Flygirl (13 page)

“One lap, ladies, one lap fully clothed in your flight suits,” Doc Monserud shouts across the pool to our flight. “Something you should get used to. In case of a water landing.”

“Right, water landing,” Patsy says, two girls ahead of me. “In case the plane decides to float.”

“Don't jinx it,” someone else says. Patsy looks over her shoulder at me and winks. I don't wink back. I can barely take my eyes off the pool.

“It doesn't look too bad,” Lily says. “Why, the pool in my apartment building is twice this size. A real Olympic regulation swimming pool.”

“Fancy,” Patsy drawls. She turns to me. “What's a matter, honey?”

I grit my teeth. “Nothing. I'm fine.”

“Like heck. What is it?”

I stare at my feet. I can't believe I'm going to wash out before basic training has even really begun. I can feel Patsy looking at me. I return the look with watery eyes.

“I can't swim.”

The girls near us start to cluck their tongues and shake their heads. “Poor kid.” “That's a shame.”

“Stop your gobbling,” Patsy says to them. “Look, Jonesy. You handle yourself pretty well in the sky. We'll figure something out.”

“I could swim for her,” Lily whispers.

“What? How?” I stare at her, hating to hope there is a way.

“Sorry, sister, but you two don't look a thing alike, aside from height, that is.”

“Not with my hair down,” Lily says. “But look at them in there.” She points with her chin to the first of the swimmers. They struggle through the water in their overgrown man suits, hair wrapped up in Urban's ugly old turbans. If I didn't know better, I'd say they just want to drown us all.

“She's right,” Patsy says. “Bundled up in that mess, you couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, let alone which woman.”

“You'd do this for me?” I take Lily by the arm. If she's caught, we'll both get thrown out. Lily's eyes waver, but only for a second. She sets her jaw and nods at me.

“For the woman that taught me how to make a bed, I'd do anything.”

We're at the front of the line now. I hang back and let the other women pass me. Lily jumps in, alongside Patsy.

They sink a little, then float back up to the top of the pool. Their clothes are another matter. The zoot suits are like anchors. My heart flutters in my throat just watching them, and I know that I could never do what Lily is doing for me. There are a lot of things I can handle, but water isn't one of them.

After what seems like a dog's age, Lily makes it to the other side of the pool. Doc Monserud is so busy with the other girls, I break free from the group and meet up with Lily and a towel. Patsy climbs out of the pool, grabs another towel, and holds it up as a curtain for both of us. The other girls are too busy with their zoot suits and turbans and pure exhaustion to even notice Lily and me changing suits.

“Are you sure you can do this?” I whisper.

Lily gasps. “Don't ask me again, Ida. I don't have the breath to say yes.”

She dresses more quickly than I do, thanks to my dry suit. But a wet zoot suit is a horse of a different color. I struggle halfway into it before Patsy stops me.

“Hey, kiddo, look around,” she says softly. Every girl that's finished the swim is half out of her suit and half into a towel. Patsy smiles. “As far as they know, you're done. Just wrap up in a towel now and watch Johnny Weissmuller over there strut her stuff.”

I have to laugh at that. Buster Crabbe may be a matinee idol now, but once upon a time he was an Olympic swim champion. I pull the towel around me gratefully and turn to watch Lily catch up with the end of the line. When the doc blows the whistle, she jumps right in without looking at him.

“She sure can swim,” Patsy says.

“She's a regular Tarzan,” I say, referring to Johnny Weissmuller's most famous role.

“Heck, no,” Patsy says. “Tarzan never had to wear a zoot suit. Our Lily is a Jane all the way.”

Lily climbs out of the pool for the second time. She looks tiny in the waterlogged suit but elated.

“I think we did it,” she says, waving her hands excitedly.

“Keep it down,” Patsy tells her, and tosses a dry towel over her head.

“Thank you, Lily. You saved my skin.”

Lily grins back happily. “If it weren't for all this deadweight, it would've almost been fun.”

 

After the swim test is complete, we're bussed back to the base where Doc Monserud dismisses us. Not all of Flight One has passed. Two girls, Anderson and Shaw, are told to report to Deatie Deaton's office after they shower. The girls head to the showers, chattering about the difficulty of swimming in clothes or, worse, what a wet turban feels like in the Texas heat. It's hot enough to make our clothes steam, but not to dry them.

“Aren't you going to clean up?” Patsy asks me. “We're due at the mess hall in fifteen minutes.”

I'm slumped against the wall outside the showers in Lily's wet zoot suit. I feel ashamed. Two of us have already washed out. I'm still here only because I cheated. I've already lied about my license and my race. What else will I do before this training is done?

“I'm fine,” I finally say. “But I guess I should report to Mrs. Deaton as a washout.”

Patsy stops toweling her hair and gives me a look. “Now, Jonesy, don't let this eat at you. You think those kids overseas get along all by their lonesome in this war? Of course not. We're a team. We shoulder each other. Anderson and Shaw should've been half as clever as you to figure that out.”

I give her a weak smile, but I still feel wrong.

“Ida Mae, hurry up,” Lily calls out from the dormitory. She's already back in her khakis, lacing up her shoes. “I'll save you two a seat at the mess.”

“Thanks, Lily,” Patsy says for both of us. After Lily leaves, Patsy takes me by the wrist. “Listen, Jones. Lily went out on a limb for you. The least you could do is be grateful. Happy, even.”

I don't meet her eyes. “The thing is, I'm more grateful than I can say.”

Patsy smiles and lets go of my wrist. “Then don't say anything. And repay the favor when you can.”

At last I smile. Lily and Patsy aren't just my classmates, they are real friends. Maybe it's not the same as it is with me and Jolene—they don't know everything about Ida Mae Jones. But they know Jonesy, and that's who I really am. For the first time since leaving home, I've got friends, and that tells me I belong.

 

Dinner is a somber affair as everyone says goodbye to Anderson and Shaw. We've been together only a short while, but seeing two of our own wash out brings everyone down. I hang back, feeling guilty that I'm not leaving, too, but more desperate than ever to stay. After the two girls say their goodbyes, the mood changes and the pressure of training takes over. We linger after dinner comparing class notes, especially in navigation. Reading maps is second nature for some but not all of the WASP. I chatter along with the rest of the girls, and we stay up until lights-out studying flight maps and practicing plotting courses. But afterward, when the lights go off, I lie awake and think of Lake Pontchartrain and how fear, any fear, can be my enemy.

“Shoo, fly, don't bother me. Shoo, fly, don't bother me,” I tell myself. I'll get over my fear one day. I have to. Anything else and I'd be less than a WASP.

“Lily.” I am across the room and standing by her bed before I can stop myself. “Lily, are you awake?”

Lily moans. Her head is completely under the covers.

“Yes, Mother. I'll be right there,” she says sleepily.

“Lily.”

Her head pops out of the blankets, red hair wrapped in a sleeping turban, like the high-society version of Urban's finest.

“Ida, what is it? Is everything okay?” Her brown eyes are wide.

“Sorry to wake you. It's just . . .” I sit on the edge of her bed and reach for the right words. “Well, it's like making a bed. I mean, I'm really grateful and all. It was a huge, gorgeous thing you did for me. But I want to be able to do it myself.”

“What do you mean?” Lily asks. She's wide awake now, sitting up in her bed. Our whispers add a sense of urgency that shakes away all fogginess.

“I mean, I want to learn how to swim. We come to Avenger Field all big and brave, like we can do anything. And I know that's impossible. We're not superheroes or anything. But I'd at least like to try. To say I gave it a try . . . Will you teach me?”

Lily smiles at me, a kind, happy smile. She puts her hand on mine. “I'd love to. Although we'd best be careful, since everyone thinks you can swim already.” Her eyes grow distant. When she looks at me again, they sparkle.

“Oh, this will be fun! It'll be our little secret.” She grabs the covers in a gleefully conspiratorial way.

“Mine, too, if you don't keep it down,” Patsy grumbles from her bed. Patsy sleeps with a satin mask covering her eyes. She has earplugs, too, from her days working air shows, but she says she doesn't like to sleep with them in because she might miss reveille.

“Sorry,” Lily and I whisper simultaneously, and then grin.

“Tell you what, I'll sleep on it,” Lily says. “And I'll let you know what I come up with in the morning.”

I glance at the clock in the dark, but it's too dark to read. I know it must be late. “Of course. Go back to sleep. I'm sorry to wake you. And thanks, Lily. I owe you one.”

“That's two, Jonesy.” She smiles and is asleep again almost before she can get the blanket over her head. Poor kid. All that swimming really took its toll. Somehow, I'll find a way to repay her for the test and for the lessons, too.

It only takes me a moment longer to crawl back into bed and fall asleep. This time, I sleep without tossing. I sleep without dreams.

“Just hold on to the edge,” Lily tells me. It's Sunday afternoon and Lily and I are clinging to the edge of the town swimming pool like two shipwreck victims on a piece of flotsam. Well, at least I am. Lily looks as happy as a mermaid in the water. She bobs beside me, legs kicking in a soft froglike movement while she uses both hands to slide my death grip of forearms and elbows off the rim of the pool. If anyone asks, we're just swimming for fun and a little exercise. Never mind the fact that I'm fighting it every step of the way.

The rest of the girls are back at the barracks sunning themselves or writing letters home. Better to be in the water, though, than out in the sun, where my skin will only get darker. Light as I am, I tan deeper than any white girl I've ever seen, and then claiming Spanish blood might not keep everyone from figuring me out.

Eventually I'm holding on just by my very tense fingertips. “See, Ida, that's not so bad.”

“If you say so.” She's right, of course. It's almost soothing, rocking in the cool water, but that's until I look down the pool to the shadowy deep end. Then it's Lake Pontchartrain all over again, and I can see my doom staring back at me.

“Really, Ida, if you're going to be so melodramatic, maybe we should skip this altogether.”

I blush. “Am I that bad?”

“Yes, you are,” she tells me. “You don't have to do this.”

I consider it for a minute. She's right. I could climb out of the water right now and never get back in again and it won't matter. If I crash at sea, I'm dead, anyway.

Right?

I take a deep breath. “What's next?”

“Well, you put your face in, of course. And I'll teach you how to breathe.”

I grin in spite of myself, in spite of the dread I feel. “Shoot, Lily, I thought that was the one thing I already knew.”

 

Swim lessons are soon eclipsed by homework from our navigation class. Every single one of us knows how to fly places we've been before, and we're getting good at plotting our course on maps, but up until now, we've only flown maneuvers over the auxiliary landing fields. Next week, we'll be flying by the map, from Sweetwater to Baker's Pond, a town about thirty miles away, and back. We're expected to make the round trip in under an hour. Getting lost won't exactly look good with the instructor in the backseat.

If we do well, we're up for our first solo flights. That means an end to basic training, a test by an army pilot, and on to bigger and better planes. Audrey says a few girls usually wash out on the solo. I, for one, plan to pass.

Today, Instructor Martin teaches us about railroads. “They are simply the easiest guides to set your course by.” He hands out the train schedule for the region. We pass the little paper pamphlets around the room.