by Robin Talley
Marie looked behind them again. “Shhhh.”
As Janet had suspected, there was nothing to be found in Peoples, so she led Marie outside and down the block. Silver Spring wasn’t nearly as crowded on this Saturday afternoon as Georgetown would’ve been, but even so, Marie’s eyes darted anxiously from face to face as they moved down the sidewalk.
“Let’s try this one next,” Janet said, pointing.
“Are you sure?” Marie frowned at the small, grimy building before them. The sign over the door read Gray’s Drugs in faded red paint. Its windows, so different from the crowded, colorful displays at Peoples, were nearly empty save for a few signs advertising shoe polish and blood-thinning tonics. “I’ve never been in a Gray’s before. Aren’t their stores awfully shabby?”
“Let’s find out. It’ll be an adventure.” Janet winked. To her relief, Marie laughed.
The inside of the store was as dingy as the outside. Janet ignored the crumbs on the floor and the white-haired man staring at them from behind the cash register as she led Marie to the back. The few other customers ignored them and went on perusing shelves stocked with cough syrups and cheap perfume.
When she saw the rows of paperbacks, Janet’s heart did a flip. At Peoples the books had been displayed under bright lights, like all the other merchandise, but here the tall, spinning wire racks were relegated to dusty shadows. It was exactly like the bus station in Ocean City where she’d first spotted A Love So Strange. Janet felt a flutter in her chest as she studied the lurid covers showing men in dark suits running down alleys, cowboys on horses waving guns over their heads, and scaly science-fiction creatures looming over screaming girls in tight-fitting space suits.
“How do you tell which books are—that kind?” Marie was staring at the racks as though afraid to touch them.
“Trust me, you’ll know.” Janet lifted one of the cowboy books. Behind it was a mystery, with a dead girl’s hand reaching out from a dark grave. “We just have to look through all of these until we find them.”
“Well, I suppose the benefit to coming into Gray’s is that no one from work is likely to see me here.” Marie reached for the nearest stack. “I can’t imagine anyone from the State Department coming into this store.”
“Probably not. If they did see you, though, you could always say you were looking for a nice Western.” Janet held up a book called Red Moon on the Ranch, showing a swarthy sheriff aiming his gun at a bandit in a yellow handkerchief. Marie smiled.
“You’d like them.” Marie twirled the rack and reached for a new book. The racks weren’t as full as they had initially appeared—the two of them had already gone through half the books here. “The girls at the office, I mean. We all gather at the same table in the cafeteria for lunch, unless someone’s on an important project for her boss and can’t be spared. Yesterday I had to bring a sandwich back to Pat because Mr. Brown had her working on a—Oh, look, is this one of them?”
Janet looked up excitedly, but the book Marie held was nothing but a standard science fiction novel. A green-skinned girl in a black dress and a leering, helmeted man stood in front of a futuristic cityscape.
“No, no.” Janet pointed at the man. “If it were, he’d be a girl. Besides, I don’t think the books we’re looking for would be science fiction. We probably ought to try another store.”
Marie didn’t protest as Janet led her back through the aisles and out onto the street. Janet decided to try the bus station next.
“I don’t see how you can tell by looking at the covers,” Marie whispered as they wove through the crowd. “They wouldn’t dare show that right on the front. The publishers would go to prison!”
“No, but there are certain clues. If two girls are on the cover, that’s usually a sign.” Janet tried to speak with authority, even though the only lesbian book she’d ever actually seen was A Love So Strange. “Someday, if my book is ever published, that’s the kind of cover it’ll have.”
“Your book?” Marie’s face stayed carefully composed, but Janet could hear the strain in her voice. “You’re...you’re really doing that? Like the letter said?”
“No one else knows,” Janet assured her. “It’s just a lark, really. I’ve been very careful to keep it secret.”
“Still.” Marie pulled another cigarette from her purse. “What if your parents find out?”
“They won’t. No one knows but you.”
When they pushed through the glass doors to the bus station, the fan that blew from the ticket counter brought a welcome relief from the heat. Marie grew quiet as she gazed around the wide, open space. The bus station was much more crowded than Gray’s or Peoples, but none of the passengers sitting in the waiting area seemed to pay the girls any attention.
Janet plucked Marie’s sleeve and pulled her toward the periodical racks that lined the back wall. The light overhead was bright, and they could see the books much more clearly than they had in Gray’s.
There were more books here than at either of the drugstores—a full four racks—and Janet’s heart leaped again. Perhaps she’d find another book by Dolores Wood, describing what happened to Betty after the end of A Love So Strange. Could she have left her boyfriend and found love again? If that were even possible for her, with Sam gone forever.
“I’m not so sure about this, Janet,” Marie whispered, glancing behind them.
“Don’t worry.” Janet spun through the nearest rack. “We’ll only take a quick look.”
As usual, the wire racks were filled with Westerns and outer space stories. A cover painting of a blond girl pulling her robe open and pointing a gun caught Janet’s eye, until she noticed the man in a suit at the far edge of the frame. She spun the rack again, blinking past painting after painting of guns, of girls with their dresses pulled down low, of huge yellow and red letters blaring words like Desire and Sin and Outlaw.
A blur of orange jumped out at Janet on the second rack she checked. Her eyes darted down to a pair of breasts, then up to a smear of bright red lipstick. There was another smear beside it.
Two girls, on one cover.
“I’ve found one!” In her excitement, Janet forgot to lower her voice. “Look, Marie!”
“Shh!” Marie didn’t look at the book in Janet’s hand. “Don’t call me that. Anyone could—”
“But look!” Janet held out the paperback. A Deviant Woman, it was called, by Kimberly Paul. The cover showed a beach scene with a beautiful blond girl in the foreground—it was her breasts Janet had first noticed, spilling out of a tight gold bikini—and a girl with short dark hair sitting just above her. The dark-haired girl was wearing a green bathing suit with the straps undone and hanging loose from her neck. A wave crashed to the shore behind them.
Janet could only imagine what the two girls were doing alone together on that beach.
“I don’t want to look at it.” Marie glanced behind them again, checking every angle to see who might be watching. “Let’s just go.”
“We came all this way.” Janet gazed down at the book’s cover. “I thought you wanted to see this.”
“Well, I don’t.” Marie started walking quickly toward the ticket counter. “I’ll meet you outside.”
Janet stayed where she was, turning back to the book.
She remembered this moment at the bus station in Ocean City. The sudden compulsion that made her slip A Love So Strange under her blouse.
Janet didn’t want to be a thief, but she wanted this book. She wanted to take it home and read it after everyone else had gone to bed. To stare at that cover anytime she wanted to.
Well, why shouldn’t she buy it? It only cost a quarter. She had ten times that in her purse.
A surge of boldness flowed into her. It was just how she’d felt that night outside Meaker’s.
Janet straightened her shoulders, walked up to the cashier and laid the book flat on the counter.
“Hello. I have a purchase, please.”
The man smoking behind the register didn’t look at her at first. He was staring down at a magazine he’d spread out on the desk. After a moment, with an annoyed grunt, he glanced over at A Deviant Woman.
Only then did he raise his eyes to look at Janet.
She shifted, wishing she’d picked up a packet of gum or a newspaper or something else she could have put on top of the book. Instead, the cover of A Deviant Woman stared up at them both.
The cashier’s face slid into a smirk.
“Will that be all, then?” He glanced down at Janet’s bare left hand, then added, with a low chuckle, “Miss?”
“Yes.” Janet’s voice came out very small. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Yes, that will be all, thank you.”
“Twenty-six cents.”
Janet handed him a dollar and shifted again while the man took his time making her change. He didn’t bother to disguise his amusement, his eyes darting back and forth from the book on the counter up to Janet’s face, letting his eyes linger along the way.
“You go on and be a good little girl, now.” The man winked as he passed her the change and slipped the book into a brown paper bag.
Janet shoved the change into her purse without bothering to count it and hurried out of the store as fast as her legs would carry her. Her face burned. She didn’t look back, but she could feel the cashier watching her all the same.
“Are you all right?” Marie asked as soon as she stepped outside. Janet nodded in a rush. She was glad, so glad, that Marie had waited out here for her. Then Marie noticed the paper bag. “What’s that?”
“Oh, it’s...” A new wave of shame crashed over Janet. The bag felt dirty, suddenly, as though it might infect her. “It’s nothing.”
“Please tell me you didn’t buy it.” Marie stared at the paper bag with revulsion in her eyes. She pressed a fist against her mouth. “Janet, please.”
“Oh, stop that, it’s only a book.” Janet’s shame twisted into anger. “It can’t hurt you.”
“What? Surely you understand that’s not what worries me.”
“Isn’t it?” Janet turned and began to walk rapidly back toward Georgia Avenue, still clutching the bag. She wished her purse were bigger so she could shove it inside. “When we’re alone you seem quite pleased with me, but here it’s as though you think I’m out to get you.”
“What are you talking about?” Marie’s whispers were laced with indignation. “I’m only worried someone could find out. Don’t you remember what happened to that boy? That senator’s son, the one who was caught with another...” Marie swallowed, as though she couldn’t even say the word. Janet had no idea who she was talking about, but she could grasp her meaning well enough. “It was terrible. I can’t be seen with that book, and neither can you. To think, of you writing one yourself! What would the sisters at Holy Divinity say?”
“I’m not planning on discussing it with the sisters at Holy Divinity!”
“Please keep your voice down!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Janet shifted to an exasperated whisper. “If you’re that worried someone might see us together, perhaps you’d better leave without me.”
Marie stopped walking. She stared at Janet, as though waiting for something. When Janet didn’t reply, Marie finally said, “Perhaps I should.”
“Go on, then.”
“I will.”
For a moment, neither of them moved. Their eyes stayed locked as shoppers moved around them on the busy street. Janet was reminded, cruelly, of the fixed gaze Sam and Betty shared on the cover of A Love So Strange.
She knew, in some corner of her mind, that Marie was right. That it was Janet who was unusual for having become so enraptured by these books and this exciting new world. Still, she didn’t lower her gaze.
It was frightening to think of how different all of this was from what she’d always known, but Janet didn’t regret what she’d done. She wouldn’t let her fears dictate her choices.
Finally, Marie turned toward the street and lifted her arm. A taxi pulled up.
Marie looked over her shoulder as she slid into the back seat. The girls’ eyes met one last time. Then, just as quickly, she was gone, the taxi pulling away from the curb before Janet had made up her mind to stop it.
7
Monday, September 25, 2017
“I’m sorry, Elaine, but I can’t accept this. Not from my own daughter.”
They were the last words she’d ever heard her father say.
Elaine had called the police station in Hanover, but they couldn’t answer her questions. Mother couldn’t, either—or wouldn’t. Every time she’d tried to call, Mother had hung up as soon as she recognized Elaine’s voice on the line.
And so no one had told Elaine precisely what happened. She’d had to piece together several disparate accounts until it began to make sense.
Father had left for work in the morning, at the same time he always did. He’d parked his car across from his office, like usual. Then he’d started to cross the street—without waiting for the light to change.
A pickup truck had been speeding down the road. Father had been directly in its path, but he hadn’t tried to move.
When the ambulance arrived, his body was already cold.
Had it been intentional? An accident? Elaine would never know for certain. Yet it had happened only days after Wayne had made sure her parents found the letter and learned the truth about her, and Elaine couldn’t convince herself it had been entirely a coincidence.
She’d never again hear Father’s bellowing laugh, or see the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled. He was gone forever.
All because of the way she was.
Abby groaned every time she thought about that scene.
It was such a cliché for a queer character to think she’d caused her dad’s suicide. As though it were Elaine’s fault her dad was a homophobe.
She knew pulp books had to have tragedy in them to get around the censors, but Abby had already read so many books and seen so many shows and movies where the gay characters wound up dead or distraught that the last thing she wanted to do was read about it again. Besides, she liked the book’s ending a few chapters later so much better—the scene where Elaine and Paula resolved to stay together in spite of all the tragedies they’d been through.
Still, for some reason, Abby had read the scene about Elaine trying to figure out what had happened to her dad half a dozen times. Maybe that was why it was stuck in her head now, when she was supposed to be paying attention to what her friends were talking about.
“I’m ghastly at sun salutations,” Vanessa was saying. The five of them had just come from a yoga fund-raiser for hurricane relief in the middle of Dupont Circle, and they were all varying levels of sweaty. “Give me Zumba any day.”
“There’s no such thing as being ghastly at yoga,” Ben said, as though he was suddenly a yoga expert. “You saw us all back there. I fell over, like, three times, but it was totally fine. The teacher even said my hummingbird breathing was excellent.”
“It’s humming bee breathing, not hummingbird.” Abby reached into her pocket to silence her buzzing phone. “Besides, she only said that because she thought you were cute.”
“Ooh, really? Hot cute or little-kid cute?”
“What do you care?” Vanessa elbowed him.
“Ow.” Ben rubbed his side, but he was grinning. Abby rolled her eyes. She liked flirting a lot more when she was one of the participants.
But Linh and Savannah were walking behind the rest of them, talking about cross-country, which meant she was too far away to flirt with. Lately, their friend group had been switching up its usual patterns. Savannah and Vanessa had gone out for most of the year before, and their relationship had overlapped with Linh and Abby’s, which meant for a long time thei
r group had consisted of two neat couples, with Ben in the mix to keep things interesting. Sometimes, if he was going out with someone they’d join the group, too, but Ben had been single so far this year, which meant their group was couple-free for the first time anyone could remember.
Everything was getting all mixed up all of a sudden. Abby hadn’t realized how much she’d enjoyed the easy symmetry of the way things used to be.
She shook it off and squinted at the sign on the corner, looking for the LGBT Archive headquarters. The others were taking the long route back to the metro, but Abby was meeting with Ken Aldrich, the historian Ms. Sloane knew, before she had to go back to campus for Ethan’s recital.
“What does that street number say?” she asked Ben, squinting up at the sign. “Is it 1717?”
“No, that’s 1715,” Linh called from behind her. Abby smiled, glad to see she was listening to them after all. “We’re almost there.”
Abby glanced back at her. Linh smiled in return, and Abby felt a rush of delight.
It was going to be a good afternoon. She could feel it. For one thing, Linh was smiling that gorgeous smile at her. And for another, she was only a few minutes away from knowing how to find Marian Love.
If Ken Aldrich’s information was as good as she hoped it would be, Abby and Marian Love could be sitting down for coffee this very weekend. Or maybe martinis. If Women of the Twilight Realm really was based on her life, Marian Love drank nothing but martinis.
Abby could already picture the articles. They’d have headlines like “The Girl Who Solved the Mystery” and “Out-and-Proud Lesbian Teen Finds Long-Lost Closeted Lesbian Author” next to photos of Abby with a smiling Marian Love. They’d both look fabulous in vintage pencil skirts, and the captions would quote Marian saying something like, “This brave young woman showed me I no longer have to hide.”
Abby kept imagining her first conversation with Marian Love. She already had the basics planned out. She’d start by asking a few questions about Women of the Twilight Realm—most of all, she wanted to know if Paula and Elaine had definitely stayed together for good after the book ended, because it was kind of implied that they did, but the last chapter wasn’t totally a hundred percent clear—and then she’d transition to convincing Marian Love to reveal her true identity to the whole world, starting with Abby’s social media accounts.