by Robin Talley
No one in the book had gone to the beach a single time. The cover was certainly captivating, with its oiled, bathing suit–clad bodies, but it bore no connection to the pages within that Janet could find.
Janet had thought all the “Lesbiana” books would be similar to A Love So Strange, but all these two books seemed to have in common were the Bannon Press logos in the top left, the paintings on the covers and girls who enjoyed the company of other girls. Well, enjoyed it some of the time. Janet could only hope Nathan Levy was more interested in books like Dolores Wood’s than Kimberly Paul’s.
She hung the rest of her laundry, then hurried into her room and reached under the mattress. A moment later, Sam and Betty’s lovely faces stared up at her. Tucked inside the pages of A Love So Strange were the sheets of paper Janet had torn from her notebook, the ones where she’d scribbled her first few paragraphs.
Though it was more than a few paragraphs, Janet realized. It seemed she’d already written a number of pages. Combined, it might be nearly an entire first chapter.
As she looked them over, Janet was surprised to realize the pages weren’t half-bad. Especially the ones she’d written most recently. Janet had never sat in a Greenwich Village bar, had never exchanged flirtatious banter with a stranger, and had certainly never asked another girl to dance. Still, somehow, Paula and Elaine’s story already felt familiar.
Perhaps Janet should work on her book tonight after all. She could start by simply typing up the pages she’d already written by hand. That shouldn’t be too bad. Janet stood and stuffed the notebook pages, her copy of A Love So Strange, and her typing and carbon paper into her purse.
The door to the attic was right outside her parents’ bedroom, but they’d already gone down to the first-floor porch to sleep. Janet shut the attic door behind her and climbed the stairs slowly, trying not to make them creak.
As soon as she entered the attic, she saw what her father had meant. The heat was much worse here than in her bedroom, and it struck her with a nearly solid force. She turned on the fan—Dad must have brought that up for her, too—and stood directly in front of its whirling air while she tugged the cord hanging from the dusty light bulb.
The dim light made it easier for Janet to see the attic, cramped, narrow and unfinished. Every surface was faded, rough brown wood. More dust filtered through the air.
Janet couldn’t remember the last time she’d been up here. Her mother had kept her Christmas presents in the attic until third grade, when she’d snuck up the stairs to survey the hidden wares. Now Mom used it to store the family’s winter coats and blankets, sealing them into a row of dusty wooden trunks that lined the walls. The rest of the space was empty, save for the card table and typewriter Dad had brought up for her from the den. He’d placed a chair in front of it, too.
The attic’s two small windows faced out onto the street. Janet stepped over to open them, letting in some fresh air.
The typewriter was only a few feet away. It looked so...official.
She could just load in the first sheets of paper. Maybe then she’d be inspired to start typing up her handwritten pages.
It took several minutes for Janet to open the packets and line up the two sheets of paper with the carbon properly in between them. Then it took her three attempts to roll it all into the typewriter. She’d taken typing at St. Paul’s, of course, but they’d only used carbon paper once or twice.
Though before she started typing, it would probably be wise to take a quick look at A Love So Strange. Just to remind herself of how certain scenes were composed.
Janet reached for the flimsy paperback. It fell open automatically to Betty and Sam’s first night together.
“Are you nervous, darling?” Sam asked, running practiced fingers down my arm. She chuckled when I gasped my pleasure at the touch.
“No,” I said. Sam laughed again. “Perhaps a little.”
“Don’t be nervous. I love you. I’d never hurt you.”
“Oh, I know you wouldn’t, Sam, dear.” I gasped once more as Sam slipped open the buttons of my blouse and reached inside, lifting the brassiere and stroking gently.
The feeling was unlike any I had ever known. I should have been ashamed to be touched this way by another woman, yet the only sensation I knew was pure pleasure. Sam’s touch was the touch of the divine.
The touch of the divine.
Well.
It really was boiling in the attic, even with the fan on. Janet should have known better than to wear her flannel pajamas.
Of course, there was no one to see her. She might as well make herself comfortable.
Janet undid her top button. Then, before she was quite aware of what she was doing, she cupped her hand over her breast. She’d never done anything like this before, so she couldn’t be sure if it was the physical sensation or the words she’d read, but something made her gasp.
Her eyes fell closed. She was Betty, being touched by Sam for that first time.
No. No, she was Elaine, and she was with Paula.
Janet could see it clearly. The image came as easily as it had when Paula and Elaine first met in that smoky bar.
She saw Elaine, lying on her back on a bed...no, no, it was a couch. The couch in her living room. It was dark, with the curtains drawn, a half-drunk martini on the table beside them. Paula was leaning over her, kissing her neck and moving down to her breasts, lips tracing skin...
Janet hurled herself at the typewriter keys.
It was only the martinis, I told myself. I wouldn’t be doing this at all if it hadn’t been for that last drink.
I told myself that again as Paula undid the second button.
The smooth, experienced hands were warm and soft on my skin. Still, I shivered as Paula’s fingers caressed my bare flesh.
“You’re beautiful, my darling,” Paula whispered. “More beautiful than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“Paula, you’re divine,” I whispered.
I couldn’t blame the martinis for making me say that.
The words poured out in a long, uninterrupted stream.
Janet wrote, and wrote, rolling the pages into her typewriter so fast some of them ripped. Before long, she was sweating. Black smudges from the carbon paper covered her hands. Probably her face, too.
Janet didn’t care. She could see it all so clearly. She could feel it. She didn’t know exactly what would happen next in the story until she typed each line, but that didn’t matter. The characters lived in her. Through her.
“I love you.” The words spilled from my lips, sudden and raw and true.
Paula smiled. “And I love you, my dear.”
Of course, Janet mused, as she pounded at the keys. Of course Paula and Elaine loved each other.
It was such a simple thing. So simple, they didn’t even pause to consider it before they spoke the words.
Elaine loved Paula. Just as Janet loved Marie.
Love. That was it. That was the word she’d been seeking. The one that took everything she felt about Marie and turned it into a single, fundamental syllable.
Janet loved her.
She smiled down at the typewriter. It was so funny that it had taken putting the word into the mouth of a fictional character for Janet to feel its true weight for herself.
It was funny, too, to be writing about the act of love. Janet had never experienced it herself, but even so the images were warm and alive in her heart as the typewriter ink spread across each page.
Paula brushed a stray hair from my face and kissed me again, hot lips on my scorched skin. “Did you enjoy that, my darling?”
“Yes.” It was the only word I remembered.
“Shall we do it once more, then?”
“Yes! Oh, please, Paula, please!”
When Janet finally typed the last line of the scene and looked up again, she
had no idea what time it was, and she didn’t care.
She rolled the last pages out of the typewriter and added them to the uneven piles on the table. She had pages stacked upon pages now, all filled with words. Words she had written.
She felt as if she’d downed a few martinis of her own.
Janet stood and collected the pages to her chest, trying not to bend any corners. She would show what she’d written to Marie. Once she’d seen all that Janet had poured out onto the page—once she saw that Janet’s characters loved each other, and that Janet loved Marie, too—she’d realize how wrong she’d been. She’d realize that, more than anything, she wanted the two of them to spend their every moment together, and she’d tell Janet so.
You’re divine, Janet would reply.
She shut her eyes. The pages felt heavy in her hands. The solid evidence of the future that awaited her.
She was halfway to the attic door when she heard a loud creak on the floor below.
Someone else in the house was awake.
Janet’s eyes jolted open, darting toward the attic door. What if one of her parents came up to see what she was doing? What if they saw what she’d written?
Her smile evaporated in an instant. She scanned the dim attic for a hiding place and wrenched open the nearest trunk.
Her family could never find out. Janet could never tell them. She could never tell anyone.
She dropped the typewritten pages into the trunk in a heap. The sheets were damp around the edges—she must have sweated onto the paper. There was a typographical error on the top page, too. She’d put two Ls in Elaine’s name.
Janet swallowed as she lowered the lid of the trunk. As intoxicating as all this writing may have been, she couldn’t let herself forget who she truly was, or what the world was really like.
What she’d been doing was far from divine. And her future was far from solid.
9
Monday, October 2, 2017
“I knew a girl who looked a little like you once.” Henrietta grinned at the new girl. “We were sorority sisters.”
“Sisters?” The blond girl bit her lip. The hint of breast beneath the neckline of her blouse quivered.
“Well, if you can call it that.” Henrietta laughed and took a long puff on her cigar. “But I think the housemother would’ve called the cops if she saw what some of us so-called sisters got up to when the lights went out! So, what’s your name?”
The blond girl bit her lip again. “Gladys.”
“Let’s dance, Gladys,” Henrietta said easily, blowing a stream of smoke toward the ceiling.
“I don’t believe in dancing,” Gladys said haughtily, sniffing in the direction of the tiny dance floor.
“You don’t what?” Henrietta had never heard of such a thing.
“That’s right.” Gladys tossed her permed hair. “I’d prefer to go back to my apartment and read avant-garde poetry. Are you familiar with the work of E. E. Cummings?”
Henrietta smiled. “I can’t say that I am. But if it’ll get me into your apartment, Gladys, I’m ready to familiarize myself with just about anything you’ll let me.”
Gladys smiled back and slipped off the bar stool. Henrietta loved the way Gladys’s skirt clung to her thighs.
Abby stared at the screen, trying yet again to figure out what was wrong with the scene. This was the third draft she’d written of Gladys and Henrietta’s meet-cute, but she still couldn’t get it to work.
She’d kept reading Voluptuous Vixens, thinking that might help shake Women of the Twilight Realm out of her head so she wouldn’t wind up copying Marian Love as much, but she might’ve gone too far in the wrong direction. Abby was trying to invert genre tropes, like with having Henrietta smoke a cigar instead of a regular cigarette and having Gladys be morally opposed to dancing, but as it turned out, inverting tropes was hard. She had a better appreciation now for why tropes were invented in the first place.
Plus, she was starting to regret naming one of her characters Gladys. It looked awful in possessive form.
The one thing Abby knew for sure was that Marian Love wouldn’t have written the story this way. Marian’s words flowed beautifully off the page. Abby’s words sounded decent enough in her head, but they looked awkward and naked on the screen.
Some of the other scenes had been fun to write, though. Abby had more than one hundred pages so far, most of them thanks to her evenings at the library. It was halfway between home and school, and it was open until 9 p.m. most days, so Abby had been staying there every night after grabbing something to eat at the 7-Eleven across the street. She’d told Dad she was too busy to get home earlier, and Dad must’ve told Mom, because neither of her parents had said anything to her about it.
Ms. Sloane had said Abby’s pages showed promise for a first draft, but that she should slow down and revise what she’d already written before she went any further. Abby disagreed. The more she wrote, the more she wanted to write, even if the words weren’t all as good as she wanted them to be. Besides, she could always revise once she had the whole thing written. But it still bugged her that this particular scene had so many problems.
“Have you looked yet at the essay questions for Columbia?” Linh’s question jerked Abby out of her train of thought. School had let out a while ago and they were in the senior lounge, killing time before Abby had to leave to go meet the professor Ken Aldrich had told her about. It was the first time she and Linh had been alone together since the day they discovered the pulp novels, but Abby had been so focused on writing she’d almost forgotten to feel weird about that.
“For the supplement to the Common App, I mean?” Linh went on. “I’m stumped on the one where I’m supposed to write three hundred words on what I value most about Columbia. I mean, my parents value that it’s an Ivy, does that count?”
“You’re applying to Columbia?” Abby must’ve gotten even better at tuning out her friends’ college talk than she’d realized.
“Yeah. Didn’t I tell you?” Linh polished off her banana and reached into her backpack for a bag of chips. She’d come straight from a run and she was famished, as usual. “It was my dad’s idea. He thinks if I get in, and if they give me a good aid package, I can use it to negotiate for more at MIT. Assuming I get in there, too, of course. I told him that’s way too many assumptions, but he never listens to me.”
“Right.” Abby dropped her gaze.
Of course Linh didn’t actually want to go to Columbia. Abby hadn’t started her applications yet—she still felt itchy and uncomfortable whenever she thought about college—but even so, it was depressing that Linh wouldn’t even consider going to the same school Abby had talked about going to.
“Listen, I know it bothers you how competitive the whole college thing is.” Linh leaned in with that earnest look she got in her eyes sometimes. Her eyes were so pretty, though, the way the dark brown irises shone in the dim light, that Abby couldn’t mind too much. “Maybe you’ll get more into it after we visit Penn next weekend. But either way, you have to start your applications soon. The early decision deadlines are in a few weeks.”
“Right.” Abby tried to ignore the pressure in the words and focus on the way Linh’s eyes were locked on hers.
“If it’s that you’re worried about going away—well, don’t be.” Linh didn’t seem to notice the can-we-please-not-be-having-this-particular-conversation vibe Abby was trying so hard to send. “We can still email and text and stuff, the way we did over the summer. We’ll see each other when we come home for breaks, too.”
Abby finally broke her gaze.
She didn’t want to live in a different city from Linh next year. That much was true. Even if Linh was being a touch too Paula-like, with the way she kept trying to tell Abby what she should want.
Paula meant well when she got that way, and Linh did, too. Besides, Linh wasn’t saying anything A
bby hadn’t already heard from teachers and counselors, and even her parents, before they stopped paying attention.
It was just that—well, what if Abby didn’t want to deal with all this stuff? Had anyone ever thought of that possibility?
Why did everyone act as though big life changes were these huge inevitable things? What if Abby didn’t want to think about the future every second of every day?
“Anyway, we don’t need to talk about that yet.” Linh shifted into that gorgeous bright smile, and Abby smiled back in relief. Linh leaned over to peer at her laptop. “So, is that the book you’re writing? Can I see?”
“What? No.” Abby held up her hand to shield the screen. “I mean, it’s only a first draft. I want to revise it before you read it.”
“Oh, come on.” Linh reached for Abby’s hand, trying to pull it away. Abby wanted to relish the physical contact, but she was too worried about Linh reading that badly written scene. “You always used to let me see the stuff you wrote.”
“Well that was when...um.” Abby flushed, not sure of how to say That was before we broke up and I got all insecure, or That was when I was writing stuff just to make you laugh.
“Come on, let me read one scene.” Linh flounced back onto the couch dramatically, making Abby giggle. “I want to see how this whole vintage lesbian porn thing works.”
“If all you want is vintage porn you don’t need to read my story. Read Marian Love. Hers is a lot better than mine.”
“But I want to read something you wrote.” Linh made a pouty face.
Hmm. It seemed an awful lot as though Linh was flirting with her again. Abby almost wanted to give in, but she didn’t want to ruin their new vibe by sharing her own clunky attempts at fictional flirting.
“Trust me, this will be a lot more fun.” Abby pulled up the Women of the Twilight Realm, trying to match Linh’s easy tone. “Here, I’ll find a good scene.”
She clicked through to the first time Paula and Elaine slept together and passed the computer to Linh. She’d assumed Linh would read it to herself while Abby messed around on her phone, but to her surprise Linh started reading out loud, making her voice low and fake-sexy.