Читать книгу Peggy Wayne, Sky Girl - Betty Baxter Anderson - Страница 8

5
CLASSES AGAIN

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“I reckon you girls are staying at the Allison?” Tex drawled when they left the busy lunch room. “If you don’t mind a little crowdin’, I’ll be glad to run you over.”

“Oh, we mustn’t take up any more of your free time!” Peggy exclaimed. “We do so appreciate your expert guidance around the airport and Skylines’ headquarters.”

The rangy pilot grinned. “Oh, I have lots of free time. One more flight, day after tomorrow, and I’ve got my maximum of eighty-five hours this month. I was just goin’ to suggest that I run you girls over to the Allison to freshen up a bit. Then, if your parents don’t mind a small hotel, they could stay at the Dumont. That’s where most of us bachelor aviators stay at the Chicago end of the run. I could pick you all up about six or six-thirty, and we could go to my favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner.”

“This must be a top example of that Southern hospitality I’ve heard about,” Peggy said, laughing.

“My motives are purely personal and selfish,” the Texan retorted. A wide grin parted his long, pleasant mouth. “I always make it a point to get in good with the hostesses. That way, I get the best steaks for dinner, and chocolate milk shakes in between meals, when I want ’em.”

After a luscious dinner at Hoe Sai Gai, the pilot suggested a theater party, but the girls and Mr. and Mrs. Wayne begged off. Peggy’s parents were returning to Des Moines by plane in the morning, and the girls had been instructed to report at Skylines, Inc., by ten.

Tex took the girls to their new home at the Allison, a hotel for women which gave the airlines a reduced rate for its employees. Then Peggy said good-bye to her parents, for their plane would be leaving a couple of hours before the girls would arrive at the airport.

The girls discovered they were to share their suite of small living room, bath, and one double and one single bedroom, with Inez. She had appropriated the single room, and was preening before the full-length mirror in the living room, when Peggy and Jane arrived.

“What a lovely evening gown!” Jane exclaimed.

“Oh, it’s just a simple little dinner frock,” Inez replied. “I have several friends here, so I knew I’d be going out at night a lot. I just had to have some new clothes. I’m sick of all those old rags I’ve been wearing.”

The telephone rang. Inez swooped to answer it. “Yes, thank you. Tell him I’ll be down in five minutes ...”

“What a gal!” Jane laughed. “Here we are, home and exhausted and ready for bed, and you’re just going out for the evening.”

Inez went on to the little single room. She returned, wearing a corsage of three enormous gardenias. They were especially lovely on the sleek black gown. Long gloves and a richly-embroidered mandarin coat completed her costume. She waved airily at the two girls, who felt suddenly shabby and plain in their traveling suits and called out, “See you in the morning. Don’t wait up for me!”

“No wonder Inez went shopping,” Peggy remarked, as she started to unpack her traveling case. “She certainly couldn’t have had all that in her forty pounds of luggage.”

“Those mandarin coats cost a small fortune,” Jane observed. “Perhaps Inez had a wealthy and indulgent uncle.”

“I’ve never heard her mention any relatives,” Peggy said. “And I couldn’t help noticing that no kin came to the plane to see her off.”

“Maybe they were like mine. Perhaps, they live too far from Des Moines to have made the trip.”

“She always talks as if Des Moines is her home town,” Peggy objected. “Ah, well, it’s a minor mystery, and I’m much too sleepy to work on it right now.”

Half an hour later both girls were sound asleep. Neither awoke when Inez let herself in quietly at three o’clock the next morning.

Peggy and Jane decided to have breakfast in the exciting atmosphere of the airport lunch room. Just as they were ready to leave, Jane said, “Perhaps we’d better wake Inez. She might sleep right through the first class.”

Peggy agreed. She knocked on the door. “Inez?”

There was no answer so she rapped again.

“Yes?” came the sleepy answer.

“Jane and I are going out to the airport to have breakfast. You’d better rally around. The first class begins in an hour and a half.”

“Thanks. I’ll get there, don’t worry.”

The girls loved the busy, bustling atmosphere of the airport. When Jane recognized a famous pair of movie stars, with a noisy retinue of press agents, reporters, secretaries and maids, she was so excited she could scarcely eat her breakfast.

“We’ll be seeing them every day, darling. You’ll just have to get used to it,” Peggy laughed. “Come, fortify yourself with food. You’re thin!”

“That reminds me. Isn’t that your second slice of toast?” Jane asked suspiciously.

“Oh, all right!” Peggy dropped it to her plate. “I forgot that I went over my calorie limit on dinner last night. But wasn’t it good?”

Jane nodded. “I can see you still need my eagle eye. Shall we go up to the classroom? It won’t hurt to be early, and there’s a good view of the whole field from that big window.”

Peggy agreed, and a few minutes later they were climbing the iron stairs in Hangar Five.

A trim-looking woman in the official ivory suit sat back of the table at the head of the room. She looked up from a notebook and smiled. “You’re early, girls. I’m Mary Ann Huston. I’m to have charge of the candidates’ class.”

Peggy and Jane gave their names. Both noted the “Chief Hostess” outlined in gold thread above the familiar globe and wing pin over the pocket of her suit.

“It seems odd to be coming to classes again,” Peggy remarked. “Only two weeks ago I thought I was through with notebooks and desks and blackboards forever.”

The older girl chuckled. “I can promise you that these classes will be different.” She turned back to her notebook, and the girls wandered over to the window to watch the bustle below. A small tractor was chugging as it towed one of the big transport planes across the apron of cement. Down the row of hangars were mail trucks, express trucks, and the dark green cars from the commissary, all servicing planes preparatory to flight.

There were several smaller planes, too, which Peggy realized were privately owned. As she watched, a new resolve was forming in her mind.

“Someday,” she vowed to herself, “I am going to learn to pilot a plane! Soon!”