Flygirl (9 page)

Outside the window, the sky is peppered with airplanes, taking off, landing, circling the field.

“There it is,” Patsy Kake says, grinning. “Avenger Field.”

I tear my eyes away from the sky long enough to look at my new home. At first, I don't see much. Just an old split-rail fence, followed by more pancake-flat dirt, going on for miles. But then in front of us is a gate, an archway, really, like the ones in front of cowboy ranches in the movies. The wooden sign looks exactly the way I've seen it in the newspapers. A long dark rectangle with white letters that read AVIATION ENTERPRISES, LTD. In the center, above the words, a globe of the earth sits, wrapped with a small banner that says AVENGER FIELD. And flying above that globe, like she's coming in for a landing, is the mascot of the WASP, Fifinella. I smile up at the girl gremlin. She's a sight to see, with little horns and curling eyelashes. Her outfit is like nothing I've ever laid eyes on—blue flight goggles, an orange bomber jacket, glamorous elbow-length gloves, and yellow jodhpurs with a matching helmet. Her blue wings are spread out behind her, like she's coming in fast.

“That's a Walt Disney original,” Patsy tells me.

I smile. “What a looker.” Gremlins are supposed to be nasty little devils. The flyboys in the Pacific say that the Japanese send these little troublemakers to tear up their airplanes and make flying harder. Fifinella is the exact opposite. She's one of the good guys, here to help us women fly.

The guard at the little gatehouse waves us through. My butterflies return, but now they're from excitement instead of nausea. After months of newspaper clippings and daydreams, I am finally going to fly in this man's army.

I take a deep breath and step off the cattle truck onto the dry, powdered soil at Avenger Field. The noise of the planes overhead has my heart thumping. My fingers are itching to pull me inside a cockpit, but first things first.

We are greeted by an Army Air Forces officer with a stiff khaki uniform and an even stiffer frown.

“Welcome to Avenger Field,” he says. The way he says it reminds me that this man's army has been “men only” for a very long time. Not everyone is so happy to see us here.

They march us past the administrative building to what they call the training theater, where we will be processed. It's an old white building that sits like a box on the flat earth. The low roof doesn't make it any cooler in here. A small, kind-faced woman enters the room, a clipboard stacked with papers in her hands. She's in uniform, a tailored blue skirt and matching jacket, with her dark brown hair cut into a neat bob.

“Welcome to Avenger Field, ladies,” she says. Her voice has a no-nonsense kind of gentleness to it that reminds me right away of Mama. “My name is Leni Leoti Clark Deaton. I am the establishment officer here. Anything you need, anything concerning any WASP trainee, come to me and we will take care of you. For the next five months, you will be in training for the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Some of you will succeed, but most of you won't. Take a look at the girl to the left of you.”

Dutifully, we all turn and look at the turned heads of our fellows. Some look like kids. Some look like movie stars. I can only guess how I must look to them.

“Now,” Mrs. Deaton says, “look at the girl to the right. Say goodbye to both of them today, because two out of every three of you will wash out before training is over. We want only the best, ladies. We keep only the best. Remember that.”

There's some nervous shuffling, the kind you hear before a pop quiz in school. Everyone's wondering who will be left standing in five months. I feel my stomach roll again and this time not from the heat. I clench my teeth and take a deep breath.
I will be here,
I tell myself.
I will be here.

I catch Patsy Kake smiling at me from the corner of my eye. Maybe she'll be here, too. She's got the attitude for it.

Mrs. Deaton passes around copies of a list of rules for living at the base. I glance down the sheet. No smoking, no drinking, no fraternizing with the instructors . . . the list goes on.

“All right, listen up, ladies,” she says. “You'll be bunking in the barracks, six girls to a bay, two bays to a barrack. There's a Jack and Jill bathroom accessible from both rooms, or Jill and Jill, if you like. No men are allowed in the barracks. The twelve of you will share this bathroom for the next five months. Make friends. It'll go a lot easier that way.”

Mrs. Deaton's voice is clear and mellow. It seems to carry from her small frame like a church bell, despite her size. We all listen attentively. “Barracks are broken up by alphabet. When I call your name, come stand beside me, and we'll take you to the laundry, where you'll pick up your sheets, and then on to your quarters. We are on a military clock here. The hands go from oh-one-hundred to twenty-four-hundred hours. It is now twelve o'clock, or twelve hundred hours. You have the afternoon to settle in. Supper is at eighteen hundred hours, or six o'clock. Get used to the hours, ladies. It will also make life easier.

“Now, Anderson, Attley, Boxer, Bradford, Cunningham, DeAngelo,” she begins calling off names. One by one, girls pull away from the crowd to stand by her side. They look nervous, every one of them. Me, I can hear the blood pounding in my ears. This is it. Anyone I room with could be my best friend or the person who turns me in. It's all the luck of the draw.

“Howard,”Mrs. Deaton calls out. “Jennings. Jones.” I almost jump. A chill crawls up my spine and I step forward to join my new bunkmates. We don't look at each other, just our feet, and wait for the rest of our group. I don't know what to do with my hands, so I hold my purse with both of them. I don't know what to do with my feet, so I stand there, heels close together, and wait.

“Kake,” Mrs. Deaton calls. Patsy Kake smiles and sashays over to stand between Jennings and me. “Laidlaw. Lowenstein.” The last of the girls, Lowenstein, looks like a little bird, delicate bones and fine, chestnut-colored hair. She carries a heavy carpetbag with her in addition to her purse. The rest of us left our luggage on top of the bus, and I know I saw at least two steamer trunks up there with her name on it. I wonder what Lowenstein's carrying that's so important.

She carries the bag over to our little group. “Want some help, sister?” Patsy Kake offers her a hand. Lowenstein shakes her head politely. “No, thank you. I'm all right.”

We fall silent until the rest of the girls are put into groups. Then, like we're going to our own funeral, we silently fall into line as upperclassman trainees in khaki pants and white blouses lead us to our new homes.

“Would you look at this place?” the girl named Jennings gasps as we enter our side of the barracks. She sticks her head in the bathroom door at the center of the middle wall. “Two mirrors and two showers. For twelve women? No wonder they say war is hell.” Seeing the close quarters, I thank my lucky stars I brought a new shower cap with me. The last thing I need is an audience of eleven catching me with my hair kinking up from the steam. It looks like I'll be wearing braids most days.

Jennings leads the way into the bunkroom. Whitewashed cinder-block walls with one window at either end greet me. It's not pretty, but everything on this trip is still something to write home about. Jolene would hate the decor, but it certainly looks easy to clean.

“Home, sweet home,” Patsy Kake says, dropping her sheets and her suitcase onto the last bed in the room, just beneath the far window. The six cots lined up remind me of a hospital room, except for the narrow metal lockers at the foot of each bed.

“Everything we own is supposed to go in here?” someone asks. Nobody answers. I drop my little suitcase by one of the beds. I didn't bring much to begin with, but Lowenstein's going to need a team of muscle-bound men to help her with those trunks.

I take the bed next to Patsy because I'm standing in front of it. Lowenstein takes the bed to my right.

“Howdy, folks,” Patsy says, turning to face us. “I'm Patsy Kake. You can call me Patsy or Cakewalk, whichever you like.”

“‘Cakewalk'? That's a funny name,” Lowenstein says. “What does it mean?”

Lowenstein has the most beautiful auburn hair I've ever seen, two shades darker than sunset. It sits in soft waves about her shoulders. Her voice is like women in the movies. It sounds rich. Patsy Kake talks like a barmaid by comparison.

“It means I'm a wing walker in a barnstorming act,” Patsy says. “But I can fly, too. With this war and the gas rationing, air shows are all washed up, so I'm here to be a WASP. I'm gonna learn how the big boys do it.”

“A wing walker? Isn't that interesting,” Lowenstein says. “And dangerous, too. Oh, I'm Lily Lowenstein.” She shakes Patsy's hand, then turns to me. “Hello!”

“Hi. I'm, um, Ida Mae Jones,” I introduce myself. Lily's handshake is friendly, but she must be as nervous as I am. Her hands are ice cold and three shades lighter than mine. “I'm Spanish,” I blurt out Grandy's lie for no reason. “On my mother's side.”

“Oh, Spain's wonderful,” Lily exclaims.

“Uh, I've never been.” I could kick myself. This girl doesn't suspect me. I shouldn't have jumped the gun like that.

“Jonesy and I have already met,” Patsy says.

Down the row of cots, the other girls are making their own introductions. I turn to Patsy and try to change the subject before I say something else stupid. “Wing walking, you say? I saw a wing walker once at a county fair. It looked pretty scary, even if you like to fly.”

“No, it's easy. I was practically weaned on an airplane wing. They make you wear a chute, so it's perfectly safe, but the crowd loves to see a pretty girl risking her neck for a dollar. I do acrobatics, too, with and without a safety rope. More thrills for your bills that way. Cartwheels and such.”

Patsy Kake is a fire engine of a girl. I'm guessing she's only a couple of years older than me, twenty-three at most, and she sounds like she's already seen the whole world. I feel my country roots showing, but at least it's only that.

“What about you, Lowenstein, what's your deal?” Patsy asks.

“Oh, I don't know,” she says. She blushes at the sudden attention. A tiny sprinkling of freckles stands out against her flushed skin. “Well, my . . . my fiancé enlisted as a doctor, but he's also a pilot. He taught me how to fly when we were dating. And now that he's been shipped overseas . . . Well, I couldn't just sit home and do nothing.”

Nobody says anything. We all understand. You can only watch so many newsreels before it drives you crazy.

“What about you, Jonesy? What's your story?”

I'm starting to like the nickname. “Not much of a story, I'm afraid.”

“Everybody has a story. And it's always a doozy. Come on, we're all friends here, or at least we will be by the time all of this is over.” She waves her hand to include the barracks, WASP training, the war. “I bet I'll know your favorite brand of toothpaste inside a week. So we might as well hear the rest of it.”

“I'm just a farm girl. We grow berries, down in Louisiana. I got my start on my daddy's crop duster,” I add, glad to be able to tell the truth.

“And why are you here?”

I blink. “Well, to fly.”

Patsy laughs, and so does Lily. I find myself laughing with them. When all is said and done, war or no war, patriots or not, it looks like every single girl on this base would drive a thousand miles to nowhere just for the chance to fly.

Two cots over, closest to the door, the blonde who answered to Howard nudges the girl settling into the next bunk. “There goes the neighborhood,” she says, loud enough for us to hear.

The other girl, Laidlaw, I think, smiles politely and finishes making her bed. Howard catches my eye and won't let it go. “Carnies and hicks and Jews, oh my!” She smirks, imitating Dorothy's little chant from
The Wizard of Oz.
We've all seen the movie. No one else laughs and I ignore the jab. I've met plenty like her before. Lily must've, too, because she smiles at me a little weakly and starts fussing with her suitcase.

Patsy, on the other hand, crosses the floorboards in three quick strides. “And what have we here? Howard, wasn't it?”

The girl blanches, almost as pale as her hair. She's a strawberry blonde with dramatic red lipstick and blue eye shadow. She probably thinks she looks like Bette Davis. I think it makes her look like Fifinella.

“Nancy Howard,” she says, trying not to stammer. She stands up, a little too late to hold her ground. Patsy towers over her.

“Nancy Howard.” Patsy says the name like she's biting it in two. I find myself rising to stand at Patsy's elbow. A second later, Lily is next to me.