A Flying Affair (6 page)

Mittie gave Bobby a tour of the barns and the paddock when they'd finished dessert. As they reached the last of the pens, Bobby leaned on the rail and gazed across the meadow.

“I didn't expect to find Kentucky so beautiful nor to remind me so much of England.”

“That's what my aunt Evangeline said when she first came. She hailed from the Cotswolds and came over after her husband died on a Royal Navy ship.”

“It does evoke a certain feeling of home, but different, too. More vast, like the sky.”

“I believe you were being rather modest about your flying experience.”

He seemed lost in thought, but then he turned to her. “One never knows how much to reveal. I do have my international license and instructor's permit.”

Her heart did a crazy skip. “Did my dad know this when he invited you to dinner?”

“I hadn't told him, if that's what you mean. My father might have at some point.”

She chuckled.

“You find it humorous?”

“Not that you're a pilot. It's funny because I thought Daddy invited you to dinner to console me because Iris married before me.”

“And that was a concern to you? To find a husband?”

She shuddered. “Do I look like I'm shattered by the fact?”

His smile was wide, his lips full when he answered no. He had slightly irregular teeth on the bottom, and somehow that made her glad. Bobby wasn't perfect, after all—close, but not completely, which made her wonder if there were other parts about him that weren't perfect, too.

“So what's your real story? Why did you come to Kentucky? And don't feed me a line about your love of your daddy's horses.”

“Actually, I do love the horses, but I didn't grow up among them like you did. We were weekend warriors, going to the cottage in Newmarket. When my father needed someone to make sure the mares had a safe passage, he asked me.”

“I thought grooms usually did that sort of thing.”

“This was an important sale, and my father had other obligations.”

“If you only went to Newmarket on the weekends, where did you live the rest of the week?”

“Boarding schools mostly. I took my A-levels at Harrow and went to Pembroke after that.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “And studied what?”

“Veterinary science at first, since my father suggested it. We'd had a run of horses going lame from this, that, and the other. I switched to anthropology when I discovered the sight of entrails made me woozy. Then I decided to race cars and went to Brooklands in Surrey, which is where I discovered aviation and myself. And there you have it: the abridged version of the life of Bobby York.”

“And now world traveler. Until you get a new itch.”

“No, aviation is it. So, tell me about this barnstorming. Do you fly?”

“Not yet. I'm just observing. And someday I'd love to take lessons and get a license.”

“Bowman doesn't have an aviation academy, do they?”

“Not that I know of. Is that what the advertisement was for?”

“An instructor, but it didn't give many details.”

“It sounds like you're planning to stick around for more than a month or two.”

“We'll see what happens tomorrow. May I call you and let you know?”

“I'd be furious if you didn't. You have our number.”

“Thank you—for the grand tour…and the conversation.” Bobby's hand lay nearly weightless on her arm, his touch gentle, his blue eyes softened in the fading light of day.

A spidery warning zipped up her spine. Bobby might be just the person to help her with her license—a nice turn of events if her parents meant him as a consolation prize. But the air of mystery that lurked behind those startling blue eyes told her to be careful. Very careful.

Mittie parked her roadster between a Model T and a sagging pickup truck and followed a stream of people to the demonstration field where a man in a dusty suit collected the admission fee in a tin bucket. Her neck prickled with heat and the excitement that buzzed in the air. She wove through the crowd of young boys with cowlicks and farmers in overalls and women in housedresses clutching toddlers by the hand or holding babies to their breasts. All of them kept looking up like it might be the Second Coming when, in fact, Ames and
Trixie
and the two other performing planes sat in full view straight ahead. The Flying Patriots, the team was called. Ames with his red Oriole with white stripes, a brilliant blue Canuck with stars that glittered in the bright sun, and a white Curtiss Jenny with an American flag painted on the tail.

Mittie stopped short of a row of barrels that served as a boundary to keep people from getting too close, but when Ames looked her way, she waved. He flashed a smile and went back to strapping a leather helmet on a boy with pants that stopped four inches short of his ankles. He adjusted the youth's goggles and jumped on the wing, then gave the boy a hand up. The engine was idling, but when Ames revved it up, the propellers sputtered to life, spinning like the blades on a window fan.

A gentleman with a butcher's apron tied around his middle shooed the crowd back as the berry red Oriole moved in an arc and then bumped along the field in the opposite direction and slowly rose over the distant trees. The crowd cheered, Mittie along with them. It wasn't a stunt but an airplane ride, which Ames had told her was the bread and butter of the operation.

“Third time my boy went up this morning,” a man in a dusty gray suit beside her said. “I told him I'd spend my life savings if that's what it took to make him the next Charles Lindbergh.”

“So your son wants to fly?”

“Do geese fly south in the winter?” His eyes were on the sky. His boy's dream. He wrapped his arm around a reedy woman with a bun atop her head. “Mother, that boy of ours is going places.”

Mittie wished the couple and their son well before she moved along in the crowd. A ten- or twelve-year-old boy with carrot-​c
olored
hair carried a cardboard sign that said Airplane Rides: Five Dollars.

Mittie did a quick calculation. Three planes. Three or four rides per plane per hour. Forty-five to sixty dollars an hour. Of course there were fuel costs and giving a dollar or two to the helpers in the crowd.

Ames had explained the routine to Mittie when she'd seen him after her most recent Lindbergh Committee meeting, and he'd given her directions to the air show. He'd said they liked to arrive at their destination a day or two early for advance publicity—buzzing low over the streets of downtown, dropping flyers with the time and location of the demonstration. They encouraged people to bring picnic lunches and arranged for a local business to bring soda pop to sell. The town of Crawley, Indiana, had not let them down.

An airplane ride or two later, Ames cut the engine on
Trixie
and announced that the show would begin in fifteen minutes. He took the bottle of root beer offered by a pigtailed girl in her early teens and told her she was an angel. Then he came to the barrel where Mittie stood and offered her the first swig and asked if she was having a good time.

“Wonderful. The only thing that could make it better is if I were flying with you.”

Ames signed an autograph for a freckle-faced boy in short britches and took a sandwich the boy's mother handed him.

“Regular price five dollars, but for you”—he wiggled his eyebrows at Mittie—“I'll make an exception and only charge ten.” He inhaled half the sandwich as a bead of sweat tracked a line from his temple to his jaw.

Mittie swiped it away with the back of her finger. “Spoken like a true businessman.”

One of the pilots hollered for Ames.

“Be right there, Lester.” He took the last bite of the sandwich and said, “You're in for a thrill you've never experienced before.”

He turned and, with a long stride, joined his team.

Mittie found a spot on the grass and sat down, eager for the show to begin. Ames was right—once the performance started, her heart did stalls and rollovers and spirals right along with the Patriots. Once, she counted four revolutions before Ames pulled
Trixie
out of the spin and nosed her upward as the crowd erupted in a cheer and hollered, “More! More!”

The three planes headed away from the crowd, and when they returned, it was only the Oriole and the Canuck, flying so close together it looked as if their wings could kiss. Ames circled away from his partner plane as a man dressed head to toe in a light-colored tuxedo that looked remarkably like the one Ames had worn to Iris' wedding emerged from the forward seat of the Canuck. He grasped the strut separating the wings of the plane and, with the agility of a gymnast, swung himself up to the top wing. He took a bow, then inched along the wing toward the outermost tip. The crowd held its breath as the stuntman waved, then raised his hands in a victory stance.

Yes, it was the same tuxedo. Before Mittie had time to ponder, though, Ames in his cheery red Oriole appeared alongside the wing walker, the two pilots lining up their wing positions. Then for a moment, the man in the tuxedo seemed to float on air as his feet went from one plane to the other.

“Did you see that?” A woman sitting next to Mittie fanned herself. “I don't know about you, but I think those guys up there are plain nuts. If God meant for people to walk on air—”

A gasp went up from the crowd. The man in white teetered, his body whipping like a cornstalk in the wind. His feet slipped as if on ice until all Mittie could see was a pair of legs dangling over the Oriole's wing. She jumped to her feet and shielded her eyes, her heart in her throat. The swath of legs moved frantically through the air, the upper body obscured from view.

“He's falling! He's not going to make it! Catch him!” Shouts reverberated in the air. Then as the crowd flooded the field below the plane, arms outstretched, the wing tilted and Mittie detected the stuntman's hands on a bar or handle of some sort, hanging on like tiny leeches. In the next instant, legs heaved onto the wing, the man in the light suit erect, one hand on his heart, the other waving an American flag.

A woman swooned and dropped to the ground as men, women, and children streamed past, cheering with shouts of “God bless America” and “Best dadburn sight I've witnessed in all my born days.”

Mittie's own chest felt as if it would explode, the heat of the day and the terror of what might have turned into a disaster meshed together in a volcanic swirl.

As she explained her reaction to Ames after the last airplane ride had been given and the sun glowed crimson and peach and violet on the horizon, he draped his arm around her and said, “That's the general idea—give people what they came for.”

“But slipping off the edge of the wing was surely not intentional.”

Ames just smiled and raised one brow. “Buster likes to ham it up—not a timid bone in his body. You should see what he does with the ladder we sometimes drop from the underbelly of the plane.”

“Seriously?” A chill raced over Mittie's bare arms. She'd seen jockeys who took terrible chances, and if they were skilled, it paid off. Her eyes met Ames'. “I want to learn to do that. Can you teach me? Or get Buster to show me?”

“Would love to, doll, but we're headed up to French Lick this evening.”

“Going to take the healing waters at the mineral springs?”

“No, meeting someone interested in my air intake invention.”

“Well then, how about next week?”

Ames shook his head. “We'll be in Wichita by then.”

 “Ah, Amelia Earhart's state. If she were joining you, I'd hop on the next train.”

“Don't think she's from Wichita, but you'd be welcome if you showed up.”

“What kind of death-defying acts are you going to do there?”

“Stunts, my sweet, not acts. And it depends on what the others have lined up. We aim for variety. You serious about coming?”

“Next time, maybe, if I had a little advance notice.” It was tempting. The whole day had been exhilarating, but Bobby York had danced in the back of her mind as well. Weaver had hired him to give lessons at Bowman Field, and Mittie had asked if she could be his first student. She wanted to surprise Ames with her skill when he returned.

“Like you gave me for the wedding.” His voice teased the air, and when she offered to take him to town to his hotel or wherever he was staying, he shrugged.

“My night to sleep under the stars and watch the planes. Could use your company.”

“And with that line, I'm leaving. Don't be a stranger, okay?”

A chime sounded when Mittie pushed open the door to the Nightingale's Song Hat Shoppe. Her cousin, Nell, was busy with a customer and said she'd be with her in a tick, her British accent reminiscent of Bobby York.

“No hurry. I'll make myself at home.” Mittie tossed the togs she planned to wear to the horse show in West Virginia on a nearby chair and ambled about.

Nell had made improvements to the little shop on Bardstown Road. A settee covered in a divine cabbage rose print was angled in the corner.
Vogue
and
Everylady's
magazines fanned out across a coffee table that had once belonged to Nell's grandmother in England—not the grandmother they shared, but Lady Mira, who had bequeathed Nell and her sister some of her things when she died. The shop could pass as a British cottage, which was probably why it was one of the most popular salons in Louisville. Nell's talent for putting people at ease was almost as remarkable as her millinery skills. The latest hat designs were scattered throughout the shop, and on the far wall a glass jeweler's case displayed fashion baubles everyone was raving for—tasseled brooches, over-the-elbow gloves, beaded bags, long ropey pearls.

The door chimed as the customer left, leaving Mittie and Nell with the shop to themselves.

“So business is still good, I see.”

“Lovely, as a matter of fact. Once the newspaper ran the story about the Lindbergh visit, I've had a flurry of clients.”

“See and be seen—the mantra of every fashionable woman in America.” Mittie pointed to a mother-of-pearl cigarette case in the glass display. “Mother would love that. She's been mopey lately with Iris gone and not having to wait on Daddy so much. Can you wrap it?”

“Absolutely. Nice choice.” She asked about Iris.

“All we've had is a postcard from Niagara Falls.”

“I know you miss her.”

“More than you can imagine. I'm thrilled for her, but it's not the life for me.”

“You said you needed a couple of hats for next month.”

“The horse show in West Virginia. I'm driving Grandmother over. Daddy wants to go in the worst way, but Mother had a conniption when he mentioned it.”

“Actually, your grandmother came by and picked out the most adorable hat to go with a heather suit she's wearing. Let's see what you have.”

Mittie held up a boxy chocolate-colored dress with a short fawn jacket piped around the cuffs and collar with the same chocolate. “There's a scarf, too, which I forgot to bring. Coral and turquoise, and I have shoes like the ones Clara Bow wore in
Dancing Mothers.
Did you see that?”

“No, there's not much time since Quentin has taken that little church.”

“And you've been busy making babies. You doing okay?”

“Better than at first. Still dragging around by evening, but Mama says that will soon pass and I'll be a mass of energy.” She eyed Mittie's dress and pulled a cloche from a stand. “How about this in the jacket color, and I'll add a tiny MG Farms insignia in the coral and turquoise? Your grandmother was pleased with the one I did for her.”

“Perfect.” Mittie tossed the dress aside and held up the other outfit—a navy trouser suit.

Nell's eyes widened and she inhaled with a sharp intake of air.

“Go ahead and say it. You think I've flipped. Mother thinks so, but I wear jodhpurs for riding and flying, so why not elsewhere? I've heard Coco Chanel is mad about wearing trousers herself. Who knows? Maybe they'll catch on and everyone will be dashing out to get them.”

Nell sighed and shook her head. “Oh, Mittie. Only you would be so bold.”

“Brazen is what Mother said.”

“So that's really why you're getting her a present?”

“You know she drives me mad.”

“And you do things to exasperate her.”

“How else would she know I love her?”

Nell put a hand on her hip. Truly, to be so mild-mannered, Nell had a way of getting to Mittie that neither Iris nor her mother could do.

Mittie pressed the linen trousers against her body and held up the jacket. “So what do you think? A navy bowler to match the jacket?”

Nell scrunched her lips. “No. If you're going to make a statement, then let's go with scarlet. It would add a patriotic touch.”

“That's me—the all-American troublemaker.”

“That's what makes people love you.”

“Ha! Ames loves me so much he went to Kansas. Goodness knows when he'll be back.”

“But you've still got that cute newcomer from London, Bobby something.”

“Grandmother must've talked about more than the horse show. York. His name is Bobby York, and while he's charming, I'm convinced it was a setup, a little ploy by Mother and Daddy to push me toward a proper suitor like you Brits are so fond of saying?”

“You're a fright, Mittie Humphreys. His name has a nice ring to it, though. Are you going to see him again?”

“As a matter of fact, I am, but not like you're thinking. It turns out he's a flying instructor with all the credentials, and I'm going to start taking lessons from him when he gets it all set up. Maybe as soon as next week.”