“I wanted to see you.”
She let those words seep inside, leaned into them.
“I was hoping we could…maybe go for a stroll?”
She turned to look at Lexie, who was shaking her head. “Take my packages.”
“You’ve got a show tonight,” Lexie said as she reluctantly held out her hands. “Don’t miss it.”
Rosie frowned at her. Turned back to Guthrie. “Where are we going?”
“Ever been to Coney Island?”
She’d been to Paris and Newport and the Berkshires, but never across the bay to Jersey and the shores of Coney Island.
They walked along Surf Avenue under the glittering lights of the shows, then onto the newly laid boards of the Reigelman Boardwalk, the sea air and cotton candy sweetness adding a tang to the summer night. Picnickers and bathers still kicked up the waves, and at the fair end, the Parachute Tower loomed above them, a giant steel tower with a pancake across the sky.
Screams from the steeplechase drifted in the air, mingling with the music from the band shell.
“This is the perfect hot dog,” Guthrie said, handing over her doctored Nathan’s dog. The wind found her skin and sent a whisper of chill over it as she maneuvered the hot dog into her mouth. Ketchup and mustard squeezed from the sides.
Guthrie reached out and wiped the edge of her mouth. “A little extra there.”
She licked her lips. “Delicious.”
“I still can’t believe you’d never had a hot dog. Or attended a baseball game.”
“My brother tried to talk me into going once. Back right before the war. But…it didn’t work out.”
“Maybe next year, I can get him tickets.”
She made a face. Oh, how did she do that, bring up Jack, when all she wanted to do was run from the topic of her lost brother? “No. Jack…Jack never came back from the war.”
It was easier said that way than to explain that Jack ran away from home after hearing about his mother’s adultery and the fact that Jack’s uncle was suddenly his father. Or that he hadn’t been heard from since.
This explanation made Jack sound like a war hero.
“I’m so sorry, Rosie.” Guthrie drew in a breath. “I lost my oldest brother in the war. I didn’t know him real well, but his passing surely made a loss in our family. My mother would sit for long hours in her rocking chair, holding our family Bible, just staring out the window, as if he might appear from between the cornrows. I couldn’t bear it and started playing as much ball as I could, just to stay away. Pretty soon, it became my entire life, was all I had. Playing kept me numb, made me feel untouchable.”
Rosie looked at the long shadows over the boardwalk. “My mother crawled in bed with me a couple of months ago and sobbed herself to sleep.” She hadn’t shared that with anyone, hadn’t really been able to acknowledge it herself. “We’ve been grieving for a long time.”
The rush of the waves, the caw of gulls, and children’s voices filled the silence. “My parents fought a lot when I was young. My father was…” She drew in a breath. “He could be so cruel. Sometimes I could hear them in the parlor, hear things break, hear my mother screaming, and I’d climb into the wardrobe in my room and shut the door.”
“Oh, Red.”
“My brother, he knew where my hiding space was and sometimes, when he was home, he’d sneak down the hallway and hide in the wardrobe with me. We’d play rock, paper, scissors, and have thumb wars, and he’d tell me stories about the boys at his academy. He told me it would be all right.” She glanced at Guthrie. “It wasn’t. And then he left. It hasn’t been okay since.”
Her appetite had vanished, so she threw away the hot dog, wiped her mouth. “I just can’t take any more grief in my life. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I want to live.” She looked at him. “Is that a terrible thing?”
“I think that’s a normal thing. The question is—how will you live?” He was looking at her with those green eyes, and they seemed to hold a power she couldn’t bear. She looked away.
“I think I have to get back to the city. I’m on stage at ten o’clock.”
He blew out a breath. “Red, I need to ask you something.” He put a hand on her arm.
She stopped, and watching the tension on his face, her chest tightened.
Then, suddenly, he dropped to one knee, right there in the middle of the boardwalk. “Guthrie—”
He took her hand. “Just listen to me, Red. I know we haven’t known each other long. Certainly not long enough for me ask this, but the truth is, I’m in love with you. I think I was the minute I saw you on that verandah. And maybe we don’t yet love each other the way an engaged couple should, but I know that I can’t stop thinking about you, and the thought of being traded and moving to Chicago—”
“Traded? Moving? What are you talking about?”
“Red! I’m in the middle of something here!”
She closed her mouth.
“So, it looks like I might be getting traded, maybe even to the Sox. Like I said, I can’t bear the thought of leaving you behind, so I was wondering…”
She held her breath as he reached into his coat pocket. He produced a little velvet box. “Red, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”
Oh. My. He opened the box. A simple silver band with a chip of a diamond lay in the center of it. She stared at it.
“I know it’s not very big, but who knows. Maybe I bat in a few more homers next year, land myself an end-of-the-year bonus—”
“Shh, Guthrie.” She put her hand over his. “It’s beautiful.” She took the box, ran her finger over the ring. Oh, how she’d like to try it on. Keep it on. She looked down at him, those kind green eyes searching hers, and she saw in them a future filled with a home and children, and—
“I told you, I’m not the marrying kind, Guthrie. I’m a chorus girl, and I’m headed for show business, and—”
But he was shaking his head. He got up, took her face in his hands. “Red, you’re an amazing, beautiful woman, and I would love to spend the rest of my life with you. You’re exactly the marrying kind.”
What girl did he see? Because she saw a good man giving out his heart to a woman who didn’t know what to do with it. Who perhaps didn’t have the capacity to love him. Hadn’t she just been shopping for Cesar’s birthday party? And three months ago, she’d been ready to give her heart away to Dashielle Parks.
“I’m a good-time girl,” she said, shaking her head. “I think it would just end in heartbreak, Guthrie.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you hear nothing of my story? My life is a tragedy. My father was murdered, my brother is lost, my aunt recently died, my cousin— who knows where she is? Everyone I love leaves me. And I finally figured out why. Because I’m not worth enough to keep them around. Jack and Lilly could have stayed for me, and my father—if he truly cared for me, would he have destroyed so many lives? Not to mention Dash— he just wanted a girl who liked to have fun.”
“Dash?” A darkness edged Guthrie’s eyes.
“Dashielle Parks. He’s no one, now. But see, people only want me if I can give them something. Like Cesar. But you—you don’t need anything from me. And that’s a recipe for disaster.”
“Oh, Red,” he said softly, and tipped up her chin. “I do need you. Didn’t I tell you that you’re my lucky charm? You’re beautiful and intriguing, and I’m thirsty for your smile. You’re not just enough, you’re everything.” Then he bent and kissed her. It was so sweet she wanted to weep with the gentleness in his touch. He wove his hand along her face, tilted it up, and ran his thumb down her cheek. She couldn’t help it—the way he touched her made her curl her arms up around his shoulders and mold herself to him.
Right now, right here, she was thirsty for him too.
He tasted tangy, like ketchup, and sweet like soda pop, and when he made a little sound of contentment, it made tears edge her eyes.
Yes, she could love this man.
> Until, of course, he left her for someone or something that could give him more. She buried her head in his chest, blinking away tears. Then she untangled herself from his arms, turned her back on him, and walked away, to the edge of the boardwalk, staring at the waves, one by one pounding the shore in a tremendous frothy roar.
He was silent behind her. Finally, “That’s a no, isn’t it?”
She drew in a breath. Nodded.
She heard him slip the box back into his jacket. Then he came to stand beside her. “I leave in a week, on the 6 a.m. train, if you change your mind.”
She wiped her eyes. Bit her lip. Hated her life, her choices, the Rosie she’d become. But that’s what she wanted, wasn’t it? “I won’t change my mind.”
Chapter 10
Truman had changed. It wasn’t just that he had stopped leaving camp in the evenings after a show to brood in some dark hole where he’d drown away his regrets. No, he seemed more…alive. As if her ability to hang off a wing and put her face into the wind had awakened something inside him.
And, he smiled.
He smiled when he plucked her out of the cockpit to bow before the cheering crowd. He smiled when he poked his head up out of an engine and found her there, holding a feeler gauge. He smiled when he landed after each hop, looking to her for their next customer.
And he smiled now as she came up to him, his shirt sleeves rolled up, sitting on a crate, blue paint dripping from a brush. “What do you think?”
“Lola,” she read. “The Flying Angel.”
“If you don’t like it, we can change it. It’s just that you told me the first time you went flying, it was in a plane called Lola. I thought…” He shrugged. “I thought you’d like it.”
She had told him about Paris and the plane, and conveniently left out Rennie, whom she thought about so rarely, what with learning new tricks and handholds, ferrying the equipment from one town to the next, repairing planes, promoting shows—in fact, she couldn’t remember the last time Rennie had edged into her mind. So, “Yes, I like it.” She squatted down beside him, took the paintbrush. “But the L needs a bit of flair.” She added a curl and extended the bottom line of the L across the sign, under the word Angel. “It’s a pin curl.” She handed the brush back to him, and again he smiled.
Her stomach could do a barrel roll off that smile.
“We’re about ready to head out—I just wanted to fix the sign before the next show.”
“What’s Moseby going to think?” She’d been writing every week to the hospital in Detroit Lakes, where Eddie had rented a small house and started working as a mechanic. Moseby still recuperated, her leg and hip in traction, her ribs on the mend, her broken arm in a cast.
“I think Moseby will be relieved that we have a new angel. She isn’t unaware of the costs of this show.”
“The show must go on, right?”
“There’s my star performers!” Marvel strode up to them, his suit coat off, his sleeves rolled up. “I’m leaving for Eau Claire. I’ll see you there.” He handed Lilly a flyer. “Thought you’d like to see the new lineup.”
She read the bulletin. “An Air Pageant?”
Truman stood up next to her. “Air races, daredevil stunts, parachute drops, mock battles, and…an aviation ball?”
“The Eau Claire city leaders are partnering with us on this event. They already have our bulletin, and their Lions Club is selling advance tickets. We’ll have a sell-out crowd.”
“I guess that means steak and flowers for you, darlin’,” Truman said as he handed the flyer back to Marvel.
“Just teach me to fly.”
He regarded her for a moment.
“You promised, Truman.”
He made a face, but she saw acquiescence in it. “I guess you’re ready. Get your gear.”
She nearly sprinted to the pile where they’d stashed their gear while dismantling the tent. Grabbing her helmet and goggles, she stowed her bag into the cockpit then reached for her canvas jacket. Despite the early August heat, a cool wind shifted through the trees. And in the sky, the wind could be brutal, even if it was warm on the ground.
Truman came up behind her, his jacket open, his gloves tucked in his belt. He tugged on his helmet.
“Here’s how flying works. As the air flows over the top of the wing, the wind separates. Top layer has to travel faster, creating lower pressure above the wing. Planes are literally sucked into the sky by the low pressure created by the vacuum of air as it travels over the wing. The pressure causes the lift and pulls the plane up. Your job is to maintain enough airspeed to keep low pressure above the plane. Get in.”
She climbed into her cockpit while he boosted himself onto the wing, pointing out the controls inside. “This is your stick, but it only controls your flaps. It noses the plane up and down. You steer with the pedals at your feet. Give it a try.”
She moved the stick back and forth then tried the pedals.
“This is a tail dragger, so as you go down the runway and pick up speed, the tail comes off the ground. That’s when you pull the stick back and it’ll take you up. The key is to go full throttle on takeoff.”
He reached in and flicked up the magneto switch. “We have contact. I’ll prop it. Remember, stick goes forward to nose down, back to ascend. To slow down, you pull back, to speed up, nose down.”
“I’m flying now?”
“Why not?” He pulled down his goggles. “Just don’t take off without me.”
He snapped the propeller and the spark caught, jerked the engine to life. The plane began to bump across the ground with the power of the prop. Truman jumped inside, leaning over to talk in her ear.
“The crosswind could shimmy the plane, or even cause you to ground loop. As you’re taking off, steer into the wind!”
“I’m taking off?”
“Let’s go, New York!”
Wait a doggone minute— “I can’t—”
“Yes you can! You were born to fly. Take us into the air. I’m right behind you.”
She stared at the controls—the throttle, the stick, the pedals…not sure where to—
“Push the throttle forward, get us to the landing strip!”
She pushed the throttle away from her and steered with her feet toward the landing strip. “Now, center it up and push the throttle forward again, all the way. Remember not to pull back on the stick until the tail is up.”
“How—?” She held her breath and eased the throttle forward. The plane began to shimmy and pick up speed. She held onto the throttle and the stick as it thundered down the runway.
And then she felt it, the tail rising in the back, and realized that yes, she recognized the feeling. Had experienced exactly this rhythm every time Truman took off. She eased back on the stick and…
They began to rise.
“Steer into the wind!”
The plane began to drift to the right so she veered it left with the pedals as she continued to work the stick. They rose above the strip, clearing the outbuildings, then the trees. Higher, until the runway turned to a ribbon below them.
“Now, head south!”
South? Which way was south? But flying with Truman had also taught her navigation—enough to know where the sun was, and how to point the plane in the right direction. She felt him take control of the stick as they banked south. She leveled it off.
And just like that, she was flying. The stick rumbled in her hands, her feet shimmering on the pedals. But she had control of this plane and…
She did belong in the heavens.
She breathed in the power of it, that ethereal sense of freedom. Above, the sky had turned such a rich blue she could drink it in, and the sun on her face nourished her.
She’d worry about landing later.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another red and white plane, THE FLYING STARS painted on the tail. Beck waved to her.
She lifted her hand to wave back. One-handed flying. Next she’d be doing loops.
She kept Beck on her right wing and followed him as they left Spooner and hopped from lake to lake on their map, south to Eau Claire.
Her hand grew numb with the buzzing of the stick, but as her confidence grew, she dove, then climbed, then dove. She tried to turn once, pushing the pedals, but the plane seemed to slip in the air, as if it might be on a skidded surface. Truman barreled over the back of her seat and grabbed the stick, moving it with the turn. They banked, and the force settled her back into her seat.
He patted her on the shoulder as he sat down, and she caught her heart before it slid out of her chest.
She practiced banking until she had that too, and finally the Eau Claire airport appeared below. The landing strip was a wide river, and Beck settled his boat easily upon the tarmac, pulling up beside the small wooden hangar.
She could hear her own breathing in her ears. Certainly Truman didn’t expect—
She felt another tap then the controls leaped to life under her hands. She wanted to kiss him.
Or…something. The thought swept through her as she let go of the controls and Truman landed the plane. Kiss him. Or throw her arms around him, or…
No. She couldn’t have feelings for Truman. She knew better than to fall for a flyboy. She’d heard the rumors—women called them sky gypsies because they stole hearts then flew away.
No, she wasn’t giving away her heart to another pilot. After Rennie, she was smarter than that. They were too unpredictable, could too easily break her heart. Besides, Truman would always love flying more than he did any woman.
He taxied them over to the grass where Beck was already climbing out of his plane. Behind them, Marvel and Dan landed on the strip.
She climbed out before Truman could help her and stripped off her helmet.
He landed next to her on the grass. “You’re a natural, New York. You belong up there. You’re amazing—you can do anything you put your mind to. Wing walk, fly. What’s next?” His grin was white against his tanned, handsome face.
She managed to smile back. “A suicide loop?”
“Forget it. But you did great on that coordinated turn. Just have to watch the bubble. Next time, maybe you’ll land.”
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