Read Online On Wings Of The Morning by Marie Bostwick - Free Book Online

thing you ever said to me.”
    He muttered something undecipherable and sucked his teeth. “Get his order and then get back to work. We got other customers. Real customers.”
    I delivered the scrambled eggs to the Fosters, an elderly couple that came to the Soaring Wings every Tuesday morning to have their breakfast while they watched the planes take off and land. We had a lot of regulars like that. The planes were as much an attraction as the food. Actually, they were more of an attraction than the food. Truth was, Thurman wasn’t much of a cook, but the prices were cheap, the portions were large, and there was plenty of entertainment to be had just by looking out the window. Waukegan wasn’t exactly a bustling airfield, but any diner who came into the Soaring Wings was likely to see a couple of takeoffs and landings before the dishes were cleared. A lot of that air traffic came from the flight school.
    Roger Welles was the school’s owner and principal flight instructor. In fact, he owned the whole airfield. Ever since I’d waited on him, about two weeks after I’d started working at the café, Roger quit bringing his brown bag to work and ate lunch at the Soaring Wings. Some days, like today, he had his breakfast there, too. And he always sat in my section.
    He was quite a bit older than me, about thirty, and good-looking in a rugged, outdoorsy kind of way. His face was tanned and lined, but he had a boyish twinkle in his eye, and, like a boy, he blushed when he got flustered. I knew he liked me—that was pretty obvious after he started showing up for lunch every day—but I figured he was just a guy on the make, so I didn’t encourage him. But as he sat there day after day without pushing himself on me, I started to think he was all right. One day I returned his smile, and we chatted for a couple of minutes while I took and served his order. The next day we talked again, and pretty soon it got to be a regular thing.
    I’d known he was a pilot right off because he always came in wearing his flight jacket, but it was a few days before I learned he was also an instructor. Little by little, I told him my story, how I’d come to live in Waukegan and why. Since then, he’d been after me, pushing me to go flying with him and saying he’d be glad to give me free lessons.
    Flight lessons! For free! I was so tempted to say yes, but I couldn’t do it. It was too big a gift and too big a debt. I liked Roger, but it was clear that his feelings for me were more than just friendly. Accepting such a generous gift was bound to give him the idea that he could expect something back from me. I’d spent enough time watching Delia to know that any man who shows up at the door with flowers, or candy, or an invitation to dinner is expecting to get more than a smile and a thank-you in return—even when that man was as nice as Roger Welles. And as much as I wanted to learn to fly, there were some prices that were too high to pay, even to catch hold of my dream.
    â€œCoffee, Roger?” I already knew the answer but asked anyway as I filled his cup to three-quarters and checked to make sure there was enough cream in the pitcher. Roger liked plenty of cream in his coffee, no sugar.
    â€œThanks.” He took a sip. “That’s good. Can you bring me a number three, Georgia?”
    I nodded and wrote on my order pad. “Bacon crisp. Eggs over medium. Wheat toast with extra butter. Is that all?”
    â€œJust one more thing,” he said. “Come flying with me. Oh, come on, Georgia. You know you want to! Nobody puts themselves through ground school just to expand their mind. It took you two years to save up enough money just for that.
    â€œI’m a pilot. I know what it’s like. You want to get off the ground so bad you can taste it, so bad that you’re willing to sling ten thousand plates of hash trying to save up enough money to get your wings.