I'll be eighteen in a few months. How old did you think I was?” She was flattered that he looked so surprised.
“I don't know… maybe twenty-three … twenty-five. They shouldn't let kids your age out in dresses like that. You're going to confuse some old man like me.” He didn't look old to her, especially when he looked shy and awkward and boyish, which he often did. Every few minutes, he would look ill at ease for an instant, and look away, and then he'd recover himself and look her in the eye again. She liked his shyness.
It was an interesting counterpoint to his flying expertise, and suggested humility.
“How old are you, Joe?”
“Twenty-nine. Nearly thirty. I've been flying since I was sixteen. I was wondering if you'd like to fly with me sometime. But I guess your parents might not like it.”
“My mother wouldn't. But my father would think it was fun. He talks about Lindbergh all the time.”
“Maybe I could teach you to fly someday.” As he said it, his eyes were filled with dreams. He had never taught a girl to fly before, although he knew plenty of female pilots, he and Amelia Earhart had been old friends before she disappeared three years before, and he had flown with Charles's friend Edna Gardner Whyte several times, Joe thought her nearly as impressive as Charles.
She had won her first daredevil solo race seven years before, and was training military pilots. She was very fond of Joe.
“Do you ever come to Boston?” Kate asked hopefully, looking suddenly young again, as he smiled. There was something exciting and feminine and youthful about her, and at the same time, he found her remarkably poised.
“Once in a while. I have friends on the Cape. I stayed with them last year. But I'll be in California for the next few months. I could give you a call when I get back. Maybe your father would like to come with us too.”
“He'd love that,” she said warmly. To Kate, it sounded like a fine idea. All she could think of now was how they would sell it to her mother. But who knew if he'd really call her.
Probably not.
“Do you go to school?” he asked with a curious expression, and she nodded. He had stopped his formal education at twenty, and the rest of his education he had gotten in planes, once Lindbergh took him under his wing.
“I'm going to college in the fall,” Kate said quietly.
“Do you know where?”"
"“I'm waiting to hear. I want to go to Radcliffe, my father went to Harvard. I'd go there too, if I could. But Radcliffe is close enough.
