The Girl With the Jade Green Eyes by John Boyd

local flight to Seattle, which touched down at Tacoma, Breedlove was mostly left alone to doze intermittently and awaken to strange confusions. Kyra wanted a window seat, and the two men wanted her there to guard her from casual conversations with people in the aisle. Kelly shouldered past Breedlove to take the middle seat beside her, saying, “You’ll have her all this evening. I want her for the flight.”
    She had brought along the fashion magazine, which lay unopened in her lap as she studied the landscape below, asking “Al” about landmarks and place names. In less than five minutes she had been calling Peterson “Pete,” yet she always called him the formal “Breedlove.” Now she sat huddled with the solicitous Irishman, and for all the attention he was getting Breedlove could have been in North Dakota.
    A vague hurt roiled him, like none he had felt since high school, when he had blurted out an invitation to the girl he wanted to take to the prom and found her already promised to a football star. Stretched out on the seat, a pillow under his head, he regurgitated the sour aftertaste of adolescent rejections and tried to ignore the chattel beside him. He feigned sleep so successfully he dozed until he was aroused by a new note of excitement in Kyra’s voice.
    Apparently they were flying over clouds, for Kyra’s attention had turned to the magazine on her lap, and she was showing Al the Polinski Creation.
    “I see it’s sold in Seattle,” Al was saying, “at Mason’s department store. If the Jolly Green Giant will let me have you for lunch after you’re out of quarantine, I’ll take you shopping. Maybe I’ll buy you that fantastic creation.”
    “Terrific, Al. I’d love you to death for that little number.”
    Breedlove was twice disturbed. A married man such as Kelly on a government employee’s salary would not be buying a girl a $720 dress for altruistic reasons, and nice girls did not accept such expensive gifts from married men. Kyra would have to be lectured discreetly on this subject.
    On the ground in Seattle, Breedlove was brought back into the party when Kyra took his arm possessively on the way to baggage pickup and asked, “Does my Jolly Green Giant feel refreshed after his wholesome rest on the plane?”
    He didn’t particularly care for Al’s cute expression, but his only indication of disapproval was in the restraint of his smile.
    Kelly drove them to the Federal Building in his 1973 Plymouth coupé he had left at the airport. At his office he called the medical facility at the Navy base and arranged with the duty officer for Kyra to report Monday at 0800 for her physical examination. At the same time he arranged for Breedlove to escort her onto the base and to the sick bay. He called a family motel near Lake Washington to reserve two suites for them, then he carefully filled in a new Alien Registration Form, with Breedlove’s assistance, which the ranger witnessed.
    Since the offices were closed for Sunday, Kelly had no secretary, and it took the two men almost an hour to fill out the form. Once during the session Kyra excused herself to go to the women’s lounge, and Kelly took advantage of her absence to advise Breedlove: “Tom, you strike me as a sensible young man, not one to go overboard with the hanky-panky, but remember, Kyra has not passed quarantine yet. As pretty as she is, she might be carrying some exotic disease fatal to human beings.”
    Breedlove accepted the advice, but he was not deluded. He had the definite impression that if Kyra had any communicable diseases, Kelly wanted to be the first to catch them.
    After signing the forms, Kyra was a registered resident of the U.S.A., whatever else her status, and Kelly wasn’t done. He took them to the basement garage and assigned Breedlove a Lincoln automobile usually reserved for visiting dignitaries. As he drove the car from the basement with Kyra beside him, Breedlove felt life within him turning to a pleasant