consciously.
“I’ll be showing you pictures in a minute.” When Jackie opened her mouth to ask to see them, he waved his hand. “Absolutely not. I want to hear about you. You say that you’re planning to expand your flying business. I think it’s wise of you to go into business with a young man like Billy. He has the backing of the Montgomery money, and with his youth he can do the flying for you.”
Jackie gave him an intense look. “William’s not a very good pilot.”