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Vivian packed her best clothes for her trips to Enid.

She had adopted Jacqueline Cochran’s way of carrying herself.

With her height and her jodhpurs and silk blouses and scarves, she looked, she knew, quite elegant.

No hint of Hahira showed on her surface.

George would never see her dingy garage apartment, her sofa with its sprung cushions, her cigarette-tanned curtains.

She’d only see that Vivian was thriving, that she was keeping the faith, continuing what they’d started.

She’d see that Vivian’s decision had been for the best.

On this particular trip, she flew to Enid in a borrowed Beechcraft Bonanza. She wanted to see how the Beechcraft handled long distances. How it performed in climates other than the dry, high plains of Montana where she’d spent the last half year.

The first night of her visit, once they’d all finished their first cocktails and were each well into their second, she told them about the business she wanted to start in Billings.

“The only books I want to keep are my own. Mostly teaching, but some transport—the Bonanza carries six, including me. Some small cargo runs here and there. Scenic tours over Yellowstone.”

The second night, once they had finished two cocktails and were each well into their third, she asked George for the loan.

“I’ve saved more than half,” she said. This had required months of smoking two cigarettes for lunch and accepting dinner invitations from a broader range of men than she would have liked.

“I know you have expenses of your own,” she said, gesturing at the pristine living room with its matching walnut tables and its spotless mohair cushions.

She vividly recalled the Port Arthur trip and the speed with which two young children could destroy upholstery and carpeting.

Secretly, she marveled that George managed to keep this one room, let alone the rest of the house, so orderly and clean.

Probably she had a housekeeper. Probably George spent her Ector oil money on her own life and couldn’t spare a dime of it for Vivian’s dreams. Probably George would say no, that she’d have to figure out another way—maybe even accept that there wasn’t a way.

Why should George, who, Vivian knew, wished she could spend her days flying, guarantee Vivian’s access to a plane?

But George was kind. And, compared to Vivian and most of the people Vivian knew, George was rich.

Why not take a chance and see what happened?

What happened was that George’s head snapped back as if Vivian had slapped her. In the silence that followed, Tom said, “We’ll have to discuss it.”

George stared at Tom as if she weren’t quite sure who he was.

“Of course,” said Vivian. “Of course you should discuss it. Tell me about the girls. They’re getting so tall. Ivy especially.”

She should have blanked immediately into alcohol-fueled slumber, but George and Tom’s fierce whispering carried through the air vents.

“It’s my money,” hissed George. “What is there to discuss?”

“It’s your money, and you can do what you want with it,” Tom hissed back. “I can support my own family! I’m not trying to live off my wife!”

“All of my friends have housekeepers—”

“Hire a housekeeper! Who’s stopping you? It’s your money.”

“We agreed to save it.”

“Save it. Spend it. I just said, do what you want.”

“But you wouldn’t say it in front of her. In front of her, you have to look like the big man.”

“What I didn’t want to say in front of her is that she’s not stable! She flits around the country, she flits from man to man—”

“How dare—”

“Not to mention the drinking.”

“You’re no slouch at that yourself,” said George.

The next morning, George wrote her a check.

Vivian proposed a repayment schedule and a token amount of interest, George agreed to it, and Tom exhaled in a derisive snort and left for the airport.

The next evening, he called. He wouldn’t be home that night, George reported.

He was stuck in Phoenix due to thunderstorms. Vivian didn’t say a word when the weatherman on the evening news reported clear skies across the Southwest.