The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

"Ah . . . sure will . . ."

"Bye."

There is better guidance, there has to be, than going through that conversation with every woman . . . When the time is right I'll find her, I thought, and not a second before.

The breakfast came to seventy-five cents. I paid it and strolled into the sun. It was going to be a hot day. Probably lots of mosquitoes tonight. But what do I care? Tonight I sleep indoors!

With that I remembered I had left my bedroll on the seat of the breakfast-booth in the restaurant.

A different life, this staying on the ground. One doesn't just tie things up in the morning and toss them in the front cockpit and fly off into one's day. One carries things around by hand, or finds a roof and stays under it. Without the Fleet, without my Alfalfa Hilton, I was no longer welcome in hayfields.

There was a new customer in the cafe, sitting in the booth , I had left. She looked up, startled when I walked to her table.

"Excuse me," I said, and lifted the bedroll lightly from the other seat. "Left it here just a bit ago. I'd have left my soul if it wasn't tied on with string."

She smiled and went back to reading the menu.

"Careful of the lemon pie," I added. "Unless you like it not too lemony and then you'll love it."

I walked into the sun again, swinging the bedroll at my side before remembering that the United States Air Force had taught me not to swing any hand that was carrying something. Even when we carry a dime, in the military, we do not swing our hands with it.

On impulse, just seeing the telephone in its little glass sentry-box, I decided to make a business call, to someone I hadn't talked with in a long time. The company that had published my book was in New York, but what did I care about long distance? I'd call and reverse the charges. There are privileges in every trade-barnstormers get paid for giving airplane-rides instead of having to pay for them; writers get to call their editors collect.

I called.

"Hi, Eleanor."

"Richard!" she said. "Where have you been?"

"Let's see," I said. "Since we talked? Wisconsin, Iowa,

Nebraska. Kansas, Missouri, then back across to Indiana, Ohio, Iowa again and Illinois. I sold the biplane. Now I'm in Florida. Let me guess the weather in the city: six-thousand-foot thin broken stratus, high overcast, visibility three miles in haze and smoke."

"We've been going wild trying to find you! Do you know what's been happening?"

"Two miles in haze and smoke?"

"Your book!" she said. "It's selling very well! Extremely well!"

"I know this seems silly," I said, "but I'm stuck on something here. Can you see out the window?"

"Richard, yes. Of course I can see out the window."

"flow far?"

"It's hazy. About ten blocks, fifteen blocks. Do you hear what I'm saying? Your book is a best-seller! There are television shows, they want to have you on network television shows; there are newspapers calling for interviews, radio shows; bookstores need you to come and autograph. We are selling hundreds of thousands of copies! All over the world! We've signed contracts in Japan, England, Germany, France. Paperback rights. Today a contract from Spain ..."

What do you say when you hear that on the telephone? "What nice news! Congratulations!"

"Congratulations yourself," she said. "How have you managed not to hear? I know you've been living in the underbrush, but you're on the PW bestseller list, New York Times, every list there is. We've been sending your checks to the bank, have you checked your balance?"

"No."

"You should do that. You sound awfully far away, can you hear me all right?"

"Fine. It's not underbrush. Everything west of Manhattan, Eleanor, it's not weeds."

"From the executive dining room I can see to New Jersey, and beyond the river it looks awfully brushy to me."