Free Five Brides by Eva Marie Everson

wedding dress tomorrow , shall we?”
    The three looked at each other and giggled. A knock sounded from the door as Evelyn stood to pour another cup of coffee. “I’llget it,” she said, then disappeared into the shadows of the living room.
    Betty patted Magda’s hand. “Seriously. If this Harlan is as big a writer as you are a reader, you may have met your match.”
    Magda grinned as Evelyn reentered the kitchen. “Betty,” she whispered, approaching the table. “A man who looks an awful lot like a movie star is out there wanting to see you. He says it’s important.”
    Betty frowned. Only one person she knew fit that description.
    George.

    If Inga Christenson had hoped to see the world by taking a job at Trans World Airlines, the most she’d managed so far was Chicago to Los Angeles. Not that it was a bad route. Quite the contrary. What could be better than those three-day layovers in Hollywood like the one she was currently enjoying, after all? Strolling along the Walk of Fame . . . taking in the sights on Hollywood Boulevard—such as Grauman’s Chinese Theatre—and dining at The Brown Derby on Wilshire.
    But so far, she’d only managed to do this with some of the other stewardesses. And even then, not so often.
    Where was the glamour the airline employment ads had promised? Where was the thrill of the flight? And where were the all the single, good-looking pilots she’d thought she’d have met by now?
    She only needed one, for pity’s sake. One who’d say, “Fly with me, Inga. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
    “Oh yeah? Where?” she asked her reflection in the gilded wall mirror in front of her. She stood in the center of her hotel bathroom and carefully removed her cap, making sure to fasten the bobby pins to the loop on the inside front.
    “Hey, Inga.” Her coworker and friend, stewardess Henrietta Swift, tapped on the bathroom door. Henrietta was also her roommate for the night. “I could sure use five minutes in there.”
    Inga opened the door. “Sorry.” They passed each other as Inga walked out, closing the door behind her. “I’m thinking of going out for a bite tonight,” she said. “Not to the hotel’s restaurant. I’m in the mood to walk around a little.”
    The toilet flushed, and after a moment of water running, Henrietta, a willowy green-eyed redhead, opened the door. She dried her hands on one of the hotel’s towels, marked with a giant blue HH in the center, lest someone thought to steal one. “I know it’s only four o’clock, but I’m too tired to go out,” she said. “I think I may just order up a sandwich later.” Her brow wrinkled. “Do you mind finding one of the other girls?”
    “Sure, or I’m good with going out alone. Especially considering how nice the weather is tonight.”
    Henrietta tossed the towel back into the bathroom. “Sure beats Chicago, doesn’t it?”
    Inga laughed easily. “That it does.”
    She set about changing from her uniform into an emerald-green pencil-skirt dress, but slipped her feet back into the same shoes she wore in flight. She frowned at herself in the bedroom mirror.
    “What’s wrong?” Henrietta asked. She’d changed into her pajamas and had stretched out on the bed, the pillows at her back and a book in her hand. Henrietta, like Magda, loved a good book.
    “Last year’s dress,” Inga said. “I thought when I came to Chicago and went to work for my uncle, I’d have scads of money for clothes. Instead, I’m working to pay for an apartment I’m hardly ever at and have little money left over for a new dress, ornew shoes, or—” she turned to face Henrietta instead of speaking to her reflection—“even a new hat.”
    Henrietta dropped the book, leaned forward, and crossed her legs in a single movement. “My dear, you could walk out in a gunnysack and you’d look like a million. Don’t you have any idea how the men turn and ogle you wherever you go? Why do you think all the others want to make