Air Force Eagles Read Online Free PDF Page A

that Lockbourne is doing just fine. And you can tell him that no matter how he fights it, integration's coming!"
    *
    Palmdale, California/September 27, 1947
    Ginny collected appreciative looks like hookers collect sailors. Now she was enjoying some from herself, leaning forward into the tri-fold mirror in their bedroom, cherry-red lips almost kissing their image. She was an ardent movie magazine fan and had devoted a lot of thought to her switch from a summer Lana Turner look to her own version of Rita Hayworth. Mouth slightly open, she was practicing a head-tossing laugh to check the bounce of the hair she'd brushed to curve over her right eye.
    With a parting sigh, she rose to go in to give her husband another little dose of encouragement. Quick-marching out, she winked into the full-length mirror in the hallway, liking the way she moved, shoulders straight and sweater tight. Without knocking, she entered the spare bedroom that her husband used as a combination gym and den.
    Ginny watched him exercise for a few moments, knowing he liked to show off for her, all the while contrasting the apartment-house beige of the ten-by-ten room with the luxury of her family home in Little Rock. Their drab apartment was exactly like the other twenty in the building, the building exactly like four others on the street. In a city it would have been subsidized housing; here it was where the engineers and pilots from Muroc lived. Finally, she drawled, "Like I was saying, this Marshall must think he's some kind of airborne Jackie Robinson."
    Stan groaned as he finished his push-ups. She was off again! He loved her madly, but she drove him crazy.
    "Listen to me, Stan, please! I'm tired of being a poor captain's wife, living in this desert-rat shanty. What's the point in my having a big-wheel daddy if you won't let him help you?"
    Coleman stood up, not for his rights, but to do jumping jacks, pounding the shaky linoleum floor and bouncing the pictures on the wall in the next room. Six-feet tall, his blond hair was sweat-knit into a cap of curls.
    Her tongue flickered over her lips, wondering if she'd ever be able to make him realize his potential. He was a big, good-looking man, a curly-haired Van Johnson type, and that counted in the Air Force as it did everywhere. With his looks, her brains, and her daddy's influence, he could go all the way to the top. If only he had her daddy's gumption, his get-up-and-go!
    Stan got up and went, fleeing into the tiny bathroom to brush his teeth. Following, she nudged the door open with her foot, watching him with a tingling mixture of desire and frustration. Ginny loved his wide-set, heavy-lidded eyes; when he listened, they closed slightly, as if there were nothing more important in the world than what the speaker was saying. He had the leanly muscled physique of a tennis player; after they made love she liked to lie with her legs wrapped around him, squeezing him dry.
    She stood there arms crossed, her foot tapping impatiently. Coleman had a battered metal tube of Ipana toothpaste on the edge of the sink and was forcing out a last spurt of the yellowish paste with the edge of his toothbrush.
    "Staving off death again, Stan?"
    Coleman shook his head sheepishly. His fear of death was quirky, bound up in a rueful conviction that only so many things remained to him—so many meals, so many Cokes, so many tubes of toothpaste. He was always stringing things out, getting the last squeeze from the tube so he wouldn't take another—perhaps the last!—from his fate-fixed supply. He fought this battle even with sex, rationing their encounters, firmly convinced that he had only so many orgasms allotted to him, intent on spreading them out. She could never convince him of her own use-it-or-lose-it philosophy.
    He turned and, mouth foaming, shot her a wink, relying on his infectious good humor to soften her mood. Rinsing, his automatic broad smile snapped open as swiftly as a camera shutter to reveal even white