Flygirl (24 page)

Mama comes into the room. “Ida Mae, don't make me tell you again. You'll break that boy beyond repair.”

“He started it.”

“I don't care who started it.” Mama gives us her best “there'll be trouble in this house” look, hands on her hips, dish towel still in her hand. “It's finished now.” And then she smiles. “Lord, it's good to have you home. Now you can both be home to stay.”

Thomas and I look at each other. “I've been honorably discharged,” he explains apologetically.

“Oh. Well. I'm just getting started.”

Thomas nods, as if to say, “I know.” But Mama doesn't look happy.

“Mama, I—” She leaves the room without a word.

Thomas and I sit there in silence. I know better than to go after her now. If I do, I'll be asking for permission to leave, and she didn't really give it to me the first time. She certainly won't now. But I have to go back. I have to report for duty.

Thomas squeezes my hand.

“Don't worry, Clayfoot. You know she's proud of you, don't you? All she could talk about once she was done talking about me was you.” He laughs and shakes his head. “I must admit, I didn't know you had it in you.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Well, Brother Thomas, there's more where that came from.”

Now Thomas laughs even harder. “Boy, we're in trouble now.”

I find myself laughing, too. I've got six days at home. I won't ruin them by arguing with Mama now. It can wait. It will have to.

“Well, it's past my bedtime.” I stand up and stifle a yawn.

“You're kidding?” Thomas says. “It's six A.M. in Manila right now.”

“Well, it's bedtime in Slidell. I'll see you at breakfast. Good night.”

He pulls me in for a one-armed hug. “Good night.”

I mount the stairs, hearing the familiar sounds of the house creaking around me. Abel is asleep in his room on a cot Mama used to keep in the attic but deemed too springy for Thomas to convalesce in. I tiptoe into Abel's room and kiss my bean-pole little brother good night.

Back in my own bed, the ceiling is too low. I miss the barracks, believe it or not, and the open cockpits of our trainer planes. I close my eyes and pretend I'm simply flying at night, with the glowing instrument panel my only guide. It helps. My thoughts drift to Lily in her apartment, ten stories above Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, and Patsy in Florida, unable to wear her landlady's wedding pearls. Patsy Kake. I sit up and dig around in my suitcase for my knotted handkerchief. I undo a knot for Thomas and feel lighter for it. Patsy was right. It helps to travel light, but some things you just can't leave behind. Those are my last thoughts, and then I fall asleep.

“Girl! Look at you, look at you!”

Jolene hollers from down the block. I wave and she rushes down the street toward me, still in her cleaning clothes, a satchel in one hand and sweater in the other.

We're outside of Miss Mary's three-chair beauty parlor, built into the side of her house. The long white wooden building has merliton vines growing in the side yard. Jolene drops her bag when she reaches me and I sweep her into a hug.

“I've missed you so much,” I tell her, breathing in the familiar smell of pine cleaner and Cashmere Bouquet soap. Her scent is a sudden anchor to my old life.

“I'll say.” Jolene pulls back. “You've put on some weight.” She pinches my arm. “But it's solid.”

“Calisthenics,” I say.

“But you look pale as a ghost, Ida Mae. Don't they let you see the sun out there?”

I smile weakly. I don't want to talk about skin color. “Come on, Miss Mary's waiting.”

Jolene and I are going to the picture show on Canal tonight. It seems plenty of sailor boys are making their way through New Orleans while heading toward the Gulf of Mexico, and Jolene wants us both looking good.

Miss Mary is a smiling woman with round glasses and a flair for the latest hairdos. She waves at us as we come in and rises from the card table where she's been doing a crossword puzzle. I breathe in the sharp smells of straightening lye, newly pressed hair, and memories. Miss Mary gave Abel his first haircut when he was three.

The shady room is a welcome change from the sun-bright street outside. We settle into the pink hair-washing chairs, with their neck rests low against the black sinks.

“How you been, Ida Mae?” Miss Mary asks me as she rinses down my hair. Miss Mary loves doing my hair. “Smooth as silk and easy to press,” she says. Today, she runs her fingers through it, smiling at me.

“Haven't seen you in a while. People've been talking.”

I look at Jolene. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. Of course there would be rumors, and Mama's not one to bother with gossipers. She'll just say, “None of your business,” which only leads to more speculation. “What kind of talk?” I ask.

Miss Mary shrugs and her young assistant, Eliza, turns her head to hide a smirk. “It's just that good girls don't disappear from home for months at a time.”

Jolene starts to say something, but I beat her to it. “Good girls, Miss Mary?” I tilt my head to look up at her. “You think I'm not?” I can feel the heat rise in my face. “Do I look like I've been off having babies?”

At the next sink, Eliza shrugs. “Or not having them.”

“Eliza Brown, that is enough,” Miss Mary says sharply. “Now, I'm sorry, Ida Mae. I think the world of your mama, so I think the world of you, too, but you should know that people are talking, and a lot of that mess is said right here. So, what should I be telling them?”

I'm too angry to speak. Jolene didn't tell me there was gossip to worry about. From her chair, she gives me an apologetic shrug. Miss Mary sighs. “Listen, child, I'm trying to help. Anything I say, they'll believe. For a while, at least.”

I take a breath. Mama did try to warn me. Jolene did, too. “Tell them I'm in the army.”

“You enlisted?” Eliza whirls around to look at me, eyes wide with something like respect. “I didn't know that, Ida Mae. Good for you. They got a lot of colored nurses in the army now. Some of them even working on white men.”

Jolene catches my eye and raises an eyebrow enough to let me know that any rumors were moved along by Eliza here. So, let her fill in the blanks any way she sees fit.

I shake my head and change the subject. “Thomas is home.”

“Thank the Lord for that.” Miss Mary relaxes visibly. She ties on her apron and soaps up my hair. “We've lost too many good boys,” she says. “Glad to see one of them come home alive.”

At the next sink, Eliza gets to work on Jolene. “Danny Taylor came home last month,” she says in her high, young voice. I brighten to hear Danny's name. I remember his strong bright smile that day Jolene and I saw him doing roadwork. The day before we went to war.

“He came back in so many pieces, they said they'd have to have two funerals to fit them all.” Eliza chuckles nervously. I gasp.

“What happened?”

“Lord, whatever happens,” Miss Mary said. “One of them minefields or airplane bombs. His mama's lucky to have any piece of him back.”

My heart sinks to my feet. “Jolene, did you know?”

Jolene stays quiet for a long time. “Yeah,” she says at last. “I went to the funeral.”

The sunny mood of our afternoon is dampened, and we sit through the rest of our hair washing in silence. It's not until we are under the dryers that Jolene perks up again.

“So, tell me everything. Starting with height.”

Her hair is a nest of combed-out curls and mine still in curlers. She's only halfway through her styling process, and I'm practically done with mine. The two of us are completely alone in the back of the salon. Even shouting over the hair dryers, no one can overhear us. Not even Eliza with her big old gossip-hearing ears.

“What do you mean, height?”

“Well, how tall the men are, of course! A man in uniform always looks taller to me, like all that extra starch Uncle Sam's been using in the laundry gets into their backbones.”

I shake my head. Jolene is as boy crazy as ever. Not even a war could change that.

“It's not like that,” I tell her. “There aren't any men stationed at the field anymore, outside of instructors, and it's strictly forbidden to mix it up with them.” I don't tell her about my dance with Walt Jenkins. That would scandalize even Jolene. I wish I
could
talk to her about him, though. I wonder what she'd think of him if he wasn't white. My face flushes just thinking about it. Ida Mae, you have to watch your step, I remind myself. I didn't join the WASP to find a white man.

Fortunately, Jolene's not looking at me. She frowns and flips through her copy of
Woman's Day
magazine. “Girl, I thought you'd been having yourself some fun. Just marching around and flying airplanes sounds dull, dull, dull, dull, dull.”

“Well, it's not. I like it.”

“Mm-hmm. And how are the girls? Are white army girls as snooty as civilians?”

“No. Well, not all of them. I've made some really good friends.”

“Right,” Jolene says, and I know what she's thinking. Good friends as long as I'm white. But a real friend would accept me even if they knew the truth. Or would they? I frown. It's a question I haven't got an answer to. But I do know that I won't tell Lily the truth while we're still in the service. If I got found out, we'd both be in trouble. But maybe afterward, when all of this is over . . .

I sigh. We'll just have to see.

“They really are good people, Jolene. You would have liked my friend Patsy. She's . . . well, she was a lot like you.”

“What do you mean ‘was'?”

My face gets hot, but it's killing me not to talk about it. “Oh, Jolene. She died on our last flight. Mechanical failure.”

Jolene drops her magazine and throws her hood of the dryer up.

“I thought you was flying planes. You never said anything about dying.”

I close my eyes. I shouldn't have said anything, but Jolene is my best friend. I wanted her to know. “Please don't tell my mother. It's not anyone's fault if it happens. I'm careful, as careful as anyone can be.”

Jolene shakes her head. “You're a fool, Ida Mae. At least when a girl passes for white down here, it's to have a better life. Not to end up dead. You are a colored girl, no matter how high yellow you look or how white you act. The army don't even know who your family is. If something happens to you, you think they'll write a letter to some colored folk so we can collect the body?”

“Seems like everybody around here is so busy telling me I can't that they won't spare a minute to say I can, and did, do what I said I would,” I snap. “You can't take it away from me, Jolene. Even if you're jealous. Even if your skin's so dark all you'll ever be is a housemaid. No, don't worry about me. I'll be just fine.”

The ladies up front are watching us now. Apparently they
can
hear something. Eliza is leaning forward to listen better, and Miss Mary looks worried. My cheeks are burning with anger and embarrassment. I lift up my hair dryer and feel my curls. They're dry enough. “I'm done here.” I stand up. Jolene watches me with hurt in her deep brown eyes.

Well, I'm hurt, too.

Jolene shakes her head again and goes back under the dryer. I pick up my own magazine and walk to the front of the shop, where Miss Mary sets me down to style my hair.

“Everything all right, baby?” she asks.

“Everything's just fine.” The angry lava inside me is already cooling down, turning into a lump of cold pride. And regret. But all I want to do is go home.

It feels like a lifetime before Miss Mary tells me my hair is done. Jolene is still under her dryer, her face hidden by a magazine. “Please tell Jolene I've gone home,” I ask Miss Mary.

“Of course, darling.” She lets me out of the chair and grabs a handful of my curls. “Such good hair,” she says, smiling. “Such good hair.”

 

When I get home, I find Mama in the kitchen, making drop biscuits to go with the chicken she's roasting. There's a pile of mustard greens on the table. I wash my hands in the kitchen sink and sit down in front of the greens without a word, glad to stop using my head for a while. Jolene's got me so turned around, I don't know which way is up. I wish the army had taught us how to navigate feelings as easily as they did a starless night sky.

Mama's new Fiestaware bowl, the one that looks so much like jade in the afternoon light, fills slowly as I sift through the greens, sliding my fingers down the spines, breaking off the tough, soil-heavy stems. Greens should go down smooth, not rough and hard to chew. The sharp, spicy smell of the leaves sprays the air. Mama just keeps mixing her biscuit dough. We fall into the rhythms of the kitchen so easily it's a wonder I've ever been away.