Bringing the Cub down smoothly and safely that morning felt as important to Barbara as anything she had ever done before.
So it was disheartening, amid the hug she got from Gail and the well-wishes from Paul and Olafson, that she saw someone approaching on the field who almost spoiled it all for her.
Handsome Chet Armstrong the Fourth pulled up in an equally handsome sports car, an MG convertible in British racing green. Barbara wondered, Does he have a car for every suit or occasion? "Can I get in on the hugs?" Chet asked, getting out of his car and joining them, wearing a navy blue suit and white Brooks Brothers camel's hair topcoat. "What's the occasion?"
"Barbara just soloed," Gail explained, then introduced him to Paul and Olafson.
"Congratulations." Chet bowed deeply before Barbara, then looked at Olafson. "We already know each other."
"I'm going to be doing some business with his company," Olafson explained. "Instruments and parts and things."
"My father's company, actually, although I work for it now myself, instead of going on to graduate school," Chet amended.
Why does everything he say sound so important, at least to him? Barbara doubted he had the smarts for graduate school, while noticing he almost winced at saying the word work.
"One of Armstrong Enterprises' subsidiaries is a new aircraft wing, you might say."
You might, but it's a poor pun. Barbara wished he were anywhere else but there, and at that great moment in her life. Preferably, on the moon, and the other side of it, at that.
Barbara couldn't resist saying it. "If you stopped by to use the men's room, it's in the office building."
Chet laughed it off. "You've a memory like an elephant. You never forget, do you?"
"No," she said seriously. "I never do."
He became serious, too. "And you know me. I never give up until I get what I want."
Paul looked at Gail, wondering what was going on between Barbara and the arrogant rich boy in the white topcoat.
"Where's the Baroness von Bromo-Selzer?" Barbara hoped to insult him, but Chet was only amused.
"She went back to Germany."
"You should have gone, too."
"I did, to see Albert Speer."
The name didn't mean anything to Barbara.
Paul knew the name, and didn't like hearing it. "He's the munitions mastermind behind the war machine Hitler's building."
"I may be doing some business with them," Chet said casually, lighting a cigarette from a gold case and lighter.