Flying Jenny

by Theasa Tuohy

“So are the women all okay?” Laura asked.

  Riley’s accounting was perfunctory. Of the nineteen women who had left Santa Monica the previous Sunday, one had crashed and been killed, another diagnosed the night before with typhoid fever. A twentieth pilot had started a day late because of engine problems, but was still counted in since their total time in each leg would be clocked. Several had been scratched because of seemingly unending mishaps or plane malfunctions. Just yesterday, a goofy colorful dame named Pancho Barnes, who smoked cigars, had landed on top of the car a spectator had pulled onto the runway for a better view, and Blanche Noyes had managed to make it down on one wheel after an earlier emergency landing caused by a fire. Another woman had run out of fuel as she was touching down, and had to push her own plane off the runway to avoid the incoming derbyites. Laura was intrigued by these stories, though Riley had no more information, other than to say that the wires had covered them.

  “So what’s your angle here, kid?” he asked. “Gonna do the sob number about all the dire misfortunes along the way?”

  “This is a very exciting time, John,” Laura said primly. “I guess the desk decided you aren’t capable of taking what these pioneering women are doing quite seriously enough.”

  John Riley grinned. “Okay, kid, whatever you say. Gotta hand it to these dames, though. Quite a few of ’em have made it as far as Fort Worth. Will Rogers and Wiley Post are here. They seem serious enough about the lady pilots. I spoke to Rogers yesterday, told him the Enterprise-Post carries his column.”

  “Gee, you really met him?”

  “Sure, a heck of a nice guy. And funny. He’s the one calling this women’s race the Powder Puff Derby.”

  “Oh yeah, Riley,” Laura said, rolling her eyes. “So what else do you have as a scoop?” She walked off. She needed to file a story today—had to find something or someone to write about, a fan, a student pilot, something.

  She wandered around the grandstands of the airfield, where tens of thousands were watching stunts and formation-flying exhibitions. She bought a hot dog from a vendor. It feels like a ballpark, she thought. At a stop in the ladies’ room, powdering her nose, she noticed a wisp of a thing wearing expensive-looking riding breeches and jodhpur boots running a comb through her short, curly, light-brown hair.

  “You enjoying the races?” Laura asked.

  The young woman turned to her with a smile. “Oh, they’re swell, don’t you think?”

  “You look like you’ve just come from a riding stable.”

  “Oh, no,” the woman said. “I’ve just flown up from Oklahoma City for a couple of days to see the end of the women’s race. You can’t fly in a skirt.”

  “Oh,” Laura said with a startled look, realizing this was the spoiled little debutante she’d run into at Roosevelt Field. She fumbled for something to say; she hadn’t exactly gotten a warm reception the last time. And she’d done those stories speculating on whether the errant pilot would lose her license, and then why she hadn’t. Seemed some guy working for Curtiss-Wright at Roosevelt Field had pull in Washington. There was a lot of politics in this flying stuff—the government trying to push it as a national defense measure, whatever that meant. Wow, talk about stumbling onto something. “Uh, most of the women seem to have designed their own flying costumes.”

  “That’s true. But since riding clothes are the one kind of pants you can just go and buy in a store, I decided that was a lot less trouble. My name’s Jenny Flynn,” she said, sticking out her hand. “What’s yours? And where are you from?”

  “I’m Laura. Why aren’t you in the race?” She wanted to ask why the woman wasn’t in knickers like the last time and what kind of pull she had with the Department of Commerce. Take it slow, one question at a time, she told herself.

  “I just fly for the fun. They’re all too serious, too dedicated for me,” Jenny replied, then tinkled a happy, uncomplicated laugh.

  Laura pulled her comb from her purse and swiped it lightly over her hair as she pondered how to start questioning this frivolous girl. What a contrasting pair they were, she thought, looking at their side-by-side reflections in the mirror. Jenny’s almost-blond curls were tousled, actually unkempt to Laura’s eye. It didn’t cross her mind that her own tight, coal-black marcelled waves might look stiff to some.

  Laura in a black print, crêpe de chine dress that was chic, but would have passed unnoticed in New York, was a standout here in the powder room in Cleveland as ladies came and went wearing their Sunday best—most with lace collars and lots of ruffles.

  Jenny stuck out too, in her white short-sleeved shirt, open at the collar. And those riding breeches all bunched up at the knees and full at the hips held up by what looked almost like a cowboy belt to Laura; it was wide, of brown woven leather. Her ankle-top boots with a brass buckle on the side were polished, but scuffed. This didn’t appear to Laura to be any kind of fashion statement like Marlene Dietrich in her man’s suit. Topping it all off, Jenny had a very unladylike sunburn. Those white possum patches around her eyes were certainly the badges of aviator goggles.

  “For fun?” Laura said, turning to Jenny, hoping she might elaborate. She didn’t want to make this young woman bolt like she had from Roosevelt Field.

  Jenny just smiled and stuck her comb back in her pants pocket.

  Looking again into the mirror, Laura saw no common ground between her and the flying debutante. They couldn’t be more different. And Jenny was just a kid. Laura knew from the bridge stories that she was only eighteen. Laura, of course, considered herself much more mature than her mere twenty-two years. After all, she had a responsible job, and had been fending for herself as long as she could remember. But she must figure out some way to bridge the gap.

  “Let’s go have a cup of coffee or root beer,” Laura said, deciding on an indirect approach before taking one last go at her marcelled wave, then sticking her comb back into her patent-leather handbag. “I’m terribly interested in flying, and you seem just the person to explain how it all works.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jenny replied, not sounding very sorry at all, and moving toward the door. “I have to run an errand for a friend.” Several women crowded in, talking excitedly about an aerobatics display.

  “Did you see that loop?”

  “Could you believe how the plane twisted and twisted?”

  “I thought he was going to crash.”

  Their entrance moved Jenny back in Laura’s direction.

  “Don’t go yet,” Laura said in a rush, “I have just a couple of quick questions. Like, I heard someone besides Amelia Earhart is the frontrunner here. How can that happen? She’s the most famous. And this Crosson woman, the one who got killed. Did you know her? What was she like?”

  “My goodness, that’s a heap of questions. I wouldn’t know anything about any of that.”

  “But you must know something,” Laura said. “Is there a problem with Earhart’s plane?”

  “That big Lockheed Vega? Oh my, no,” Jenny replied. “That’s the fastest plane in the race. If Amelia’s got a problem, it’s controlling that monster.” She tilted her head sideways and lifted her eyebrows ever so slightly. And again came her tinkling laugh. “Not the kind of maneuverability for three-point landings in front of judges. At least that big monoplane has brakes, a real luxury in this business.

  “Ta ta.” She gave Laura a wave with her fingers, and was lost in the crowd.

  CHAPTER TEN

  GET IT NOW!

  Laura ended up giving Riley a hand with the day’s coverage because there were so many things going on. She kept a sharp eye out for Jenny Flynn in the crowds, but with no luck. There were parachute jumps, pylon races, and a demonstration by a precision aerobatic team led by Lindbergh. A downtown exhibition hall was chock to the rafters with the latest in flight gear and equipment. Finally, Laura and Riley tossed—and he lost—for who would do a story about the plane on display in front of the city hall. It was Boeing’s Model 80A that was being readied for commercial se
rvice. It could carry eighteen passengers in what the company described as a spacious cabin appointed with leather upholstery, reading lamps, forced-air ventilation, and hot and cold running water. The plane had a range of 460 miles and could fly at a top speed of 138 miles per hour. The final innovation: Boeing was hiring women, registered nurses, to serve as attendants on flights.

  “Wow!” Laura exclaimed reading the press release from which Riley was working, seated at the Underwood across from her. “What will they think of next?” With Riley banging away, Laura did a quick story on Pancho Barnes, the derbyite who had landed on the car.

  Then they heard talk of what their colleagues in the pressroom had dubbed the “Mystery Ship.” It was rumored the plane had been built especially for the men’s speed races that would end with the awarding of the Thompson Trophy. Military fliers had always won most speed races before, but there was great anticipation that Travel Air had built a craft that would beat them all.

  “This has been a heck of a day,” Laura moaned, rubbing her right elbow and shaking out her fingers, stiff from typing. “But while we wait to get the news on how the lady fliers did today, we better try to get a handle on what’s so mysterious.”

  It turned out they couldn’t find out any more than the other reporters, but they sent Cheesy to get a picture of where it was stored. Walter Beech, the president of Travel Air, had the plane spirited away to a special hangar he’d rented for the various craft his company had built for the races. Putting the plane under wraps was, of course, building excitement.

  Laura dictated their four air-show stories to a rewrite man in New York. She and Riley decided not to bother with a story on the women’s derby because reporters in Tulsa and Wichita were getting the details of what the ladies’ day had been like. The wires were reporting that several made unexpected stops for such things as a dirty oil line, an overheated engine, and one who was lost because her map blew overboard. But there were also firsts. Leaving Tulsa, the racers were given wind charts drawn from balloon observations in anticipation of heavy rains they would encounter. The ladies reported being happy with a break from the unrelieved heat—those in open cockpits said they were not only drenched, but also kept busy using their silk scarves as windshield wipers. As they approached Wichita, the local newspaper sent a plane to greet the ladies, and an Army observer pilot used a short-wave radio as he accompanied them in. His transmitted description of the event was amplified and broadcast on the ground. It was also picked up by telephone wires and sent to a local radio station. Cars were bumper to bumper surrounding the field awaiting the ladies’ arrival. The crowds were estimated at twenty thousand, nearly one-fifth of the town’s population.

  Laura went back to her hotel and fell into bed exhausted. She thought she’d fallen asleep when she heard church bells that sounded just like those near her old school, P.S. 41 on West 11th Street. She hadn’t noticed a church near her hotel here in downtown Cleveland. She got up to look out the window, but there was a chain-link fence blocking her view. As she tried to peer through the chinks, she saw Jenny Flynn skipping rope on the playground, laughing and joking around with the children from Laura’s class. Laura put her hand through the fence and waved. “I’m here!” she yelled, but no one paid any attention. Then Barnes came to her rescue, swooping down from the air in a yellow checkered taxi. Laura climbed behind the steering wheel and they had soared over the schoolyard before she remembered that she didn’t know how to drive. The taxi began to vibrate and wobble so badly that she could hear her own teeth chattering. A wheel ripped off and clattered to earth with a loud bang, the cab began listing to the left, Laura could see pedestrian ants walking the streets. She was losing altitude fast, flying straight into the tower of the Jefferson Market Courthouse, the beautiful redbrick Victorian Gothic that sat in the triangle between Greenwich and Sixth avenues. Its clock hands were racing out of control, gyrating wildly, coming straight at her—she was going to be impaled! Everyone was screaming out the windows of the Women’s Detention Center next door. The inmates had always shouted obscenities from there. Laura would hear them when she got off the el coming home from work, but now both her mother and Barnes were adding to the chaos. “Get control and land this crate!” the city editor yelled over and over. Her mother was screaming for her to jump, but she could see no safety net below. She heard the distant siren of the rescue ambulance from St. Vincent’s Hospital coming nearer, maybe it could save her. She sat up abruptly in bed, and realized that her bedside telephone was ringing.

  As she fumbled for the receiver and put it to her ear, she heard Barnes bark: “Aren’t you watching the wires? Your gal pal Jenny Flynn has stolen an airplane.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Do I hear an echo? Stolen. Flew it straight out of a barn where it was impounded. Stole it right out from under a deputy’s nose.”

  “I just talked to her yesterday.” Laura was befuddled, her mind still groggy with sleep. Whoa, she thought, Jenny Flynn’s voice ringing in her ear. I have to run an errand for a friend seemed to take on a new significance. But Laura certainly wasn’t going to mention this to Barnes. It probably didn’t mean anything—Jenny could have been picking up someone’s laundry.

  “There’s a dead person somehow involved in all this!” Barnes yelled. “Get over there!”

  “Where?” Laura demanded, her annoyance rising.

  “Let’s see,” Barnes said. Laura recognized the familiar rustling of the long sheets of paper that rolled off the wires. “AP says Kansas. Atchison, Kansas.”

  Laura sat up in bed and looked at her watch lying on the bedside table. It was seven thirty in the morning. Things would be humming in the city room. “That’s not anywhere near here, is it?”

  “Must be.”

  “Must be what?” Laura snapped. “There’s a Wichita on the race route that’s two days away. And a place called Kansas City that’s not even in Kansas.”

  “Just get there. I don’t have time for no geography lesson.”

  “I have stories lined up here. We’ll know who the women’s winner is Monday.”

  “So? The boys’ll cover that. This is local—this kid’s got a Long Island connection. Go.”

  “Listen, Barnes.” Laura knew she shouldn’t be so curt with her boss, but she’d had little sleep staying up late to file her stories. “You don’t know how big this country is. I’m already out here where God threw His left shoe. How am I supposed to get to Kansas—call in Dorothy and Toto?”

  “You’ve got an expense account, figure it out. Cripes,” he exploded, “I never thought I’d hear myself saying that! I’m telling you, kid, that lip is gonna sink you one of these days.” He slammed down the phone.

  “Get there? Easy for you to say,” Laura muttered to the silent phone in her hand.

  As she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she began to grin. After all, she thought, I am at an air show!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE WILD BLUE YONDER

  Laura gasped as she stretched up to look over the side of the plane. Turned earth, neat rows of plowed fields, puffy clouds that were lower than she was, tall waving green flags. I bet that’s corn, she thought. She’d seen pictures of farms in Collier’s magazine, but it all looked so organized, symmetrical from up here. How do they work out their coordinates? It appeared to this city girl that they all must have taken college geometry courses. Somehow that seemed unlikely.

  Jenny Flynn had certainly been right about not being able to fly in a skirt. When Laura had gone out to the tiny Euclid Avenue airstrip on Cleveland’s east side after making arrangements with some string-bean fellow she’d found hanging around the air show, he snickered when she’d asked, “How does one get in?”

  “Not in them duds, lady,” he’d said.

  “I’ve paid you good money to take me,” she replied stiffly.

  “Lady, you got to hoist yourself up on the wing, then sling your’n leg over the cockpit there. I kin take your valise and stow it up forward with me, bu
t I cain’t do nuthin’ ’bout you. And you’re gonna have to manage that hatbox yourself.” He gestured with distaste toward the offending object.

  “Oh my,” Laura said, following the arc of his arm toward the two gaping holes in the middle of the airplane. They had no lids. “There’s no ladder or anything?”

  “We might be able to locate some kind a ladder, but them heels on your’n shoes ’ud tear holes in the wings. That there linen fabric is fragile.”

  A rather long silence ensued, as the wind wrapped Laura’s tight skirt even more tightly around her. She’d given up on her tiny veiled hat the moment she’d stepped from the taxi that had deposited her at the edge of this grassy expanse that contained only a large metal shed that she took to be the place where planes were garaged. Some sort of huge white sock blew from a pole atop the building.

  The pilot cleared his throat. “Uh, ma’am, maybe there’s a grease monkey in the hangar that might have a extra set a duds.”

  “Monkey?” Laura screeched, feeling very close to tears. Barnes would fire her if she lost this story, not to mention the twenty-five dollars she’d already paid the pilot.

  She looked down at the world now whizzing beneath. Barnes. His name elicited a small shudder, thank goodness he’d never see her in these so-called monkey’s clothes. She did love the goggles and cloth helmet; they made her feel quite dashing. She had a sudden image of herself flying the mail, the sleet pelting her face as she leaned into the wind. Heavens, though, there’s not even a driver’s wheel, she noticed, looking around at the uncomfortable and unadorned metal hole in which she sat. I wonder how they steer. She certainly didn’t drive a car, but she’d ridden enough taxis to know that one had to somehow make the thing go in the right direction. She had a lot to learn, she decided, if she was going to be writing stories about girl fliers.

  Her heart thumped. The world suddenly felt cockeyed. She looked to the right, and she was perpendicular to the neat rows of plowed fields that had been in a different place moments before. The pilot was waving from the front cockpit. Good heavens, we’re dying. She could distinctly make out the back door of the caboose of a train that was chugging along, not quite keeping up with her. I’m going to land on the coal car or the engine, she thought, as she fell faster than the speeding train. Whoops, she was abruptly righted again, and the breakfast she hadn’t had time to eat felt like it would make an appearance anyway. The pilot now turned full around in his seat, a wide grin on his face. “What in the world . . . ?” Laura yelled into the wind, which sent the words back to whistle in her own ears.