I Was Amelia Earhart (Vintage Contemporaries) (3 page)

Later, I put on a dressing gown and sit up in bed, reading maps. When G.P. comes in I am studying a chart of weather conditions over Africa.

What was that all about? he says, removing his jacket and loosening his tie.

I’m very tired.

You should be asleep.

I’m too tired to sleep.

He walks out onto the terrace and lights a cigarette. When he’s done he walks in and pulls the drapes. In his unbuttoned shirt and his white cotton shorts he sits down on the edge of the bed.

It’s too late to change the radio, he says. And it’s too late to put a signal on Howland Island. But if you feel that it’s absolutely necessary …

I don’t feel that about anything anymore.

Do you still want to go?

Of course I want to. I’m going. But not because it’s necessary.

The sky is flesh.

This is the sentence that I will use to begin my book about the flight.

When she opens her mouth, a monstrous scream.

She leans down toward the microphone and repeats herself.

She says, On June first, nineteen thirty-seven, I will depart from Miami on my second attempt to fly around the world. I will be traveling along an equatorial route. I will be flying my trusty Lockheed Electra. And I will be flying with my navigator, Mr. Fred Noonan.

Thank you, Miss Earhart. Sorry about the technical difficulty.

That’s quite all right.

Miss Earhart, would you like to tell our radio listeners anything else about your upcoming trip?

I’m very much looking forward to it.

What I think the public would most like to know, Miss Earhart, is why, why do such a daredevil kind of thing?

Because I want to. And because I think women
should do for themselves the things that men have done, and have not done.

Thank you, Miss Earhart. And good luck to you. The American people will be cheering for you and praying for you on June first.

A high-pitched hum sounds when he turns off the microphone. A young woman wearing a cardigan and carrying a clipboard speaks from the other side of a glass wall.

Miss Earhart, your husband is here to take you to the airport.

Thank you. Where is the ladies’ room?

Through this door and down that hall.

Thank you. I’ll be right back.

She’s had a headache all morning. G.P. says it’s her teeth. He’s scheduled a dentist appointment for this afternoon, although she’s told him that it won’t do any good. Turning the round metal knob on the heavy door, she steps into a pale and stuffy room. Inside there are two stalls and two sinks and one shell-shaped sconce on either side of the mirror. The lights are off. A diffuse beam of daylight filters down from a frosted window. Under the window sits a low pillowed chair. Beside it, a standing ashtray.

In the mirror above the sink she sees the circles under her eyes. She runs her fingers through her short,
sandy hair. She’s wearing a dress because there will be reporters outside the radio station, many of them, and she adjusts the neckline, which has fallen over to the left. She turns from the mirror, opens her purse, removes a silver powder compact and powders her face. She sees her reflection in the larger mirror, powdering her face.

My first crack-up was with my flying teacher, Neta, in a plane called the Canary. As we approached a grove of eucalyptus, the engine stalled and we tore into the trees. We smashed the undercarriage and the propeller. I remember crawling out of the mess, my coveralls torn and my brain intoxicated with the heady, mentholated smell of eucalyptus. By the time Neta turned around to look for me, I had fished out my silver compact and was powdering my nose.

When she asked me as a joke if I was meeting someone there, I answered her with the charming, deadpan etiquette for which I would become famous.

I might as well look fresh when the reporters get here, I said.

I tilt the compact to view myself from the side: a printed dress falling in silky folds, pale stockings the color of buttermilk, low-heeled lace-up calfskin shoes pointing slightly inward.

I close the compact and turn toward the mirror. I stare at my face for a while. I have the same expression I’ve always had, the small nose, the wide eyes, the grin. But I notice a pucker of worry over my brow, a network of lines around my eyes. Behind me in the mirror I glimpse the chair and the ashtray. I remember a department store in Atchison, Kansas, where my grandmother used to shop. A brightly floral ladies’ lounge on the top floor of the building, with a picture window overlooking the street. Marble sinks and a blue chaise longue upholstered in damask silk. A heavy smell of perfume and disinfectant. I remember winter afternoons, shopping for Christmas clothes, escaping to the ladies’ room and staring out the window. The purple sky lowering its velvety curtain. My face afloat in the glass. Eerie and disembodied, it took shape in the darkness with a languid speed, decorated by the lights of the windows across the street, and beyond that …

Miss Earhart, is everything all right in there?

Oh, yes. I’m fine. Thank you.

Your husband asked me to remind you that he’s waiting outside.

I’ll be right there.

 … the early stars.

When she emerges from behind a swinging glass door, the shadows of the station’s letters fly briefly like hidden feelings across her face.

•

The sun is low and the plane is hot. Its wings cast gigantic shadows. Later, a reporter arrives to talk with her. Owen, he’s an old friend by now, he’s covered her flights for so long. Sometimes she thinks he’s her only friend. The two of them walk on the runway for a while, their long shadows circling as they change direction, the light in their hair reddish and gold. She is wearing white coveralls, splattered with oil. He’s wearing a suit and a hat.

When she squints into the distance, he stares at her. Anyone can see that he’s in love.

How does that thing feel? He points to her mouth.

Awful, she says. It’s giving me a headache.

I think a good radio and a sober navigator would take care of the headaches.

Owen, you think too much. Have you seen Noonan?

No, not yet. I hear he smashed up his car again, with what’s-her-name in it, the second wife.

It’s terrible but sort of funny, isn’t it?

I don’t think so. Why are you taking him?

She leans down and picks a bottle cap off the ground. G.P. insists, she says.

You want to go alone.

She flicks the cap into the weeds. I can’t always do what I want.

He loosens his tie and takes it off. He rolls it up and stuffs it in his pocket.

Fred’s a good navigator, she says.

He’s a drunk.

She nods.

So why the charity?

Old age, I suppose.

Old what?

Age. I have a morbid obsession with it.

I guess even Amelia Earhart has to be afraid of something.

Well, she says. Don’t print it.

A warm wind picks up and blows his hat off. They both run after it in the dusty light.

Amelia?

Yes.

Nothing.

All right. I’ll ask you something then.

Anything.

You have to be honest.

He crosses his heart.

What do you think are my chances?

Your chances of finding Howland Island?

He stops. He puts his hands in his pockets. It’s a small island, he says.

Smaller than the Cleveland airport.

It’s in the middle of the ocean.

I know.

He takes a moment.

Fifty-fifty, he says. Being optimistic.

The sun has just fallen above the hangars, where it sits in a pool of blood. When he looks at her, she’s looking at something he can’t see. He says he hopes that she’s being careful.

Fifty-fifty, she says, smiling past him, past the sunset. I think I can live with that.

I had to take Noonan with me because we had run out of money and he was the cheapest navigator we could find. G.P. said he was the best, and that may have been true, but he was definitely the cheapest. He was cheap because he’d been fired from Pan Am for drinking and he couldn’t find another job. I didn’t want to take him. I didn’t want to take anybody. I wanted to be alone.

It’s two days before the flight, and she’s driving to the airfield. G.P. reads telegrams to her while he drives. Best of luck. Best wishes. Your courage is an inspiration. We applaud you. We salute you. We admire you.

Where is the one from Eleanor and the President?

I read it to you.

Read it to me again.

He reads it again and they both smile.

That’s awfully nice of them, isn’t it? She has the window rolled down, and bursts of breeze blow in. Her sleeve ripples in the wind.

It’s going to be hot today.

It’s a scorcher.

They pass streets lined with palms and Spanish-style houses, a strip of stores with handwritten signs. Then groves of oranges, rows of squat trees, the leaves dark and thick on the branches. By the side of the road, a man sells fruit out of a crate. A family showers under a hose. A buzzing in the air from the electrical wires. Black birds line the wires, like stubble.

She looks over at him and nods her head.

Hey, she flirts, read it again.

When we get to the airstrip I pull the car up onto the field and stride over to my plane with my hands in my pockets. I’m already wearing my coveralls and I’m smiling, scrunching my nose up and squinting against the sun. Several mechanics are talking in the shade of the hangar; some sit on fuel drums, some are standing. I head over to them and they say hello and some kick the ground and put out their cigarettes. We walk over to the plane and begin working. We work on the fuel gauge and fix a wire on the engine. We patch up the leaking oil lines. Overhead, early traces of cloud have blown away and the sky is a brilliant mirror. Two technicians fiddle with the radio and ask me if it’s true that I only use it to listen to music. They joke with me about this and I laugh and say it’s true and at around twelve noon a beat-up Ford
pulls up and a man gets out and we stop joking. He wears a dark double-breasted suit and polished shoes and he’s carrying a paper bag. A white handkerchief peeps out of his breast pocket. His white shirt is starched and cleanly pressed and he is not wearing a hat. He wears his hair lightly slicked, and it shines like leather in the sun. He’s tall and his stride is long and athletic, although he isn’t in a hurry. As he approaches the plane he is smiling and very handsome and he glances around. Then he looks at me.

When I saw Noonan, he was the last person in the world I wanted to see.

I look at the paper bag and then look at him. What a surprise. We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.

He says he couldn’t stay away. He says hello to the mechanics. How does she look? he says, looking at me.

I climb down from the plane and hold out my hand.

She’s looking fine. We’re working on the radio.

I have grease on my face and a screwdriver in my hand. He knows that I don’t like him.

He plants a kiss on my cheek and I smile wanly.

What’s in the bag, I ask, looking him straight in the eye.

A pint. He gives me a confessional expression. Oh, don’t look so sad, Captain. I’m only kidding. Come back here, I’m only joking.

He hands me the bag and I open it up. I pull out two pairs of eyeglasses.

Spectacles, Mr. Noonan?

I told you I was joking.

That’s what I need, a blind navigator.

I drop the bag on the ground and walk away. He bends down and picks up his glasses gently. Don’t do that, he says. Really, you shouldn’t have done that. I just bought these, they weren’t cheap.

I thought you already had a pair of glasses.

I sat on them on the way here.

You sat on them.

He looks up at me and lets his arms hang down in a position of supplicant helplessness.

You sat on them, this time exasperated but yielding. What the hell am I going to do with you?

He blows the dust off his glasses and brushes the dust off the front of his pants. He takes the handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his face and neck and then he folds the handkerchief again and puts it back in his pocket. He looks at her, looks into her eyes.

Then he says: Take me around the world.

That night she and G.P. are invited to a party at the home of a Miami businessman. On the way there, G.P. says something about Noonan just showing up like that and she asks him to open his window. The night is warm and fruity, and as they turn onto a narrow road a salty ocean smell engulfs them and recedes. The trees along
the side of the road give way to tall dry bushes and low willowy weeds. The low late sun is caught in the mirror. The sky spreads pink and yellow and orange.

You know I’ve never wanted to take him, she says.

But he’s the best, I thought we agreed on that.

Then why did you have to bring it up?

Perhaps I’m nervous. I
am
your husband.

Oh, is that what you are.

He shuts his window and looks down and pulls on his cuff. I want to talk to you about the
Herald Tribune
. They’re expecting a letter from each location, which, as you know, we’ll use for the book. And I’ve arranged for three calls. The first one from Karachi. We’ll have them recorded. And I’m working on getting us a broadcast from Honolulu. I’d like you to be home by the Fourth of July. When do you think you can get to Honolulu?

I don’t know. Ask Noonan.

Amelia, please. Just give me a straight answer.

It’s getting dark and his face is lit from below with the cool glow of the headlights. Up ahead there’s a gate and a man at the gate and behind him a house in the distance. They’re right next to the ocean now, it’s gray and soft, and louder, always louder than she expects. She looks at the moon, which has just come up.

It looks like rain, she says.

He takes off his glasses and looks at her. His dark irises flecked with yellow and green appear to be bleeding into the whites of his eyes. His face folds slightly with age and sadness.

We’re here, she says.

They get out.

A man in uniform takes the keys from her and nods his head and drives the car away. She and G.P. walk up the gravel drive. It is lit with colored paper-covered lanterns. The ground is soft and it crunches with their steps, which are syncopated at first and then in unison.