The Revelation of Beatrice Darby
Page 1
Table of Contents
Synopsis
Acknowledgments
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
About the Author
Books Available from Bold Strokes Books
Synopsis
How much courage does it take to be yourself? In a decade when good girls conform to strict family and social expectations, Beatrice Darby is about to find out. After a harmless admiration for her older boss, sophisticated Abby Gill, blossoms into a full-blown crush, Beatrice is startled to discover why she’s never felt like other girls.
She soon learns the necessity of “passing,” the shame of secret “sin,” and the pressure to meet family expectations, all while suffering the angst of unrequited love and the disastrous end to her friendship with college roommate and future sister-in-law, Gwen Ridgeway. When Abby reappears years later, can Beatrice go against all she’s ever known to be happy? Will she have to choose between honesty and her family?
The Revelation of Beatrice Darby
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The Revelation of Beatrice Darby
© 2015 By Jean Copeland. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-383-7
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, New York 12185
First Edition: April 2015
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Shelley Thrasher
Production Design: Susan Ramundo
Cover Design By Gabrielle Pendergrast
Acknowledgments
Bannon, Ann. Odd Girl Out. San Francisco: Cleis Press, Inc., 1957, 2001. Print.
Tim Parrish, my mentor.
Anne Notarino-Santello, my first-draft copy editor.
Dedication
For my father, James P. Copeland, and the late Carolyn F. Copeland, the other writers in the family.
Chapter One
Suddenly they were alone on an island of forbidden bliss.
Beatrice Darby did a double take at the sensational caption on the cover of the novel she knew right away she shouldn’t be looking at. Odd Girl Out was its title, and she tingled as she absorbed the image of the half-naked blonde perched under it, her naughty parts barely hidden in a pile of plush pillows. She glanced around DeLuca’s drugstore to make sure no one she knew noticed her ogling its cover art on the rack in the back corner.
This discovery raised the stakes in her presence at DeLuca’s that afternoon in 1957 as she was supposed to come straight home from her summer job to prepare supper—a week-long penitence for skipping Sunday mass the day before to enjoy a sunny morning at Lighthouse Point Park. She and her older brother, Quentin, rarely agreed on anything except that when their mother had one of her nervous spells, and couldn’t accompany them to church, they would act as each other’s alibi as they pursued separate adventures in religious hooky. Her caper would’ve been a success, too, had their gossipy neighbor, the heathen Mrs. Pritchett, and her brood of five not been struck with that same notion.
Her heart raced as she snatched the paperback from the cluster of other tawdry romance novels on the bottom shelf. She pivoted toward the wall on the heel of her saddle shoes and began fanning through the pages.
A wash of heat flooded Laura’s face. She bent over Beth again, perfectly helpless to stop herself, and began to kiss her like a wild—
“What do you think you’re doing?” a woman hollered.
Beatrice flinched and dropped the book on the floor. As a woman scolded her son for stuffing penny candy down the front of his suspender pants, Beatrice kicked the book under a magazine rack until the mother-son riot ended with the mother dragging the red-faced, screaming boy from the drugstore. Exhaling with relief, Beatrice slid the book out from under the rack with her foot and poked through the pages to finish the stimulating sentence.
…like a wild, hungry child, starved for each kiss, pausing only to murmur, “Beth, Beth, Beth…”
She could hardly believe what she was reading. People actually wrote these kinds of stories? She devoured the passage, fearing at any moment she might be discovered. She wanted to read the novel from beginning to end, yet she couldn’t stroll up to the counter and buy it. And if she stayed and kept reading, she would get home so late from work she would rouse her mother’s fury. Before she realized what she was doing, Beatrice tucked it under her baggy blouse and headed toward the exit. She focused on the top of her outstretched hand as it was only seconds from pushing the door handle to freedom.
“Beatrice,” Mr. DeLuca called out from behind the counter.
She stopped at the door, clutching the soft cover sticking to her moist stomach, and glanced at him over her shoulder.
“Your milkshake and doughnut,” he said. “You haven’t touched them.”
A rush of heat swept up her neck and tickled her ears. “I can’t, Mr. DeLuca,” she stammered. “I’m gonna be late for supper.”
“Well, come over here and I’ll wrap up the doughnut for you.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay. I really need to go,” she said, pulling at strands of hair from her chestnut-brown ponytail sticking to her neck.
“It’ll only take a second, Bea. Take it home to your mother if you don’t want it.”
She flicked her tongue at the sweat mustache tickling her upper lip. What had she done? Not only had she stolen, a crime that had never tempted her in all her seventeen years, but if she were apprehended she would never be able to explain what she’d stolen. In the moment, however, the high of being only inches from a clean getaway snuffed out those inconvenient thoughts.
She shuffled over to the counter, still hugging the book through her blouse.
“What’s wrong with your stomach?” Mr. DeLuca asked, handing her the doughnut in a rolled-up brown paper bag. “You want a sip of Gassosa?”
“No, thank you, Mr. DeLuca. I should just go right home. My mom and brother will be miffed if we have to eat late on my account.”
Mr. DeLuca nodded as he stuck his thumb between his belt buckle and rotund stomach, well aware of the importance of a prompt supper.
Once outside, Beatrice took off down Chapel Street, slicing through the thick July humidity, her legs booster-charged by a surge of endorphins. She couldn’t wait for night to come to read more about Beth and Laura after her mother had fallen asleep watching television.
She burst into the apartment, intent on stashing her ill-gotten treasure safely in her bedroom.
“Beatrice, hold your horses,” her mother barked from the kitchen.
&nb
sp; Beatrice skidded to a halt short of her bedroom door. Normally, she would pretend she hadn’t heard her mother and continue into her room, but guilt arrested her.
Her mother peered around the refrigerator. “Why are you so late? Cooking dinner all week is your punishment, not some good deed you volunteered for.”
“I’m sorry. I uh, I had to stay late at work. They’re redesigning the children’s section.” She paused for a moment to marvel at her previously unknown talent for concocting elaborate pretenses on the draw.
“I don’t know why you kill yourself for that boss of yours. You won’t even be working there much longer.”
Beatrice squirmed at the pressure of the book now stuffed in the waistband of her skirt. “Well, it’s like you say, Mom, do unto others…”
Her mother nodded thoughtfully. “I’m glad to hear you do occasionally listen to me.”
Beatrice’s mouth twitched as her eyes fell short of making contact with her mother’s.
“Now go on. Wash yourself up and get dinner going. Your brother and I are hungry.”
In her room, Beatrice shook her head at the collection of sins she’d accumulated over the last two days. The corner of the concealed book scraped against her skin. Did adolescent sins carry less weight than grown-up sins? Or if you racked up sins as a kid, did you have to pay more penances later? She resolved to settle her account with God at a later date. Right now, this delicious, forbidden novel required her immediate attention. She lifted her pillow and tucked the book under it, pressing down and smoothing the floral bedspread over it.
“Bea,” Quentin said, peeking into her room.
“What?” she said with a start, spinning around and sitting on her pillow.
“Jeez, what are you so jumpy about?”
“Nothing. Guilty about skipping church.”
He looked at her quizzically. “Still?”
She rolled her eyes, anxious for Quentin to walk away. “You may not care about roasting in hell for all eternity, but I do.”
“God’s got commies to worry about,” Quentin said. “He doesn’t care about me ditching Sunday mass once in a while.”
“I’ll pray for your soul,” she said dryly, touching her pillow for reassurance.
He screwed up his mouth. “What a pal. By the way, thanks for not squealing on me. You’re an okay kid. Weird, but okay.”
“What do you mean?” she snapped, her excitement over the novel still prickling her skin.
“You know, when that stoolie, Pritchett, called Mom.”
Beatrice shrugged. “One hand washes the other. You can return the favor someday.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Now would you start cooking? We’re starving already.”
She crossed her eyes and flipped him the bird. He wagged a playful finger at her before disappearing into the bathroom.
*
Beatrice was still awake at two a.m., an hour after she’d finished reading the novel. Her mind swirled with the sordid tale of Beth and Laura’s romance as she lay in bed, her sheet tangled around her legs. Her skin was damp from the mid-summer humidity that showed no mercy even at that late hour. Did that kind of thing really go on between college girls? She was starting college in less than two months. Could something like that happen to her? What would she do if it did? Butterflies bounced in her stomach as she allowed herself to imagine that she was Laura.
The fantasy of kissing some imaginary college girl took off on its own. Soon, however, she wasn’t kissing a nameless, faceless girl—she was kissing Abby Gill, her much-older supervisor at the New Haven Public Library. Miss Gill was unlike any woman Beatrice had known in all her seventeen years, a petite, self-confident pill of a gal with rich olive skin and choppy brown hair that always seemed to need combing. She’d found herself drawn to Miss Gill since she started working with her, but now her intense, confusing feelings were finally starting to make sense.
In her visions, Miss Gill pecked at her lips, caressed her bare arms, pulled her closer, and kissed her harder. A warmth spread up her legs as sweat began to bead her forehead. She licked her lips as she imagined Miss Gill kissing them raw. Before she realized what was happening, her hand had crept under the thin bed sheet.
Her eyes sprang open as shame crawled over her. Where were those dirty thoughts coming from? It was the book, that smutty book. She sat up and fanned herself with a copy of Modern Screen on her nightstand, training her eyes on familiar objects in her room shadowed by the incoming light from the street. Her heart raced at the vividness of her fantasy.
She lay down again and flung aside the sheet to cool off, staring at the ceiling. She shouldn’t be thinking those kinds of things about other girls. She used to be able to gently escort them from her mind as soon as they crept in, but now they were becoming too powerful to stop.
Not long after she began working at the library during her senior year in high school, she began entertaining her idle mind with carefree thoughts of spending time with Miss Gill outside of work, going to DeLuca’s drugstore, window shopping Chapel Street, all the things she’d wished she could do with a best girlfriend. But of course, Miss Gill was a grown woman. Why would she want to spend her leisure time with a teenager? Still, it pleased Beatrice to imagine a close friendship with her supervisor, who’d always felt more like a friend than an authority figure. But lately, perverted thoughts were overtaking the innocent ones. Quietly she often stewed, chastising herself, making promises her maturing body couldn’t keep. She didn’t know what to do about it, but she certainly couldn’t ask anyone for advice.
She exhaled. Maybe skipping Sunday mass to frolic at the shore hadn’t been the brightest thing to do considering the turmoil going on inside her.
She eventually fell asleep, but not much before the clang of the alarm clock jolted her awake at seven a.m. She relished a stretch in the rays of sun pouring in from Franklin Street, until last night’s incident disrupted her calm. She took a moment to expel the whole matter from her mind, confident in her promise to herself. After another long stretch, she leapt out of bed, swept up her hair in a ponytail, and splashed cold water at her eyes.
As she dug her spoon into a bowl of cornflakes, she was pleased with her new idea that the provocative scenes were a product of her fondness for Miss Gill, simple admiration for the sophisticated, independent woman that she had somehow blown out of proportion. Her face felt flush again, but she focused on the note next to her cereal bowl from her mother that reminded her of the long list of chores she needed to complete before she rushed off to work.
She slurped the last soggy spoonful of flakes, catching the milk drip in the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. In another month, she’d be gone, a college freshman living in a dorm free from her domineering mother. Then who would she order around? Quentin? Not likely. He worked so hard at the bicycle repair shop every day. Why should he have to lift a finger when he got home? Beatrice might have had to wash his dishes and do his laundry, but she drew the line at picking up his skivvies.
*
Beatrice had spent most of the day at the library arranging periodical displays, assisting patrons, and stealing glances at Miss Gill, her attention thoroughly scattered. Butterflies had mamboed in her stomach whenever she noticed Miss Gill flash a patron her dimpled grin.
As the day progressed, the unsettled feeling she awoke with and attributed to that strange novel reemerged. She’d found some relief in knowing other girls out there had those same thoughts. Suddenly, deep down, Beatrice realized that her desire for Miss Gill wasn’t mere admiration. Her neck suddenly grew hot and tight. How would Miss Gill react if she ever knew of the secret things Beatrice had envisioned doing with her the night before?
Toward the end of her shift, Beatrice was helping an elderly woman locate Peyton Place in the fiction section. Once she spotted the title, she nudged the step stool aside with her foot and, using her long wingspan, snatched the copy off the top shelf.
“How conveni
ent to be so tall,” the old woman said.
“It’s been an experience, all right,” Beatrice said with a faint smile.
Suddenly, she caught Miss Gill in her periphery, approaching in a brisk walk, and her peanut-butter sandwich cartwheeled in her stomach. She braced herself against the stacks and absently fingered the novel’s binding. As Miss Gill breezed past, she offered Beatrice a playful wink.
She inhaled the exotic wake of Evening in Paris that trailed Miss Gill as she headed toward the front desk, watching Miss Gill’s curvaceous rear end each step of the way. Her heart raced as she anticipated the husk of that mature voice, the words that would invite Beatrice to stand close to her.
“Oh, Bea,” she called quietly, at last. “Would you return these to nonfiction for me when you’re free?”
“Oh, miss, can you also help me find…” the old woman said, but Beatrice had already sprinted to Miss Gill’s side.
“Gee, too bad you’re spending your last summer of freedom stuck in this musty old place,” Miss Gill said. “Don’t you ever just feel like taking off and getting out in the sun or having a swim at Lighthouse?”
“That didn’t work out so well the last time I tried it,” she said with a frown. “Besides, my mom would get in a tizzy if I missed a day of work.”
“How would she know? I wouldn’t tell.”
“She’d notice it in my paycheck.”
“I suppose she would.” Miss Gill shook her head. “You know, Bea,” she narrowed her eyes, “sometimes being bad feels pretty good. There’s no crime in having a lark once in a while. And you’re so young yet. Like the Romans say, Carpe diem.”
Beatrice shrugged as she traced symmetrical patterns in the rug with the tip of her shoe. It was fun playing against type for once, even with the consequences, but as she zeroed in on Miss Gill’s glistening lips, she couldn’t imagine why on earth she’d want to be anywhere but right here.