A lightness filled her, the same sense of freedom and anticipation as when her mother had cut her hair months ago, before they moved to Riverview; the same exhilaration she’d felt whenever she watched the film of Harriet Quimby’s flight, or turned the crank on Billy Carrera’s Bell and Howell camera. She slipped Glory’s letter back into the envelope, stuck it inside her book bag, and stood, brushing grass and twigs from her skirt, then hurried home to tell her mother about her new job.

Chapter 104

Chapter 104

New York City, November 1977

PIN! AREN’T YOU ready yet?”

Pin sighed and finished tying her shoe. “Where’s the fire?”

“You were the one who wanted to go. Come on, slowpoke.”

Pin stood, tugging at her trousers. They were a nice dark-blue gabardine, and worthy of nicer shoes than the Puma sneakers she wore. But other shoes hurt her feet these days.

“That’s what you’re wearing?”

She looked up to see Angela standing in the doorway of their bedroom. Pin shrugged. “Why?”

“It’s Thanksgiving.”

“It’s dinner with your niece’s daughter and her boyfriend.”

“I want us to look nice.”

“Nobody cares how a little old lady dresses.”

“Two little old ladies,” said Angela. “Only one of them very well dressed.”

It was true—Angela always looked elegant, a carryover from her career as a stewardess for Pan Am. Angela had started there when Juan Trippe ran the company, and now, years after retiring, she could still fit into her uniform. She’d gotten her pilot’s license and continued to give flying lessons in small aircraft, Cessna 150s. Pin had never seen her wearing trousers. Even for Francis’s funeral a decade earlier, and her mother’s a year ago, Pin had never worn anything else.

“Eh, I don’t want to compete with you,” Pin said, and ran a hand over her silvery curls. “Anyway, no one would recognize me if I was in a dress.”

“At least put on some jewelry. That beautiful necklace I gave you three years ago for Christmas—I’ve never seen you wear it, even once.”

Pin sighed. “I’m sorry. I just never—”

“Just wear it.” Angela stepped over to kiss Pin’s cheek.

Pin went to the bureau and began to rummage through the drawer where she kept odds and ends. Old photos from when she worked at the studio, old tax returns, a box of stray buttons and pennies. She didn’t own much jewelry, a few things Angela had given her over the years that Pin had dutifully exclaimed at, then put away and forgotten. Where was that damn necklace?