Flygirl

Ida meets up with Jolene at the hair salon. They are getting their hair done so that they can go out to the movies that night. At the salon, the hairdresser tells Ida that there have been rumors about her being gone for so long. Some have speculated that she was pregnant. They pressure Ida to tell them where she’s been, and finally she says she joined the army. Ida lets the hairdressers assume she’s become a nurse. The hairdressers tell Ida that Danny Taylor, Ida’s brother’s old classmate, died in the war. Jolene asks Ida about the other women she’s been training with, and Ida tells Jolene about Patsy’s death. Patsy’s story worries Jolene, who says to Ida:“You’re a fool, Ida Mae. At least when a girl passes for white down here, it’s to have a better life. Not to end up dead” (206). Ida becomes angry and accuses Jolene of being jealous because she could never pass as white. Ida decides to go home instead of going out with Jolene. She feels a little bad for what she said to Jolene, but she’s hurt by what Jolene said to her too.

At home, Ida helps her mother in the kitchen. She tells her mother that she knows she wants her to stay home, but Uncle Sam needs her to fight. Her mother tells her:“Baby girl, Uncle Sam doesn’t need you. Uncle Sam doesn’t need anyone in particular. He just takes whoever he can get and tosses them up to the slaughter” (211). Then Mama finally admits that she just wants Ida to be safe. On Ida’s last day home, she goes out into the fields to think. Ida still hasn’t spoken to Jolene. Ida runs into Grandy in the fields and tells him that she’s not sure if she should go back. He says of course she will, it’s in her nature: “You see, we all have our nature at the core of everything we do. There’s no changing it, no matter how we try” (216). Ida is grateful for Grandy’s wisdom and is ready to report for duty in California the next day.

Lily and Ida arrive at the third base that they’ve been stationed at since becoming WASP. A young man named Charlie Washington shows Ida and Lily to their barracks. This is the first base to have proper barracks for women; at their first assignment, they slept on the floor of the nurse’s rooms, and at their second, in a run-down boarding house. Jackie Cochran has been fighting in Washington,D.C.,for full soldier’s rights for women but has been making slow progress.

Lily has been receiving letters from her fiancé. Ida writes to Thomas and Grandy, but her mother is still upset that she is gone, and Ida is still not speaking to Jolene. Lily tells Ida that she wants Ida to be her maid of honor when the war is over.

Ida and Lily are assigned to fly a plane pulling giant target flags attached to its tail for men on the ground to practice shooting at. It should be an easy job for Ida and Lily, but a bullet flies past the front of the plane, and another hits the wing. Ida radios in for an emergency landing. When they land, Ida storms up to a soldier manning a gun and demands to speak to his commanding officer. She realizes the man is Charlie Washington, and the other men holding guns look even younger. They realize how desperate the war has become, and Lily comments: “Uncle Sam’ll be issuing diapers next” (226). A few days later, Ida and Lily are called to Birmingham, Alabama,by Mrs. Deaton and Jackie Cochran themselves for a special assignment.