Pulp

by Robin Talley

  The crowd stopped moving forward when they reached the rally site. Abby and Vanessa claimed a spot by a concrete barricade and Abby lifted the sign with the slogan she’d carefully lettered the day before (“Education, Not Deportation!”). She tilted her head back and joined in the latest chant. “No ban! No wall! No ban! No wall!”

  There were hundreds of people around her, and they were all there for the same reason. All ages, all races, all genders, chanting as one. All on the same side of a fight that shouldn’t have sides in the first place.

  “Vanessa! Abby! Hold your signs higher!” Ben darted through the crowd in front of them, holding up his phone to take a photo. Abby tried to smile and let the chants fill her ears.

  “Say it loud! Say it clear! Immigrants are welcome here!”

  A woman wearing a hijab and carrying a megaphone climbed up onto a statue and took over leading the chants. Abby closed her eyes and let the shouting sink in, trying desperately to shut down every other part of her brain.

  “Undocumented people are under attack! What do we do? Stand up! Fight back!”

  Linh and Savannah were ahead of them, chanting with all the others. More than anything, Abby wanted to go up there, reach for Linh’s hand and squeeze it.

  Nothing major. Just a touch. Just enough to make the rest of the world recede for a while.

  She closed her eyes and let the chant fill her ears instead.

  “The people! United! Will never be defeated!”

  If Paula were here, Abby could squeeze her hand instead. But Paula had never seen anything like this. She wouldn’t have lived long enough, even if she’d ever really lived.

  Marian Love had lived, but she’d never seen anything like this, either. She’d died before the big protest movements in the sixties. She hadn’t lived to see marriage equality or the first black president. She hadn’t even seen women’s lib. Or the Civil Rights Act, or Black Lives Matter. Life in 2017 was far from perfect—kind of the opposite, actually—but it was so unlike 1955 that Marian Love might as well have inhabited a different planet.

  Even if Abby couldn’t have what she wanted, she had so much more than Marian Love had ever had.

  You would’ve loved this, Janet, Abby thought, gazing out into the sea of shouting faces, the passion plain on every one of them.

  I wish you were here. I wish I could talk to you.

  I wish you could tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do.

  12

  Saturday, July 30, 1955

  College of the Holy Divinity Freshmen Dress Code

  Only dresses or skirts and blouses are permitted. No slacks, shorts or culottes. Skirts should be of sufficient length that no portion of a girl’s knees are visible when kneeling (staff will conduct measurements as needed). Shirttails must be tucked in and buttons must be appropriately fastened at all times. All girls’ clothing must be clean, pressed and mended where necessary.

  Makeup, nail polish, bracelets and necklaces are not permitted. Earrings may be small studs only. Cross necklaces are permitted but must be worn under clothing. Fingernails may not extend past fingertips.

  Hair must be kept tidy and off the face. Any ribbons must be small and nondisruptive. Hair scarves, curlers, clips or other devices for setting are not permitted outside dormitories.

  Janet stared into her closet, trying to remember why she’d once been eager to start college.

  Only a few weeks remained until her first day as a Holy Divinity freshman, and a lifetime of school uniforms hadn’t left her with many clothes that met the college’s requirements. All she had were church dresses, mostly, with lines of buttons running up to her neck and hems that stopped halfway down her calves. The wide skirts were meant to make her waist look narrow, but instead they made her resemble a spinning top turned upside down. They’d be fine for chapel, Janet supposed, but she’d feel awkward wearing them to classes. She could probably use some of her tip money to buy clothes for school, but the idea of trading those hard-earned fistfuls of dimes for a set of plain white blouses and nondisruptive hair ribbons made her want to curl up into a ball on her bedroom floor.

  Paula and Elaine got to wear whatever they wanted. They strolled easily around Greenwich Village in slacks and tight-fitting skirts. Sometimes they even wore men’s-style button-downs.

  Janet’s lips turned upward in a small smile. She wondered what the nuns at Holy Divinity would do if she showed up for class in one of those.

  Marie would fit in perfectly at Holy Divinity, if she’d chosen to go there instead of secretarial school. Of course, Marie did wear makeup most days. And though she always looked proper, some of her skirts may not be quite long enough to pass the kneeling rule.

  Janet smiled again at the thought.

  Two weeks had passed since they’d visited Carol and Mitch, and in that time the two girls had barely seen each other. Marie had been terribly busy at the office, and at home, too, thanks to her father’s continued efforts to earn that promotion. Janet had asked to be assigned more lunch shifts at the Soda Shoppe so she’d be free to stroll through Foggy Bottom in the late afternoons and meet Marie as she was finishing work, but most days they could talk for no more than a few minutes before Marie needed to hurry off to some engagement with her parents.

  So Janet returned each evening for dinner with her family, where she nodded along as Mom tried to keep the peace between Dad and Grandma. Most recently, Dad had taken to complaining about a lobbyist with the National Association of Pig Farmers who spent hours in his office talking about something to do with pork regulations. Inevitably, every evening Grandma wound up shouting at him to stand up for the rights of the farmworkers. Dad would shout back, saying that was exactly what he was trying to do, and that farm owners were workers, too. Then Mom would beg everyone to be quiet while Janet wondered if anyone in this dispute was the slightest bit concerned about the pigs. Janet had always liked pigs.

  Each night, as soon as she’d finished the dishes, Janet went straight to the attic typewriter and pounded away on the stiff keys until she could no longer keep her eyes open. It was the best part of her day. She’d fallen asleep in the attic more than once, only to wake up covered in sweat and drowning in fresh dreams of Paula and Elaine.

  Their story was becoming clearer with every passing night. The characters had grown sharper and realer, and the plot was taking on a firmer shape, too. Some parts of the story had shifted slightly from the pages Janet had already put in the mail, but she would worry about that later. Besides, she’d still heard nothing from Bannon Press, so it might not matter what had been in those first hundred pages anyway.

  Mr. Levy must have received the package at his office in New York at least a week ago—more than enough time for him to read Janet’s first few chapters—but there had been no telegrams or scratchy long-distance phone calls from him yet. Janet had expected that he’d at the very least request that she send the rest of the manuscript as soon as possible, but she might as well have mailed her pages off into outer space.

  Unless the reason she hadn’t heard anything was that Mr. Levy had found her pages unfit for publication. She was trying not to think about that possibility.

  She tried not to think about Carol and Mitch’s warning, either. She hadn’t been able to speak to Marie about it since that night. During their brief conversations outside Marie’s office, they had to be very cautious about what they said in case any of the nearby men in flannel suits overheard. And, of course, they were careful never to touch. It pained Janet, having to pull her hand away every time it neared Marie’s.

  “Janet?” Grandma’s voice carried through the closed bedroom door. It always surprised Janet how loud her slight, frail grandmother could be. “Are you going to heat up that casserole for our dinner, or do you want me to go hungry?”

  “Sorry.” Janet opened the door, forcing a sunny smile onto her face. Mom and Dad were once a
gain out at the club for the night, and Marie had been instructed to accompany her own parents there as well, so it was just Janet and her grandmother for the evening. “I’ll go put it in the oven.”

  “What’s all this?” Grandma stepped into the room, peering at the open closet door. “We haven’t decided to start dressing for dinner in this house, have we?”

  “No, Grandma.” Janet’s smile was genuine this time. “I was only looking to see if I have enough clothes for school.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that, girl. You’ll look just fine. If you need anything extra I’ll see if I can whip something up, but you’ve already got far more clothes than I had at your age.” Grandma fingered the blue slacks Janet had worn in Silver Spring and frowned, sniffing the fabric. “Why—girl, is this what you’ve been hiding lately? Have you been smoking?”

  “What? No!” Janet sputtered. Grandma had noticed that she was hiding something? “I’ve never!”

  “This dress reeks of it, girl.” Grandma sniffed the slacks again. “Now, I’m far too old to stop myself, but I’ve always told every one of my children and grandchildren, if you don’t start you’ll never have to—”

  “I haven’t!” Janet thought fast. “I wore them to a movie last week, and everyone in the theater was smoking. That’s all.”

  “Oh. Well, you should give these a good wash nonetheless.” Grandma reached for the dress on the next hanger, and Janet began to relax.

  Would it truly be such a terrible thing if Grandma knew the truth? Out of everyone in the household, she’d probably be the least concerned. She’d been a progressive in her day, after all, and she’d lived in New York, where all the books seemed to take place. Perhaps Grandma had known other people like Janet once upon a time.

  “Now, this may need to be let out a bit.” Grandma pulled a green flannel skirt from the closet. “I believe you’ve grown since your mother last hemmed it. Why don’t you try it on and we can see if—Why, girl, what’s the matter?”

  To her embarrassment, Janet realized her lip was trembling. “It’s nothing, Grandma. I’m—I’m nervous about starting college, that’s all.”

  “Are you?” Grandma’s shrewd eyes ran Janet up and down, the green skirt still dangling from her hand. “Well, I haven’t often known you to be nervous over a thing like that. If there were some other problem bothering you, though, even if it’s something you might not want to tell your parents about yet, you can always talk to your old grandma.”

  “It’s nothing. Really.”

  “Well, just in case it was.” Grandma raised her eyebrows. “I’ve been on this earth a lot more years than you have. There’s nothing you can say that could shock me.”

  Perhaps that was true. Still, Janet had never imagined telling anyone. Anyone who wasn’t like her, at least.

  Then Grandma smiled. It was the same smile she’d worn when Janet was ten years old and had just shattered the vase she was supposed to be washing in the church sink. It was the smile that said that whatever Janet might have done, her grandmother would make sure everything turned out all right.

  “Grandma.” Janet swallowed. Could she really say it? “I don’t—that is, I... I have a question.”

  “Well, go on, then.” Grandma sat down on the desk chair and gestured for Janet to sit opposite her on the bed. As she sank down onto the mattress, Grandma patted her knee. Janet had never been so grateful to be patted on the knee. “Whatever it is, we’ll take care of it. There’s a solution to every problem.”

  “I was only wondering, if...” Janet fixed her eyes on the thin gray carpet. “Did you ever—when you and Grandpa lived in New York, I mean—did you ever meet anyone who...any girls who wanted to go around with other girls? The way they’re meant to go around with boys, that is?”

  Grandma’s face didn’t change at first. She watched Janet closely, just as she’d been doing before.

  Then she stood up.

  “Oh.” Grandma’s smile faded. “Oh, my dear.”

  Janet caught her breath. Had she made a mistake?

  “That is—I don’t—” Janet had no idea what to say. Should she pretend she’d only been joking? “Grandma, I—”

  Grandma turned away.

  “Wait, I didn’t mean—” She tried desperately to think. “It isn’t as though—”

  Then her grandmother turned back around. A fresh, soft smile was spread across her lips.

  “Well, my girl.” Grandma rubbed her hands together slowly. “You nearly did manage to shock your old grandma this time, but not quite. The answer to your question, as a matter of fact, is yes. I once knew a fine lady, a Miss Elizabeth Flynn. She lived with her friend Miss Equi for quite some years.”

  “Really?” Janet couldn’t believe it. It was exactly what she’d hoped to hear. “You knew someone who was—like that?”

  “Well.” She’d never seen Grandma at a loss for words. “I suppose I did. Of a sort.”

  “Oh, I—I’m so pleased to hear that!”

  “Of course, Miss Flynn is off in prison now.” Grandma fixed her gaze out the window.

  “Oh.” Prison? Janet flinched, thinking again about that senator’s son. “Because of—of Miss Equi?”

  “No, no, it’s just the standard rubbish about Communists. But never you mind Miss Flynn and Miss Equi. I want to talk about you, girl.” Grandma turned back to Janet. Her smile had begun to creep, slowly, into her eyes. “You’re far too young to worry about these things.”

  “But—is Miss Flynn truly a Communist?” Janet flinched again. Nothing in the books she’d read had said anything about lesbians being Communists, but even Bannon Press probably wouldn’t allow any discussion of that topic. What if there was truth to the government’s worries about homosexuals and Communism?

  “You don’t realize you’re young, of course.” Grandma ignored her question. “I was eighteen once myself, and I remember feeling as though I’d already lived three lifetimes. Still, you’ve got to keep your future in mind, and with something like this... I’m afraid many people simply won’t understand. It’s probably best to keep any questions you may have to yourself, lest you run into trouble.”

  “Well, but I wasn’t—” Janet certainly hadn’t planned on discussing this with anyone else. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “May I tell you something, girl?” Grandma’s face had turned solemn. “There’s a story you may find interesting.”

  “Of course.”

  “You know that I was arrested once,” Grandma began. Janet nodded. “Well, that was during the Great War, when I was part of the IWW. Your father may not appreciate my telling folks I was a Wobbly, but I can talk to my own granddaughter about anything I choose. My friends and I—we called each other comrades then—we demonstrated against the draft. I didn’t want your grandfather, or your father, or any other man to have to fight a war and kill others for a government that didn’t believe in him.”

  Janet nodded again, though she was struggling to understand what any of this had to do with her and Marie.

  “When the police caught up with us, they hauled us straight to jail.” Grandma’s wrinkled face was grave. “We were there three days, but it felt like three hundred. They locked me in a tiny, stinking cell with a dozen other girls and fed us rotting meat and bread that was full of worms. That was nothing compared to seeing the others have their heads cracked by the coppers’ nightsticks, though. I held one of my dearest friends, bleeding and knocked out on the floor, while the guards above us laughed.”

  Janet drew in her breath. She knew her grandmother had been political when she was younger, but she’d never heard any stories like this one. She couldn’t imagine how the same Grandma who made her sweaters and told Dad to hush at the dinner table could have once lived such a life.

  “Even that wasn’t the worst part.” Grandma’s hand tightened on Janet’s arm. “The worst was th
e fear. I thought I’d die in that place. Or that we’d all be put on a boat and shipped off to Moscow or someplace to live out the rest of our days. They were doing that kind of thing back then, you know. Anyone who spoke out about what they believed was called disloyal and radical. Today they call it subversive. They make lists of names, and if you’re on their list—or if someone so much as thinks you’re on it—that’s the end of you, one way or another.”

  Janet nodded, remembering what Carol had said about lists. She wondered if Marie’s name, or her own, was already on one.

  “I knew I’d very likely thrown away my future.” Grandma’s voice softened. “All I could think about while we huddled in that cell was what would happen to my family when I was gone. My husband, and my children—they were so young then, your father and his sisters. Being apart from them for those three days was the greatest torment I’ve ever known. I was terrified I’d thrown away everything I cared about.”

  “Oh, Grandma.”

  “There, in that jail cell, I realized the most precious gift any of us have are our futures.” Grandma’s eyes locked on Janet’s. “And that isn’t something to be trifled with.”

  “I didn’t think—” Janet pressed her hand against her temple. She understood, at last, why Grandma was telling her this. “I would never—”

  “I know you’d never harm a fly.” Grandma patted her arm again, smiling gently. “You’re a good girl, Janet. All I’m saying is that a young person like you needs to concentrate on what’s ahead. Why, women these days can have real careers and families, too. Once you’re a world-famous reporter you won’t have time to dwell on questions from your childhood. In fact, you’ll most likely forget all about this. Someday, when you’re off in the wilds of who-knows-where covering a big exciting news story, you’ll probably meet a nice young fellow, and then you’ll be mighty glad you put your focus on what mattered, eh?”

  Janet opened her mouth. She closed it when she realized she had no idea what to say.