“Give our love to the ice on Lake Michigan,” Cathy said over her shoulder.
“And don’t slip on the ice when you walk away from your ship,” Vicki added with a smile.
“Get out,” Sue said, “before we throw you out. And oh, yes,” she added, a smile twinkling in her eyes, “give our best to that pirate fellow!”
Four hours later the big DC-6-B four-engine plane put up its port wing as the pilot banked to swing into his landing pattern. Vicki, strapped in the stewardess’s jump seat for the landing, looked out the window at the tropical vista spread all around her. To her left, as the pilot banked, the window was filled with bright blue sky, cloudless except for a few white wisps that floated high overhead. Through the window across the aisle, she could look down on the sand of the beaches, gleaming golden in the early afternoon sun, the vivid aquamarine blue of the waters of the Gulf, and the crisp green of the lawns and gardens that surrounded the glistening white houses.
Then the plane straightened, passed over the busy streets of the old city, over the scattered houses in the suburbs, and at last the hangars and runways of Tampa International Airport swept into view over the leading edge of the wing. The big plane shuddered as Captain March, the senior pilot, lowered his wing flaps to check the landing speed. Then the runway rushed up to meet the ship, and there was a shrill whine as the tires hit the concrete strip.
In her natural element, the air, the huge plane was as effortless and graceful in flight as a soaring gull. But on the ground, her wings vibrated and seemed to droop, and she shook all over like some great, tired clumsy beast as she lumbered forward to the unloading gate.
The instant she felt the ship land and steady on its taxiing course, Vicki unfastened her seat belt and got to her feet, ready to help her passengers collect their things and get ready to disembark. Ten minutes later she and Cathy were standing in the open plane doorway saying good-by to the last of them, three small children, who, with their mother, had been making their first trip by air. The little girls had been fascinated by the flight, and Vicki had spent all of her spare minutes—which on a short flight like this one, and with hot lunches to be served to eighty passengers, were very few—answering their eager questions.
Then, rapidly, the two stewardesses checked through the big cabin for any belongings their passengers might have left behind.
“I hope our hotel is on the beach,” Cathy said, stopping for a moment to gaze out at the warm sunshine. “I can’t wait to start working on a Florida tan.”