I turned to see, checking in with the hostess at the register, a slightly chunky but still nicely put-together woman, medium height, perhaps thirty, decked out in a goggled tan flying helmet, white blouse with a red and yellow polka-dot knotted scarf and brown jodhpurs; her features reminded me of a slightly less attractive Claudette Colbert. It struck me she didn’t need the helmet indoors, but maybe she wanted to make sure people knew she was a flier.
In which case, you’d think the woman would relish public attention from the most famous female pilot on the planet. But the response to Amy’s zealous hello was tepid; the round, makeup-less face twitched a polite smile. Then the woman took a seat alone, near one of the birdcages by the far wall.
Amy frowned. “I don’t understand…. Toni’s a friend. I haven’t seen or talked to her in some time, but—”
“Maybe she’s holding a grudge,” Mantz offered.
“Whatever for?”
“Didn’t you turn her down when she wanted you to partner up for the refueling-in-flight endurance record?”
“Well, yes, but I just couldn’t do it…G. P. had me so heavily booked with lectures…. Anyway, she got Elinor Smith to go with her, and they set the darn record.”
“Sure. And didn’t get near the publicity if Amelia Earhart had been along.”
Amy’s mouth tightened and she rose. “I better go talk to her….”
She went over to the woman’s table and began speaking very earnestly, a hand to her breast, standing before cool, seated audience. The woman had removed her helmet to reveal a boyish black-haired bob with pointed sideburns.
“A lot of jealousy between the girls who fly,” Mantz commented.
“Who is that?”
“Toni Lake. Ever hear of her?”
“No.”
“Well, she’s pulled off as many aviation feats as our girl Amelia, a real slew of altitude and endurance records in fact, and yet you’ve never heard of her. And that’s why she’s so royally pissed off, I’d guess.”
But something interesting was happening over at that side table. Toni Lake was standing and the two women were suddenly hugging, grinning, patting each other on the back. Amy had won her over.
Hand in hand, the two rival aviatrixes came over to the table and joined us. Amy made introductions (I was her “bodyguard and chief bottle washer”) and Toni Lake sat next to Mantz, across from Amy and me.
“Paul,” Amy said, “you’ve got to hear this…. Toni, tell Paul what you told me.”
“Tellin’ you’s one thing, hon,” the woman said. “Spreadin’ it around, tellin’ tales outta school, makes me look like Miss Sour Grapes of 1935.”
To tell you the truth, with her scorched-tan, leathery complexion, Toni Lake didn’t look like Miss Anything; but she did have lovely brown eyes and lashes longer than some store-bought I’d seen.
“G. P.’s done Toni an awful injustice,” Amy said; she was pretty worked up about it.
“Go ahead, Toni,” Mantz said, sitting back. He was working on one of his trademark frosted martinis; this was lunch so he’d only had two. “Let me warn ya, though—nothing you tell me about Gippy Putnam’s gonna much surprise me.”
But it was Amy who began the story, blurting, “G. P. tried to hire Toni to an exclusive contract to fly with me in the Women’s Derby.”
The Powder Puff Derby, as Will Rogers had dubbed it.
“She was to pretend to be my ‘mechanic’ but do most of the flying,” Amy said, indignantly.
“He said you weren’t ‘physically strong enough,’” Lake said with a humorless smirk. “Her loving husband offered me a two-year seventy-five-bucks-a-week contract to co-pilot Amelia, only she had to seem to be doin’
Amy was shaking her head, mortified.
I asked, “How the hell did G. P. figure you could make it look like Amelia was doing all the flying?”
Lake shrugged. “When we made stops, I was supposed to either get out of the way of the photographers, or stand to the left so I came second in the captions.”
“You have to believe me, Toni,” Amy said, and she seemed close to tears, not a frequent state for her, “I knew nothing of this. I would never have stood for it. Oh my goodness, how he could even think—”
“That’s not the worst of it,” Toni said. “When I refused to sign the contract, he blew sky high, started swearin’ like a stevedore, said he’d ruin me and all. Said I’d never fly professionally again and even if he hasn’t quite managed that, he’s put all sorts of barriers in my path…officials causin’ me problems, sponsor contracts fallin’ through. And I can’t get press coverage to save my life, anymore. They used to cover me like a movie star. Now I could fly to the moon and they’d just report an eclipse.”
“Toni,” Amy said, “I couldn’t be more embarrassed. I promise you, I swear to you, I will take care of this.”
“Well, even if you can’t—”
“I can, and I will, Toni. Count on it.”
“Sweetie, I’m just glad to know you weren’t in on it. I mean, everybody knows that your husband works against the other women pilots—”
