I tried to act unruffled as he sat beside me. “Are you following me?”
He grinned. “I prefer to think of it as seeing two ladies safely home.”
“How did you get to this stop so quickly?”
He hadn’t left the church rec room more than five minutes before I did. I’d explained that the rules prohibited the junior hostesses from leaving with a man, and that he couldn’t just wait for me on the street corner, because the chaperones kept a careful eye out for that sort of behavior. He’d hung around until the servicemen were asked to leave, and then managed to stay inside longer by charming Mrs. Brunswick into allowing him to help fold and stack chairs. Then he’d gotten my phone number and said good-bye, and I thought I’d seen the last of him for the evening.
“I grabbed a cab and asked to be dropped off a couple of streetcar stops after the church.”
“Who does a thing like that?” Marge said.
“A guy who really wants to see a girl again.” He grinned. “Would you two like to go somewhere for a drink?”
“Sure!” Marge said.
I shot her a look. “It’s late, and we really should be getting home.”
“Well, then, I’ll see you two ladies to your door.”
And he did. He included Marge in the conversation. She flirted with him—I guess it’s just in her nature; I don’t think she can help herself—but he didn’t flirt back. He told us that he was from Sacramento, that he’d lived with his sister and an aunt, and that he’d been studying engineering at Berkeley before he’d signed up.
Marge had the grace to duck into the house once we arrived, leaving me alone with Joe on the porch. “I only have a few more days in town, but I’d like to see you as much as I can before I leave.”
All I could do was nod.
“Are you serious about wanting to fly?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I’m going to take you up.”
“What?”
“I’m going to figure out a way to take you for a flight. Are you game?”
“I—” I looked at him. He was proposing the biggest adventure of my life. “Yes. Absolutely!”
“You have to promise not to tell anyone.”
“Not even Marge?”
“Only if you’re one hundred percent sure she won’t tell a soul until I’ve left town. Once I’m overseas, it won’t matter. They need pilots so badly they won’t care if I set the commissary on fire.” He grinned. “Which, now that I think of it, might improve the food.”
I laughed. “I’ll keep it on the QT.”
“All right, then. I’ll be in touch.”
He seemed to be serious! As thrilled as I was, I needed to get one thing straight. “I can keep my mouth shut, Joe, but I can’t tell an outright lie.”
“Very ethical of you.”
“When I say ‘can’t,’ I mean it literally. I’m a terrible liar.”
“There’ll be no need.” He put his hands on either side of my face, and my heart felt as if it were going to burst through my dress. His thumbs caressed my cheeks. “You’re really something, Addie.”
I couldn’t breathe. I thought he was going to kiss me, and I would have let him, even though we’d just met, and only loose girls kissed on a first date back then—and this wasn’t even a date.
But he just looked at me, looked straight into my eyes, in a way no one had ever looked at me before, as if he were really seeing me, seeing inside me, seeing my thoughts and feelings, seeing my very soul.
