Her Last Flight

by Beatriz Williams

  “Oh, George, no!”

  “I’ve got to, Irene.” He unslung his suspenders and unbuttoned his shirt. “I don’t think we’ve sold a quarter of the tickets. Something’s missing. We need something fresh, we need to do something to get everyone’s attention back. We had the derby, and then you crashed out—”

  “Crackups happen, George. It’s part of the business.”

  “Well, the timing wasn’t the greatest.”

  “Maybe it’s a sign. Maybe I should be quitting that game. Half my friends are dead or maimed. Sam’s going to get himself killed any minute—”

  “His own damned fault. That fellow wants to get killed, if you ask me.”

  “And why is that, do you think?” Irene snapped.

  George was arranging his shoes in the dressing room. He kept them in neat, straight rows, polished, shaped by wooden shoe trees so the leather wouldn’t shrink. In an earlier age, he would have hired a valet to help maintain all this order, but these were modern times and George had this idea that an over-reliance on household staff was bad form. Still, the care and ordering of shoes was important and not to be rushed. Irene’s words hung in the air for a moment before George emerged from the dressing room. He spoke calmly, because he always spoke calmly, even when he had asked her to marry him, as if every word must be delivered in a speech.

  “That was eight years ago, Irene. The problem’s not that Sam Mallory married an alcoholic bitch with a narcissism complex. The problem’s what I told you. He’s impulsive. He takes risks, and it’s only gotten worse as his career’s gone downhill, the way I said it would. It’s a terrible shame, I don’t take any joy in being proved right, but there you have it. He’s a lost soul, and there was nothing you could have done to save him, not eight years ago and not now, even if things had worked out between the two of you. You made the right choice, Irene. You wouldn’t have had this career if you’d spent the last decade hitched to Sam Mallory.” He made a gesture to the room around them. “You wouldn’t be Irene Foster anymore. You’d be Irene Mallory.”

  “Irene Foster is your invention, not mine,” she said.

  George stood in his underwear in the middle of the room and stared at her in bewilderment. “My invention? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve devoted my life to your career.”

  “Yes, you have. And sometimes I just want to be a wife, that’s all.”

  Now he was astounded. “A wife? You? I thought that was the last thing you wanted. I thought you wanted to fly airplanes and make a life for yourself. Now you want to set all that aside and become a housewife?”

  “Of course not. That’s not what I mean at all.”

  George turned around and went back in the dressing room. He emerged a moment later in a pair of crisp blue and white striped pajamas.

  “All right, we’re not dizzy in love like some couples,” he said. “But that’s what you wanted, remember? You yourself said not to expect kisses and hummingbirds all day long, that we were free to love other people if we wanted to, and haven’t I respected that? I understand about Sam. I don’t play the jealous husband.”

  “Well, maybe I wish you would, once in a while.”

  “I don’t get it. Aren’t you happy?”

  “I don’t know if I’m happy. What’s happy, anyway? I just think I need a change, that’s all.”

  “Look,” he said. “We’ve been planning this thing for years. If I can pull it off, this round the world flight, then we can sit down and decide what’s next. If you want to quit flying and start a family, why, we can do that. Just tell me what you want and I’ll make it happen.”

  What Irene wanted to tell him was this. She wanted to tell him that she hated going on lecture tours and posing for magazines and manufacturing these so-called landmark flights, in which she was some kind of circus performer doing feats, and each feat had to be more daring and dangerous and record-breaking than the last or nobody cared.

  She wanted to tell him that she had no idea what lay beyond this solo circumnavigation that had consumed them both since the very beginning of their professional association. She wanted to do it; there was no question about that. She longed to fly around the world by herself; it was the culmination of everything she’d worked for. But she also felt terrified of it. Because once she had accomplished this last, this greatest goal, what did she have left? What was the point of flying anymore?

  She wanted to tell him that this business of being the Aviatrix had become so thorough, the moments of just being Irene so seldom, that she was beginning to feel that the Aviatrix had taken over the rest of her, like she had been painted over and could no longer find the original soul inside, and that even to her own husband—the person whom she should turn to in relief, the person who above all others should see her as a woman, as a person, as her true self—she was the Aviatrix and not Irene.

  But George would just say that this was all nonsense, that she wasn’t being logical, that she was doing exactly what she had dreamed of doing, that she was doing what other women could only dream of. That this endeavor was too important and too historic to give up now, when it was finally within sight.

  So Irene reached for the lamp and turned off the light, and George, probably thinking about what she’d said, thinking maybe his wife just needed some reassurance after a harrowing few days, some tenderness, sat back down on her bed and asked her if she wanted him to make love to her.

  Irene stared at the paleness of his pajamas in the darkness. George had always been a good, considerate lover, and he was certainly attractive. But she did not want to make love to her husband tonight. She wanted something else. She wanted to feel close to another human being, but not like this, and she couldn’t explain how.

  “I’m sorry, I’m too worn out tonight, George,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow I’m leaving for New York.”

  “When you get back, then.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her and said that he loved her, that he admired her more than anybody he’d ever met, man or woman, and then he rose from Irene’s bed and went to his bed, and they both fell asleep.

  By the time Irene woke up the next morning, George had already left for New York. He had to drum up publicity for her lecture tour before it turned into a disaster.

  Hanalei, Hawai’i

  October 1947

  Lindquist isn’t shy on the subject of celebrity. “It’s a prison,” she snaps. “You can’t go anywhere. Even in private, with friends, you find yourself putting on the mask you wear in public. Eventually the mask becomes your real skin, and that’s when you know you’re finished, there’s nothing left of you.”

  “Well, didn’t it also give you opportunity? Money? The means to keep flying? There’s no free lunch. You can’t have anything in life without giving something up. And you had a lot. You had everything you wanted. You had your airplanes, you had money, you had a nice house and nice friends and the admiration of everybody in America. You had marriage to a fellow who was more than happy to be Mr. Irene Foster, and believe me, that kind of husband doesn’t just grow on trees.”

  “I know that. I accepted the cost because I wanted the prize so much. But then it went out of balance. The cost kept climbing, and the prize meant less and less. And I felt I had lost myself.”

  I scribble all this down in my notebook. “How so?”

  “Because I hadn’t really earned it, had I? Oh, I was a good pilot. I was maybe a great pilot. But so was Sam, and he didn’t have any of those things. He was living hand to mouth in those years, scraping together fees for air shows and stunts and derbies. Crashing for money, I used to call it. It was just the luck of the draw, and the fact that he’d married a different kind of person.”

  “Was she so different, though? It seems to me that Morrow was using you as much as Mrs. Mallory used her husband. He just had more class.”

  Lindquist stands. “That’s enough for now, Janey. I’m going surfing. You’re welcome to join me.” />
  Sometimes I join her and sometimes I don’t. It’s been three weeks now, and I can more or less manage a surfboard and enjoy the thrill of a good wave, but it’s not in my blood like it’s in hers. On Sundays, when Leo isn’t piloting the ferry to and from Oahu, he’ll join us, and let me tell you, that man is a natural. A sight to see on the ocean blue. When I’m done, I’ll just sit in the sand for the pleasure of watching him poised on his board, riding some giant wave as it curls elegantly over and he skims in to shore and jumps off and shakes his wet hair.

  That’s when I gather up my things and return up the path to Coolibah. I’ve been doing my writing in the gazebo, which shelters me nicely both from the sun and from the occasional tropical downpour. I can spread out my clippings and my notes and sit on the floor with the typewriter I’ve borrowed from Olle, tap tapping away like I used to do back at the law firm where I worked one summer.

  Today, however, is a Tuesday, and the picturesque Leo floats somewhere in the channel between Oahu and Kauai, and I’m not in the mood for surfing or gazebo. I’ve got that restless twitch that takes over my spirit from time to time, the one that’s bedeviled me most of my life. I pack my notes and clippings into my knapsack and ride my bicycle to Kilauea, where I ask the postmistress if there’s any mail for me, any telegrams. She makes a show of checking, as if she wouldn’t know otherwise, and returns to shake her head and tell me no. So I climb on my bicycle and head for the airfield cafeteria, which is another place I like to work, and has the additional benefit of coffee, grilled cheese, and feline companionship.

  That cat. I don’t know why, but it’s taken a liking to me. Senility, no doubt. As soon as I settle on my stool at the counter and light a cigarette, it jumps laboriously from the floor to the trash can, and from the trash can to the lunch counter, and then marches on over to my coffee cup, sniffs inside, and eases itself down to my lap, from which no amount of jostling or dishes of promised cream will dislodge it.

  I’ve learned to work around the ball of fluff. Uncle Kaiko takes pity on me and refills my coffee, when he’s around. I like Kaiko. He’s that bachelor uncle who gets into mischief and humiliates the family on public occasions, but he’s also the fellow you telephone at two in the morning for a spot of rescue, no judgments. Now, I grant you, he’s a terrible pilot. He’s been grounded by Olle for the foreseeable future, so he just hangs around, three stools down, sharing an ashtray while he reads the help wanted column in the Honolulu classifieds. His ribs are still bandaged, and he’s got casts on an arm and a leg, but at least the stitches are off his face. Anyway, my point is we get along just fine, Kaiko and me, even if he likes to complain about how I make him fetch coffee in his crippled condition.

  “How about this one?” he says. “‘Start your career in real estate! Help wanted for top class Honolulu agency, local preferred, must be go-getter, no experience required, excellent pay, we will train you’?”

  “Sounds ideal, if you’re looking for a career in rent collection.”

  “Rent collection? How do you figure?”

  “Call it intuition. Say, do you mind? I’m trying to work, here.”

  “Gee, sorry.” A moment later: “So how’s it going? That book you’re writing.”

  “Just swell, when I’m not getting interrupted all the time.”

  “You know, we weren’t so sure about you, when you first turned up. Everyone figured you were trouble. Keep your trap shut, that’s what Olle told me, and don’t trust that dame an inch.”

  “Olle said that? The little dear.”

  “That’s our Olle. He’s a good fella, I’m not saying he’s not, but—well, you know. Kind of the wet blanket type.”

  “I’ll say. He keeps me at such an arm’s length, he can’t even hand me a drink. I’m glad you feel differently, Kaiko. I do like you, you know.”

  “What’s not to like? And you like my pal Leo, don’t you?”

  “Well.”

  “I got eyes in my head. You got more sizzle between the pair of you than a whole pig roast.” He makes a motion with his hand. “You’re not . . . you know . . . ?”

  “I’m afraid not. It wouldn’t be professional, you know.”

  “Now, don’t take offense, because I mean this as a compliment, but you don’t seem like the kind of gal who lets a little business get in the way of a good time with a guy she admires.”

  “Why, Kaiko. I’m truly flattered. But in this instance, I figure discretion is the better part of amour. You know how these things go. It wouldn’t do to ruffle any of my subject’s feathers.”

  He scratches his brow. “I thought you were writing this thing about Mallory.”

  “Yes, of course. But Irene’s such a big part of the story. As you know.”

  “Say, you going to put me in there too?”

  “Well, Kaiko. The thing is, you didn’t know Mallory. He was dead before Irene even met you. So I’m afraid your influence in his life is what you might call peripheral. But I promise I’ll mention you in the acknowledgments, how’s that? Special thanks to Kaiko Kamealoha, for fetching coffee and keeping my spirits up.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Strictly speaking, yes.”

  He stubs out his cigarette and returns to his omelet. I return to my notes and my clippings. When my coffee runs out, I rattle the cup in the saucer, causing the cat to raise its head for a second or two. Kaiko sighs and slides from his stool and stumps over to the percolator. He refills my cup and his and climbs back on the stool and lights another cigarette. “You know,” he says, “I got something that might interest you.”

  “Have you, now?”

  “I guess I wasn’t supposed to tell you about it, but that was before, wasn’t it? Back when Olle figured you were out to pull a double cross or something.”

  I lay down my pen in the crease of my notebook.

  “Kaiko, my darling. When you know I’m sworn to uphold the very highest standards of journalism.”

  Because of the crutches, it takes Kaiko quite some time to hobble his way across the runway to the hangar that sits there by itself. Don’t think I haven’t noticed this building before. Early on, I asked Lindquist what she kept inside, and she said, oh, an old airplane or two. Some spare parts. I went over there myself a few days later, when I could steal off unattended, and confirmed the truth. Nothing but dust and rust and mothballs, a regular airplane junkyard.

  Nonetheless, here I am. Following the cripple toward the hangar, notebook in hand, Kodak 35 on its strap around my neck, because he’s got something that might interest me, and that’s the kind of suggestion that always sets my pulse racing. Lots of times it comes to nothing. On occasion, it comes to everything. And an old, junk-filled airplane hangar is a terrific place to hide something important, wouldn’t you say?

  We arrive at the weathered siding. Kaiko gallantly reaches for the edge of the enormous sliding door, but I sweep him aside. When I visited last, I entered through the smaller, human door, but this time I want to throw a little more light on the interior. I tug and yank and eventually the thing gives way. A gust of hot, musty air rushes out, reeking of oil and machinery and rodent droppings. Perhaps we should have brought the cat, after all.

  I turn to Kaiko. “Well?”

  “Right this way. It’s in the back.”

  “Of course it is.”

  We pick our way around the skeletal airplanes, stripped for parts, and the various heaps of metal. When I poked through here a few weeks ago, I thought it looked exactly like somebody’s garage, oily rags and mysterious bits of machines in their haphazard piles, but now my eyes are more suspicious. I consider whether it’s just supposed to look haphazard. I mean, why would you just leave a propeller blade lying there on the ground? Neither Lindquist is the type to encourage disorder, even in a junkyard. I pause to finger the edge of a metal pole that looks as if it came from one of those tent kits for Boy Scouts.

  Kaiko calls out from the other side of a stack of tires. “Here we go! Come on and give
me a hand with this net, why don’t you.”

  I walk obediently around the tires, around the bones of some old crop duster, just sitting there like a picked-over carcass, and there’s Kaiko, standing proudly next to a large, sweeping shape covered by one of those dense camouflage nettings they used in the war.

  Ka-thump, goes my heart.

  Maybe I should have spotted it before, I don’t know. But it hulks down in the back corner, covered by this netting that does the trick pretty well, makes a thing just dissolve into the background so that your eye passes right over it, unless your eye happens to know exactly what it’s looking for.

  I grab another corner of the netting, and Kaiko and I slide it carefully away from the object beneath, the airplane, maybe the most famous airplane in the world. A shape so iconic, so memorable, you’d have to be an idiot not to recognize it for what it is.

  A custom Rofrano Sirius, the one flown by Irene Foster in the Round the World Derby of 1937.

  “Ain’t she a beauty,” Kaiko says reverently.

  Aviatrix by Eugenia Everett (excerpt)

  October 1936: California

  The airplane arrived in pieces the next day, by train from Fort Worth to Los Angeles and then by truck to Burbank, where Rofrano’s team of mechanics would reassemble it inside Hangar D. Octavian said not to worry about the bill, she could pay it when she was done with the tour. The baby had been born shortly after he and Sophie had arrived at Burbank Hospital the other night, a girl they’d named Clara, and Octavian was in a generous mood.

  Irene stared at the bright, wide interior of Hangar D and her airplane in pieces on the wooden floor. There was the silvery fuselage, there were the wings and the tail, the mighty engines, the crushed landing gear that would be replaced by a new one. Tools and rivets and everything else. She wasn’t thinking of the latest crackup; she thought about the flight to Rio de Janeiro, the way the city had looked when she plummeted down from the mountains to the landing strip, glazed in afternoon gold. How she had gazed through the window in wonder and remembered why she flew. Why flying mattered, and the rest of it was only the means to fly, the price she had to pay.