How I Met My Husband Summary
A red-and-silver plane lands at the old fairgrounds across the road from the home of the Peebles, for whom Edie works. Edie’s first close-up view of an airplane leads to her first encounter with romance.
Edie is both eager for and rather innocent about romance. She is quite proudly aware of her blossoming womanhood, and the day after the plane lands, Edie gets the impulse to dress herself up in Mrs. Peebles’s finery, put on makeup, and play the part of a sophisticated beauty while Mrs. Peebles is out for the afternoon. This is how she is discovered by Chris Watters, who is looking for a drink of cool water from the pump. Edie is embarrassed but also irresistibly attracted to the pilot when he tells her she looks beautiful.
That attraction leads Edie to cross the road that same night. Chris Watters has finished giving airplane rides for the day and shares a smoke with his young visitor. Edie, concerned that Mrs. Peebles will discover her improprieties of the afternoon, convinces Watters to promise not to say anything about the dress-up episode. Her short visit reinforces her impression that she is somehow special to the friendly pilot.
Their casual relationship continues as the pilot regularly stops by for drinks of water. One day Alice Kelling shows up, guided to the Peebles’s place by the ever-present Loretta Bird. Edie critically notes that Alice is neither young nor pretty, that her bust looks low and bumpy, that she has a worried face, and that her engagement ring features but a single, tiny stone. That night Alice and Chris go off somewhere in her car. Much later, through the slats of her blind, Edie watches them come home. She is not unhappy to observe them get out of opposite sides of the car and walk away from each other.
When Alice accompanies the Peebles on a picnic to the lake the next day, Edie bakes Chris a cake and learns that he has decided to pull up stakes and make his getaway. The visit turns into a rousing but...