Cynthia Cartier - Wings

Liddy was startled when she heard Jenna call over the radio, “You there, Hall? I’m back.”

“I’m here. Did they have a phone?” Liddy asked as she oriented herself.

“Yeah, and after I reassured them we weren’t the enemy, they let me use it. Good thing I was able to convince them too. Young Farmer John was ready to go hunting for the home country. He just couldn’t come to grips that a woman would be out flying an airplane and for the Army.”

“Oh, brother, didn’t think of that.”

“There are a lot of people who didn’t know we existed and now we don’t. It’s kinda hard for some to swallow. Mrs. Farmer John is probably still picking her man’s jaw off the floor, what a mess. Funny, she seemed pretty excited, didn’t seem to bother her one bit. I called in. We’re to make radio contact as soon as we can.”

“You could have stayed inside and kept warm.”

“Get some stories ready, Hall, this could be a very long night.”

The women started off with memories from their training days and then moved on to their families. Jenna told Liddy about growing up with Ellis and how they fell in love and then she paused. “Liddy, there’s something I haven’t told you.”

“What?”

“Reid had talked about you to Ellis. The last time he saw Reid, Reid told him about you and him and your letters and he told Ellis—”

“Don’t, Jenna.” It gave her no comfort, just pain. “Please, don’t.”

“I’m sorry, Liddy. I’ve debated if you’d want to know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Hey, can you watch the storm, I feel like I could sleep for a few.”

“Sure, I got it.”

“Thanks.” Liddy set her head on the side of the canopy and the rain made it vibrate against her skull. She flattened her ear against the glass and pressed in; the sound was pleasantly deafening.

The storm moved east but not in time for Liddy and Jenna to get back in the air and arrive at the delivery point by 2200 hours. But the carrier had to wait long after Liddy and Jenna came in for a Navy squadron that got caught up in the same storm. The WASP had completed their assignment, their last assignment.

Marina picked them up to stay with her until they flew back to New Castle and then home. Home where they would no longer fly for the military, no longer fly as WASPs, and no longer have their Army wings.

Liddy went back to Holly Grove and spent some time with Crik and Muck. She also made the rounds to visit friends. Daniel was still overseas, and Liddy felt for Celia who spent every moment waiting. The poor girl was expecting the worst and Liddy wished Celia would try to harbor some hope, but at the same time, understood the pain of that as well.

Liddy had dinner with Rowby Wills and his wife. She had never seen contentment on the man, but there it was. Rowby stared at his bride and smiled, while she spoke Italian-English a mile a minute.

Trina ‘Tolione’ Wills had become a bright spot in town. She wore the loose cotton frocks that were the everyday dress of Italian farm girls—the neckline hung low on her breasts and her olive skin made it all seem so natural. She rarely wore shoes once the weather warmed up, and her dark, long wavy hair was always down and free. Even though her way and dress wouldn’t have been respectable for a Holly Grove woman, Trina was foreign and everyone grew to love her, so it was overlooked.

Trina had been working as a bed maid in a Rome hospital when she found Rowby curled up licking his wound, and she snatched him up. She matched his beauty, and his ego was nothing that was excessive to her Italian experience. She was also a good match for the Wills clan. Trina’s smarts and wiles brought her and Rowby to the forefront of all the family’s business. It was a very happy ending.

Liddy worked into a routine over in Clayton. She rented a little house and even got a kitten who she named Gosport the II, or Gossy II for short. Liddy cleaned and painted her little cottage and she was surprised how much she enjoyed the domesticity of it all.

She took on some student pilots at the airfield and taught an instrument class for Jerry at his flight school. She also ferried planes for a few Midwest and East Coast manufacturers that she had flown for in the WASP. But never military planes, the government made it clear none of the planes they had contracted for were to be flown by women, even if she hadn’t been a Women Airforce Service Pilot.

Most of the WASP didn’t find flying jobs, there just weren’t that many to go around, and Liddy knew how fortunate she was. The planes she delivered were mostly for private pilots, small airlines and some corporations that had their own fleets. She loved flying the shiny new planes and met some pretty interesting folks doing it.

Liddy used the ferry trips to see the girls when she could, before returning home, usually on a commercial flight. She hadn’t seen Louise for months and not since they had been deactivated. When she pulled up in front of her home, Liddy had the door open before the cab rolled to a stop. Louise, Bonnie and Tommy burst through the front door of the house and met her on the sidewalk.

“I thought you’d never get here.” Louise wrapped Liddy up in a great big hug then stood back and held her by the upper arms. “Let me look at you.” Louise scanned her up and down and then strolled around her while she inspected. “A little thin, but I think we can do something about that.”

Bonnie and Tommy wrapped Liddy around the waist, and she kissed and squeezed them. Tommy took Liddy’s bag from the cab driver and wrestled it up the walk, while Louise and Bonnie each took one of Liddy’s hands and walked her into the house.

A king’s feast was prepared to the sounds of Dinah Shore turning on the record player. After dinner they played Monopoly. Bonnie had added some new moves to the Bet dance and patiently taught the toe crushers. Tommy even joined the jig, which Louise said he never did unless Liddy was visiting.

At the end of the evening, Liddy tucked the children into their twin beds and told them about the day she met their mom. A story they insisted on hearing every time they saw her. She did a high-spirited shuffle across the room to reenact the dance Louise had taken with her zoot suit before Liddy even knew her name, and the children giggled.

When Liddy walked back into the kitchen, Louise was finishing the dishes and Liddy grabbed a towel and dried.

“My Tommy has a huge crush on you, you know.”

“Really? I don’t know about having you for a mother-in-law, but he’s pretty cute.”

“Liddy, you look tired. You okay?”

“That’s what Marina said last time I saw her. You don’t look so hot yourself, pal.”

“We’re a pair I guess, aren’t we?”

After the WASP was disbanded, Louise had found an instructing position with a flying school out of the Denver airport. It kept her close to home, and she was flying, but it wasn’t the Army and the big powerful planes they had flown in the program. Louise’s letters had been filled with Bonnie this and Tommy that but never anything about Louise Parker. She hadn’t gotten over the death of her military career, and Liddy could hear it in every line.

They turned off the lights in the kitchen and kicked off their shoes in the living room. Liddy sat sideways in the armchair with her legs slung over the side, and Louise lay on the sofa with her head propped at the end.

“Man, it’s good to have you here, Lid’.”

“It’s good to be here, Louie.”

“So tell me about your life.”

“Not much to tell. I fly and teach and drive home to Holly Grove when I can.”

“What have you heard from Joy Lynn, I thought she was planning a spring wedding?”

“When I stayed with Marina in New York a few weeks ago, she said it’s been on again off again for months. Seems Joy Lynn and her mama can’t come to an agreement about the details, so Joy Lynn just calls it off every time they hit a stump.”

“Who do you think is gonna win that battle?” Louise lifted her head and raised her eyebrows.

“Mrs. Calbert seems to be a pretty tough cookie, but I’m putting my money on our HP.”

Louise got up and flipped Dinah over and lay back on the sofa. The sister-friends closed their eyes and sang along, “You’d be so nice to come home to. You’d be so nice by the fire. While the breeze on high, sang a lullaby. You’d be all that I could desire.”

Louise rolled to her side and looked at Liddy. “Do you ever feel like you should be doing something about your life, but you don’t know what?”

“I’m just living Louie…” Liddy pushed her fingers through her hair. “… isn’t that enough?”

“I feel like it should be, especially when I look at Bonnie and Tommy and think how blessed I am. But sometimes, I just feel like I should be trying harder to do more.”

“More of what?”

“I don’t know. Do you think they should have a father?”

“If a man comes into your life who loves you madly and who loves those two like they’re the only stars in the sky, then yes, but a father for the sake of a father, no.”

“I let them down.”

“No you didn’t. Their father let them down. Now you’re making the best of it. And you’re doing a bang-up job.” Liddy sat up in the chair. “That’s what life’s about, the way I see it, making the best of it. How are you gonna play your cards? You know what I mean?”

“So do you think about him?” Louise asked Liddy.

Liddy’s mind began to wander, where her heart didn’t want to go. “I try not to.”

“I don’t’ mean to sound insensitive. But I wish I had someone to think about like Reid. I’d think they’d be good thoughts to have.”

“Too nice. Reid makes everything else look gray. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in gray.”

“How’s it all looking now—color wise?”

“Kinda of a light blue, sky blue I think.”

It was these visits with her old baymates and going home to Holly Grove that kept Liddy going. Calli and Joy Lynn were practically neighbors in Atlanta, and little James Lee had become the pride and joy of the Calbert Clan. When Liddy was down south, she got to catch up with both of them and played with her namesake.

Marina had gone back to New York and the airlines when the WASP ended, not as a stewardess though. She earned her commercial license but then wasn’t allowed to use it. The airlines were no further along than the Army, and were in fact watching the WASP program carefully. When the Army tossed the women, the airlines dug in their heels too.

Marina instructed airline pilots who needed to maintain certification in the Link Trainer for awhile. But she eventually left the job, and spent most of her time raising money for the war effort and entering air races across the country.

Turns out Marina had a pretty sizeable inheritance, which never came out when they were baymates. Liddy and Louise weren’t the only ones who could keep a secret. Most of Liddy’s deliveries were in the east, so Marina was who she got to see most. But nothing had changed, and Liddy still couldn’t keep up with her.

By the spring of 1945, the war in the air overseas was winding down, and it was up to the ground troops to move in force and push back the enemy’s lines. In March, Daniel was shipped back to the states to finish out his enlistment at a base in North Carolina. He would be one of the many men that were filling the jobs the WASP had done. When Liddy heard he would be testing repairs and rebuilds her gut twisted, but he had survived the war and she had decided he would be fine.

Liddy went to Holly Grove to help Celia plan his homecoming party. Crik cleaned out the old hay barn and set up fire barrels, and Liddy and Celia did the rest. The day Daniel was to come home, the two women drove to the station to pick him up. He was already waiting when they pulled up to the platform. He had taken an earlier train and the telegram he’d sent didn’t arrive until after he did.

Liddy couldn’t stop giggling as she watched Celia crush her man till she thought Daniel would pass out. When she finally let go, Daniel set down his duffle and hugged her back and kissed her. Then he gave Liddy a big hug, and she kissed him big on the cheek.

“Hey, Danny Boy, you made it.”

“How ‘bout that. But really, was there any doubt?”

“Not in my mind, Daniel Cooper. Welcome home.”

The party was one big reunion and Liddy noticed that Holly Grove had grown up. Married couples and babies had replaced wild young people, and it was a different kind of party from the ones Liddy had known in her hometown. Rowby cradled his seven month old son Tony on his hip while he danced with Trina. In spite of her pregnant belly, she still oozed her Italian sexuality.