Her Last Flight(13)
Seven days passed, eight, nine. Irene no longer stopped by the drugstore after work; it was simply too heart-wrenching to listen to Mr. Gibbons, in a voice of attempted cheer, lay out various scenarios by which either of the two airplanes might have survived. He had discussed Mr. Mallory’s history as a stunt pilot—The man known in Hollywood for his willingness to attempt any proposed maneuver, no matter how perilous or technically impossible, even the deliberate crash of an airplane—and before all that, his years as a barnstormer, hopscotching the country to perform for crowds of amazed corn pokes. Before even that, his stint in the Army Air Service, dogfighting above the bloody French battlefields. For some reason, Mr. Gibbons—a celebrated war hero himself—considered that this checkered history of death-defying subsistence, hairline survival, and crackerjack piloting had perfectly prepared Mr. Mallory for his present ordeal. Irene couldn’t stand his optimism. It seemed na?ve to her, almost disrespectful, when the man and his copilot had obviously made a meal for the sharks by now.
And then came the morning—Irene remembered it perfectly—when she arrived home from the beach to a newspaper headline so incredible, so almost hysterically jubilant, the words seemed to overflow and run off the page.
MALLORY FOUND ALIVE!!
Astonishing Rescue off Coast of Maui; Story of Survival Against Odds on Wing of Airplane in Open Ocean
Copilot Perished; Pilot Starving, Sunburnt, and Dehydrated but Otherwise in Good Health
(When Irene read that last part, she had to wonder whether the copy editor at the Los Angeles Times was a man of irony or had simply lost his head.) Anyway, you heard about nothing else for weeks afterward, the interviews and the celebratory dinners; the Sunday prayers of thanksgiving in churches around the country; President Coolidge’s radio address hailing the whole affair as an inspiring example of the very best of American manhood; Mr. Mallory’s arrival back in San Francisco by commercial steamer, aboard which the occupant of the best first-class suite had gallantly insisted on switching accommodation with the hero of the day; the parades in San Francisco and then in Los Angeles.
Then August died into September, and the ballyhoo faded into nothing as it always did, and the American man went back to his work and his home and waited for the next thrill to smack him upside the head, from the ball field or the mountaintop or the clear blue sky.
Now Irene wound around the curves of Laurel Canyon in Sam Mallory’s speedy yellow Nash, approaching the crest of the ridge where the horizon was nothing but sky. She traced the arms and the delicate paws of Mr. Mallory’s newfound kitten with her finger and fastened on two details about the 1927 Dole Derby that she hadn’t troubled to notice much before.
The first was the Miss Doran, and how nobody seemed to have found any trace of her or her pilots, at least that Irene could remember. They were just forgotten in the ballyhoo.
The second was Mrs. Sam Mallory, who had made such brave, beautiful speeches during the whole ordeal about her love for her husband and her faith that he would return home safely to his wife and little daughter.
On Irene’s lap, the kitten stirred, raised its head, stretched its paw, went back to sleep. Irene realized she was holding her breath. They turned the last corner and the valley tumbled into view, Burbank and the hills behind it, and the ocean to the left, all of it bathed in the clear, pale, fragile light of early morning. Irene exhaled at last. They cruised down the hill through the draft, and Irene thought she would always remember this moment, this sensation of speed and freedom.
“It’s like flying,” she shouted.
Mr. Mallory laughed and changed gears. “Not even close.”
The airfield sat on the corner of Lankershim Boulevard and Vanowen, and stretched into a grassy infinity. Mr. Mallory turned the Nash down a gravel driveway toward a cluster of large white sheds. The one at the end of the drive bore the name rofrano in black letters.
“What’s Rofrano?” asked Irene.
“Fellow who runs the place.” Mr. Mallory parked the car in the rhombus of shade cast by one of the buildings. “Moved here from New York in ’22 and bought the land up to fly his own planes. Then all his old Army Air Service pals came out and asked if they could fly there too. Pretty soon he had a business going.”
Mr. Mallory yanked open the door and stepped onto the grass. The noise woke the kitten. Limb by limb it uncurled in Irene’s lap, yawned, and dug its claws into her leg like tiny pins, kneading and kneading. She detached it with one hand and reached for the door handle and leapt free—insofar as you could leap in a lean skirt of navy blue poplin, cut a few inches longer than what was then considered fashionable—and nearly crashed into Mr. Mallory, who had come around to open the door for her. Sorry, she said, just as Mr. Mallory said sorry too. He laughed and reached for Sandy. “Let me take that cat off your hands, hmm? Then we’ll go find you a spark plug.”
Together they walked toward the row of sheds that turned out—when you got close enough to appreciate their size—to be airplane hangars. Already a few men milled about, reeking of cigarettes and engine oil and energy. Mr. Mallory raised his hand and said hello. The other hand maneuvered Sandy, who was climbing his shirt to knead the skin at the base of his throat. Together they reached the easternmost hangar and the biplane poised beside it, catching the morning sun in a burst of white. Irene stopped. She had never stood so close to an airplane; it was like a mythic beast to her. She stared at the wing, which was larger than she expected and also more frail.