She liked being with him. She liked him, and his friends. She liked his good manners and gentle ways. His thoughtfulness, his patience. He had a kind heart, and she loved the way he was around her nieces and nephews. She enjoyed a lot of things about him, but he still wasn't as exciting as airplanes. She had never met a boy who was. Maybe there was no such thing. Maybe that was something you just had to accept. But she would have loved to know a boy who was as exciting as a “Gee Bee Super Sportster” or a “Beech Staggerwing” or a Wedell-Williams racing plane. Bobby was a nice kid, but he didn't even compare to an airplane.

“Hi, Mrs. O'Malley… Glynn… Meg… Colleen… wow! Looks like it'll be pretty soon!” Colleen looked huge as she tried to gather up her kids to leave, and Oona helped her.

“Maybe tonight if I don't stop eating my mother's apple pie,” Colleen grinned. She was only five years older than they were, but Cassie felt as though they were light-years apart sometimes. Her sisters were all married and so settled and so different. She knew instinctively that somehow she couldn't be like them. She wondered sometimes if there was a curse on her, if her father had wanted a boy so badly that it had somehow damaged her before birth. Maybe she was a freak. She liked boys. She liked Bobby particularly. But she liked airplanes and her own independence a whole lot better.

Bobby shook hands with her father, and said hi to Chris, and all the little kids climbed all over him. Then a little while later her mother and the oldest sisters went out to the kitchen to clean up, and her mother told her not to bother, and just to go sit with Bobby. At least Cassie had washed her face by then, but you could still see traces of the grease that had been there before dinner.

“How was your day?” he asked with a shy smile. He was awkward, but likable, and he tried to be tolerant of her unusual ideas and her fascination with her father's airplanes. He pretended to be interested, and listened to her rattle on about a new plane that had come through, or her father's cherished Vega. But the truth was, she could have said anything, he just wanted to be near her. He came by faithfully almost every night, and Cassie still acted surprised when he did, much to her parents' amusement.