All right if we take your photograph, Miss Foster?

“Why, yes,” she said. “I don’t see why not.”

A dozen flashbulbs exploded around her. She looked right between them all and found Sam’s bemused face and smiled at him, so that all those photos that appeared that very day in the afternoon and evening editions showed a cheerful, happy face framed by a leather aviator’s cap, far more pretty than anybody expected. Underneath these photos, Miss Foster was quoted variously about how excited she was to travel across the ocean, how impressed she was with Mr. Mallory’s skill and tenacity as a pilot, how eager she was to prove herself, how proud to represent the ambitions and capability of women everywhere. Just about everybody reading a newspaper that evening or the next morning thought that Sam Mallory was either the luckiest man alive or else the unluckiest, depending on his or her opinion of the sanctity of marriage.

When Irene was done answering the questions of the reporters, Irene made her way to Sam Mallory and his wife. Mrs. Mallory smelled of some delicate, floral perfume that Irene didn’t recognize. Sam said, “Irene, I’d like to present to you my wife, Bertha. She wanted to join us here at the airfield today to see what the fuss is all about.”

This introduction was clearly meant for the reporters clustered about, taking down every word. Irene took Mrs. Mallory’s hand and said, “I’m so pleased to meet you at last, Mrs. Mallory. You must be awfully proud of Sam.”

“I am.” Mrs. Mallory squeezed Irene’s hand, just tight enough. She stared into the space between Irene’s eyes. “My goodness, aren’t you the prettiest thing! Sam, isn’t she just lovely?”

The reporters laughed. Sam said gallantly, “Not only lovely, but a fine pilot and navigator. Miss Foster has the coolest nerves you’ve ever met.”

“I can see that.” Mrs. Mallory released Irene’s hand. “Of course, I have every faith she won’t need them, not with Sam Mallory at the controls.”

“We’ll be flying eight thousand miles across the open ocean next week,” said Irene. “I naturally expect every hazard to come our way. But I am confident we will overcome the difficulties of such a challenging voyage and prove to the world what modern aviation is capable of.”

The reporters nodded and scribbled in their notebooks.

“You can see why I feel so fortunate to have Miss Foster as my flying mate,” said Sam. “Having her aboard is no publicity stunt, gentlemen. You won’t find a better partner for a trip like this one, man or woman. What she lacks in experience, she makes up for in courage, natural skill, and the instincts of a born pilot.”

Mrs. Mallory wasn’t looking at Irene any longer; she gazed serenely across the assembled reporters and took up her daughter’s hand again. She spoke as if reciting from a prepared script, which probably she was: “I am grateful that my husband has secured the assistance of such a single-minded professional for his endeavor. I know Miss Foster understands how much Pixie and I depend on her skill and endurance. Our very hearts and lives are at stake.”

“Believe me,” said Irene, “so are mine.”

More laughter.

“All right, all right,” said Sam. “I think it’s about time we gave you gentlemen the dope on what this bird can do. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but our mechanics have been busy fueling the plane while we’ve been shooting the breeze out here. Our equipment’s aboard, ready to go. Miss Foster? Do feel like heading up in the air and taking a turn above Los Angeles?”

“I certainly do, Mr. Mallory. I couldn’t be readier.”

Sam turned to his wife and kissed her good-bye—more flashbulbs—and then bent to lift Pixie in his arms. Sam’s daughter had a round face and a light sprinkle of freckles across her nose, like any cherub. She put her small arms around her daddy’s neck and cuddled his face against hers, and how those photographers loved her for it! Sam whispered something in her ear, and she nodded her bright blond head. Irene turned away when her eyes started to prickle.

There at her elbow she found Sophie, who enveloped her in a hug.

“Safe flight, my dear one. Where’s your father?”

“Still inside the cafeteria, I think.” Irene reached into the inside pocket of her tunic. “Here. Give him this. I meant to mail it, but since he’s here in person . . .”

Sophie took the envelope. “You’d better hurry inside that airplane, then. Before he reads it.”

“I will.” Irene turned to Sam, who was showing Pixie how to wave to the photographers. “Are you going to quit mugging for those cameras and get us in the air, or what?”

The crowd laughed. One of the photographers called out, “Aw, come on, Miss Foster. How about one of the two of you?”

Irene checked her watch—eleven fifty-six—and lifted her chin to judge the distance to the cafeteria. “Just a minute or two, I guess.”

So Irene stood next to the gleaming ship with Sam, first waving, then looking at each other, then hands on hips casting each other the old challenging gaze—a novelty pose, they called it—and finally Irene sitting on one wing, in between engine and fuselage, while Sam stood next to her knee. That was the shot that made most of the papers, the shot that made the history books and the encyclopedias. Sam propped his elbow on the wing’s edge, right next to Irene’s leg, and they looked sunny and at ease with each other, like they were setting out for a picnic instead of the final test flight of a prototype aircraft they planned to fly across the Pacific Ocean together.

At last Irene nudged Sam, and Sam said, “All right, boys. You’ve had your fun. Now it’s time we had ours.”

He put his hands around Irene’s waist and slid her back to the ground, and nobody took a photograph of that. In those days, a respectable newspaper simply wouldn’t publish it.

By the standards of 1928, the Centauri was a large, powerful aircraft. Still, it was not luxurious, certainly not in comparison to the modern passenger airliner. For one thing, when you were traveling thousands of miles over the ocean in 1928, you didn’t carry so much as a pound of unnecessary weight. The main deck was made of aluminum and left bare. The seats had no cushions. The air was hot and smelled of oil and gasoline. It was a special grade of fuel made especially for airplanes, and Sam and Irene weren’t planning to waste a drop of it.

The enclosed cockpit of the Centauri was larger than that of most existing airplanes, but not wide enough to accommodate both of them. Irene sat behind Sam, in the navigator’s seat, which had its own window and communicated with the pilot by means of a pulley cable they called the clothesline, even though their seats were only a yard apart and she could reach out and touch him if she wanted. This was because the two giant engines threw off so much racket, you couldn’t hear anything else inside that airplane but the relentless beat of gears and propellers. Nor did you want to. Without that noise, you were in trouble.

Irene checked her box of notepaper and pens. She checked her charts and equipment, her compasses and sextant and smoke bombs that measured wind drift, her celestial maps, her Mercator projections of the North Pacific and South Pacific, ocean currents indicated, prevailing winds noted. She had recalibrated all three of her magnetic compasses an hour ago, but she checked them again now, because a mistake of a sliver of a degree would mean missing those volcanic specks known as Hawai’i by hundreds of miles. She turned on both radios and settled her headset over her ears, tuned the agreed-upon frequency and announced herself into the transmitter. A crackle came back from the transmitter in the airfield’s control tower, then Mr. Rofrano’s baritone, eternally calm. Rofrano tower. Centauri, acknowledge. Another voice joined them from the United States naval station at Long Beach. Everyone in place, everyone at his designated mark. A whole legion of supporting actors in this drama, the choreography of which had been arranged by George Morrow.

In the cockpit, Sam started the right engine, then the left. The propellers thudded, measured at first, then faster and faster until the thuds all merged into a noise like a colossal insect. The ship faced north, so there was no glare from the sun to disturb their preparations. Not a word passed between them, by air or by paper. Sam knew exactly what she was up to, and Irene knew what Sam was up to, almost as if her own hands performed his tasks and her own eyes looked through that cockpit window and surveyed the airfield, the sky, the landscape, the wind sock that drooped atop the control tower.

As they pulled away from the hangar area and onto the landing strip, Irene couldn’t help looking out the window at the crowd that followed them, forming and re-forming in a swarm, like ants. Already Irene felt detached from them. They belonged to the earthbound world. The slim tube of the Centauri contained Irene’s world. Everything that was real and important.