Blue Skies Read online

  The next guy was fifty-five. He’d logged more than twenty thousand hours on the big jets, with plenty of international experience. He’d held positions as check airman, instructor, former assistant chief pilot and had not worked in three years. His company went under after the Air Transportation Stabilization Board turned them down for the loan guarantee promised by Congress after 9/11. This guy, so talented and experienced, must think he would never work again.

  Ah, here was one, thirty years old, aeronautics degree from MIT, two thousand hours in cargo…She imagined him wanting to be a commercial pilot since he was a little kid, and now what were his chances? With all these pilots out of work, this guy was up against résumés with twenty thousand hours on them.

  There were American pilots who had been flying in foreign countries and wanted to come home, retired military airmen, pilots who’d been out of work since 9/11, pilots who’d gone from airline to airline, moving on as each one crumbled. They had degrees, thousands of hours clocked, vast experience, high hopes and crushed dreams. There were strikers and those who had crossed picket lines, ex-patriots and retired military who had served the country faithfully through a war that followed the terrorist attacks. She kept looking for one man or woman she could say was less than desirable. Available immediately, the résumés said. Will relocate anywhere.

  Travel and tourism was the largest industry in the world, and the industry was bankrupt.

  The next résumé made her realize this box must be filled with recent submissions. It was from Danny Adams, Captain, Aries Airline. Nikki had known and respected Danny for years. He was a good, solid aviator, an ethical and honest man, intelligent, diligent, motivated. He was a little on the shy side, but that was preferable to the usual arrogance in the cockpit. One thing she could be certain of with Danny—if he accepted a job from her, she would have his unquestioned loyalty. As a woman in a man’s job, she knew enough to start building her alliances. Like it or not, her gender was going to be outnumbered. And there was a male faction out there who would be just waiting for her to screw up.

  She went back to Shanna’s office and peeked in. The woman looked up from paperwork, unsmiling. This was going to get old, Nikki thought. All these ice maidens. “I ran across the résumé of a good friend. I’m going to give him a call and—”

  “We have procedures,” Shanna said, cutting her off. “When you identify a candidate for hire, I’ll make the call, set up an appointment for his interview, physical exam, psychological testing, et cetera.” She was holding her hand out toward Nikki, her way of saying, Hand the résumé over—I’m in charge here. “All hiring and firing is done through HR. We keep the employee files, you provide us with documentation. Understand?”

  Nikki looked around, frowning. We? Us? As far as she could tell, Shanna had no staff.

  “You know what?” Nikki said. “Forget this for now.” Then she escaped before Shanna could attack her with a lot more rules and instructions. Nikki had stopped by as a courtesy; it had never occurred to her to ask Shanna’s permission to hire someone she had known for years, someone who could actually use Nikki and Joe Riordan as references.

  She made a fast break around the corner on her way to Joe’s office, when she passed him in the hall. “Hey, Joe—just the man I’m looking for. Do you remember Danny Adams? Captain at Aries?” Joe frowned, thinking. “Short guy—bald,” she said, trying to jog his memory. “He was a check airman…nicest man you’ll ever meet. Good pilot, too.”

  “Yeah, I think so. Why?”

  “I ran across his résumé. I know him very well. He’s smart and loyal and hardworking. I thought I’d get him up here to help me with hiring, if he’ll come.”

  “Good idea,” Joe said, walking away.

  “So you have no problem with that? You don’t want me to have HR do it?”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “I don’t care. HR is there to help you if you need them.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Nikki said. Just as she thought. HR is here to help us, we’re not the HR support system. Then she smiled as she realized this was going to piss Shanna off.

  Carrying Danny’s résumé, she went back to her office, closed the door and called the phone number listed. “Danny? Hi, it’s Nikki Burgess.”

  “Hey there! How are you?”

  “Great, Danny. And you?”

  “Never better, but what’s that area code on my caller ID?”

  “Las Vegas,” she said.

  He burst out laughing. “Then it’s true? You left Aries for chief pilot of Riordan’s new company?”

  “Word travels fast,” she observed. “It’s called New Century Air, and one of my first official acts as chief pilot is placing this call. I came across your résumé, Danny, and I need some immediate help with hiring. Why don’t you come up and look the place over?”

  “I knew I wanted to get into Riordan’s new company when I sent the résumé. And now that I know you’re in charge, I’ll just put in my notice and come up. How about two weeks?”

  “Um, Danny, just so there’s no misunderstanding, I’m not exactly in charge. I report to the vice president of operations, one Mr. Bob Riddle.” She was answered by stunned silence. “Danny?”

  “Bob Riddle?”

  “He has a lot of management experience,” she said. “An executive search company selected him as one of their prime recommendations to Joe.”

  Danny whistled. One thing Nikki knew about Danny was that he didn’t seem to have the penchant for gossip and rumor that ran rampant through the cockpits of the world. In fact, she’d never heard him say a seriously negative thing about anyone. But after his whistle he said, “I’ll see if I can cash in my accrued vacation and get up there right away, Nikki.”

  “I owe you.”

  Eight

  While Nikki was getting into her second week at the new airline, Carlisle and Dixie were still trying to get out of Phoenix. Battery domestic violence, they both learned, was a crime taken very seriously by the police department. A report was filed, photos taken and an arrest made, something that couldn’t have made Robert any happier with Carlisle.

  The police might have just talked with Robert about the situation, but he made a tactical error—he admitted hitting Carlisle. But he said it had occurred in a physical fight in which both of them were involved. The problem with that version was that Robert was completely unscathed, and he had been the one to take Carlisle to the emergency room and insist that the injury had occurred when Carlisle fell down the stairs.

  The emergency room staff should have made the call to the police, but they’d let the ball drop. “Bigotry,” Dixie had snorted to the police. “If it had been a woman punched around by her husband, they’d have called.”

  “You’re only making it worse,” Carlisle said, mortified.

  They were forced to stay at a hotel under assumed names for a couple of days while the business of this crime was settled. It would have been crazy to go back to Dixie’s house; Robert was released on bond before twenty-four hours had lapsed. While an order of protection was procured through family court, Carlisle paid a visit to a friend of a friend, Mr. Ross Levine, an attorney who specialized in same-sex separations in which property was involved. Carlisle paid him a retainer to begin the process of negotiating with Robert about dividing their home equity.

  “It may come to a civil suit,” the attorney told Carlisle. “I’ll know more in a couple of weeks, but this is going to take some time. You may as well go ahead and leave town—put some distance between you and your ex-partner. Let the lawyers handle this because there have been injuries involved.”

  Dixie and Carlisle talked about telling Nikki what was going on, but instead, they took her calls on their cell phones, getting updates while chuckling behind their hands. At long last they were on the road and a mere five hours later, Las Vegas spread before them.

  It was about 7:00 p.m., so they drove directly to the suites inn where Nikki and the kids and Buck were staying.

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bsp; “Look,” Carlisle said, pointing to a gold SUV. “There she is.”

  Dixie squinted in the direction he indicated. “That’s not her.”

  “It sure is,” he insisted.

  “That’s not her hair.”

  “She said she had it cut and highlighted,” he argued.

  “But Nikki can’t fix her hair, bless her heart, and that hair looks good.”

  “She said she got new clothes and new hair,” Carlisle insisted. “She said we’d be proud of her.”

  “No way can we be that proud.”

  They followed the SUV, which turned into the suites inn and parked. Dixie came to a halt across the lot. “We can find out pretty easily.” She dialed her cell phone.

  They watched as the woman in the gold SUV began to speak. “Hey, what timing,” Nikki said. “I just finished work.”

  “That so? How’s it going?”

  “God, it’s hard.” A beat. “God, it’s fun!”

  “Really?”

  Nikki got out of the car, cell phone earpiece dangling from her ear. She had a briefcase in one hand and laptop in the other, and in the crook of her arm she cradled a bag of groceries. “Wish you were here—I just bought a bottle of wine and some snacks.”

  Carlisle elbowed Dixie, whose mouth hung open. It was indeed a whole new Nikki, dressed in a beige pantsuit with black silk blouse and black pumps with gold accents. There was even a gold lapel pin on her jacket.

  “Will you look at that,” Carlisle muttered. “Nick’s accessorizing. The world must be coming to an end.” The early evening sun caught the highlights in her hair and she seemed to almost sparkle.

  “It’s hard work, Dix,” Nikki continued. “Much more complicated than I anticipated, but with the help of consultants, we’ve somehow already managed to impress the FAA. I’ve got Danny on the way and we’re going to get about the business of hiring. And—”

  “What are you doin’ now?” Dixie asked.

  “Well, I’m going to read and edit some of the flight ops manuals before we give them to—”

  No, I mean now. Right now.”

  Nikki bumped her car door closed with her butt. “I just pulled into the hotel. I’ll get the kids and my dad and we’ll grab a bite to eat, and, well, I’ll probably get some work done later before I hit the sack….”

  Across the parking lot, Dixie and Carlisle got out of their car. They started walking toward Nikki. “Think maybe we could tag along?”

  “Huh?”

  “I said…” Dixie clicked off the phone and raised her voice. “Think you could stand some company?”

  Nikki turned and saw them walking toward her. “Oh, my God,” she said. “You’re here! You’re both really here!” She struggled to hang on to all her possessions while she raced toward them. Laughing, they grabbed the groceries and laptop while giving her hugs. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, it’s a couple of long stories,” Dixie said. “But if it works out, we may be staying.”

  The kids were probably even more excited to see Dixie and Carlisle than Nikki had been. And gruff old Buck almost cracked his face smiling. The two of them booked a room just around the corner from Nikki and the kids, with Buck and Pistol in between. Buck’s weekend had turned into a week, and even he didn’t know how long he’d hang around.

  There were still a couple of weeks until school started, and Nikki hadn’t had much time to look for a house. Dixie and Carlisle could help Buck and the kids explore more of the suburbs and maybe preview a few houses for Nikki to look at in the evening or on the weekend.

  Carlisle had some time off—medical leave to recover from his “fall.” He had no intention of changing jobs, but then it wouldn’t be hard for him to commute the forty-five minutes to Phoenix once a week. There were more than a dozen flights a day between the two cities.

  As for Dixie, she wanted to take a look at the local job market and investigate housing for herself. And she would check out the university and see what she needed to finish her degree and teach school, which had begun to crystallize as her ultimate goal.

  The next day when Nikki went to work, she found her desk buried under enough paper to sink a battleship.

  “FAA manual requirements, drafts of manuals, positions that have to be filled in flight operations and aircraft-leasing agreements,” Bob Riddle explained. “And we’d better start contacting potential pilots for the first class. You’re going to need a director of training who can complete the manual that the consulting firm made a good start on, then set up classes and book simulator time. Get interviews rolling, and then get your own résumé over to the general counsel for his application to the Department of Transportation for a certificate of public conveyance.”

  “Convenience,” she corrected him.

  “Conveyance,” he argued. “We don’t convenience people, we convey them.”

  “Bob, I know it only makes sense that it would be conveyance, but it’s actually convenience.”

  “Bullshit, Burgess. You better study up. And by the way, we’re behind schedule.”

  “Well, Bob, I just got here,” she said patiently. And she wasn’t fooled by his effort to bury her in work she had never done before. She had heard him say he had someone else in mind for her job, but there was this one little thing he didn’t know about her—she had grown up at an airport. She had already forgotten more about FAA certification than Bob Riddle had ever learned.

  “Then get going,” he said. “And I’d like to sit in on the pilot interviews when they start. Make sure you hire as many boys as girls.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said, sifting through the paper on her desk and making piles. Fortunately, there wasn’t anything there she didn’t recognize or understand.

  Riddle was standing in her doorway, watching. She looked up and saw confusion in his expression. Ah! All this was on her desk because he didn’t know what to do with it! “Anything else?”

  He cleared his throat. “Hmm. I’ll check with you later to see if you have any questions.”

  “What will you be working on, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I do mind,” he snapped back. “But I’ll indulge you this once. I’m concentrating on the operations budget and pilot work rules.”

  She might have asked why he would spend time on that before they actually had pilots, but he turned and left.

  Nikki called Danny Adams immediately, filling him in and asking when he’d be arriving in Las Vegas. At the end of the call he recommended another man. “His name is Eric Nowlin and we’re old friends. He flew at American until he was laid off. He’s had a lot of experience and would be a big help in hiring.”

  “What can he bring to the party?” she asked.

  “For starters, he developed a hiring program that gives composite points to job candidates for each quality from experience to personality to reputation. It’s complex yet simple.”

  “Really? When did he do this?”

  “Years ago, when he flew for a corporate outfit, it was real important that the pilots be able to mingle with the executives, guests and investors they flew around.”

  “Call him,” she said.

  “I already did and he’s faxing you his résumé. And I should be there in a couple of days, ready to work.”

  This was the way companies developed personalities—by combining word-of-mouth hiring with the leader’s philosophy. Riordan’s motto was “We’re all in this together and we’re going to do right by one another.”

  In an hour, Nikki had made sense of the stacks of paper on her desk. She’d only begun, and already had two key people on their way to town.

  Next she focused on the manuals that the FAA would have to approve for flight operations, leaving the tons of résumés until she could get Danny and Eric on board to help. But that alone made for long days. She felt the pressure to have an assistant or secretary, but no time to hire one.

  In the evening, her family and friends would gather, first in
her room at the suites, then at one of the dozens of great little neighborhood restaurants in the suburbs, where they’d all compare notes. Nikki would fill them in on the progress at the company, and the others would fill her in on what they’d found by way of houses. It was as much an adventure for Dixie and Carlisle as for Nikki and her family, because, although they’d been to Las Vegas many times, usually on trip layovers while flying, they’d never been off the Strip.

  Nikki’s hours were long, but nervous energy kept her going. She got up before five so she could put in a full day and be home early enough to spend some time with the kids while everyone was still awake. Many nights she’d go back to the office for a couple of hours in the evening.

  Riddle, on the other hand, didn’t get in until 9:00 a.m. or later, and the light under his door was always out if Nikki returned in the evening. On the weekends he always went home to Phoenix. Typically, Riordan’s light was always on, and Nikki had begun to wonder if he slept there.

  Danny and Eric arrived midweek and Nikki sent their completed applications to Shanna via company mail, with a request to have their employment date start the day they arrived. She attached a note promising they would drop by HR to get their IDs and make appointments for physicals as soon as possible.

  Nikki and the two pilots were barely engaged in a meeting with Bob Riddle when Shanna opened the door without knocking and simply stood there. Gripped in her trembling hand was the interoffice mailer, and her glossy red lips were pursed in anger.