Less than five minutes after my car had pulled into the parking lot we were taxing across the field. Less than five minutes after that, Ron, ignoring me completely, asked Nina, "you ready?"
"I think so," she answered nervously.
"Then push that throttle all the way to the front. Do it slowly so we don't stall the engine."
Nina reached out with a hand that was trembling slightly and grasped the throttle lever. She pushed it forward as instructed and the engine wound up to full. The plane began to move down the runway, moving faster and faster.
When it got to take-off speed Ron pulled smoothly back on the stick and we rose into the air, an audible bump sounding as the wheels broke contact with the ground.
We soared into the bright blue sky, Ron turning the plane until we were heading West. He took us up to our assigned altitude of seven thousand, three hundred feet, leveling us off and engaging the autopilot. By the time he did this Nina had lost her fear and was staring at the ground with awe, picking out sights that she recognized.
"There's the falls Bill," she told me, pointing. "And there's the river stretching off. I never knew it was that crooked before."
Ron kept silent as we plowed westward at a hundred and ten knots. Nina kept looking at the ground. I sat back and thought about all the things that could go wrong with this day and all the things that could go right.
Nina turned to me and said, "How are we getting from the airport to the restaurant?"
"You'll see," I told her.
About halfway to Seattle, just as the Cascades were starting to become visible in the distance, Ron checked his watch and concluded that we were a little ahead of schedule. He cited a tailwind as the reason.
"Care for a little flying lesson Nina?" he asked, winking.
"Why the hell not?" she replied with determination.
Now it was my turn to be terrified as Nina took the stick and, with Ron's instruction, began subjecting us to a series of turns and dives in the clear air. He'd done this with me before, back when I was about fourteen or so, and I knew it was basically harmless. But still… My stomach knotted as we moved up and down, left and right, as the horizon bobbed like it had on the fishing boat while Nina tried to get the feel of the rudder and the stick. She was almost as terrified as I was but definitely loving every minute of it. Her face showed nearly the same ecstasy as it had when I'd eaten her to orgasm. At one point she over-corrected for a bank, giving way too much left aileron. I thought I was about to die a horrible death for a few moments as I found myself looking out my side window directly at the ground. Nina, almost panicked, jerked her hands from the stick and screamed. But Ron, calm and cool, without the slightest bit of concern, simply chuckled and took the controls. Within four seconds he had us straight and level once more.
"Well that was exciting, wasn't it?" he asked us.
Both of us were trembling too badly to speak.
He played with the autopilot for a moment and then we were back on course. "Time's a wastin'," he said. "We'd better end our lessons for now and get ourselves to Seattle."
Once again the air over the Cascades bumped us around violently. It was like driving a car with old shocks across a four-wheel drive trail at sixty miles an hour. Neither Nina nor I got much more than a mild adrenaline rush from it. Nina's time at the stick had prepared us for anything and the serene expression on Ron's face soothed our nerves.
We circled in and landed with a thump at a small airport near downtown. Ron taxied the plane to the tarmac and parked it in a slot that had been assigned to him over the radio. No sooner had the engine been shut down and the doors opened up when phase two happened right on schedule. A sleek, white limousine came gliding in from the parking area. It circled around and stopped right next to the plane.
"Bill," Nina asked, her eyes shining. "Is that for us?"
"Yes," I affirmed. "They have nice taxis in Seattle, don't they?"
"I've never ridden in a limo before," she told me as the driver, an older man dressed in a white uniform, got out and stood by the back doors. "Bill, you can't afford this."
"Not as a regular means of transportation I can't," I allowed. "But for this one day, don't worry. I can cover it. Don't fret about money today, okay?"
She hugged me quickly. "This is like a dream-date."
"Is it?" I asked, giving her a quick kiss. "Why don't you go hop inside? I'll be there in a minute."
She did so. The limo driver smiled, introduced himself to her, and opened the door. While she got in and began gawking at the interior, I turned to Ron and thanked him. I gave him some money for the landing fee and for fuel. He didn't want to take it from me but I finally won the battle of insistence.
"What are you going to do while we're gone?" I asked him.
He shrugged, "Probably hang out in the pilot's lounge. Watch some TV, read some magazines, talk to other pilots. Don't worry about me. You just go out and have yourself a good time. I'll be here when you get back, no matter what time that is."
"Thanks Ron," I told him. "I owe you two now."
The driver introduced himself as Paul. He shook my hand and then politely brought up the subject of the bill. He ordinarily wouldn't have done that I was sure, but he was probably a little concerned about my age. Understandable I guess. I peeled off the required amount from my pimp's wad and handed it across to him. He at least had the class not to count it in front of me, simply pocketing it instead.
"I understand we're going to Fullers at the Sheraton, is that correct sir?" he asked me.
"That's correct," I answered.
"And that I'm to pick you up at ten o'clock out front?"
"Again, correct."
"Very good Sir," he said, opening the door for me.
"Hey, uh, Paul," I asked, "what is it that you do while you're waiting for ten o'clock to roll around?"
He looked at me strangely. I wondered if anyone had ever asked him that before. "Well usually I just go find something to amuse myself," he told me. "Sometimes I go home if I'm nearby. I go get gas, I go take care of errands. I'm on hire for the customer so I can't assign myself to another customer, although if the boss could figure out the timing you could bet he'd give it a shot."
"So basically you have nothing to do?"
"Right."
I peeled off two more twenties from my wad and handed it to him. He looked surprised although he didn't hesitate to take the offering and make it disappear.
"When you drop us off at Fullers," I told him, "come back here and pick up Ron there." I pointed to Ron, who was fiddling with something inside the cockpit of the plane. "Take him anywhere he wants to go and then bring him back here when he wants to come back."
"Of course sir," the driver nodded.
I sat down in the back of the car, next to Nina and Paul closed the door on us. The inside of the limo was nice, with plush seats, a small mini-bar complete with ice bucket, a stereo system, and a bank of controls that moved the seats back and forth and the sunroof and windows up and down. Nina was playing with these controls like a little kid, her eyes shining with excitement.
"I can't believe all this," she told me, giving me another hug. "Sometimes you are just too much."
"I hope not," I mumbled, pulling two glasses from the bar. "Would you care for a drink?"
"I'd love one," she answered. Meanwhile Paul had buckled himself in and was putting the car in gear. We pulled away from the tarmac and started heading for the street.
"What would you like?" I asked.
She smiled, "Surprise me."
I made us a couple of seven and sevens and we sipped from them as we drove along the major arteries and into downtown Seattle. We cruised between large high-rises, catching occasional glimpses of the blue-gray water of Puget Sound. We saw the distinctive outline of the Space Needle poking up into the sky far to our north. We watched the occupants of cars around us and pedestrians on the downtown streets trying to stare into the tinted back windows of the limo, to spot who we were. We held hands and leaned against each other, feeling closeness, feeling love. My doubts about the outcome of the evening began to drift away.