good body from the outward look of him. He would be considerate, probably tender; would give as well as take. And he was available; even before he left to get the drinks he had already made that clear. Communication didn't take long between two reasonably sensitive people with a similar idea.
A few minutes earlier she had weighed the alternatives of going home or to the airport. Now, it seemed, there might be a third choice.
"There you are." Derek Eden handed her the drink. She glanced at it; there was a lot of Bourbon, and he had probably told the barman to pour heavily. Really!----men were so obvious.
"Thank you." She sipped, and regarded him across the glass.
Derek Eden raised his own drink and smiled. "Noisy in here, isn't it?"
For a writer, Cindy thought, his dialogue was deplorably unoriginal. She supposed she was expected to say yes, then the next thing he would come up with would be, Why don't we go some place where it's quieter? The lines to follow were equally predictable
Postponing her response, Cindy took another sip of Bourbon.
She considered. Of course, if Lionel were in town she would not have bothered with this man. But Lionel, who was her storm anchor at other times, and who wanted her to divorce Mel so that he, Lionel, could marry her, Cindy... Lionel was in Cincinnati (or was it Columbus?) doing whatever architects did when they went on business trips, and wouldn't be back for another ten days, perhaps longer.
Mel didn't know about Cindy and Lionel, at least not specifically, though Cindy had an idea that Mel suspected she had a lover somewhere, stashed away. She also had a parallel notion that Mel didn't mind much. It gave him an excuse to concentrate on the airport, to the total exclusion of herself; that goddanined airport, which had been fifty times worse than a mistress in their marriage.
It had not always been that way.
Early in their marriage, soon after Mel left the Navy, Cindy had been proud of his ambitions. Later, when Mel was rapidly ascending the lower rungs of aviation management, she was happy when promotions, new appointments, came his way. As Mel's stature grew, so did Cindy's---especially socially, and in those days they had social engagements almost every evening. On behalf of them both. Cindy accepted invitations to cocktail parties, private dinners, opening nights, charity soirees... and if there were two the same night, Cindy was expert at judging which was more important, and turning down the other. That kind of socializing, getting to know prominent people, was important to a young man on the rise. Even Mel saw that. He went along with everything Cindy arranged, without complaining.
The trouble was, Cindy now realized, she and Mel had two different long-term aims. Mel saw their social life as a means to fulfilling his professional ambitions; his career was the essential, the socializing a tool which eventually he would dispense with. Cindy, on the other hand, envisaged Mel's career as a passport to an even greater---and higher level---social life. Looking back, it sometimes occurred to her that if they had understood each other's point of view better in the beginning, they might have compromised. Unfortunately, they hadn't.
Their differences began around the time that Mel---in addition to being general manager of Lincoln International---was elected president of the Airport Operators Council.
When Cindy learned that her husband's activity and influence now extended to Washington, D.C., she had been overjoyed. His subsequent summons to the White House, the rapport with President Kennedy, led Cindy to assume they would plunge forthwith into Washington society. In roseate daydreams she saw herself strolling---and being photographed---with Jackie or Ethel or Joan, at Hyannis Port or on the White House lawn.
It hadn't happened; not any of it. Mel and Cindy had not become involved in Washington social life at all, although they could have done so quite easily. Instead, they began---at Mel's insistence---declining some invitations. Mel reasoned that his professional reputation was now such that he no longer needed to worry about being "in" socially, a status he had never cared for, anyway.
When she caught on to what was happening, Cindy exploded, and they had a first-class row. That was a mistake, too. Mel would sometimes respond to reason, but Cindy's anger usually made him stand firm to the point of obstinacy. Their dispute raged for a week, Cindy becoming bitchier as it progressed, thus making things worse. Being bitchy was one of Cindy's failings, and she knew it. Half