California Winter, Early 1936
Barbara's farewell in Chicago had been bittersweet. She and her friends went to Luigi's for a spaghetti and Chianti dinner and, though it was painful for her, she asked the accordionist and violinist to play "Till We Meet Again." "The baby's kicking," Gail told Paul. "Dance with Barbara."
Being held in Paul's arms, for the first and only time, was a heaven Barbara thought she would never be in. He held her as close as both of them knew was appropriate with his wife watching. They also still believed, or at least hoped, she did not suspect her great friend's real feelings toward her husband.
Paul smiled as he saw the Pegasus on Barbara's sweater, pinned over her heart. In lieu of kissing her, when the dance was over, he kissed a finger, then touched it to the pin.
"'Put love,'" he reminded her in almost a caressing whisper. "It works. It really does."
She did get a farewell kiss on the cheek from Paul when the three friends were parting later that evening. But his kiss and touch of the Pegasus was even more precious to her.
"You promised," Gail reminded Barbara after their final hug. "You'll come back for the baby's christening, to be godmother."
"Nothing could keep me away," Barbara assured her.
"And soon as we can, we'll move out to California, too," Paul said.
"You're right," Gail told Barbara. "Lots of good things are happening out there in aviation. It will be exiting. We three can become a part of it."
"Before the year is out," Paul declared, "we'll all be together again, in the land of sunshine."
Ouch!To Barbara, the word stung.
Not until she was driving across the furnace-like Mohave Desert in a rusty four-year-old Ford V8 coupe she bought so she could start a new life in California did Barbara realize that the word flight had more than one meaning. It not only meant to fly, but to flee -- to escape from something or someone. The shoe fit for several reasons.
It hadn't been easy, first to make the decision to leave Chicago, her home until then, and move all the way across the country, so far from those she cherished. But much as she loved Gail and Paul, and being with them, she had begun to feel as if she was in a movie, watching a happy couple on the screen, but from a remote seat. Now she wanted to be a player, in real life and not a movie; to find a love and life of her own.