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She couldn’t believe that only moments ago she’d wanted them both to take off their clothes.

To do exactly what, she wasn’t certain. But she’d trusted, after the experience with the kissing, that they’d figure it out.

Now she wanted to get as far away from him as possible.

Yet here she was, stuck on a back road for another half hour while he drove her home.

“Aw, George. Don’t cry, now. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

If only she could make lightning come out of her eyes instead of tears.

She wasn’t sad. She was furious. “Just take me home.” She put her face in her hands and didn’t look up until they reached her house.

As soon as he braked, she bolted out of the car, not even bothering to slam the door shut behind her.

She raced up the steps and into the house with a roar.

“George!” Adele tossed aside the latest issue of Popular Mechanics and rushed toward her. “Oh, honey, what is it?” George flung herself into her mother’s arms and sobbed.

Adele stroked her hair back from her forehead, the way she had when George was little. George wished she were little again so she could curl up in her mother’s lap.

“What happened? Did he . . .”

George snorted through her tears. Mel was a coward. Too cowardly to go up in her plane. Too cowardly to introduce her to his mother. Too cowardly to do more than kiss her, even though she’d given him every indication that he could.

“No. Nothing like that.” She sniffled and pulled away.

“Then what?”

“He asked me when I planned to stop flying.”

“He what ?”

“He asked me when I thought I’d get it out of my system.”

Adele’s lips whitened. Her fierce eyes narrowed. “You told him never, I hope.”

“He said I had to stop before I got married.”

Adele took her by the shoulders and gave her a shake. “You listen close, now. You’re a teenage girl with an airplane. People believe we spoil you—and they aren’t wrong—not entirely anyway. But your instructor says you’re very good.”

George was appalled. Everyone—even her mother—thought she was spoiled. Worse, her parents had been checking up on her.

“Don’t look at me like that. I pay the bill, and I like to know what I’m getting for my money.

Stuart says you’re one of the best students he’s ever taught.

You have talent. Pretty much everyone gets some sort of talent, but almost no one gets the opportunity you have.

Don’t you dare waste it, Georgeanne Ector. No matter what anyone else says.”

In the hallway at school, she batted away Mel’s hand.

When he found the nerve to call her again, she told him she was busy.

“I’m flying all weekend. I want to get my commercial license too.

And a couple of endorsements.” He never called again.

She dated other boys occasionally. When they parked, she found she missed Mel’s restraint.

It was up to her to make sure things didn’t go too far, even when she was tempted to let them.

If things went too far, word would get around. It was bad enough that they talked about her being rich and spoiled. It was bad enough that they disapproved of her flying. She wasn’t going to have them talking about how she went fast in the back seat of a car too.

After graduation, she enrolled in the women’s college outside Oklahoma City.

She wasn’t especially excited about it, but she wanted to get out of Enid and couldn’t think of what else to do.

She had hoped Helen would go with her, but Helen and Frank had gotten engaged, and Helen said she didn’t see the point.

Not when she had a wedding and a trousseau to arrange.

Besides, Frank wasn’t going to college, and Helen didn’t believe a wife should have more education than her husband.

At the college, George felt more awkward than ever.

The other students were all so petite, their waists and feet so tiny.

George had always believed herself to be slender, but she felt like a burly giant among these girls.

She didn’t care for studying, which meant she didn’t fit in with the grinds.

And she hated the homemaking classes that made up the nonacademic portion of the curriculum.

The other girls already knew how to sew and cook.

George caught them looking at her with pity or derision when she couldn’t do the simplest things.

She lasted until Thanksgiving break before telling the dean she wouldn’t return.

Her father came to collect her. George ran down the dormitory stairs as soon as the Nash pulled up.

“Hello, Georgie!” He beamed, and her fears that he disapproved of her not sticking it out disappeared.

Reaching the car, she noticed the deep shadows beneath his eyes.

“Ah, just trouble sleeping now and then. Nothing to worry about, Georgie.” He insisted on taking her suitcase and putting it in the trunk himself, a simple action that left him winded.

“Not your cup of tea,” he said as they drove away.

“No, sir. Not by a long shot.”

“Well, you’ll find something that is. I’ve been thinking it’s time to show you more about the business. And you have your flying, of course.”

At home, when he shed his overcoat, she was shocked to see how gaunt he’d become.

“It’s this business in Europe,” whispered Adele. “It ... keeps him awake.” Hitler had invaded Poland the year before, then marched on, invading one country after another.

“I’m just fine, honey,” said her father when she expressed concern. “Don’t you worry about me. How’s the flying going? How’s the plane?”

“It’s great, Dad. You know I love the plane.

” She was racking up hours and qualifications for her commercial license and an aeronautics endorsement.

She’d learned how to do a lazy eight. She was practicing her tailslide.

When she wasn’t flying, she sat with her father in his study, listening to him explain the accounts.

In the evenings, she tried to soothe Helen.

Helen’s parents refused to pay for a wedding until she turned twenty and Frank found a decent job.

“They say nineteen is too young. And they refuse to say what they mean by decent.” Helen’s mother had even suggested that she and her so-distant-it-didn’t-really-count cousin, Mel, might hit it off.

“As if I’d waste a minute of my time with that numbskull. Oh. Sorry, George.”

Despite her full days, George felt herself stagnating in Enid.

Everyone in town knew who she was, or thought they did.

That too-tall girl with the airplane and the indulgent parents.

She dreamed of flying bigger planes to bigger places.

She dreamed of meeting people—ideally some of them would be young and male—who respected her for her talent.

Then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and Stu enlisted in the Civilian Pilot Training Program, leaving George without an instructor.

“I wish I could sign up too,” she told her parents.

“I don’t know, George,” said Adele. “If there’s one advantage to being a woman, this might be it.”

Months later, when the telegram boy knocked on the door of the Ector house, she assumed the message was for her father. They always were. But this time, the boy said, “Telegram for G. P. Ector.”

George gave him a nickel and tore open the message. She read it through once and thought, At last. She read it through again to make sure they understood she was female, that they actually wanted female pilots. They did. She was to reply by telegram to confirm her interest.

She showed the message to her mother, who blanched. “I suppose you’ll go.”

“If they’ll take me. The planes will be bigger than my J-2. Heavier. They’ll have instruments I haven’t seen before.”

Adele waved a hand as if none of that mattered. “They’ll take you, George. They’d be fools not to.” She blinked rapidly. George realized she was trying not to cry.

“I thought you’d be happy for me.”

“Oh, George. I’m proud that they asked you. But war does terrible things to people. You have no idea.”

This from the woman who’d always pushed her to be independent, to do what the boys did, to be bold and walk tall. The tears in her mother’s eyes were more proof that the world was coming apart at the seams. The only hopeful thing in it was the telegram in her hand.

“I’ll be just fine, Mother. Don’t you worry about me.”