The Perfect Gift

“Good! Good, that’s exactly what it is. And good luck finding Fred. Like I said, I’m sure he’s in here somewhere.”

I gave the still-flushing girl another nod and turned to make my way into the lounge. There was no lie in what I had told her. I was neither surprised nor offended by the girl's assumption that I was a flight attendant, instead of an actual pilot.

I was thirty-two years old and looked young for my age. I also made a habit of carrying myself with whatever youth I could project, rejecting the idea that it was necessary for me to act like a pompous jackass just because I was in a job some people saw as prestigious. I took the job seriously, but that didn't mean I wanted to become old before my time. I wanted the opposite of that.

Being a young pilot came with plenty of perks, including getting pretty women to spread their legs for me wherever I landed. I fully intended to take advantage of that perk for as long as I was able, which would probably be for a good long time. I wasn't being cocky, it was just a fact, and one that made me smile as I continued my search for the elusive pilot Fred.

I found him all the way in the back of the spacious lounge, sitting in a cloud of cigar smoke with a half a dozen other pilots. I squared my shoulders and put a neutral smile on my face before I made my move to join the fray. There was never any telling when it came to men like these. It was true that I was technically one of them, but that didn't mean I had to like them. Some of the times, I did, and some of the times, I didn't. When it came to the men I had to fly with, it was all luck of the draw.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, gentleman, but is there a Fred Stevens amongst you? I've been looking for a Fred Stevens, and if ever there was a group of men who looked like pilots, it's you guys."

There were probably seven men sitting there, all of whom turned to look in my direction when I spoke. Most of them were still laughing, but there was also the question in their eyes of who was interrupting their private get together. Groups of pilots were always that way. They were private clubs wherever they were that most people wouldn't have tried to interrupt. The fact that I had walked right up and done just that gave them pause that was obvious on their faces. Not for the first time, I wondered how I could be part of a profession that was so often unappealing to me in others. It was a conversation I didn't enjoy having with myself, and one I was glad to have put to an end with the answering of my question.

“Who the hell wants to know?” one of the men asked loudly, still laughing light-heartedly. I assumed he was Fred. “Who are you, kid? Didn’t anyone tell you this was the pilots’ lounge? That girl at the front shouldn’t have even let you in. Somebody ought to let her know she can’t be letting every good-looking guy through our front door.”

“No sir,” I said. “That’s not what she did.”

“How do you figure, young man?”

“Because, I’m not a random guy, although I appreciate the implied compliment.”

"Well, then who the hell are ya, if you're not some random guy?"

"I'm your co-pilot, Mr. Stevens. At least for the next couple of days, I am. I've been looking for you."

“Shit, son!” Fred exclaimed. “You should have let me know that a little earlier. What’s your name, anyway?”

“It’s Drew, sir. Drew Larson.”

“Have a seat, Drew, and for Christ’s sake, stop calling me sir. You make me feel like I’m a hundred fucking years old.”

I nodded that I understood and sat where Fred Stevens indicated. He didn't like being called sir because he felt like it made him old. I got it, but looking at his face, I wondered how old he might be.

In my mind, there were roughly two different kinds of pilots. There was the buttoned-up kind that took everything almost too seriously, and then there was the kind that pushed everything in life to the edge. Just a perfunctory look at Fred Stevens told me he was probably the latter kind. It was why I couldn't get a handle on how old he was. He had the look of a man who had partied a hell of a lot more than he should have. The only thing I couldn't yet be sure of was whether or not the partying was still happening.

“So, you’re going to be the new guy now, huh?”

“For the next couple of flights, at least.”

“Replacing that last fucker, huh?” he asked, shaking his head. “Thank Christ for that. That one was a stiff, you know? Total stiff. No two ways about it.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I never met him.”

“Don’t have to meet him,” Fred said, taking a puff off his cigar. “You can take my word for it. Guy was a fucking square.”

Some of the other pilots around the table laughed, but I didn’t.

“I guess there’s a lot of us, huh?” I asked.

“Us?” Fred asked with a frown beneath his drooping mustache. “Aw, shit, us? So then, you’re one of them, huh? One of the stiffs, I mean. The squares.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think of myself as a square, but that’s just me.”

“I should’ve known you were. Pretty boy pilots like you are always stiffs. You know it, just the same way as I do.”

Why the hell was he thinking about stiff pretty boys? I kept the question to myself. Things were already off to a rocky enough start.

“I don’t tend to think of myself as a pretty boy, sir,” I said.