Silver Wings (27 page)

Lily dropped her gaze to study Helen’s profile. “Sometimes,” she replied, squeezing Helen’s waist affectionately.

Happy that Lily was as comfortable as she was going to get Helen tugged on the throttle. The bike kicked up a dust cloud around them before they set off down the open road.

 “Happy landings?” Helen shrieked, over the roar of the engine.

Lily’s smile grew her hair whipping around her face as she shouted her response.

“Happy landings.”

Epilogue

March 8th 2010 – Washington, DC

Lily took a deep breath as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. She touched her fingertips to her face, now weathered with age. The journey to Washington had taken more out of her than she cared to admit to either herself or her granddaughter and the next forty-eight hours would be emotional. While it was lovely to catch up with friends, she would be forced to reminisce and knew that would only cause her to dwell on all that she had lost.

“Abuela, are you okay in there?”

“I’m okay Ellie, just trying to make this old face look presentable,” Lily replied. With one final glance in the mirror, she steeled herself against the emotions the memories would bring. With a brisk nod, she turned and opened the bathroom door, “I’m ready when you are Kiddo.”

“You sure you want to do this? We can always go down later,” Ellie asked, her face full of concern.

Lily smiled wearily, “I’m sure let’s go.”

They exited the elevator and scanned the foyer for Joanne, who rose from her seat when she spotted them.

“All ready to go Mrs Rivera?” Joanne asked as she walked up.

“It’s Lily,” Lily corrected, narrowing her eyes at Joanne.

“Sorry,” Joanne smirked. “Lily, would you like to go into the exhibition now or would you like to relax and have a drink before you go in?”

“You trying to get me drunk, flygirl?” Lily quipped, winking at Joanne. “I’d rather go in now and drink later.”

They walked into the exhibition hall and started towards one of the boards, Lily looked at the class numbers on top of each board trying to locate their graduation class. When she reached the board, she scanned the photos before leaning closer to one.

“Would you look at me here, this is after I flew solo for the first time. They dunked me in the wishing well.”

Ellie and Joanne moved forward to look at the black and white photo, they both smiled at the broad smiles on the faces of the women in the photo. Standing in the center of the photograph wearing her flight clothing, dripping with water and her hair plastered flat against her head, with a huge smile on her face, was the younger version of Lily; holding out her hands as if shaking excess water from them.

“You were pretty,” Joanne observed.

Turning with a look of disdain on her face Lily raised her eyebrows, “I. Was not ‘pretty’. I. Was. Hot!” she corrected waving a finger in the air, waggling her eyebrows at Joanne.

“Look, there's Grandma,” Ellie pointed excitedly to another female in the picture.

Joanne moved her head forward to the figure that Ellie was pointing at, she looked in confusion between the two women standing beside her and the image of a fair-haired woman with dimples. Catching Joanne's look of bewilderment Ellie chuckled slightly, “Sorry, I forget that people don't know about our rainbow nation family as my mother calls it. This is Grandma Helen. I'm named after her.”

“My wife,” Lily said, a soft smile on her face, her eyes misty and distant as she looked at the face of Helen.

“Your…?”Joanne looked surprised, her eyes wide open, her mouth turned downwards as she nodded slowly, finding her assumptions about the former WASP being stripped away slowly. “Okay.”

Lily turned and smiled, “What, you think your generation invented sex and sexuality? I'll have you know...”

Ellie pointed to the picture again eager to stop one of her Abuela's famous rants, “And there's Aunt Addie.”

“Did someone say my name?”

They turned towards the voice; sitting in a wheelchair behind them was a smiling woman whose blue eyes twinkled with delight at seeing her old friend. “And it's Great Aunt Adrienne to you, young Helen,” she corrected, holding her arms out for Ellie to enter.

Giving her great aunt a careful hug Ellie laughed, “I know but Grandma Helen said I was never to call you that, ‘cause it pandered to your superiority complex.”

Adrienne tossed her head back and laughed, the action causing her to start coughing. She placed the handkerchief bundled in her hand to her mouth and waved at the tall caramel-skinned woman in her sixties, who moved to her side to assist.

“I'm fine. Don’t fuss,” Adrienne frowned once she regained her composure. “Lily, it's good to see you, it's been too long my friend.”

Lily gave her a sad smile, “Two years.”

Adrienne sighed and nodded her eyes starting to fill with tears.

“That long?”

Both women drifted off reflecting on the last time they had seen each other and the time that had passed.

Joanne nodded a greeting to Jennifer who was standing behind Adrienne's wheelchair, holding onto the handles.

The tall woman with Adrienne studied the photograph they had been looking at. “Will Lucy be coming, Mom?” she asked, spotting the smiling woman in the photograph standing beside her sister Marjorie.

“She should be, Adele, she wrote to say her Peter Jnr was going to bring her. She likes to come to these things now Marjorie is gone,” Adrienne nodded.

Joanne picked out Adrienne in the photograph, turning and giving the older version a quick glance over before comparing her to the stunning looking woman in the photo.

“Who's that?” she asked pointing to a small woman, standing with Adrienne's arms looped around her neck.

Smiling both Adrienne and Lily answered as one, “That’s Stotty.”

Adele placed a comforting hand onto her mother’s shoulder, “I'm named after Stotty.”

“That photo was taken in, what? The August?” Adrienne asked Lily who hesitated trying to calculate in her head before nodding in agreement. “And Adele died at the start of December.”

Jennifer peered over the top of Adrienne to look at the photograph, “What happened?”

“Midair collision with another cadet,” Lily answered looking at the smiling image of Adele. “She was a character and a half,” she laughed.

Adrienne nodded. “She was twenty three when she died. So young,” she said sadly.

Adele patted her mother’s shoulder. “Why don't we see what other photos are here,” she said brightly, trying to raise the mood.

They walked around the display with Adrienne and Lily telling stories of their training, they reached a photograph taken of them standing beside a B-26.

“You flew those?” Joanne asked in admiration, reading the panel beside it with the statistics of the bomber.

“We sure did,” Adrienne grinned. “Some of us even had sex in it,” she looked pointedly at Lily.

“Abuela!” Ellie gasped as the others laughed at the comment.

Lily gave a half shrug, unabashed at Adrienne's remark, “What! It was good sex. Your Grandma Helen never complained.”

Ellie placed her fingers into her ears and started to hum, she cautiously removed one, “Has she stopped?”

Adrienne pulled on Ellie's arm, “At least you didn't have to sleep near them. They did it one night in the bay when they thought we were all asleep.”

Lily looked shocked as in the almost seventy years since it had happened, Adrienne had never before let on that she had heard them.

“Ask Lucy, she was the one that heard them in the bay. When you’re at it ask her about the noises from the room in Atlanta,” she added ignoring Ellie's obvious discomfort.

“I might skip that discussion,” Ellie replied shaking her head.

Adrienne laughed, “Lucy didn’t know what she heard, thought it was just Helen having one of her nightmares. Hell she didn’t even know what a lesbian was until that tennis player in the eighties. She just thought Lily and Helen lived together as friends.”

Both Adrienne and Lily laughed loudly as they recalled the look on Lucy’s face as realization  as to the true nature of Lily and Helen’s relationship hit her. 

Wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, Adrienne continued, “She’s one of nature’s innocents our Lucy, God knows how she didn’t work it out, they were so cute together. You know your Abuela slept through every reveille every morning, the only thing that woke her up was a smack on the head or when your Grandma had a nightmare.”

Lily smiled wistfully, “She needed me, I could never sleep through that.”

They continued taking in the display,

 Lily walking beside Adrienne's wheelchair, every now and again a hoot of laughter could be heard from the women as they repeated a memory. Joanne fell into step beside Ellie.

 “So two grandmothers? You failed to mention that earlier.”

Ellie gave a small smile, “I thought it would be more fun for you to find out this way. My mother is Lily's niece. Her father died three weeks before the end of the war, and her mother died the following year from cancer. She was four when her mother died and my uncle was two. Lily and Helen took them in and raised them, so they're the only grandmothers I've known from that side of the family.”

“What happened to your Grandma Helen?” Joanne asked carefully, trying to make sure she was out of earshot of Lily.

Ellie swallowed hard, “She died two years ago, peacefully in her sleep.” Her eyes filled with tears as she discussed her grandma.

“Only thing she ever did that was quiet,” Lily added, walking up to them catching what Ellie had said. “She died a month after we got married, after sixty five years of being together and raising a family, I made an honest woman of her. Finally the world was ready for us.” She squeezed Ellie's hand, “I think I'll have a little lay down before the dinner this evening.”

Ellie nodded, “Okay, I'll take you upstairs.”

“No, I'll be fine. You stay here and tell Richmond here about your grandma and how she almost got herself killed a half dozen times,” Lily smiled at Joanne. “Ask about when she got arrested. Thank you for your assistance today,” she switched her walking stick to her left hand and held out her right for Joanne to shake.

Joanne shook it. “Thank you,” she replied and honestly meant it.

Lily gave her a brisk nod, winked at Ellie, then made off towards the exit, waving to Adrienne, Adele and Jennifer on her way.

“So what happened to them after the war?” Joanne asked, watching the elderly woman walk across the conference room.

“Ummm,” Ellie said taking a deep breath. “They moved back to New York which is where Abuela was living before. She was a violinist in the Philharmonic Orchestra there, my cousin plays cello there at the moment,” she added. “But Grandma couldn't get any jobs flying, they wouldn't hire a female pilot, so she drove a chequer cab for a while, but Abuela said that while she could fly like a dream and ride a motorcycle like a racer. She was a God-awful driver.” Ellie laughed, recalling the times that her mom had told her about her grandma's driving prowess. “Then when they took in my Mom and Uncle, they moved to Florida for a while, when my great grandparents died they sold the family businesses there and moved to California and set up their own aerial firefighting company. My brother runs it now and that's where they stayed.”

Ellie finished stopping in front of another image of her grandmothers, this one was a rare color photo. Taken sitting on long wooden benches outside a building, Lily was laying on the bench a book held loosely in her hands, her head resting on Helen's thighs, both of them were in their zoot suits, sleeves rolled up past their elbows, squinting in the sun, wide smiles on their faces.

“If I find someone that I love, and who loves me, the way they did. I'll be doing well,” Ellie mused, her fingers tracing the outline of her grandma's face.

Joanne looked at the picture then towards the door, which Lily had just departed through before studying Ellie’s features. “We all would,” she said quietly to no-one in particular.

***

Ellie helped her grandmother into her uniform.

“So little one, how did your date go?” Lily asked, as she allowed Ellie to pull on her jacket.

“It wasn’t a date, Abuela,” Ellie blushed. “We just had drinks and talked.”

“And?” Lily raised her eyebrows as far as they would go.

“Oh okay,” Ellie huffed. “You were right. She’s gay…satisfied?”

“Hah!” Lily clapped her hands together. “You going to see her again?”

“She’ll be at the ceremony today,” Ellie replied, being deliberately obtuse. “Now stand still and let me get you dressed.”

“I swear this used to be tight on me, it used to cling to my curves,” Lily grumbled. “However at that time, my curves were in the right places,” she acknowledged, earning a snort from her granddaughter. Lily looked at Ellie, “She was so proud of you, you know.”

 Ellie looked up; she clenched her jaw determined not to cry, concentrating on fastening the brass buttons on the jacket.

“There,” she said, picking some lint from her grandmother’s shoulder and brushing the material. “She would be proud of you too in your uniform,” she added, unshed tears glistening in her eyes.

Lily checked herself in the mirror. “Nope, she would be horny, never could resist me in uniform,” she winked at her granddaughter. “Let's get this show on the road.”

***

Adrienne sat proudly wearing her uniform, holding Lily and Lucy's hands as a wreath was laid on the Air Force Memorial to remember those WASP that died during service. The remaining Bay Four women paused at the end to give their own memorial for missing friends; they bowed their heads then together recited, “We live in the wind and the sand and our eyes are on the stars. Happy landings.”

***

Joanne stood at the back of the room next to Jennifer, her back ramrod straight as she watched the nominated WASP walk up to the podium to accept the Congressional Gold Medal on behalf of the WASP.

She clapped wildly as the medal was awarded, ignoring the look of surprise on Jennifer's face. She glanced several times during the ceremony across to Ellie, each time reveling in the surprise at finding soft brown eyes staring back.