Leaning into the boxcar door, I pushed it open. A wedge had kept it from shutting all the way—a safety against the bar-latch on the outside coming down and locking us in. Dazzlingly bright light flooded the car, and someone demanded, “You trying to blind us?”

“Sorry,” I said, sliding the door far enough shut that the sunlight wasn’t shining right on him.

He got up long enough to relieve himself against a wall, belch, scratch, and swear ’cause a bottle he picked up turned out empty. “Blind me again, kid,” he said, “and I’ll throw you under the wheels.”

I turned away. That wasn’t the worst I’d heard in the days since I left Muddy Springs and my job at the little Texas airport where I’d worked.

Days! It seemed more like weeks or months I’d been gone, like my last afternoon there happened in a different life even.

I closed my eyes to the endless country outside—butte and prairie land now, desolate looking—and saw again that scene I’d gone over and over. Lord, what a fool I’d been, playing at my job like I was some kid.

Dancing at it. Dancing!

“Come on, Miss McDonough! Hurry back!” I’d said aloud, swinging out my broom like it was my girl I was spinning across a dance floor. Of all the weekends for Beatty to be off to Dallas with her aunt and uncle. I had news to tell her.

I’d been accepted to radio school, and tuition was even in a range I could afford if I watched every penny till next July when I could start. A thick letter from the school, along with a thinner one from my ma that I hadn’t read yet, burned a hole in my back pocket.

Beatty and I, we had it planned. Come May—just another seven months—we’d be high school graduates, class of 1936. Then Beatty, who loved flying like she was born to it, would start flying full-time, for pay. She’d do contract work, like her teacher, Annie Boudreau, did. And I’d get serious about turning radios into more than a hobby.

I gave the broom another fancy turn. There wasn’t anybody to see. The afternoon plane was long gone, and I had the Muddy Springs Airport terminal to myself. I just needed to finish sweeping, and then I could go up to my room and read all the radio-school pamphlets from start to finish.

“You always dance with brooms?” a man called out, and I whirled around, feeling like a right fool. I recognized one of the airport directors, a Mr. Kliber, that I knew by sight but no more.

“I’m ’feared you missed everybody,” I told him. I explained how Grif—Beatty’s uncle, who managed the airport—was away till Monday, and that his assistant had knocked off for the day.