“That's good. I knew you'd get into Radcliffe. I'm proud of you,” he said, and she blushed. But fortunately it was already dark as they stood on the beach, in the fine white sand that was cool on their feet.

He seemed more confident to her than he had eight months before. Or maybe that was just because they had already met. What she didn't know was that he had thought of her so often, that they were already friends in his mind. He had a way of running scenes and situations and people through his head, like a film, until they became familiar to him.

“Have you been driving?” he asked with a grin.

“My father says I'm a terrible driver, but I think I'm actually pretty good. I'm better than my mother. She smashes up the car all the time,” Kate said, smiling back at him.

“Maybe you're ready for flying lessons then. We'll have to see about that when I come east again. I'm moving back to New Jersey at the end of the year, to consult on a project with Charles Lindbergh. But I have to finish up in California first.” She didn't know why, but she was thrilled to hear that he was coming back to the East. And she knew that was foolish, there was no reason to think that he'd see her. He was a thirty-year-old man, and enormously successful in his own field. She was just a college girl, and not even that yet. This time, knowing who he was, she was even more impressed than she had been the first time. And it was she who felt shy. Joe was much more comfortable than he had been at the party where they first met. “When do you start school, Kate?” he asked, almost as though she were his little sister. Although, like Kate, he was an only child. They had that in common. Both his parents had died when he was a baby. He had been brought up by cousins of his mother's, whom he readily admitted he hadn't liked, and he felt hadn't liked him.

“This week. I have to move in on Tuesday,” she said in answer to his question.

“That's very exciting,” he said, as he handed her a hot dog.

“Not as exciting as what you've been doing. I've been keeping up with you in the papers.” He smiled at her as she said it, flattered that she had even remembered him. They had each thought of the other often, but it would have been awkward to admit. “My dad is your biggest fan.” Joe still remembered how interested he had been in Joe when he met him, and knew quite a lot about him. Unlike Kate, who had just thought him a nice person, and had had no idea what a hero he was.

They finished their hot dogs, and sat down on a log to drink coffee and eat ice cream. It was being served in cones, and Kate was dripping hers all over, while Joe sat back and watched her as he sipped his coffee. He loved looking at her, she was so beautiful and so young and so full of energy and life. She was like a beautiful young Thoroughbred gamboling and prancing, and tossing her mane of dark red hair over her shoulders. Never in his early life had he ever suspected he would know someone like her. The women he had known over the years had been so much plainer and more subdued. She was like a bright shining star in the heavens, and he couldn't take his eyes off her, for fear he'd lose sight of her.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” he asked finally, when she'd cleaned up the mess from her ice cream. She nodded as she smiled at him.

They walked quietly down the beach for a while, with a nearly full moon shining brightly on the water. They could see everything on the beach, and they walked side by side, comfortably close together, silent for a time.

After a while, he looked up at the sky, and then down at her, and smiled. “I love flying on nights like this. I think you'd like it too. It's like being close to God for a little while, it's so peaceful.” He was sharing with her what mattered most to him. He had thought of her once or twice when he flew night flights, and couldn't help musing how nice it would have been to have her with him. And then he told himself he was crazy. She was just a kid, and if he ever saw her again, she probably wouldn't even remember him. But she had, and they felt like old friends. It seemed like a gift of destiny that they had met again. And in spite of what he'd told her, he hadn't been at all sure that he'd have the courage to call her father, and had been leaning against it. Meeting her at the barbecue had solved the problem for him.

“What made you fall in love with flying?” she asked him as they began to walk more slowly. It was a beautiful warm night, and the sand felt like satin under their feet.

“I don't know… I always loved airplanes, even when I was a little kid. Maybe I wanted to run away… or get so high above the world no one could touch me.”

“What were you running away from?” she asked softly.

“People. Bad things that had happened, and feeling bad about them.” He had never known his parents, and the cousins who had taken him in when they died had been hard on him. There was no love lost between them. They had always made him feel like an interloper. And by the time he was sixteen, he had left them. He would have left sooner if he could. “I've always liked being alone. And I like machines. All the little bits and pieces that make them work, and the details of engineering. Flying is like magic, it puts all those things together, and the next thing you know, you're in Heaven, way up in the sky.”

“You make it sound wonderful,” she said, as they stopped and sat down on the sand. They had gone a considerable distance, and they were tired.

“It is wonderful, Kate. It's everything I ever wanted to be and do when I grew up. I can't believe they pay me to do it now.”

“That's because you're obviously very good at it.” He hung his head for a moment, in humility, and she was touched by what she saw and sensed in him.

“One day, I'd like you to fly with me. I won't scare you, I promise.”

“You don't scare me,” she said calmly. He was sitting very close to her, and it frightened him more than it did Kate. What frightened him most were his own feelings. He was intrigued by her. And just being next to her drew him like a magnet. He was twelve years older than she, she was from a wealthy family, one of considerable stature, and she was going to Radcliffe.

He didn't belong in her world, and he knew it. But it wasn't her world that drew him to her, it was who she was, and how at ease he felt with her. He had never known any woman like her. Not even the ones his own age. In all his years, he had dated a number of women, most of them the ones who hung around airstrips, or girls he met through other pilots, usually their sisters. But he'd never had anything in common with any of them. There had only been one woman he had seriously cared about, and she had married someone else, because she said, she was lonely all the time, he had no time to spend with her. He couldn't imagine Kate being lonely, she was too full of life and too self-sufficient, it was that which attracted him to her. Even at eighteen, she was a whole person. From what he could see, there were no pieces missing, no needs he was expected to fill and couldn't, no expectations or reproaches. She just was who she was, and was on her own path, like a comet, and all he wanted was to catch her as she flew by.

She told him then about wishing she could go to law school, but having to give up the dream, because it wasn't a suitable career for a woman.

“That's silly,” he responded. “If that's what you want, why don't you do it?”

“My parents don't want me to. They want me to go to school, but then they expect me to get married.” She sounded disappointed. It seemed so boring to her.

“Why can't you do both? Be a lawyer and get married?” It sounded sensible to him, but she only shook her head, as her hair swirled around her, like a dark red curtain. It added to the sensual quality about her, which he had been fervently resisting. He had done a good job of it, she didn't even sense that he was attracted to her. She just thought he was being friendly and kind.

“Can you imagine a man who would let his wife practice law? Anyone I'd marry would want me to stay home, and have children.” It was just the way things were, and they both knew it.

“Is there someone you want to marry, Kate?” he asked, with more than a little interest. Maybe she'd met someone since Christmas, or had known him before. He didn't know that much about her.

“No,” she said simply, “there isn't.”

“Then why worry about it? Why not do what you want till you meet the right man? It's like worrying about a job you don't even have yet. Maybe you'd meet a nice guy in law school.” And then he turned to her with a question. Their legs were barely touching as they stretched them out before them, but he didn't try to hold her hand, or put an arm around her. “Is getting married that important?” He hadn't even come close to it, at thirty. And she was just eighteen. She seemed to have a lifetime ahead of her for marriage and babies. It was odd to hear her talk of it, like a career path she had chosen, rather than an inevitable outcome of what she felt for someone. He wondered if that was the way her parents saw it. It was certainly not uncommon. But unlike most women, who seemed more clandestine to him, she was so open about it.

“I guess marriage is important,” she answered thoughtfully, “everyone says it is. And I suppose it will be to me one day. I just can't imagine it right now. I'm not in a hurry. I'm glad I'm going to college first.” It was a reprieve for her, from her mother's plans for her. “I won't even have to think about it for four years, and by then who knows what will happen.”

“You could run away and join the circus,” he said, pretending to be helpful, and she laughed at him, lay back on the soft sand, and rested her head on one arm flung behind her. He had never seen anyone as beautiful, as he looked at her in the moonlight. He had to remind himself of how old he was, and that she was just a child. But she didn't look like one as she lay there, she was very much a woman. He looked away from her for a long moment, to regain his composure. Kate didn't have the remotest inkling of what was in his mind.