The Aviator's Wife (5 page)

“So what, Anne? We’re just having
fun!”

Just then my cousin Dickie threw a black lace doily on my head, like a mantilla, and stuck a rose in my hair; pulling me by the arm he dragged me in front of Colonel Lindbergh.

“Doesn’t Anne look like a señorita, Colonel?” He laughed. For a moment, I
felt
like a señorita in my red dress, flushed skin; I had a fragmentary glimpse of my hair in a mirror, dark and shining with that red rose
against it, and I tilted my chin to meet my gay reflection, smiling.

But in that mirror I saw the colonel sitting there, watching me. He looked uncomfortable, as if his shirt collar was too tight; when our gazes met, he turned away, frowning.

“Oh, Dickie!” I pulled the flower out and threw it to the floor. “How silly!” And then I stumbled off, leaving them all to laugh at me. It was absurd,
carrying on like that—what was I thinking? Embarrassed tears filled my eyes, and I pushed through the crowd, ignoring a matron who peered, fish-eyed, at me through a crystal wineglass and intoned, “Goodness, I’ve never seen a face so scarlet!”

Was it? I pressed my hand to my cheek as I fled; it was like touching an oven door. Finally finding myself in an empty hall, I ran as far away from the
reception room as I could until I discovered a back staircase. Stumbling up the stairs to the second floor, I wildly bounced from hall to hall, room to room, like a billiard ball. I was so lost as to be truly frightened. All the doors looked exactly the same. How on earth would I find mine? Oh, I wished I was back home! And that I had never met Colonel Lindbergh, so smug, so arrogant—yes, that was
it! His
arrogance
as he stared at me, as if he were God or Calvin Coolidge himself, sitting so stiffly on that sofa—“I don’t dance,” he’d told Mother, and immediately made everyone else in the room feel silly for wanting to. How dare he?

My heart was a furnace, fueled by my anger. Stopping to fan myself with the doily, which somehow had clung to my head through my mad dash, I found myself in
front of a mirror with a cracked silver frame. The same mirror that I had consulted to
make sure my nose wasn’t shiny when I left my room earlier this evening. With a hysterical little hiccup, I pushed open a door that revealed my familiar red wool slippers laid out next to a four-poster bed, the flowered kimono I used as a dressing gown spread out on the coverlet.

Once inside, I flung myself
down on the bed, dry-eyed. But now my anger was gone, leaving room for the familiar, heavy weight of uncertainty and guilt. Had I hurt Dwight by leaving him in the middle of the dance floor? Had I made a spectacle of myself, running from the room? But as time went by and no one knocked on my door, and still I heard the gay sounds of the party below—the music, the tinkling of glass, the sudden bursts
of laughter—I realized that I hadn’t. No one was going to come looking for me, after all—and I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about that.

I was sitting on the edge of my bed, calm now, my cheeks no longer burning, my skin no longer plastered to that awful rubber brassiere, when I heard footsteps pause outside my door. An envelope was thrust beneath it, and then the footsteps went, rather hurriedly,
away.

Thinking it was a message from Dwight or Con, I ran to pick it up. It wasn’t from either; I could tell that from the lack of inkblots and thumbprints on the envelope. My name was written very neatly in a foreign hand: the precise, measured handwriting one would expect from a military man.

Or an aviator.

I felt a rush of excitement pummel me, punching my heart into high gear, buckling
my knees. But I wouldn’t allow myself to open it.

When I was a little girl, I had pleased my father most by being the child who could make a lollipop last the longest, who never asked for an advance on her allowance. “Anne’s the disciplined
one,” he always bragged to his friends. It was the only characteristic I had of note. And like any person with only one talent, I cherished and guarded it.
I no longer knew what it was to sneak a cookie before dinner, or buy a new frock just because.

I placed the envelope on the bed, then began my nightly ritual of slipping out of my dress, my step-ins, unsnapping my garters, rolling my stockings down, unbinding my chest, folding my lingerie and placing it all in a little silk bag hanging from the doorknob. I chose, after a long moment of grave
contemplation, a long-sleeved pink lisle nightgown from a cupboard, where all my clothes, miraculously brushed and pressed by one of those fourteen servants, were now hanging. Sitting down at my dressing table, I unpinned my long brown hair and brushed it one hundred times, the brush occasionally getting caught in my wiry tangles, tugging my scalp until my eyes watered. And even though, all this time,
I could see the white envelope waiting on the bright red coverlet of my bed, like an unopened Christmas present, I still took the time to smooth some Ponds Night Cream carefully on my forehead and cheeks, with a few extra pats for my throat.

Only then did I go to bed; pulling the coverlet up over my knees, I finally reached for the envelope. My hands were shaking, but in a delicious way; for
once in my life, I wasn’t afraid of what I might find waiting for me. Never before had I opened an envelope without being sure it contained some dire piece of news.

Miss Morrow
,

I looked for you, but was told you had left the reception early. I cannot say that I blame you. I don’t enjoy such gatherings myself although, naturally, I much appreciate your father’s hospitality on my behalf
.

After our brief conversation on the sofa, I could not help but think that despite your silence concerning the matter, you did want to be taken up in my airplane, after all. I believe I understand your hesitation. I would not have liked to have taken my first airplane ride surrounded by newspaper reporters and photographers, either. Hence my proposal
.

If you would like to fly with me, meet me in the kitchen at four-fifteen a.m. We can go up and be back here before breakfast is served, and no one will ever be the wiser
.

I do, however, acknowledge the possibility that I have misinterpreted your intentions. I will not be offended if you do not choose to meet me
.

Sincerely
,                         
Charles Augustus Lindbergh

By the time I finished reading, my hands were no longer shaking,
although my rib cage was—for I was laughing. Silently, prayerfully—but I was laughing, nonetheless.
If you would like to fly with me…
oh, miraculous words! Intended for me and me alone!

Colonel Lindbergh had looked for
me
—and, finding me, had understood me. He had known everything that I was thinking but could not express with all those people listening—that even as I longed to experience flying
as he had described it, just beneath my longing was the fear that somehow I would fail this test, this test of gravity and expectations. And if I did fail—if I embarrassed myself by crying or being sick or chickening out at the last moment—I did not want it reported on the front pages of every newspaper in the land!

Elisabeth was cut out for that kind of publicity. She would not fail, for she
had never failed at anything in her life. Yet I suspected that my desire to fly was more sincere than hers. Despite
her obvious interest in Colonel Lindbergh, I was certain she had asked to be taken up primarily because it was expected of her.

There was a certain safety in being the plain one, I realized, not for the first time. Dwight was the heir apparent, expected to graduate Amherst magna
cum laude simply because Daddy had done so on scholarship. Elisabeth was expected to be dazzling and beautiful and marry brilliantly. Con was too young yet, and too spoiled, anyway; she was the pet of the family, loved and unquestioned.

I was expected to be—what? No one had ever articulated it to me; I knew only that I wasn’t to disappoint or disgrace my family, but beyond that, no one seemed
to care.

Or—did someone care?

No, of course not; with a stern little shake of my head, I reminded myself that in real life, heroes were not interested in girls like me. It was simple politeness that compelled the colonel to ask; after all, I was the daughter of his host.

Still, he
had
asked, and that was enough to make me grin stupidly at my own reflection in the mirror opposite the bed for
a long moment, before suddenly becoming aware of the lateness of the hour. Slipping the note
—his
note—inside my pillowcase, I wound my alarm clock tightly, setting it for four a.m. My stomach was so full of butterflies and other insects with busy, brushing wings—entirely appropriate under the circumstances, I couldn’t help but think!—that I could hardly fall asleep. And when at last I did, I know
I slept lightly.

As if I remembered, even in my slumber, that I had a dream beneath my pillow that I did not wish to crush.

CHAPTER 2

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, I was almost late. Not because I overslept—I was awake a good half hour before the alarm went off—but because, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t decide what to wear.

Normally I didn’t fuss with all that. I had an ample, if somewhat boring, wardrobe that I purchased in New York with my mother every season, mainly from Lord & Taylor. Day
dresses, skirts, sweaters, tea gowns, one or two modest evening gowns, tennis dresses, golf skirts.

But not a single flying garment among them! Sorting through the clothes I had brought with me, I could not decide what would be appropriate to wear while soaring through the sky. I had seen photographs of a few aviatrixes, but they all had been dressed in clothing similar to what Colonel Lindbergh
usually wore: jodhpur-like pants, snug jackets, helmets with goggles, scarves.

My only pair of jodhpurs was back at school; there were no stables at the embassy, so I hadn’t thought to bring them. I had brought my golf clothes, however, and finally I decided on them: sweater and pleated skirt, flat rubber-soled shoes, knee socks. I braided my hair and pinned it up, and at the last minute, grabbed
the wool coat I had worn on the train. I then ran, on tiptoe, down the private stairs I had discovered the night before. After
going the wrong way down a hall, I turned around and found myself in the large kitchen, empty at this hour with all the white enamel cookware scrubbed and gleaming, waiting to be called into service. There wasn’t a single sign of the party from the night before; no unwashed
trays or even a stray lipstick-stained glass.

But then I realized the kitchen wasn’t empty. Colonel Lindbergh was standing stiffly by a stove in worn brown flying clothes, a leather jacket, his familiar helmet with the goggles in his hand. As I dashed into the room, he looked at his watch, a faint frown creasing his forehead.

“You’re late.”

“I know—I’m sorry. I didn’t quite know what to wear.
Will this do?” Ridiculously, I held my skirt out as if I were a German milkmaid.

“It’ll have to, although trousers would probably be best.”

“I didn’t bring any.”

“I didn’t think of that. It shouldn’t matter, anyway. The coat’s good.”

“Thank you.” The inadequacy of my words rang stupidly in my ears.

Without another word, he turned to go out the kitchen door. Without another word, I followed.

Outside, in a wide graveled drive at the back of the embassy, were a chauffeur and a waiting car; how he had arranged for them, I had no idea. We both got into the backseat—he opened the door for me—and the car sped off.

At this hour, only the edges of sky were turning pink; still, it illuminated the streets of Mexico City so that I could get a better look than I had on our way from the train
station. The narrow streets were empty. The buildings were almost all the same white, either stone or flimsy slats, with arched doorways and
windows, reddish-orange clay roofs. Flowers spilled out of every corner, from window boxes, around signposts, even horse troughs. Vivid reds and pinks, showy flowers that I’d seen grown only in hothouses—orchids and hibiscus and jasmine. We passed an enormous
square with a fountain in the middle that looked like a gathering place; I imagined it filled with dancing señoritas in long black mantillas and trumpet-playing men in sombreros.

Mixed in with the old and quaint was new; modern buildings—hotels, mainly—were going up on every corner. Prohibition had helped turn Mexico City into a pleasure place for the rich, and the money they were willing to
spend in order to drink freely was in abundant evidence.

So absorbed was I that I almost forgot Colonel Lindbergh, mute as he was beside me. It wasn’t until we headed out of town on a dirt road that I became aware, once more, of his masculine presence. After I finally ran out of things to gape at, I settled back only to find the colonel had wedged himself into the farthest corner of the seat
away from me. He was still frowning. Blushing, I tried to explain my rudeness.