Page 25 of Our Last Vineyard Summer

Aggie ran to the bathroom to spit, then waltzed back. “Where are we flying to?”

“Up and over the water, maybe a circle around the island.”

Aggie clasped her hands together in prayer. “Oh, Mommy! Maybe we can fly home to Washington, and I can see my friends?” she pleaded like she was asking to see a movie.

Virgie didn’t want to kill the mood, so she tried to appease her. “Well, not on your first day, but maybe you can work up to that.”

Betsy scampered in, her wild hair making clear she’d jumped out of bed. “I’m going to go up in an airplane. But how? I don’t know how to fly.”

Virgie found herself laughing, lifting her young daughter in an embrace. “Wiley is teaching us. Today is our first lesson.”

“Wiley?” The word rolled off Louisa’s tongue like sour lemon.

“Yes, he’s giving us a great price to try it out, so let’s be grateful.”

“You could get locked up for taking kids in an airplane, but okay. I’ll try it.” Louisa sifted through her clothes without looking up.

“Yes! I knew you girls would be excited.” Virgie gave her eldest daughter a hug that went unreturned. She wondered if Louisa would ever look at her like she did when she was young, like Virgie was the only person in the world that mattered. Or if Louisa would ever willingly spend time with her again, rather than begrudgingly doing so. “Wiley said to bring a sweatshirt. It might be cold up there.”

They drove the farm roads to the airfield, a grassy expanse adjacent to the powdery sands of South Beach. Wiley, waving as they pulled into the dirt lot, leaned over the cockpit of a black shiny plane with two white stripes on the wings. He hopped down the steps. “Hi, everyone. Welcome,” he said, pulling off his leather gloves. He put his hands on his hips, the sun turning his center part golden. “Hello, Virgie.”

She pressed the front pleats of her shorts flat. “Hi. We’re so excited, a little nervous too.” Heat flushed up her neck as she sensed Louisa’s eyes pinned to her. Virgie didn’t know what to do with her hands. Finally, she rested them on Betsy’s shoulders.

The Katama Airfield wasn’t so much an airport as a small shed to get out of the sun, and beside that, a row of a half dozen other small private planes.

Betsy raised her hand. “Wiley, isn’t this the plane that does circles over the ocean sometimes?”

“Yes, but I won’t do anything like that with you.” He fastened the top button on his gray air suit. “Our ride will be nice and smooth. We’ll see a bit of the island too.”

Aggie stopped biting her nails. “You can do rolls with me in the plane.”

“Your father may kill me.” He folded his arms over the pocket on his chest. “No, today we’re going to stick to the basics, and if you seem confident enough, I’ll let you steer.”

The girls followed him to the plane, and he showed them where they’d be sitting, pointing out the functionality of each circular dial. He held up a small bag of ginger chews, in case they felt airsick, and asked who had sunglasses. When Louisa was the only one to raise her hand, he said he had a pair of air goggles in the hangar they could borrow. “It’s so bright up there it’s easy to be blinded.” He dashed off to the small metal structure, then jogged back and handed Virgie the goggles.

Louisa and Betsy closed in on Virgie, and in a loud whisper, Betsy said: “What if we all die?”

Virgie didn’t hide her response, interrupting Wiley’s laughter and pulling her daughter’s skinny frame against her: “Well, the bright side is: Only one of us can die at a time. A plane can only crash once, right?”

“No one is going to die.” Wiley banged on the body of the plane. “This girl is as reliable as they come.” He asked who was going to go first, and all three daughters pointed to Virgie.

“How do you know the plane is a girl?” Betsy wrinkled her nose. “James told me boats are always named after girls, too, but how do you know?”

Glancing at Virgie with a grin, he turned his attention to Betsy, as though her question was the most important one in the world. It wassomething Charlie would do, and she thought then how a journalist and a politician weren’t all that different: both were always trying to get people to do what they wanted. “Well, women are a comfort to us, whether we’re pilots or sailors,” he said. “Women find a way to protect the people they love. If the plane is a girl, she’ll keep you safe, just like she does everyone else in her life.”

Pulling the air goggles over her head, Virgie chortled. “I’m not sure I buy that, Wiley. I always thought those names were about control. If a boat is a woman, you can tell it what to do, where to go, how slow or fast it can move. Same with airplanes.”

Wiley squinted at her. “Virgie Whiting, when will you see that the world is not against you? The world is yours for the taking. Wait until we’re racing like birds through the clouds.”

At that visual, Virgie’s pulse skittered. She was taking herself a thousand feet in the air where anything could happen, but she couldn’t back out. Her girls needed to see that a woman could take risks. A woman could have courage. Courage to stand up to her husband about something she believed in, or maybe just the courage to disobey. If the world said women shouldn’t be pilots, then she would prove to her girls that they could be. Right here, right now.

Her knees buckled under her weight as she climbed up to the cockpit.

Louisa crept up behind her, lingering on the ladder while Wiley fiddled with those mysterious dials. She leaned close to Virgie so no one else could hear. “Are you and Dad getting a divorce?”

The question brought Virgie careening back to earth, her daughter’s fierce eyes reminding her how easy it was to muck up a marriage.

“No, we’re not getting a divorce. Why on earth would you say that?”

---