Flying Jenny Read online

  “Please tell me what you know about the Indians,” she said to Roy.

  “Listen, baby girl,” Roy sat down beside her and put his arm over Laura’s shoulder. “I think maybe you ought to go back to your own room and sleep this off. I’m not the one to deal with this kind of problem. Not my specialty.”

  “Then what is?” Laura looked up at him, her tears finally beginning to flow.

  “Ah, geez, I don’t know. But not this.” Much of Roy’s urbanity had suddenly skipped town, as it always did with any emotional crisis. He was out of his element. Love ’em and leave ’em, that was his style. Fly off to the next hamlet. France had been especially fertile soil, the men all off to war, and the women didn’t speak your language.

  Laura persisted. “John suggested that you were a pilot for a big oil company. Was that around here, when all the Osage were getting rich and getting killed?”

  Roy grimaced. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t enjoy it.”

  “When was it? Please tell me. I think it might be important.”

  “To whom?” Roy’s words exploded. He jumped up from the bed and whirled to loom over Laura. “I see why Jenny says you’re a pesky reporter. We try to have an enjoyable little fling here, and you’re turning it into an inquisition. You don’t know when to leave things alone.”

  His outburst was like a blast of cold air, a shot of ice water. Laura shook her head, clearing it.

  “This is not to be left alone,” she shot back. “I need to know.” Her voice softened, and she reached for Roy’s hand as he stood over her. “And maybe you need to tell it.” She pulled him back down beside her on the bed.

  Roy sat. Not only was he startled, Laura had startled herself. It was not in her nature to take a soft approach when she was threatened, nor was it like her to have quick insight into what might lie underneath.

  He took Laura’s hand in both of his and smiled at her. “This has nothing to do with you, couldn’t have.” His voice was smooth, reassuring. “And it’s no big deal, just a disgruntled time in my life.”

  “Please tell me,” Laura said, putting her free hand up to Roy’s cheek. “I want to know all I can about you.”

  Again startled, Roy emitted a dry laugh. “Okay,” he said, squeezing her held hand. “It’s two sentences and boring. I was personal pilot for a Tulsa guy named Alonso Drew, who headed up a drilling company of the same name. I didn’t like being tied down, and I didn’t want to be involved in some of his business dealings. That’s it. So John thinks I should get a real job like him. Nah, not for me.”

  “Was it 1923, the year of most of the murders?”

  “Yes, it was.” Roy’s voice was hard, definitive. It had the ring of confirmation of fears, although, of course, Laura had no idea just whose or what fears he was confirming. “And it didn’t feel to me that Drew’s hands were all that clean. A lawyer representing an Osage in an oil lease dispute was dumped off a railroad bridge in his underwear not long after Drew took him up for a ride, me piloting. It occurred to me that perhaps Drew hadn’t been able to win him over with softsoap, so I bailed.”

  “Oh, how awful. Did you tell the police?”

  “Police, what police? Are you kidding?” Roy’s voice rose. It had left the confessional remorse of the moment before and was back to so-what. “The sheriff, the coroner, the local judges were all corrupt, in on schemes to cheat or kill the Indians. I didn’t want any part. I had enough of fighting during the war. Better to just get out than worry about it. I consider myself a lover, not a fighter, my dear. Now let’s settle back here and forget this old history.”

  He gave Laura a long hard kiss, and the two of them fell back on the bed as she was protesting, “But I need to find out . . .”

  Roy, indeed, did not have a highly developed social conscience, or bother to give the lack much thought. When they had joined the escadrille it was John who wanted to make the world safe for democracy. Roy hadn’t wanted to be left behind, and the adventure sounded swell. Even Roy’s interest in boosting Jenny had a decidedly selfish undercurrent. He was getting long in the tooth and tiring of all the running around. It would give him some status to be the “instructor” or “trainer” of a world-class aviator. Jenny could give him a new lease.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  IT’S ALL OVER NOW

  Laura came awake with a jolt. Roy was stirring around, the desk lamp was on. She could smell a cigarette burning.

  She smiled to herself, despite a dry mouth and a throbbing head. She had, perhaps, found some clues to her family. And she’d found her first lover. She sat up in bed, not bothering to pull the sheet up over her nakedness, and opened her arms wide to Roy, who she now saw was pacing before the open window in the small room.

  “Good morning.” Laura all but sang the words.

  “It’s early yet,” he replied. “Still time to scoot on back to your room unnoticed.”

  “Really?” She tried to keep her voice light. “Such a hurry?”

  He looked startled. “Surely you don’t want to be compromised.”

  “Compromised?” She repeated, beginning to feel a knot in the pit of her stomach.

  It all went downhill from there. Roy informed her in hushed mea culpa tones that he was married, which, of course, Jenny had already told her. And he did a mouth-open double take when Laura gave a so-what shrug, having no more reaction to such news than her mother would have had.

  “How often do you ever see your wife?” Laura asked with what verged on a sly smile.

  “Not a lot, but still.”

  “But still what?” Laura asked. “I’ve got to get back to New York, get back to work. Once I’ve questioned my mother, I hope to return here from time to time.”

  “Whoa,” Roy said. “What is it you’re expecting here? You’re a grown woman. You run around the country on your own.”

  The room was in shadow, only the small desk lamp threw a yellow circle of light. The single fan creaked with each turn. The ordinary hotel furniture lent a shabby atmosphere: a full-sized bed, a scarred dresser, an overstuffed mohair chair. Laura noticed the carpet for the first time; it was a muddy brown with an ebony thread running through. What had she expected? she wondered, as she looked at her chemise lying where it had been carelessly flung on the floor. She shivered in the hot, stuffy room, a line of Aunt Edna’s roiling her brain: Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!

  “I don’t know,” she said hesitantly, a frown creasing her forehead. “I don’t know. I guess I thought we were in love.”

  “Oh my God,” Roy replied. “You can’t be serious.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  THE CAT’S OUT OF THE BAG

  Jenny in her dressing gown, toothbrush in hand, couldn’t believe her eyes. Down the hall on the right, that was Roy’s room! And there was Laura, bold as you please, leaving and not too gently closing the door behind her.

  Jenny pivoted on the ball of her slipper-clad right foot and marched over to Laura, her bath towel flying a flag of indignation. “Are you crazy?” she exploded.

  Laura didn’t respond other than with a stricken look.

  “Didn’t your mother ever teach you anything?” Jenny demanded.

  Still no response. The shoulders slumped a bit more, the head hung.

  “Oh gosh,” Jenny said, suddenly stricken herself. “How stupid of me. I guess that’s what this is all about. A mother with no morals.” Exasperated, she raised a fist of clutched facecloth and slapped it against her knee.

  Laura instinctively ducked, thinking for an instant she was going to be struck.

  Midwestern morality is the enemy. How many times had Laura heard that growing up? Her mother endlessly championing free love, free thought, free expression. Laura had never been able to figure out how she fit into such a system—any system, as a matter of fact. She had tried going her own way, but that didn’t appear to be working out all that well either. She remembered being taken as a child to suffragette parades where Inez Milholland, a high prieste
ss of women’s rights, rode through the streets of Greenwich Village on a great white horse, Aunt Edna and her mother waving and cheering. And the cold night in Washington Square Park shortly before Laura’s eleventh birthday when she had tagged along with her mother and some of her friends to the ceremony declaring Greenwich Village a “free and independent republic.” Several people had shot off cap pistols and raised their flag of freedom after climbing the long spiral staircase inside the Arc de Triomphe look-alike at the bottom of Fifth Avenue. John Sloan later made an etching called Arch Conspirators. It showed Marcel Duchamp, long before he became infamous for drawing Mona Lisa with a beard, seated next to him, eating a sandwich. Even at that age, Laura had thought the adults were being silly. Although she did have fun chasing through the snow after the red balloons that the revelers floated down from the top of the arch.

  “Well?” Jenny demanded. “Say something. Don’t just stand there.”

  And Laura began to cry.

  “Now look here.” Jenny stopped for a moment, stunned. “Uh, I didn’t mean anything by . . . but of course I did.”

  Laura looked at her, blinking, the tears continuing to roll.

  Jenny tentatively patted Laura’s shoulder. “Confound it! I don’t know what to say.”

  Laura responded with a sniffle, and rubbed the back of her hand across her nose.

  “Damn,” Jenny blurted, startling them both. “You’re a very accomplished woman, you can’t just cry this way.” She glanced around at the drab hallway with its threadbare runner and dim overhead bulbs. Not the place for a private chat. It was hardly the velvet carpet of the Skirvin, its every room with a private bath. “Let’s go downstairs and get a cup of coffee.” Laura just stood there. “Go,” Jenny commanded. “I’ll be down in two minutes, just have to throw on some clothes.” She gave a gentle shove to Laura, who returned the gesture with a woebegone look. “Go,” Jenny repeated. “I promise. I’ll only take a second.”

  When they had settled in the dining room with coffee, juice, and biscuits, Laura wiped her tears with a linen napkin. She looked a mess. “Roy’s the problem,” she finally said.

  “Of course he’s a problem,” Jenny said sharply, biting into a biscuit with honey. “But listen, Laura, I warned you about that.”

  “He was so sympathetic and admiring,” Laura replied weakly. She hadn’t touched her food, even her coffee.

  “I just can’t believe you’re so naïve. For starters, he’s a ladies’ man. Always has been. Drink your orange juice!” she instructed with a bark. “Besides, he was using you to goad me into flying more. How could you not realize that?”

  “You’re good friends with him.”

  “So? Doesn’t mean you can’t see people for what they are.” Jenny closed her eyes, a momentary vision of her own father’s concern over John. That’s what fathers are for, to give you a proper sense of the world, a grounding. To worry about you and give a good talking to the man you’re going to marry.

  “Why would I see it?” Laura asked. “I don’t understand any of this. Your being friends with all these men. Your lack of aspiration is incomprehensible to me.”

  “So fine,” Jenny snapped. “We’re going to have to cut this short. I may not have any aspirations, as you call them, but we’ve got a show to do with Roscoe.”

  “Roy says he’s going to replace us tomorrow.”

  “So what? He’s said all along he would, as soon as he found someone.”

  “I don’t want to leave him.”

  “Oh good glory.” Jenny got up from the table.

  “Please,” Laura said, reaching up for Jenny’s arm, “don’t go yet. You seem to know all these things that I don’t.”

  Jenny dropped back into her chair with a thud. “Gosh, I don’t know what to say. The things I know, one just knows, that’s all. Mothers teach you how to behave.”

  “Oh,” Laura said, a startled look on her face.

  “You’re a mystery to me.” Jenny shook her head in bewilderment. “You don’t seem to know anything about how to conform to expectations. I come from a world where the rules of proper ladylike behavior are written on your soul. Modulate your voice, never carry on a private conversation in an elevator, white shoes are never to be worn before Easter or after Labor Day. Women don’t smoke, or, if heaven forbid they do, they are NEVER seen doing so on the street.” Jenny giggled, as though proudly sharing the secret of a wayward child. “My mother is appalled that I end up with sunburned skin because of my flying.”

  “I never heard of any of those rules,” Laura said plaintively.

  “That’s not surprising from someone who doesn’t even seem to know that you don’t sleep with a man until you marry him.”

  “I sure never heard that one,” Laura said with a skeptical frown. “Who made it up? It sounds like something out of The Scarlet Letter.”

  Jenny put down her coffee cup with a bang. “Your mother has always refused to tell you who your father was, hasn’t she?”

  Laura abruptly stood. “Wait here, please, just for a minute. Please.” Her voice was pleading. “Have another cup of coffee. I’ll be right back.” She ran from the dining room and across the lobby, heading upstairs. She was back, breathless, in a moment, waving her faded photograph.

  “This is my mother,” she said, throwing herself down hard in the dining room chair and handing the picture to Jenny. “It was taken in St. Louis. Look at the inscription on the back.”

  “Father Bernard.” Jenny’s voice was barely a whisper, her gray eyes round as saucers. “Oh my God. I see what you must be thinking. You always thought he was your grandfather.” She stopped and tried to backpedal, seeing Laura’s wounded face. “Ah, but of course, it must be some kind of bizarre coincidence.”

  “I don’t know.” Laura bit her lower lip.“I heard from neighborhood kids that she had run off with an older married man, not someone committed to some church. I always thought I wanted to know who he was. Now I’m not so sure.”

  “How awful.” Jenny shook her head as though trying to clear it. “How unbelievably awful. But we must find out. I wouldn’t let a thing like this go unchallenged.”

  “My mother has a rug on her floor that looks exactly like a blanket I saw on the streets yesterday,” Laura said. “It’s got children’s handprints woven all over it.”

  “What? Are we now going to discuss interior decoration?” Jenny responded with sarcasm.

  “What if I’m an Indian? You heard what Clem said about the Jesuit.”

  “An Indian!” Jenny was stunned by the question. But it did make a certain kind of sense. Laura just sat there staring at her as though Jenny had the answers to the questions of the universe. Jenny realized with a start that no one had ever before looked upon her as a sage. Hadn’t she just complained to Roy the other day that everyone treated her like some doll? This unexpected turn was kind of a nice feeling. But would it go both ways? Jenny needed some answers herself. John had told her again last night that she could do whatever she wanted about pursuing a flying career. “But if you plan to do it, do it!” he’d said, with something close to an uncharacteristic impatience in his voice. “Make a real commitment. Get your transport license. Quit worrying about what your parents think. Who cares if they don’t like to see you in slacks.”

  “An Indian?” Jenny repeated, trying to come back to the problem at hand. She laughed lightly. “Just hope you’re an Osage, I guess. You’d be rich that way.”

  “Jenny, please.” Laura leaned across the small breakfast table and pushed away the sugar bowl in a pleading gesture with an outstretched hand. “I don’t know what to do about anything here. I’ve made a fool of myself with Roy, with everyone, I guess, by not understanding, by getting drunk.”

  Jenny exhaled, and rubbed her tongue across her front teeth. “Gee, I don’t know what to say. You’re treating me like I’m some font of wisdom when I can’t even figure out what to do with my own life.”

  It was Laura’s turn to laugh, and with th
e release, she took her first gulp of orange juice. After setting the glass down, she smiled and said, “That’s easy. You’re so young—what are you, eighteen? Plenty of time for a long brilliant career. Just go get that next license, and go from there.”

  The two of them burst into giggles.

  “Funny, isn’t it,” Jenny said, “how when you look at a problem from the inside it looks so hard, but to someone from the outside it seems so easy? I guess that’s what friends are for,” she added with something close to awe in her voice.

  “Please help me understand about Roy,” Laura said. “I don’t get it.”

  Jenny looked pensive for a moment, then finished off the coffee in her cup. “Roy.” She took a deep breath. “Roy’s just trying to recapture his youth and somehow sees me as a way to do it. Believe it or not, he even cares about his wife and kids—just forever trying to prove something. John says he’s always been that way. Living on the edge, or having grandiose ideas about himself. It’s sweet and touching, but nothing anyone in her right mind would fall for.”

  Laura’s head snapped back, as though she’d been slapped.

  “I’m sorry,” Jenny said, reaching across the table to pat Laura’s hand. “That was a bit brutal.” She paused as the waiter came to their table with a tall silver coffee pot and refilled her cup. She continued once he’d walked away. “Sometimes he acts like he’s in love with himself. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so resistant to Roy’s grandiose plans for me. I’ve always known that his illusions about himself were nothing more than that, so I didn’t want to fall for a line of patter about how great or grand I could be. And I don’t like the idea that people think I’m trying to somehow regain my dead brother. I idolized him as a child, and that’s what led me to the airport, but John’s the one who put the idea into my head that I could actually fly.”