The Courting of Longeron Lovely

Short Story by David P. Andersen

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John Barrington was so in love with Longeron Lovely that he nearly cross-threaded a wing bolt as he watched her long legs dangling over the edge of the picnic table.  She was gorgeous: slender, with blue eyes and blonde hair.  And she could out-fly most of the other Balsa Buzz Bugs.  Her father and her brothers flew radio-controlled model airplanes, too.  She grew up with a transmitter in her hands.  Flying was in her blood.  She was John’s dream girl.

“You know, John,” she said as she watched a Sig Kougar in knife-edge flight slicing its way across the sky.  “You are not the only one to propose marriage to me.”  John’s screwdriver slipped out of the wing bolt, punching a small hole in the epoxy surface of the wing.  “Your old flying buddy Jim has asked for my hand too.  Both of you would make ideal husbands.  I love you both.  The reason that I haven’t given you an answer is that I just can’t decide which of you I want to marry.”

John slid one hand under the fuselage of the airplane and lifted it out of its Styrofoam stand.  Putting the other hand flat on top of the wing, he rolled the airplane upright and set it gently on the grass.  He stood up and wiped the dust off his right knee.  He looked at Longeron (her father picked the name in a moment of jest, but her mother, not knowing what it meant, thought it sounded so romantically French) and said, “What can I do to help you decide?”

Lonny looked back at John, her eyes intense.  She paused to withdraw the prop reamer from the propeller she held in her left hand while she blew the dust from it.  Then she looked back again at John and spoke.

“One thing a girl really enjoys is to watch two men fight over her.  I don’t mean a barroom brawl.  I mean a civilized competition between two gentlemen.  So here’s what I offer…I will marry whomever of you does the best in next month’s fun fly contest.”