Wings Read online

  It was late when Bobby finally went home, and Chris teased her once he was gone, and asked her when they'd all be going to her wedding. Cassie only made a face and she made a gesture as though to hit him.

  “Mind your own business,” she growled, and her father laughed at them both.

  “I don't think the boy's wrong, Cassie. Two years of coming by almost every night must mean something. I'm surprised he hasn't asked you yet.” But Cassie was relieved he hadn't. She didn't know what she'd say to him. She knew what she was supposed to say to him, but it didn't fit into her larger plans for herself, which now included college. Maybe after that, if he stuck around that long. But waiting four more years seemed a lot to ask of him. At least she didn't have to worry about it for the moment.

  She and Nick did plenty of flying for the next three Saturday afternoons, despite some fairly dicey weather. And two days before Christmas, they went up in the Bellanca and within minutes had ice on their wings. Cassie thought her fingers would freeze in her gloves as she held the stick, and then suddenly she heard the engine start to go, and felt it stall as they went into a dive, and everything happened incredibly quickly.

  Nick had the controls, but it was obvious that he was struggling with them, and she held them firm along with him. They recovered from the dive, which was no small feat, but then the propeller died and she knew instantly what that meant. They were going to have to do a forced landing. The wind was shrieking in their ears, and there was no way for him to say anything to her, but she knew instinctively what he was going to do. All she could do was back him up, but suddenly she realized they were dropping too quickly. She turned and signaled him, and for an instant he started to disagree with her, but then he nodded, deciding to trust her judgment. He pulled up as best he could, but the ground came at them too quickly. For a second, she was certain they were going to crash, but at the last minute, he brushed the top of the trees, and somehow broke their fall. They landed hard, but were unhurt, and all they damaged was one wheel. They had been extraordinarily lucky and they both knew it, as they sat shaking, realizing full well how close they had come to dying.

  Cassie was still shaking when they stepped from the plane, but it was as much from the cold as from the emotions, and Nick looked down at her, and pulled her hard into his arms, with a wave of relief. For several minutes he had been certain that no matter what he tried, he was going to kill her.

  “I'm so sorry, Cass. We never should have gone up in this. There's a lesson for you. Never learn to fly with an old fool who thinks he knows better than the weather. And thanks for signaling me when we were going down.” Her uncanny sense about altitude and speed had saved them. “I won't do that to you again, I swear.” He was still shaking too as he held her. It was hard to ignore what she meant to him, as he looked down at her and felt his heart beat. All he had wanted was to save her life, not his own. He would readily have given up his life for her.

  And then she looked up at him and grinned, still folded in his embrace. “It was fun,” she giggled and he wanted to strangle her as he held her.

  “You're a lunatic. Remind me never to fly with you again!” But she was a lunatic who meant everything to him, as he slowly released her.

  “Maybe I should give you a lesson or two.” she teased. But instead she helped him tie the Bellanca to a tree, and put rocks under the wheels, and she gave him a ride back to her father's airport. No one there seemed to question their arriving together, and he told her to go home and get warm. He was afraid she'd get sick from the bitter chill. He was on his way inside to have a stiff drink of Pat's stash of Irish whiskey. Knowing that he had almost killed her that afternoon had still left him shaken.

  “What have you been up to this afternoon?” her father asked when she got home. He had just come home with their Christmas tree, and her nephews and nieces were going to come and help decorate it and stay for dinner.

  “Not much,” she said, trying to look casual, but she had torn her gloves towing the plane, and there was oil on her hands.

  “You been out to the airport?”

  “Just for a few minutes.” She suddenly wondered if he was on to her, but he only nodded, and stood the Christmas tree up in the comer with her brother's help. He seemed in good spirits, and not inclined to question Cassie further.

  She took a hot bath, and thought about their close call. It had been frightening, but the odd thing was that she didn't think she'd mind dying in a plane. It was where she wanted to be, and it seemed a better place to die than any other. But nonetheless, she was very glad they hadn't.

  And so was Nick. He was still deeply upset over what had almost happened. And at ten o'clock that night, he was dead drunk, as he sat in his living room, wondering how Pat would have ever survived it if his oldest friend had killed his daughter. It made him suddenly think twice about flying with her again, and yet he knew he couldn't stop. He just had to do it, not only for her sake. It was almost as though he needed to be with her now, needed her wit and humor, her wisdom, her big eyes, and the incredible way she always looked the first time he saw her. He loved the way she flew, the way she knew so much instinctively, and worked so hard to learn what she didn't. The trouble was, he had realized that afternoon, he loved too much about her.

  The Christmas tree at the O'Malleys' was beautiful. The children had decorated it as best they could, and their aunts and uncles and grandparents had helped. They had strung popcorn and cranberry beads, and hung all their old handmade decorations. Oona made a few new ones each year, and this year the star of the show was a big handmade silk angel she hung near the top of the Christmas tree, and Cassie was staring up at it admiringly when Bobby arrived with a load of homemade gingersnaps and cider.

  Her mother made a big fuss over him, and her sisters left shortly afterward to put their children to bed. Fat and Chris went outside to get more firewood, and Cassie found herself suddenly alone with Bobby in the kitchen.

  “It was nice of you to bring us the gingersnaps and the cider,” she said with a smile.

  “Your mom said you were crazy about gingersnaps when you were a little girl,” he said shyly, his blond hair shining and his eyes almost like a child's. And yet, in an odd way, he was so tall and so serious that there was something manly about him. He was just eighteen, but you could begin to guess what he might look like at twenty-five or thirty. His father was still a handsome man at forty-five, and his mother was very pretty. Bobby was a fine boy, and exactly the kind of person her parents wanted her to marry. He had a solid future, a decent family, good morals, good looks, he was even Catholic.

  Cassie smiled, thinking of the gingersnaps again. “I ate so many once, I was sick for two days and couldn't go to school. I thought I was going to die… but I didn't.” But she almost had that afternoon… She had almost been killed in a plane with Nick, and now she and Bobby were standing there talking about cookies. Life was so odd sometimes, so absurd and so insignificant, and then suddenly so thrilling.

  “I… uh…” He looked at her awkwardly, not sure what to say to her, and wondering if this was a good idea. He had talked it over with his dad first, and Tom Strong had thought it was. But this was a lot harder than Bobby thought, especially when he looked at Cassie. She looked so beautiful, standing there, in a pair of dark slacks, and a big pale blue sweater, her bright red hair framing her face like one of her mother's white silk angels. “Cass… I'm not sure how to say this to you, but… I… uh…” He moved closer to her, and readied out and took her hand in his, and they could both hear her father and brother stirring in the living room, but they carefully left the two young lovers alone in the kitchen. “I… uh… I love you, Cass,” he said, suddenly sounding stronger and older than he was. “I love you a lot… and I'd like to marry you when we graduate in June.” There, he had said it. He looked remarkably proud of himself, as Cassie stared at him, her face suddenly paler than it had ever been, and her blue eyes wide in consternation. Her worst fears had come true. And now she had to
face them.

  “I… er… thank you,” she said awkwardly, wishing she had crashed that afternoon. It would have been simpler.

  “Well?” He looked at her so hopefully, wanting her to give him the expected answer. “What do you think?” He was so proud of himself he could have shouted. But his excitement was not contagious. All Cassie felt was dismay and tenor.

  “I think you're wonderful”— he looked instantly ecstatic at what she'd just said to him—” and I think you're really nice to ask me. I… uh… I just don't know what I'm going to do in June.” June was not the issue, marriage was, and she knew that. “I… Bobby, I want to go to college.” She said it as she exhaled, terrified that someone else would hear her.

  “You do? Why?” He looked startled. None of her sisters had, and her mother certainly hadn't before her, or even her father. His question was reasonable, and she wasn't even sure she had an answer. “Because I can't fly professionally” hardly seemed like a good answer. And marriage right out of school had never seemed like a particularly appealing option.

  “I just think I should. I was talking to Mrs. Wilcox about it a few weeks ago, and she really thinks I should. I could teach after that, if I wanted to,” And I wouldn't have to get married right away, and have babies.

  “Is that what you want?” He seemed surprised; he had never counted on her wanting to go to college, and it altered his plans for her a little bit, but she could be married and go to college too. He knew people who had done that. “You want to be a teacher?”

  “I'm not sure. I just don't want to get married right out of school, have kids, and never do anything with my life. I want more than that.” She was trying to explain it to him, but it was so much easier to explain it to Nick. He was so much older and wiser than Bobby.

  “You could help me with the business. There's lots you could do at the store. And my father says he wants to retire in a few years.” And then suddenly he had an idea; it struck him as brilliant. “You could study accounting, and then you could do the books. What do you think, Cass?”

  She thought he was a nice boy. But she didn't want to do his books. “I want to do engineering,” she said, and he looked even more confused. She was certainly full of surprises, but she always had been. At least she hadn't told him she wanted to be Amelia Earhart. She hadn't said a word about flying, only about school, and now about engineering. But that was a little crazy too. He wasn't sure what to tell his father.

  “What'll you do with an engineering degree, Cass?” Understandably, he sounded puzzled.

  “I don't know yet.”

  “Sounds like you have some thinking to do.” He sat down at the kitchen table, and pulled her into the chair next to his. He was holding her hand, and trying to excite her about their future. “We could get married, and you could still go to school.”

  “Until I get pregnant. And how long would that be?” He blushed at her openness, and he clearly didn't want to discuss it with her any further. “I'd probably never finish the first year. And then I'd wind up like Colleen, always talking about going back to school, and too busy having babies.”

  “We don't have to have as many as they do. My parents only had two.” He still sounded hopeful.

  “That's two more than I want for a long time. Bobby, I just can't… not now… not yet. It wouldn't be fair to you. I'd always be thinking about what I'd missed, or what I wished I had done. I can't do that, to either of us.”

  “Does flying have anything to do with any of this?” he asked suspiciously, but she shook her head. There was no way she could tell him all that she had been doing. And that was a problem too. She couldn't imagine herself married to a man she couldn't confide in. Nick and she were just friends, but there was nothing she couldn't tell him.

  “I'm just not ready.” She was honest with him.

  “When will you be?” he asked her sadly. It was disappointing for him, and he knew his parents would be disappointed, too. His father had already offered to help him pick out and pay for the ring. But there would be no ring now.

  “I don't know. Not for a long time.”

  “If you'd already been to college, do you think you'd marry me?” he asked her bluntly and she was startled by the question.

  “Probably.” She wouldn't have any excuse not to. It wasn't that she needed an excuse, and she did like him. She just didn't want to marry anyone. Not yet, and not now, and probably not for a long time, but suddenly Bobby looked hopeful.

  “I'll wait then.”

  “But that's crazy.” She was embarrassed at having encouraged him. How could she possibly know how she'd feel when she finished college?

  “Look, I'm in love with you. It's not like I'm looking for a mail order bride to pick up in June. If I have to wait, I will. But I'd rather not wait the whole four years while you go to college. Maybe we could compromise in a year or two, and you could finish school once we were married. At least think about that, it doesn't have to be so terrible. And,” he blushed furiously, “we don't have to have a baby right away. There are things you can do about that,” he said, almost choking. She was so touched by what he'd said to her, and by the generosity of his feelings that she put her arms around him and kissed him.

  “Thank you… for being so fair…”

  “I love you,” he said honestly, still blushing from the things he had just said to her. It was the hardest thing he had ever done, proposing to her, and being rejected.

  “I love you too,” she whispered, overwhelmed by guilt and tenderness and a maelstrom of emotions.

  ‘That's all I need to know,” he said quietly. They sat and talked in the kitchen for a long time, about other things. And when he left, he kissed her on the porch, feeling they had come to an agreement. The decision was not now, as far as he was concerned, but definitely later. And all he had to do now was convince her that sooner was better than later. It seemed a small task to him in the heat of the moment.

  6

  The class of 1937 walked slowly down the aisle of the auditorium of Thomas Jefferson School, the boys and the girls hand in hand, two by two, the girls carrying bouquets of daisies. The girls looked so lovely and pure, the boys so young and hopeful. Watching them, Pat was reminded of the boys who had flown in the war for him. They had been the same age, and so many of them had died, and to him they had all looked like children.

  Together, the entire class sang the school song for the last time, and the girls all cried, as did their mothers. Even their fathers had tears in their eyes as the diplomas were handed out, and then suddenly, the ceremony was over and there was pandemonium. Three hundred kids had graduated and would go on to their lives, most of them to get married, and have babies. Only forty-one of a class of three hundred and fourteen were going on to college. Of the forty-one, all but one were going to the state university at Macomb, and only three of these were women. And of course one of them was Cassie, who was the only student going as far as Peoria, to attend Bradley. It would be a long haul every day, well over an hour each way in her father's old truck, but she was convinced it was worth it, just for the chance to take the aeronautics courses they offered, and some engineering.

  Cassie had had to fight tooth and nail for it. Her father thought it was a waste of time, and she'd be a lot better off married to Bobby Strong. He was furious with her for turning him down, and he only backed off because Oona had insisted to him quietly that she was sure they would get married eventually, if they didn't push her. Cassie just needed time. It was Oona who had prevailed on him, and talked Pat into letting her go on to college. It certainly couldn't do any harm, and she had agreed to compromise and major in English, not engineering. If she graduated, she'd get a teaching degree, but she had still applied for a minor in aeronautics. No woman had ever applied for the course, and she had been told that she'd have to wait to see if the professor felt she was eligible for the class. But she was going to talk to him as soon as she got to school in September.

  There was a reception at the hig
h school after graduation, and of course Cassie had already gone to her senior prom with Bobby. He had seemed to accept his fate for the past six months, but the night they graduated, he talked to her about it again, just in case she'd changed her mind, and had second thoughts about college.

  “No, I haven't,” she said with a gentle smile. He was so faithful to her, and so earnest, that sometimes he made her feel very guilty. But she had made a commitment to other things, and she didn't want to lose sight of them now, no matter how sweet he was, or how kind, or how guilty he made her feel, or how much her father liked him.

  He left early that night, his grandmother was in town, and he had to go home and visit with her. Pat growled at Cassie after Bobby left. She was still wearing the white dress she had worn under her black gown, and she looked very pretty.

  “You'll be a damn fool, Cassie O'Malley, if you let that boy slip through your fingers.”

  “He won't, Dad.” It was the only thing she could think of to say to him. It sounded conceited, but it was better than saying she didn't care, which would really have enraged him. And the truth was, she did care. There were times when she thought she really loved him, especially when he kissed her.

  “Don't be so sure,” her father railed at her. “No man can be expected to wait forever. But maybe once you have your teaching degree, you won't care. Maybe you have it in mind to become an old maid schoolteacher. Now there's something to wish for.” He was still annoyed with her about this business of going to college. Instead of being proud of her, as the other two girls' fathers were, he thought it was foolish. But Nick was pleased for her that she was going. He had realized long since how bright she was, and how capable, and it didn't seem fair, even to him, to just push her into getting married and having babies. He was relieved too that she hadn't decided to marry Bobby Strong fresh out of school. That would have changed everything, and he couldn't have borne it. He knew that eventually things would have to change, but at least for now their sacred Saturdays were safe, and they would still have their precious hours of flying.