Page 70 of Plane Passion

Oh, yes, she had. This was going to be ugly.

“Do you have any idea how unprofessional this makes us look?” Mr. Dickson continued. “This isn’t a dance hall, Miss Aldrich. This is the United States Postal Service. We cannot countenance this kind of fraternization in our ranks. I knew we never should have allowed you to join. Now I’m going to have to lose one of my best pilots over it.”

She perked up for a moment.

“You think I’m one of your best pilots?”

Under the circumstances, she would take whatever positive she could find in this awful situation.

“Not you,” Mr. Dickson said with withering disdain. “Pritchard.”

Oh, no. In her heart of hearts, she’d always known they would find a reason to push her out. She was torn between being devastated to have let down her fellow female pilots and being furious about the standard to which she was held. But to have Ernie lose his job over this too… And his whole family depended on him. What would he do?

“It goes without saying that your time flying the mail is at an end as well. I spoke to Mr. Burleson this morning, and he agreed that this little experiment was over,” Mr. Dickson continued. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s good riddance.”

He was just looking for an excuse, wasn’t he?

Well, if she was already fired, she was going to give him a piece of her mind.

“Mr. Dickson, I flew the mail as well as any man on this team, and I don’t see how my personal life is any of your business. You knew before I was hired that my name ends up in papers like this on a regular basis. I don’t see why I should lose my job over a little bit of idle gossip.”

She stood and stepped to the front of his desk, leaning in, as she warmed to her topic.

“Furthermore, you clearly have something against women flying the mail. If you ask me, you were looking for any flimsy excuse to get rid of me. You may be pretending to be outraged, but I think you’re secretly pleased to be rid of me.”

Mr. Dickson’s mustache twitched, and he stood so that they were eye to eye.

“You’re damned right, missy. Women don’t belong in airplanes. You’re a menace in the air and a distraction for the good men trying to go about the government’s business. It was a waste of taxpayer dollars to bring you on board. Mr. Burleson must have been under tremendous pressure to agree to something like this. Wasn’t it enough for you ladies that you won the vote? Did you have to come and meddle in men’s workplaces too?”

Millie straightened and put her hands on her hips.

“This isn’t over, Mr. Dickson. I’ll find a way to prove you wrong.”

It was over, and she knew it. But she wasn’t going down without a fight.

“You go ahead and try, Miss Aldrich. You just go ahead and try.”

His eyes sparked with zealous fury. There was no point in arguing further. The man was clearly beyond reason.

She turned around and stormed out.

Seething, she jumped into her roadster and peeled out of the parking lot. All too soon, she arrived at the ferry and was forced to stop.

Stopping meant thinking, and thinking was no good.

Guilt rained down on her as the magnitude of her failure sank in. Thanks to her weakness, airmail jobs would be closed to women for who knew how long. She’d let down her sex, struck a blow against professional women pilots. And who knew what would happen to the funding for the airmail operation without her help? She’d let them all down for a man.

And she’d let him down too. If she’d never given in to the attraction between them, he’d never have lost his job. His family wouldn’t be in danger of penury because of their actions.

Love cost too much, and she was a fool to fall into its trap.

Somehow, she had to make this right, and that started with ending things with Ernie. If she wanted to be taken seriously as a professional pilot, she couldn’t afford to have a man by her side. This mad relationship had cost them both far too much. Surely, he would agree after he heard the news from Mr. Dickson. Yes, it was for the best for both of them if they broke it off.

She still had her airplane. Now that she had some distance experience, she could set some records on her own, go back to the barnstorming circuit. Maybe if she broke some records she could go back to Mr. Burleson and advocate for other women to be allowed to join the airmail, even if she herself was banned for life. Her days of flying the mail might be over, but she had to do her part for the Gerties of the world. They were just as good as men in the air and deserved a fair chance at those jobs.

The jagged skyline of Manhattan got closer and closer as the ferry approached the dock. The Woolworth Building loomed like an accusing finger. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, but she dashed them away. She couldn’t allow her weakness to overcome her.

Stiffening her spine, she got back in her car for the drive back to her apartment. When she arrived, she headed straight upstairs. Beth was out. Was it too early for a martini?