“Fellow who runs the place.” Mr. Mallory parked the car in the rhombus of shade cast by one of the buildings. “Moved here from New York in ’22 and bought the land up to fly his own planes. Then all his old Army Air Service pals came out and asked if they could fly there too. Pretty soon he had a business going.”

Mr. Mallory yanked open the door and stepped onto the grass. The noise woke the kitten. Limb by limb it uncurled in Irene’s lap, yawned, and dug its claws into her leg like tiny pins, kneading and kneading. She detached it with one hand and reached for the door handle and leapt free—insofar as you could leap in a lean skirt of navy blue poplin, cut a few inches longer than what was then considered fashionable—and nearly crashed into Mr. Mallory, who had come around to open the door for her. Sorry, she said, just as Mr. Mallory said sorry too. He laughed and reached for Sandy. “Let me take that cat off your hands, hmm? Then we’ll go find you a spark plug.”

Together they walked toward the row of sheds that turned out—when you got close enough to appreciate their size—to be airplane hangars. Already a few men milled about, reeking of cigarettes and engine oil and energy. Mr. Mallory raised his hand and said hello. The other hand maneuvered Sandy, who was climbing his shirt to knead the skin at the base of his throat. Together they reached the easternmost hangar and the biplane poised beside it, catching the morning sun in a burst of white. Irene stopped. She had never stood so close to an airplane; it was like a mythic beast to her. She stared at the wing, which was larger than she expected and also more frail.

“What’s it made of?” she asked.

“Just canvas and wood,” said Mr. Mallory.

Irene wanted to touch, but she didn’t. The airplane’s skin reminded her of the wing of an insect, so thin as to defy physics. If force equaled mass times velocity, how could something that frail survive the invincible wind? On the other hand, insects could fly, that was indisputable. Irene reached out and laid her fingertip on the edge of the wing, laid her hand on an airplane for the first time. But it wasn’t delicate after all. It was stiff and lacquered, the same texture as metal. Soon she would learn that the fabric was coated in a kind of glue they called dope, and this was the source of the distinctive smell she would shortly encounter inside the hangar.

But all that lay in the future. Now there was only wonder.

“Shall we?” said Mr. Mallory, standing beside her, and for a moment she thought he was inviting her into the biplane that sat beside them, inviting her to fly. She opened her mouth to exclaim Yes! but it turned out he just meant the hangar and the spark plug. He walked around the nose of the airplane, shifting Sandy from one shoulder to the other, and Irene, still dazed, stroked the wing a last time and followed him.

The doors to the hangar were the kind that rolled sideways, like pocket doors, except these were made of plain lumber and stood wide open to the California sunshine. Inside, Irene glimpsed two small, battered airplanes. Mr. Mallory maneuvered Sandy carefully from his shirt and back into the crook of his elbow. He nodded to the machine on the right. “Training planes. Picked them up cheap from the army. That one’s a Curtiss Jenny. The other’s a Canuck.”

“Which one do you recommend?”

“Neither.”

Irene stepped forward into the hangar. The grass turned to beaten earth. The air smelled of dust and grease and wood, a garage smell, except for something else, an unfamiliar chemical note. Aside from the two of them, and the airplanes and the tools, the hangar was empty. Irene wandered between the two machines. She touched the smooth wooden curve of a propeller blade, the taut canvas skin of a fuselage, a metal strut.

“I don’t see any difference between them,” she said.

“The Canuck’s the same plane, Canadian model. It’s lighter and it’s got . . . it’s got . . .”

Irene turned. Mr. Mallory stood by a wide wooden workbench that ran the entire length of the building. The rear of the Curtiss Jenny stood between them, cutting him off at the waist, so she couldn’t quite see what he was doing. Rummaging or something. Irene ducked under the airplane to join him at the bench. He had pulled out a crate from the shelf and Sandy stood against it, paws on the edge, to peer inside.

“It’s got what?” she said.

“Hmm?”

“The Canuck.”

“Oh. It’s just a flimsier airplane, that’s all. But it’s good enough for instruction. Here you are.” Mr. Mallory turned and held out his hand, which contained a pair of spark plugs.

“Oh! Thank you. I’d almost forgotten.”

Irene took the spark plugs. He was smiling at her, grinning really, and with his other hand he scooped up Sandy, who was taking some interest in the boxes of screws lined up where the bench met the wall.

“Say. If you’re interested. There’s an air show today, starts at noon.”

“An air show?”

“You know. Pilots take turns going up, showing off our airplanes, that kind of thing. Then we take up members of the public for five dollars a spin.”

“Will you be flying?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. For one thing, I need the dough. Flying’s a lot of things, but it’s not cheap. Especially if . . .”

“If what?”

“Nothing. Got a few plans, that’s all. If you’re interested . . .”

Irene cast a glance out the open side of the hangar, to the landing strip that baked in the sunshine. Her heart was thudding a little. “It sounds wonderful,” she said. “But I should really be getting home.”

“Oh. Sure, of course.”

“But I’d love to. I really would.”

The kitten seemed to be falling asleep along the length of his forearm. Mr. Mallory stroked the top of its head with his finger and nodded. “All right. Let’s get you back to Santa Monica, then.”

“Wait a minute. You’re just going to drive me there and back here again? For your air show?”

“It’s no trouble.”

“It’s an awful lot of trouble!”

“I don’t mind,” he said. “It’s a pleasant drive.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll just stay.”

“What about your folks?”

“I live with my father,” she said, “and he’s away right now. So there’s nobody to worry about me, really. I can stay all day.”

As time went on, Irene would remember that day at the airfield as a series of scenes, as pieces of a dazzling puzzle. There was breakfast with Sam—he was now Sam, and she was Irene—in the cafeteria, a neat, cheap building made of stucco, set apart from the hangars, furnished with metal chairs and tables covered in cheerful red-and-white linens. They both ordered coffee and corned beef hash, topped with eggs fried sunny side up, while Sandy lapped from a dish of cream. Sam asked Irene whether she had a job, and she said yes, she was a receptionist at a doctor’s office, and she hoped to enroll in a nursing course in the fall.

“Well, now,” he said, “that’s admirable. Why nursing?”

And Irene found herself telling Sam things she hadn’t told anyone else at the hospital, or really anyone at all. She explained—or rather he dug from her, bit by bit—how she told her parents one evening when she was very young, when her mother was still alive and her father held down a respectable job, that she wanted to become a doctor. Her mother had smiled in that sarcastic way she had, but her father had nodded gravely and said she would make a good doctor, she had a calm head on her shoulders, and she should study very hard to make this dream a reality. How later that night, she’d overheard her mother telling her father that he shouldn’t indulge the girl like that, it was ridiculous to imagine that Irene could become a doctor. Why not? said her father. He’d seen plenty of women doctors, there were several medical colleges that now accepted female candidates. Because she will want a family one day, her mother said, and then all that education would go to waste; because children had a way of demanding your attention, of diverting this abundant river of female energy and ambition into themselves.