Lone eagle

“You don't? I'll teach you. It's pretty easy, you just shuffle around and look like you're having a good time.” Dancing with her, that part at least would be simple, but not the rest.

“I think I'd better not. I'd probably step on your feet.” He glanced down and saw that she was wearing delicate pale blue satin evening shoes. “I should probably let you go back to your friends.” He hadn't spent as long talking to anyone in years, and surely not a girl her age, although he still had no idea that she was only seventeen.

“Am I boring you?” she asked bluntly, with a look of concern. She felt as if he was dismissing her, and she wondered if she had offended him by asking him to dance.

“Hell, no,” he said laughing, and then looked even more embarrassed by what he'd said. He was far more used to airplane hangars than to ballrooms, but all things considered, he was actually having a good time. And no one was more surprised than he. “You're anything but boring. I just thought you might like to dance with someone who can dance.” He and Charles had that in common too. Charles also didn't dance.

“I've already danced a lot this evening.” It was nearly midnight, she hadn't gone to the buffet until then. “What do you like to do in your spare time?”

“Fly,” he said with a shy smile. It was easy being with her, and talking about airplanes was all he knew how to do. “What about you?”

“I like to read, and travel, and play tennis. And in the winter, I ski. I play golf with my father, but I'm not very good at it. And I used to love to skate when I was a little kid. I would have played hockey, but my mother had a fit and wouldn't let me.”

“That was smart of her, you'd have wound up with no teeth.” Clearly, from her dazzling smile, he could see that she hadn't played hockey. “Do you drive?” he asked, as he sat back in his chair. For a crazy moment, he was wondering if she'd like to learn how to fly. But Kate smiled.

“I got my license last year when I turned sixteen, but my father doesn't like me to use the car. He taught me at Cape Cod in the summer. There's no traffic and it's easier there.” Joe nodded but looked startled by what she'd said.

“How old are you?” He had been sure that she was in her mid-twenties. She looked so grown-up, and she was so at ease with him.

“Seventeen. I'll be eighteen in a few months. How old did you think I was?” She was flattered that he looked so surprised.

“I don't know… maybe twenty-three … twenty-five. They shouldn't let kids your age out in dresses like that. You're going to confuse some old man like me.” He didn't look old to her, especially when he looked shy and awkward and boyish, which he often did. Every few minutes, he would look ill at ease for an instant, and look away, and then he'd recover himself and look her in the eye again. She liked his shyness. It was an interesting counterpoint to his flying expertise, and suggested humility.

“How old are you, Joe?”

“Twenty-nine. Nearly thirty. I've been flying since I was sixteen. I was wondering if you'd like to fly with me sometime. But I guess your parents might not like it.”

“My mother wouldn't. But my father would think it was fun. He talks about Lindbergh all the time.”

“Maybe I could teach you to fly someday.” As he said it, his eyes were filled with dreams. He had never taught a girl to fly before, although he knew plenty of female pilots, he and Amelia Earhart had been old friends before she disappeared three years before, and he had flown with Charles's friend Edna Gardner Whyte several times, Joe thought her nearly as impressive as Charles. She had won her first daredevil solo race seven years before, and was training military pilots. She was very fond of Joe.

“Do you ever come to Boston?” Kate asked hopefully, looking suddenly young again, as he smiled. There was something exciting and feminine and youthful about her, and at the same time, he found her remarkably poised.

“Once in a while. I have friends on the Cape. I stayed with them last year. But I'll be in California for the next few months. I could give you a call when I get back. Maybe your father would like to come with us too.”

“He'd love that,” she said warmly. To Kate, it sounded like a fine idea. All she could think of now was how they would sell it to her mother. But who knew if he'd really call her. Probably not.

“Do you go to school?” he asked with a curious expression, and she nodded. He had stopped his formal education at twenty, and the rest of his education he had gotten in planes, once Lindbergh took him under his wing.

“I'm going to college in the fall,” Kate said quietly.

“Do you know where?”