As my future husband pointed out to me, if I went, and if the flight was successful, there would be other opportunities. He glanced at his gold watch. He was a man who understood opportunity. Sometimes it seemed as if he had invented the very idea.
He was right, of course. Later, I flew the Atlantic myself. Then the Pacific. But the first time, I just went along for the ride.
He was the son of a wealthy publishing family. He was used to having his way, with men and women. He had a kind of studied New York charm, which I hated. If I had to say what it was about him that made me marry him, I would say that it was his persistence, not his charm. I admired his determination, but his was a transparent, demanding, foolish charm. He had a way of monopolizing attention that made him appear desperate, more so than he really was. But I can’t complain, really. Sometimes he did it for me.
Only much later did I realize what I had done by marrying him. I didn’t blame myself, but I realized that I had surrendered to the whims of men—even I who had been so bold and independent, even I who had taken on the humiliating task of sitting in the back of an airplane like cargo when I knew perfectly well that I could fly it myself better than the so-called pilot in the cockpit—I realized that I had surrendered so easily because I had been, despite my most vigilant efforts, infatuated with the men who made the rules. Sitting in my future husband’s office, listening to the drone of his comfortable voice, I felt an infinite rush of sympathy for him. I knew he was hidden, even from himself, and I wanted to be the only person who really knew him. Later, this realization made me suspect that I had loved my husband. Selfishly, but at least I had loved him.
His name was George Palmer Putnam.
He helped me into a taxi after the interview, his umbrella shielding me but not himself from the rain, a drop of water hanging gallantly off his nose. Then I drove off to the train station, through the park at the gentlest point of dusk.
Two
BY 1937, at the tender age of thirty-nine, she was the loneliest of heroines. She was more expressive around the eyes, and no movie star seemed as mysterious as she or wore leather and silk with such glamorous nonchalance. But she felt as though she had already lived her entire life, having crossed the Atlantic solo and set several world records, and she had no one to share her sadness with, least of all her husband. Her husband, G.P., her business manager. He’s the husband who made her famous, who devoted himself to her, even when she hated him, even when he hated her back. She needs him so that she can fly, so that she can escape from him, so that she can escape from the very people who worship her.
•
Thirty-nine. I have been famous for a long time, and I am still dependent, on the world, on G.P., on my unhappiness. But I want to fly. I want to fly around the world. The flight around the world contains within it everything inside me, all the life and all the death. I want to take the life and the death that is inside me and make something of it. But I’m tired, and careless now. And my husband, who wants me to do it for the money, doesn’t see that my carelessness will kill me. Or maybe he does. I leave the details up to him. I want my dream, but I am so tired. I tell him I want to go alone, that I don’t want a navigator, but he insists on it and we argue. I tell him that instead we should put a signal on Howland Island, that I won’t find it without a signal. He ignores me when I say this. He keeps eating. He places his knife on the side of his plate and he keeps chewing.
The great heroine is preparing to land. She’s coming into the airfield, bracing herself with the usual aplomb. Her ship makes its way through a furrowed landscape of white, and for several minutes visibility is completely obscured. Then she sees him. On the dusty tarmac surrounded by flat gray hangars, a man in a hat stands waiting for her. His tie lifting, lifting higher as she lets down her wheels. He takes off his hat when the wind picks up, as if he were taking it off for a funeral. Pulling his pant leg up before he bends his knee, he climbs onto the wing when she stops the plane and reaches his hand out to her when she emerges.
The Miami Herald is here, he says.
Hello, G.P., she says.
She pulls herself out of the hatch and stands on the wing. She loosens her silk scarf. On the tarmac three men in summer-weight suits and pale fedoras are walking toward her.
That was some landing, one of them says.
Did you think you were going to have a crack-up?
I certainly smacked it down hard that time. She climbs down from the wing.
Is it true that you’re planning an around-the-world flight?
I’ve tried that already, haven’t I?
Yes, but we heard you were planning another.
The best-laid plans, gentlemen.
On the ground she is holding her husband’s hand. He nods to the reporters, who step aside. A photographer crouches to take a picture. It is still early morning but the sun is blinding. They pose for a moment and then walk on.
Although secretly she fears that she is getting old, which she is for a woman pilot, she continues to plan death-defying journeys. But she compensates for her increasingly disturbing lack of optimism by projecting an image of unflappable calm. She is not only America’s most beloved female flyer, she is also its most brilliant undiscovered actress. Still, and this bothers her although she pretends that it doesn’t, her shameless love of danger and the cavalier way she has relinquished her so-called feminine duties have won her slightly less respect and affection than she deserves.
That night we have dinner at the hotel. It’s one of the new hotels along the water, low and pink, with ocean-liner curves. The radio plays a song called “Harbor Lights,” and the Four Cadets are singing. I’m very tired and eat with my head down. G.P. is talking to the airport manager who has driven us to the hotel. During the meal I say something about putting a signal on Howland Island, and G.P. ignores my remark. He keeps eating. I stop eating and stare at my plate and when I don’t look up he lowers his fork. The airport manager licks the sauce from his spoon. Then G.P. pulls on his cuff as if it will prove something and says, If we put a signal on Howland Island, the book won’t sell out by Christmas.
He makes me write. He makes me write for magazines and columns in newspapers and he makes me write books about my flights. I wrote earnest poetry in high school, but he isn’t interested in my poems. He doesn’t realize how difficult it is to write. Later, Noonan will read one of my books. He will say to me, As a writer, you’re a good pilot.
But G.P. is smart and the books sell very well and the money enables me to fly.
Upstairs I sit outside on a small terrace that is painted candy-colored pink. A breeze blows over from the ocean. I slip off my shoes and feel the painted cement smooth and grainy underfoot. I ride my mind on the waves for a while, just listening to their murmur.
Later, I put on a dressing gown and sit up in bed, reading maps. When G.P. comes in I am studying a chart of weather conditions over Africa.
What was that all about? he says, removing his jacket and loosening his tie.
I’m very tired.
You should be asleep.
I’m too tired to sleep.
He walks out onto the terrace and lights a cigarette. When he’s done he walks in and pulls the drapes. In his unbuttoned shirt and his white cotton shorts he sits down on the edge of the bed.
It’s too late to change the radio, he says. And it’s too late to put a signal on Howland Island. But if you feel that it’s absolutely necessary …
I don’t feel that about anything anymore.
Do you still want to go?
Of course I want to. I’m going. But not because it’s necessary.
The sky is flesh.
This is the sentence that I will use to begin my book about the flight.
When she opens her mouth, a monstrous scream.
She leans down toward the microphone and repeats herself.
She says, On June first, nineteen thirty-seven, I will depart from Miami on my second attempt to fly around the world. I will be t
raveling along an equatorial route. I will be flying my trusty Lockheed Electra. And I will be flying with my navigator, Mr. Fred Noonan.
Thank you, Miss Earhart. Sorry about the technical difficulty.
That’s quite all right.
Miss Earhart, would you like to tell our radio listeners anything else about your upcoming trip?
I’m very much looking forward to it.
What I think the public would most like to know, Miss Earhart, is why, why do such a daredevil kind of thing?
Because I want to. And because I think women should do for themselves the things that men have done, and have not done.
Thank you, Miss Earhart. And good luck to you. The American people will be cheering for you and praying for you on June first.
A high-pitched hum sounds when he turns off the microphone. A young woman wearing a cardigan and carrying a clipboard speaks from the other side of a glass wall.
Miss Earhart, your husband is here to take you to the airport.
Thank you. Where is the ladies’ room?
Through this door and down that hall.
Thank you. I’ll be right back.
She’s had a headache all morning. G.P. says it’s her teeth. He’s scheduled a dentist appointment for this afternoon, although she’s told him that it won’t do any good. Turning the round metal knob on the heavy door, she steps into a pale and stuffy room. Inside there are two stalls and two sinks and one shell-shaped sconce on either side of the mirror. The lights are off. A diffuse beam of daylight filters down from a frosted window. Under the window sits a low pillowed chair. Beside it, a standing ashtray.
In the mirror above the sink she sees the circles under her eyes. She runs her fingers through her short, sandy hair. She’s wearing a dress because there will be reporters outside the radio station, many of them, and she adjusts the neckline, which has fallen over to the left. She turns from the mirror, opens her purse, removes a silver powder compact and powders her face. She sees her reflection in the larger mirror, powdering her face.
My first crack-up was with my flying teacher, Neta, in a plane called the Canary. As we approached a grove of eucalyptus, the engine stalled and we tore into the trees. We smashed the undercarriage and the propeller. I remember crawling out of the mess, my coveralls torn and my brain intoxicated with the heady, mentholated smell of eucalyptus. By the time Neta turned around to look for me, I had fished out my silver compact and was powdering my nose.
When she asked me as a joke if I was meeting someone there, I answered her with the charming, deadpan etiquette for which I would become famous.
I might as well look fresh when the reporters get here, I said.
I tilt the compact to view myself from the side: a printed dress falling in silky folds, pale stockings the color of buttermilk, low-heeled lace-up calfskin shoes pointing slightly inward.
I close the compact and turn toward the mirror. I stare at my face for a while. I have the same expression I’ve always had, the small nose, the wide eyes, the grin. But I notice a pucker of worry over my brow, a network of lines around my eyes. Behind me in the mirror I glimpse the chair and the ashtray. I remember a department store in Atchison, Kansas, where my grandmother used to shop. A brightly floral ladies’ lounge on the top floor of the building, with a picture window overlooking the street. Marble sinks and a blue chaise longue upholstered in damask silk. A heavy smell of perfume and disinfectant. I remember winter afternoons, shopping for Christmas clothes, escaping to the ladies’ room and staring out the window. The purple sky lowering its velvety curtain. My face afloat in the glass. Eerie and disembodied, it took shape in the darkness with a languid speed, decorated by the lights of the windows across the street, and beyond that …
Miss Earhart, is everything all right in there?
Oh, yes. I’m fine. Thank you.
Your husband asked me to remind you that he’s waiting outside.
I’ll be right there.
… the early stars.
When she emerges from behind a swinging glass door, the shadows of the station’s letters fly briefly like hidden feelings across her face.
•
The sun is low and the plane is hot. Its wings cast gigantic shadows. Later, a reporter arrives to talk with her. Owen, he’s an old friend by now, he’s covered her flights for so long. Sometimes she thinks he’s her only friend. The two of them walk on the runway for a while, their long shadows circling as they change direction, the light in their hair reddish and gold. She is wearing white coveralls, splattered with oil. He’s wearing a suit and a hat.
When she squints into the distance, he stares at her. Anyone can see that he’s in love.
How does that thing feel? He points to her mouth.
Awful, she says. It’s giving me a headache.
I think a good radio and a sober navigator would take care of the headaches.
Owen, you think too much. Have you seen Noonan?
No, not yet. I hear he smashed up his car again, with what’s-her-name in it, the second wife.
It’s terrible but sort of funny, isn’t it?
I don’t think so. Why are you taking him?
She leans down and picks a bottle cap off the ground. G.P. insists, she says.
You want to go alone.
She flicks the cap into the weeds. I can’t always do what I want.
He loosens his tie and takes it off. He rolls it up and stuffs it in his pocket.
Fred’s a good navigator, she says.
He’s a drunk.
She nods.
So why the charity?
Old age, I suppose.
Old what?
Age. I have a morbid obsession with it.
I guess even Amelia Earhart has to be afraid of something.
Well, she says. Don’t print it.
A warm wind picks up and blows his hat off. They both run after it in the dusty light.
Amelia?
Yes.
Nothing.
All right. I’ll ask you something then.
Anything.
You have to be honest.
He crosses his heart.
What do you think are my chances?
Your chances of finding Howland Island?
He stops. He puts his hands in his pockets. It’s a small island, he says.
Smaller than the Cleveland airport.
It’s in the middle of the ocean.
I know.
He takes a moment.
Fifty-fifty, he says. Being optimistic.
The sun has just fallen above the hangars, where it sits in a pool of blood. When he looks at her, she’s looking at something he can’t see. He says he hopes that she’s being careful.
Fifty-fifty, she says, smiling past him, past the sunset. I think I can live with that.
I had to take Noonan with me because we had run out of money and he was the cheapest navigator we could find. G.P. said he was the best, and that may have been true, but he was definitely the cheapest. He was cheap because he’d been fired from Pan Am for drinking and he couldn’t find another job. I didn’t want to take him. I didn’t want to take anybody. I wanted to be alone.
It’s two days before the flight, and she’s driving to the airfield. G.P. reads telegrams to her while he drives. Best of luck. Best wishes. Your courage is an inspiration. We applaud you. We salute you. We admire you.
Where is the one from Eleanor and the President?
I read it to you.
Read it to me again.
He reads it again and they both smile.
That’s awfully nice of them, isn’t it? She has the window rolled down, and bursts of breeze blow in. Her sleeve ripples in the wind.
It’s going to be hot today.
It’s a scorcher.
They pass streets lined with palms and Spanish-style houses, a strip of stores with handwritten signs. Then groves of oranges, rows of squat trees, the leaves dark and thick on the branches. By the side of the road, a man sells fru
it out of a crate. A family showers under a hose. A buzzing in the air from the electrical wires. Black birds line the wires, like stubble.
She looks over at him and nods her head.
Hey, she flirts, read it again.
When we get to the airstrip I pull the car up onto the field and stride over to my plane with my hands in my pockets. I’m already wearing my coveralls and I’m smiling, scrunching my nose up and squinting against the sun. Several mechanics are talking in the shade of the hangar; some sit on fuel drums, some are standing. I head over to them and they say hello and some kick the ground and put out their cigarettes. We walk over to the plane and begin working. We work on the fuel gauge and fix a wire on the engine. We patch up the leaking oil lines. Overhead, early traces of cloud have blown away and the sky is a brilliant mirror. Two technicians fiddle with the radio and ask me if it’s true that I only use it to listen to music. They joke with me about this and I laugh and say it’s true and at around twelve noon a beat-up Ford pulls up and a man gets out and we stop joking. He wears a dark double-breasted suit and polished shoes and he’s carrying a paper bag. A white handkerchief peeps out of his breast pocket. His white shirt is starched and cleanly pressed and he is not wearing a hat. He wears his hair lightly slicked, and it shines like leather in the sun. He’s tall and his stride is long and athletic, although he isn’t in a hurry. As he approaches the plane he is smiling and very handsome and he glances around. Then he looks at me.
When I saw Noonan, he was the last person in the world I wanted to see.
I look at the paper bag and then look at him. What a surprise. We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.
I Was Amelia Earhart (Vintage Contemporaries) Page 2
