Nephele and Faye

The piano continued to ring out when she said,

"Shit! I didn't think you were still here. Sorry, I forgot my phone and, well, the door was unlocked. It's just that no one answered. I was just on my way out."

She had crossed her feet where she stood and rubbed the back of her neck bashfully. I stepped out of the shadows.

"You play well," I said.

She looked at me warily.

"Thanks," she replied.

I gave her a weak smile, then quickly straightened my face again and cleared my throat. I moved my mouth to tell her to leave, but the words didn't come out. What I really wanted was to hear the song again. But because I was too shy to ask for it, an awkward silence fell between us. In that silence, I dared to look into her eyes. They were shaped like almonds, dark in the moonlight but vibrant and warm. Not what I expected from a killer (I often wondered what others would see in my own eyes). Her face was beautiful too. Gently arced, with a delicate chin. Even with the wild, windswept hair, the ragged oil-stained flight suit that she had been wearing all day and smelled strongly of jet fuel, there was a delicate beauty there. Even more so now that I knew she played the piano so beautifully.

She broke the silence first.

"Again, I'm very sorry. I'll go now."

She turned to leave, an act which triggered me to say, "wait."

The word stopped her in her tracks. She had her hand on the doorknob.

"Yeah?"

"Can you play that song again?" I blurted out.

I squirmed after the words came out. I could not believe I had just said that. I wanted her to, of course, but I shouldn't want her to.

"Sorry?"

I clasped my hands together, cleared my throat, and asked politely and in a hushed tone. "Can you play that song again?"

For a moment, she hesitated, perhaps wondering if this was some trick. But then she smiled, brushed her hair back, walked back to the piano, and sat on the bench.

She took a moment to shuffle on the bench, and when she found that sweet spot, she tilted her head upward, closed her eyes, and breathed out. Her fingers searched for the right keys, and she pressed her foot onto the sustain pedal when they finally did. She leaned in as if to pour herself onto the keys as she pressed the first chord. The sound hit me like a wave. It made me weak-kneed. My eyes welled up with tears. I wiped away the tears with my forearm. I listened intently, letting every note sink into me. And, when she played the chorus, without meaning to and unable to help myself, I began to sing the words.

I always had a sort of a decent voice. Karaoke decent, at least. But the words came out raw and cracking, and I was slightly out of tune and out of rhythm, but she kept to my rhythm and reached the end of the song with me.

It had been a long time since I was moved to tears. But there I was, standing, wiping tears as they ran down my face. To be moved to tears by this woman was altogether upsetting and beyond ridiculous. So, I laughed as I wiped my cheeks and my eyes.

She said in a hushed tone, "you sing beautifully."

I gave her a despairing look. I wanted to snap back at her. I wanted to say something cruel. At least a 'fuck you, Widowmaker.' But the only words I could utter were,

"You should go home now."

Nephele nodded, smirked, and, without saying another word, stood and quietly saw herself out, leaving me alone in the dark bar. She was obviously pleased with today's breakthrough with me. I sensed that gloating air about her. Very well. I'll let her have that victory.

Long after she left, I stood silently at the piano's side. I breathed a sigh and put my back to the wall. The white of the piano keys attracted my stare. They were no longer sheened with dull dust. They were brilliantly white, almost glowing in the dark. For the first time since before the war, they were clean. It was strange to see the piano like this. It was nice.

Joy Ride

Over the next month, the squadron became more complacent with what they said in my bar. Noah helped me with the intel gathering. Every night, after we finished cleaning, we sat at the bar together and scribbled down everything we could remember.

Most of it was far too technically detailed for me to understand. Noah was better at soaking that stuff in. Also, they usually hung out in the backroom when there were important things to discuss. A half-hearted attempt at operational security, but nonetheless, because they did that, we could catch only parcels of what they discussed, as we could only be there incidentally without drawing suspicion. Eventually, we got good at filling in the missing details.

The pilots were friendly, and they took a liking to me, and they especially took a liking to Noah. They often included him in their banter. Noah became smitten with them. He found in the sort of a company that a teenage boy severely desired. Admittedly, for that reason, I also grew to enjoy their presence in the bar.

But there was one among them that I tried to ignore for my own sake. She made such an impression on me that night that I thought any more of her would be bad for me. I could not become friends with any of them, but especially not the Widowmaker. I could not forgive myself if that happened. Still, thoughts of her entered my mind frequently. More than I'm willing to admit. And when she was in my bar, I couldn't help but feel my spirit lift. And whenever she played the piano, my heart melted (though I would not admit it to anyone, especially her).

I really ought to get rid of that piano, so I wouldn't have to suffer hearing the music from it. So, I wouldn't have to feel that it could almost feel like a war had never taken Eli away from me, and he was still here in the bar, playing his tunes for his customers. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. Her music was a drug I couldn't quite quit.

I wouldn't be so bothered by it except for another problem I encountered with her. She had this tendency to find my furtive glances with her own. There was no way I could steal looks without her knowing. And it frustrated the hell out of me.

***

The next time I interacted with the Widowmaker, she nearly caught me in the process of an intel drop.

I woke late in the morning after a busy Saturday night. Warm sunlight came in through my bedroom window. Seagulls cawed loudly outside in a manner to suggest that the day was a pleasant one. Cotton white clouds sailed lazily over the distant horizon. The night prior, I had written up some notes about a 'sweep' mission they recently flew and the engine trouble they had with one of the jets. The crew chief had complained about the quality of the fuel they received. Seemed like an important observation. I folded the notes into an envelope.

As always, I raised my blinds halfway up to signal the drop, then took the envelope and the day's garbage out to the garage. I swung the garbage into the dumpsters in the alley between the bar and the garage. After checking that the coast was clear, I unlocked the garage door and crept inside to put the envelope underneath an old oil can on the inside of the door.

That's when I heard her voice.

"Faye, good morning!"

I jumped. Let out a yelp and crumbled the envelope into my fist as I swung around to meet the surprise intruder.

"Major Sol! Jesus Christ, you scared me."

I hid my balled fist behind my back. My other hand went to my pounding heart.

"I tend to have that effect on people," she answered.

"Can I help you with something, Major?

She walked to the garage door's threshold, put her hand on the door frame, and looked me up and down.

"You're really going to call me that?"

"What do you prefer that I call you?"

"Nephele is fine. Or Neph. Coming from you, Major Sol is almost as bad asthe Widowmaker."

"Widowmaker is your callsign, isn't it?"

She scoffed.

"My callsign? No. That's what your media called me during the war."

"So, what's your callsign then?"

I edged away from her, towards the shadows to better conceal the note in my hand.

"Shirley," she answered.

I snorted a laugh.

"Shirley? That's the worst callsign I've ever heard. How'd you come by it?"

"Got a guess?"

I shrugged.

"Honestly, I don't really care enough to guess."

"That's fair. Then I won't bother telling you."

"So, how may I help you, Nephele?"

"That's better. I was just in the neighborhood. Spotted you in the alley, so I thought I'd say hi."

Then her eyes narrowed, and she craned her neck to look at something behind me. At first, I was terrified, afraid that she suspected I was hiding something. But then,

"Damn! That's a nice-looking car! Is that yours?"

I turned my head to see what she was looking at. The car in question was caked in dust, hidden beneath piles of flattened cardboard boxes, two-by-fours, and other unidentifiable garage flotsam. I was surprised that she recognized it as a car at all.

"That thing?"

She walked towards it, threw off the junk, and stepped back to admire it. Beneath the dust, you could tell it was a classic convertible muscle car. You could also almost tell its color beneath the caked-on dust. Burnt orange.

"Yeah, it's mine."

She shot me an amused look.

"What's a beautiful thing like that doing collecting dust?"

"You really got to ask that question? There's no way I could afford the fuel rations."

"Bummer. That thing deserves to be out on the road. Especially in this awesome summer weather."

"I agree."

She tapped her chin, then her eyes lit up. I could almost see a lightbulb turn on above her head.

"I don't have a car. So, my fuel rations are wasted on me. How about this? I'll give you my rations if you take me for a ride."

It was an offer I could not refuse. To put my car into storage was heartbreaking. I loved that thing. It was technically my husband's car -- his father had passed it down -- but he wasn't a gearhead like me. So, in practice, it was mine. It was my baby. The idea of putting it on the road again made my heart race.

"Oh, I don't know. I'm not even sure it'll start anymore."

"Well, let's find out. You got the keys?"

"In the glove compartment."

She opened the driver's door, sat in the seat, reached over, and found the keys.

"Can I?" She asked, jingling the keys.

I nodded.

She turned the key. The starter clicked; the engine turned. It turned weakly, wheezing. And my heart raced faster. The sound of its engine, though weak, gave me that tingling feeling down my spine. My baby wasn't dead yet. It wanted to live. And it ignited a fire inside me.

"Try giving it some gas," I said breathlessly.

She did, and the wheezes turned into throaty coughs. Then after a few coughs came a divine, assertive sound of its muscular V8. A lion's roar that shook the dust off the rafters.

"That's what I'm talking about!" She exclaimed.

Nephele jumped out of the seat and took a bow. I couldn't suppress my smile. It sounded good.

"So, it works. How about we clean this thing up and take it for a spin?" She asked.

I nodded in agreement.

We slid the garage door open and moved the car onto the lot. Then, (after finding an opportune time to discard the crumpled envelope), I attached a garden hose to a faucet and grabbed a bucket with car cleaning soap and sponges.

In the bright sun, the dust-greyed roadster looked like a sad phantom. I turned the water on and sprayed it down and watched with glee as the caked dust slid off with the water, revealing the beautiful gleaming burnt orange beneath.

While I did that, out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the Nephele strip off her blouse and jeans down to her underwear. My eyes went wide. I blushed.

"What are you doing?"

"What? I don't want to get my clothes wet," she answered matter-of-factly as she tied her hair back into a ponytail.

Then, she grabbed the sponge and began wiping down the hood of the car, bending over to reach the far end, flaunting her heart-shaped ass at me, shaking it, as she wiped the suds off the wet hood, like a blatant and shameless attempt at coming on to me.

That's when the lightbulb turned on for me. That first attempt at a drink with me. That time she stayed back during curfew. Now, she is cleaning my dirty car while stripped down to her underwear. All daring pronouncements pointing to one fact: she was a lesbian!

Her thinking that I was attracted to girls was awfully presumptuous. She knew nothing about me. She did not know my past. Or that I had a husband. I've never been with a woman. It's never crossed my mind to ever be with a woman. Did I look like a lesbian?

Admittedly, though, I'd feel a little twinge of physical attraction to a woman every now and again. Now, watching the Widowmaker's scantily clad, beautiful body move as she washed my car, I felt that funny feeling.

I tried shaking away the feeling and focused my attention on hosing down the rest of the car. But the sun overhead was blazing hot, so, naturally, she wiped away the sweat from her brow and started to fan herself. She turned to me, leaned up against the now shimmering orange hood, and said,

"It's so damn hot out right now! How about cooling me off?"

She waited eagerly, with her perfect tits, curved hips, and toned, sexy abs searing into my memory like a sumptuous daydream, inviting me to spray cold water all over her. There was no excuse for me to give to not do as she asked. An obligation I had to respect.

So, I raised the hose and put my thumb down against the hose end to pressurize the water stream to soak her. She puffed her chest out, squirmed, and shrieked from the chill of the spray. She twirled around in the shower to get all her body wet. Two teenage boys that were skateboarding the promenade across the street rolled slowly to a stop, and their jaws dropped. I wondered how their behavior would change if they knew the woman they ogled was the fearsome Widowmaker. I was embarrassed. Mostly for me.

"Mmmm... that's nice! Thanks for that," she said. "You wanna get wet too?"

I shook my head vehemently. She shrugged.

"Suit yourself."

Then she continued wiping down the car.

Before long, the car glistened. Its chrome bumpers shimmered in the sunlight. The burnt orange shone like a tequila sunrise as it had before.

"Alright, let's hit the road!" Nephele said. I threw her a towel. She dried off and put her jeans and blouse on, climbed into the passenger seat, and popped on her aviator shades.

"Wait, there's still one thing we got to do," I said.

I already pictured the route to take -- Sunset Highway, the winding road west along the coast, which hugged the coastal mountain range and crossed dunes and hidden coves and had these beautiful bends around which came stunning vistas. On a perfect day such as today, there was only one way to enjoy this epic drive -- top-down. I furled back the soft-top, hopped into the driver seat, and started the engine. It roared to life on the first turn this time, like it was as eager to get on the road as I was.

I put my hands on the steering wheel. The leather felt good in my hand. Still, a feeling of guilt irked me. So, I spoke a small affirmation in my head:

"Ok, you're doing it to build rapport. Just as you were instructed to."

Then, I put the car into first gear and pressed down on the gas, and the engine revved with a heavenly, throaty roar. We made a short stop at the gas station to fuel up, then we were out on the open road.

The car's vibration and the fast salt wind whipped my hair. At first, I was awkward with the gears. It's been over two years since I've driven a car, after all. But I got the hang of it quickly and made my way through the gears as smoothly as ever.

The road was carved precariously into the mountainside high above the crashing waves, and they were narrow, but there was no other traffic except the occasional military vehicle, so I wasn't afraid to punch it.

Every turn, I approached like a race car driver, braking to kiss the apex, and then accelerating quickly out of the turn, punching the clutch and pushing the gear lever through the gears rapidly. Nephele enjoyed the ride immensely, screaming and laughing at every turn. Unsurprisingly, she was an adrenaline junky.

Before leaving the mountain roads for the gentler stretches through the sand dunes in the bay, I pulled over and offered to switch places with her. She shook her head.

"I can't drive stick," she said.

My jaw dropped.

"I'm sorry, did you just say that the great Widowmaker, the most feared pilot the skies had ever seen, can't even drive stick?"

She shrugged and smiled innocently.

"Never had the chance to learn. I don't even have a license to tell you the truth."

Baffled and even offended that the best fighter pilot that's ever lived did not know how to drive a stick, I could only respond in one way:

"I'll teach you."

She laughed.

"It's ok. I'm really enjoying the ride."

"Wasn't a suggestion," I said. I unbuckled and got out of the driver's seat, opened the passenger side door, and pushed her into the driver's seat.

She managed to stall the car a few times but soon got the hang of it. She was a quick study, so I let her drive the rest of the mountains. Within half an hour, the road turned gentle and came into a wide crescent bay with flat sandy beaches stretched out towards the setting sun. The sky and the clouds turned to a cream soda colored with touches of pink and strawberry red, and the beach, normally white as talcum powder in the daylight, turned golden.

As Nephele gained confidence in her shifting, she drove faster. I sunk into my seat and savored the rush of the wind that caused my hair to flutter out behind me and cooled my neck. I stretched my arm out like a wing to feel the wind push against it. A feeling of freedom. The first time in a long time that I had.

To our right, the curling waves raced against us. To our left, the golden hills sprang with blurred apricot orchards and lavender fields.

At the end of the bay, we came to a lighthouse, where I asked her to stop. The lighthouse sat on a tall dune and looked out at the crescent-shaped bay. Nephele pulled into the empty parking lot below the tower.

My ears buzzed from the constant wind and the thrumming engine, but those frenetic sounds disappeared, replaced by the calmer sounds of the whooshing lighthouse motor, which turned the rotating lamp on top, the car engine pinging, and the muffled crashing of the waves behind the tall sand dunes. Without speaking a word to each other, just understanding a mutual intention, we climbed out of the car and climbed to the top of the nearest dune.

"This lighthouse is one of our visual aids," Nephele said when we reached the top. "It helps us find the approach to the airport."

"It's a popular spot," I replied. "At least it was before the war."

My body still vibrated from the ride. It was a good feeling, but as much as I could go on and on, as far as the road could go, I was happy for the change in pace.

We had an unimpeded view of the expansive bay from the top of the dune. The tide was low, so the shoreline was distant in the shallow bay, and the white rollers crashed slowly and with a quiet rumbling, like gentle thunder.

A distant rain squall loomed. A warm breeze came off the water and smelled sweet. When the wind came off the ocean that way, it was a sign that the rain squall was coming towards the coast. They would be here sooner or later. I put the thought aside, guessing we'd be on the road long before then.

Nephele caught up to me at the top of the dune, and we walked in silence together alongside a zig-zagging wooden fence that was put there to prevent the dune from shifting. Nephele hopped up onto the fence, and when she did, I blurted,

"Careful! You'll hurt yourself."