On the other hand, there are dangers aplenty in Leo’s bed. There is the danger I felt when he took my hand an hour or two ago and led me up the narrow back staircase to his room; the danger I felt in my own disappointment when he stopped me at the button of his trousers. The fact that I want nothing more than to fall asleep with Leo is reason enough not to sleep with Leo.

He doesn’t try to hold me back, though. For such a young fellow, he’s got sense. He just sits on the edge of the bed, and when I’ve finished dressing he stands up to kiss me good night. He has this trick of smoothing my hair back with both hands, like I’m a cat.

“I forgot to ask,” he says. “Did you find Irene?”

“I did, as a matter of fact. We had a nice chat. And then we went to the airfield and watched a plane crash.”

Leo’s hands fall away from my hair. He steps back.

“What? When? Whose plane? Is she all right?”

“Oh, Irene’s just fine. It was the brother-in-law who got hurt. Kaiko? She flew him to the hospital on Oahu.”

“Uncle Kaiko?” he shouts.

The telephone rings again.

“I think you’d better get that,” I whisper.

Aviatrix by Eugenia Everett (excerpt)

March 1928: California

The human brain does strange things in extremis. As Irene lifted her skirt and ran across the grass to the cloud of dust that obscured Papillon, she thought about Sandy, of all things. Who was going to take care of the kitten? Sam’s wife? What if she didn’t like cats? Irene’s legs pumped, her heart thundered, and she wondered if she could take Sandy home herself, if her father would care, and where was Mrs. Sam Mallory anyway, and then she arrived at the settling cloud, the throng of men, and saw a wing tilted to the sky.