It's the start of @blind-dates-fest and I've been sitting on this one for far too long, so here we go! 😊 I'd like to introduce you to Margaret (Gigi) Alden, who's one of the flight engineers in my very-much-still-a-WIP MotA fic Songs for Space Travelers. She's one of the new characters in this rewrite, flying with good ol' Benny DeMarco... and that's really all you gotta know before diving into this one. Hope you'll enjoy meeting her!
She’s glad the dog didn’t notice her sitting here.
Meatball, as he’s called, seems far more interested following his nose toward the plane than following it to the crates she’s seated on. Seems to be invested in circling the hatch and whining about it, as though he wants to go flying again and can’t understand why nobody’s lifting him back into the plane.
He’s not so bad from this distance. Gigi’s fine with big dogs, really, as long as they’re in sight and nowhere near her at the same time. It’s even better if they’re on a leash, which Meatball hasn’t been since they first got here.
“You should put him on a leash, sir,” she suggests, seeing Benny DeMarco approach her out of the corner of her eye. “At least think about it. He’s gonna get run over or something. Or he’s gonna come over here and try and make friends with me.”
She likes that DeMarco sounds thoughtful and amused at the same time. “Which of those is worse?”
“The second one? I don’t like big dogs, sir,” she admits. Might as well name that mountain and make it his problem too. “The little ones are fine because you can keep ‘em at a distance with your foot or something. Big dogs tend to ignore that.”
“If it helps,” he says, stuffing his hands into his pockets, “that one over there tripped over his own paws this morning and blamed me for that.” DeMarco sounds positively outraged about it even now, as though this is the worst thing that happened to him all day. “Ever heard a dog sound like he’s accusing you of murder? I was ready to call a lawyer for help or somethin’ before Buck told him off about yowling at four in the morning.”
“Did your dog listen?”
“Don’t know anybody who doesn’t listen when Buck gets that tone about him.” DeMarco shrugs with his whole body. Sighs a little, glancing over at his dog before focusing his attention back on her. “You’re Alden, right?”
“Yessir.”
She offers him a small nod, pleased that he’s remembered as much this soon. It took some of their training officers five weeks to learn there is a difference between Alden and Alma, after all, even though Gigi thought the difference would have been obvious in the first place.
DeMarco doesn’t seem like the type to just forget that sort of thing, either. Not now that he lights up a smoke and sinks down on the box beside her own. He gets comfortable in the way she’s already seen him do once in interrogation today: leaning forward, exhaling smoke the way a dragon would. Even his hands aren’t quiet now, because he tosses his lighter from one hand to the other and back again.
“You’re all right, Alden,” he says, glancing at her so briefly she almost thinks she imagined it. “Calm. Smart. Good instinct. Heck of a flight engineer.”
Gigi blinks. Tries not to grow ten sizes from the casual compliments. “Thank you, sir?”
“It’s one big soup up there, yeah?” he laughs, smoke unfurling from the corners of his upturned mouth. “Felt like I was back in my nonna’s kitchen, aged seven-and-a-half – the half is important, Alden, my family lives on those exact measure types – and being told to dump the little pasta noodles in the pot faster, Bernardo, faster while cousin Dia stressed me out with her stirring.”
She isn’t quite sure what to say to that. His family sounds busier than her own, from the way he gestures and mimics the words he heard back then. She’s been bossy like that with her siblings – maybe DeMarco is younger back home, like she is younger here on base – but she’s not about to share her life’s story like that. Most people here don’t care about where you’re from, after all.
DeMarco seems to have no qualms continuing the conversation by himself. “It’s different up there, yeah?” he asks, eyes flicking up to the sky a moment before his attention turns back to his lighter. “Good thing we practiced. We know Our Baby.” His mouth quirks into a little laugh. “Or, well, I know her. And you know other planes.”
“Used to fly the Harlot, sir,” she answers, then, because this feels like the kind of conversation she can be a part of. “She’s almost the same, except Our Baby’s turret gun doesn’t jam in a way that needs you to punch its side before you get started. I like that better.” The gun in the Harlot is someone else’s problem now, though she’s asked Nora to warn their new flight engineer about it. “But I asked George to take a look at the radio when we got back, because Birdie made it go all beep beep beep in a way I know she didn’t mean.”
“Damn near made me cuss about the beeping,” he agrees with a nod. Doesn’t argue back that she should’ve left that up to him as a pilot. Doesn’t tell her that he will talk to the ground crew for her. Just accepts that this is what she did, without so much as an admonishment. “She always do that? Run the gig like she’s got her own evenin’ talk show on the radio?”
Gigi can’t help but laugh at the accuracy. “Sure, that’s just Birdie,” she assures him. “Think I remember her telling some instructor once that it helps people to hear something familiar coming through the radio, like they are just listening to it back home. Val sort of does the same thing, except with far more cussin’ if things go wrong.”
“Val…?”
“Hodges, sir. Blonde, looks like a doll,” she offers, thinking DeMarco’s gonna know who she means by that. Val’s got those precious long-lashed blue eyes and that perfect doll face to go with it, after all. “Runs radio in the Harlot now.”
“Right. And Birdie is DeLuca?”
“Yessir,” she nods. “She’s from Philly.”
DeMarco’s mouth quirks as he lights another cigarette. “I got that much. Asked her if she was from Chicago like me and she looked at me like she was going to eat me for breakfast. She calmed down plenty when I said I was born in Philly. My folks moved when I was two, so I don’t remember it, but it still counts?”
She likes how he made that sound like a question. “Counts enough for Birdie, I guess?” she replies, knowing Birdie will have softened tremendously about someone being born in her neck of the woods. “You’re from the same place Frosty’s from. I mean Lombardi”– she has to clarify, has to remember that not everyone knows their nicknames –“she’s from Chicago, too.”
He harrumphs around another cloud of smoke. “You girls and your nicknames…”
“Better than Buck and Bucky,” she comments instantly, thinking he might agree with her on that. Birdie had laughed herself sick about Major Egan’s introduction, muffling her giggles in the collar of her coat the way Max usually does too. “And you called your dog Meatball, sir, so that’s…”
“Pot calling the kettle black, huh?”
She likes DeMarco. Likes that he says hi and hello to the girls every morning just the same way he greets the guys. Likes that he doesn’t force Frosty to talk to him, even though Gigi still thinks it’s silly that she hasn’t said more than two words to any of the men. Likes that he sits and talks to her now, even though she’s not a captain or a major and really not that important.
“If you say so, sir,” she hums, now, giggling a little at the look on his face. He can take a joke, DeMarco can, even though he shakes his head and makes a tsk-ing sound under his breath about it. She can’t help but make things worse. “As long as you don’t name your future kid Macaroni or something like that…”
DeMarco’s gaze instantly fixates on the plane. “She’d kill me.”
Gigi buries her nose in her collar to hide her smile once she follows his gaze. It’s an open secret that DeMarco keeps acting like he’s struck by lightning every time he sees Darlene, whether it’s just a glimpse of her red curls or her full-body presence in front of him. Val keeps swearing she’s overheard DeMarco tell Major Cleven that he’s going to marry her, but Gigi thinks Max had a point retaliating that he’d have to actually talk to Darlene first for that to happen.
He doesn’t seem anywhere close to talking to her now, even though Darlene’s stopped gesturing at the plane’s hatch and is now suffering Meatball’s happy yowling around her ankles. Even though Darlene smiles real big when she glances up and sees them sitting there. Even though Gigi waves at her and instantly gets a wave back.
“Maybe you ought to go and save her from your dog, sir,” suggests Gigi, watching Meatball lick Darlene’s hands. She tries not to recoil at the sight of that. Resolves that this dog is not gonna lick her hands any time soon, no matter how friendly DeMarco has been to her so far. “Go say hi to her or something.”
DeMarco squashes his cigarette under his shoe. “I’m gonna,” he says, not showing any other sign of movement whatsoever.
“Gigi, sweetie”– calls Darlene, now, having finally grabbed Meatball by the scruff of his neck–“George is askin’ to see ya! Says she’s almost got the radio goin’, but you gotta come take a look at summat else.”
“Well, that’s me put to work,” laughs Gigi, hopping off her crate instantly. “Better listen to the ground crew when they need you and call you sweetie for it, right, sir?”
DeMarco makes a noise in the back of his throat about it that could mean anything from don’t be stupid to you’re right about everything, Gigi. “Sure thing, Alden,” he says, even when he doesn’t look at her but rather past her at Darlene. “Make sure our plane gets fixed properly, yeah?”
“Aye, sir,” she laughs, secretly glad that his dismissal means that he sees her as part of his crew. Glances at Darlene long enough to see the woman’s bright, gap-toothed smile now being aimed fully at DeMarco. Chances a little verbal nudge at the man about that. “You make sure you actually say hi to Darlene this time, okay?”
DeMarco sounds as dazed about the prospect as Val said he’d sounded about his marriage plans. “Uh-huh.”
Gigi grins as she bounces toward Our Baby, trying her hardest to not glance back at Darlene and DeMarco in a too obvious way. At least she gets to dodge Meatball, who seems far more interested in guiding Darlene toward his owner than in making Gigi’s life miserable. She can’t help but sneak a look at them over her shoulder, though, now that Darlene says “hi Ben” in a softer voice than she’s ever heard Darlene use before and DeMarco stumbles over a “hi Darlene” in a way that makes her name sound like darlin’.
She muffles her excitement in her collar when she sees Darlene sink down on the crate Gigi was seated on before. Their hands are almost touching over Meatball’s head, and DeMarco’s smile is the first real one she’s seen from him since they got into the soup up there.
Oh, she can’t wait to tell Val and Max about this.