Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(59)

“I was wondering, well . . . ,” Strand begins.

“Yes?”

“The thing is, my uncle’s plane is being seized by the War Department. It’s a tough break for him, although they’re paying him more than the plane is worth. Anyway, he has it for another few days, and I thought, well . . .”

Sooner or later, Rio tells herself, she is going to have to get Strand to stop letting half his sentences trail off. “I’d love to.”

But her mother isn’t so sure. “Is it a two-seater?”

“Ma’am, the Jenny is designed with two completely separate cockpits. Also, ma’am, you’ll be relieved to learn that it no longer has its machine guns from the last war.”

“No crazy flying tricks or loop-de-loops!”

Strand makes the cross over his heart. “Cross my heart and hope to die,” he vows. “It’ll be more dangerous getting to the field than flying: we have to ride bikes. Those things are unstable.”

Mrs. Richlin insists on making some sandwiches, as well as a tight-sealed Mason jar of lemonade, all packed into a small basket along with a checkered tablecloth to put down for a picnic.

“I don’t have a blanket to spare,” she says, looking a bit prune faced as she does so. “Careful if you lie on the grass, Rio—I’ll have to get the grass stains out of your dress.”

Rio carries the picnic lunch in her bike’s basket; in Strand’s basket is his prized camera. It’s a four-mile ride from Gedwell Falls out into the countryside. The weather is that tenuous Northern California warm that turns chilly in the shadow of any passing cloud, and the hills are brilliant green from recent rain, though they will soon be the color of straw again. It’s mostly an uphill ride on the way there, the sort of exercise that Rio might once have found tiring but now barely notices.

I could run this in full pack. Backward.

She’s changed into a flannel skirt, white cotton blouse, and pink cardigan, and feels faintly ridiculous. She’s used to her uniform trousers and the careless freedom they offer, but somehow she doubts that Strand wants to go riding or flying with a girl who looks like a soldier. Anyway, Jenou always says Rio’s legs are her best feature; she might as well deploy them.

Deploy. Another word the army has insinuated into her brain.

“How are you liking being home?” Strand asks as they ride side by side. There has never been much traffic out this way.

“I feel strange, a little,” Rio says. Her voice pitches high to reach him over the breeze and the sounds of sprockets and chains. “It’s home, but it doesn’t feel quite the same. I suppose it’s me that’s changed while home has stayed the same.”

“Yes, the same for me. There they all were, my folks, and my old pals, and all the old places, and I would never say I miss barracks life, but the truth is, I have new pals now, and I’m even used to the chow.”

“Have you started flight training?”

“No, that’s up next. I mean, we’ve done some work on navigation and aeronautics.”

“Aeronautics? That sounds very impressive.”

“Yes. I just wish I understood what it is exactly.”

Rio laughs. “I feel the same about small unit tactics.”

“Talk about impressive sounding!”

“We’re meant to care a great deal about enfilade and defilade.”

“Which are . . . ?”

“Well, of course, being air corps you wouldn’t be expected to understand such things,” she teases. “Enfilade is where you don’t wish to be. It means the bad guys can shoot at you along your longest axis. If you’re lined up like the upright of a letter T, see, you don’t want Japs or Krauts to be the cross of the T.”

“I should think not.”

“And defilade is when you’ve gotten yourself behind some cover and can shoot at the bad guys.”

“So as to not be in enfilade,” Strand said. “I think I’ve got it.”

“Yes, well, it’s a very different matter when you’re in the woods and all tangled up in blackberry thorns and some sergeant is shouting at you.”

We’re so easy together.

“Sergeants shouting?” Strand jokes. “Why, I never. In the air corps the noncoms are all very polite and helpful, offering to iron our uniforms and such.”

“Is that before or after the butler brings you coffee?”

“I hate to say it, though, but some of them are all right.”

“Some are,” Rio admits.

They have the identical tone when discussing sergeants: rueful, reluctantly admiring, perversely proud of their toughness.

A truck comes rattling by loaded with empty barrels. The driver stares at them, unsmiling, not approving of them at all, so naturally they both grin and wave enthusiastically.

“So what is aeronautics?”

“I’m not quite sure, but the essence of it appears to be that you should not crash the army’s airplanes, or the army will be very cross with you.”

“I’ve heard it’s months of training, so maybe the war will be over before you can be deployed.”

“Yeah, well, predictions of quick and easy wars have a history of being wrong, Rio.”

“It’s almost as if it’s a fairy tale meant to encourage us to sign up,” Rio says dryly.