Her Last Flight(77)
She wanted to tell him that this business of being the Aviatrix had become so thorough, the moments of just being Irene so seldom, that she was beginning to feel that the Aviatrix had taken over the rest of her, like she had been painted over and could no longer find the original soul inside, and that even to her own husband—the person whom she should turn to in relief, the person who above all others should see her as a woman, as a person, as her true self—she was the Aviatrix and not Irene.
But George would just say that this was all nonsense, that she wasn’t being logical, that she was doing exactly what she had dreamed of doing, that she was doing what other women could only dream of. That this endeavor was too important and too historic to give up now, when it was finally within sight.
So Irene reached for the lamp and turned off the light, and George, probably thinking about what she’d said, thinking maybe his wife just needed some reassurance after a harrowing few days, some tenderness, sat back down on her bed and asked her if she wanted him to make love to her.
Irene stared at the paleness of his pajamas in the darkness. George had always been a good, considerate lover, and he was certainly attractive. But she did not want to make love to her husband tonight. She wanted something else. She wanted to feel close to another human being, but not like this, and she couldn’t explain how.
“I’m sorry, I’m too worn out tonight, George,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow I’m leaving for New York.”
“When you get back, then.”
He leaned forward and kissed her and said that he loved her, that he admired her more than anybody he’d ever met, man or woman, and then he rose from Irene’s bed and went to his bed, and they both fell asleep.
By the time Irene woke up the next morning, George had already left for New York. He had to drum up publicity for her lecture tour before it turned into a disaster.
Hanalei, Hawai’i
October 1947
Lindquist isn’t shy on the subject of celebrity. “It’s a prison,” she snaps. “You can’t go anywhere. Even in private, with friends, you find yourself putting on the mask you wear in public. Eventually the mask becomes your real skin, and that’s when you know you’re finished, there’s nothing left of you.”
“Well, didn’t it also give you opportunity? Money? The means to keep flying? There’s no free lunch. You can’t have anything in life without giving something up. And you had a lot. You had everything you wanted. You had your airplanes, you had money, you had a nice house and nice friends and the admiration of everybody in America. You had marriage to a fellow who was more than happy to be Mr. Irene Foster, and believe me, that kind of husband doesn’t just grow on trees.”
“I know that. I accepted the cost because I wanted the prize so much. But then it went out of balance. The cost kept climbing, and the prize meant less and less. And I felt I had lost myself.”
I scribble all this down in my notebook. “How so?”
“Because I hadn’t really earned it, had I? Oh, I was a good pilot. I was maybe a great pilot. But so was Sam, and he didn’t have any of those things. He was living hand to mouth in those years, scraping together fees for air shows and stunts and derbies. Crashing for money, I used to call it. It was just the luck of the draw, and the fact that he’d married a different kind of person.”
“Was she so different, though? It seems to me that Morrow was using you as much as Mrs. Mallory used her husband. He just had more class.”
Lindquist stands. “That’s enough for now, Janey. I’m going surfing. You’re welcome to join me.”
Sometimes I join her and sometimes I don’t. It’s been three weeks now, and I can more or less manage a surfboard and enjoy the thrill of a good wave, but it’s not in my blood like it’s in hers. On Sundays, when Leo isn’t piloting the ferry to and from Oahu, he’ll join us, and let me tell you, that man is a natural. A sight to see on the ocean blue. When I’m done, I’ll just sit in the sand for the pleasure of watching him poised on his board, riding some giant wave as it curls elegantly over and he skims in to shore and jumps off and shakes his wet hair.
That’s when I gather up my things and return up the path to Coolibah. I’ve been doing my writing in the gazebo, which shelters me nicely both from the sun and from the occasional tropical downpour. I can spread out my clippings and my notes and sit on the floor with the typewriter I’ve borrowed from Olle, tap tapping away like I used to do back at the law firm where I worked one summer.
Today, however, is a Tuesday, and the picturesque Leo floats somewhere in the channel between Oahu and Kauai, and I’m not in the mood for surfing or gazebo. I’ve got that restless twitch that takes over my spirit from time to time, the one that’s bedeviled me most of my life. I pack my notes and clippings into my knapsack and ride my bicycle to Kilauea, where I ask the postmistress if there’s any mail for me, any telegrams. She makes a show of checking, as if she wouldn’t know otherwise, and returns to shake her head and tell me no. So I climb on my bicycle and head for the airfield cafeteria, which is another place I like to work, and has the additional benefit of coffee, grilled cheese, and feline companionship.
That cat. I don’t know why, but it’s taken a liking to me. Senility, no doubt. As soon as I settle on my stool at the counter and light a cigarette, it jumps laboriously from the floor to the trash can, and from the trash can to the lunch counter, and then marches on over to my coffee cup, sniffs inside, and eases itself down to my lap, from which no amount of jostling or dishes of promised cream will dislodge it.