Flygirl (10 page)

“Pleased to met ya, Nancy.” Patsy holds out her hand. It's the strangest showdown I've ever seen, polite on the surface, but like a snakebite underneath. Nancy actually gulps and looks around. Laidlaw watches from the far side of the bed. No one goes to stand next to Nancy.

Patsy's hand is still thrust in front of her. Gingerly, Nancy takes it. Her handshake looks like one of those soft, fingertip shakes that the debutantes use in New Orleans. Like holding on to a wet sock. Patsy shakes back, but she shakes like a man, swallowing Nancy's little hand whole. Nancy winces and laughs nervously.

“Just a joke,” she says, pulling her hand away. “I'm sure we'll all be great friends. Right?” She looks around with a wildly cheerful smile, then skitters back to her bed against the wall.

Laidlaw speaks up. “I'm Mary. Pleased to meet you.”

“And I'm Jeanette,” the girl named Jennings adds.

We smile and exchange genuine pleasantries this time. The tension all but dissipates, and we return to our side of the room. Just like that, the lines are drawn. These two are my new best friends.

“Like dogs in a kennel,” I mutter.

Lily giggles a little nervously. Patsy snorts. “You've got that right, sister. And every one of them female.”

“Well, we'd better get these beds made,” Patsy continues. “We all need our beauty sleep.”

I snap my sheets in the air and let them float down over the mattress. Grandy always liked a crisply made bed, and I'm glad that it looks almost, if not quite, military when it's done.

Patsy finishes her bed when I do, but Lily is a different story.

“How the heck are you supposed to do this?” she cries into her sheets. She looks like a ghost, covered in linens, and none of them on the bed.

“Just toss it over the mattress,” I say.

“Haven't you ever made a bed before?” Patsy asks.

Lily falls forward onto the bed, a sheet stretched across her front. “In case you couldn't guess, no, I haven't. Greta usually makes my bed. She's our housekeeper. I asked her to show me how once, but she refused. She said a proper lady didn't have to make her own bed.”

“More likely she was afraid she'd lose her job if you knew how easy it was,” I say. “Here, separate your sheets. This is the top, this is the bottom. Just toss it out lightly like this.” I stand at the foot of the bed and snap the sheet out. It floats down like a blanket of snow.

“You make it look so easy.” Lily blushes. “I'm useless.”

“Don't be so hard on yourself, honey.” Patsy puts an arm around her shoulders.

“If military life was easy, everybody would do it,” I add.

Lily laughs, even though she looks like she's about to cry.

“Besides,” I say. “I'm practically a professional.”

I shake my head. Lily's the kind of girl I'd be cleaning up after back in New Orleans. But now, she's giving me a hug for the same kind of work that I usually get paid a dime for. If only Jolene could see me now.

“Thank you so much,” Lily says. “Here, I know I can do the top sheet if you let me.”

“Give it a go. And tomorrow we'll teach you how to dust and do the wash.”

Patsy and I laugh, but Lily takes us seriously. “Do you think you could? Won't training take up all of our time?”

“I should hope so, sister,” Patsy says.

“Why would you want to learn to dust when you can fly?” I ask her.

“Oh, girls, you know we won't be in the army forever. When this war is over, Harry and I are getting married. Shouldn't a wife know how to cook and clean for her husband?”

“I never said anything about cooking,” Patsy says, turning away in mock disgust.

“Well, Mother's never taught me a thing about keeping house, but you seem to know what you're doing. Ida here can probably even handle an iron. Isn't that right, Ida? What if I scorch his shirts?”

“Oh, brother!” Patsy exclaims.

I sit down on my own bed, suddenly tired. The image of Jolene and me up to our elbows in Otis Wilson's dirty socks is hard to swallow. “Lily's right. This war won't last forever,” I say. “I'm just hoping that the WASP will.”

“Amen,” Patsy says.

Lily looks at both of us, a little puzzled, and pulls the sheets tighter on her bed.

“Harry will love this,” she says at last, and pulls a Brownie camera out of her purse to take a picture of the first bed she's ever made.

 

Reveille is at 6 A.M. A bugle plays over the base loudspeakers, cracking the morning silence. I wake up with my eyes sore and dry from the hot Texas air. Still, I'm up and halfway to the showers before my eyes are even all the way open. Growing up with two brothers and one bathroom, I know sharing two showers with eleven women isn't going to be a picnic. I'm the second person in line, behind Lily Lowenstein.

“It's hard to get up early,” she tells me over the hiss of the water. “But it's worth it for all the hot water. I love long showers and baths.”

I smile in spite of myself. “Breakfast is in twenty-five minutes. A short shower will have to do.”

Lily sticks her head out of the shower stall. Her eyes have gone round. “Oh, of course you're right. I'd better hurry.”

I tuck my hair into my shower cap and jump in as soon as she's done. We don't even cut off the water. It's like an assembly line, the ones you see Rosie the Riveter working on in all of the war ads. The thought makes me laugh.

“Fifteen minutes!” someone shouts into the bathroom. I drop my soap, I'm trying to move so fast.

I come out of the shower with my robe already on and race barefoot to my footlocker. The clothes they've given us make us look like we're in a chain gang: giant overalls with long sleeves that drag even on the tallest of the girls.

“We call them zoot suits,” the supply officer who handed them out to us explained yesterday. “You'll see why.”

It isn't until this morning, pulling the darn thing on, that I get it. Zoot suits, those baggy, wide-legged, tight-ankled outfits all of the hepcats wear in the movies and in some of the dance halls downtown in New Orleans, have nothing on my new jumpsuit. Real zoot suits are all about being oversized, but at least they don't drag the ground. I look at the label inside the collar. It's too big even for Thomas, and the army says they're one size fits all. I shrug and roll up the legs and sleeves, glad that my brothers aren't here to laugh at me. Lord only knows what Mama would say. A belt might help keep the crotch above my knees, but it's clear I'm not winning any beauty contests in this getup.

“Charming, aren't they?” Patsy says to me. Patsy's at least four inches taller than my five-foot five. Somehow she makes the rolled sleeves look smart, and the cuffs are cute instead of utilitarian. I frown and shrug.

“If they'll stick me in a plane in this thing, I'll wear it,” I tell her. “But I hope nobody's taking pictures.”

Patsy laughs and helps adjust my cuffs.

Just then, a woman walks in, ash blond and tanned. She winks at us with green eyes. “Morning, girls. I'm your senior squadron leader. I'm just dropping by to say hello. After breakfast have your group meet me outside of the barracks. I'll be talking to the entire class.”

“Sure thing,” Patsy tells her. I nod silently.

“Senior squadron leader.” I shake my head.

“Haven't you heard?” Patsy asks. “You're in the army now.”

We smile at each other and head off to the mess hall. Lily, practically draped in her zoot suit, follows us, one foot barely in each shoe.

 

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and oatmeal, we line up outside of the mess hall. Patsy, Lily, and I stick together automatically. It reminds me of the first day of school. The ash-blonde upperclassman is already there waiting.

“Listen up, girls. My name is Audrey Hill. I'm part of class 43-W-6, and you'll be known as 44-W-3. With any luck, we'll all graduate before the end of the year. Now, I'm going to need you to divide into two groups, which we call flights. So, anybody with a last name starting with
A
through
L,
move to the left.
M
to
Z,
over to the right.”

She waves her hands and the cluster of girls parts like the Red Sea. Lily, Patsy, and I stay to the left, and we split up, approximately fifty girls on either side. Audrey counts us and makes a note on her clipboard, moving her lips and pointing at each girl as she goes.

“Fine, then.
A
through
Ls,
you'll be Flight One, and you others will be Flight Two. Now, I want you all to pick a squadron commander, someone good at organization. She'll be in charge of the paperwork and administrative duties for the flight. Then each flight should pick a lieutenant, who will be responsible for getting you into formation after breakfast and marching you properly from class to class.

“Keep in mind, this is the military, even if we are civilians. We're expected to march and salute just like the rest of the army.” She smiles mischievously. “You'll learn to love it, girls. We've made it fun.”

“I'll bet they have,” Patsy says with a smirk.

“Patsy, I nominate you for squadron commander,” Lily says brightly. “You've got stage . . . or, I guess, wing experience, and you're tall, so people will notice you.”

“Oh, no, sister, I'm not leadership material,” Patsy says, putting a defensive hand in the air. “I'm just here to fly.”

“Then you do it, Red,” another girl says to Lily. Lily blushes instantly, living up to the nickname originally aimed at her auburn hair.

“Oh, I couldn't possibly.”

“I bet you could,” I chime in. “Think of how proud Harry would be.”

Lily beams in spite of herself. “All right, I'll do it . . . that is, if nobody has any objections.”

“Anybody got a problem with Lowenstein doing the paperwork?” Patsy asks.

“Not at all,” somebody says. “If I wanted to be a secretary, I'd have stayed at home.”

Lily flushes. “Is it really just secretarial work?” she asks Audrey.

“No, dear. It's an important position. And just the fact that you've stepped up to the plate when these other ladies think they're too good for the job means you've got a better shot at becoming a WASP than any of them.”

Lily beams all over again. “Did you hear that? I've got a shot!”

“I'll be flight lieutenant,” I say quickly. Anything to give me a leg up is a good thing. I wish I'd thought of it sooner.

“Fine,” Audrey says. “And the other flight?” A girl named Janet Raines takes the other position. Patsy smiles at me, apparently satisfied at dodging the leadership bullet.

“Well, then, lieutenants, gather your girls into line, marching two abreast, and I'll show you around.”

Janet and I step forward, next to Audrey. “What do we do?” I ask softly, so the others won't hear.

“Oh, just say, ‘Attention!' and they should fall into place.”

“Do they know that?” Janet asks.

“Oh, for heaven's sake!” Audrey shakes her head at us. “Ladies, when they say ‘attention,' line up like I asked.”

“Atten-shun!” I shout as loud as I can. Lily jumps, startled. Patsy fights to keep from laughing. But it works, and my flight lines up, two women abreast, twenty-four rows deep.

Janet follows suit, and soon we look like the real thing, lined up and ready to march.

“Come on, girls. I'll teach you a few of the camp songs along the way,” Audrey says. She turns on her heel and heads off across the base yard.

“Uh, forward, march!” I say, remembering the line from a movie. It works as well as “attention” did, and we tramp after Audrey in the yellow Texas dust.

“Sing after me,” Audrey calls out.

We're all still laughing at the song when we pass the hangars and come to the low building where our classes will be held.

“In addition to the classrooms, the pilot ready room is here. That's where you'll suit up and wait your turn to fly.”

I break into a grin. “That's the first time anybody's actually said we're going to fly,” I whisper to Patsy. “Don't pinch me, I don't want to wake up.”

“No kidding,” Patsy agrees. We follow Lily and the rest of the flight behind Audrey, across the yard to the actual landing field. The field itself reminds me of Airline Highway in Slidell, fifty miles of straight, unbending pavement, but instead of pickup trucks and fruit wagons, Avenger Field is dotted with airplanes, primary trainers, and advanced trainers, open and closed cockpit. I stop in my tracks, watching as girls like me take off and land. My chest feels so full I think I'm going to explode. I want to run down the middle of that airfield and jump right up into the air myself.

“Hill, what are you bringing out on my tarmac?” a man's voice asks. There's that Texas twang, so different from my own slow New Orleans brogue. I pull my eyes off the runway long enough to see who interrupted our voyeuristic bliss.

“Ladies, I'd like you to meet Sergeant Middleton. He's the head engineer who works on all of our planes.”

Middleton gives us a dubious once-over. He's youngish, probably not even thirty, but the way he squints at us, and with his short-cropped strawberry blond hair making him look almost bald, from a distance I'd have probably guessed he was a lot older. He reminds me of that cartoon fellow, Pop-eye, but in an army uniform instead of a sailor suit.