Higher, Further, Faster

by Liza Palmer

  I keep my eyes forward and survive in this part of myself that exists solely on pure excitement and the absolute terror of putting a foot wrong. I follow, I do as I’m told, and I keep reminding myself not to blurt out to the other cadets, Can you believe we’re finally here?! Isn’t it great?!

  I’ve still not been able to compose a single thought, other than an internal high-pitched squeal of delight, when a group of us are funneled into a smaller room to take our Oath of Enlistment.

  “Raise your right hand and repeat after me,” the officer says. He’s young, with white-blond hair that’s cut short, and ice-blue eyes that bore into and seem to scan through every last one of us. He’s way too cute not to know it. A quick glance at his badge. JENKS.

  “I, state your full name,” Officer Jenks says. We all repeat the first word and then the room is filled with a cacophony of all of our names being said at once. I say “CAROL DANVERS” as loudly and clearly as I can, feeling a flash of pride.

  Jenks waits.

  “Having been appointed a cadet in the United States Air Force—” As we follow and repeat what Jenks says through the remainder of the oath, I find that the words are getting caught in my throat. This is real. I am part of something bigger than myself. As we wind our way through to the final words, I realize I’m getting a bit choked up. Keep it together, Danvers.

  “So help me God,” Jenks says.

  “So help me God,” I repeat, allowing my eyes to drift shut as I get lost in the moment. This is it. Everything I’ve ever wanted is right within my—

  “Danvers!” Officer Cadet Chen, her title referring to a military trainee studying to become a fully commissioned officer, appears as if from nowhere. The Officer Cadets here are often just called “OCs,” for brevity.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, my eyes wrenching open and my voice clipped and efficient.

  “Would you like to take the oath again?” I’m probably a good six inches taller than Officer Cadet Chen. And yet there’s no doubt in my mind that she could defeat me—and definitely humiliate me—in every possible way. Her black hair is cut short, and her voice is disarmingly composed. Her face is serene as she waits for my reply.

  “No, ma’am,” I say, unsure of why I’m being asked.

  “Well then, where is your flight, Basic?”

  I look around the room and feel my face heat.

  My flight is long gone. Since we got here, the thousand-strong class of basic cadets has been divided into smaller and smaller groups by the cadet cadre of upperclassmen. Each division has resulted in less and less anonymity. This is not a welcome realization. One thousand became ten one-hundred-cadet squadrons. And then those one hundred became thirty. And then those thirty became my flight. And in my flight, there are only four women. But right now, it’s just me, Officer Cadet Chen, Officer Jenks, and the stolen moment that got me into this mess.

  “Can you please do your job and get her out of here?” Jenks’s voice is an indifferent sigh.

  “Yes, sir,” Chen says. She takes a breath before unleashing the hounds of hell. But just as she’s about to speak, Jenks raises a single leisurely hand. Chen immediately stops, standing at attention as he walks over to me. I am still, staring forward. Jenks walks around me. I can hear his breathing and the squeak of his shoes. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as he comes to a stop in front of me. Jenks’s lip curls in disappointment as he takes my measure.

  “They’ll let anyone in these days,” Jenks comments. His gaze slides from me over to Chen. “Truly anyone.” Chen’s eyes stay forward, but I notice the flicker as his words strike her right in the chest.

  The next flight enters to take their Oath of Enlistment and Jenks dismisses both Chen and me with a wave of his hand. We turn on our heels and exit the room, Jenks having stripped Chen of any power she had. In that room—and in Jenks’s eyes—we are both equally disappointing.

  Chen appears to regain her composure as we enter the hall and rejoin the rest of the flight. No one looks up when I walk in with Chen hot on my heels. I know they’re just relieved that they didn’t get singled out. As I settle into line, I see Chen and Officer Cadet Resendiz share a look. Resendiz knows something happened and the look he gives her is one of both understanding and apology. He knows what kind of man Jenks is. Does everyone?

  I scan the room and notice that the male cadets are in the process of getting their heads shaved, chunks of curls and strands of hair hitting the ground whisper-soft, like a first snowfall. I follow Chen to the area where the women can opt for a short cut—unless, like me, they have spent the last two years growing their hair out so that it’ll all pull back into a tight bun that’s a maximum of three inches in circumference and doesn’t touch the top of the collar. Which meant I was obsessed with measuring, rulers, and optimizing rubber bands versus bobby pins over the past two years. I’ve even timed myself. These are the kinds of things that I thought about while my fellow high school peers nervously filed college applications and planned their big graduation parties.

  After the hair line, Officer Cadets Chen and Resendiz direct us to move into the medical portion of today’s events, where we’re poked and prodded with impunity. I have no idea how much time has passed, but it feels like forever ago that I was sitting on the hood of my car, staring up at the Colorado sunrise, and listening for planes.

  Chen and Resendiz then lead us to get our airman battle uniforms, and as the sky begins to grow dusky with nightfall, they finally take the group of us, drained and overcome, back to our luggage, and from there, to our dormitories. Chen stops in front of an open door.

  “Danvers. Rambeau.” I step forward, as does one of the other three women in my flight who I’ve seen hurtling through today’s events. We don’t dare look at each other. We stare straight ahead until Chen tells us what to do. Which, in the end, she does not. So we continue to stand. Chen stops in front of the room next door and barks out the other two women’s names. All four of us are paralyzed. Do we walk in, do we—?

  “First Beast begins tomorrow. I suggest you get some sleep.” Chen strides down the hallway without another word.

  The four of us look to one another, and then, before someone pops out and yells at us again, we all head quickly into our respective dorm rooms.

  “Carol Danvers,” I say, once we’re safely inside, extending a hand to my new roommate.

  “Maria Rambeau,” she says, taking my outstretched hand. Her grip is strong and sure, and even though she’s clearly exhausted like me, she looks me in the eye and I can feel her curiously searching my face for some way to measure what kind of person I am. I try to smile, try to tighten my grip, try to…well, impress her. Maria’s deep umber skin glistens with sweat earned from a long day, and as her impossibly big brown eyes scan my face I feel as though she’s on the cusp of slamming down some kind of psychological gavel as she finishes discerning my character and passes a verdict.

  “Do you have a preference?” I blurt out, gesturing to the two beds.

  “No.” And then with an almost imperceptible head tilt, “Do you?”

  “I’m sure they’re both just as aggressively uncomfortable,” I say. A tired smile breaks across Maria’s face, and the joy that bursts through me could power downtown Colorado Springs.

  “I’ll take this one, then,” Maria says, pointing to the bed on the right. I nod and we spend the next hour setting up our respective areas in silence. We measure and fold and buff, making sure to get as ready as possible for tomorrow, as well as prepare for any impending dorm inspections.

  As I brush my teeth at the very end of the night, I can’t remember eating or drinking anything today. But I know I must have. I know I saw a whole bunch of faces and said the words yes, sir and no, ma’am at least a thousand times. I know my blood was drawn and I took an oath to serve this country to the best of my ability, where I garnered the unfortunate attention of Jenks.

  I spit out my toothpaste and rinse my mouth. In the calm and quiet of the bathroom,
I rest my hands on the cold sink and close my eyes. I try to remember the sound of the mystery plane from this morning. Its high singsongy hum and the throaty groan of its engine. I make myself commit the sound to memory like it’s a lullaby. A lullaby reminding me that I’m still me, through all this. Just a girl who would rather count planes than sheep to fall asleep at night.

  I gather up my things and head back into the dorm room, where I find Maria sitting cross-legged on her bed writing in a journal. I smile as I close the door behind me, and she responds in kind. I want to say something to her, ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, if this is the endgame or just a stepping-stone, and whether she’s nervous or scared or excited or maybe all three. But then it dawns on me that I don’t think even I know the answers to those questions myself.

  My favorite high school history teacher once told me that it was a mistake to make resolutions based on what I’m not. She said it’s way easier for a group of people to come together in their shared hatred for something than it is to come together over their love of something or someone. But in the end, the group brought together by hatred will always be weaker.

  Now I see that her point was that love is always stronger in the end. But the thing about love, especially loving yourself for who you are…It’s harder than hating yourself for who you’re not. Especially when you’re eighteen. I know I didn’t fit in back home. I know I was hated, or at least misunderstood, more for who I wasn’t than loved for who I was. And what I want to tell Maria, what I want to tell myself, is that I hope I do more than just fit in here. I hope I belong. I hope I am loved.

  For once.

  I’m shuffling my toiletries around, doing some last-minute preparations for tomorrow, and then I can’t hold it in any longer.

  “A lot of yelling today,” I say, my back turned to Maria. I don’t want to see her become annoyed that I’m trying to talk to her. When the silence in the room goes on for half a second too long, I force myself to turn around. Maria is chewing on the end of her pen, looking over at me. Her face is…I don’t know….I don’t know her well enough to read her face yet.

  “Yeah,” she finally says. Ooookay. I force a tight smile and nod.

  “You ready for lights-out?” I ask, slowly dying inside. Maria nods that she is and sets her journal and pen on her desk and slides under the covers. She twists and turns, flips around as though she’s trying to get comfortable. Finally…

  “Hit it.” I turn out the lights and Frankenstein my way over to the bed, shuffling and sliding my feet along the floor of the darkened dorm room, careful not to stub or hit anything in the process. It feels like the journey from the light switch to my bed takes me close to an hour. I finally crawl into bed, settle in on my left side—as usual—and try to fluff the thin standard-issue pillow under my head. The room falls into silence as I rue the day I decided to say something and not just play it cool. When will I ever learn—?

  “Today was the best day of my life,” Maria says, cutting through the deafening silence. Her voice quiet and clear. I smile so big you can see it from space.

  “Mine too.”

  “Night, Danvers.”

  “Night, Rambeau.”

  P-51D Mustang, Piper Saratoga, Beechcraft, Cessna, Marchetti…

  IT’S STILL DARK OUTSIDE WHEN I WAKE TO THE sound of Maria lacing up her sneakers.

  “Did I miss Reveille?” I half shout, frantically pawing in the dark for my watch, already panicked. When I finally find it, the watch reads a truly upsetting 3:23 a.m.

  “No, you’ve still got about an hour,” she says, sliding on the other sneaker.

  “You going running?” I ask. Even in the dark, I can see her look over at me with that same discerning head tilt. I understand that my question was at best an obvious one and at worst, downright stupid. “Right. What I meant was…I want…Can I come? Do you want company?”

  “If you can get ready in the next seven minutes, you’re welcome to join me, Danvers,” she says, tying up her other sneaker. I bolt upright and make my bed using a ruler and hyper-focused concentration.

  As I drag my sneakers out of my closet, the ticket I got from State Trooper Wright floats out of my duffle bag and onto the floor. Maria picks it up and hands it back to me, her face asking a question she doesn’t give voice to. I take the ticket, shove it back into my duffle bag, sit on the bed, and start tying my sneakers.

  “On my way here I had a little run-in with the law,” I say, finishing lacing up one sneaker. Maria waits. “But she left me off with a warning. Or really more of a piece of advice. ‘Let yourself learn.’ Wrote it on the ticket so I guess I’d really…you know, be reminded of it.”

  “‘Let yourself learn’?” Maria asks.

  “Yeah, it’s—”

  “Like…about yourself?”

  “I—hmm. Welp, that’s an angle I hadn’t even thought of,” I say, shaking my head.

  “How else did you think of it?” Maria asks as we walk toward the PT pad, the night air quiet and tranquil around us.

  “I figured she was talking about Air Force stuff.” We settle onto the track and start our stretches. I notice two cadets from another flight on the other side of the track stretching just like we are.

  “Air Force stuff?” Maria asks, unable to keep from smiling.

  “That’s the official name for it, right?” I laugh.

  “Oh, definitely. I think I saw it on a poster in the recruitment center.” Maria extends her hand high into the sky and then arches her arm as she speaks. “‘Aim high and learn Air Force stuff’!” I crumble into giggles as I touch my toes, feeling a nice stretch down my back.

  “You run track in high school?” I ask, my voice cutting off slightly as I fold into myself.

  “A little,” Maria says, but from her half grin I discern that “a little” is probably the understatement of the century. “You?”

  “A little,” I say, following her lead. She smiles full-on this time, jumping in the air a few times, her breath puffing in the space between us.

  Our pace is comfortable. Neither one of us wants to burn out before this morning’s first physical evaluation. We’re going to be timed on our one-and-a-half-mile run, one minute of push-ups, one minute of sit-ups, and one minute of pull-ups.

  As we round the first corner, the syncopation of our steps feels almost meditative. I wouldn’t mind starting every morning like this. The quiet normalcy of another day running in the brisk morning air, just like I used to back home. I hadn’t even thought of a daily run as a possible part of the new routine, the new me.

  I thought I had to leave everything behind that made me…me. I thought I’d be stronger without the baggage of my past. Like a condemned house that was bulldozed for the land, ready to make way for a fancier new house. A better house. Why didn’t it ever occur to me that what got me here could be the same thing that would make me do well?

  Breathing deep from my diaphragm, I think about the state trooper’s words and Maria’s interpretation: Let yourself learn. Why didn’t I get that those words could also apply to learning about myself? Not to remake myself or to build a new me, but to unearth more of the real me within. I thought that to become the Air Force’s first female fighter pilot, I had to become someone else. But I’m capable of so much more. I’m starting to think that it’s this me that’ll make history.

  I feel stronger than ever as we come around for another lap. Maria and I begin to keep pace with the two cadets from another flight, one man and one woman. I bet they thought they’d be able to lap us. But it seems they’re the ones on the brink of getting lapped. Maria and I exchange a knowing look as we float past them in the final leg of our last lap. We make sure to appear as unexhausted as possible as we slow to a jog for our final cooldown.

  Slowly but surely, the rest of the class starts streaming out to the PT pad. Maria and I fall in with the rest of our flight. There are warm-ups, more yelling, and then we’re readied for our first physical evaluation.

 
I’m starting to get some last names for the fellow cadets in my flight. Bianchi is, or believes that he is, the clear leader. Lanky and effortlessly athletic, the confidence oozes off him. His dewy no-blemish-in-sight olive-hued skin sets off what was once a thick mop of wavy black hair, and he wields his deep blue eyes like tractor beams. Even after only one day, Bianchi already has two other airmen, Del Orbe and Pierre, following him around. I notice him trying to calculate where Maria and I fall into his little pecking order. He still seems unsure. I hope to offer him some clarity on this point in the very near future.

  The two cadets from the other flight that were there on the track with us this morning are Johnson and Noble. Noble is one of only two women in her flight. I catch myself storing all these names and possible alliances and habits and traits in the back of my mind, like they’re part of some elaborate blackboard algorithm. Something about collecting data on these people makes me feel, however falsely, more in control.

  I find myself sticking close to Maria. And I don’t think I’m wrong in believing that she’s doing the same thing with me.

  Flight after flight are called up and evaluated. Our flight is up next.

  OCs Chen and Resendiz round us up and give us the rundown of what’s about to happen. As the evaluations begin, so does the competition among cadets. Timed push-ups. Timed sit-ups. Timed pull-ups. By the time we get to the mile-and-a-half run, it’s Maria, Bianchi, Pierre, and me in the lead. Pierre and Bianchi had the upper hand in pull-ups, but Maria had more push-ups than both of them and I had more sit-ups. As we line up at the start of the run, none of us look at each other, all four of us staring straight ahead, visualizing the end goal.