Cynthia Cartier - Wings

The girl’s father came out of the station and disapproved. “Rhonda, you come on now.”

The girl handed the pen back to Bet.

“You keep it,” Bet told her.

“Thank you,” The little fan gripped the pen with her book and didn’t take her eyes off the signatures as she shuffled back to her father’s truck. He opened the door and herded his daughter in.

When they saw the sign, Blue Bonnet Hotel, Bet grabbed the back of Liddy’s arm and squeezed. Their excitement was frosted with the travel hangover that soaked them from head to toe. The hotel was crawling with newly arrived WASP trainees. Women lounged around the lobby and some swooshed in and out of the elevator and the coffee shop. Other guests came and went too, including big cowboys with big ten gallon hats, some with pretty Texas belles on their arms. Families and men and women of all ages walked in and out, but the fly girls were different and Liddy could pick them out. A spirit exuded from these women—it was unmistakable. Liddy heard bits of conversations between women who hailed from the world of female flyers that she knew nothing about.

“Do you know Francine Ladler?”

“Yeah, I met her at the Benton Roundup. Do you know Rachel Middleton?”

Talk of cross country flying, air races and flight clubs, chatter about schools, families and boyfriends, swirled and bounced around the room. Liddy knew from the requirements that the women would range in age from eighteen to thirty-five, but as she looked around she realized this wasn’t what she expected. Not that she knew what she expected, but these women came in all types—short, tall, exceptionally attractive, exceptionally ordinary, quite loud, quite reserved. But they all seemed to know exactly what they were doing. She was glad she met Bet first. It made what she was looking at less overwhelming somehow. Still, when Bet looked at her beaming over the welcome chaos, Liddy beamed back.

Behind the front desk a woman was juggling mail, guest registers and fielding questions from the mob. Bet slipped through the crowd standing in front of the check-in counter and Liddy followed in her wake.

“Excuse me,” said Bet.

“What’s your name, darlin’?”

“Betsy Bailey and…” Bet waited for Liddy.

“Lidia Hall.”

“Lidia, huh?” teased Bet.

“Liddy to you, Betsy.”

The desk clerk continued, “Ya’ll are plannin’ to share a room, I hope. We got all you gals comin’ in and there’s an oil man’s convention in town. There’s no privacy ‘round this place, till tomorrow that is when the cattle car comes round for all ya’ll at ten a.m.”

Bet’s eyes saucered and she grabbed Liddy’s arm, “Cattle Car?”

Liddy and Bet took the elevator to the fourth floor. Other than the Mayfair in St. Louis, where she’d had her WASP interview, Liddy had never been in a hotel. Wall-to-wall carpets were printed with vines and flowers. Two twin beds had curved headboards that were covered in coral tapestry, and the light green wallpaper had a pattern that was a shadow of the same color. Two forest green upholstered chairs sat in front of the window that was trimmed with a dark mahogany and looked out over a busy street. A writing desk was angled in the corner and had a pen and stationary set out and waiting. The room had a private bathroom and Liddy envisioned her trailer back home fitting into the space. It all seemed an odd entry to Army training but Liddy decided she’d better enjoy it.

Bet couldn’t wait to get downstairs and break in with the others, so Liddy sent her ahead and shut herself up in the bathroom and soaked in the tub. She ran the water as hot as she could stand it and sat on the edge of the rolled lip. She dipped in her toes, coaxed in her ankles, then her legs. When her body was warmed up, and the rest of her could take the heat, she slid in up to her neck. Her arms rested on the side of the tub and the porcelain was cold on the thin skin of the inside of her arms.

With her eyes closed she thought about how she had left her life and it was like she was living someone else’s. She heard Doubt knocking on the door but ignored him. Unknowns were layering themselves in her mind, and in those layers Major Reid Trent unexpectedly floated through. She shook her head to clear the thoughts away, then slid under the water and held her breath until she gasped for air. Liddy rolled over and cooled her cheek on the slanted end of the tub. She couldn’t wait to be in a plane again.

After she was good and wrinkled, Liddy dried off and stood at the mirror and studied her face. Mama’s face? Liddy asked herself, Was it there the whole time? She dressed and then sat at the desk and dashed off a note home:

May 8, 1943

Dear Daddy and Crik,

How are you? I’m good. I just bathed in a tub that I could sleep in, and now I’m sitting in a fancy chair, at a fancy desk, writing you a letter on fancy stationary. Such is the life of a WASP trainee.

We arrived in Sweetwater this afternoon. The train ride was long, but I met another fly girl and we made a pretty good time of it. We’re at the Blue Bonnet Hotel for the night. You probably guessed that from the stationary. Tomorrow we’ll be taken to Avenger Field. I’ll write after I get there.

Tell Daniel and Celia Hi for me.

Love, Liddy

Liddy folded the note and addressed it to Crik at the Holly Grove Post Office. She thought about Jack and what his face would look like when Crik read him the letter. And she thought about Rowby and wondered if she should write to him, but she didn’t even know when he had to leave for basic training, or where he was going. He would be alright, she felt sure of it.

Downstairs, Liddy found Bet in the coffee shop with some gals, talking it up big. Without a pause, the discussion was being jumped on by all of them at once. She joined them and listened more than talked. The more she listened, the more Liddy realized what an amazing group of women she would be calling her classmates. She had never known women who had done the things that these women had, and even though she was older than most of them, it made her feel young.

They ate dinner in the hotel restaurant and walked up and down Main Street to see what Sweetwater was all about. They had the idea to take in a movie, but the house had been sold out. The days that a new WASP class came to Sweetwater and graduates left were busy ones for the town. The rooftop garden of the hotel was where they ended up. There they reclined on lounges and crowded on benches talking late into the night, the last night without a curfew they’d have for months.

Morning came before any of the women were ready for it. Too few hours were left for shuteye by the time the ladies ran out of steam the night before. But the beds didn’t rumble and roll beneath them, and Liddy and Bet had a welcome rest.

The cattle car, as the trainees had nicknamed it, pulled up at ten a.m. sharp. The chunky green Army truck, with an enclosed GI trailer in tow, rolled to a stop in front of the hotel. Women began to file out and form a long line down the sidewalk. An enlisted man helped the women and their bags on board, while the civilian driver took names and ticked off his list. One by one they climbed into the back door of the trailer to take their three mile ride to Avenger Field. As Liddy and Bet waited to board, Bet saw a fashionably dressed woman attempting to maneuver four large suitcases out of the front door of the hotel.

“Looks like someone needs a hand.” Bet tugged Liddy’s sleeve and pointed with the nod of her head.

“Looks like someone didn’t get the word about one suitcase,” said Liddy.

The long scarf that had been wrapped around the woman’s neck was now hanging off her shoulder and caught in the handle of one of her cases. Liddy and Bet giggled, but when the other women began to laugh, they left the line and went back up the walk to help.

“Looks like your luggage is turning on you,” Liddy teased as she untangled the scarf and Bet helped the woman put herself back together.

“Thank you.” The woman’s blue eyes and fair skin sparkled as she smiled a graceful, friendly smile and floated her right hand out in front of her. She squeezed Bet’s and Liddy’s hands gently and introduced herself with a soft soprano lilt, “Marina George. Where’s the bellman?”

Bet asked Liddy, “Is she kidding?”

“Oh, honey, where do you think you are?” Liddy asked Marina.

Marina’s sun-yellow taffeta dress fit snug on her curvy torso, pinched her tiny little waist and flowed into a full skirt that hung just above her ankles. She wore a matching short jacket, high heels and wide-brimmed hat that crowned her silky black hair, which was wrapped in a swirl on the back of her head.

“Mother would be impressed,” Bet whispered to Liddy and giggled.

The three women finished introducing themselves, divided up the luggage and took a spot at the end of the line. Liddy noticed a stream of townspeople parading down the sidewalk on both sides of the street. All were dressed in picnic clothes and carried parasols and baskets.

“What’s the occasion?” Liddy asked the driver before she stepped up into the trailer.

“Folks get out when they can on Saturday, picnic and watch the gals take the planes up.”

“Hoping for a crash,” snickered the enlisted man.

“Hank, shut-up would ya’?” the driver blasted.

“Hey, there was a time they wouldn’t let their children play outside when any of you were airborne. They’re warming up to you broads.”

Liddy entered the trailer and Bet and Marina followed, looking back at the people that passed by. When the last passenger boarded, the women were squished shoulder to shoulder down the benches that lined each side of the trailer. The truck pulled out with a jolt, and the cargo slid down the hard, metal seats and shifted to the rear.

The ride to their home for the next five and a half months was bumpy. The trailer rocked back and forth and Liddy and Bet’s train ride was looking pretty luxurious. By the time the truck pulled through the arch of Avenger Field, many of the women were queasy. Those that still had the stomach, knelt on the benches for a look out the windows.

The Fifinella, the gremlin mascot of the WASP, was mounted on top of the arch that read: Avenger Field. She had originally been designed by Walt Disney for Roald Dahl’s book, Gremlins, and she was a spunky looking gal. Her blue and grey wings splayed from her back, and her curly white horns peaked out of the yellow aviator cap that framed two big, long-lashed eyes.

Even the woozy among them were smiling. They had finally arrived. The trailer made its way past four large hangers and long rows of clapboard-sided barracks. What looked like forty or more women formed two long lines and marched side-by-side going one direction, while another group of the same size came into view from the other direction. The two lines of troops looked as though they might crash, but as they were about to intersect, one group held up and marched in place and the other line hoofed through. The only marching Liddy had seen, till that moment, was at the picture show. Never had she seen women at the task. A beautiful gathering of planes were lined up along a runway, and every stitch of ground seemed to have some form of plane, man or woman on it, but it was mostly women.

Two senior trainees were waiting for the new class when they stepped clumsily from the trailer. The seniors hollered at the women to “line-up.” A jagged line was formed and the seniors led the clumsy parade across the base.

Planes buzzed overhead like busy nectar farmers in a spring garden. The invisible filaments that pull any pilots’ chin skyward when they hear an engine above, tugged and craned the women’s necks to take in the lovely sight.

They passed the flight boards filled with names of students, instructors and planes that were in the air. The line traipsed past the wishing well, or so the round pool of water was called. It had three foot high stone walls and was currently studded with trainees who looked on as a classmate was swung with a splash into the pool. The reason why was relayed down the line of marchers, “She passed her solo. Gals toss a coin in before they go up, then if they pass, they get tossed in to get one back.”

The parade stopped at the administration building to take their Oath of Office. As Liddy raised her right hand and began, “I do solemnly swear…” she thought, What would Daddy say about all this? Having made their Oath, the human snake was off to the recreation hall. Women were playing ping pong, reading and some even found a way to sleep in the mix. Marina George noticed how unkempt and haggard the women appeared. She touched her own face with concern and whispered back to Bet, “Is frumpy part of the dress code?”