Page 19

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about cutting out too,” he said. “Heading back north. I’ve spent enough time down south.” Vivian, who was headed farther south, only bade him goodbye.

Back home, her brothers refused to speak to her.

Her mother barred the door. Elizabeth clutched her newest baby to her chest and said, “You can’t stay here.

Henry would have a fit. Impressionable children, and all.

” None of this surprised Vivian. It was what a girl who ran off with a man and returned without a wedding ring had to expect.

She’d been fooling herself, hoping for better.

Aunt Clelia let her in. “Against my better judgment,” she said.

“And only because I believe in redemption.”

Planes filled the sky over Hahira now. The USAAF had, almost overnight, built an air force training base on the old Davis Plantation. They named it Moody after a downed pilot, laid down airstrips, put up barracks, and brought in air cadets for training.

From one of these cadets, Vivian heard a rumor that female pilots would be recruited for war service.

The cadet had laughed this off—the idea was ridiculous as far as he was concerned.

But Vivian had latched on to it as salvation.

If it was true, it offered a change of horizon, a chance to go somewhere—anywhere—else.

If it was true, she needed all the flying time she could get.

Which meant she needed a way to get to the Valdosta airfield.

Which meant that she needed Bobby Broussard’s car.

After Pearl Harbor, Bobby Broussard and his older brother had bused off to basic training, leaving the Hudson sitting idle.

Mrs. Broussard never drove it. Bobby had told Vivian, more than once, that his mother didn’t approve of women driving cars.

No one needed to tell her that Mrs. Broussard didn’t approve of her .

No doubt all the upstanding, churchgoing sons of Hahira had been warned away from her by their mothers.

She’d never been introduced to Mrs. Broussard, but she hoped that, with Bobby safely out of reach, the woman would talk to her.

Vivian rounded the corner and spied Mrs. Broussard pruning roses in the front bed. She gave no sign that she’d noticed Vivian, yet quite suddenly she dashed into the house. The crocheted panel over the door window still swayed as Vivian knocked.

No steps approached. No one called out for her to wait a moment. The crocheted panel stilled. Vivian peered through its stitches just in time to see Mrs. Broussard duck down behind a wing chair.

She rapped louder.

“Mrs. Broussard, please. I really need to talk to you.”

She knocked again. No sound came from the parlor.

She turned to go. A flutter in the window across the street caught her eye.

White sheer curtains being twitched aside.

Grace Thorpe was watching. Grace had a party line and was always looking for news to share over it.

Vivian turned back to the Broussard door. She knocked again.

“It’s not about Bobby, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Vivian raised her voice, making sure Grace could hear. “Nothing to do with Bobby at all!” She turned and waved toward Grace’s window. “Hello, Mrs. Thorpe! Do you know if Mrs. Broussard is home?”

Mrs. Broussard rose up from behind the wing chair, deploying her handkerchief before her like a white flag, as if she’d just been hunting for it, not hiding. She trotted to the door and opened it just a crack, hissed for Vivian to hush.

A crack was all Vivian needed. She held up the ration tickets.

Aunt Clelia was always going on about the temptations of sugar, as if it had been cast out of heaven with Lucifer himself and now its sole purpose was to lure innocent people into his clutches.

Mrs. Broussard’s lush figure suggested she viewed sugar more fondly than Aunt Clelia did.

It suggested she might be willing to make a trade.

“A month of sugar,” Vivian said. “In exchange for Bobby’s gas coupons and the use of the Hudson.”

“You said this had nothing to do with Bobby.”

“This is between you and me,” said Vivian. “But I suppose I could make it about Bobby.” She cut a glance at Grace Thorpe’s window. “Do you think he’d appreciate a letter? I’m not much for writing generally, but I could make an exception. For Bobby.”

Mrs. Broussard squeezed the door closed. Vivian stuck her foot in the diminishing gap. “Butter,” she said. “I heard the market’s getting a delivery tomorrow. I’ll stand in line for you.” The door opened, and Mrs. Broussard snatched the ration coupons from Vivian’s hand.

“Bring the butter by tomorrow and I’ll give you the keys.”

Vivian kept to the shady side of the street as she walked back to Aunt Clelia’s.

She caressed the LK on Louis’s lighter as she strolled, wishing she could afford cigarettes.

She’d come close to selling the lighter twice—so that she could offer something to Aunt Clelia for her keep.

But she missed Louis. Keeping the lighter felt like keeping a little piece of him.

She took the long way home. This late in the day, Clelia and Rosemary were usually bickering about supper.

What to cook and how much of it. Vivian felt keenly that she was another mouth for her aunt to feed and took small portions.

She kept the daybed on the back porch made up, her things stowed and out of the way.

She tried to make herself as inconspicuous as possible.

Rosemary hadn’t complained about her presence, but she also hadn’t blessed Vivian’s heart lately.

Aunt Clelia, despite her belief in redemption, would find the loss of her butter ration hard to forgive.

It was Vivian’s job to stand in line—sometimes for hours—for scarce goods at the market.

If she was lucky, she’d get a quarter pound of butter tomorrow, and Aunt Clelia would be furious to learn Vivian had given it away. But that couldn’t be helped.

She’d just claim that the market had run out before she reached the front of the line.

She didn’t like lying to her aunt, but it was necessary to get the use of a car.

Now that her brother Phil had shipped out, leaving Walter and his flat feet behind, Vivian had finagled a job at the repair yard.

Walter wouldn’t pay her much, but it would be enough for some flying time.

Happy with her plan, she approached Aunt Clelia’s house.

The lights had not yet been lit. She assumed that meant Clelia had, today anyway, won the ongoing battle she and Rosemary fought over when to turn on the parlor lights.

Rosemary would have lit up the house like the sun.

Clelia was always following her around, switching things off.

She claimed to prefer kerosene lamps to electric.

Rosemary called her an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud.

Clelia maintained that just because something was “modern” didn’t make it better.

It was odd, thought Vivian, that not even a kerosene lamp glowed through the parlor window. The ladies liked to sew before suppertime. She skipped the squeaky tread on the porch steps and paused in front of the screen door, listening, a childhood habit she’d never broken. She heard a sigh.

She horseshoed her hands against the screen and peered into the house. She saw a shape on the sofa. Someone, too large to be either Clelia or Rosemary, was just inside. Did they have company? And why had they left this visitor sitting in the dark? Vivian’s skin prickled.

The shape on the settee rocked and emitted a low moan, as if in pain. Maybe Clelia and Rosemary had gone to get the doctor. But wouldn’t one of them have stayed behind to help tend this poor soul?

Another moan, louder this time. This person needed help. She yanked open the screen door and rushed into the parlor. The shape split, its halves springing apart, taking the forms of her aunt and Rosemary. Vivian stopped midstride.

“Aunt Clelia?”

“Rosemary had ... a little speck of ... ummm—” Her aunt’s voice quavered to silence. She reached for her sewing basket and rummaged in it, pretending to hunt for something.

“Yes!” said Rosemary. “In my eye. An eyelash, most likely. Thank you, Clelia, for helping me get it out. I feel much better now.” She dabbed at her eye with her handkerchief.

“Then why on earth didn’t you light a lamp?

” asked Vivian. She turned and busied herself with the glass chimney of the nearest kerosene lamp, spun the flint on her lighter, and set the flame to the wick.

She eased the chimney back into the metal clips slowly, giving them plenty of time to gather themselves.

By the time she turned around, they had scooted to opposite ends of the settee.

Rosemary still fussed with her handkerchief.

Clelia clutched her embroidery hoop in one hand, but no needle in the other.

She wore her sternest expression. “You’re supposed to be eating at Elizabeth’s. We weren’t expecting you.”

Elizabeth had called earlier to report that “Henry said it would be all right” if Vivian joined them for dinner.

This hadn’t seemed like much of an invitation, and Vivian had decided she’d rather dine on a small portion of food at Clelia’s than a full serving of righteous judgment from her sister’s husband.

“Funny how things turn out different than we’d expect,” said Vivian, smiling brightly at the pair on the sofa. “I’ll get supper started.” She headed for the kitchen. The butter wouldn’t be a problem after all.

Thanks to her older brothers, Vivian felt at ease around men and machines.

She understood the unwritten rules. Out at the airfield she wore no makeup, kept her hair pulled up in a tight knot, dressed in her brothers’ baggy pants and jackets and an old pair of work boots.

She tried to blend in, to be one of the boys.

She sold the gold locket to buy fuel. She traded her repair and maintenance skills for flight time.

If the field manager decided the floor needed sweeping and who better than Vivian to do it, she swept the floor without complaining that she was the one who’d swept it last. And would no doubt be the one who swept it next.

She did whatever it took to get time in a plane.

The telegram she’d been waiting for arrived that autumn.

If Interested in Entering Womens Airforce Service Pilots Training Contact ...

Vivian begged Elizabeth for the bus fare to Washington, DC.

“Mama would have my hide. You know she doesn’t approve of you flying.”

“Mama will never approve of anything I do. Not after Louis.”

Elizabeth shushed her and tipped her head toward Henry Jr., as if the very mention of Louis might corrupt her little boy.

“There’re lots of pilots around here now,” said Vivian, “just over at Moody. Four hundred of them, I heard the other day. I was there for my physical. The flight surgeon said they’re bringing more every week.

” These cadets were not warmly welcomed in Hahira, given the stir they caused among the town’s young ladies.

Elizabeth set her mouth in a hard line.

“I find pilots so dashing, don’t you? There’s something about a man in an airplane that’s just ... irresistible.”

Elizabeth reached for her pocketbook.

Entering Jacqueline Cochran’s office, Vivian tried not to flinch as Cochran, seated behind an immaculate walnut desk, looked her up and down. She felt the age and shabbiness of her best skirt and blouse and hurried to sit so she could hide her cracked leather pumps beneath Cochran’s desk.

“How did you learn to fly, Miss Shaw?”

“A barnstormer taught me.”

“Ah. Was he local or just passing through?”

“Passing through. But in town long enough to get me started.”

“I’ve met my share of barnstormers, Miss Shaw.

In fact, a number of the girls in this program got their start on the circuit.

In my experience, and I’m sure these other girls would agree, barnstormers are a parsimonious lot.

They don’t generally give out lessons for free.

But I suppose you had your looks going for you. ”

“I paid for my lessons,” said Vivian.

Cochran eyed the frayed cuffs of Vivian’s blouse. She launched into a speech about virtuous behavior being the foundation of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots program and how its representatives must remain above reproach.

Vivian, during Cochran’s infrequent pauses, supplied a series of dutiful “Yes, ma’ams.”

“Your accent,” said Cochran, slipping for an educational moment into her own. “You from north Florida?”

Vivian, whose cheeks had remained cool during the speech about virtue, felt the heat rise in them now. “Near there. Hahira, Georgia.”

Cochran said nothing, but her quick blink told Vivian she recognized the town.

“Well,” Cochran said at last, “war has a way of mixing people up, allowing them to transcend their origins.” Her north Florida accent had vanished so completely that Vivian wondered if she’d imagined it.

Cochran extended her hand across the desk.

“Take good advantage of this opportunity, Miss Shaw. Who knows how far you’ll go? ”