The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star

Angel Flame had abandoned her red bathing suit and was dressed in tight-fitting white pants, the team’s red shirt, a blue spangled scarf, and lightweight canvas shoes—her aerialist outfit, Lizzy guessed. She was standing just inside the big sliding doors to the shed, next to a scale with a big sign on it. Ride High for Only a Penny a Pound! Angel weighed each passenger, noted his weight, took his money, wrote his name on a list, and handed him a ticket. From the length of the line, Lizzy guessed that people would be waiting their turns for airplane rides for the rest of the day—a good thing, as far as the Dare Devils were concerned. With three planes in the air, they ought to turn that profit Lily was hoping for.

Lizzy did a quick mental calculation. If the flights lasted twenty minutes, a plane could do maybe three flights in a little over an hour, if they turned the passengers around very fast. If there were three planes in the air, that would be nine flights an hour times—what? An average of a dollar fifty or sixty per flight? That would be thirteen, fourteen dollars an hour. If they could keep it up for six or seven hours, they could maybe earn a hundred dollars for a day’s flying. And if a hundred automobiles showed up tomorrow, that would be another hundred. Two hundred dollars.

She frowned. It sounded like a lot of money. But was it enough to buy fuel and parts and repairs—not to mention food for the flying team and ground crew and beds for the night, and for all the nights until the next air show? She thought of her comfortable little house, with her garden in the back, Daffy on the front porch, and plenty of food in her big G.E. Monitor refrigerator, and she shook her head. She had imagined that Lily Dare—the fastest woman in the world, a stunt pilot for Hollywood films—led a glamorous life. Now, she knew that wasn’t true. Once, she had envied the Texas Star. Now, no more.

Verna parked her LaSalle in the shade of a large oak tree behind the shed and waited beside the car. They had already decided what they were going to do, so when the line of eager airplane passengers had dwindled to a few, Lizzy went up to Angel, who was tucking a wad of dollar bills and a handful of coins into a purse that was fastened to a belt around her waist.

“Hey, Angel,” she said with a cheerful smile. “How about taking a break for a few minutes? I’d like to introduce you to somebody.” It was their good luck, Lizzy thought, that Verna had stayed in their room the previous night and left that morning before Angel got up, so Angel hadn’t met her yet. “She has a request for you, from one of your fans.”

Angel started to reply but was interrupted by the metallic roar of Rex Hart’s plane, coming in for a landing. A young man in a red shirt came up to her and yelled something into her ear. She pointed to a name on a list and the young man hurried off, in search of the next passenger.

“From a fan?” Angel asked in pleased surprise, when she could make herself heard. “Well, sure, Liz, I’d be glad do that. Let me just finish up these last few guys in line, and I’ll be right with you.”

Lizzy went back to join Verna under the tree. Overhead, they could hear the drone of Lily’s airplane. At the fairgrounds behind them, the music of the Ferris wheel joined the hurdy-gurdy of the merry-go-round in a pleasant circusy cacophony. “Do you think it will work?” she asked uncertainly.

“No way to tell until we try,” Verna answered, leaning against the car. “Anyway, we have nothing to lose.”

A few moments later, Angel sauntered toward them. Her bobbed brown hair was wind-tossed, and her tight white pants emphasized her lithe, athletic figure. She was no doubt quite athletic and brave, Lizzy thought. Very brave—or very foolhardy. She’d have to be, to perform on the wing of an airplane or on a trapeze slung underneath, hundreds of feet above the unforgiving ground, especially after she had seen her sister die in a fatal fall from Lily Dare’s airplane.

Lizzy introduced the two women. “I’m glad to meet you,” Verna said easily. “I’ve heard a lot about you from my cousin, Annie. She’s a real fan.” Verna, Lizzy knew, had no cousins named Annie.

“That’s nice,” Angel said with a chipper smile. “Is she the one Liz told me about?”

“She sure is,” Verna replied. She reached into the car and picked up Lizzy’s flier from the seat. “Annie lives in Florida. She’s watched you do your aerial stunts and would dearly love to have your autograph.” Verna held out the paper. “This is one of the fliers we had put up around town to publicize the air show. Maybe you could sign it for her?”

The flier in Verna’s hand featured photos of Lily Dare and Rex Hart and a blurred photograph of Angel, doing a handstand on the wing of Hart’s airplane, just as she had done earlier that day, in the air above the courthouse square. Verna added, “Could you sign it ‘To Annie, with all best wishes from your friend, Angel’? I know she’d love that.” She made a little face. “It’s a lot to write. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh, golly, no,” Angel said gallantly. “People are always begging Lily and Rex for their autographs. It’s swell whenever somebody asks for mine. And just in case, I always bring my favorite pen.”

She fished in the purse on her belt and pulled out a silver fountain pen. Seeing it, Lizzy’s eyes widened and she held her breath. Could it possibly be? If it was, it was certainly lucky—more than they’d had any right to hope for!