The aviatrix, p.36
The Aviatrix, page 36
Mattie pressed the side of her face against Leo’s back as they sped toward the airstrip on Vera’s motorcycle. They were less than five minutes away, and if it weren’t for the chance to fly at night, she would have told Leo that they should just zoom along the coast instead. It was the closest thing to soaring without leaving the ground, and Mattie had the added bonus of holding Leo tight . . . and exploring his muscles. She could feel their taut ridges shift under her fingertips while his strong deltoids flexed beneath her cheek. Even cooped up with a broken leg and a cumbersome cast, he’d kept in shape, which wasn’t surprising considering all the maintenance work Leo had still managed to do. The stubborn man had insisted on hobbling around and balancing on one crutch.
When they reached the airfield, Leo parked the bike. After reluctantly unwrapping herself from him, Mattie stepped off the motorcycle. Scanning the tarmac, Mattie curled her lips upward when she caught sight of her bright-yellow Fabin looking every inch as shiny as the actual sun. She loved the plane. Her plane. The one she’d earned. It wasn’t on loan from her brothers or even purchased by Vera. The title was in her name: Mattie McAdams. She’d christened it the Amazon’s Prize after the famous female warriors of antiquity and had arranged for the name to be scrawled in big orange letters on the torpedo-shaped fuselage.
And she’d be soaring in it with the Flying Flappers. Although Mattie was earning enough cash from endorsement deals and royalties from the RadioNavigator to help her brothers restart the McAdams Family Flying Circus next season, they had collectively made the decision not to reband. Their father was enjoying operating the flight school year round, and Jake had rejoined him now that the money situation had improved. Otto and Will loved their jobs with the Airmail Service, and Mattie and Leo . . . well, they’d found their place in Vera’s troupe.
“Did you have the Amazon’s Prize fueled up?” Mattie asked.
“You bet.” Leo finished securing his motorcycle and held out his hand again. She wrapped her fingers around his, and they fell into a momentary silence. As they walked toward her Fabin, a thought struck her.
“You know,” she said slowly, “you never did tell me what you called your Nieuport and SPAD during the war.”
Leo grinned down at her and swung their entwined fingers. “You haven’t figured it out by now?”
“Nope.”
“Mattie’s Spirit, both of them.” He flashed an even broader smile. “’Course I never told anybody, but the name meant a lot to me. When I started to feel lost, I’d think of you and your courage . . . and your light. And I got through.”
Mattie’s heart did five barrel rolls in a row. “I . . . I meant that much to you, even back then?”
“Yup.” Leo helped her step onto the wing of the Fabin.
She stopped, carefully turned around, and slowly bent to brush his lips with her own. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do when balancing on a wing, but she couldn’t allow the moment to pass without touching Leo, without sharing the love bubbling inside her.
“You mean that much to me too,” Mattie told him. “It just took me a little longer to figure it out.”
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple jerking. He no longer hid his emotions from her, and Mattie could easily see how her words had affected him.
Then one side of his lips curled into a teasing grin. “Well, we can’t all be fast at everything.”
She laughed and lightly bopped his shoulder. After climbing into the cockpit, she waited as he walked around to the front of the plane and yanked on the propeller. She adjusted the choke, absolutely loving the roar of the engine. Leo hopped into the passenger seat behind her. As soon as she’d tuned her RadioNavigator to a nearby station, she took off down the runway. The sun had dipped below the horizon, but the sky still glowed a brilliant red. Now mostly dark, the waves moved like undulating shadows, except for places still lit by the wondrous crimson light.
Flying had always been magical to Mattie but never more than tonight as her Fabin’s yellow nose shot into the flood of electric lights. The tip of her plane shone like a replacement sun as they left the ground far behind them. When the craft climbed beyond the reach of the artificial glare, Mattie whooped as they entered a realm of reds, violets, and purples so dark they almost appeared black. Leo hollered, too, and she loved how their voices harmonized.
Mattie danced through the dramatic hues, diving like an osprey one minute and circling like a hawk the next. Yet she did not stray too far from the airstrip, always keeping its yellow-white brightness in sight. Even though she had the RadioNavigator turned on and she’d flown in the area enough to know the bearings, she hadn’t charted a flight path, and she didn’t want to make Leo nervous if they lost sight of their home destination.
Mattie had learned caution the day that Leo had fallen from the sky. It hadn’t clipped her wings, not by any means. It had matured her as a pilot, seasoned her, teaching her a lesson in balance. Stability in the field of aerodynamics was a good thing, a needed thing. It allowed aviators to go faster, farther, and higher every year.
The scarlet finally faded, leaving the faintest line of red-violet on the horizon. Mattie flew directly toward it for a moment, loving how it seemed that she and Leo were trapped together in a timeless, otherworldly place.
“I love it up here,” Mattie shouted. “Thank you for arranging this. It is the best engagement present anyone could have ever given me.”
“It is peaceful,” Leo agreed as Mattie just soared straight—no tricks, no fancy dives, just the beauty of the world before them.
“It isn’t bringing back bad memories?” Mattie asked, keeping her voice gentle despite the need to shout over the engine. “Or making you nervous?”
Leo was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was a deeper timbre. “Mattie, do you remember when I mentioned how we used to fire Very lights into the night sky to try to guide our lost comrades home?”
“Yes.” Mattie’s own voice sounded thick, even to her. She thought of Alfred and the others who hadn’t made it back, and then she thought of Leo and the ones who had.
“I love you, Mattie. You are my Very light. As long as I’m with you, I can’t ever get lost.” Leo’s voice had gone hoarse with emotion, and those same feelings swamped Mattie too. But it was a delightful heaviness, like a warm wool blanket to keep away the chill. At the same time, the mood lifted her—a glorious buoyant pressure like the air currents keeping their plane aloft.
“You’re my Very light too, Leo.” Mattie paused and swallowed against the tightness in her throat. “I love you so much.”
The purple light blinked out, but in its place rose a million tiny stars. As a child, Mattie used to lie on her back and stare up at the constellations, wondering what it would be like to sail through them.
Now she knew, and it felt absolutely wonderful.
HISTORICAL NOTE
The moment I walked into the Henry Ford Museum’s exhibit on barnstormers and spotted a life-size model of a woman hanging upside down from the wing of a Curtiss JN-4 (Jenny) biplane, I was seized by a spine-tingling thrill, and I absolutely knew I had to tell this woman’s story. With increasing excitement, I read the placards and learned about the intrepid, diverse women who proved that the skies were a woman’s domain as much as a man’s. There was Katherine Stinson, the Flying Schoolgirl. The white southerner earned her pilot’s license in 1912 and became a darling of the press. With her family, she established a flight school in the years preceding World War I.
In the 1920s, more women took to the skies, including the famed Bessie Coleman, Queen Bess or Brave Bessie. An American born of African and Cherokee ancestry, Bessie faced not just sexism but racism in her pursuit to soar. Unlike Stinson, who was white, Bessie could not find a flight school in the United States willing to give her, a Black woman, a license. Undefeated, Bessie learned French and traveled to Europe twice to receive instruction there. She became a media phenomenon despite the obstacles placed in her path due to her race. Bessie was an unceasing activist who refused to speak in places that practiced segregation. Bessie planned on starting her own flight school for Black folks, but this dream was never realized due to the opposition she faced. Bessie tragically died at the age of thirty-four in an aviation accident due to mechanical trouble.
Mabel Cody, the niece of Buffalo Bill, started her own flying circus. A wing-walker, she fell fifty feet while attempting to jump from a moving car onto a ladder suspended from an airplane. After she recovered, she returned to her daredevil career. Gladys Ingle would leap from biplane to biplane in midair and would even change the tire of one of the aircrafts. Female pilots in the latter half of the 1920s—such as Amelia Earhart, Louise Thaden, and Ruth Elder—also inspired me with their fight to be viewed as serious aviators, especially in the eyes of the press.
Although Mattie, Vera, Carrie, Aida, Sadie, Lily, and Alice are all purely fictional characters, they are each a homage to the indomitable spirit of the fly girls of the 1920s. Leo was loosely inspired by US World War I fighter pilots, including Eddie Rickenbacker, America’s Ace of Aces; Frank Luke, the fearless balloon buster; and other war heroes who pioneered aerial combat.
Like my characters, most of the municipalities and places are fictional but were inspired by the towns, parks, and natural wonders that I toured as a child on family vacations with my maternal grandparents, my mother, and my sister. All the newspapers, speakeasies, and establishments are from my imagination but are based on research. The decor of the Gilded Secret in the Chicago, Illinois, speakeasy was particularly modeled off the Urban Room in the William Penn Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Troy, Wyoming, was inspired by Thermopolis, Wyoming. Natural Bridges National Monument is the real-life Canyon of the Bridges, although it is more remote, and the configuration of the box canyons is different. Carrie and Mattie’s visit to the power room in Vera’s mansion is based on a similar room in the Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina, that my husband and I learned about on one of the extended tours offered by the estate. The outside of Fete Castle was inspired by a real Baronial-style fortress, Craigievar Castle, that I saw in Scotland.
The historical detail most personal to me, however, is the mention of couples getting engaged near the McAdamses’ flight school. Although it was during the 1940s, my maternal grandfather proposed to my maternal grandmother at the Allegheny County Airport in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania. Even in the thirties and forties, airplanes were still novel enough that young couples like my grandparents would drive to airfields and watch airplanes take off and land. I hope that adding this little family history to The Aviatrix helps show modern readers how truly magical and exciting airplanes were in the first half of the twentieth century.
Most of the aircraft in the book are real biplanes. However, the Fabin and its manufacturer are made up, along with the competitions that the company held to attract interest from the US government. Rockol also did not exist. Mattie’s RadioNavigator was similar to technology first employed in the late twenties, but which would have been possible in 1923. While radio direction-finding equipment had existed in some form for several decades, they were large, cumbersome units primarily found on ships and had to be used by a trained navigator. Mattie’s simplified, scaled-down system allowed a single pilot to easily check their bearings by taking advantage of the brand-new frequency-modulated radio stations that were popping up during the Jazz Age.
The Roaring Twenties was such a fascinating time of old mixed with new, changing social structures and mores, and exciting derring-do. I hope you have enjoyed your visit to this exhilarating period in history as much as I have.
GLOSSARY OF 1920S AND AVIATION TERMS
alarm clock. Chaperone.
Albatros. German World War I fighter plane.
applesauce. Awesome.
bear cat. Fiery, adventurous woman.
bee’s knees. Awesome; also a cocktail.
berries. Awesome.
bluenose. Stick-in-the-mud.
chic. Stylish.
cloche. Tight-fitting hat.
copacetic. Okay; cool.
Curtiss. Plane manufacturer and shorthand for airplanes made by the company.
Curtiss JN-4. World War I biplane that was commonly called a Jenny. The US government had a surplus of them at the end of the war, so they sold them cheaply, which led to an explosion of aviation and daredevil stunts.
Duesenberg. Extremely expensive car with cutting-edge technologies.
Duesy. Nickname for a Duesenberg.
fairy floss. Cotton candy.
flash powder. Substance used to create flashes for picture taking before the use of the light bulb.
Fokker. Dutch-built World War I plane flown by German aviators.
glad rags. Fancy evening clothes.
Jagdgeschwader I. Elite group of German fighter pilots; the famous Red Baron was part of this group.
Jenny. Nickname for a Curtiss JN-4.
JN-4. Another nickname for the Curtiss JN-4.
kisser. Mouth.
Lafayette Escadrille. French fighter squadron mainly comprised of US citizen-volunteers; disbanded when the United States entered World War I.
Nieuport. French World War I fighter plane, also flown by Americans.
ossified. Drunk.
peach. To tattle.
pie eyed. Drunk.
Sopwith Camel. British World War I fighter plane, also flown by Americans.
SPAD XIII. French World War I fighter plane, also flown by Americans.
rags. Newspapers.
vamp. Glamorous, seductive woman; a man-eater.
wurp. Stick-in-the-mud.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank my editor Lauren Plude and the entire team at Montlake. An author always dreams of finding an editor who falls in love with her characters as much as she herself has. Lauren has not only embraced Mattie and her fellow barnstormers but helped me make them fully live on the page. Her comments have prompted me to learn more about these wonderful women and further understand their passions, their dreams, and their fears. Although sometimes this has meant making my heroine and hero face more conflict, they have become stronger and richer for it.
I also want to extend my appreciation to the cultural-review editor who took the time to read The Aviatrix and provided me with valuable advice and insight into how I addressed the topic of racism in the 1920s. Mistakes, if any, that I made in the representations of characters of color are my own.
Thank you to the copyeditors and proofreaders who have caught my mistakes and fixed those typos that slyly slipped by me. The art department has created a wonderful cover capturing the spirit of The Aviatrix, and marketing and distribution have worked to make sure this book reaches the hands of the readers.
My agent, Jessica Watterson, has been an integral part of The Aviatrix. Her excitement when I originally pitched this idea encouraged me to put my heart into this book. She has cheered on my tough, feminist heroines and helps me make sure that their stories are heard.
My critique partners, Sarah Morgenthaler and Suzanne Tierney, have provided invaluable insight and helped me make my writing crisper and more vivid. No matter how busy their own schedules, they have always made time to provide me with incredible feedback. I met both women when our manuscripts reached the finals in the Romance Writers of America®’s 2017 Golden Heart® contest, and we became part of the group of writers called Rebelles. All the Rebelles have been amazingly supportive over the past few years, and I am so thankful I have been able to share this journey with them. They are my Flying Flappers.
I want to give my husband an extra thanks for his support on the technical issues in this book. During our marriage, he has shared his love for all things mechanical with me. Our trip to the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio, started me thinking about early aviation, and his joy in viewing the old machines inspired me. When we later traveled to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, where he was explaining old steam engines to me for another project, I saw the exhibit on female barnstormers, and my idea for The Aviatrix was born. He has very patiently helped provide me technical details when I come to him and say, “Okay, so the plot is X, and the characters need to be feeling Y, and I want to convey Z, so what could go wrong mechanically to enhance the external and internal conflicts?” This makes for some rather interesting conversations over dinner or during car rides.
Although my maternal grandparents passed away before I began work on The Aviatrix, they provided me with so much of the foundation that helped produce it. They were the ones who originally took me to the Henry Ford Museum when I was a young girl, which led to the later trip with my husband. Other vacations that I took with my grandparents also helped inspire the scenery throughout The Aviatrix, which in some ways is a love letter to them and to the natural beauty of the United States and its national parks.
As always, I want to thank my family for their support during the writing process. In addition to being my go-to source for aviation-related questions, my husband picks up more of the housework when I am on deadline and need to retreat into my writer’s cave. During those times, my mother helps by watching my preschool-age daughter, who understands that Mommy needs to work on her “stories.” Both my husband and my mother are my first and last beta readers.
Of course, a book would be a static object without readers to open their hearts and imaginations to the characters and allow them to jump from the pages. Whether you are a reader who has followed me from my contemporary romances or one who has taken a chance on a new author, thank you for going on this odyssey with Mattie, Leo, and the Flying Flappers. Your emails, social media shout-outs, and reviews mean so much to me. Thanks again for all your support!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2018 Skysight Photography
Two-time Golden Heart finalist Violet Marsh is a lawyer who decided it was more fun to write witty banter than contractual terms. A romance enthusiast, she relishes the transformative power of love, especially when a seeming mismatch becomes the perfect pairing.
