Cynthia Cartier - Wings

Liddy saw Marina’s face go little girl sad. “What is it, honey?”

Marina shook her head and bit her lip. “I want a drink. Do you want a drink?” She got up and walked to the buffet. “Scotch?” she asked Liddy and held up a bottle.

“No, thanks.”

“Oh, that’s right, you never touch the stuff. Soda pop, water, milk.” Marina tried to be silly.

“No, I’m fine.”

Marina dropped ice cubes in a glass, splashed in some scotch and walked to the window where she stared out silently for a long time before she said, “I lost my inheritance once,” Marina kept her back to Liddy. “My mother walked in on number four with his hands all over me and called me a little tramp. It didn’t matter that I was struggling to get away from the creep and was only fifteen.” She spun around and sat back against the window sill. “I think once she saw it with her own eyes, she just couldn’t deny the truth anymore that some of her ‘transitions’ had their way with her little girl. And she had never done… she could sure pick ‘em.” Marina shook the ice in her glass before she took a swallow. “Some people just can’t live with the truth, so she kicked me out and cut me out of her will. Now that was juicy gossip on the Avenue.

That’s why I worked for the airlines before the WASP. I lied about my age and became a stewardess when I was sixteen. When my mother passed away, my brother cut me back in. I was twenty-one by that time. I didn’t give up my job until I was accepted into the WASP, though. I couldn’t get myself to touch the money for a long time. Still makes my gut wrench sometimes.” Marina stood up and set her glass on a table. She wiped her eyes and patted her cheeks as if to slap on a happy face. “But it’s just money, right? There’s nothing living in it. It’s just money.”

Liddy got up from the chair and wrapped Marina up in hug until Marina grabbed Liddy’s shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “Hey, how did you get me talking about all this? Are you some kind of snake charmer or something? And by the way, Joy Lynn knows, but if you could keep it to yourself I’d…”

“Of course,” assured Liddy.

“So tell me about Alan Bradon, is it serious?”

“Marina dear, I think so.”

Joy Lynn’s wedding wasn’t cancelled or postponed, so the baymates flew to Georgia the first week in June of 1945 to celebrate the nuptials of Joy Lynn Calbert and Lieutenant Phillip R. Mason, in grand Calbert style.

Marina picked Liddy up on the way down from New York, and they relished the nostalgia of flying a cross country with another gal. Joy Lynn’s parents insisted on flying Louise in from Colorado. So she took Bonnie and Tommy to her parent’s and packed up to have rare, if not non-existent, time for herself.

A week before the wedding they all arrived. Joy Lynn drove to the Atlanta airport in her daddy’s big Packard to pick up her bridesmaids. It would be their first time all together since Bet’s funeral.

They all stayed at Granddaddy Calbert’s big house by the Chattahoochee River, and it was like being roommates again, without the drill. For a week they reminisced, giggled, gossiped and laid around in their bras and panties, drinking sweet tea to cool off from a strong start to the Georgian sweat season.

Calli’s Steven was hoping to get his discharge in time and be home for the wedding. The temporarily single mommy packed up James Lee and they moved in, too, for the week. The baby toddled up and down the halls and was loved on by everyone. When he went down for his naps, Calli would steal away to be just one of the girls.

With the radio playing softly in the background, Joy Lynn’s wedding dress hung from the top of a floor mirror and the sister-friends were lounging around the bedroom staring at it. Joy Lynn sat on the sill of an open window, puffing on a cigarette and blowing the smoke onto the roof of the back porch. Her mama said a lady shouldn’t walk down the aisle smelling like a chimney, and she would come into the room on occasion to conduct surprise inspections, and take a whiff of the dress.

Louise was perched in the window seat and Liddy leaned against a mountain of pillows on the bed. Marina and Calli had multiple copies of Vogue magazines opened on the floor that Miss George had been using to give Miss Duncan a fashion tutorial. Now they were both leaning up against the window seat below Louise, admiring the gown.

“Georgia, that is truly one beeeeauuutiful wedding dress,” said Marina.

“Thank you, dahlin’, you know what a fight it was to get it.”

“How so?” asked Liddy.

“My mama was set on me wearing either her old thing or having Miss Layla in Atlanta whip up some puffy number. Debutante duds are her specialty.”

“Where’d you get it?” Louise asked.

“Marina and I saw it in a magazine and Uptown had it shipped to a store in New York from Paris—ooh la la. My daddy was the winning ticket. He told my mama, ‘She’s only gettin’ married once, Arlena Lee Sweetie, let’s buy her the dress she wants.’ You know how my daddy talks so sweet to her when it suits him and everyone knows somethin’s up but her.”

Marina reached over and set her hand on Calli’s swollen belly hoping for a kick. “Calli Coo, how is it that two people that are separated by a big blue ocean keep managing to make babies?”

“Steven was home in December—Merry Christmas to me,” said the little mommy as a blush filled her cheeks.

“I’m tellin’ ya’, some people just have bunny bounty—like my granny says.” Joy Lynn put out her cigarette on a shingle, walked across the room and flopped onto the bed next to Liddy. “Who’s this man you’re bringin’ to my wedding, Miss George?”

“He’s a lawyer I met at my brother’s birthday party.” She looked up at Joy Lynn and winked. “Very handsome!”

“Aren’t they all?” Liddy asked.

“Actually, yes, this will be our fifth date though.”

“What, are you going for records now?” Joy Lynn mocked.

“Maybe,” Marina swept her silky black mane off her sweaty neck, twirled it onto the top of her head and held it there. “So, Georgia, how did you know Phillip was the one?”

“Have you seen the man, Uptown?”

“Was it love, at first sight?” Calli asked.

“Heck no, I couldn’t stand him when I met him actually. Well I did like looking at him, but I couldn’t stand him. He was with a bunch of Navy flyers that were dishing on female pilots. He had the nerve to come back to the officers club a half hour later and ask me out.”

“You said yes?” asked Louise.

“No ma’am. I made him grovel. It took a month before I let him take me to dinner.”

“That was fine work,” said Marina.

“It was, wasn’t it?”

“So, Liddy, what about Alan, was it love at first sight?” Calli asked.

“He’s very sweet,” said Liddy.

“He’s very sweet,” repeated Joy Lynn. “What kind of lame-horse answer is that?”

“Sweet man my ass. Excuse my French, Georgia. He’s a doll. I’ve never met a man who could match me on the dance floor. I could have wrapped him up and taken him home when I saw you two in New York last month.”

“Before or after you threatened him?” Liddy looked at her sideways.

“He told you about that?” Marina chuckled.

“Yes, he did.” Liddy noticed how Joy Lynn, Calli and Louise were doing a poor job of acting like they didn’t know what Liddy and Marina were talking about. “You were all in on that, weren’t you?” She looked at the guilty faces and shook her head. “Idiots!” To Louise she asked, “Even you, Louie? And I thought you were the one with some sense. So, whose line was: ‘There’s a posse gonna mess you up from here to ugly’?’”

“Oh, that was mine,” confirmed Joy Lynn proudly.

“I should have known,” Liddy threw a pillow at Joy Lynn. “And how about, ‘You won’t have a shoulder to look over’?”

Calli slowly raised her hand above her head.

“Calli Duncan, now I would not have guessed that.” Liddy shook her head at the little mommy and Calli shrugged.

“But I put it all together off the top of my head,” said Marina, making sure she got her due credit.

“Wish I could have heard it.” Joy Lynn laughed.

“And, Louise dear, what was your contribution?”

“Oh, I was just cheering them on.”

“Unbelievable.” Liddy gripped another pillow firmly, rolled off the bed and spun around the room beating all of them with it. They all got their own weapons and joined in until they collapsed on the floor, breathless and sweaty, huffing and smiling.

“So, Parker, what’s happening with your love life?” asked Joy Lynn.

“I have kids. That’s my love life.”

“You gotta get back out there, lady.” said Marina.

“No, I don’t.”

“When are you gonna trust yourself again, Louie?” pushed Joy Lynn.

“That’s a good question,” Marina added.

“No offense, ladies, and I love you both to pieces, but what have either of your young, privileged lives taught you about trust?”

Liddy and Joy Lynn both looked at Marina and saw her look away.

“I mean really, what are you both now, twenty-four? Neither of you have ever been married or ever had to worry how to pay a bill or feed a kid. Life without a silver spoon is no cakewalk.”

Marina pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth and closed her eyes to keep her tears in. She got up from the floor, walked over to the bed and pulled on a pair of pedal pushers and a blouse.

Looking at Louise while she zipped and buttoned, Marina said, “You know, Louise, I know you had a shitty marriage, and I’m very sorry about that, but you don’t know anything about my life, really. So I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t assume that you do.” And she left the room.

The music wafting from the radio was too soft to cover the discomfort that the brief confrontation left floating in the air, and it wasn’t loud enough to mask the silence left by none of them knowing what to say.

Liddy looked at Louise and saw the dismay on her face.

“Boy, that went sour quickly. Did I just cause a wreck?” asked Louise. “That was not my intention.”

“Louie, go talk to her,” said Liddy.

Louise got dressed and left to find Marina. Liddy, Joy Lynn and Calli sat quietly listening to the radio until they heard James Lee babbling on the other side of the door.

It was well after dinner time when Mariana and Louise returned to the house. And the sister-friends all walked down to the river and sat under the big oak tree. Not since the WASP were disbanded had they all together shared their pain of losing their Army wings. And not since Bet’s death, had they laughed and cried together about their little redheaded fly girl. And then, until the sun came up, they emptied out their hearts to one another of everything else.

No matter the life, it has pain and much of it finds a place to hide that is deep and sometimes forgotten. The women opened up all those places in their hearts and scrubbed them out. It left them feeling light and free. Everything had been taken off and they were still wrapped up in love.

The girls went back to the house as the sun came up and tiptoed to the kitchen and ate fried biscuits and ham. The morsels were layered with some jelly and washed down with iced glasses of day-old coffee, and then they went upstairs and slept. Early afternoon, they were woken with the rattle and roll of the trucks that pulled up between the house and the river. A crew unloaded a big party tent, tables and chairs. Uncle Geoffrey directed the whole production, and it was best to stay out of the way. So the girls dressed and drove into Atlanta to take in a movie and watch Marina shop.

The morning of the wedding the girls woke Joy Lynn when they flopped on her bed with a basket full of warm Beignets. They climbed under the covers with the bride-to-be and let the crumbs fall in the hills and valleys of the bedding.

Alan had flown in the night before and snuck out to the house in the morning. Liddy ran down the stairs to greet him and jumped into his arms with her friends peeping through the windows, but she didn’t care. She pushed him back into his car and stole him away. Her friends would have to wait for their up-close inspection. Liddy had Alan drive to where the river trickled into a little creek, and they picked out a big smooth-run boulder and set their feet to soak.

“I’ve got good news, and I have bad news. Which do you want first?” asked Alan.

“I want the good news. You can keep the bad news.”