In the next scene, Irene stood near the lookout tower with the other spectators, the women in their short, fashionable dresses and the men in their pale suits. Sam was about to take off in his Curtis Jenny. She knew it was him because the name was painted on the side of the fuselage, Papillon. It meant butterfly in French, she knew. She thought that was a dumb name for an airplane. She hoped it would fly more like a hawk, an eagle, swift and strong.

A woman had come up to stand beside her. Irene snatched a glance and saw that she was petite and pretty in the way of dolls, huge eyes inside a face shaped exactly like a heart, mop of short blond curls held in place by a straw hat.

“You’re a friend of Sam’s?” the woman asked.

“You could say that.”

“I don’t mean to be rude. I saw you together earlier, that’s all.” The woman put out a tiny hand. “I’m Sophie Rofrano.”

“Oh, then you’re—”

“Yes. Run the place, together with my husband. Isn’t it a fine day? Of course, it’s mostly fine in California. That’s why we’re all here.”

Irene took the hand and was surprised at the firmness of the handshake. Most women of that size, they had a puny grasp to match. “Irene Foster. It certainly is fine.”

“I remember the first time I watched him fly. Sam, I mean. He found us right after we started the airfield. He’d flown with my husband in the service, you know.”

Irene didn’t know, but she nodded anyway. It made sense, after all.

“He’d just bought a Jenny off somebody else, somebody who’d cracked it up and quit flying, and Sam put that airplane all back together again and off he went, into the sky.” Mrs. Rofrano waved her hand at the landing strip, and the airplane toddling toward the end. “I’d never seen anybody fly a Jenny like that, not even my husband. I didn’t know you could. He knew exactly how to push her, exactly how much she could tolerate, exactly what she could do. Turns and loops and dives. He put her down again—it was an air show, just like this one—and he must have found twenty new students, right there. Are you one of them? Students, I mean.”

“Yes. No! I—well, we surf together, that’s all.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, after all, and it certainly sounded less awkward than the truth.

“Surf! On the water? The ocean?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, that’s grand. I didn’t even know Sam surfed. He doesn’t tell you much about himself, you know.”

“I know.”

“Ah.” Mrs. Rofrano folded her arms. “There he goes.”