The next day, Hinch and Levine were off to Naples to fly over Mount Vesuvius and back up to Forlì to meet with Benito Mussolini, one of Levine’s heroes. Mussolini’s father had been a blacksmith, so Mussolini was not terribly different from the son of a scrap metal merchant, and had risen to the top. That Mussolini, Levine thought, he don’t take crap from nobody.
And that was pretty much what Levine told him when he met the prime minister at the Villa Carpena, Mussolini’s summer home near Bologna. Mussolini smiled and gave him a signed photo of himself with the inscription To the Aviator Levine, intrepid transatlantic flier, with infinite admiration and cordiality. Hinch cringed when Levine offered to take the grand Fascist up for a ride in the Miss Columbia, but the leader politely declined. Instead, he said, if he brought his children out to the lawn, would they fly overhead? Thrilled that he did not have the prime minister’s life in his hands, Hinchliffe enthusiastically agreed, and as Levine was about to hand his hero a gift for his newborn son—a silver timepiece inscribed Levine’s offering to the youngest child of Duce—the leader put up his hands and shook his head. “Drop it on the lawn from the airplane,” he suggested. “The children will be delighted.”
Hinchliffe swooped as low as he dared while Levine leaned out the window and dropped the gift, wrapped in an American flag, to the children and their father below. The Miss Columbia flew, but within forty minutes the beat of the engine became irregular and then suddenly ceased. Inside the cockpit, Hinchliffe was frantically looking for a field to land the plane in and spotted one just beyond the station, not noticing a deep ditch that ran the course of it. They touched down and slammed into the ditch nose first, crumpling the engine; the landing gear collapsed and a wing was destroyed. Hinchliffe and Levine were found standing by the plane, shaken but not injured.
The Miss Columbia was demolished and would be unable to fly for the foreseeable future. Hinchliffe’s leave with Imperial Airways was running out, as had his patience. Without saying much of anything to each other, the two returned to Rome, where Hinchliffe booked a ticket to return home via Berlin; Levine would take a flight to Vienna, then to England, where he planned to sail with his children and his wife, Grace—who had decided to pull her divorce papers upon hearing about the crash and her husband’s miraculous survival—back to America on the liner Île de France. By that night, Levine was at a hotel in Rome, ordering drinks for new friends who were congratulating him on yet another daring escape.
The east–west transatlantic attempt, at least for the two of them, was over.
* * *
When Ruth saw the Stinson Detroiter approaching over the horizon toward Dixie’s, she was sure that plane wasn’t for her. George flew in it accompanied by Mr. Cornell, but this was beyond anything she could have expected. The monoplane was sleek and long, with a covered cabin and large windows. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she jumped up and down.
The Stinson Detroiter was the apex of planes in its day, even beating out Miss Columbia for safety and durability. Eddie Stinson, a famed pioneer aviator, had spent years designing it with three main aspects in mind: safety, comfort, and the easy availability of parts for quick repairs. It had double controls and could accommodate four people, and that was most important: Ruth and George would need that spare room for tanks of fuel.
When the plane touched down, George popped out with a grin. Ruth ran toward the plane and threw herself into George’s arms as she squealed with joy.
“You have to see the cabin, Ruth,” he said, caught up in her infectious twenty-three-year-old excitement. She lifted herself up on the wing and took a peek inside, and he climbed in from the pilot’s side. Despite the attention directed toward comfort, the plane was so narrow that the sides of their legs touched.
There was carpet inside, nicely upholstered seats, and a button near the steering column that she didn’t recognize.
“What’s this?” she said, pointing to the button.
“It’s an electric starter!” he laughed. “Can you believe it? And look, there’s a cigar lighter, and the cabin is heated! And those windows? Huge. This will be a snap to land. You can look right out over the nose, and then, to the side, you can even see the wheels!”
“Did you say the cabin was heated?” she asked, trying to follow George and take in everything with her eyes at the same time.
“The cabin is heated! Imagine it, Ruth! No more freezing thousands of feet in the air!” He smiled, then jumped off the wing. “But look, you didn’t even see the best part!”
She followed him back outside the plane as Mr. Cornell came around the front.
She was speechless. There, on the long, lean body, stretched high in large, orange, sweeping letters, read American Girl. Against the maroon, metal, and shiny body of the plane, it looked marvelous, like a marquee lit by one thousand volts.
“It’s incredible,” Ruth said as she took a few steps closer and ran her hand along the side of the plane, her palm moving over the name. “This is amazing.”
“It’s a beautiful machine,” Mr. Cornell said, beaming. “I think she’ll take very good care of you.”
“I hope so,” George said. “We’ve been hearing lots of talk about Mrs. Grayson taking off soon. She’s heading for Denmark.”
“She’s got some sort of seaplane and has her pilot and navigator all set,” Cornell said. “But I don’t think she can beat this beauty. Still, we should push up our schedule a little bit and get our flight plan worked out as soon as possible.”
“I sure do wish that we could wait until next spring,” George said. “That would give us good weather and good winds.”
Mr. Cornell looked at the ground and winced. “It’s ideal, I agree, but with Grayson chomping at the bit, we’ve got to grab what good weather we might have left. We can’t chance her getting a head start on us.”
“Any idea of when she is planning her attempt?” Ruth asked. “We’re both going to face the same weather, no matter what. At least that’s in our favor.”
George shook his head. “A month, maybe a month and a half,” he guessed. “That seaplane is heavy. The pontoons are enormous. The amount of fuel they’ll need is crazy.”
“Why aren’t they flying in something lighter? Especially with this distance?” Ruth wondered aloud.
“For the same reason you want to fly the shipping lanes,” Mr. Cornell said. “An emergency landing at sea.”
“Can we really get ready in that amount of time?” Ruth asked.
“Let’s try like hell,” George suggested.
Ruth smiled and then she laughed. My thoughts exactly, she agreed to herself.
* * *
Mabel Boll was in no mood for games as she threw the car into reverse and tore into the street, tires squealing.
This time one of the Dolly sisters didn’t have to tell her that Levine was scramming out of another country; she heard it on the radio that after the Miss Columbia was smashed to bits in Italy, Levine, the proud aviator, the famed aviator, the daring aviator, was hightailing it back to New York.
With his wife and kids. Levine didn’t tell her they were still in Europe, still in London after all this time. They had been waiting for him. Mabel couldn’t believe it. Levine had lied to her; he had done more than lie: he had conned her. Sonofabitch.
She took the corner quickly, almost raising the Rolls up on two tires. In fact, they were still here, still in London, waiting for their prodigal husband/father/con man to return and fetch them. She might see Grace Levine at any time, any moment. And he was leaving without a word, a phone call, a letter or message.
He was leaving her behind like she was nothing, she realized, just as he had said in the newspaper. Nothing.
So when she’d asked the driver to stop and get her a newspaper from the corner store, she’d waited until he was inside and then jumped into the driver’s seat, peeling out into the street, almost hitting an old woman.
Mabel didn’t
care. She’d seen what else they said in the paper, too, about his will. Before he left for Italy, before he threw her out of the plane, he had gone over his will. And hadn’t changed a thing. All five million dollars to his wife. Every. Lying. Penny.
Mabel certainly didn’t need it—she didn’t want it—but it was further proof that he had been lying all the time. He was never going to divorce her.
Bastard. Bastard.
“Well, I am not done with you,” she said, biting her lip so hard, the taste of metal seeped into her mouth. She clutched the steering wheel, her knuckles white with anger. “I am certainly not done with you. Oh, no. I am not.”
She was getting on a plane, and she was going to fly over that goddamned ocean without him. She could write to Hinchliffe, offer him twenty-five thousand dollars to fly a plane. Hell, offer him fifty thousand. She’d buy the plane.
She had read that George Putnam, the publisher, and Amy Guest, the American heiress of the Phipps steel fortune, were financing a flight of their own and were looking for a woman to fly over. At first she was furious that anyone would dare to try to ruin her chances of fame, but now she would write to them and offer her services. She could fly over; she didn’t need Levine to do it. He was the one who was nothing!
She turned one more corner and saw her destination up ahead on the left. She had seen it on her trips out to Cranwell, on the side of the road, rising six feet tall and about eight feet wide.
You’re going to get it, Levine. She stopped the car with a squeal of the brakes, and her sprayed blond curls flipped over onto her forehead. She put the gear in reverse, pulled along the side of the road, and put it back in drive, hitting the gas as hard as she could. The Rolls headed straight for the immense, lonely boulder that waited on the side of the road for nothing. The crash was fierce; Mabel’s forehead hit the steering wheel. She backed up, then slammed the car into the boulder again, until the sound of crunching metal and the damage were to her liking. She was charged by the finality of it all. She got out and rummaged by the side of the road until she found a rock, lifted it with two hands, and placed it on the gas pedal, then watched as the Rolls careened toward the boulder with no hope. Upon smashing into it, the engine smoked, whirred a little, and moaned until it died.
She was delighted that this afternoon, after wondering where his driver was, Levine would somehow get a lift into London and see his accordion of a car sitting in the middle of the road.
In her last move, she went back to the car, grabbed the keys from the ignition, and threw them into the muddy bog of a field behind the boulder.
There, you bastard, you son of a bitch, Levine. That’s nothing.
That’s what nothing can do.
* * *
When Elsie pulled up to the pier for the Île de France in Plymouth, she was anxious to see how the design of this luxury liner matched up against her own. She had it on good word that the liner was the most beautifully decorated ship ever built, with the motifs entirely in the Art Deco style. It was the first major ocean liner built after the end of the war. She had arranged to look at the state and public rooms before embarkation.
Much to Elsie’s chagrin, the rumors were true. Along with Lord Samuel Waring, the chief of Waring & Gillow, the premier furniture maker, which was outfitting the Viceroy with furniture for first class, she wandered through the staterooms and was impressed with everything they saw. The attention to detail was stunning; nothing was overlooked, down to the painted legs on the chairs and the wrought-iron railings that twisted and looped along the grand staircase.
Initially, she was so awed by the beauty of the Île de France that she became disheartened and said so to Lord Waring; he cautioned her to not be discouraged. The bold steps that were taken in the design of the ship showed that the stodgy paneled oak staterooms of grand old ships were falling out of fashion. There was no better time to be a ship designer than now, he emphasized, and Elsie saw that he was right.
As they neared the end of the gangplank, a large crowd of photographers, reporters, and onlookers were gathered at the bottom, rendering the exit impassable.
“What is it?” Elsie said, trying to lift her head to see the commotion.
A flash went off directly in Elsie’s eyes, almost blinding her.
“This is ridiculous,” Lord Waring said, and, taking Elsie’s arm, began to make his way through the crowd.
Elsie glimpsed a face she thought she knew. In a double take, she caught his bald head and compact features, but could barely see anything aside from the top of his shiny crown. Then she heard it. “Mr. Levine! Mr. Levine!” someone called.
“Samuel, wait—” she said, holding her hand up to Lord Waring.
“Is anything wrong?” he asked.
“No, but I want to hear what this is all about,” she added, trying to position her ear to capture anything in the din of countless yelling voices.
“What are your plans now that the Columbia is wrecked?” someone said.
“Are you going to plan a west–east crossing again? Is that why you’re going to New York?” she managed to make out from another voice.
“Wait, wait!” Levine shouted, raising his hands in an attempt to silence everyone. “I am accompanying my wife and children back to New York,” he said clearly and loudly. “The Columbia will be shipped overseas and will be repaired.”
“Is it true that Chamberlin is suing you for twenty-five thousand dollars, Mr. Levine? Was he paid, Mr. Levine?” another reporter shouted. Another flash went off.
“Where’s Captain Hinchliffe? Did you pay him or will he join the lawsuit with Chamberlin?” someone else yelled, and the crowd broke into laughter.
“Is it true that Mabel Boll was the reason your wife filed for divorce, Mr. Levine?” another inquiry came.
“There is no divorce,” Levine said sternly and clearly. “My wife and Mabel Boll are best friends.”
Even Elsie laughed at that. Where was Mabel? Where was Captain Hinchliffe? she wondered. He certainly wasn’t sailing to New York. Just where was the famed pilot?
“Let’s hurry up and try to catch the early train back to London,” she said with a wide smile. “I have a telephone call to make.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
FALL 1927
Ruth Elder in Lakeland, Florida.
I think you should read this,” George said as he handed Ruth the copy of the Lakeland morning newspaper. “But you are not going to like it.”
With a glance at the headline on the front page, alongside her photo next to the American Girl, Ruth became upset. “Is Girl Flyer Lady Lindy or a Fraud?” it asked.
She sat down in the extra wooden folding chair in George’s office at Dixie’s and tried to steel herself, but it was no use. By the second paragraph she was incensed.
“How can they print that?” she said, her brow furrowing and her face flushed red. George had never seen Ruth mad before. She was always the perfect composition of Alabama charm and self-assured poise.
“How can they say this is just a publicity stunt? We spent thirty-five thousand dollars on a plane for a publicity stunt?” she said. “They think this is a sham for some advertising scheme?”
“It’s good news, Ruth,” George explained.
“How is this good news?” she said, throwing the paper on George’s already cluttered desk. “They are trying to make a fool out of me, saying that I should just stay a beauty queen and walk around in swimsuits. It’s a good thing I like you, George, because I feel like punching somebody.”
“That’s front-page coverage,” he replied with a smile. “Big picture of you and the plane. This is exactly the kind of thing Cornell and the other West Virginia boys are counting on. They want you to cause a stir. And this here is proof that it’s working!”
“But, George, they said I can’t fly,” she said, and George could see that it hurt her after all of the hard work she had done, especially in the last month. “I am weeks away from getting my pilot’s license. No one has said an
y such thing about Frances Grayson. No one is spreading lies about her!”
George shook his head. “That’s because the newsreels are full of her taking off and landing, taking off and landing, in that behemoth of a plane,” George reminded her. “Plus, she’s said she knows nothing about flying planes; she’s just a passenger.”
Ruth stopped for a moment and then her eyes grew wide, her eyebrows arched, and her mouth began to form a wry smile.
“Help me find the telephone number to the newspaper, will you, George?” Ruth said as she picked up the receiver from the desk.
“Oh, so you’re going to put on a show for the newspaper, are you?” he said with a laugh.
“Oh, no,” Ruth said, shaking her head, her curls bouncing. “I’m going to do more than that.”
* * *
September 17, 1927
Dearest Captain Hinchliffe:
Though I know when we last parted it was under circumstances less than ideal, I hope that you and your family are doing well. I understand that you have returned to your position at Imperial Airways, and that is why I am writing to you at this time.
As you know, Mr. Levine had given me his word that he would fly me across the transatlantic path in order for me to make history and secure the title of the first woman to do so. Understandably, this was not to happen, as my weight proved to be too significant for a successful flight. I was happy to give up my seat in the face of danger, although I was terribly disappointed. To risk the life of a fine man like yourself was simply not a consideration. I chose to remove myself from the flight so that others may live, and although I have never regretted the decision, the urge to make the flight and claim history is one I feel in the deepest part of my bones.