LITMIR.BIZ

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was more a live-and-let-live type of soul. She cared, deeply, she’d just rather light incense and meditate than actually solve a problem. She was both a thorn in Mel’s side and her closest confidant.

      She wore a multicolored, filmy, gauzy miniskirt and a snug, white cap-sleeved tee with a pink heart in the center that brought the eyes to immediate attention of her brand spanking-new breasts. But the thing that never failed to amaze Mel about Dimi was that she could go all day and that bright, clean white tee would stay bright, clean white.

      Mel didn’t even bother to look down at her coveralls, already filthy from just a quick maintenance check on the Cessna. “What’s the problem?”

      Over the steam of her herbal tea and the faint smoke from the incense she’d lit, Dimi shot Mel a wry smile.

      Right. What wasn’t a problem was a more likely question.

      The two of them went back a long ways. As teens, Mel had swept and assisted in the maintenance department, and Dimi had answered phones. Each had been far more at home here than either of their decidedly not Leave It to Beaver homes.

      Sally Wells, a woman with more dream than cash, had taken them under her wing—Sally, who’d lived as she wanted, wild and free with men and fun aplenty. As their first real role model, Mel and Dimi had both worshipped the ground Sally walked on; Mel appreciating Sally’s directness, the way she ran her own show and the world be damned, but for Dimi the worship had gone deeper. She’d wanted to be Sally.

      Unfortunately, Sally had been unavailable to them for a long time now, and without her around, there was no one for Mel to share the stress of holding all this up with. No one except Dimi. “Tell me,” she said to Dimi now. “Believe me, the day can’t get worse.”

      Dimi put her hand over Mel’s. “You look tired. You’re not drinking that tea I gave you.”

      “I hate tea. And it’s just stress.”

      “You only hate tea because I tell you it has healing abilities and you think that’s a crock of shit.” She sighed. “Money’s tight again.”

      “You mean still. Money’s tight still.”

      “That’s all right.” Dimi stood and, primping a little, played with the hem of her skirt, adjusted her top. “We have a couple of hot ones coming in today.”

      “Hot ones” being Dimi-code for cute, rich customers.

      “What we have is an unscheduled,” Mel said. “I’ve gotta get out there and do tie-down because God knows where Ritchie or Kellan is.”

      Dimi pulled out a compact and checked her gloss, ran her tongue over her teeth. “I’ll do it.”

      “Uh-huh.” Mel eyed the short, short skirt, which at every move flirted with revealing Dimi’s crotch. “You’re going to go get your hands dirty, risk that manicure, and tie down a plane? In that?”

      Dimi smiled. “Should get me a big tip, don’t you think?”

      “That’s not even funny.”

      “Hey, I’m going to hit on them anyway, might as well get something for it.”

      “Stop it.” Mel knew Dimi was only kidding. Or half-kidding anyway. Dimi enjoyed men the way some women enjoy breathing. “I have enough to worry about.”

      Dimi sighed and stroked a long, wayward strand of hair from Mel’s face. “We’ll be fine, hon. You’ll come up with something, you always do.”

      Right. She’d just wave her magic wand and figure it all out. And while she was at it, she’d conjure up a happily ever after for all of them as well. “The oven’s down, the gas pump is acting up, and morale’s getting low.”

      “They need a phone call from Sally.”

      Their gazes met for a long beat.

      “You do it this time,” Dimi whispered.

      “Actually, I was hoping you could, from—” Mel broke off when Ernest appeared out of nowhere, shuffling past the desk, pulling his noisy cart stacked haphazardly with tools and the ever-present jar for liberating spiders.

      Mel didn’t know how many times she’d asked him not to walk through the lobby like that, to instead go around the outside of the hangar, where customers wouldn’t have to see him, but he never listened. At least not to the stuff she wanted him to. “Ernest?”

      He’d stopped to stand in front of the vending machine next to the wall map, scratching his head as he contemplated rows of candy bars. “Yeah?”

      “Did you by any chance ever clean out that maintenance hangar, the one Danny wants to stock new parts in?”

      “Not yet. Busy, you know.”

      Right. He looked really busy. She and Dimi waited until he’d made his selection, shoved the candy bar into his pocket next to his spider book, and left.

      “I hate the secrets,” Dimi whispered.

      Yeah, and Mel just loved them. Not. She looked at the time. “I gotta go meet that flight. Then I have a flight myself, to LA.”

      “You’re changing your clothes first, right?”

      “Yes,” Mel said with irritation. “Of course.”

      “You say that like you don’t regularly forget to change from mechanic to pilot. Daily.”

      Mel rolled her eyes. “I’ll be back by two.”

      Dimi nodded, looked wistfully out the window. “You’re so lucky.”

      “Lucky?” Mel laughed in disbelief. “How exactly?”

      “You get to get out of here.”

      “But you hate to fly,” Mel reminded her. “You throw up every time.”

      “I know, I didn’t mean…” Dimi searched for words. “Look, don’t you ever…just want to get in the plane and, I don’t know, fly off into the sunset?”

      Mel just stared at her incredulously. “Never to return?”

      “Well…yeah.”

      North Beach was Mel’s home, her life, and no, she’d never ever thought about going away and never coming back, and she’d always figured Dimi felt just the same. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

      Dimi lifted a stack of mail. “Just the usual. Here’s your in-coming pile. Bills and more bills, if you’re wondering, though what’s the point of opening them, we still can’t pay last month’s.”

      “Officially no one can even bug us until…” She glanced at the desk calendar. July ninth. “Tomorrow, the tenth.” Oh, God.

      “Also we need fuel for the pump, and they won’t deliver it without their bill being paid.” Dimi leaned over and lit the three candles lining the front of her reception desk. The crystals on her wrists jangled, as did the ones dangling from her ears. The scent of vanilla began to fill the air, joining the incense she’d already lit on the credenza behind her.

      “You’re going to make people hungry,” Mel said. “And the oven’s down.”

      “I’m going to make people feel warm and cozy and at home,” Dimi corrected, and smoothed her skirt. “Helps our karma.”

      Mel wanted to say that she didn’t believe in karma or fate, that they each made their own, but the sound of a plane coming in ended the conversation. “They’re early.” She understood early, she herself was always compulsively early, but it meant she had to run through the lobby, grabbing an extra orange vest off a hook as she went, slipping into the lineman’s gear as she moved quickly across the tarmac to greet the plane.

      The Gulfstream was a beauty, and her pilot’s heart gave one vivacious kick of envy as the plane swept in for a honey of a landing, perfectly controlled by a pilot

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