From the ceiling of the cottage dangled a squadron of cardboard-and-tissue-paper airplanes. After the Brayfogles left, she had read whatever she could find about pilots and flying in Missoula’s handsome brick Carnegie library. Since Lindbergh, the whole country had caught aviation fever, and besides the columns of coverage in the papers every day, new periodicals kept springing up. In the back of one magazine promising “Daring Tales of Flight and Flying,” she had found instructions and stencils for making a model of a Standard biplane. That first one hadn’t turned out well—its wings were crooked and dotted with gluey fingerprints; the struts were buckled—but she made another and another, lavishing them with the attention she longed to expend on real aircraft, and eventually they were perfect.
At some point in the first weeks post-Brayfogles, as she lay earthbound and pining in the cottage, lost in heady memories of the valley spinning below, of the high harmonic of the plane’s rigging, the obvious fact had dawned on her that she could not become a pilot right away. She needed to be older. Not much older, she didn’t think, just not thirteen. Maybe fourteen or fifteen—she believed then she would be old enough that her intentions would not seem comical. She would also need a flying teacher and an airplane, but she did not doubt those would materialize.
Another undeniable truth had occurred to her: If she hadn’t been able to pay Trixie for a ride, she certainly wouldn’t be able to pay for proper lessons, and so she had begun to look for income more dependable than petty thievery. Sixteen was the age for real work; fourteen if you had a school-leaving certificate, which she didn’t. The librarians would pay her a dime for every cart of books she shelved, but there were not enough carts. Farmers would not hire a girl to pick apples or milk cows when there were boys after the same jobs. Opportunities were limited, but she would find a way because she must be a pilot. She couldn’t fathom that others did not see her for what she would become, that she did not wear the fact of her future like some eye-catching garment. Her belief that she would fly saturated her world, presented an appearance of absolute truth.
It was Caleb who came to the cottage, not Jamie. She had fallen asleep in the armchair and woke to him standing over her, purloined Audubon under his arm. His hair was bound back in a braid thicker than the one she’d cut off. He laughed—high and wheezy, almost a neigh—while peering at the back of her head. “What’ve you done?”
“I wanted it short.”
She dreaded him asking why. To explain would be impossible. Because tender lumps had recently begun deforming her chest? Because she had read something in one of her father’s books about nuns shaving their heads as they entered their novitiate and wanted to mark herself with the seriousness of her intention to fly? Because she wanted to strip everything extra away, be streamlined and clean and swift?
Caleb didn’t ask why. He set the book down and said, “Were you crying because your hair’s gone or because you did such a bad job of it?”
“I’m not crying.”
He smiled, patronizing.
She ran her hand over her naked neck, said, “Because I did a bad job.” She was relieved to recognize this as the truth. “Can you help, maybe?”
“I don’t see how I could make it any worse. Jamie was too scared to come try.”
They spread newspaper on the floor, and she sat in the middle. Carefully, slowly, using a comb and just the points of the scissors, he snipped. “I cut Gilda’s hair sometimes,” he said.
“You do?”
“I just trim the ends. She’s never given me such a mess to start with. How short do you want it?”
“Like a boy’s.”
“I’m a boy, and mine’s longer than yours ever was.”
“You know what I mean. Real short.”
“All right.” Snipping. “You know since you already dress like a boy people will take you for one after this.”
“That’s fine.”
“Don’t you want to be a girl?”
“Would you want to be a girl?”
“Of course not.”
“Well then.”
“But sometimes I wish I were fully white.”
She felt cold metal against her neck, the scratch of the comb, the unhurried touch of his fingertips. “Why don’t you cut off your braid, then?”
“Short hair won’t make me white.”
“No, but having long hair makes you seem more different than you are.”
“I ain’t never—I’m not ever going to be fully white, so there’s no point. I don’t care what people think, and they should know that.”