Pulp

by Robin Talley

  “Oh, right. I’ve heard of the Lavender Scare, but I don’t know much about it.”

  “Well, that puts you ahead of the game. Most people haven’t heard of it at all.” Ken sighed. Abby was starting to get the sense that being a historian specializing in LGBT history wasn’t the world’s most satisfying job. “Once you got a government job, you had to apply for a security clearance as part of the process. They’d interrogate your family, your neighbors, practically everyone you’d ever known to see if any of them had ever thought you might be gay. If they caught a single whiff, that was often the end of your career.”

  “What, like gay witch hunts?” Abby meant it as a joke, but Ken’s look was serious.

  “More like that than you might think.” He nodded. “Suicides were common. Very.”

  Oh. Abby wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Of course, that’s part of why the bar culture flourished.” Ken smiled, and Abby sensed he was trying to lighten the mood. “There was nowhere else it was safe to be open. Though the bars weren’t especially safe, either. There weren’t as many raids and beatings in DC as there were in New York and other cities, but the police still watched who was going in and out. If they spotted any military or government employees, that could pose major problems for them. Though for people of color, and black people in particular, the bars weren’t usually an option in any case, since most of them were still segregated. Do you know if the author you’re looking for was white?”

  “I—” Abby swallowed. For all the research she’d done, there was still so much she didn’t know about Marian Love. “I have no idea.”

  “Well, either way, if she was here in DC her community was in the process of being devastated during the time when she was writing this book. Thousands of people lost their jobs, and most of them had to leave the city, too. Getting fired from a government job for being gay meant being blacklisted by pretty much every other employer in the area, and not working wasn’t an option for the vast majority of people. Even if the author you’re looking for never worked for the government herself, odds are that others in her social circle did. Writing a book like this would mean putting those people in danger. She probably used a pseudonym because she was conscious of how bad the consequences would be if she were found.”

  Okay. Maybe Marian Love had been closeted. No matter how strong you were, it would’ve been basically impossible to live openly if you were up against something like that.

  It reminded Abby of all those statistics about queer teenagers and homelessness. Sometimes there were good reasons not to come out.

  “All right.” Abby stood up. She felt bad for judging Ken before. He really had been helpful. “Listen, I appreciate all this.”

  “Don’t mention it. Feel free to email me if there’s anything else you need.”

  Ken held out his hand for the first edition of Women of the Twilight Realm, but Abby didn’t let go. She wanted to study it more. Maybe even take it home and hide it somewhere, so she could start to understand what life was like for all those women who’d written letters to Marian Love.

  She didn’t want to seem like too much of a weirdo, though, so Abby tried to keep her face composed as she handed the book over.

  As she stepped outside, Abby’s phone beeped with another reminder. She glanced down at the screen and groaned. Ethan’s recital started in an hour.

  Both their parents were coming. Dad had been in New York that morning, but he was coming straight from Union Station to school. If his train got in on time, he’d make it with a few minutes to spare. Their mother was only coming from her office downtown, but after the recital she was heading straight to the airport to catch the red-eye to LA.

  Mom had made a big deal of explaining all their travel plans that morning as Abby and Ethan grabbed their breakfast burritos. She talked as if she and Dad were making this huge sacrifice to arrange their schedules so they’d both be in town for the recital. They hadn’t managed to be in the same building at one time for Rosh Hashanah, and they probably wouldn’t bother for Yom Kippur, either, but hey, at least they could all sit awkwardly in the middle school auditorium and watch Ethan tap-dance. Abby just prayed they wouldn’t have another embarrassing blowup where people could see them.

  She took the metro back to Tenleytown and walked up to campus, then sat down on a bench to wait. She had sixteen new texts—one from Ms. Sloane asking how the visit with Ken had gone, two from her mom, and twenty-four in her never-ending group chat with Linh, Vanessa, Ben and Savannah—but Abby didn’t feel like texting, so she opened Women of the Twilight Realm. Now that she was officially obsessed, she might as well indulge.

  “I know who you are.” Mr. Richard jutted his chin at Paula. “Or what you are. I know what she is, too.”

  “You leave Elaine out of this, Mart.” Paula stood her ground, her arms folded across her chest, her eyes locked on her boss’s. Elaine was amazed all over again at Paula’s unyielding strength. “This is between you and me.”

  “That’s not true. She’s the reason we found out about you in the first place.” Mr. Richard managed to look both sickened and amused at the same time. “Not that we couldn’t have guessed, of course. Look at the way you dress yourself.”

  “What are you talking about?” Elaine hated herself for speaking to him, but she had to know what he meant. “I’ve never said a word to you before today.”

  Mr. Richard turned back to Elaine and let out a low, mirthless chuckle. “You didn’t have to. Your fellow from the country—what was his name? Wayne? He left me a note, but I wasn’t sure whether to believe it at first. Then last night my wife, Anne—she sells her cheesecakes to a little bakery down in the Village sometimes, and if the delivery boy’s on another job she’ll take them down herself. Well, she noticed a while back that the bakery is right across the street from one of those dirty places—a little bar called Mitch’s Corner. Yesterday evening she went to pick up her check and lo and behold, who should she see walking right into that disgusting bar than our very own Paula’s little friend. Elaine.” He spoke her name in a high-pitched, mocking tone, and chuckled again as he looked Elaine up and down. “They say it’s always the pretty ones. The ones you’d least suspect.”

  Yesterday evening. Of course.

  That night, as she’d walked into Mitch’s, she’d sensed it.

  Elaine had been certain someone was looking over her shoulder. Someone who would hurt her, if given the chance.

  She’d never dreamed it would be Paula who got hurt first.

  “There’s no reason to fire her.” Elaine’s voice shook. “She had nothing to do with it. I only went into Mitch’s to drop off a letter for a friend. I promise you, Paula’s not like the people in those sorts of places. You shouldn’t punish her because of me.”

  “Elaine, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but it isn’t necessary.” Paula hadn’t taken her eyes off Mr. Richard since they’d entered the restaurant. “I am exactly like the people in those sorts of places, Mart. If that means I can’t flip cheeseburgers here anymore, so be it. We’ll show ourselves out.”

  Mr. Richard held Paula’s gaze for another moment. He looked disappointed. As though he’d been hoping she’d put up more of a fight.

  “But your pay,” Elaine protested. “Paula, he still owes you for the last two weeks.”

  “He can keep it.” Paula straightened to her full height and moved to hold the door for Elaine. “I don’t need any more cash from the likes of him.”

  The scene astonished Abby every time she read it, and it was even more striking now that she’d talked to Ken.

  Paula didn’t back down, even when something so obviously unfair was happening. She stood tall, even when it must’ve been the hardest thing in the world to do.

  Abby wasn’t sure whether she wanted to be Paula or be with Paula. All she knew was that when she read about Paula, she wanted.

&
nbsp; Most of all, she wanted Paula to take care of her. To hold her, the way Linh used to.

  Linh really was kind of like Paula. She was strong in the same way Paula was. And she was kind of too much sometimes, and Paula was that, too.

  But that was okay. When you loved someone, you loved all of them, even the too-much parts.

  That was the whole point of being in love. When it was real—when it was meant to be—love could withstand anything.

  This weird limbo between her and Linh had to end soon. Abby couldn’t make it through this without her.

  “Is that you, Abby?”

  Abby shielded her eyes against the glaring sunset. Her mom was standing at the top of the hill, waving. Dad was nowhere in sight. Abby climbed to her feet with a silent groan and went to join her.

  Dad arrived a minute later, and they all said as few words as possible to each other. Abby found a row of seats at the back, since Ethan always said it stressed him out to look down from the stage and see them in the front.

  Dad and Mom avoided making eye contact with each other as they took seats on either side of her. Abby looked straight ahead, wishing she could shrink into a ball and disappear.

  “I missed you while I was in New York, Abby.” Dad smiled awkwardly.

  Abby slunk down in her seat and closed her eyes. She tried to imagine she was somewhere else. Anywhere else. She tried to pretend the auditorium was an old-school movie theater, and Paula was by her side.

  “I saw a Broadway show you’d enjoy.” Her oblivious father was still talking. “It’s about Carole King. She wrote a lot of the great songs back in that era you like so much. Maybe we could go up together so you can see it.”

  Abby opened her eyes and switched on her phone. Pretending wasn’t working anyway. “Maybe. I’m incredibly busy with college applications and stuff.”

  “I understand. What are you doing later tonight? Will you need any help with your math homework?”

  Did she have a problem set due for stats? Abby couldn’t remember. “I don’t think so.”

  “Put your phone away, Abby,” Mom whispered. “They’re about to start.”

  Abby ignored her and went back to the Lawrence Hastings website. She expected Mom to take her phone out of her hand, but her mother just sat there as the lights dimmed and the voices around them hushed.

  Mr. Salem came out to welcome everyone, and the first set of dancers came out. Ethan’s turn wouldn’t be until later. Abby turned her phone brightness down so it wouldn’t bother the people behind them and held it low between her knees. Any normal parents would’ve scolded her, but Mom and Dad kept looking straight ahead.

  Whatever. Fine. Abby bent forward so she could see the screen and went back to the page with excerpts from Lawrence Hastings’s notebooks. She clicked on the scanned pages one by one, zooming in until she could read his handwriting.

  Lonely Nurses, 1956, Mickey Charlson. Nurse in open white dress, man watching from doorway.

  Death of a Blonde, 1962, Lionel Michaels. Dead girl in red dress lying on back with arm over head, man kneeling over her, orange background.

  Alone No Longer, 1955, Janet Jones. Blond girl in nightie crying on bed, girl with brown hair smoking w/ tie leaning over.

  Night of Terror, 1959, Angelo Harvey. Girl in black bra and panties holding gun, man in brown hat watching from car in background.

  Wait. Abby scrolled back up.

  Blond girl in nightie crying on bed...

  “Abby!” Mom whispered. She finally sounded mad. For a second Abby thought she was going to take the phone, but she only pointed at the stage.

  Ethan’s group was up. Abby jumped upright and put the phone away.

  There were six students, three girls and three boys, wearing tap shoes, suits and ties, and green antennae. Apparently this number was alien-themed. Perfect—Ethan loved aliens. He and Abby used to climb up to their steaming-hot attic on summer nights with binoculars to look for UFOs.

  Then the dance started, to the song from that old Men in Black movie, and it actually wound up being kind of awesome. Ethan was right in the center of the group, and he was genuinely good at the tap dancing. At least, it looked that way to Abby.

  When the song ended, all the dancers bowed. Ethan pulled off his antennae and swept them out with a flourish, earning a few laughs along with the applause. Abby clapped hard, and so did her parents. Then her dad stood up and yelled, “Woo-hooo!” and the dorkiness of it almost made Abby smile a tiny bit.

  When the kids left the stage, Abby turned her phone back on and pulled up the cover of Women of the Twilight Realm. The description in Lawrence Hastings’s notes fit.

  It was probably a coincidence. Alone No Longer was a totally different title from Women of the Twilight Realm. The date on that one was 1955, but Women of the Twilight Realm had come out in 1956. Plus, plenty of lesbian pulp fiction novels had covers with similar scenes, and they’d all come out within a few years of each other.

  Still, though. That description sounded exactly right. And Lawrence Hastings had painted the Women of the Twilight Realm cover...

  Her mom was clearing her throat in the next seat pointedly, but Abby ignored her and ran a search for the title Alone No Longer. Nothing useful came up, even on the bookstore sites.

  Next she tried searching Janet Jones. There were 62 million results. Not shocking for such a common name, but not exactly useful, either. Most of the results were about an actress who was married to a famous male hockey player.

  Was it possible Marian Love had decided she liked guys and taken up acting? No—the actress had been born in 1961, so she would’ve had to go back in time to write this book. To be sure, Abby tried searching for Janet Jones’s name alongside the titles Alone No Longer and Women of the Twilight Realm, but nothing came up.

  Mom elbowed her—not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to be annoying. Abby sighed, turned off her phone and settled back to watch a group of black-clad seventh graders perform a dance that, according to the recital program, was a metaphor for the dangers of cyberbullying.

  She wished she could write a letter to Marian Love.

  “Dear Ms. Love,” she’d begin.

  Thank you for writing your mind-blowing book. I only have a few questions for you. First, I’d like to ask what happened to Elaine’s father. Did he really commit suicide? If so, was it because of Elaine, or was it more complicated than that (because it seems like things are usually more complicated than they seem at first)?

  And speaking of things being complicated, how did you write this book when you did? Weren’t you afraid of what the consequences would be? How did you keep the fear from looming over you every single moment?

  Also, is it true that you live near here? If you do, could I come talk to you sometime? Because I could use someone to talk to, and from what you wrote in your book, you seem as though you’d understand.

  Abby closed her eyes and ordered herself to breathe.

  She shouldn’t be wasting her time writing letters in her head. If she was going to sit here daydreaming, she might as well think about the next scene she needed to write. It was an unhappy scene—an awful lot of the scenes in The Erotic Adventures of Gladys and Henrietta were unhappy—but maybe if she tried to think of how Marian Love would write it, that would help.

  It did. As soon as she started channeling Marian, the words formed quickly in Abby’s mind. This scene wasn’t exactly inverting any genre tropes, but she’d fix that later.

  “What’s this?” Mother held up the letter, and Henrietta recognized the envelope at once. It was the letter she’d put in the mailbox to send to Gladys, but the seal was broken. “Henrietta, what have you done?”

  “Give me that.” Henrietta’s father snatched the letter. As he read, his eyes grew angry. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  “Mother, Father, please.” Henrietta
knew there was no use trying to convince them the letter had been a joke, or a mistake. They were already convinced of her guilt. Oh, why hadn’t she waited until she was back in New York to send the letter to Gladys? “I’m still your daughter, still the same Henrietta. Please, try to understand.”

  “You’re disgusting.” Her mother spat at Henrietta’s feet. “I don’t want you in my house.”

  Henrietta started to cry. “Father, please.”

  “Your mother and I don’t want you anymore.” Her father shook his head. “We’ve never wanted you. All you’ve ever done is get in the way. Now get out.”

  “But I have nowhere to go.” Marian was desperate. She couldn’t bear to lose her family. “Please, don’t do this—”

  Shit. She’d called Henrietta “Marian.” Well, she could fix that later, too.

  Besides, this wasn’t how the story was supposed to go. It was too close to Women of the Twilight Realm, with incriminating letters showing up at every turn. Marian Love’s writing had gotten too far into her head. Abby had meant for her book to focus on the fun stuff, like the lesbian commune in Vermont, and how Gladys’s evil ex-boyfriend was going to turn out to be secretly gay, too, and how they’d ultimately team up to outwit a vicious serial killer before living happily ever after and opening a cat café in Bennington. She couldn’t let her obsession get the better of her.

  Mom was eyeing her again. Abby gave in, pulling herself up straight and trying to focus on the stage in front of them.

  It was a relief, in a way. To finally think about something that wasn’t collapsing in on her from every angle.

  8

  Sunday, July 3, 1955

  “Bye, Shirley.” Janet pulled off her apron and tossed it into the laundry bin. “See you tomorrow.”

  By the time Shirley waved back, Janet had already begun the trot up M Street toward the drugstore. She had a purchase to make on the stationery aisle.