Millie shuddered with excitement. Her eyes were closed, her right hand clenched so tight that the nails dug into her palm. Her left hand patted the back of his neck, giving him assurance she could not put in words.
He had kissed her belly and moved the blanket down past her thighs in a single motion. He buried his lips in the edge of the sweet brown triangle of hair, and she spoke.
"I'm really sorry, but I promised my mother I'd be a virgin when I got married. It is very difficult for me to change my way of thinking, no matter how I feel, how excited you make me."
He put his finger to her lips. "Don't say any more. This is wonderful. How could I ever have been so lucky as to be here?"
They pressed together tightly, nude. She raised herself and said, "I think I know how I can help." She tenderly took him in her hand, moving him gently, then more rapidly.
When he came they were both embarrassed.
She giggled. "I didn't realize sex was so messy. In the books, it's all just sighs and asterisks."
They played some more, and a little later, her own excitement undiminished, she asked hurriedly, running the words together, "Do you have anything the menuse?"
He sat on his elbow, staring at her. "What on earth are you talking about? Asterisks? Menus? I don't know what you mean."
She blushed. "You know, the things the men use, safes, French letters, I don't know what you call them."
Bandfield laughed and put his head between her breasts, letting the passion mount again.
"Millie, you don't know how embarrassing it is to get those things. I don't even know where to go. Besides, you really want to wait until we're married, and I'm glad to wait."
As if to reassure herself, she martialed her arguments for technical virginity again. He agreed with her philosophically, at least from the waist up. From the waist down it was torture. Yet it was worth it; he felt he was building up a bank account of passion, one that would stand them both in good stead when they finally got married.
"Do you want me to go to Green Bay and get your father's permission?"
"Sure. Just tell him we spent two days together in a hotel in New York, and you'll get the full Wisconsin white shotgun wedding treatment." She took his hand. "Don't rush things. You're upset because of the fire, and because of Lindbergh. Let's see how things are in a few months."
He shook his head yes, told himself no.
His attitude swung with his hormone levels, which ranged from high to stratospheric. Intellectually, he knew she was wrong, that they couldn't be more intimate if they actually made love than they were now, yet he understood what she was trying to do and was proud of her for it. She became adept at manipulating him, but he was unable to satisfy her with his hands, was unsure if he could kiss her to a climax, and didn't dare suggest it anyway.
"Don't worry about it—women are different than men. Or so they tell me. It takes longer to get adjusted."
"But it's not fair."
"No, and it's not fair for me to be here with you like this and not make love. So let me worry about me, and you worry about you."
Eventually he accommodated himself to it, so much so that the relief she gave him was soon supplanted by a deadening depression when he thought about not making the flight. When he saw the headlines about Lindbergh's arrival in Paris, he was engulfed in a missed-coital tristfulness. One hundred million other Americans went mad for joy with Slim's success, but Bandfield burned with personal disappointment. He wondered how Hafner and Byrd were taking it. There might be faster New York-Paris flights—it had taken Lindbergh more than thirty-three hours—but there would never be another first flight.
Determined to get his mind off Lindbergh's triumph, Millie, starving as usual, finally dragged him out of the hotel. Winter had given him a two-week advance, and Millie insisted going dutch on everything, so there was plenty of money.
"We might as well see New York City! Who knows when we'll be back?"
They mixed education, eating, and sightseeing in equal measure as Bandfield tried to get life after Lindbergh back into perspective. She seemed to know everything without ever looking at a pamphlet or guidebook and worked hard to draw his attention away from his troubles. They went to the Aquarium by subway. The fleet was in and sailors crowded the streets like seabirds on a rock, eyeing Millie, whistling. She ignored them, concentrating on teaching Bandy. It was an old fort, she said, converted first to an immigration center, then to an aquarium. In his mind he immediately transposed the fish swimming forlornly in the cool green aquarium cells of water to the ocean, where, if things had gone differently, other fish might have been staring at him.
They grabbed a bus to Greenwich Village. His appetite, always hearty no matter what his mood, was returning, signaling imperatively that he wanted a regular meal. Millie was sampling the pushcarts, snacking as they walked, obviously searching for something.
"Funny-looking trees. I'll take you out and show you the redwoods and sequoias someday."
"These are ailanthus—supposed to be good for purifying the air."
He stopped, dumbfounded. The woman knew everything!
"Aha! Patchin Place! I've found this for you."
He looked bemused.
"Didn't you tell me your dad was a Wobbly?"
"What's a Wobbly?"
"You know, a socialist, a communist, one of those 'ist' words, people throwing bombs, wearing beards, you know."
He couldn't believe it. He'd told her once about his father, and she'd stored it away.
He nodded, and she went on, "Well, John Reed lived here."
Bandfield smiled. "He was Dad's hero!"
"Well, a lot of people think he was a communist. He's buried in Moscow, you know. If you haven't read his book, Ten Days That Shook the World, I'll get you a copy."
A huge Irish policeman loomed up, a comic-strip figure with his giant fists and huge billy club.
"Excuse me, officer, do you know which is John Reed's house?"
The cop smiled benignly at Millie, answering in a deep brogue, "Sure an' I don't, my darling, but you can ask the postman."
Stifling their laughter, happy with another secret joke, they walked on, hand in hand, Bandfield wondering if a person as sensitive as Millie could be a pilot, or even a pilot's wife. Flyers were a rough lot. Would she fit in?
Bandfield was starving, and as they walked, the restaurants looked successively better. They passed Bertolotti's, and the sharp scent of oregano almost buckled his knees; finally he dragged her into Fortuno's on Bleeeker Street, telling the owner, "Bring us food, lots of food." They started with a plate of thinly sliced tongue, slathered in oil and vinegar. Soup, spaghetti, and a broiled chicken followed, and despite all she'd eaten, she stayed even with him. He wondered if he could afford to marry her.
They went back to the hotel and napped for two hours, cuddlingly with their clothes on. He stared at the ceiling, wondering what Lindbergh was doing. Gradually the realization came that whatever it was, it wasn't as good as being there with Millie. Even with clothes on.
He thought she was sleeping, and he slipped out of bed.
"Where are you going?"
"To get the papers and see how Slim is doing."
She was primped and ready to go when he came back an hour later. "I thought you were like the man who went out for a jar of olives and didn't come back for twenty years."
He grinned, washed hurriedly, and took her downstairs. The light was bright in the street. At the curb was a horse and carriage. He put her inside, enjoying her squeals of pleasure. He wouldn't let her look in the big paper bag. In Central Park he kissed her and brought a bottle of champagne out of the bag, along with two of the thick glass tumblers from the room.
"This is supposed to be good, aged champagne. The bellboy said he made it last week." He popped the champagne and poured. Then he produced two smaller boxes. From one he took a ring; from the other a magnifying glass. He handed them to her and said, "If you look close, you'll see a diamond. Will
you marry me?"
*
Roosevelt Field, Long Island/June 24, 1927
Bandfield slowly folded the newspaper on its original creases and laid it back on the floor of the Stutz, where he had tossed it the week before. He slumped back in the seat, twisting his cap in his hands, trying to erase the front-page picture of two people he knew. Short, lean-faced Raymond Orteig was handing a check for $25,000 to Bandfield's old flying-school buddy, Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh. Even the check was an affront, an ornate oversize vellum sheet decorated with an American flag and a drawing of the Spirit of St. Louis. Lindbergh had gotten a check from Orteig; Bandfield himself had gotten onion soup!
It was depressing. No pilot, not Icarus, not Orville, no one, had ever been so honored. The President had sent the cruiser Memphis to bring him home, and there had been tumultuous ceremonies in Washington at which Slim was promoted from captain to colonel and got the Distinguished Flying Cross. He'd flown to New York in an Army pursuit plane and been brought to the parade on Mayor Jimmy Walker's official yacht, escorted by everything that could float, from fireboats to destroyers. Millions of people had lined the parade route, spraying a confetti welcome from every window. The papers had said that eighteen hundred tons of ticker tape and shredded phonebooks had showered down on Lindbergh's parade.
A glutton for punishment, Bandy had brought Millie to watch. He had muscled his way to the front of the crowd, leaving Millie pinned against a shop window, as Lindbergh's car edged by, flanked by grinning mounted police. The tall pilot was standing in the back, Mayor Walker on his left, Grover Whalen in front of him, smiling from behind a walrus mustache. Bandfield had yelled "Slim!" at the top of his lungs, but just as the big open Packard touring car rolled by, Lindbergh had turned to wave at a man who had shinnied up a lightpole, his child clinging precariously to his neck.
The gap between them, the planeless, out-of-work Bandfield and Colonel Lindbergh, the new emperor of aviation, again drove home just how much he had lost.
His hard conscience chewed on the injustice of it all. Yet in a way it was perfect, Lindbergh's turning his back on him just as fate had. If he had done as he should have done, stuck by his airplane every minute, it wouldn't have burned. If it had been an accident, some freak wiring problem in the hangar, he would have been able to save it. And his presence would have prevented sabotage. In either case, he could have been the man in the Packard, waving to the crowd.
It only bothered him when he was alone. When he was with Millie, whether pushing through the milling crowds of straw-hatted men that jammed the streets of the garment district or doing her familiar walking-cafeteria routine through the pushcarts on Hester Street, absolutely nothing else mattered. She was a joy, a know-it-all he didn't mind knowing it all. She loved the roiling crowds of foreigners, many still dressed in native clothes she could identify at a glance—Russian, Armenian, Hungarian. One day she insisted that they bring a box Brownie so he could take pictures of her with women in their ethnic costumes to show her schoolchildren in Green Bay. She took a special pleasure in using sign language and smiles to cajole the women into posing.
They walked the streets with arms entwined, oblivious to both approving and disapproving stares, squeezing each other, prodding, poking, sometimes stopping to kiss. They played a "goofus" game, trying to be first to spot interesting, ridiculous, or frightening characters. She invariably won because he spent half his time watching the intense play of emotion on her face. She could change at a glance from a concerned moue about a shoeless child to a raucous laugh at a burly Armenian lady dressing down her tiny husband, then to tears of compassion for the often frightened, bewildered look of a new immigrant family. They had reached a point where they no longer had to talk at length; a word or a wink was enough to communicate. Like yesterday at the ball game—the Yankees had beaten the Red Sox 11 to 4, but the high point of the game was Lou Gehrig's record-breaking third homer. She had simply looked up at him, and he knew how truly happy and excited she was.
The big difference now was in their planning. She had happily agreed to marry him, asking only that they keep it secret until she had talked to her mother. They planned to return to California; she would teach while he and Hadley built and sold another plane like the Rocket.
He laid his arm lovingly on the Stutz, wondering how much longer he'd have it to drive, and when or if he'd ever have another car to match it. Glancing at his watch, he realized that Winter was due back from his hop in the Waco with Millie. Jack was determined to teach Millie if not to fly at least not to be airsick, and he had been giving her an early-morning flight almost every day. For the first time in his life, Bandfield worried whether flying was really safe; he'd far rather have flown with Millie himself, but Winter was adamant.
In his pocket was the latest letter from Hadley Roget, more irascible than usual, still furious about the hangar fire, complaining bitterly about Bandfield's dilly-dallying in New York while he was building another airplane. Inspired by the Lindbergh mania, a rich businessman had announced the Pineapple Derby, with a $25,000 first prize and $10,000 second prize for a race from the West Coast to Hawaii. The race date was August 6, and Hadley was scrambling to rebuild a wreck to enter. He'd enclosed a photo—hardly encouraging, for the battered Breese monoplane was in rough shape. He promised to have the engine overhauled by the end of June, pleading with Bandy to return and help.
Bandfield thought about it. Hawaii wasn't Paris, and the winning pilot wouldn't be Lindbergh. But it was something.
The familiar sound of a Wright-Hispano engine broke into his thoughts. It was a symbol of another era, one that Lindbergh had left behind in a single flight behind his Wright Whirlwind. He watched Winter whip across the field at twenty feet before pulling up in a chandelle. If Millie could take that, she could take most anything.
When Winter taxied in, he could see from the vomit smeared along the side of the fuselage and across the tail that she couldn't take it. She was resting, her face pale, with her head against the side of the cockpit coaming. Winter shut down the engine and leaped out, obviously angry with himself for having made her airsick.
Millie gingerly climbed out when Bandfield walked up with a bucket and pulled it out of his hands. "I threw it up, I'll clean it up." It was traditional, but Bandfield wouldn't permit it.
"No, my fierce little rasper, you sit over there, and I'll do it." He tenderly sat her on the Stutz's running board, taking the bucket back. As he worked, Winter apologized. "Millie, I'm sorry. You were doing fine till I pulled that stupid approach. I was just feeling my oats because I got news this morning that my Vega would be ready in time for the Pineapple Derby. I was going to ask you to go with me."
They spoke simultaneously. Millie said, "I'm going!" as Bandfield said, "She's not going!"
It was their first argument. Millie blamed being sick on not having breakfast. "We're going to Hawaii, Bandy, like it or not. You aren't going to be the only one to see the ocean at sunrise, and all the other pretty things you tell me about!" Her voice softened, and she touched his arm. "Bandy, you want to be a flyer, I want to be a teacher and a writer. I need this as much as you do. Is that so wrong?"
The answer was easy. "Us pilots are all replaceable. If Lindbergh hadn't made it to Paris, I would have, or Bruno would have. You are irreplaceable, and you might not make it."
" 'We pilots,' you should have said. And no one is irreplaceable, least of all me. If you are talking about me being irreplaceable for you, what about the other side of it? Aren't you irreplaceable to me?"
"You know what I mean. It's going to be a lot tougher than Lindbergh's flight. He could have missed France, but he'd have hit Spain or Norway, somewhere. If you're off four degrees going to Hawaii, it's curtains. There's nothing out there but a lot of deep blue ocean!"
She hesitated for a moment and asked, "Are you going to fly in the race?" He nodded. "If you are, I am." And he knew she meant it.
*
Roosevelt Field, Long Island/June 2
8, 1927
Every trip back to Roosevelt Field was agony for Bandfield; he could never avoid looking at the scar where the hangar housing the Rocket had been. This time he was on a mission of mercy. Richard Byrd had been very good to him when he came, an unknown pilot in an unknown airplane. Byrd probably needed a little morale boost, but was too proud to ask for it.
Bandfield knew how Byrd was suffering. He was the proudest by far of the lot that had assembled that rainy May, and Lindbergh's success must have been a bitter pill.
The rumors were rife that Byrd's crew was ready to abandon him, and that Fokker was trying to buy the aircraft back. The papers said he was receiving hate mail accusing him of fraud and cowardice. His replies had been weak; in the only statement he made to the press, he said simply that he "didn't wish to undermine the scientific character of the flight by hasty preparations." Bandfield didn't know why the explorer hadn't taken off, but he was sure that the reasons were sound.
The imposing name "America Transoceanic Company" was spelled out with unconscious irony over the hangar doors. The airplane was locked inside, a bad sign. If they were getting ready to go, the doors should have been open and people should have been swarming over the aircraft.
There was no answer to his knock. He walked around to the side entrance, peering into the gloom of the hangar. A guard, obviously just awakened, ran over to the door.
"Sorry, sir, no one is here. They are all due out here at the field tonight at midnight for an early-morning takeoff."
Bandfield shrugged and walked away, annoyed again at his timing. As he turned the corner toward the parking lot he ran into Charlotte Hafner.
She was standing with her hands on her hips, her head cast down, watching him from beneath lowered eyelids, every bit the wholesome hooker.
"Hello, stranger. I've seen you here many times, but we've never had a chance to meet."
Bandy had been only too aware of her presence on the field; wherever she walked she was preceded by a bow wave of admiration that alerted people she was coming. Usually when he saw her she was getting into an airplane with Dusty Rhoades for flight instruction.
Trophy for Eagles Page 10
