Page 45 of Plane Passion

“No, thank you. I’ll let you boys dine in peace. I have some very important knitting to do.” She’d used this excuse to great effect when fending off unwanted attention in college. Of course, she’d never picked up knitting needles in her life.

Ernie raised an eyebrow, and she glared back at him, daring him to contradict her.

“Enjoy your knitting, Miss Aldrich,” said Thompson, oblivious.

“I’ll see you later, Miss Aldrich,” Ernie said, stifling a chuckle.

The formality of “Miss Aldrich” hurt a little from him, but of course he couldn’t call her Millie in front of Thompson. “See you later, Pritchard,” she said, wishing she could run far, far away and never see him again. Or perhaps run farther still to some desert island where they could canoodle all day long without anyone else being the wiser.

You don’t know what you want, Mildred.

What a mess. At least he was gone. For the time being. Now Millie had to figure out what to do with an entire day cooped up in a hotel with a man she was trying to avoid. Suddenly the spacious Brockerhoff Hotel seemed far too cozy and cramped.

She would love to go for a walk and clear her mind, but that was out of the question, at least until some substantial progress was made with clearing the snow. For the first time in her life, she wished she actually knitted. Not that knitting could absorb her for a whole day, but it was an excellent way to look busy.

Knowing Ernie would be occupied with Thompson for some time, she headed up to the room to read. By lunch time, she’d finished “Pride and Prejudice.” Wasn’t it much longer the last time she read it? She couldn’t believe she’d run out of book so quickly.

Lunch didn’t waste nearly as much time as she hoped. She lingered over her chicken salad sandwich, but there was only so much time a person could spend taking tiny bites and staring at their food. She spied Ernie out of the corner of her eye playing chess with Thompson on the other side of the room.

Filled with restless energy, she strode to the front of the hotel and looked at the progress of the digging. There was now a path out of the hotel to the main road, which had been dug out as well. She was out of things to do indoors, so she decided to go for a walk.

Upstairs, she changed into her pilot’s garb—a union suit, pants, a thick wool sweater, a fur-lined leather jacket, and her fur-lined aviator’s cap.

As she walked out the front doors of the hotel, she felt as if she was escaping prison. The fresh, crisp air smelled like freedom and possibility. The sun shone down, making the snow nearly blinding to look at.

She couldn’t go far. Only one block of the main street had been dug out, and it seemed like every young man in town was out with a shovel, chipping away to carve a path through the snow drifts.

Deciding to brave the untrampled snow out to the airstrip, Millie tromped her way through powder up to her knees. As expected, the airstrip was covered end to end. Two mechanics were busy brushing the snow off the frosted airplanes. Another three men with shovels arrived while she looked on and started the long process of digging out the runway.

“Don’t just stand there staring. Pick up a shovel and help,” yelled one of the mechanics, spying her. Bundled up as she was, no one would know she wasn’t a man. They’d never ask a lady.

Deciding she had nothing better to do, she pitched her voice as low as it could go and asked, “Where’s a shovel I can use?”

“Shed,” the man said, pointing.

So she tromped over to the shed and started digging. It was hard work, but at least it distracted her from thinking about Ernie. It felt like a sort of penance for the night before. If only she could dig out the runway, she could fly away from her mistakes and leave them behind.

After about half an hour, two more men tromped through the snow. As they approached, she realized her peril. It was Ernie and Thompson. But what was she going to do, drop her shovel and run? How foolish would that look? No, she would stay right where she was and keep her head down.

“Took you two long enough to come out here to help,” one of the mechanics called out. “Grab a shovel from the shed and help us out.”

Soon, the two men joined their little group, huffing and puffing as they hefted shovel after shovel of snow off the runway. In the afternoon sun, the snow began to melt a bit, and the powdery snow became wet and heavy. Millie’s arms and back were starting to ache from the effort.

She stayed as far away from Ernie as she could manage, but only fifteen minutes in, he asked, “Millie? Is that you?”

Resting against her shovel, she turned and gave him a frosty look. “That’s Aldrich to you.”

It was embarrassing how much she liked the sound of her name on his lips, but she could hardly allow familiarity in front of an audience.

“Aldrich, no one expects you to shovel snow. You should go back to the hotel and stay warm.”

“What? She’s a lady?” said one of the men she didn’t know who had been digging with her. “She’s been digging like a bulldozer over there for at least half an hour. Never would have thought a lady had it in her.”

The man looked her up and down as if she was some sort of exotic bird. “Never seen a lady dressed like that neither. What kind of dames you got over there in New York anyway?”

“Aldrich is a most unusual woman, I assure you,” Ernie answered, giving her a wink that made her grit her teeth.

“Lady, you should listen to your friend here,” the man said. “Go back to the hotel. Let the men take care of the heavy labor.”