The Secrets of Flight

by Maggie Leffler

  “She was being kind of nosy—wanting to know who I was and how I knew you and why I was waiting here. So, I said I was your nephew, and she said she thought I must mean your great-great-nephew, so I said, Yeah sure, and she said, Are you related to the twins? And I said, They’re my cousins.” He shrugged. “It seemed easier to make up stuff to get her to go away.”

  “Bless your heart,” I whispered.

  CHAPTER 19

  Goodbye Forever

  July 1944

  It is the end of July when Sol shows up at the gate outside of Avenger Field for our last date. I watch his face stutter through various emotions—confusion, surprise, and wry amusement—when he realizes I’ve brought along the women from my bunk, minus Vera Skeert, who stayed behind for church this morning and to study her aviation manuals this afternoon. “Oh, wonderful. You’ve brought . . . bodyguards,” Sol says.

  “Hey, Sol!” Murphee says, with a mock Texas twang in her voice, as she hops into the back of the Ford pickup. She’s wearing cutoff shorts and a plaid shirt tied at the waist. “Thanks for letting us tag along.”

  “Where am I taking you all?” he asks, genuinely curious.

  “Inks Lake! We heard the waterfall is supposed to be gorgeous,” Murphee says, flipping her orange hair. “Ana even packed her paintbrushes. And Grace wants to see a golden-cheeked warbler. Come on, ladies!”

  Grace gives me a smile and a shrug before climbing into the back.

  “It’s our only day off,” Ana says, by way of explanation. “And we’re heathens.”

  “They know it’s on the other side of the state?” Sol asks me.

  “They know. They like hiking.”

  “And men!” Murphee calls. “Take us to your friends.”

  “I WISH YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO GO,” I SAY, ONCE WE’RE ON THE highway and heading southeast. At least I get to sit next to him for the long ride, while the rest of the ladies are in the truck bed. In my side mirror, I can see Murphee tipping her head back and laughing. “Someday, I’ll visit you in New York,” I add, reaching over to give his hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “Miri . . .” he starts, taking a deep breath, and I hear the gloom in his voice and pull away, thinking, This is where I find out we were only in love in my imagination. “The thing is . . . I sort of fudged my application.”

  “To medical school?” I say, confused but relieved. Med school. Not us.

  “It was sort of an experiment . . . at least, in the beginning,” Sol says, shifting his eyes between the road and me. “I knew they kept rejecting me because of the quotas. And why should my religion matter to a public university? So, this time I applied everywhere as ‘Solomon Rubinowicz,’ except for a school in the Bronx, where I called myself ‘Thomas Browning.’” He grips the steering wheel harder and glances at me. “They accepted me. They don’t know I’m Jewish.”

  I can’t help shuddering when Murphee lets out another cackle somewhere over my left shoulder. “But what happens when they find out you are?” I ask, dropping my voice.

  “They’re not going to.” He tells me that he knows a man who knows another man who makes extra cash by altering documents in the basement of his printing shop. For no small fee—two months of Sol’s salary at the drugstore—Sol got himself another name, another birth certificate, and another chance to enter medical school. “If you marry me, you’ll be Mrs. Thomas Browning.”

  Marry me. The words fill my head with an unexpected rush, unless that’s just panic. “But . . . what would it mean . . . exactly?” I ask.

  “It means they can’t discriminate against us,” he says. “It means we can make the future whatever we want it to be.”

  I hesitate. Back home, Squirrel Hill is a largely Jewish community, and while it’s recognized that there are clubs and schools that we aren’t permitted to attend, I’ve always felt more held back by being a woman than by my religion. “We can still be Jewish,” he adds. “We’ll just . . . have another name.”

  “Give it time, Rina,” Papa used to say to my mother, when she wanted to leave Freetown. “More Jews will move here, and we’ll build a synagogue. Until then, we have our faith, our girls, and our bit of land. What more do we need?” he’d repeat like a mantra to Mama. Was Papa right? Could Sol and I be unmoored from the fold and still keep our faith? Was it enough to rely on each other?

  “What will your parents say?” I ask, thinking of his father. How can Sol betray the man who gave his only son the keys to the truck and told him to go find me? And how can I betray my mother who has given me everything, always?

  Sol inhales and reaches for my hand across the gearshift. “I care what you say.”

  Of all the scenarios I could possibly imagine for the rest of our lives, I never imagined this one.

  HOURS LATER, WE REACH THE FALLS, OR AT LEAST APPROACH striking distance, after a long drive in the heat, a quick snack at a general store in Eden, and one stop at the apartment of Sol’s friends. Murphee is still disappointed that “the men” consist of one Matthew McAllister, a freckled law student who can’t stop sneezing into his hankies, and Jack Koppleman, another bookish mate who quickly dropped his pencils for a truckload of women pilots. When we finally park the truck in the dust, we’re a thirsty, sweaty, sunbaked lot, almost too tired to set off through the wildflowers as the sun begins to descend in the sky. Trailing behind the others, I wonder if I dare tell him not to do it—not to go away. But then I think of how I felt when women were banned from the civilian pilot training program just after I’d made it through—and when the good ol’ boys in Congress voted against us last month. If all I needed was a new name to fly, I think, trudging through the tall grasses, I’d give myself a new name. But how can I deny my religion, my family?

  “Are you okay?” Grace says quietly, falling back to join me. “I knew we shouldn’t have crashed your last date.”

  I nod and then shake my head, belatedly. “No, no—it’s fine. I’m fine.”

  But I’m back in the fog again, searching for a way out. Is this goodbye for now or goodbye forever?

  At last, we reach the shade of the woods and listen for waterfalls to guide our way, which invariably turns out to be wind rippling through the junipers. Finally we find ourselves in a lush alcove: a blue-green pool, surrounded by cliffs of rock.

  Murphee immediately strips down to her skivvies and takes the plunge into Devils Water Hole, screaming and shivering. Sol goes next, whooping and cannonballing into the lake. I’m feeling more tentative, balancing on the wet boulders near Grace and Ana and the law students. How can you have written me such long letters and never bothered to mention this social “experiment” against institutionalized discrimination? I think. But I know the truth, that it was never an experiment but a means to an end, the only way to fulfill a dream. Who am I to ask him to get another one? At last Sol climbs back out, scoops me up in my one-piece bathing suit, and throws me into the freezing water. Coming up for air, I feel like a child, being born—the slap and chill of reality. I have to choose: life with Sol or life with my family.

  We haven’t been treading water very long when Murphee decides things are getting boring—it’s not enough that we have a can of tuna, saltines, and four apples to feed the lot of us, that the sun will go down and we’re probably miles away from wherever we parked the truck. “I dare y’all to jump off the top of that boulder,” she says, pointing to the tallest rock rising above the water, which appears to have been placed there by a giant.

  “Let’s all do it,” Murphee says, beginning to climb the rocks. “What’re y’all, chicken?”

  “What’s with the accent, New Jersey?” Ana asks.

  “I’ll try,” Sol says and then turns to look at me. “What about you, Miri? Are you in?” I feel as if he’s asking me everything about our future.

  I think of what Mama would say, and then, just as quickly, what my sister would say. Keep sending me your stories, Miri. Keep flying high for both of us, she wrote. I have to do it for the same reason I have t
o do everything right now, like flying, like marching, like running, like hiking, like breathing: I have to do it, because Sarah can’t. “Of course, I’m in,” I say.

  I’m terrified—clamoring up the boulders, with shaking arms and legs. And once at the top, I can’t stop shivering uncontrollably. Even Grace is smarter than I, hunkering down in the pool below and cheering us on the higher we get. Murphee is the first to go, screaming the whole way down. I watch and wait for her head to bob up again and am relieved by the sound of her cackling. Then goes Ana, who screams obscenities and then laughs hysterically when she resurfaces from the lake.

  “I can’t,” I say weakly, as we stand at the edge, even though, after climbing so high, it’s the only way down. I’ll never manage the rocks in reverse.

  “But you’re a pilot,” Sol says.

  “Without a plane!”

  “Come on—it’s easy.” He grins and reaches out for my hand. “Breathe and fall. Breathe and fall, that’s all we have to do.”

  I think of my beautiful nightmare. “I can’t change my name. I can’t—lose my family.”

  “Then I’ll stay in Abilene.”

  “You have to go. It’s—what I would do. But Sarah’s sick, and Mama needs me. I can’t let them down,” I say, my voice cracking.

  “Oh, Miri, don’t cry. Not on our last day together.” Sol pulls me toward him and then kisses me, until my teeth stop chattering and my lips warm up again and my tears stop falling—until Murphee is shouting something about getting a room. “I don’t have to be Thomas Browning forever,” he adds, still holding me close. “Can you wait four years for me to be me again?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, bewildered.

  “Jump!” Grace shouts from the pool below.

  “Jump!” Ana screeches.

  Sol’s palm brushes down my arm until he finds my hand again and squeezes. “Ready?” he asks.

  I look down at the drop and then up to his reassuring face and nod. Together we take a flying leap off the precipice. It’s over quickly: the rush of the fall, the wind in my ears, the flail of my arms, and then a graceless splash. We find each other underwater and then come up for mouthfuls of air and laughter, lots and lots of laughter, and that’s when I know that the right thing to do is to say goodbye forever, and that I’ll never know joy like this again.

  HOURS LATER, WHEN WE GET BACK TO BASE, THE GIRLS PILE OUT of the back of the truck bed and traipse off toward the barracks after thanking Sol for the lovely day. I wait until they are out of earshot to tell him I can’t go with him, not now or in four years from now, or ever. “I can’t give up everything for the sake of your future.”

  “Our future,” he says, squeezing my shoulders. “I’m not giving up you.”

  “But you are,” I say, willing myself not to kiss him one last time. “And I need you to go.” I back away, knowing that once I cross under the gate of Avenger Field, he can’t follow me. “Please, don’t—write to me,” I add. “Don’t try to keep in touch. It’ll only hurt me more.”

  When I glance back from the dusty path that leads to the bunk, he’s still standing in the same spot outside the gate, absently percussing the borders of his heart. I remember the Spartans of Greece and keep walking.

  PART 3

  CHAPTER 20

  Toothpicks

  I got back from Key West on Sunday night, and the only thing Mom said when she picked me up outside the airport was, “Well, how did Grandma seem?” I finished stuffing my bag in the backseat before I climbed in the passenger side and told her about the emergency procedure to make Grandma look not so yellow. Mom blinked, turned back in her seat, and put the car in drive. She stayed silent for a while, long enough for us to leave the road around the airport and merge onto 79.

  “Am I grounded?” I asked finally.

  “I don’t think so,” Mom said slowly. When I glanced over, she was wiping a tear off her cheek. “Just as long as your schoolwork won’t be compromised,” Mom finally added, her voice stronger.

  “I got all my assignments from Friday. I’m not behind in anything.”

  Except for the toothpick bridge, which was due in five days. I couldn’t believe six weeks had slipped by since Mrs. McClure first gave us the assignment—and that it had been over two weeks since Thea stopped talking to me. Maybe if we were still partners, I would’ve created something more than a shaky drawing of a bridge by now. But if we were still partners, Holden Saunders wouldn’t have come up to my locker on Wednesday morning, three days after I got back, and said, “Yo, wifey, my house, after school?” When I nodded, beaming, he added, walking away, “And bring some toothpicks!”

  The house was empty when we first got there, and I watched as he turned off the alarm, tossed his backpack on the counter, and offered me a drink. I set Henry, our flour baby—just a few days shy of his two-week birthday—down on the table and stood next to Holden as we peered inside his parents’ Sub-Zero fridge, which was pretty well stocked. “How about a beer?” he asked me.

  “I don’t see any beer,” I said.

  “My parents keep it locked up in the basement fridge, but I know where they keep the key.”

  I just laughed and said, “No thanks—but the lemonade looks good.”

  We stood there for a few minutes leaning against the counters and self-consciously drinking our lemonade. The house seemed so quiet, which made me a little nervous when I thought about what my mom would think if she knew I was here instead of at Thea’s. Especially when Holden kind of looked me up and down and said, “I hope you didn’t buy all new clothes for me.”

  “No,” I said, insulted, because I didn’t want to be the sort of shallow girl who’d buy new clothes for a boy, even if I am that sort of girl.

  “Well, it looks good,” he said, staring at me, which made my face heat up and my breath get stuck in my chest, so I looked into my lemonade and gulped the rest of it down.

  We talked a little longer in the kitchen—about how Kurt Metzger got sent to the principal’s office for giving Mr. Edmund the finger in gym, and how Mrs. Royal, the French teacher, was in love with a man in Tennessee, and how Herman Melville is overrated. We’d just finished reading Bartleby the Scrivener in Mrs. Kindling’s AP English class, where this guy, Bartleby, takes over the office and locks himself inside and when they ask him to leave, he just repeats over and over, “I’d prefer not to.” Holden asked me if I was going to Homecoming, and I said, “Not yet,” kind of hopefully, but he didn’t ask me. I almost wondered, since he’s so hot, if he expected me to ask him.

  After that, we took off our shoes—Holden’s mom’s rule, since all the carpets are plush white—and went up to Holden’s room, which was surprisingly neat and sparse, except for the electronics—he had an iPad and an iPhone and a MacBook and a flat-screen TV on the wall. There were vacuum marks in the rug, and the blue comforter on his bed didn’t have a wrinkle in it. I put Henry on the dresser next to all of his “father’s” lacrosse trophies, while Holden carried in a chair from the other room, so we could both sit at his desk. Then we took out our notebooks and compared the drawings we each made of the bridge we were supposed to build. Holden laughed when he saw mine, which looked complicated and elegant, like the Hulton Bridge straddling the Allegheny River. “Are you crazy? This thing has to hold thirty pounds,” he said, and then he showed me his drawing, which looked sort of like a crude box, but I guessed it would do a better job of holding weight, and besides, it looked a lot easier to build. Except that when we finally started to work, the toothpicks just kept clumping together with glue and sticking to our fingers. It was impossible to create anything but globs of toothpick goo, and it was making me anxious, every time I thought of Mrs. McClure going, “Well, you guys should be putting the final touches on your bridges by now, if you’re not already finished.”

  “Fuck,” Holden said, for about the thirtieth time. “Are you sure you don’t want that beer? ’Cause I could use one.” I was feeling pretty much doomed as far as getting an A in p
hysics went, so I said okay.

  We crept back downstairs and then all the way to the basement, where the locked fridge was. Holden winked at me when he came up with the key, which had been tucked away in one of the drawers of his dad’s workbench. Then he unlocked the fridge and we both chose a beer—Newcastle brown ale for him, a Sierra Nevada for me, exotic and a favorite of my dad’s. My chest was full of nervous electricity, but I smiled at Holden as if I had done this before.

  We drank sitting at his desk by the toothpick debris. The beer tasted terrible, which kind of surprised me, like Eve might’ve felt if the apple turned out to be a mealy Jonagold. I must’ve made a face, because Holden asked me if I’d ever had a beer before, and I shook my head. He told me it helped if I chugged it, so I kind of held my breath and drank it as fast as I could get it down. When we went back to work after that, the fact that the toothpicks wouldn’t stick to anything but our fingers just seemed sillier and sillier, and we couldn’t stop laughing. Suddenly, Holden asked if he could kiss me. My head felt swimmy and fizzy, and I said, “Oh yes!” so readily that he started to laugh. We moved over to the bed, and it was the best first kiss of my entire life, even if his fingers were a little sticky on my face, and I kept wondering if he might be getting glue in my hair or if I was going to get mono from him. His lips were soft compared to my chapped ones, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with my tongue when he put his in my mouth, so I just swirled it around and tasted peanut butter. After a while, he gently pushed me backward, and I could feel his erection pushing into my crotch, which freaked me out a little when I realized what it was. I liked it, but mostly I was scared of liking it.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “Want to go to Homecoming with me?”

  “Yes!” I sat up on my elbow and said, “But I just have to make sure I’m not volunteering at the hospital that night.” It seemed better to lie than say I had to check with my mom, who won’t let me date until I’m sixteen.