Lily felt her breath hitch slightly at Helen's admission, “I'm widowed, my husband Henry was killed earlier this year, his plane was shot up, he tried to land with a dead engine at full speed with no flaps, and still being shot at, he hit a grove of palm trees and firebombed,” Lily recited with no emotion in her voice.
“Wait…McAllister? Henry McAllister?” Helen sat up, her eyes wide in surprise. “
The
Henry McAllister, Medal of Honor, cover of Life Magazine. That Henry McAllister was your husband?” she frowned wondering why Lily would choose to ignore being married to someone who had been heralded as an all-American hero and whose death had been mourned by a nation.
“That's him, my loving husband Henry,” she gave a mirthless laugh. “We met through music. He played the clarinet, he was a sweet man then,” she smiled sadly. “Do you know I taught him to fly, the first time I took him up he threw up, and then he becomes this hot shot pilot, claiming more victories than any other pilot and getting himself killed in the process,” Lily said with a hint of anger in her voice.
“I, I don't understand,” Helen shook her head looking down at Lily. “Why don't you use his name?”
Lily sat up, her finger playing nervously in her lap, “Three weeks after I got the telegram telling me my husband was dead, I get a blonde woman on my doorstep, Henry's mistress. Turns out my dear husband as well as being a condescending bully had been cheating on me the whole time we were married.” Lily switched her focus from her fingers to the blue eyes looking at her full of concern and empathy. “People don't like to hear ill of the dead,” she spat. “And while Henry may have died honorably, when he lived, he was the most dishonorable man I know.” Lily took a breath releasing her fury, “So forgive me but I'd rather not have people put two and two together and have to stand there while they tell me I was lucky to have been married to such a hero and that they're sorry for my loss.” She tore her eyes from Helen and laid back down returning her attention to the rafters; she felt her heartbeat slow down again as her anger dissipated leaving her with the usual emptiness that settled in her heart when she thought about her late husband.
Helen reached out and placed her hand on Lily's thigh. “I'm sorry for your loss, I mean in terms of losing the person you thought you were marrying and the life you had,” she clarified.
Lily lifted her head slightly to look at the hand resting lightly on her leg, the heat from Helen’s hand seemed to burn through the thick pant material, making Lily’s skin feel on fire. She turned to Helen with a perplexed look.
Misinterpreting the look as one of concern about her disclosure, Helen was quick to appease her.
“I won't say anything to anyone,” Helen gave a small smile, lifted her hand and ran it through her hair.
“Thank you,” Lily watched as Helen dragged her fingertips through her soft curls, still feeling the heat on her thigh from the blonde's touch. She fell silent as she tried to rid herself of the confusing thoughts forming in her brain.
They lay in comfortable silence, each lost in their thoughts as they studied the rafters above, neither conscious of time passing. The silence was broken when Lily asked quietly. “So what about you? How come you said you'd never marry?”
Helen toyed with telling Lily the truth about her attraction to women. She felt guilty after Lily had been so open and honest, but she knew that it was too much of a risk to disclose her secret this early on in their fledgling friendship. She settled on telling the truth but omitting certain pertinent pieces of information.
“I've never met that someone that makes me feel like I'm flying,” she smiled.
Lily pursed her lips and nodded. “You never know, it could happen,” she shrugged.
“It could,” Helen laughed, her smiled freezing as she heard an all too familiar sound. She breathed out a curse, furrowing her eyebrows at Lily's shocked expression. “That's Taps, we're out way beyond curfew.”
A look of horror passed between them.
“We'll be washed out,” Lily whispered.
“Not if no-one sees us we won't,” Helen slid down the wing landing nimbly on the ground before turning and waiting for Lily to join her. Lily reached down for her violin case, clutching it to her chest as she took Helen's offered hand.
They snuck back towards the bays keeping to the shadows. Helen peaked around the corner of the final bay, swearing quietly under her breath as she saw the retreating figure of Foster shine a torch through each bay's window checking everything was in order.
“What is it?” Lily hissed.
“Ssh. Wait,” Helen whispered back, she held her breath as Foster reached their bay, shining the torch in through the glass on the door. She let her breath out slowly as Foster lowered the torch and continued down the line of bunkhouses eventually stepping down at the end and gratefully heading towards her own bed.
Helen counted to ten to make sure that Foster was far enough out of sight and hearing distance.
“Okay, try not to make a noise,” she whispered, leading Lily onto the wooden walkway of the bays. They tiptoed down until they reached Bay Four, turning the doorknob slowly they slipped in and Helen turned to close the door quietly behind them. She heard Lily snigger and turned back into the bay, their beds had been plumped with clothing to make it appear as if they were in bed asleep.
“You're so lucky I went to boarding school,” Adrienne drawled in the dark. “That's two things you owe me Rivera, don't think I've forgotten about my scarf.”
Chapter Five
August 1943 – Avenger Field, Sweetwater, Texas
Rosecroft, how'd you expect to pull a bomber out of a dive, if your weedy arms can't even haul your chin over a bar!” the PT instructor shouted as Adrienne attempted again to pull herself up, groaning at the effort, her legs flailing around as she fought to give herself more momentum.
“Sir. Yes. Sir,” she yelled as again she felt her arms give, leaving her hanging uselessly from the bar.
Lily and Helen stood back waiting in line with Adele waiting for Adrienne, Marjorie, and Lucy to finish their pull-ups and move onto the next obstacle. As the PT instructor turned to shout at some of the women at the back, Adele rushed forward.
“Here we go PT Addies' style,” Helen murmured to Lily under her breath watching the small woman rush down the small incline towards her bay mate.
Adrienne hung limply, trying to muster up the energy for one last assault on the bar. She could feel the lactic acid build up burning her muscles making her arms feel impossibly heavy, her fingers starting to lose grip on the metal bar. She was about to let go when she felt arms circling beneath her knees, gripping her tightly. Suddenly she was propelled upwards. “Oh my giddy aunt, seriously Adrienne it's been weeks Honey. We need to build those skinny arms of yours up.”
Adrienne smiled as she recognized Adele's voice beneath her.
“I promise press-ups tonight,” Adrienne grinned as her chin finally edged over the bar.
Adele released her legs and the red-haired woman dropped down to the ground.
“I promise,” she huffed as she landed.
Adele narrowed her eyes, “Good now help me up onto the damn bar.”
Adrienne boosted the smaller woman up, releasing her when she gripped the bar. Adele drew her legs together, immediately, and effortlessly she started to pull herself up. Adrienne looked on enviously before turning and continuing her way around the course. Lily and Helen skidded down the incline and launched themselves at their bars using their momentum to assist their first pull up. Completing the repetition, they dropped down and sprinted off to their next station.
It had been three weeks since those first confusing days of their arrival, and in those three weeks the women had done nothing but eat, sleep and talk about flying, Lucy had even woken the majority of the bay up one night by yelling out her pre-flight checklist. Their brains hurt from the navigation and Math classes they had during Ground School in the morning. They physically hurt from the afternoon drill, calisthenics, and exercise that they undertook to increase their strength and stamina. In some instances, their egos had taken a bashing as their flight instructors pounded on them. Flying the ‘Army way’ proved to be vastly different from their civilian flight procedures. They were learning to fly planes that were different and more complicated than the planes they were used to. They had engine dust under their fingernails from learning the basics of engine design in Ground School, the searing sun had browned their skin, makeup was a forgotten luxury, and they were lucky if they had the time or the inclination to pull a hairbrush through their hair in the morning. A week had passed before Adrienne realized that she had not even washed her hair, she was in such a tired fug. However, with all of the discomfort, tiredness, and regimen in their lives, not one of them would swap it for their life before Avenger Field.
They had settled into the rhythm of WASP life; as Helen had predicted privacy was not something that any of the girls had anymore. Their initial embarrassment about changing in front of each other had been replaced with easy camaraderie and it wasn't unusual to see one of them mopping the floor before breakfast while still in their bra and drawers. They had learned the hard way after the first Saturday morning inspection that civilian clean and Army clean were poles apart and were now used to washing the bedsprings under their beds, arranging their clothes in the correct order and ensuring that their ice buckets were emptied and polished.
Each morning as soon as the bugle played the women would rise, apart from Lily who still would sleep through the morning call.
However, the bay had developed a plan to ensure she was up; the first one to put their feet down onto the cool floor was responsible for using the 'Rosecroft Method' to wake Lily up. Lily had become accustomed to the morning ritual of being rudely woken up with a smack to the head; so much so that she could now tell who wielded the pillow just from the blow.
They had taken great pleasure in creating their radio call signs for each other and Lily was now 'Sleeping Beauty' on the airwaves, which made her smile anytime she radioed the tower during her limited airtime each day. Each woman was working towards the required hours, which would mean they would be allowed to go solo, no one from their class had yet achieved the honor, and everyone was desperate to be the first.
“You have gotta work on those arms. They're too weak,” Adele shook her head as they huddled around, hunched over trying to get their breath back after their run.
“At least I can get up onto the bar,” Adrienne scoffed. “You need to work on those legs, they're too short.”
Helen turned her head towards Lily, both still breathing heavily, “Here we go. The Addies are about to start up again.”
Lily snorted standing up straight and stretching out her lower back waiting for the show to begin. Helen averted her gaze from the sight of a sweaty Lily rolling her hips around to ease her back.
Her attraction for Lily had only grown during the weeks as she got to know her better. Her brain knew that they could never be more than friends; however, her heart and other parts of her anatomy didn’t seem to be in on the message. The ease that the women felt around each other and their bodies only served to taunt Helen further. Despite her best efforts not to stare, Helen was fairly certain that she would be able to recite every aspect of Lily’s body, even down to the small dark freckle on Lily’s left breast. Helen was continually reminded of Peggy’s frustrated words the night before she came to base, when oblivious to Helen’s discomfort Lily would strip naked in front of her.
“Did you even meet the height restriction?” Adrienne asked teasingly knowing that Adele had sweet-talked the doctor that examined her into adding a half inch so she made the five two requirement.
“Shuddup!” Adele replied wide-eyed looking round to make sure that no officer overheard the conversation. She narrowed her eyes. “Did you make the weight requirement?” she parried back, knowing that Adrienne had been underweight for her height so she too had fudged the system firstly by hunching down to lose an inch in height to reduce the height weight ratio requirement, then by carrying fishing weights in her underwear so that she came in on the mark. “I hear when you went for your first medical there was a mighty strange clanging noise,” Adele added, knocking her hip against the taller woman.
“You two, seriously you squabble more than me and Lucy and we're sisters,” Marjorie remarked running a hand through her sweat soaked hair.
“We're only messin’,” Adele smiled.
Foster put her fingers into her mouth and let out a loud whistle. “Ladies there's an extra flight line been called for your class today, so get your zoot suits on and get ready to march down,” Foster yelled standing on the plinth used for the leader of the PT classes.
The six women looked at each other with raised eyebrows, another chance to fly was not something that they had expected today, however it was something they would not want to miss. They hurriedly picked up their overalls and sunglasses and fell in.
***
Lily pulled her parachute on over her overalls closing the fastening at her chest; from experience she left the leg buckles undone until she was ready to climb into the plane, otherwise the heavy equipment would hit against the back of her legs as she walked out of the hangar. She picked up her soft leather helmet and goggles and went to check what instructor she had.
“Rivera, you're with me.”
Turning from the instructor list on the board Lily smiled as she realized whom she would be flying with that day.
“You got old man Rowe,” Helen grumbled as she realized that she was going to be flying with Stark, who was notoriously difficult and known to bark instructions and insults through the radio.
“Luck of the draw I guess. Fly safe and happy landings,” she smiled at Helen and squeezed her hand, before turning to greet her instructor.
It felt to Lily that since the night when they had been out after curfew they had grown closer despite them having little free time now that they were in the full swing of training and it seemed that if one person was in bay they all were. However, regardless that they had not managed to get any alone time, the bond between them had grown deeper; each seemed to have an in built awareness of the other woman's presence, it was as if they had a sixth sense for where the other was. A feeling of warmth would settle in Lily’s chest when she turned to see familiar blue eyes watching her. They would give each other reassuring smiles and were happy in each other’s physical space; it wasn't unknown to see one of them to be resting their head on the others lap when they were studying. Helen’s touch would still cause Lily’s skin to flush, however she had stopped trying to fathom the reason and simply enjoyed the feeling.