Mattie and Leo walked through the wet sand, their footprints almost immediately swept away by the tide. The lights from the hotel grew to mere pinpricks, and finally Leo spoke.
“Earl Crenshaw is trying to lure you into a snare.”
“I know.” Mattie rolled her shoulders and threw her head back to stare into the endless night sky.
“Then why are you agreeing to it?” Leo’s voice sounded as deep as the sea swirling against their feet.
“Because if I don’t, then he’s already won along with everyone else who thinks like him. All of what I’ve gained will be swept away.”
“Even if you lose your Rockol endorsement, there’ll be others. It’s just one event, Mattie, and not even a real one. It’s just something Crenshaw is trying to make a lot of noise over.”
“But it’s not just one event, Leo.” Mattie spun on her heels to face him, churning up the wet sand as she did so. “Not for me. When a male pilot fails, he’s seen as daring and courageous for even trying. When a woman does...well, it just proves the overwhelming sentiment that women aren’t meant to fly. Not even that weshouldn’tfly but that we’re notmeantto. Why can’t you understand that?”
Leo shoved his hand into his hair so roughly his chin jerked back just a little. “You, Carrie, and Vera have done a brilliant job managing the press. Yes, this might be a setback, but—”
“A setback!” Mattie jammed her hands onto her hips. “People will be arriving at that field tomorrow wanting me to fail, hoping for me to fail, wishing for me to fail. And you want me to just hand it to them, to prove them right, to not even show!”
“Crenshaw has it arranged so you can’t win!” Leo’s normally calm voice broke into an urgent rush, his hurried tone matching the rapid beat of Mattie’s own heart.
“It isalwaysarranged so that I can’t win.” Mattie thumped her fist on her sternum, as if she could pound the truth into both of them. “It is the playing field thatI’maccustomed to. And I’ll manage to come out on top. I always do.”
“Mattie.” Her name sounded like a hoarse plea on his lips. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with. Earl Crenshaw isn’t like the opposition you normally face.”
“You mean like the people who are supposed to have my best interests in mind?” Mattie couldn’t stop the flow of words spewing from her lips. Years of being toldnowelled up inside her and bubbled over like the scalding, sulfuric steam she’d flown over weeks ago in Wyoming. “People like my brothers...or you?”
Leo closed his eyes, and the wind gently ruffled his hair. If it weren’t for his strained facial muscles, he’d look like a man preparing to give his lover a kiss in the silvery moonlight.
When his eyelids flickered open, his gaze appeared even more haunted than before, his face almost gaunt in its intensity. “Mattie, I am trying my best to support you.”
“Then support me!” she snapped. “My female friends have no difficulty doing so.”
“Because they don’t know Crenshaw either.” Leo spoke carefully...too carefully. His tone reminded Mattie of every time a man tried to “patiently” explain to her a concept she already knew too well. Anger burned through her caution.
“Oh, they know Crenshaw. We all knowaCrenshaw.” Mattie gripped her hands into fists like a pugilist getting ready to pummel her opponent—only her competitor was hard to define and even harder to defeat. She wasn’t fighting just a person but thousands of years of expectations.
“Even if I trusted Crenshaw not to pull another underhanded trick, everything is stacked against you!” Leo started to step forward, as if to touch her, but he stopped. “You’ve never even looked at Fabin’s designs. Do you know how dangerous it is to just jump into an unknown aircraft and start speed racing?”
“How much practice time did you log in the SPAD before you took it instead of your Nieuport into battle?” Mattie was tired, so tired, of being judged by a different standard just because of her sex.
“That was completely different. That was war, Mattie. This isn’t.”
“Oh, it isn’t?” Mattie stepped forward this time, advancing on Leo. “You know, when I stood on that stage, I thought of Crenshaw’s manipulations in war terms. Skirmishes. Campaigns.”
“Mattie, he’s not even giving you a chance to inspect the aircraft. If you want to use military terms, you hopping into the cockpit is like leading a forlorn hope.”
“How many times did you get into a plane and not expect to survive?”
“I was fighting to protect something I cared about!”
“So am I!” Mattie clasped her right hand back over her heart. “I am not just flying for myself but all female aviators. If I fail to show, this will make national news—empirical proof of a female flyer’s innate fickleness. I’ll be a laughingstock with no reputation left to help save the flight school. Who would buy a RadioNavigator from a silly female braggart who can’t back up her outlandish boasts?”
“Is it worth your life, Mattie?” Leo asked. Mattie knew he meant the question earnestly, but it stung nonetheless. She had no idea how she could make him understand the importance of what she was doing.
“When you and Alfred left for the war, I didn’t want to lose you—either of you. But I not only let you both go—I wrote to you every week with words of encouragement. Can’t you do the same now? For me? Support me even if you are worried?”
“Mattie, I don’t want to help you fly to your death. Something isn’t right about this competition. We have no way of even checking if the plane is safe.”
The fight drained out of Mattie with a whoosh, like a hot-air balloon snagged on a power line. Leo would never understand. Never see her side. She rubbed her forehead wearily. “Yes, air races are inherently dangerous. I know that, but even if Crenshaw engineered this race to my disadvantage, Fabin Flyer won’t give me a shoddy aircraft. Me dying in one of their creations is not the press they want.”
