"Are you going to use up my entire day's supply of givadams?" She asked as I handed her my form for the third time. A patient smile tugged at the sides of her mouth. She was a lovely woman with a body that seemed to be caught somewhere between the enthusiasm of youth and the wisdom of maturity. Even at the late fifties age that I guessed her to be she had some very good points, like narrow hips and a prominent mons the bulge of which could still be seen under the fabric of her dress. I wondered if that was by accident.
"I'm sorry." I said, meekly. "It's just that sometimes these forms are very difficult to understand."
She looked back down at the form and studied my answers. "OK." She said. "How about if I change 'Place of Birth' from Holy Trinity Hospital to Wilburn, Texas? And if I make 'Reason for Visit' read 'Bi-annual Flight Physical' instead of 'My Health'? The rest might work out OK this time."
I nodded.
"No, wait a minute. Lessee... Two kids, right?"
"Yeah." I answered. "My wife found out what caused them and quit doing it with me."
She laughed in a very pretty voice. "You're divorced, right?"
"Yeah." I answered. "My wife went to find someone to do that with."
"Wait over there. Find a Time Magazine that covers some significant year in your life and read it. I'll be right out."
When she opened the door to the back office a light shining through a window momentarily outlined the silhouette of her figure beneath her clothes.
"OK." She said when she returned. Again the silhouette. "He'll be with you in about five minutes."
I watched her as she put things away and otherwise prepared to close the office. She had tarnished silver hair cut to the bottoms of her ears, which peeked through to show off their little pearl earrings. She had smile lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes that must have catalogued every smile she had ever smiled. Her lipstick, dayworn, was a darker red than younger women might wear, and her eyes occasionally looked at me through the top half of wire-rimmed "granny" glasses. "What?" She asked.
"I'm sorry?"
"You were staring at me. Is there something gross on my face?"
"No, not at all." I answered. "You have... I... You're very pretty." I said.
"You're just toying with me now." She teased.
"No, really. I didn't mean to stare. It's just that you... You really are very pretty."
An intercom buzzed and she answered it and nodded to me. "You can go in now." She said. "Good luck."
The examination was over quickly. "You're healthy as a horse," the doctor told me. "I'd fly with you anywhere. Go home." He signed my certificate and started shutting down his office.
She had her coat on and her purse ready when I came out. "Next time try and get here before five." She said, not angrily.
"My appointment was for four-thirty." I said. "I was right on time."
"So. Blame it on me. Just for that you have to buy me supper."
"I take it you're not married." I said, as we sat across from each other in the Butter Pecan Diner.
"My ex-husband never really learned what caused the kids." She said. "Then he went all fundamentalist on me. I became a nasty brazen jezebel temptress in no time at all."
"And you divorced him?"
"I shot him. No, just kidding. Actually he was killed in a car accident on his way to his twenty-year-old girlfriend's house. Her loss. My gain. Do you fly a plane for business reasons?"
"No. I just fly it. I'm retired. I use it to explore."
"What kind of plane do you have?"
The waitress came up to take our order. We ordered the mushroom bacon burgers and soda. "I have a Grumman." I said. "It was that or a new Harley, but I figured I'd get killed on a Harley."
"Traveler, Cheetah or Tiger?"
"You're familiar with them?" I said with surprised delight. "I have a Cheetah."
"My dad was a flight instructor. He used to take me to the airport and explain all of the airplanes to me. He was fond of Grummans too."
"Did you learn how to fly?"
"No. I hate it." She said. "Scares me silly."
"Me too, sometimes." I said. She had something in her personality that was effervescent. Maybe it was the way her face never took her words seriously. We made small talk and ate supper and chatted over dessert and coffee and agreed to meet there again the next night.
The next night we agreed to meet again.