Grandy nods and rubs a big hand slowly over his cropped white hair. “Sure, there’s that. But if they keep the men and women anywhere near as separate as they keep the Negroes and whites, ain’t no convent gonna be safer, despite what they say about them WACs.”
Mama stays silent. Grandy shrugs. “Besides, what are we gonna do for her here? The girl’s got the bug, just like her daddy. It’s the army or Chicago one of these days, and nobody’s watching out for her in Chicago.”
Mama looks at her hands in her lap. When she looks up at Grandy again, I can tell a decision’s been made.
Grandy shakes his head. “I’ve got to tell you, Ida Mae, this is one for the record books,” he says. “I mean, a little colored girl flying for old Uncle Sam.”
“Does that mean I can go?”
Grandy shrugs. “Your mama and I have been talking. And you’re not a baby anymore. An adult has to make adult decisions.”
I look at Mama. All the planning in the world won’t matter if she says no to me. I can’t stand to break her heart.
“If it’ll help Thomas,” Mama says at last. I can hear the resignation in her voice and it pains me. But a yes is still a yes.
I slump back into my chair, glad to have Grandy’s blessing, stunned to have Mama’s, no matter how begrudging.
I start to ask if they’re sure, but it’s not worth having them change their minds, so I hold my tongue.
“Show me that letter,” Grandy says. I pull it out of my pocket and place it on the table. Grandy takes it and gives a low whistle.
“Texas. Uh-uh. Texas is hard, baby girl, hard for the colored man. You’ve got to be extra careful not to slip up. They won’t take kindly to it in Texas. And if anybody asks or even suspects something, tell them you’ve got Spanish blood on your mother’s side. More than a few folks around here claiming Spanish Creole blood.” He gives me a look of concern that turns into concentration. “I got a few friends out by Sweetwater. It’s not much to look at, from what I hear.”
I can’t help but smile. “I’ll be looking at the clouds.”
Grandy grins. He pats me on the arm. Abel gives me the thumbs-up. Mama gets up and gathers the dishes. I start to help and she waves me away.
“Just sit down. I’ve got to get used to doing this by myself,” she says. There’s nothing I can do but watch as she carries the plates to the kitchen sink and begins washing them one by one. She’s humming “Amazing Grace” as she washes. The same song we sing every Sunday in church, but tonight I can only remember it as the hymn we sang over my father’s grave.
Chapter 8
“Shoo, fly, don’t bother me. For I belong to somebody . . .” I hum to myself like the words can keep away the fear gnawing at my insides. Those two weeks have flown by and here I am, itchy in my travel suit, a wool skirt and matching jacket, white gloves. I wish Abel was here to sing with me, to hold my hand. The only brown faces I’ve seen are on the side of the road, working in prison gangs. This is the last leg of my journey, the bus from Sweetwater to the WASP base at Avenger Field.
The bus was waiting for us outside the Blue Bonnet Hotel in town. I even had a room for a night at the hotel without anyone sending me across the tracks to the Negro neighborhood. The night was cool enough for me to smooth out my hair with an iron, and it stayed straight all the way up until we got on this bus. That’s when I learned that Texas is hot. Hot enough to make even my good hair go frizzy from sweat. I check to make sure I have enough setting cream to keep it tame, even if my curls get wet. In the summer in Slidell, it can get so you wish you could take off your own skin. Stripping down to your bloomers just isn’t enough. Some days are so humid, you can’t tell where the air ends and your sweat begins. Like being in a wet oven, that’s what Slidell summers are like. But this Texas heat is like desert heat. It’s drier than dry, but you sweat in it just the same.
I resist the urge to put a hand to my hair, because it’ll only make it worse. Instead, I end up fidgeting with my handbag. I’m like to tear the handle off before we get to our destination.
Pretending to be white is like holding your stomach in at the lake when the boys walk by. You know they’re looking, but you don’t want to be seen the way you really are, tummy all soft and babyish, with a too-small chest and behind. So you stand up tall, suck it in, tilt it forward, and try to do the best you can. Jolene was always better at posing. A regular Jean Harlow. Not me. I suck it up, stick it out, and I’m surer than sure I’ll never get to the end of this bus ride without being found out.
I look around, trying not to show that I’m moving my eyes. I’m not the only one in gloves. I sigh, relieved. Now that I’ve made it this far, I’ll do anything not to stand out. I close my eyes and remember the last time I felt this scared. Right before my flight test in Alabama, when I didn’t get my license. Not a good sign.
There are twenty-five of us. There are supposed to be a hundred girls in all, but I guess the rest have cars or came out yesterday. At eight o’clock this morning, the bus pulled up to take us to Avenger Field. It’s a queer one. They call it a cattle truck, but it looks more like a long horse trailer, a big metal box with rectangles cut out for the windows, although there isn’t even any glass. And the hard seats seem like an afterthought. It makes me wonder what kind of planes they’ve given us. But I don’t care what they look like. I just want to get there.
For the first time since leaving New Orleans, I don’t need to think about sitting in the back or the front. I’m squeezed square into the middle of all the other girls. I say girls, but some of them are women, all right. In age, they look to be anywhere from my age to a little younger than Mama. There are brunettes, blondes, redheads, and even a few people going gray early. And every single one of them is white.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead with a folded handkerchief. I feel sick.
“Are you all right, sister?” The girl across from me is looking at me with concern. She looks like Snow White, all black curls, ruby lips, and creamy skin, eyes like blue forget-me-nots. I wave her away.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I say. I fight the urge to add “ma’am” or bow my head. Jolene warned me not to be a maid. I twist my fingers in the fabric of my skirt.
The woman smiles. “The hell you are. None of us are. How could we be, with this damn heat, this damn bus, and—” She pauses. “Well, I ran out of damns. How old are you, honey?”
“Twenty last month,” I tell her. I really do think I might be sick. “I need some water.”
“Hold on. Driver?” Snow White is up and walking down the bouncing bus aisle with perfect balance. I would have tripped over myself with all of this jouncing, but Snow White is cool as November, a real beauty queen.
“Hey, Mack,” she says to the driver. “We’ve got a sick girl back here. Do you have something she can drink?”
The driver fumbles around for a canteen under his seat. I put my head down on my knees, dizzy. My hands shake and my stomach turns sour. Drinking from a “whites-only” water fountain would earn me a beating back home. Sharing this man’s canteen could be a hanging offense in Texas for all I know. But then I steel myself. You wanted to fly, Ida Mae. This is what it takes.
A moment later, Snow White’s lifting my head up with a cool, dry hand. “Here, honey, take a sip. It’ll help.”
I sit up and put my lips to the metal rim of the canteen. A split second before it touches my lips, I realize it’s not water. The rich, fiery smell of whiskey hits my nostrils. I push it away, eyes burning from the fumes. The liquor has splashed my mouth. I wipe it away with my handkerchief. Some of the other girls around me laugh and whisper. And all I wanted to do was lie low.
“Better?” Snow White asks.
“That’s not water,” I say hoarsely.
“Oh, I know, honey. But this rotgut is almost as good as smelling salts. You’ll be all right now, at least until we get to the base.”
I sit up straight and stare at Snow White. My cheeks get hot, but I don’t say anything.
I don’t feel anywhere near “all right.” My hands are still trembling, but now it’s as much from embarrassment as it is from fear.
Snow White smiles. “Oh, honey, I’m not messing with you. I was trying to help, really. I was afraid you’d pass out before we got to the base, and then they’d send you right back home.”
I can feel my face go from red to gray. “Of course. Thank you.” I cover my eyes with my hand and sigh. “This is going to be harder than I thought.”
“Don’t worry,” Snow White says. “We’ll get through it somehow.” I give her a wry smile. I hope she’s right.
Snow White sticks out her hand. “The name’s Patsy, Patsy Kake. You can call me Cakewalk.”
“Ida Mae Jones.” I shake her hand. This time, I can’t help but bob my head, like a seated curtsy. She doesn’t seem to notice.
“Pleased to meet you, Jonesy.” I start to correct her and decide against it. The less I am Ida Mae, the better off I’ll be. Patsy’s hand is cool in mine. We give each other a tentative smile.
The other women are whispering excitedly and looking out the window at the flat, unending plains. I want to be home in Slidell. I want to sit at the edge of the berry fields and spread my toes in the grass and never hear another word about the war again.
Then the bus driver lets out a shout. All of the girls on the bus stand up at once. Airplanes are flying overhead.
“That sounds like an AT-6,” one of the girls says. I don’t recognize the name from the spotter cards Thomas sent me and Abel: like a playing deck but with pictures of both U.S. and enemy planes so we could identify them in case of an air raid. “That’s an Advanced Trainer,” another girl says, which explains why I don’t know it. I’ve got every plane on that card deck memorized, but they’re the real deal, not teaching planes. Some of these girls must have family in the air force to know what a military trainer plane looks like.
Like a bunch of tourists, the other girls scramble to see the AT-6, racing to the left side of the bus. Me, I sit real still and let the sound of the buzzing engines wash over me. My stomach settles right down, like a perfect three-point landing. I’m here, I tell myself. Daddy would be proud.
Outside the window, the sky is peppered with airplanes, taking off, landing, circling the field.
“There it is,” Patsy Kake says, grinning. “Avenger Field.”
I tear my eyes away from the sky long enough to look at my new home. At first, I don’t see much. Just an old split-rail fence, followed by more pancake-flat dirt, going on for miles. But then in front of us is a gate, an archway, really, like the ones in front of cowboy ranches in the movies. The wooden sign looks exactly the way I’ve seen it in the newspapers. A long dark rectangle with white letters that read AVIATION ENTERPRISES, LTD. In the center, above the words, a globe of the earth sits, wrapped with a small banner that says AVENGER FIELD. And flying above that globe, like she’s coming in for a landing, is the mascot of the WASP, Fifinella. I smile up at the girl gremlin. She’s a sight to see, with little horns and curling eyelashes. Her outfit is like nothing I’ve ever laid eyes on—blue flight goggles, an orange bomber jacket, glamorous elbow-length gloves, and yellow jodhpurs with a matching helmet. Her blue wings are spread out behind her, like she’s coming in fast.
“That’s a Walt Disney original,” Patsy tells me.
I smile. “What a looker.” Gremlins are supposed to be nasty little devils. The flyboys in the Pacific say that the Japanese send these little troublemakers to tear up their airplanes and make flying harder. Fifinella is the exact opposite. She’s one of the good guys, here to help us women fly.
The guard at the little gatehouse waves us through. My butterflies return, but now they’re from excitement instead of nausea. After months of newspaper clippings and daydreams, I am finally going to fly in this man’s army.
I take a deep breath and step off the cattle truck onto the dry, powdered soil at Avenger Field. The noise of the planes overhead has my heart thumping. My fingers are itching to pull me inside a cockpit, but first things first.
We are greeted by an Army Air Forces officer with a stiff khaki uniform and an even stiffer frown.
“Welcome to Avenger Field,” he says. The way he says it reminds me that this man’s army has been “men only” for a very long time. Not everyone is so happy to see us here.
They march us past the administrative building to what they call the training theater, where we will be processed. It’s an old white building that sits like a box on the flat earth. The low roof doesn’t make it any cooler in here. A small, kind-faced woman enters the room, a clipboard stacked with papers in her hands. She’s in uniform, a tailored blue skirt and matching jacket, with her dark brown hair cut into a neat bob.
“Welcome to Avenger Field, ladies,” she says. Her voice has a no-nonsense kind of gentleness to it that reminds me right away of Mama. “My name is Leni Leoti Clark Deaton. I am the establishment officer here. Anything you need, anything concerning any WASP trainee, come to me and we will take care of you. For the next five months, you will be in training for the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Some of you will succeed, but most of you won’t. Take a look at the girl to the left of you.”
Dutifully, we all turn and look at the turned heads of our fellows. Some look like kids. Some look like movie stars. I can only guess how I must look to them.
“Now,” Mrs. Deaton says, “look at the girl to the right. Say goodbye to both of them today, because two out of every three of you will wash out before training is over. We want only the best, ladies. We keep only the best. Remember that.”
There’s some nervous shuffling, the kind you hear before a pop quiz in school. Everyone’s wondering who will be left standing in five months. I feel my stomach roll again and this time not from the heat. I clench my teeth and take a deep breath. I will be here, I tell myself. I will be here.
I catch Patsy Kake smiling at me from the corner of my eye. Maybe she’ll be here, too. She’s got the attitude for it.
Mrs. Deaton passes around copies of a list of rules for living at the base. I glance down the sheet. No smoking, no drinking, no fraternizing with the instructors . . . the list goes on.
“All right, listen up, ladies,” she says. “You’ll be bunking in the barracks, six girls to a bay, two bays to a barrack. There’s a Jack and Jill bathroom accessible from both rooms, or Jill and Jill, if you like. No men are allowed in the barracks. The twelve of you will share this bathroom for the next five months. Make friends. It’ll go a lot easier that way.”
Mrs. Deaton’s voice is clear and mellow. It seems to carry from her small frame like a church bell, despite her size. We all listen attentively. “Barracks are broken up by alphabet. When I call your name, come stand beside me, and we’ll take you to the laundry, where you’ll pick up your sheets, and then on to your quarters. We are on a military clock here. The hands go from oh-one-hundred to twenty-four-hundred hours. It is now twelve o’clock, or twelve hundred hours. You have the afternoon to settle in. Supper is at eighteen hundred hours, or six o’clock. Get used to the hours, ladies. It will also make life easier.
“Now, Anderson, Attley, Boxer, Bradford, Cunningham, DeAngelo,” she begins calling off names. One by one, girls pull away from the crowd to stand by her side. They look nervous, every one of them. Me, I can hear the blood pounding in my ears. This is it. Anyone I room with could be my best friend or the person who turns me in. It’s all the luck of the draw.
“Howard,”Mrs. Deaton calls out. “Jennings. Jones.” I almost jump. A chill crawls up my spine and I step forward to join my new bunkmates. We don’t look at each other, just our feet, and wait for the rest of our group. I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I hold my purse with both of them. I don’t know what to do with my feet, so I stand there, heels close together, and wait.
“Kake,” Mrs. Deaton calls. Patsy Kake smiles and sashays over to stand between Jennings and me. “Laidlaw. Lowenstein.” The last of the girls, Lowenstein, looks
like a little bird, delicate bones and fine, chestnut-colored hair. She carries a heavy carpetbag with her in addition to her purse. The rest of us left our luggage on top of the bus, and I know I saw at least two steamer trunks up there with her name on it. I wonder what Lowenstein’s carrying that’s so important.
She carries the bag over to our little group. “Want some help, sister?” Patsy Kake offers her a hand. Lowenstein shakes her head politely. “No, thank you. I’m all right.”
We fall silent until the rest of the girls are put into groups. Then, like we’re going to our own funeral, we silently fall into line as upperclassman trainees in khaki pants and white blouses lead us to our new homes.
Chapter 9
“Would you look at this place?” the girl named Jennings gasps as we enter our side of the barracks. She sticks her head in the bathroom door at the center of the middle wall. “Two mirrors and two showers. For twelve women? No wonder they say war is hell.” Seeing the close quarters, I thank my lucky stars I brought a new shower cap with me. The last thing I need is an audience of eleven catching me with my hair kinking up from the steam. It looks like I’ll be wearing braids most days.
Jennings leads the way into the bunkroom. Whitewashed cinder-block walls with one window at either end greet me. It’s not pretty, but everything on this trip is still something to write home about. Jolene would hate the decor, but it certainly looks easy to clean.
“Home, sweet home,” Patsy Kake says, dropping her sheets and her suitcase onto the last bed in the room, just beneath the far window. The six cots lined up remind me of a hospital room, except for the narrow metal lockers at the foot of each bed.
“Everything we own is supposed to go in here?” someone asks. Nobody answers. I drop my little suitcase by one of the beds. I didn’t bring much to begin with, but Lowenstein’s going to need a team of muscle-bound men to help her with those trunks.
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