Airfield Read Online Free Page A

than the rest, too, so I guess that's where Moss slept.
    "You've got this part looking almost like a room!" I exclaim. "I had a place I fixed up once, an old storm shelter no one was using, and I did just like you've done, set up a pallet and a place to eat, and..."
    My voice trails off as I realize the difference: That was play and this isn't.
    "Here," Moss says, getting his knife. His face and his voice both tell me he's embarrassed, and I look around for something easy to talk about.
    "Find any treasures yet? What's that stuff?" I point to dials and wire and coils heaped in a pile. "Is it from some kind of radio?"
    "Maybe," Moss answers. "Look, help if you're going to, and then you better leave. I got to see about a janitor's job at the picture show, anyways."
    I take a last look around.
Does he really think he can live out here?

Chapter 5
    I SEE CLO'S STRUNG a clothesline beside our cabin and is hanging out my dress, all scrubbed clean.
    "Hi there," she says. "I was wondering where you got to."
    "I went exploring."
    A black sedan pulls in the lot, and the woman driving it goes in the office and then pulls up to our place. "Yoohoo," she calls, getting out. "Mrs. Langston?"
    Extending a hand, my aunt says, "I'm Clo Langston."
    "Bee Granger. My husband, Ben—he's a director on the airport board—said I should come make sure you're settled in OK." She drops into a lawn chair, a bit breathless. "I would of come sooner, but this heat..."
    "This is my niece, Beatty," Clo tells her. "May I offer you some iced tea, Mrs. Granger? Beatty, will you please bring us some?"
    When I come out with the drinks, the woman is saying to Clo, "Now, I wouldn't want it to get back to Mr. Granger I told you, but I understand that the man your husband is filling in for may not be coming back until fall. If at all." She leans closer to my aunt. "Women trouble."
    "What kind of women trouble?" I ask.
    "Beatty!" Clo scolds me. Then the import of it hits her. "Mrs. Granger, do you think Grif might stay on for a while, then?"
    "That's what the airline told Mr. Granger."
    I slip into a chair and listen to the two of them go on, Clo trying to find out more about the Muddy Springs job and her visitor intent on the failings of the absent station manager. Then Clo asks me, "Beatty, isn't it that boy?"
    I follow her gaze to where Moss is walking along the highway toward town.
    "Who is he?" Mrs. Granger asks, her voice faintly disapproving. "Surely he's not from around here?"
    "No," I answer. "He's just arrived and is looking for work."
    "I see." Mrs. Granger shifts her gaze to the malt shop. "Have you investigated the Mirage yet, Beatty? I understand that's where the young people gather."
    "I figured so. I heard the voices last night."
    The conversation turns to various Muddy Springs women's groups, and eventually, when there's a chance, I say, "If I may be excused, maybe I will go across the street."
    Â 
    The Mirage has a palm tree and blue lagoon painted on its stucco front, and music from a record player fairly throbs through lattice-shaded windows. It's the kind of place you don't enter so much as plunge into.
    Which is what I am trying to decide if I really want to do when two girls walk up behind me. "You going in or just looking, honey?" one asks, a redhead like Clo.
    "Going in, I suppose."
    The place is filled, kids talking at tables, a few couples dancing, a soda jerk working the long ice-cream counter.
    "You're new here, aren't you?" the redhead asks. I tell her I am, and my name, and she says she's Julie Elise Armstrong. "Come on," she says. "Meet the gang."
    First, though, we order sodas, Julie Elise talking nonstop both to me and to the young man who waits on us.
    "I didn't think I'd seen you before," she says to me. "And besides, I was sure you'd just come to town because your face was a giveaway, with that Do-I-open-the-door? look. I know the feeling. I get it every time I'm new in a place myself, which is about every year,