Silver Wings for Vicki by Helen Wells

Author:Helen Wells [Wells, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: car
ISBN: 9780359058792
Publisher: Career Girls
Published: 2018-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER VIII

The Mysterious Mr. Burton

BY SEPTEMBER, VICKI regarded her New York-to-Memphis run with nonchalance. With some pride too, for she had been transferred from the morning run to the evening flight. There was a dinner to serve, more elaborate than lunch, and there were five stops instead of two. But an evening run had a gala air about it. The passengers were more relaxed, it was exciting to fly amid the sunset streaks and then the stars. Even the airport looked doubly enchanted when one took off at seven in the evening.

Every seat was taken, this hazy blue evening, as Vicki’s plane cleared the lighted towers of New York and climbed up to meet the night. The passengers looked interesting too. Her manifest told her there was a Brazilian diplomat aboard, whose black fedora hat she would have spotted anyway; an atomic scientist, a mild-looking man with glasses; a famous sculptress, a handsome woman in tweeds.

Besides, there were others whom Vicki must remember by name: Mrs. Brown, obligingly dressed in brown. Mr. and Miss Lane—Lane rhymed with pain—and suited the sour expression on their faces. Mr. J. G. Burton, going to Memphis, did not rhyme with anything Vicki could think of, as she passed out chewing gum and evening newspapers. Mr. Burton was wearing a gray suit, gray hat, white shirt and black string tie. He was clean-shaven but the bluish shadow of a heavy, dark beard showed. He sat beautifully erect, and held in his hands a bulky briefcase of the same ostrich leather she had admired so much in that handbag in the Fifth Avenue shop.

“Ostrich, Burton,” Vicki said to herself, entering the galley. “Burton, ostrich. Good posture, Burton.”

She giggled softly as her imagination presented her with a flash of one ostrich standing up very straight, and another ostrich slumping and looking ashamed of itself.

Dinner was a scramble. Once out of New York, Vicki started serving immediately. With half the trays served, their plane landed at Philadelphia airport. Vicki had to get the right passengers off, have a moment with the Philadelphia passenger agent to figure weight spread, check new passengers aboard and get them seated, and go right ahead serving dinners. Then she had until the next stop at Baltimore to get the other passengers fed and the culinary evidence stowed away. Besides, there were itineraries to keep track of, for Vicki had to watch that no one rode beyond the point he had paid for.

There was the mail, the logbook to carry forward to the pilot, coffee for pilot and copilot—who were Messrs. Frane and Tedesco, tonight. The flagship went soaring south through the dusk, and Vicki scampered through her duties as quickly as the thin air and swaying plane would let her. “Baltimore!”

Circling, seeing the lights at the landing field, coming down softly as a feather. More passengers on and off. A consultation with the Baltimore passenger agent. Baggage, weights, tickets. The hustle of arrival and the sheer exultation of take-off.

“Whew!” said Vicki, once they were up again over Baltimore.

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