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Adele drove down for graduation, but George’s father didn’t accompany her.

In the front row of the auditorium, she stirred the hot, dusty Sweetwater air with the church fan she’d wisely stashed in her pocketbook.

From the stage, George could practically see her mother thinking, My daughter the aviatrix.

George held her breath while Jacqueline Cochran, elegant as always, pinned wings on the collar of her crisp white blouse. Cochran moved down the line and did the same for Vivian. George wished Vivian had someone in the audience celebrating her too.

“I suppose it was too far for your people to travel,” said Adele as she shook Vivian’s hand.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Vivian. She didn’t sound bothered, but George wished her mother hadn’t said anything. Vivian’s family disapproved of her flying, and, from the sound of it, pretty much everything else she did.

Adele took them both for chicken-fried steak at the Blue Bonnet Hotel to celebrate. What with the long drive back to Enid, George had expected her mother to stay another night at the Blue Bonnet, but her mother said, “I just can’t leave your father for that long.”

“Is it his heart again?” asked George, her own doubling its pace.

Before she left home, her father’s color had returned.

But she recalled his labored breathing from the day she left.

He’d written her that he couldn’t come to her graduation because he had to iron out a new lease deal.

The war effort required oil, and he was pumping as much as he could.

But now she understood it wasn’t just patriotism that had kept him away.

“I should go with you, Mother,” she said. “I’ll request leave.”

Adele dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “You’ll do no such thing. He’ll be fine. You do what you came here to do.”

“But I—”

“This is important, Georgeanne. You keep at it, no matter what. Hear?”

When she and Vivian got back to the base, they found their fellow graduates clustered around the assignment board.

Women called out their postings: “Delaware!” “California!” “Liberty Field!” George squeezed Vivian’s hand.

“Camp Davis!” shouted Elliot.

They threaded their way through the knot of women.

George scanned the list and then flung her arms around Vivian.

With Elliot and Dubarry and twenty-odd other women whom George recognized as the best fliers in their class, she and Vivian were heading for coastal North Carolina, where they’d tow targets for antiaircraft artillery training.

“Days off at the beach!” cheered George. She’d get to see the ocean for the first time.

“What’s a day off?” joked Vivian.

“Hey, girls!” Dubarry beamed at them. “Don and I are getting married after mess tonight. Will you come?”

It took George a moment to connect “Don” with Captain Patterson, but Vivian got it right away. “Of course we will! Best wishes, Dubarry! Or should we call you Patterson now?”

“Not for another three hours, officially. But if you want to start practicing, that’s fine with me.”

“I guess you’ll be flying back here as often as they’ll let you,” said George.

“Well, I would, but they’re transferring him to California in two weeks. The brass likes to keep married couples far apart.”

After the ceremony, the pilots hooted and cheered as the newlyweds sped off to the Blue Bonnet on Patterson’s motorcycle. “Lucky Susan,” said Vivian.

“No kidding,” said Elliot. “But hey, we’re all about to be done with Cochran’s convent.”

George remembered how sexy she’d found the atmosphere at the Enid airfield. Maybe it was the swaggering confidence of the pilots. Maybe it was that they all felt godlike, daring to travel so far above the ground. Maybe she’d find some of that at Camp Davis.

“Well, we’ll certainly find men,” said Elliot.

“And real planes to fly,” said Vivian. “No more training flights!”

They stayed up all night, talking about the men and planes that awaited them. The Camp Davis contingent was particularly excited. The base was so big, it had four movie theaters and two Officers’ Clubs. Even a roller rink!

And they’d arrive in style: General Arnold himself was sending a plane to deliver them right into the arms of those handsome pilots just waiting to escort them to movies and take them dancing at the Officers’ Club.