by Kirby Larson
I followed her, feeling very much like a lamb trotting after a shepherd. I was tempted to grab the hem of her cocoon coat so as not to get separated. A knot of people, mostly reporters armed with notepads and photographers with flashes at the ready, stood near an airplane. I jotted down the model number, pleased with myself that I’d remembered Charlie’s aeronautics lessons. Painted yellow, the plane looked like an oversized kite awaiting a good gust of wind. It sported a pair of red pontoons, like giant-sized clown shoes. Three wavy stripes of red, white, and blue adorned the tip of the tailpiece.
A photographer stood on one of the pontoons for close-up shots. He was of average height and yet he was tall enough to look over the top of the plane’s body. Could this flimsy machine really hold two people? Especially if one of them was the generously sized Luisa Tetrazzini?
There weren’t many familiar faces in the crowd. At least, not familiar to me. Miss D’Lacorte seemed to know everyone. That must be Mr. Boeing, shaking hands with the mayor. Near them, Flash and another photographer jockeyed around one another for the best shots of the scene. The man off to the side, smoking and talking to Charlie as he worked on the plane, must be Eddie Hubbard. I weaved around a clump of reporters for a better view of Charlie at work.
There was no chance of my disturbing his endeavors. If he was occupied with a job that tickled his fancy, like working on planes, a body could dress like Helen of Troy and ride a mare backward, all the while singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and Charlie would pay no never-mind. Of course, I had no room to talk. How many times had I headed to the morgue, intent on finding out something about Uncle Chester, unaware I’d worked through my midnight meal until my stomach put up a terrible ruckus? I had no idea what Charlie was doing with those tools over there, but he was doing it with fierce intensity.
My attention was diverted by a caravan of touring cars gliding toward the airfield. As soon as the first car came to a stop, a man wearing a top hat and evening jacket hopped out and scurried to the second. He opened the door and offered his hand. From that second car a very large woman emerged. She seemed to get stuck in the opening, but the man in the fancy dress gave a firm tug and she popped out, like a fat pickle from a small jar. “Buon giorno!” She waved a riding crop to the crowd. “Hello!”
This Florentine Nightingale had no trouble making herself heard. Two photographers ran at her, flash powder flaring in their Victor pans. “Oh, fine. That’s Three-Alarm Dooley,” Miss D’Lacorte said over her shoulder. “Let’s hope he doesn’t set the Great Tetrazzini on fire.” She followed the rest of the reporters, far at the back, but soon she had grapevined her way through the crush, and there she was, right out front, right next to Luisa Tetrazzini.
The opera star was waving and smiling, but others in her retinue were not. In fact, soon there were emphatic gestures and shouts of “No, no!” I wiggled myself through the crush to Miss D’Lacorte’s side. A little man wearing a beret was flapping his arms so fast and hard, I thought he might take off without benefit of an airplane.
“Madame’s throat!” he cried. His words were echoed by Madame’s contingent. “The wind, too cold! Too cold. And she must sing tomorrow night!”
“But it’s August,” someone pointed out. “And balmy.”
“Down here, the balm.” Mr. Beret pointed heavenward. “Up in the sky, who can tell?” He shivered for effect.
“So the air excursion is off?” Miss D’Lacorte pushed closer. “Too risky for the great Tetrazzini?”
Mr. Beret gestured again. “I am her manager. And I say this air no good for her voice. No good.”
“No good. No flight?” repeated Miss D’Lacorte.
“Si. No flight!” Mr. Beret puffed himself up.
“But, amore mio,” intoned the star, “I have already paid fifty dollars. So much money!”
Mr. Beret whisked his palms against each other, as if sweeping away that problem. Her foolish spending was clearly none of his affair. During this discussion, Charlie had been leaning against the side of the plane; he tugged on the bill of his cap when he saw me, then got back to his tinkering.
“Seems a shame to waste a flight.” Miss D’Lacorte slapped her notepad shut, then called out to Eddie Hubbard. “You game regardless, Eddie?”
He did a double-take when he saw Miss D’Lacorte, then shrugged. “My time’s bought and paid for.” He flipped his cigarette butt to the ground and twisted it dead with his flight boot.
“Seems a shame to waste all this press, too,” she continued.
Eddie Hubbard zipped up his flight jacket. “Do you have a point, Marjorie?”
Somehow it seemed fitting that this pilot would know her name. Part of her “interesting life,” no doubt.
Miss D’Lacorte cocked her head. “How about a different passenger?”
“You?” Eddie Hubbard frowned. “That last time I took you up in Seattle, you—” He made an upchucking motion.
She held up her hand. “Not me. Her.”
As if one body, the press corps swiveled their heads. In my direction.
My head swiveled, too. Was Miss D’Lacorte serious? She gave me a nod of encouragement. “Page one,” she murmured, speaking the two words as if they were a magical incantation.
Charlie took his attention off readying the airplane for flight to see which sucker had been singled out as Tetrazzini’s replacement. He grinned when he saw it was me.
I stood there for several seconds, my fear of the effects of gravity on that small craft battling the siren call of my own byline.
“Are we on?” asked Eddie.
I nodded, then turned to Miss D’Lacorte. “I guess I better come up with a new lead,” I said. The crowd hooted as the Madame unzipped her flying costume and handed it over to me. The leather duster wrapped around me twice, and Charlie had to knot the goggles’ strap to get them to stay on my head. I pulled gloves from the duster pocket and slipped them on my hands.
“Look here, Hattie!” I turned in the direction of Flash’s voice. “That’ll be a good one.” I smiled for several of the other photographers, too.
“In bocca al lupo!” cried Luisa Tetrazzini.
“Um, thank you?” I said.
Her manager leaned toward me. “Very important. For good luck! You must say crepi!”
My pronunciation was nothing like his, but it did the trick and earned a huge smile from the manager and a roar of laughter from the opera star.
Eddie Hubbard helped me into the plane and I settled into the open compartment in front of the pilot’s. I tried to convince myself it wasn’t much different from riding in one of those Ferris wheel chairs, with nothing but a bar to hold you in. People didn’t fall out of those, did they? If they did, I didn’t want to know.
Charlie leaned into my compartment, tugging on this strap and that, making sure I was fastened in tight.
“Did you get whatever it was you were working on fixed?” I asked weakly.
“Mostly.” He stepped back.
“Charlie!”
He grinned. “This is as safe as an auto,” he said, patting the edge of my compartment. “I wouldn’t let you go if it wasn’t.” He reached over and squeezed my gloved hand. The feeling that shot through me did nothing to help the jitters. My heart and my stomach leapfrogged over each other into my throat.
A deep inhale helped steady my nerves. I’d survived Miss D’Lacorte’s wild motoring; surely I could survive one short jaunt through the sky. My heart’s crazy flight was another story altogether, and one I’d have to deal with later.
“High-flying Hattie!” Flash cheered me on.
Miss D’Lacorte waved her notepad. “Happy landings!” she called.
Eddie climbed into the pilot’s seat behind me and said something I couldn’t understand. Did he say to wave my arms? No time to wonder about it. Within a wink the engine grumbled to life, jogging me around in my seat despite being snugly strapped in.
Charlie slapped the side of the plane and gave Eddie a thumbs-up. Then
he shifted slightly in my direction and snapped off a salute. I returned it with a quavery attempt of my own.
We backed away from the shore, made a long, clean turn to get going in the right direction, and then skimmed across the water’s surface. So far, so good.
With forced bravado, I waved once more to the crowd, which I could no longer hear over the engine noise.
I squared myself in the seat. The seaplane looked even smaller from this inside view. The passenger compartment was about the size of the washtub I’d used for bathing back on the homestead. From where I sat, I could see things a mere mortal should never see: a rusted bolt, a mended tear in the body fabric, a seam that appeared to be unraveling.
“Oh, Lord,” I prayed. “Keep me safe.” I kept praying, vigorously, that my first-ever flight would not be my last.
The rumbling engine vibrated every part of my body, making me wonder if I’d return to earth with all my teeth. It was all I could do to keep a clumsy grip on my pencil and notepad. Slowly, awkwardly, like one of the gawky brown pelicans I’d seen on the bay, the man-made bird began to rise. I forced my eyes to open and my jaws to unclench as we gained speed and then altitude. One second we were skating on water, the next, on air.
We eased northward, toward the Yacht Harbor, clearing the main mast of a wooden schooner rocking in the marina there and startling a seagull resting on the rigging. As he flew off, complaining loudly about the disruption we’d caused, my stomach finally regained its proper place amongst my innards.
Lacy clouds frothed around the seaplane like spun sugar. We continued to push through to the clear sky above, and I pushed myself up in the seat, worries dissolving like the clouds. There was no room for fear when faced with such a vista. From my ever-ascending perch, I could take the city in all at once: the Palace of Fine Arts, the wharves, Nob Hill. And, if I crooked my neck, I could see the Golden Gate where the bay opened out to the Pacific Ocean. I’d have a crick later from all this gawking, but it’d be worth it.
The smoothness of this glide through the sky astonished me. After our bouncy beginning, I’d expected nonstop jostling. But now our progress was gentle enough for me to slip off my gloves and open my notepad to capture my thoughts. We nosed toward the Ferry Building, back to the place I’d first set foot in San Francisco. The sun formed diamonds on the bay’s surface beyond the buildings and the busy wharves. With the wind rushing in my ears and scrubbing my face, I wrote down those words—“the sun formed diamonds”—and then crossed them right out. I could hear Miss D’Lacorte’s sharp disapproval of that old cliché. I tried again. “The water glittered like a mother’s loving eyes as she beholds her child.…” Another scratch-out. “Thousands of watery fireflies winked up at me from the surface of the bay.…” Watery fireflies? This was getting worse, not better. I put my pencil to paper once more. “It looked as if the bay were filled with crystal sequins, facets glimmering—”
My pencil gouged the page and I screamed. We were dropping! Falling. Out of the sky. I flapped my arms as if that activity would somehow slow our descent. Down, down, down. The water I’d admired seconds before was rising up to meet this bucket of bolts. Had the engine stalled?
“Eddie!” I screamed again, but the word was ripped out of my mouth by the rushing wind. Now we began to tip. To tilt. And still falling. I braced myself against the front of the compartment. Why had I so quickly volunteered for this? Pride! Pride that I would snag a story. Here was the fall that pride required. Loved ones’ faces flashed in front of me. Even Aunt Ivy’s.
San Francisco turned first on its side. Then upside down. Too frightened to be sick, I hung on for dear life. Mouth opened. No sound came out. We hurtled toward the Ferry Building. I called out again but this time for Charlie. The tower loomed in front of us. Dear God, don’t let me die. Not now! I thought of Perilee. Of Charlie. Charlie and his thumbs-up. That image burned itself into the back of my eyes as if lit by flash powder. I prayed without words. Steeled myself for the crash. For the end. I closed my eyes.
A peculiar sensation overtook me. It was as if I were an infant again, being rocked in my mother’s arms. My heart slowed its pounding. I opened my eyes.
San Francisco was proper side up. The sky above, the sea below. We had nipped around the clock tower with room to spare. Once again we were cruising along, bobbing as gently as a bar of soap in a bathtub. I brushed at the tears that had leaked out under my goggles, then felt around for my notebook. Gone. Along with the borrowed gloves. I gulped sea air and laughed out loud at the antics of yet another agitated gull annoyed by our aircraft. I could see the crowd on the shore and hollered with sheer joy at the sight of them.
The pontoons kissed the water and we skimmed the bay’s surface, coming to an easy rest back where we’d started. Eddie was quickly at my side, assisting me out of the seat.
“You are one cool customer,” he said. “When I told you to wave your arms if you wanted some tricks, I didn’t know you’d want the whole packet!”
Dazed, I tried to read his ear-to-ear grin. “The whole packet?”
He reached over and flipped up the collar on my loaned duster. “Loop the loop, spiral roll. We even did a falling leaf.” He motioned for me to push my goggles up on top of my head. “You want to look jaunty for the camera,” he said.
Jaunty. Tell that to my legs. Tell it to my stomach! But I squared my shoulders, wiped sweaty hands on my borrowed duster, and climbed out of the seaplane. We stood together on those clown-shoe red pontoons and I shook my clasped hands over my head like a victorious prizefighter.
I caught familiar newsroom faces in the crowd—Miss D’Lacorte, Flash. And Ned, too. When had he arrived? But Charlie was the first to greet me. I jumped on his neck and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. I didn’t give a fig who saw. I was that glad to be alive. He swung me around. It was so wonderful, I didn’t want to let go.
“Got a good story to tell, kid?” Miss D’Lacorte asked.
Charlie and I untangled and I smiled over at Eddie.
“You’ll have to read about it in the papers,” I answered.
Dora Dean Dives In
Too Cold for Tetrazzini to Fly
Dora Dean Takes Diva’s Place
By DORA DEAN
SAN FRANCISCO, AUGUST 22: It may cost me three dollars to hear Tetrazzini sing, but it cost her fifty dollars to see me fly.
Mr. Monson was thrilled with my flying escapade write-up. “Page two!” Gill exclaimed.
“But it says, ‘By Dora Dean,’ ” I pointed out. “No one will know it’s me.” Surviving the flight with Eddie had emboldened me to ask Mr. Monson to file the story under my own name. His response was to switch his cigar to the other side of his mouth.
“Still, you’ve made the big time.” Gill rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Got a deadline!” He began clacking away on his typewriter. From across the newsroom, Miss D’Lacorte toasted me with her coffee cup.
Congratulations had been showered on me from all quarters: the elevator operator, Spot and Bernice, even Percy, the night watchman. A large dose of quiet emanated from one particular desk, however. Ned had offered a brief explanation for his tardiness—a flat tire—but not one word of congratulations. I didn’t want anything to fester between us, so I took the bull by the horns the day after the article appeared. I poured two cups of coffee and marched over to his desk.
“Buy you a cup of java?” I asked, extending one of the cups.
At first, he pretended to be too intent on his typing to notice me. So I lifted the cup over the typewriter and slowly, slowly tipped it, as if to spill it out on his machine.
“What are you doing?” He grabbed it away.
“Trying to get your attention.” I smiled.
“I’m working,” he said.
“Don’t you have five minutes?” I frowned. “For a friend?”
“You’re right.” He reached out and clinked cups with me. “I suppose you want congratulations.”
“Well, that’d be nice, of cours
e, but what’s more important to me is that we’re square.” I leaned against his desk. “Why am I getting the silent treatment?”
“I’ve been busy.” He cut his eyes down to the typewriter keys.
“So that’s all?”
He shrugged. “All I want to talk about for now.”
“I didn’t know where you were …,” I started.
“I’m glad you got to the airfield,” he said. “I’m not mad that you didn’t wait for me.”
“Then what are you mad about?”
He typed a few more words. I waited.
“Who was the flyboy?” He stopped and looked at me.
“Flyboy?” I thought for a second. “Oh, you mean Charlie. He’s a friend from high school, in Iowa.”
“Friend?” Ned raised an eyebrow.
“Yes.” My answer came out sharper than I intended. Charlie was certainly a friend. And whatever else there was to it was none of Ned’s beeswax. Especially since I barely knew myself.
“Okay then.” He nodded. “Okay.” Then he grinned. “That’s great. Now I really do have to get back to work.”
I gathered my things and headed to the Cortez for a short nap before my supper date with Charlie.
Raymond had two messages for me when I arrived at the hotel. The first was one Ruby had sent over. Pearl had taken another turn—“By the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to Santa Clara,” she’d written. This time, Pearl needed a specialist. “I know I haven’t paid you back yet for the other loan, but if there is any way you can help, financially, I would be so grateful.” I thought of my Pond’s Cold Cream jar and how it had acquired a nice little jingle. At this rate, what with helping Ruby out, I might never make a trip to Seattle. I was instantly ashamed of my selfishness. The important thing was Pearl’s health. I went upstairs to change into my yellow dress and then gathered what I needed to wire Ruby the money. I would do it after supper.
