The Flight Girls Read online

  He looked as though he might say more but then nodded and began to move away.

  “Good day,” he said, his voice once again landing softly in the shell of my ear.

  “Good day,” I whispered.

  With a sigh, I swam back to shore.

  A few hours later we packed up our belongings along with the other beachgoers, preparing to head home.

  “Come on, girls,” I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “Let’s go. I’m starving and I only have a couple hours until my father calls.”

  Every Sunday evening like clockwork he called. He caught me up on the news at home: what society events Mother was planning, what fella my younger sister, Evie, was torturing, and I entertained him with stories of life on the island. He particularly liked my tales about Ruby. She was like a character in a book. “What’s that Ruby up to now?” he’d ask.

  After my father and I were through talking, my mother would get on the phone, her tone unrelenting in its disapproval. She would reiterate everything my father had told me, adding in all the minute details I couldn’t care less about. If Evie was home she’d hop on after my mother, talking a mile a minute about this boy or that one. It could be exhausting, but I wouldn’t miss the phone call for the world.

  Jean, Catherine and Ruby—who’d returned from her walk with Eddie—threw their belongings into the trunk of the baby blue 1936 Ford convertible we’d all chipped in to buy when we’d arrived on the island, and then piled into the car.

  I shoved my bag in next to the others, closed the trunk and climbed into the back seat.

  “Looks like someone has an audience,” Jean murmured as she backed out of our parking spot.

  I turned to see Lieutenant Hart standing next to his car across the dirt lot, his eyes on me.

  I chewed my lip and sank down in my seat, trying to ignore my quickened heartbeat and resisting the urge to let my own gaze linger. This was not the time in my life to get distracted by a man. Even if the man was Lieutenant Hart.

  Chapter Two

  The wind whipped past my head as my warplane cut across the sky. Above me, streaks of pink and orange stretched from one end of the horizon to the other. Below, the Pacific Ocean sparkled with light and the shadow of my aircraft.

  From the corner of my eye, I watched the silver plane keeping pace with me. I turned my attention to the array of gauges in front of me, checking each one in quick succession.

  “Ready?” I asked the blue-and-yellow Fairchild PT-19.

  She’d been sitting in the back corner of the training hangar for months, damaged during a training session last year. Bill, the old crew chief, had been fixing her up on his own time and I’d fallen in love with her at first sight. He’d let me take her up as soon as she was ready and I’d named her Roxy for her fiery attitude in the sky. Originally she’d been white with navy stripes down the sides of the fuselage, but Bill had let me pick new colors to paint her. Remembering Jenny, the little sunshine-colored plane I’d learned in so many years ago, I asked him to paint Roxy yellow with blue tips and stabilizers, and he’d delivered. She was recognizable everywhere for her bright colors, which had gotten me into a bit of trouble when Bill learned I’d been flat-hatting all over the island on my off hours. After getting grounded for a week, I stopped doing it as often. But it was hard to resist.

  The silver plane moved closer and I grinned, biding my time. The AT-6 Texan may have been the faster plane, but the PT-19’s smaller engine had its own benefits.

  It wasn’t about the plane though. It was about the pilot. And the pilot of the Texan was as green as the five-dollar bill Ruby was going to owe me when I beat her trainee in this race across the Hawaiian sky.

  We sped toward the northern tip of the island, the goal to swing around, race back and touch down at the base first. The AT-6, as expected, hit the northern tip first, flying past it, going too fast and blowing his turn.

  I laughed. Male pilots were all the same, their arrogance getting the best of them. And the trainees were sometimes the worst of all.

  As he tried to correct, making a wide arc around, I pulled the throttle back toward my stomach.

  The little plane slowed for a moment above Oahu’s beauty before I gave it full throttle, using the rudder to roll as fast as possible. I idled and applied full opposite rudder to stop the roll as we dove, my heartbeat quickening as the nose dropped and sent me hurtling into a steep dive. I watched the gauges in front of me and held my breath, counting in my head before pulling the stick hard once more to complete the maneuver and level out, speeding now in the opposite direction and ahead of the AT-6.

  “Winner!” Jean yelled as I climbed down from the landed plane a few minutes later with a grin.

  There was a small commotion near the AT-6 and we glanced around the Fairchild to see Ruby’s airman recruit jumping to the ground and running outside, his hand over his mouth. The Texan was notorious for making its pilots sick.

  “Good job, Parker!” she yelled after him and then shook her head at us. “Damn kid just cost me five dollars.” She linked her arm through mine. “Nice work.”

  “Thank you.”

  We hauled our gear to the supply room, discussing our dinner options as we hung our parachutes and stored our helmets and goggles.

  “Ladies.”

  We stopped and nearly stood at attention, our gazes steady on our boss who had entered the tiny supply room behind us on silent feet.

  Mae Burton would’ve been a soldier had they let her. Tall with gray hair pulled back tight, a daunting stare and the rigid stance of someone ready to give or take orders. She’d hired each of us after we’d answered the same call—an advertisement we’d all seen promoting the need for flight instructors on the island of Oahu.

  The flyers had hung in airfields and airports around the nation, but you had to have a certain number of flight hours logged and your pilot license to apply. The four of us arrived within hours of each other that summer.

  Jean hailed from St. Louis, where she’d earned her hours as a crop duster in the early mornings before working at her family’s restaurant during the day. Ruby came from Kansas, disembarking her flight with lips the color of her name. Catherine, from Wisconsin—where the only ocean she’d ever seen was the green of the fields she’d flown above doing deliveries for the postal service—arrived with more bags than the rest of us combined. And I’d flown in from Dallas on the ticket from my father, a month after graduating college with a teaching degree, and a week after refusing an offer to take on a third-grade class at my old elementary school. Teaching, in my mind, had always been a backup plan. The real goal was to buy the airfield. Much to my mother’s dismay.

  Genevieve Elizabeth Rose O’Hare Coltrane was a force in pale pink Chanel, pecking out orders for my life, my future and the happiness she thought I was assured if she was at the helm.

  It was quite funny to me, this vision my mother had of my life, so different from what I imagined—from what I wanted. She would never understand me, and I knew the real fight to live the life I wanted hadn’t yet begun. And as much as I dreaded the confrontation, the hysterics and threats...I would not be shoved into this archaic mold she’d made for me.

  “Reports?” Mae said and we handed over our reports for all the men we’d trained that day. “How’d they do?” she asked without looking at the paperwork.

  “Fine, ma’am.”

  “Swell, ma’am.”

  “Could use some work on maneuvers, ma’am.”

  “Good. Good. Fine,” Mae said, glancing at the report on top. “And who won the race?”

  We glanced at one another, trying to keep the grins from our faces. I slowly raised my hand.

  “Again, Dallas?” We were all a city or state to her. She never called us by name.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “Y’all need to work on your skills. Da
llas is flying circles around you,” she said, raising her eyebrows at the others before leaving us to finish stowing our gear. “Just don’t let ol’ chrome dome catch you racing in his precious planes.”

  Ruby and Catherine snickered as we glanced at Bill, who stood rubbing his bald head and swearing under his breath while staring at the engine of a half-gutted plane.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good night, ma’am.”

  Jean snorted a laugh as soon as we were alone.

  “God, that woman scares me,” Catherine said, sinking onto a bench. “I thought we were about to get in trouble. And how does she know about the racing?”

  “One of the boys probably told her,” Ruby said. “I’ll twist a few arms and find out who.”

  “Oh, leave them alone,” Jean said. “If you terrorize those boys, you’ll just confuse them, and they’re already confused enough having to do what a bunch of women tell them to do all day long.”

  “Poor little pilots,” I said as I backed out the door—and straight into Lieutenant Hart.

  I cursed myself as I pictured him on the beach and felt my face heat. “My apologies, sir.”

  He nodded at the three women who’d exited behind me before meeting my gaze. “Miss Coltrane,” he said. “I was looking for you.”

  “You were?” Ruby sidled up next to me. “For an after-work rendezvous perhaps?”

  His cheeks turned as red as I feared mine were.

  “Mae informed me of your...shall we call it...spirited teaching method?” he said.

  I heard Jean swear quietly behind me.

  “It’s fine,” he said, his lips curving up in a small smile. “I’m in favor, actually. I find a little friendly competition beneficial. Makes one think on their feet, so to speak. As long as everyone keeps to regulation and is safe, of course.”

  “Oh, we are, sir,” Ruby said. “Always. I assure you.”

  “Wonderful,” he said, his eyes locking on mine again. “I am wondering though about the maneuver I hear you’ve been doing in the Fairchild. Mae says you’ve been performing a low altitude split-S in it and I’m a little concerned. It’s a daring and slightly reckless move, being performed with one of my men in it.”

  I bit my lip, my gaze lowering.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve flown a PT-19,” he said. “I’d like you to take me through it so I can see it performed for myself.”

  “She’d love to,” Catherine said, discreetly pinching me on the behind.

  “Of course, sir,” I murmured, my heart sinking. “I’d be happy to.”

  “Tomorrow morning then?” he asked. “Say at zero five thirty?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Wonderful. Thank you, Miss Coltrane.” He nodded at the four of us and walked away.

  “Shit,” I said under my breath as we headed to our car.

  But the girls were excited, talking of nothing else all the way to Skip’s, our favorite spot for burgers, fries and milk shakes.

  “Did you see the way he focused on Audrey?” Ruby asked, resting her cheek on her palm dreamily during dinner. “He barely even noticed we were there. No man ever looks at me like that.”

  “Men look at you all the time,” I said, dragging a fry through my vanilla shake. “He was only focused on me because he was angry.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jean said. “Concerned maybe, but not angry.”

  “I think he likes you,” Catherine said. “Did you see the way he blushed when Ruby asked if he wanted to take you out?”

  “She embarrassed him,” I said, shooting Ruby a look.

  “I think Catherine’s right,” Jean said. “I saw the way he was watching you on the beach the other day.”

  I sighed and pushed my plate away. “You gals done?” I asked.

  “Why the hurry to get home?” Ruby asked. “Anxious to get a good night’s sleep so you’re fresh for your date tomorrow?”

  I threw my napkin at her.

  “Ruby,” Jean said. “Don’t you have a date tonight?”

  “Oh shoot!” She stood and gestured for us to follow. “Shake a leg, ladies.”

  Chapter Three

  I woke before the other girls and tiptoed around Ruby’s and my room, careful not to wake her as I tripped over her piles of clothes on the floor and dug through our closet for my last clean flight suit.

  I dressed in the one tiny bathroom we all shared, shoving my legs into the suit and pulling it up over my shoulders, banging my elbow against the door as I zipped it.

  After styling my hair in a Gibson Roll—neat and tidy were the army’s requirements for our appearance—I splashed my face with cool water and patted it dry, brushed my teeth and swiped on a pink lipstick one shade darker than my natural color, hearing my mother’s voice in my head. You have no color, Audrey. Put on some lipstick. You’ll scare people.

  Not that it mattered. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. Certainly not Lieutenant Hart.

  I sighed. That wasn’t exactly true.

  There had been moments. Moments I’d replayed in my mind dozens of times after the lights had gone out and Ruby snored softly beneath her pink satin sheets in her twin bed across from mine. Moments I’d never admit to the girls, not even Jean who would understand and keep the conversation private.

  At first I’d thought I was imagining it, the furtive looks he shot my way. The glances around planes. The reddened cheeks when we accidentally brushed up against one another as we passed through a doorway—or when our hands touched exchanging a clipboard. But it had happened so often, I knew I couldn’t be dreaming it. I also knew I would have never noticed if I hadn’t been looking too.

  The fact that he’d piqued my interest at once infuriated me, embarrassed me and created an increasing curiosity. What was it that made me notice him? I’d gone all my life not giving a second thought to a man. Why this one?

  I told myself he looked at me only because he thought me strange. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Most men thought me odd. Pretty, smart, but odd. Intelligent, witty, beautiful even. But always also odd. And it wasn’t just men who thought this. Women did too.

  I grabbed an apple from the bowl on the kitchen counter and leaned against the sink, my eyes on the red clock on the wall. It was a sunny little kitchen with yellow walls, white countertops, a beige linoleum floor, and Catherine’s jadeite bowls and canisters lining the counters and shelves.

  The house was small and cozy, with furniture that barely fit more than one person at a time. The green sofa was hardly bigger than an armchair, and the dining table was meant for two, but we’d crammed four mismatching chairs around it regardless, our knees touching whenever we all sat down together.

  In the center of the sitting room was a large soft rug with pale blue stripes, and on one of the walls was a large lauhala mat our neighbor and landlord, Erma, had made us when we’d moved in. Erma and her husband, Ken, lived at the other end of our little cul-de-sac with their four children. Ken often came by to make small repairs on the house. A creaky shutter here, a leaky pipe there. I never noticed any noise, but he swore the last time he’d been there, he had made a ruckus. I suspected Erma sent him though, because every time he left he invited me to lunch or dinner or some small gathering they were having. I had a feeling Erma had noticed I didn’t go out as often as the other girls and thought I was lonely. Regardless of the reason, I was honored to be brought into the fold of their little family. I enjoyed learning their Hawaiian customs and tasting the cuisine.

  I grabbed the keys of our shared car and slipped out the front door. The sky was a deep periwinkle as it waited for the sun to rise, and I took in a breath, smelling the plumeria that wafted from the yards of our little neighborhood, scenting the air with its sweet perfume.

  “Good morning,” I said to the guards at the security booth as I stopped to show them m
y badge.

  “You’re here awfully early, Miss Coltrane,” Wes, a stocky young man with a shock of black hair, said.

  “I am,” I said, covering my mouth as I yawned.

  He waved me through and I quickly parked and hurried to the training hangar, the humidity of the day already rising off the asphalt.

  “Good morning, Bill,” I said to the old crew chief who was limping around the hangar.

  He grumbled. “You the reason I had to come in at this hour and pull out that little plane you love so much?”

  I glanced at the Fairchild sitting proudly on the tarmac, her yellow nose raised and gleaming.

  “You didn’t give Roxy a hard time, did you now?” I said, my hands on my hips. “She’s sensitive, you know.”

  “How do you know it’s a girl?” he asked, wiping his face on a grease-stained rag.

  “I’m no prude, Bill. I looked under her tail of course.”

  The bark of his laughter echoed off the metal walls of the hangar.

  “So that’s how you determine a plane’s gender,” a voice said from behind me. “I was absent that day of training.”

  My breath caught in my throat.

  “Morning, Lieutenant,” Bill said.

  “Good morning, Bill,” the lieutenant said. “Miss Coltrane.”

  I turned. “Good morning, sir,” I said, my voice low as I allowed my gaze to rise and meet his.

  He stared intensely for a moment and then looked at the plane.

  “Shall we?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  The blue began to lighten on the horizon as I flew us east across the Hawaiian sky, trying to ignore the lieutenant’s presence in front of me in the trainee’s seat he’d insisted on sitting in.

  “You take the reins,” he’d said. “You’re the boss this morning.”

  I did a slow barrel roll over Diamond Head into one high-reversing Immelmann and then another. Each maneuver eased the tension in my shoulders a little bit more, the sight of the lieutenant’s head inches from mine weighing heavily on me.