Pulp

by Robin Talley

  “Of a sort. Still, a lot of them, whether intentionally or not, also touched on the bigger issues facing the LGBTQ community in the fifties and sixties. That means you’ll need to spend even more time at the library. Read up on the bar raids, the Lavender Scare here in DC, all of it. Start a research journal to keep track of what you learn. Remember, this was pre-Stonewall and pre-second-wave feminism, so there’s a reason all the pulp authors wrote under pseudonyms—it might as well have been the Dark Ages for queer women. It was also the Jim Crow era, so you’ll need to read about racial segregation, too. The pulps were overwhelmingly white, but you’ll need to know about the real world of that time regardless. And you should study up on the overall postwar American economy while you’re at it.”

  “Uh.” That was a lot of research. It was a good thing Abby liked the library.

  “After you’ve made some headway, let me know and I can set up a meeting for you with a friend of mine,” Ms. Sloane went on. “He’s a historian focusing on LGBTQ political movements. He can point you to more resources.”

  “All right,” Abby said, though she had no intention of meeting Ms. Sloane’s historian friend. She hated going up to strangers and asking them for stuff.

  “You can work on the research over the next few weeks, but I’ll expect your proposal by email tomorrow, and an outline for the novel and at least twenty hard copy pages from your first draft a week from Monday.” Ms. Sloane stood up. “Don’t worry. We won’t critique them in the workshop until I’ve given you notes and you’ve had a chance to revise.”

  “Okay.” Sensing the meeting was over, Abby climbed to her feet. Ms. Sloane held up a finger.

  “And...” Ms. Sloane watched her pick up her backpack, her fingers fumbling as she wound the straps over her shoulders. “I’m here. If you ever need to talk.”

  Abby nodded briskly and left the room.

  There were still five minutes left in her free period, so Abby found an empty spot in the courtyard and took out her laptop. Women of the Twilight Realm was still open on the screen.

  Elaine had already had her heart broken once. From now on, she was keeping it wrapped up in cellophane.

  Abby wanted to know who had broken Elaine’s heart. But most of all, she wanted to know if the cellophane had worked, and where she could get some of her own.

  She clicked through to the next page.

  2

  Monday, June 27, 1955

  Janet had made a terrible mistake.

  Two weeks ago, when she’d written the letter, she’d still been flush with her discovery. She hadn’t been thinking clearly.

  But her mother was always telling her she was rash and reckless, and Janet had finally proven her right: it was only after the postman had already whisked her letter away that she’d realized a reply could come at any time. That it would be dropped into the family mailbox alongside her father’s Senate mail, her mother’s housekeeping magazines and her grandmother’s postcards from faraway cousins. That anyone in the family could reach into the mailbox, open that letter and discover the truth about Janet in an instant. And that they could realize precisely what that meant.

  So Janet had spent every afternoon since perched by the living room window, listening for the postman’s footsteps on the walk.

  Each day, when she heard him coming, she leaped to her feet and tore out the front door. Sometimes she beat him there and burst outside while he was still plodding up the steps to their tiny front porch. On those days, she forced a smile and held out trembling fingers to take the pile of letters from his hand.

  Other days she was slower, and stepped outside just as he’d departed. Those days she pounced on the stuffed mailbox, flinging back the lid where JONES RESIDENCE was written in her mother’s neat hand.

  Then there were afternoons like this one. When Janet was too late.

  She’d made the mistake of getting absorbed in her reading, and when she heard the slap of brown leather filtering through the window glass she’d told herself it was only the next-door neighbor, a tall Commerce Department man who left his office early in the evenings and never looked up from polishing his black-rimmed glasses.

  And so Janet’s eyes were still on the page in front of her—it was one of her father’s leather-bound Dickens novels; Janet’s parents had been after her to read as many classics as she could before she started college in September—when the mailbox lid clattered. Before she realized what had happened, her mother’s high heels were already clacking toward the front door. “Oh, there you are, Janet. Was that the postman I heard?”

  Janet bolted upright, the Dickens spilling from her lap. She bit back a curse as she knelt to pick it up, smoothing back the bent pages as her mother frowned at her. “Really, Janet, you must take more care with your father’s things. And what is that getup you have on? You know better than to wear jeans in the front room, where anyone walking by could see you.”

  “Sorry, ma’am.” Janet tucked the volume under her arm and stepped past her mother, narrowly beating her to the door. Janet was an inch taller than Mom now, and her legs were still muscled from cheerleading in the spring.

  She jerked open the front door and slid her hand into the mailbox before Mom could intervene. Three letters today. Janet tried to angle her shoulders to shield the mail from view.

  The first two letters were for her father, in official government envelopes with his address neatly typed on by their senders’ secretaries. The third letter bore Janet’s name.

  It had come.

  A short, sharp thrill ran through her as her fingers reached for the seal. Would this be the day everything changed?

  Two weeks ago, she’d discovered that slim paperback in the bus station. That night, she’d read every page and found herself so enraptured, so overwhelmed, that she couldn’t help writing to its author. Now here it was—a reply. The author of that incredible book had written a letter just for Janet.

  But Mom was still standing right behind her. Could Janet slip the letter into her blouse without her seeing?

  “What’s gotten into you today?” Mom reached over Janet’s shoulder and plucked all three letters from her hand. Simple as that. “What’s this one with your name?”

  “It’s nothing.” Janet ached to snatch the letter back, but forced herself to breathe instead as Mom tucked her finger behind the seal. Everyone in the family had always felt free to open Janet’s mail. She was eighteen years old, but still a child in their eyes. She’d have to think of a lie quickly.

  The letter had been addressed to Janet by mistake. That was what she’d say. Whoever had sent it must have found her name on some list of recent high school graduates.

  No, of course Janet couldn’t possibly imagine what the letter might refer to. She’d never heard of any “Dolores Wood” or “Bannon Press.” As a matter of fact, the letter could be a cleverly disguised Communist recruitment tool. For safety’s sake, they really ought to burn it before the neighbors saw.

  Though the idea of burning that letter, before she’d even had a chance to read it, made tears prick at Janet’s eyes.

  “Oh, it’s from the college.” Mom withdrew a single sheet of paper from the envelope and scanned it. “It isn’t important. Only a packing list.”

  “The college?” Janet hadn’t even glanced at the return address on the letter, but there it was. The letter was from Holy Divinity.

  Janet couldn’t believe she’d been so foolish.

  “Well, you won’t be needing this.” Mom tucked the letter into the pocket of her apron. “They must send it out to all the new girls, without regard for which will be moving into the dorms.”

  Janet nodded, hoping her mother couldn’t hear her heart still thundering in the silence.

  “Are you all right?” Mom frowned again. “You look flushed. Your father and I had planned to go to the club for dinner, but if you need us to stay
home—”

  “It’s nothing, ma’am.” Janet shook her head, but she could feel blood rushing to her cheeks under her mother’s scrutiny. “I, ah—I have to get ready for work or I’ll be late.”

  Mom’s frown deepened. “I didn’t realize you were working tonight.”

  “I am.” Janet wasn’t. Another stupid, rash thing to say. Now what could she do? Put on her uniform and show up at the Soda Shoppe, ready to trot milkshakes out to station wagons on her night off?

  To put off that decision, Janet dashed past Mom into the row house and ran up the narrow wooden stairs, her footfalls echoing behind her. Dad was always after her not to run in the house, saying it would disturb her grandmother’s rest, but Dad wasn’t home. Besides, Grandma always said it did her heart good to hear a child scurrying about the house and that Dad should shut his cake hole.

  Janet reached the second-floor landing and threw open the door of her small bedroom, the hot air hitting her like a steaming kettle. The room was the same as always—the bed neatly made with its delicate pink spread, the flowered wallpaper that was starting to peel around the edges after a decade of Washington summers, the round mirror over her dresser with photos tucked into the frame. They were school portraits of her friends, mostly, plus an old yearbook photo of Janet and Marie in their cheerleading uniforms with pom-poms at their hips, their bent elbows lightly touching.

  That photo was Janet’s favorite.

  Marie, her shiny hair framing her dark-rimmed glasses and always-gleaming smile, had been Janet’s best friend all through school. For years they’d done everything together, sitting side by side in every assembly and every lunch period. In junior high they’d been the only two girls to enter the science fair at the boys’ school, growing mold in carefully labeled jars and winning a red ribbon for their trouble. In high school they’d practiced their cartwheels and splits on the football field, giggling every time they fell onto the grass and making up silly variations to the official St. Paul’s cheers. Janet had never been happier than when one of the chants she made up provoked a fresh bout of laughter from Marie.

  Marie was a year ahead of Janet, though, and after she graduated Janet’s senior year had been lonely indeed. Marie had spent the year at secretarial school, learning to type and take stenography and do other important things while Janet sat in Latin class again, wearing her childish uniform blazer and holding out her palm for the nun to strike when she forgot a conjugation.

  That morning, eager to hear her voice again, Janet had tried to call Marie, but she was out, as usual. Janet had been forced to leave a terribly awkward message with her mother instead. Mrs. Eastwood had always seemed to think Janet was somewhat odd, and she could only have made that impression worse with the way she’d stumbled through the quick call.

  She’d tried to explain that she was only calling to ask about Marie’s job search. Now that she’d finished her business classes, Marie had been so busy with applications and interviews they hadn’t seen each other in weeks. Janet was desperate to talk to her again.

  Most of all, she longed to tell Marie about the book she’d found. Janet couldn’t wait to hear what she thought of it—even though she could probably guess. Despite their shared memories, Janet knew it was unlikely Marie would want to remain her friend once she knew her secret. No normal person would.

  Still, Janet was determined to tell her. There was no one else she could talk with about this. Certainly no one in her family. If her parents ever found out... Janet didn’t dare to think of it. Marie was the only one who might be willing to listen.

  Janet broke her gaze from the glossy photo and knelt on the floor next to her bed. She lifted the pink spread and in a single, practiced move, slid her hand between the mattress and bedframe until her fingers reached the cracked paper spine. She checked again to make sure the bedroom door was fully closed before carefully withdrawing the book from its hiding place.

  She needed to find a better spot for it. The weight of the mattress had not been kind to the binding. The cheap glue had already started to come undone, and a few pages were loose, but Janet tucked them back into their proper place. She sank onto the rug between her bed and the wall, where she’d be out of view of anyone barging in, and gazed down at the book’s cover.

  Its background was a deep, glaring shade of red. That color was what had first caught Janet’s eye when she’d spotted the wire rack full of books at the Ocean City bus station. It had been surrounded by similarly glaring paperbacks—detective fiction, gangster stories, the sorts of books you saw certain men reading on the streetcar. The sorts of books her father dismissed with a sniff as trash.

  But it was the drawing, the strange image that stood out starkly from that palette of red, that had held Janet’s eye for far longer than it should’ve.

  It showed two girls, neither much older than Janet herself. One girl had blond hair and one brown. Both had long, dark eyelashes and full, red lips. The dark-haired girl perched on a bed in the foreground, her legs long and slim, her skirt pulled up above her knees. Her green blouse was unbuttoned far enough to show a hint of pale slip beneath and a curve of bosom above. The blond girl stood farther back, dressed in nothing but a white nightgown that clung to her curves and a pair of deep brown stockings, the hems at the thighs fully visible below her shockingly short gown.

  The dark-haired girl sat twisted around on the bed, so that the two girls’ eyes met. The blond’s lips were parted, as though to speak to the other girl.

  Or, perhaps, to kiss her.

  Janet blushed at the thought, as she did every time. Though she knew well enough that within the book’s pages the girls did kiss, and even more besides.

  Janet had only glanced around the bus station for a tiny moment before she slipped the book under her blouse. It still mortified her to remember. The price on the cover was thirty-five cents, and Janet had had two dollars in her purse, but she couldn’t imagine showing her purchase to that smirking boy behind the cash register.

  That novel was the only thing Janet had ever stolen in her life. She’d read it straight through that first night, and she’d stared at the cover in secret every day since.

  Yellow letters above the drawing screamed the book’s title, A Love So Strange. Smaller black text below read, “A world spoken of only in whispers, where women enjoy twisted passions. Betty knew it was wrong...but she was powerless against her unnatural attractions.”

  At the bottom, in the smallest type on the cover, was the author’s name, Dolores Wood.

  Janet had read each of those words more times than she could count. Still, whenever she gazed at that cover, her eyes were pulled to the illustration. To the girls’ eyes where they met across the room. To the shapes of their bodies in their skimpy clothes.

  Janet pressed one finger into the dip in her lower lip. Her breathing had grown heavier.

  She’d never imagined there was a word for the strange feelings she’d had so many nights, alone in her bed, in the dark silence of her room.

  Lesbian.

  The word made her shudder. But it sent a tiny shiver down her spine, too.

  Janet had never understood, not until she turned the thin brown pages of Dolores Wood’s novel, that other girls might feel the way she did. That a world existed outside the one she’d always known.

  It had never occurred to her that life could be different from what had already been set out for her. Ill-fitting uniforms and nickel-sized tips at the Soda Shoppe. Her parents pausing in the dining room to listen as Janet made phone calls in the kitchen. Solemn history and mathematics lessons taught by stern-faced nuns. Then, someday, an equally solemn wedding to a faceless man, and a future spent baking solemn casseroles for solemn, faceless children.

  Janet had never thought books like A Love So Strange could be written, let alone published and sold—and right in the middle of a public bus station, too. She’d never imagined some
girls might actually do the sorts of things Janet had only furtively imagined in those brief, solitary moments between waking and sleeping.

  Reading A Love So Strange had made Janet remember some things differently, too.

  The way she and Marie had talked and laughed while they’d practiced their cheers. The way they’d touched, lying side by side on Marie’s back porch while her parents were out on warm summer afternoons.

  The way Janet would trail her fingers along Marie’s bare arm after she’d pointed out some item in a magazine. The way Marie would smile and wait several moments before she drew her hand away.

  When Janet thought of kissing a girl, the way girls kissed other girls in the pages of Dolores Wood’s book, she always thought of kissing Marie. When she thought back to Marie’s smiles on those lazy afternoons, she wondered if Marie might feel the same way, too.

  If Janet could only show that book to Marie, it could change everything.

  Still, she should never have sent the letter.

  She’d been so foolish, to dream of writing a book of her own. To scrawl out that letter with all her silly, immature questions for Mrs. Wood. To address it to the publisher listed on the book’s cover and drop the envelope into the mailbox, as though it were as simple a matter as sending in for a catalog.

  Downstairs, she heard the front door open, then close again. “Janet! Come back down!”

  At the sound of her mother’s voice Janet scrambled to her feet, shoving the book back into its hiding place. She winced as she felt the cover bend. “Coming, ma’am!”

  Only then did Janet remember she’d said she had to work tonight. Mom would wonder why she hadn’t already changed into her uniform. She tried to think of another lie—she’d checked her schedule upstairs and realized she wasn’t working that night after all; there, that one was simple enough—but all thoughts of lies and excuses left Janet’s mind when she reached the bottom of the staircase and saw Marie in the foyer, smiling at her now-apronless mother and fiddling with the strap of her purse.