by Ella Carey
Rita circled her arms around his neck.
Eva hovered at the edge of the room. Cole Porter crooned out from a gramophone in the corner, and a few men sat about in easy chairs. A cigarette haze hung over the room.
Eva did a quick scan of them and sent up a prayer of thanks that her flight instructor Reg wasn’t here—nor was her ground school instructor.
One of the men stood up. “Hello, I’m Hank.” He reached out and shook her hand, his grip firm. He glanced over at Dan and Rita dancing in the middle of the room. Hank ran a hand over his close-cropped head and turned back to Eva. “Sorry about my friend Dan here’s manners.”
“I’m sorry too!” Dan called. “Sorry, Eva,” he said, head tilted to one side.
“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Eva grinned back at him.
Rita pulled him back into her arms.
“I’m Eva.” She held out her hand to Hank. Wasn’t going to tell them her surname.
“This is Phillip,” Hank said.
A lanky red-haired man whom Eva had not seen before stood up from where he was sitting on a sofa and came to shake her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Eva.”
“Charmed,” Eva said.
Phillip went back and slumped on the sofa again.
“And John.”
Eva was quite happy at not recognizing the slight man who stood up and greeted her either.
Then a girl appeared through a doorway. Eva’s eyes widened. Beyond her, a small kitchen looked to be in immaculate order. Silver tins sat lined up like soldiers on the white countertop.
“Hey, Eva.” Frances, a quiet girl whom Eva hardly knew from training came and rested her head on Hank’s shoulder. He took her hand and led her to a sofa, pulling her down onto his lap.
Eva fought a rush of panic. She only hoped that what she thought of as Frances’s discretion and silence extended to who was here tonight.
John was still by Eva’s side. “Relax, Eva. We’ll make sure you don’t get into trouble. It’s okay. Plenty of WASP break the rules and come to instructors’ houses. They don’t get caught.”
“Well, I’m sure wondering about the wisdom of it right now,” Eva said. But her shoulders dropped a little. At least John seemed friendly. At least she wouldn’t be standing here staring at the four walls all night.
“Can I get you a drink, Eva? Gin?” He moved toward the open kitchen door.
“Sure . . .”
He held up a bottle filled with clear liquid. “Bathtub. There’s a house in Sweetwater we all know about. This shady woman doles it out. The last WASP class spent a truckload of their pay on it.”
“Okay.” No wonder half the previous class washed out, then . . .
“Two fingers or one?” John held up the bottle.
“One. Please.”
His expression morphed into a little smile. “We don’t have any lemon. I apologize.” He poured out a finger and handed her the glass.
Eva took a tentative sip of the drink. Fire burned down her throat. She coughed.
“My experience with bathtub gin is severely limited. To nothing!” She laughed and met his dark eyes.
He leaned against the kitchen counter, his legs crossed in front of him. “Take it slowly,” he said, his voice soft.
Eva stared at the drink.
“It’s a party,” he said. “You can relax tonight.” He took a step closer to her.
Eva backed away. “I only came here to support my friend. I’m not—” She cut herself off, feeling the telltale warmth of a blush flushing her cheeks red.
He threw back his head and laughed. “Okay, Eva. I’m not going to jump on you. Don’t worry. Let’s talk. How does that sound?”
Eva lifted her chin. “Shall I guess where you’re from?”
“Let’s see you try.”
Eva took another sip of the drink. “Brooklyn,” she said. “And if it’s not too rude of me, I’d also take a stab and say you are of Italian stock.”
“Not bad, not bad at all, Eva. Move to Manhattan and you’re going to be right on the spot.”
“Little Italy?” Eva felt her spirits lifting now. She tipped back the drink. Coughing violently, she ended up in a fit of giggles. “This is the most awful stuff,” she spluttered.
“I know, honey! But we love it. It’s the best gin in Sweetwater.” John’s eyes caught hers, and he let out a laugh. “Have another one, lovely.”
“Yes. And two yeses . . .” She held out her glass.
“Two?”
“Two fingers.” Eva held his gaze. “I can do it.”
John leaned forward and refilled Eva’s glass. “I should have cooked some Italian food for you to go with the gin tonight. I make the meanest pasta in Avenger Field. You should try it sometime.”
“Don’t you have to eat that without a knife?”
John chuckled. “Eva, yes. You can’t eat spaghetti with a knife, honey.”
“Very elegant, then.”
“It is. We twirl it around a spoon.”
“Your turn,” she said.
“My turn?”
“I mean mine.”
“Oh, I see.” He put on a mock serious expression. “Didn’t realize that mere students got turns, honey.”
Eva giggled again. “Well, this one does. Where’m I from?” She tilted her head to one side.
He looked deeply into her eyes. “San Francisco. Your dad is a very ritzy lawyer, and you’re here to escape some terrible engagement that you’ve been forced into against your will. You left the ring at home in a fit of passion and ran away to Texas. Your parents don’t know you’re here.”
“Genius.” Eva held up her glass. “So far off you may as well have pitched me in Timbuktu.”
“Oh, come on.” He leaned a little closer to her. “Tell me, then.”
“You figure it out for yourself.”
“Uh-oh, someone’s relaxing now. We’d better clear the base.”
He clinked her glass.
“Eva, you have no idea how many girls come out here to escape. I don’t know what your story is, but I’d hazard a guess that has something to do with it.”
“Well, turns out I’m doing the opposite.” Eva stared into the clear liquid in the glass.
“How?”
“Boy I like is dating a Hollywood princess.”
“Uh-huh. LA.”
“Right.”
“Well, in that case, you’ve come to the right place.”
“Why?”
“Because there are plenty of handsome instructors out here.”
“Who will get me washed out in one second flat! It would hurt your reputation too.”
John sighed. “Well, that’s the thing. It doesn’t hurt our reputations when it happens. It’s the girls who suffer. Every time.”
“That’s not right.”
“One rule for you, another for us, I’m afraid.”
Eva bit her lip. “I should check the time.” The sounds of Rita and Dan chuckling filtered into the kitchen.
John leaned forward. He took her arm for a moment. “You know, Eva, every single one of the girls who come here are in it for the flying. And that’s why I love teaching here. I see possibility in every one of their faces.”
Suddenly, someone turned up the gramophone, and the house filled with jazz.
“Care to dance, Eva?” John held out a hand.
“One dance wouldn’t hurt.” Eva glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was eleven thirty already. Half an hour and they had to be back. But one dance? One dance with a handsome stranger, what harm could come from that?
“One dance won’t hurt.” He took her elbow and led her out to join the others.
Rita was still slow dancing with Dan.
John gathered Eva into his arms. But when she closed her eyes, she saw Harry. Somewhere deep inside her, that little spark of hope just would not die.
The time flew. Eva lifted her wristwatch and frowned.
“Rita,” she said, tapping her on the shoulder. “
Rita. Five minutes.”
“Oh, give me ten, honey.” Rita looked like she was going to spend the whole night slow dancing in Dan’s arms.
John looked at his watch. “I agree, you should go. Don’t want to be climbing the fence, Dan.”
“Climbing the fence would be a gas.” Rita waved John away.
Eva chewed on her lip. Frances was dancing with Hank and in a world of her own. Phillip had disappeared.
“Rita, Frances,” she said. “We need to get out of here now.”
With only minutes to curfew, they were all three of them at serious risk of washing out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE COMMITTEE: But these moral safeguards given to the WASP were only put in place to protect you young women, Mrs. Forrest. Surely, you can see that.
EVA FORREST: If relationships happened and were deemed inappropriate by the housemother, it was the women who were reprimanded every time. We were not protected. If you dated an instructor, you were washed out. I heard that instructors even washed girls out for not dating them. Eventually, the review board had to change the rules so that if a trainee washed out with one instructor, at least they could train with another one before being sent home.
The moon must have slid behind a cloud, and there were none of Nancy’s stars to guide them back to Avenger Field after the party at Dan’s house. Eva shivered when she stepped out onto the dark, still front lawn outside the instructors’ buildings.
“The fact that there’s no moonlight is an advantage,” Dan said. “We can hoist you over the cyclone fence, but you risk being seen in our company if anyone is out on patrol.” He had his instructor’s voice back on, and in the silence, the reality of getting back to base safely took over from any thoughts of fun.
“I think we should definitely help you girls over the fence,” John said. “We kept you out, we get you back in safely.”
Frances walked in silence.
“Okay, then.” Rita’s expression was impossible to read in the darkness. “I’m game for the guys to come with us if you are, girls.”
“We have no choice.” Frances’s tone was blunt and to the point.
“Okay with us helping you over the fence, Eva?” Dan asked.
“I think we should work as a team.”
Their footsteps rang out something terrible in the quiet. Eva sped up her pace. It seemed an age before the boundary fence to Avenger Field loomed in front of them. Beyond it, on the runway, banks of planes were lined up, ready for the morning’s classes.
“Everything’s quiet.” Rita’s voice was like a clear bell in the dark. “No one in sight. I say we climb over, and once we are inside, we make our way around the aircraft, using them as camouflage.”
Eva looked at the high cyclone fence with doubt.
Dan made his way right up to it. After he’d hugged Rita goodbye, he knelt down on one knee like a man about to propose. Rita hopped up on his shoulders, and he held on to the backs of her legs, standing up. She reached for the gaps between the barbed wire that laced the top three rows of the cyclone fence.
“Ready, Eva?” John’s voice caused Eva to jump. But he knelt, and she climbed, carefully, from his knee onto his shoulders, just as Rita had done with Dan. Silently, she thanked whoever had the idea of daily calisthenics. Her balance and strength were sound.
“You climb over first, Eva,” Rita said next to her. She turned toward Eva from atop Dan’s shoulders.
Eva placed one leg over the top of the fence. Her balance tipped, and John wobbled violently underneath her.
“Sorry, Eva.” He swayed again. The gin surged up dangerously into her throat. The wire dug into her palms, but eager to get off John’s shoulders, she swung herself over the fence and managed to make her way down the other side, her footholds more than precarious and her heart thumping right into her mouth. Rita and Frances slipped down next to her.
“Goodbye, Rita,” Dan called quietly through the fence.
Rita ran her hand along it. She started blowing Dan kisses.
“Rita!” Frances sounded sharp.
“Bye, girls,” John said. “I enjoyed meeting you, Eva.”
Eva sent him a quick wave and turned toward the runways. She dashed from the protective cover of one airplane to the next, the looming half-circular shape of the hangars her only goal. The training planes lurked like strange birds.
Once they were past the airplanes, Rita came to stand by Eva’s side. “We’ll team up and run to the barracks. Take cover in the trees when you can,” Rita said.
Eva ran, keeping low as she tore from tree to tree.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Frances’s slight figure disappearing toward the bays.
“She’s an odd girl, that one,” Rita said.
Eva wasn’t going to risk the noise that too much whispering would bring.
Finally, they stepped up to the entrance of their darkened bay. Someone had left the door slightly ajar for them, and once they were inside, heads rose. Girls sat up, shadowy figures in their cots.
“Eva!” Nina reached out her arms. “I was worrying up a storm.”
“We’re fine,” Rita whispered. “Sorry to keep you girls awake. We lost track of time.”
Eva gave Nina a hug and made a beeline for her bed. A shape loomed up from the mattress under her blanket. Slowly, she pulled the bedding back. And turned to Nina.
“It was Helena’s idea,” Nina said. “In case anyone came by to check. One of the girls in the bay next door told her that someone was doing rounds with a flashlight. One of us! She was checking out beds. Seeing that no one had broken curfew.
“She never came into our bay. All we saw was a flashlight shining into our room through the window. We managed to stuff three of the pillows in your bed, and three in Rita’s. She would have seen six sleeping shapes.”
Eva fought her guilt. “Thank you,” she managed. “Just thank you. You’ve saved my skin.”
“Well,” Rita said. “I most certainly owe you girls my heartfelt thanks. You risked your place here for us, and most especially, for me. And for that, all I can do is say that I appreciate it with all my heart.”
Rita started handing out pillows. Eva pulled Nina’s and Helena’s pillows out of her own bed and returned them. She lay back, knowing sleep wouldn’t come for a little while.
Not two minutes later, the door burst open, and Geraldine Martin, from a bay farther up the barracks, stood framed in the opening. Eva sat up, startled. Geraldine looked like a girl of around twelve standing there in her pajamas, with her short blond curls sticking up all around her head.
“Y’all have to wake up,” she said. “Girls, I need your help.”
“What is it, Geraldine?” Helena asked.
“It’s Frances. She has been washed out. Caught breaking curfew. Deedee said she had no choice but to dismiss her from Avenger Field.”
Eva rested her head on her knees.
“That darned Jenny Carlisle was waiting for her with her flashlight,” Geraldine said. She wrung her hands. “Oh, girls, you see, Frances has been out before, but not this late. We were all exhausted after the Link Trainer session, and we all fell asleep, assuming Frances would come back before curfew. We should have left pillows in her bed.”
Eva curled her hands around her sheets. If Frances had been washed out, then she and Rita should have been washed out too.
“Oh, girls. I’m worried sumpin’ awful about her.” Geraldine raised her hand up to cover her mouth.
Nina swung her legs over the side of the bed. She pulled her dressing gown on. “I hear you. What do you want us to do? Complain?”
Her heart racing, Eva pulled on her dressing gown too.
Geraldine paled. “No. It’s not that. Complaining won’t git us anywhere. It’s worse. Frances has climbed up on the roof and won’t come down. Oh, see, I’m in a terrible mind that she might do something stupid. She’s in a real state. And she’s alone up there.”
Eva fumbled with th
e buttons on her gown.
“She hasn’t made real friends here,” Geraldine went on. “You girls are lucky to have each other. She’s quite the loner, and now, well, she says she has nothin’ to live for anymore.”
Nancy, Bea, and Helena were up, pulling on boots, their movements flickers in the dark room.
“I know where there’s a ladder,” Nancy said. “I’ve done a bit of stargazing up on that roof since I’ve been here.”
Rita’s whisper was hoarse. “Oh, girls, it’s entirely my fault! I’m going to confess to Deedee.”
“No.” Nina stood between Rita and the door, her hands on her hips. “Frances made her own choices. Washing yourself out is not the answer to this. And, Evie, don’t you go getting any stupid ideas either.”
“Frances is an adult,” Helena said. The other girls bustled about to get ready in the dark. “She knew what the risks were. We all know the rules.”
Eva stood, poleaxed. She threw a gaze toward Rita. Rita threw her arms in the air.
Finally, the girls headed toward the door.
Nina tugged on Eva’s arm. “You were supporting Rita. That was all. It’s not your fault.”
Eva felt the dark fronds of her own betrayal curling in her stomach. Ahead of her, Nina pushed the door open.
“This is not right,” she said helplessly to Nina’s back.
Outside, in the deep-black Texan summer night, Geraldine talked softly to the small figure on the edge of the roof, but Frances sat in silence with her knees tucked into her chest like a little girl while the other girls paced uselessly, waiting for Nancy. Nancy brought a wooden ladder, hauling it to the base of the building. Helena checked the ladder was firm on the ground.
“Who’s going up first?” Bea said.
“Me.” Rita placed her foot on the first rung.
Once they were all up on the roof, whispering and finding places to sit, Nina reached out toward the staring, silent girl, placing her hand on top of Frances’s. Her hands looked so small and delicate in her lap.
“I love the night sky,” Nancy said. “Looking at the stars is something I will never tire of, no matter what happens in this darned war.”
“It’s beautiful,” Geraldine said, turning her gaze upward. The clouds had shifted, and above them, there was an array of stars. “The sky out here is something else.”