“We’re calling her the Endeavour,” Elsie said with a smile.
* * *
The three pilots all took turns flying the magnificent plane; like the American Girl, the Endeavour had two sets of controls, enabling Elsie to fly the plane when Hinchliffe became fatigued, and vice versa. Gliding over the countryside, it handled as smoothly and easily as her Rolls.
There would be weeks of testing the plane, and Captain Hinchliffe had tried to prepare her by telling her exactly what was expected of her. He was definitively military when it came to training for a flight; Emilie had told Elsie that she had already tolerated her husband sitting in the same chair for an entire day and night in order to get ready for the trip. He planned for several endurance flights, culminating in a twenty-four-hour jog, seeing how the plane could handle different types of weather, particularly winds, and he wanted to get Elsie ready for loading fuel into the tanks from inside the plane. The petrol tanks weighed forty pounds apiece, and were specially designed to be lightweight and stackable and to take up as little room as possible. If she wasn’t adept at handling them by the time of their departure, it could be disastrous.
At two thousand feet, Hinch cut the motor and let the plane soar to see what she would do. She stayed steady, gentle, and in the silence sailed over the emerald-green hills. It was a perfect moment, the wind slipping by vaguely, the aeroplane confident in its strength and beauty. It was the most glorious bird in the sky, and when Hinch restarted the motor, it broke the graceful calm that the Endeavour had embraced them with.
Elsie made a note to herself that as soon as she could, she would take the Endeavour up by herself, cut the motor, and glide for as long as it would let her.
* * *
Wilmer Stultz had been waiting for four hours at the Miss Columbia hangar for his passengers to arrive.
As soon as the weather report was issued, he’d called Levine and told him they were good for takeoff. The day was promising; the Eastern Seaboard was cold but clear, with sunny skies from Florida to Havana. There wasn’t a more ideal day to fly. They agreed to meet at Roosevelt Field at eight a.m., and Stultz was ready to go. It was a fourteen-hour flight and he wanted to get going, using as much daylight as he could.
Levine and Mabel Boll, however, were on their own schedule. Mabel, of course, was late to begin with, switching ensembles several times. First she wore an ivory wool riding suit complete with a cape and a jaunty tiny top hat, but decided at the last minute that she looked like a circus ringmaster. Then she slipped into a slinky six-paneled silk crepe dress, but realized that it would most likely wrinkle, and finally decided on her gold maille sweater that sparkled when a flashbulb hit it.
As Mabel was turning to look at herself in the mirror, Levine made the mistake of mentioning that he had seen Ruth Elder’s ticker tape parade from his office window in the Woolworth Building.
“You shoulda seen it!” he said as Mabel gazed at the back side of herself. “The cheering was so loud, I couldn’t hear my phone ring, I tell ya!”
“I told you I don’t want to hear about her,” Mabel snapped, then snatched up a bright pink scarf and a pale pink scarf to compare them. “I want to get out of this town; I’m sick of seeing her everywhere. That little twit has been on the front page of the New York Times for days and days and days!”
She shoved both scarves into her handbag.
“But have you ever seen such a thing?” Levine asked her. “All of that tape flying from the sky; the place was covered in it! I tell you, it was like snow. Like a blizzard!”
Mabel stopped sniffing between the five perfumes that were her Cuba finalists and looked Levine dead in the eye.
“Did you throw anything out your window?” she asked him, and continued to stare as he opened his mouth several times, although nothing came out.
“Wha— Like what?” he said, shrugging.
“Like paper!” Mabel roared, slamming her third-favorite perfume down on her dressing table. “Did you throw little scraps of paper out your window?”
Levine huffed and threw his hands up.
“Little scraps of paper, maybe, yes,” he replied. “It was trash. I threw trash out the window. I tore up trash and threw it out the window. Yes.”
“You,” Mabel said, taking one slow step toward him at a time, leaning forward, her neck stretched, veins popping, like a leopard about to pounce, “are an animal!”
Levine took a couple of steps back.
“How could you do that to me?” she continued. “How could you throw paper at Ruth Elder when you know how much I loathe that gnat? Who is she to just jump in a plane and try to fly over there when I have been trying, scratching, clawing at this chance for so long? How dare she!
“And how dare you!” she screamed, and grabbed the closest object: her blue emergency jewel bag. To Levine, it was if she flung it at him with her eyes; he didn’t see her hand reach for it, but in a second he heard a thud and felt his neck snap back.
When he came to, he was flat on his back, lying next to Mabel’s bed on the floor, his head noticeably throbbing. He reached up to the site of the pain and found a sizable knot behind his right ear.
Mabel was nowhere to be seen. The bedroom was still in disarray, but the blue bag he remembered hurtling at him like an asteroid was now sitting calmly on the bed.
Levine got up and stumbled to the bathroom to get a cold towel to put on his head, but when he reached for the doorknob, it was locked.
“Mabel,” he said with a sigh, “please let me in. I gotta bump on my head the size of a melon. I need a wet towel. Lemme in.”
He heard a throat clear behind the door.
“Perhaps you should have thought about that before joyfully tearing up paper and joining in on Ruth Elder’s terrific ticker tape parade,” the voice informed him with a tiny echo as it bounced off the tile walls in Mabel’s enormous bathroom.
“I need to stop the swelling,” Levine said, trying not to yell, knowing a cool head would work to his advantage. But his head hurt, and he was still a little dizzy.
“Marcelle!” he called as he walked to the staircase outside of Mabel’s bedroom. “Would you bring me ice and a towel? Madame has been throwing javelins again.”
“Oui, Monsieur Levine,” he heard the maid reply. “Tout de suite!”
He was sitting on the bed when Marcelle ran up with a bucket and a towel and wiped away the blood that had coagulated already. Shaking her head, she wrapped chips of ice in the towel and placed them gingerly upon the quickly growing protrusion.
“Madame is very bad,” Marcelle whispered, and Levine somehow found it in himself to chuckle.
Yes, he thought. Madame is very bad.
He thanked Marcelle and went once again to the bathroom door.
“Mibs,” he tried calling. “Mibsy?”
A few seconds passed.
“What?” was her petulant answer.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry about the parade. I swear to you. I won’t ever throw paper at anyone again unless it’s you. Okay? Mibs? Please? I give you my word.”
“Shut up, Charlie,” she added.
“You know,” Levine said, “if you think that parade is big, wait till you see what is down there in Cuba when we land. We’ll be national heroes. From what I hear, all sorts of press and photographers will be there, including most of the population of Havana. Ruth Elder don’t have nothing on you, Mibs. You just wait and see the crowds we get. It’s going to put that paper-throwing mess to shame. I bet you’ll get a newsreel or two.”
At first he heard nothing, then shuffling. Then Mabel’s voice mumbling.
“You really think so?” she asked humbly.
“Oh, are you kidding?” he exclaimed. “It’s gonna be a madhouse! I’m thinking we should get you a bodyguard!”
“Did Ruth Elder have a bodyguard?” Mabel asked in a little voice.
“Nah,” Levine said. “What’d she need one for? People have already flown to Europe! No one’s flown to Cuba! Th
is is a first! I’m telling ya, Mibs, it’s gonna be big. You’re not gonna believe it!”
The bathroom door opened and there was Mabel. All done up in her gold-link sweater, big diamonds shining on her ears like moons.
She smiled. There was lipstick on her teeth.
Levine motioned with his finger across his teeth and she fixed it immediately.
“I’m almost ready,” she said cheerfully, then kissed him on the cheek before noticing the mountain rising from behind his ear.
“Oh,” she commented, peering at the rising welt on his head. “That’s big.”
Levine smiled with tight lips.
“They always are,” he said.
* * *
They were four hours late getting to Mitchel Field, adjacent to Roosevelt Field, arriving in Mabel’s Rolls, but eased out of the car and sauntered up as if they had time to spare.
Stultz, sitting in the back of the hangar, stomped out his cigarette and stood up. He wiped his hands on his pants and walked over to meet the two, who were happily chatting, and had not even noticed that he had towed the Miss Columbia back into the hangar.
“Bill, I’d like you to meet Mabel Boll, your second passenger,” Levine said as Stultz shook her tiny limp hand.
Turning to Levine, he immediately saw the lump on his head, and pointed to it.
“Levine, you’re . . . bleeding,” he said with a curious look.
“Oh, still?” Levine said as he pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the wound.
“No takeoff today,” Stultz said, not exactly perturbed by the tardiness of the pair, but not pleased, either. He figured it like this: he was getting paid either way, and if he was waiting for the Bobbsey Twins or was in the air flying, it didn’t make any difference.
“No?” Mabel said. “Who says?”
“Doc Kimball,” Stultz replied, looking right at her. “Two hours ago a strong headwind popped up. Four hours ago it wasn’t there. So no takeoff today.”
“But I’ve packed,” Mabel said, “and I’m ready. Do you really think the press and all of Havana will wait for us for another day?”
Stultz laughed. He had heard about this one, and he simply wasn’t about to deal with another high-strung lady after Grayson. She wasn’t paying the bill.
“I don’t care,” he said, and walked away. “Be on time. Wind won’t wait for your hair to dry.”
The two stood there as if they were waiting for Stultz to come back and change his mind. In the darkness of the hangar, he vanished.
* * *
Ruth covered her eyes, shook her head, and screamed a little when Florenz Ziegfeld stopped the follies show and introduced her to the audience. Pherlie, Pauline, and Aunt Susan pulled her to her feet from her seat in the front row, where she turned around and waved to everyone, embarrassed at interrupting their night of entertainment.
“Hello, hello,” she said with her bashful smile, and then quickly tried to sit down again. But Mr. Ziegfeld wasn’t having any of it. He came to the edge of the stage and offered her his hand, then guided her onto the Ziegfeld Follies stage.
There he twirled her about as several Follies girls surrounded her, and one took off her cloche. Ruth was about to protest and laughingly said, “Now, you must give that back! That’s from Paris!” when she felt a heaviness on her head that nearly knocked her over. She was wearing a massive headdress like every other girl onstage.
“Ruth Elder,” Florenz Ziegfeld said, “I proudly induct you into the Ziegfeld Follies! What do you say to that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ruth said, realizing she had more clothes on than all of the other girls combined. “I don’t think this new hat will fit in a plane!”
The audience roared.
“Very well, Miss Elder, but know that you are welcome on our stage anytime! Miss Elder will be featured at many theaters around the country very, very soon!” Ziegfeld said, and Ruth was delighted when they removed the feathery, glittery skyscraper they had fastened to her head. Ziegfeld leaned down to give her a kiss.
“Let’s see you backstage after the show,” he whispered in her ear, and she smiled and waved, which she was getting very good at doing, and gladly rushed back to her seat.
* * *
After the show, the four women made their way backstage, where the sparkle of the performance seemed a bit grittier than it had from the front. There were half-undressed girls everywhere, even more naked than they had been onstage. Mr. Ziegfeld met them and escorted them back to his room, where champagne was waiting in crystal fluted glasses.
“Shall we toast to our newest Ziegfeld girl?” he said as he raised his glass, and they all followed. “Here’s to a spectacular lecture tour that will not only take Ruth all over the country to meet her fans but make her a wealthy woman as well! To Ruth!”
“To Ruth,” Pherlie, Pauline, and Aunt Susan said. Ruth just giggled and smiled after taking a sip of the sweetest, finest champagne she’d ever had, even in France.
For one hundred days, Ruth would tour the country in Marcus Loew’s vaudeville shows, performing in four shows a day. And all she had to do was give a six-minute speech about her trip and her rescue after newsreels were shown. For that, she would be paid one hundred thousand dollars, which in Ruth’s eyes made her a millionaire. She made a thousand dollars a day.
“And after the one hundred days, we’ll be so happy to have you back in Alabama,” Pherlie said, subtly suggesting that her sister would not be returning to Lyle.
The truth of it was that Ruth hadn’t even given that a thought. Not one bit. She hadn’t invited Lyle along to any of her events since she had been in New York, and she did what she felt like doing. After the danger of the flight, Ruth realized she couldn’t share her life with anyone who didn’t believe she should make her own choices or follow her dreams. She banished him to the couch in her suite, just so he wouldn’t get the wrong idea. That part of her life had ended in the hangar at Roosevelt Field when the telegram asking her not to go was not from her husband but from the navy.
No, when she finished her tour of vaudeville, she wasn’t going back to Alabama, or Lakeland, or Panama. She didn’t even care to go back and get her things. She would buy new things. Better things, prettier things. Ruth Elder things.
No, when she finished her tour of the theaters and she was ready to go home, she wasn’t thinking about going to any of those places.
It was California she had decided on.
* * *
At around ten p.m. Mabel’s phone rang.
Marcelle had to wake Madame up, since she had “fallen asleep” in the drawing room after skipping dinner and going straight for the after-dinner cocktails, and the little maid had to drag her up the stairs and put her to bed. Mabel passed out with her face on her arm, which, after an hour or so, was indented firmly with the links of the golden sweater.
Marcelle tried hard to rouse her, and after trying to shake her awake she finally ran to the sink and brought back an ice-cold towel that she threw on Madame’s face, which did indeed raise her from the dead.
When Mabel half hung up the phone, she mumbled something about the blue bag and her ermine coat. Lucky for her, she was still wearing the clothes she had passed out in, and when Levine arrived in his car to pick her up, she stumbled into the backseat and Marcelle handed Levine her shoes. Both of them.
When they arrived at a deserted Mitchel Field, the plane was towed out and Stultz was ready.
“Lucky about the headwinds, huh?” he said as he took the feet and Levine took the arms of Mabel Boll. They tossed her onto the large gas tank in the back, threw her fur coat on her, and the Miss Columbia took off in the moonlight, heading south for Havana.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FALL 1927
Elsie Mackay on the field.
Mabel woke to a rumbling in her head like she had never known before.
Oh, my God, she thought, reaching for her temple. I’m going to fire Marcelle for buying the cheaper gin from that b
ootlegger.
Then she heard Levine’s voice and couldn’t help but moan out loud.
I will fire Marcelle for the gin but I will kill whoever let him in, her mind commanded.
To make matters worse, she realized there was dog hair in her mouth. A substantial amount of it, almost like an entire paw.
“Solitaire!” she whimpered as she reached up to push the dog away, but pushed off his hide instead.
As Solitaire’s skin slipped off her, Mabel shot up with a scream, opening her eyes into incredibly bright sunlight and Levine and Stultz both staring at her.
She stared at them for a while longer, trying to piece together time, place, circumstance, and possibility. She shuddered.
It took a minute or so for her to realize she was in the Miss Columbia, not her boudoir, and what she mistook for her dog was a pile of ermine on the floor at her feet.
“Good morning,” Levine said with a smile and a wave.
Stultz had returned to piloting the plane, disappointed that they hadn’t made it all the way to Cuba before the gorgon had risen.
She was slightly relieved, but her head was thumping. She was absolutely freezing and felt like she had a million pins stuck in her like a voodoo doll. She quickly realized why: she was wearing the gold links, which were embedded in her skin.
“Where are we?” she tried to say, but her voice cracked and it was best for her to whisper.
“THREE HUNDRED MILES TO CUBA!” Stultz shouted, making Mabel wince.
She reached down and grabbed her coat, sliding one arm into the hefty fur and then the next.
“Coffee?” she whispered to Levine, who had turned around and pretended not to hear her.
She took a deep breath, and at the risk of triggering an explosion in her own head, yelled, “COFFEE?”
Levine turned around with a goofy, sad smile.
“Aw, sorry!” he said. “I just drank the last of it.”
She crumpled back onto the fuel tank, put one foot on the floor, and then realized she was barefoot.