“It will,” Vera said with the utmost confidence.
Just then the rest of the women arrived, their voices bright. When Mattie caught sight of their finery, she pressed her hand to her lips and emitted a happy sound. It was a feminine gesture, and Leo had noticed that Mattie had been making more and more of them since joining the Flying Flappers.
Just then, one of the men who helped maintain the planes and Vera’s vehicles appeared, hefting several crates. Mattie’s prototype.
Mattie, Carrie, and Sadie immediately jumped up and began assembling it. First, there was the circular antenna perched on its wooden gearbox. It was connected to a switch, which allowed the operator to choose between it and the radio’s original whip antenna. From there, a wire led into the compact receiver in its sturdy wooden chassis. Sitting behind it all, with thicker wires joining everything together, was a bank of lead-acid batteries. But the true masterpiece was Mattie’s circuit board with twelve light bulbs arranged in a circle, like numbers on a clock, that would indicate the general bearing.
“We’re ready to start!” Mattie announced, her voice sounding just like it did during takeoff.
Nervousness fluttered through Mattie. Although she loved flying for an audience, she’d never demonstrated one of her designs to anyone except Leo and her family before.
Huffing out a breath, she found herself searching for Leo. He stood off to the side, letting her female friends crowd around her.
Pride forhersuffused his features. Belief in her. Joy for her.
Drawing strength from Leo’s conviction, she lifted both hands and said in a booming ringmaster-like voice, “Are you ready to witness the latest advance in air-travel safety?”
Sadie whooped loudly. Vera lifted her flask while the rest of the women clapped.
“Do we have the map ready to confirm that my bearings are correct?”
Lily lifted it into the air. “Sadie has put me in charge.”
“Although she’d never admit it, my sister is actually a wizard when it comes to mathematics,” Sadie said.
Lily? A mathematical genius? Really?
Lily rolled her eyes. “I thought you weren’t going to tell them.”
“Well, you have the map, don’t you? They’re all a rather intelligent lot. They’re bound to figure it out,” Sadie said.
Lily sighed. “I wish you would have just done it yourself. You’re almost as quick as me.”
Sadie walked over to her sister and slung her arm around her. “Lily, this isn’t like what happened at the schoolhouse all those years ago when Rose Thomas and Willy Lewis made fun of you for being the teacher’s pet. The Flying Flappers are going to love your ability to do complex problems in your head.”
Mattie straightened. Could silly, fashion-obsessed, dramatic Lily Lenhart actually share a similar past with her? “How complex? Can you triangulate in your head?”
Lily shrugged almost helplessly, looking more girlish than movie-star glamorous at the moment. “Yes.”
Carrie stared at her. “Do you realize how invaluable you would be as a navigator, especially during long night flights?”
“You don’t think it a bit odd?” Lily chewed her lip.
A bolt of empathy crackled through Mattie. She’d always felt out of place in the classroom. If it hadn’t been for Alfred, she didn’t know if she would have had a single close friend. While Mattie had entrenched herself in her uniqueness, it appeared that Lily had done the opposite.
“I find it refreshing,” Vera said. “You are quite the Renaissance woman, aren’t you? Acting? Haircutting? Dancing? Barnstorming? Mathematical computation?”
“I believeRenaissance manis the only expression used,” Lily said, and her normal brightness had started to creep back into her voice.
Vera could do that, Mattie realized. She had a way of bolstering people, making them feel stronger, more powerful.
“From a sociological standpoint, women, who are most often charged with childcare and domestic tasks, have always been challenged to handle multiple duties at one time. It is nonsense to assume that our minds aren’t capable of the same degree of flexibility as a man’s,” Aida pointed out.
“Lily, I wish I had known about your mathematical ability,” Mattie said as a twinge of remorse pricked her for mentally dismissing her fellow Flying Flapper. “I definitely would have strong-armed you into helping me figure out the light board. It would have saved me a lot of paper.”
Lily’s already round baby-blue eyes grew even larger as she swept her gaze around the room. Like an actress being showered with roses and applause, she clasped her hands to her bosom. “You are all so wonderful.”
“As are you, Lily,” Sadie said.
