Page 50 of Plane Passion

When she moved to get out of bed, he didn’t try to stop her.

They went about their morning ablutions without speaking, with all the distance of mere colleagues. He went through the motions of dressing and shaving automatically, and when she walked out the door for breakfast, it was without a backward glance.

18

Millie was in trouble. She’d let Ernie get under her skin, damn it all. She was better than this. Stronger. Wasn’t she?

Men. They were a danger to ambition. As soon as a woman fell for a man, she could kiss her dreams of anything larger goodbye. She would be dismissed, doomed to domesticity. While she respected women who dedicated their lives to hearth and home, she knew she couldn’t be one of them. She felt a different calling and had neither the patience nor the inclination to be a homemaker.

Even setting aside her own inclinations, she had a responsibility—to Katherine, Gertie, and every woman that came after. If she failed at the mail, she failed all of them. In a perfect world, a woman’s personal life would be as irrelevant to her work life as a man’s. But society had yet to progress so far. She was an exemplar, held to a higher standard, whether she liked it or not.

So no more Ernie. It was over.

Unfortunately for her, she was still going to spend her day staring at him.

They tromped out to the airstrip together through the mostly melted snow. It had rained during the night, leaving behind icy, muddy puddles everywhere. Even now, the sun was obscured by a thick layer of clouds.

“I was afraid of this,” Ernie said, looking up at the sky. “We’re going to have poor visibility today. Stay as close to me as you dare. It’s easy to get disoriented in weather like this. If you lose me, remember to watch your pitch and compass, and pray. But don’t lose me. I’ll get you through.”

“I won’t lose you. I promise.”

He looked up hopefully as she realized her words sounded like a bigger promise than she intended.

She shook her head. “That is to say I won’t lose you today. In the sky.”

His lips pressed into a thin line. “Good.”

Turning away, he stomped off toward his plane.

Giving her airplane a thorough check, she tried not to think about her night with Ernie. She needed all her concentration to get through the day’s flight in one piece.

Think of Katherine. She made this flight, setting records while she was at it. Do this for her. And when you’re confident enough, steal back the Chicago record for the ladies.

Ernie as her competitor was much easier to think about than Ernie as her lover—much safer ground. Yes, she would learn the ropes and then take his place. She had a plan, and she was sticking to it.

Speaking of her adversary, he was climbing into his cockpit. It was time to go.

It was a muddy, bumpy take-off, but as the wheels left the ground, relief washed through her. They had left Bellefonte and their secret tryst behind. They were up in the air where they belonged. Everything was as it should be.

As promised, she stayed right behind Ernie as they flew up to just below the cloud cover. If they flew above the clouds, they would lose sight of the landmarks they were supposed to follow. The danger of flying low was they were still in the mountains. If she wasn’t careful, she could fly right into one. The tips of the Alleghenies pierced the low clouds like a jagged jaw that had closed around them.

Ernie knew the way through these monstrous teeth. She had to trust in him and not lose sight.

He kept them as high as he could manage while still maintaining sight of the ground. That meant wending their way around peaks, spending precious fuel. He kept as straight a path as was practicable until they were confronted with three tall peaks directly in their path.

Going around would take too long and eat up too much fuel. The only viable choice was to go up and over, but that meant entering the cloud cover and losing visibility. And even then, there was the danger that they would misjudge and slam into the side of one of the peaks that they couldn’t see.

Trust Ernie. He’s done this many times before. He knows what he’s doing.

She followed him up into the clouds, and everything disappeared. She could hardly see the nose of her own plane let alone Ernie or the mountains. The comforting roar of Ernie’s plane was just ahead, though, and she listened with every fiber of her being, knowing her survival depended on it.

With no visual clues, she felt suspended in space. Was she moving forward? Was time passing? But Ernie’s plane was just ahead of her, so everything was all right. How much longer until they could drop back down to where things were visible?

Then the thing she dreaded began to happen. Ernie’s plane got quieter. Somehow, she must have misjudged and lost his lead. Try as she might to home in and find him again, the sound kept getting more and more distant. No. She couldn’t lose Ernie in here. It would be the death of her.

Trying to stay calm and trust her own instincts as a pilot, she checked her pitch and her direction. She was still pointing toward Cleveland. The plane continued to push forward in the disorienting sameness of the cloud. Should she fly lower again to see if she could find Ernie? Was it safe yet?

She dipped down ever so carefully, reminding herself to breathe. Anything that wasn’t a cloud would be a welcome sight after the long minutes of nothing. Or so she thought.