Lone eagle

He seemed more confident to her than he had eight months before. Or maybe that was just because they had already met. What she didn't know was that he had thought of her so often, that they were already friends in his mind. He had a way of running scenes and situations and people through his head, like a film, until they became familiar to him.

“Have you been driving?” he asked with a grin.

“My father says I'm a terrible driver, but I think I'm actually pretty good. I'm better than my mother. She smashes up the car all the time,” Kate said, smiling back at him.

“Maybe you're ready for flying lessons then. We'll have to see about that when I come east again. I'm moving back to New Jersey at the end of the year, to consult on a project with Charles Lindbergh. But I have to finish up in California first.” She didn't know why, but she was thrilled to hear that he was coming back to the East. And she knew that was foolish, there was no reason to think that he'd see her. He was a thirty-year-old man, and enormously successful in his own field. She was just a college girl, and not even that yet. This time, knowing who he was, she was even more impressed than she had been the first time. And it was she who felt shy. Joe was much more comfortable than he had been at the party where they first met. “When do you start school, Kate?” he asked, almost as though she were his little sister. Although, like Kate, he was an only child. They had that in common. Both his parents had died when he was a baby. He had been brought up by cousins of his mother's, whom he readily admitted he hadn't liked, and he felt hadn't liked him.

“This week. I have to move in on Tuesday,” she said in answer to his question.

“That's very exciting,” he said, as he handed her a hot dog.

“Not as exciting as what you've been doing. I've been keeping up with you in the papers.” He smiled at her as she said it, flattered that she had even remembered him. They had each thought of the other often, but it would have been awkward to admit. “My dad is your biggest fan.” Joe still remembered how interested he had been in Joe when he met him, and knew quite a lot about him. Unlike Kate, who had just thought him a nice person, and had had no idea what a hero he was.

They finished their hot dogs, and sat down on a log to drink coffee and eat ice cream. It was being served in cones, and Kate was dripping hers all over, while Joe sat back and watched her as he sipped his coffee. He loved looking at her, she was so beautiful and so young and so full of energy and life. She was like a beautiful young Thoroughbred gamboling and prancing, and tossing her mane of dark red hair over her shoulders. Never in his early life had he ever suspected he would know someone like her. The women he had known over the years had been so much plainer and more subdued. She was like a bright shining star in the heavens, and he couldn't take his eyes off her, for fear he'd lose sight of her.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” he asked finally, when she'd cleaned up the mess from her ice cream. She nodded as she smiled at him.

They walked quietly down the beach for a while, with a nearly full moon shining brightly on the water. They could see everything on the beach, and they walked side by side, comfortably close together, silent for a time.

After a while, he looked up at the sky, and then down at her, and smiled. “I love flying on nights like this. I think you'd like it too. It's like being close to God for a little while, it's so peaceful.” He was sharing with her what mattered most to him. He had thought of her once or twice when he flew night flights, and couldn't help musing how nice it would have been to have her with him. And then he told himself he was crazy. She was just a kid, and if he ever saw her again, she probably wouldn't even remember him. But she had, and they felt like old friends. It seemed like a gift of destiny that they had met again. And in spite of what he'd told her, he hadn't been at all sure that he'd have the courage to call her father, and had been leaning against it. Meeting her at the barbecue had solved the problem for him.

“What made you fall in love with flying?” she asked him as they began to walk more slowly. It was a beautiful warm night, and the sand felt like satin under their feet.

“I don't know… I always loved airplanes, even when I was a little kid. Maybe I wanted to run away… or get so high above the world no one could touch me.”

“What were you running away from?” she asked softly.