Looking toward the central lobby, Mel saw that Captain Demerest had already been swallowed up in the crowds outside.
Across the table, Tanya smoothed her skirt with a swift stroking gesture which Mel had noticed before and liked. It was a feminine habit and a reminder that few women looked as good in uniform, which often seemed to have a de-sexing effect, but with Tanya worked the opposite way.
Some airlines, Mel knew, let their senior passenger agents out of uniform, but Trans America liked the authority which its jaunty blue and gold commanded. Two gold rings edged with white, on Tanya's cuffs, proclaimed her Job and seniority.
As if surmising his thoughts, she volunteered, "I may be out of uniform soon."
"Why?"
"Our District Transportation Manager is being transferred to New York. The Assistant D.T.M. is moving up, and I've applied for his job."
He regarded her with a mixture of admiration and curiosity. "I believe you'll get it. And that won't be the end, either."
Her eyebrows went up. "You think I might make vice-president?"
"I believe you could. That is, if it's the kind of thing you want. To be the lady executive; all that."
Tanya said softly, "I'm not sure if it's what I want, or not."
The waitress brought their order. When they were alone again, Tanya said, "Sometimes us working girls don't get a lot of choice. If you're not satisfied to stay in the job you have through pension time---and lots of us aren't---the only way out is up."
"You're excluding marriage?"
She selected a piece of cinnamon toast. "I'm not excluding it. But it didn't work for me once, and it may not again. Besides which, there aren't many takers---eligible ones---for used bride with baby."
"You might find an exception."
"I might win the Irish Sweep. Speaking from experience, Mel dear, I can tell you that men like their women unencumbered. Ask my ex-husband. If you can find him, that is; I never could."
"He left you after your baby was born?"
"Goodness, no! That way Roy would have had six months of responsibility. I think it was on a Thursday I told him I was pregnant; I couldn't have kept it to myself much longer. On Friday when I came home from work, Roy's clothes were gone. So was Roy."
"You haven't seen him since?"
She shook her head. "In the end, it made the divorce much simpler---desertion; no complications like another woman. I have to be fair, though. Roy wasn't all bad. He didn't empty our joint checking account, though he could have. I must admit I've sometimes wondered if it was kindness, or if he just forgot. Anyway, I had all that eighty dollars to myself."
Mel said, "You've never mentioned that before."
"Should I have?"
"For sympathy, maybe."
She shook her head. "If you understood me better, you'd know the reason I'm telling you now is because I don't need sympathy. Everything has worked out fine." Tanya smiled. "I may even get to be an airline vice-president. You just said so."
At an adjoining table, a woman said loudly, "Geez! Lookit the time!"
Instinctively, Mel did. It was three quarters of an hour since he had left Danny Farrow at the Snow Control Desk. Getting up from the table, he told Tanya, "Don't go away. I have to make a call."
There was a telephone at the cashier's counter, and Mel dialed one of the Snow Desk unlisted numbers. Danny Farrow's voice said, "Hold it," then, a few moments later, returned on the line.
"I was going to call you," Danny said. "I just had a report on that stuck 707 of Aereo-Mexican."
"Go ahead."
"You knew Mexican had asked TWA for help?"
"Yes."
"Well, they've got trucks, cranes, God knows what out there now. The runway and taxiway are blocked off completely, but they still haven't shifted the damn airplane. The latest word is that TWA has sent for Joe Patroni."
Mel acknowledged, "I'm glad to hear it, though I wish they'd done it sooner."
Joe Patroni was airport maintenance chief for TWA, and a born troubleshooter. He was also a down-to-earth, dynamic character and a close crony of Mel's.
"Apparently they tried to get Patroni right away," Danny said. "But he was at home and the people here had trouble reaching him. Seems there's a lot of phone lines down from the storm."
"But he knows now. You're sure of that?"
"TWA's sure. They say he's on his way."
Mel calculated. He knew that Joe Patroni lived at Glen Ellyn, some twenty-five miles from the airport, and even with ideal driving conditions the journey took forty minutes. Tonight, with snowbound roads and