by Theasa Tuohy
“Phoo to you,” Laura shot back. “You sit around and won’t accept a challenge. Let everyone else do the hard work, while you just coast along. You could have won that Powder Puff Derby if you hadn’t been too lazy to enter.”
Jenny laughed—this time it wasn’t a tinkle, but hearty. “Thanks for the vote of confidence in my flying, and you’re absolutely right. Because of your example and goading by John and Roy, I’ve gotten my wings, and I’m going to use them.”
Evelyn looked from one to the other, seemingly mystified by this exchange.
“Now, on to the business at hand,” Jenny said, this time slapping both gloves against her lap as she turned to Evelyn. “Did you and Father Bernard marry? Do we have any legal proof he was Laura’s father?”
“Proof?” Evelyn sniffed indignantly, straightening up to her full imperiousness.
“Of course, no offense, Mrs. Sampson. But apparently Laura’s birth certificate is no help.”
“Certainly proves she was born,” Evelyn replied.
“So,” Jenny continued, “none of your Marxist or isms friends would have cared, but surely you must have done something just between the two of you. Did Mr. Bernard know you were pregnant?”
“Father Bernard,” Evelyn corrected.
“You called him that all the time?” The incredulous expression on Jenny’s face was priceless.
“Don’t be silly.” Evelyn’s words came out snappish, but her humor returned. Her face softened first into a wry smile, and then the earlier dreamy look settled back in. “Michael Bernard. We did, in fact, have a civil union of a sort. The church, of course, wouldn’t marry us.”
“Do you have a certificate?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You must remember. Mrs. Sampson, this is important. What about your parents? Would they know?”
“They disowned me.” Evelyn’s shrug was bewildered, not dismissive. “At least, I guess that’s what happened. I never heard from them, even though I sent two letters and a transatlantic wire with my address. My elopement with Mickey must have caused quite a stir.” Evelyn’s jaw hardened. “In their rigid code, my parents had no room for lapses.”
“Oh dear. You never went back?”
“What for? New York was as far into the country as I wanted to come. I could have made my way in Germany, but not with a child.”
“Oh my God.” Laura bit her lower lip, holding back tears. Her mother had actually wanted her! Laura had subsisted on emotional crumbs for so long that the mere fact that her mother had elected to leave Germany and not terminate her pregnancy was enough cause to rejoice. She was flooded with a strange sense of peace. Her entire life she had floated, been blown by the currents like an unfettered balloon, feeling as though she were suspended from a skyhook observing what others did, wondering what would happen if she momentarily dropped amongst them. Suddenly, she felt her feet on the ground, she knew where she was.
“I’m sorry,” Evelyn said, turning to Laura with a sad smile.
“It’s okay, Mother.” Laura reached over and patted Evelyn’s hand. “I’m fine.” She’d always been the parent for the two of them. No reason to stop now.
Jenny’s smile dimmed for the first time all day. “Mrs. Sampson, how awful for you to be so cut off from your parents. I would hate that.”
Laura, catching her friend’s concern, jumped in. “Your parents know you’ve decided to make a career of flying. They know you’re here. And they are fine with that, right?”
“Not fine, exactly. Yet they’re getting used to the idea, I think. They did have us for Sunday dinner just before I came here. They try to blame John, but they can’t fool me.”
“Fool you?” Laura said.
“I know they really blame themselves.” The matter-of-factness of the statement startled Laura. Jenny always seemed to have such a clear-eyed, uncluttered view of the world.
Jenny went on. “They think they did something wrong with me when my brother was killed in a plane. I was so little, and they think they somehow wrongly explained his death to me, trying to tell me what war was.”
Evelyn turned to Jenny. “You’ve had to battle your parents to do this flying that Laura tells me you do?”
“I’m afraid that until now, Mrs. Sampson, I haven’t fought back as hard as I should have. I knew how they viewed my flying. They called it unladylike, but I think now that it’s really more their own sense of failure.”
Evelyn chuckled. “It isn’t easy. Laura and I can both attest to that. I’m going to see if I can’t find that German marriage certificate.”
Laura stood up, threw her arms wide, and twirled in a joyous circle. “You’re finally in the air, and I’ve finally got my feet planted!”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THE NEW YORK ENTERPRISE-POST
Laura momentarily paused in the rush of morning commuters before starting down the wooden steps of the Park Row Terminal. Sunrays played with waterspray from the fountain across the way in City Hall Park. She breathed in the freshness of the morning, despite the hustle of the surrounding scene. Another gorgeous October day. She moved on down, prodded by other passengers pushing forward to their day’s work.
She stopped for her usual coffee in the lobby of the old Times building. “Morning, Charlie.” She now knew the counter boy and addressed him by name.
“What’s gonna be the big news today?” he replied, bobbing his head and adjusting his paper soda-jerk’s cap.
“You never know,” Laura said with a laugh. “But whatever it is, I can almost guarantee I’ll be stuck asking the man on the street what he thinks about it. Next time, I’ll come and interview you, Charlie. What would you think about that?”
The boy looked at her over his shoulder and grinned as he moved along the counter, filling up other cups.
Laura knew she had to quit being so restless and impatient about her job, but her assignments of late had been pale compared to the excitement she’d had chasing around with Jenny and her barnstorming friends. Laura kept reminding herself that it was thanks to that trip that she had found both her father and her mother. Evelyn was basically her same caustic self, but a détente of sorts was slowly developing.
Laura had devised a way to ferret out information about Dad, as she’d taken to calling him, and Evelyn would generally answer. Laura would approach the subject with an innocuous question like the one just yesterday when she had arrived home from work and found Evelyn sitting on the top step of their stoop. She was taking in the fresh air and reading.
“Beautiful day,” Laura began. “Was the autumn as balmy in Germany as it always seems to be in New York?”
“We were only there for one fall, the one before you were born. Mickey,” Evelyn’s face lit up as it always did when she mentioned his name, “loved that summer in Munich because it was so much more temperate than St. Louis.”
Laura put down her purse and sat on the concrete step just below her mother.
“Why don’t you take off your hat and gloves?” Evelyn snapped. “Nobody in the Village dresses up like that.”
Laura obliged, smoothing out the little veil before laying the offending items on her lap. “So the weather was nice there?”
“Yes. Lovely. That was lucky. I was nearly six months along, and heavy. You were born in February.” She laughed, her face taking on the dreamy look. “Mickey said I was eating too much schnitzel.”
Laura’s heart skipped a beat. “Mickey knew I was coming?”
“Yes,” Evelyn said in a matter-of-fact manner, “he would have been happy the way things turned out. He said he wanted a girl.”
Tears welled up in Laura’s eyes, but she knew better than to try to hug her mother. When she took a handkerchief from her purse to dab at her eyes, Evelyn noticed.
“Now stop that. It doesn’t do any good to get emotional about these things. I taught myself that long ago. Mickey died of the flu that winter.”
Laura had an agenda she was working through. Her next goa
l was to find out the details of how her pregnant mother had managed to get back across the Atlantic and find a place to live. That journey seemed as fraught with peril as many by destitute immigrants.
* * *
Laura left a nickel on the counter for Charlie and headed through the throngs on the sidewalks to her nearby office, mulling over what project she should next propose to Barnes. She passed a couple of newsboys touting different headlines. One was yelling about a murder in Queens, another a house fire—nothing of significance. The papers had been filled lately with news of the wobbles of the stock market, which only weeks before had been soaring. The weather was good, everyone was happy except the still-pouting Yankee fans and Laura, who wanted a new round of excitement, something to sink her teeth into. Even the World Series had quickly come and gone. The Philadelphia Athletics knocked off the Chicago Cubs in five games. The big news in that one was what the tabloids were calling a Mack Attack—named for the A’s manager, Connie Mack—when in the fourth game, the A’s overcame an eight-run deficit to win 10–8. Then it was back to murder and mayhem or the fortunes of Wall Street.
Laura kept suggesting ideas for long-range stories that would involve her going undercover in perhaps a sweatshop in the Bowery or an orphanage, but Barnes wasn’t buying any of it. In the weeks since Jenny’s visit, Laura had written a feature about Robert Moses and his parkway disagreement with Vanderbilt, but Barnes had given her only one assignment she really enjoyed—he’d sent her to Roosevelt Field when Roscoe Turner was due to set another cross-country time record. The city editor had reminded her he was doing it only because of her acquaintance with the flamboyant aviator and Gilmore, his pet lion. Beyond that was what Laura had come to dub the Barnes refrain: “We’ve got an aviation reporter, and you’re not it.”
In a rare burst of candor, Laura had even told her mother of her frustration at work. Evelyn, in an equally rare burst of what sounded almost like sympathy, had said: “Don’t worry, I think your moment will come.”
At least Jenny was having good luck with her career now that she had gone to work for Curtiss—demonstrating new aircraft and flying prospective buyers around. She telephoned Laura and wrote often, full of enthusiasm. She excitedly described how thrilling and different it was to have a salary, pay for her own car, buy her own clothes, get up and go to work each morning with a purpose. No one has seen me at the tennis court in months, she’d written in her last letter. Curtiss loved her; she was bringing in new business, giving them a high profile. In a phone call to Laura at work a few days ago, she had reported, “Buyers, even upstart airlines, look and say, ‘If a tiny little lady like her can fly this crate, anyone can.’”
Laura got to the office still thinking about Jenny as she passed by Barnes, said hi, and headed for her desk. Here we go again, she thought. She could already hear what he would say when she approached him with her latest story idea. “People want happy stories, kid, not all this gloom and doom you keep promoting,” he would yell before again sending her out for some silly story or for a man-on-the-street interview about whatever struck his fancy at that moment. “Listen to the radio once in a while, kid,” he’d say. “Everyone’s favorite tune is ‘Blue Skies.’”
Laura dumped her hat and gloves on the clutter of books and papers on her desk and another familiar scene replayed. It seemed the same every day. As she flipped through the papers, commenting about the day’s news, Joe Collins piped up as usual from the next desk over.
“Who you talking to, kid, the wind? People’ll think you’re batso, grumbling to yourself.” His feet were up, snap-brimmed hat pushed back with press card stuck in its band, the forever toothpick in his mouth.
“Knock it off, Joe.” But Laura had learned to say it with a laugh.
“Sure, kid. But can’t everyone get on Page One.” The same thing with the same big grin as though he had just invented something terribly clever.
It was like habit, repetition of a family scene, she thought. Familiar. Like her mother saying, “Conventions of the past are the enemy.”
“But damnation,” she called back at Joe, “I need better stories.”
In the mound were her notes about the Osage murders, although she’d decided that Barnes and Jenny were right, it was an old story. The new story for her was absorbing the idea that she had a proud Indian heritage—she had spent all of her free time at the public library, reading whatever she could find. But it was a subject way too close to write about at this point. Jenny had reported that Clem was still trying to establish Laura’s heritage and obtain her father’s Osage headright. That would be exciting, to be accepted by the tribe, but the main thing for the moment was simply getting used to the idea of knowing where she came from. Maybe sometime in the future she would write something profound for one of Mom’s little literary magazines. Now she wanted to get back to the self she knew—a wiser one, she hoped—and write interesting stories about whatever came along in New York. This was where she belonged, she decided, and who she was. Just like most of the people in the city, she sprang from somewhere else, conceived in Munich, Germany. How about that!
“You got a call, kid!” Myrtle yelled from her perch in the middle of the room, and the telephone jangled on Laura’s desk. Maybe someone’s calling with a secret tip on a killer story, Laura fantasized before picking up the phone.
It was Clem! “How you doing, little lady?” Laura’s heart fluttered slightly hearing the warm, reassuring voice. Perhaps Jenny was right and the interest of another man could help take away the sting from Roy’s rejection. As Clem launched into some of the legal issues involved in his pursuit of her headright claim, Laura remembered Jenny’s remark: “You have very underdeveloped antennae on the subject of men.” Laura still didn’t quite understand any of this—about sparks and chemistry, why they worked in such a strange way. She had read and reread all of Aunt Edna’s love poetry, but found clues there only to the emotions that ensued after one fell out of love, or got hurt.
Nothing about how to develop the right instincts in the first place. Laura wouldn’t have known Clem was sweet on her, if Jenny hadn’t told her.
Laura had also been a bit mystified when Joe Bailey, the reporter from Chicago, had called last week saying he would be in New York in a few days and would like to take her “out to the motion pictures.”
Her mind had wandered to Joe when Clem said, “I’m planning to be in New York in a few days, and I’d like to take you out to dinner.”
“Lordy,” Laura responded, surprised to hear herself again using Jenny’s favorite expression, “what next?”
Clem sounded hurt. “I think I should explain to you in person how the headright case is proceeding. This is a long, slow process. I feel you should be kept apprised of the situation.”
“Oh, of course, Clem,” Laura stammered. “Sorry, I was just responding to something here in the office.” There was a certain truth in that. Knowing what big ears Joe Collins had, Laura had been trying to keep her voice down while answering Clem’s queries double-checking the information Jenny had already given him concerning the date of Laura’s birth, where she was born, and her parents’ names. The birth date was crucial, Clem said. Even though Laura was born in February 1906, a month after the tribal rolls were closed, there was a provision in the law for children born within that year.
Wow, Laura thought as she hung up the phone with a happy smile, I have so much to learn. And Jenny is a smashing teacher. I somehow have two beaus, and it feels like it’s thanks to her. I never learned anything about how to deal with men from watching Mother.
Poor Evelyn, she was too young herself when catastrophe struck. Maybe repression had stunted her mother’s growth to maturity, and the lack of guideposts had impeded Laura like a hunter wandering in the wilderness with no compass. She wanted to keep in mind always the lesson learned watching Jenny in action with Evelyn. That old adage about catching more flies with honey than vinegar had sprung to life before her eyes. Laura smiled, thinking about ho
w far her friend had come too. If Jenny could put that kind of doggedness to work in pursuing a career, she would be a devil of a success.
Laura laughed to herself. I don’t know if honey is the solution with Barnes and Joe Collins. But what to do? She hated the thought of having to wait forever for another story as good as Jenny stealing an airplane.
* * *
The next morning, Laura arrived at work to find the office in chaos. There were four editors screaming into telephones at the desk where Barnes usually reigned supreme. Three women at the switchboard were yanking and shoving their tangle of cords in an abstract whirl of copper and red. Laura asked several people rushing past what was going on, but no one bothered to answer until a copyboy slammed that day’s paper into her hand. The wood block headline took up the entire front page:
WALL STREET PANIC
BLACK THURSDAY
MARKET CRASHES
Without taking off her hat or gloves, Laura approached the central command post, where Barnes was just another yelling editor. She tried to catch his eye with sign language and mouthed inquiries as to what she should do. After several minutes of Laura being knocked about by rushing reporters, Barnes finally put his hand over his phone’s mouthpiece and moved his lips, which Laura read to say: Man in the street.
“What about woman?” Laura demanded.
A stub of cigar in the grip of his stained teeth, Rufus Joshua Barnes shook his head in resignation and bellowed, “Yeah, that too!”
—30—
__________
Two grand old ladies of the flying machines inspired this book. Many of the stunts depicted herein were actually performed by Elinor Smith. She pulled off the book’s opening scene of flying under all four of New York’s East River bridges when she was seventeen years old. The other grand old dame was my mother, who, like Jenny Flynn, didn’t view any of it as very serious. She was just in it “for the fun.” She rebelled against too much stunt flying, and absolutely refused to wing walk. The seat belt in her old crate was too big to secure her ninety-two pounds, so she had to fly with a pillow behind her back. She always worried, she said, “that the pillow would slip out when I was upside down.”
