by Robin Talley
“I can’t believe I named him Wayne.” Janet laughed. “Listen to that when you say it out loud. Elaine and Wayne. Who gives their characters names that rhyme?”
Abby laughed, too. “I never thought about that. I named one of my characters Gladys, though, and that s on the end is so annoying when I need to make it possessive.”
“The things writers think about.” Janet laughed. “Now, as for your question about Paula and Elaine, I’m afraid I don’t know the answer. What do you think?”
“Why does it matter what I think? I’m not the one who wrote it!”
“Well, after the book ends, it’s up to the reader to decide what happens next.” Janet gazed toward the other side of the park. A woman knelt by a chain-link fence, trying to strap a squirming toddler into a stroller. “I ended the story the way I did because I wasn’t sure what would happen next in the characters’ lives, either. I wanted their world to be full of possibility.”
“Okay—but did they stay together, though?”
Janet paused and turned to face Abby. “Do you think they did?”
“Well...yes. Or, I guess, I wanted them to.” Shit, Abby was getting emotional again. “I want them both to have love in their lives.”
“Oh, but they would’ve had love in their lives no matter what.” Janet’s smile faded slightly, but her eyes were as warm as ever. “There are more ways to love than the burning, passionate kind I wrote about in that book. Though I suppose I might not have realized that when I was writing.” Janet paused. “I was young and in love then myself after all.”
“You were?” Abby smiled. So Marian Love really had been writing her own life story.
“Oh, yes. I based the character of Paula on her, at first.”
Abby wanted to pump her fist—she’d known Paula had to have come from somewhere—but she restrained herself.
“She didn’t look anything like Paula, of course.” Janet was still gazing off into the park, half smiling. “She never would’ve been caught dead in pants.”
“Are you talking about Mrs. Smith?” Abby was already picturing herself meeting the real-life Paula. “Does she live with you in DC?”
“Ah, no.” Janet’s eyes slid over to a stone fountain at the corner of the park. It had been shut down for the winter, and the pool was already dry, the cracks in the cement glaring in the sun. “That is, I suppose her name is still Mrs. Smith, but we aren’t together now. We only had that one summer, in fact. I was heartbroken, of course, and I’m sure that bled through into my writing. Though I can’t be certain, since I haven’t read that book in years.”
Abby didn’t know what bothered her more—that Janet and the real-life Paula had only been together for one summer, or that Janet hadn’t read Women of the Twilight Realm in years. “You haven’t?”
“Not since it was first published, I’m afraid.” Janet met Abby’s eyes, still half smiling. “You’d be surprised how fast the memory of your own writing can fade.”
“What? It’s a classic!”
“You’re kind to say so.” Janet fingered the plastic covering on her scrapbook. “But there were simply too many feelings tangled up in that story for me to return to it. I suppose, at the time, I couldn’t tell my love of writing and my first true love with a girl apart. In the end, writing was the love that lasted.”
Abby’s mouth dropped open.
She’d been so sure Paula and Elaine were proof that real love existed. But apparently the great, true love Marian Love had written about hadn’t been so great and true at all.
They’d only lasted one summer. Even Abby and Linh had lasted longer than that.
Did love ever last?
“So you just...broke up? After all that?”
“Well, it wasn’t quite so simple as breaking up.” Janet turned her gaze back to the fountain. “She wanted—well, she wanted to be free of all that being a lesbian entailed, and I certainly couldn’t blame her. It was 1955 after all.”
“What happened to her?”
Janet pursed her lips. “I didn’t see her again for many, many years. Until one afternoon in New York. I was leaving my publisher’s office when I spotted a woman in Bloomingdale’s, shopping with her children. I wasn’t certain it was her at first, and she never looked my way, but later I found a note in my bag. She must have placed it there, though I can’t imagine how. She must have learned to be very secretive over the years.” Janet paused. She almost looked as though she’d forgotten Abby was there. “The note was an invitation to meet her for a coffee. I thought she might want to reminisce about old times, but that wasn’t the case. She only had a minute before she expected her mother-in-law to come looking for her, and she spent that minute begging me to promise I’d never say anything to another living soul about what had happened between us. I’d already promised that, years before, but it seemed things had grown especially delicate with her husband’s family, and she wanted to be even more certain.”
Janet’s words trailed off, and she turned down to gaze at her scrapbook. After a quiet moment, she went on. “I suppose that’s why I kept up the story about Janet Jones having died, even after all these years. I never tried to correct the record, not even after I heard, many years later, that she and her husband had divorced.”
Janet smiled weakly. All Abby could do was shake her head. “Do you think she got divorced because she was gay?”
“If she did, it isn’t any of my business. I’d already decided I wasn’t going to trouble her again. We both gave up something, in the end.” Janet paused, blinking rapidly. “She made the bigger sacrifice, though. It took tremendous strength to do what she did. I only hope she was happy in the end.”
An SUV pulled up at the traffic light on the corner. It was probably their ride, but Abby didn’t want to stop talking. “When did you move back to DC?”
Janet finally looked up. “Oh, that was many years later, when my father got sick.”
“Were things any better by then?”
“Well.” Janet paused, but she seemed to understand what Abby meant. “By that point, my parents knew about me. My grandmother had passed away some time before then—she had a health scare when I left home, but she’d recovered from that, though I never saw her again—and I was living with my lover Ed. And there’s no need to pull that face, Abby, you’ve seen enough movies to know we called each other ‘lovers’ back then.”
Abby tried to stop grimacing. She was glad Janet thought she was just reacting to the word, and not to the idea that Marian Love had been with someone else after the real Paula. “Sorry. How long were you and Ed together for?”
The SUV rolled past them. It must not be here for them after all.
“Eight years, give or take,” Janet said. “She got married last year, if you can believe that, to another woman we were friends with at that time, Flo. A surprising number of my friends are married, in fact. Though the whole idea of marriage never felt quite right for me.”
So Janet had been kind of a serial monogamist. It wasn’t what Abby had expected at all.
“So, you were out by then?” Abby asked, trying not to betray her disappointment.
“Well, this was the very early seventies, so it was still a different time. Ed and I didn’t hide our relationship, but we didn’t talk about it with everyone, either. Certainly not our parents, though I’m quite certain mine had learned the truth much earlier than that, one way or another. Still, it was all very ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ as people began to say later. But Ed and I were together when we opened Strangers, and a very impressive community grew up around the bar. There was a lot of organizing in those days. Frank and the others had been picketing the White House for some time, trying to put an end to job discrimination. Though it was already too late for many.” Janet trailed off, staring into the distance.
“Were you writing then, too?” Abby couldn’t imagine doing a
ll those things at the same time.
“The whole time.” Janet met her eyes again, smiling for the first time since they’d started talking about all this. “I couldn’t have stopped writing if I’d tried. Books, articles, stories. In that era, you had no choice but to pour yourself into a career. Women didn’t earn as much as men—we still don’t, of course—so if you weren’t planning to get married, you had to work much harder than the men did, just to get by. I always knew I’d be writing to live.”
“Well, you became a legend in the process.” Abby smiled, trying to shake off the nagging feeling that this was all turning out wrong. “The internet’s going to go crazy once we tell them who you are.”
“Oh, that isn’t necessary.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll be easy.” Abby reached for her phone. “We can take a selfie right here, and I’ll send it to the people who run those fan sites about you tonight. Autostraddle and a bunch of other sites will probably want to interview you, and all the podcasts, too, but I can coordinate with everybody on the internet stuff, so don’t worry—”
“Abby.” Janet laid a light hand on her arm. “Your heart’s in the right place, but that’s not what I want. If I’d intended to be famous, I would’ve done a lot of things differently before now.”
“But you already are famous!” At that, a new idea popped into Abby’s head. “You know what you should do? You should write a book about your life! People will go crazy for it. You’ve done so much—just look at all these photos, all the books you’ve written—”
“Marian Love is the famous one, not me.” Janet’s voice was gentle, but firm. Abby felt defeat setting in. “I told you, that chapter closed a long time ago. Marian’s life was over as soon as her book was published, and the rest of my life finally began.”
Abby had never imagined she’d disagree with Marian Love about anything.
“It’s been a great pleasure meeting you, my dear.” Janet clasped her hand fiercely. “Please, send me your book when you have it ready. I’d love to read it.”
A station wagon pulled up in front of them. There was a middle-aged woman in the driver’s seat, and Linh was sitting next to her, waving. Abby stood up, holding out a hand to help Janet. “This is our ride, unfortunately.”
“It’s not unfortunate at all.” Janet smiled. “Let’s go get Danica Roem elected. If we can get this right, we’ll have something major to celebrate in just a few days.”
Their precincts weren’t far away. Abby and Janet climbed in with Linh and their driver, who turned out to be a local volunteer, and it was only mildly embarrassing when Linh started gushing about how exciting it was to meet the author Abby had been obsessed with all year. Janet was nice about it of course, and too soon, it was time to say goodbye.
“Now, Abby...” Janet lowered her voice as she climbed out of the car, so the others wouldn’t hear. “I wouldn’t normally say anything about this, but since it seems important to you—it’s true that when I wrote the book, I envisioned Paula and Elaine staying together for the rest of their lives.”
“You did?” Relief flooded Abby, tears pricking behind her eyes. “That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say. Thank you so much.”
“Still, if I were to rewrite it, I’m not sure I’d make that decision.” Janet’s lips curved up in a slight apology. “Love is wonderful, but change can be wonderful, too. There are a lot of different routes to happily-ever-after.”
“Abby!” Ethan’s voice was shrill behind them. “There you are! Come on, Ben won’t let me do enough of the knocking!”
“That’s totally not true,” Ben called. “He’s knocked on every single door. He’s only sad I wouldn’t let him tap-dance at the last house.”
“That guy would’ve liked a tap dance! Abby, tell him. It was this old guy, and he kept saying I reminded him of his grandson, and I asked if his grandson was a tap dancer, and—”
“I get it. Sorry, dude.” Abby gestured to Janet. “This is my kid brother, Ethan. Ethan, this is Ms. Smith. She’s a famous author.”
“Nice to meet you, young man.” Janet shook his hand just as warmly as she had Ms. Sloane’s. “Now, we ought to get to work. It was lovely talking with you, Abby.”
As the car pulled away, Abby tried to imagine writing a book that was good enough to show to Marian Love. She wanted to think she could do it. Someday.
Maybe that would be Abby’s happily-ever-after.
The rest of the GSA wasn’t far away. Ms. Sloane smiled at Abby when she joined them, but she didn’t ask her any questions, which was a relief. Abby wanted to tell her everything Janet had said, but not right now. She wasn’t sure she could talk about it without getting emotional again, and they had doors to knock on.
She teamed up with Ethan, and the two of them took turns going through the script at each house. Ethan did a lot better than she’d thought he would, and Abby found that asking strangers their opinions and reminding them to vote was actually kind of fun. Plus, it felt really good to think they might actually make a difference in the election results.
As they crossed the street to the next block, Abby’s phone buzzed. Mom was asking when they’d be home. As Abby typed out a quick reply, Ms. Sloane came up alongside her.
“How are you and your brother doing so far?” Ms. Sloane glanced down at the scribbled notes on Abby’s clipboard.
“Pretty well. No haters yet, and Ethan convinced two different women to sign up to volunteer.”
“Nicely done.” Ms. Sloane smiled at Ethan. He smiled back and veered away to tell Ben something. “By the way, Abby, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Would it help if I gave you a set of deadlines for the first drafts of your college application essays?”
“Sure. How about Monday for the first one?”
Ms. Sloane raised her eyebrows. “That soon?”
“Yeah. I’m feeling kind of inspired.”
And she was. Because...maybe Janet was right. Maybe change could be a good thing, sometimes. Even if it hurt.
Marian Love had written a romantic, happy ending for Paula and Elaine, but it hadn’t turned out that way for her and the woman she’d loved. Still, Janet seemed satisfied with how her life had gone. She hadn’t needed a permanent, fairy-tale love to make it worth living. She was strong enough to be happy on her own terms.
Maybe Abby was strong enough, too.
They knocked on doors for the rest of the morning, took a quick break for lunch at a nearby Wendy’s and knocked on more doors all afternoon. They signed up a dozen more volunteers, and Abby was sure they’d convinced at least twenty people who’d been on the fence to turn out and vote for Danica on Tuesday.
By the end of the shift, Abby was happy, too. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this good.
When she and Ethan got home that night, the house was quiet. Ethan trudged straight upstairs to bed, but Abby took out her laptop and set it up on the kitchen table. She’d meant to start the college essay she’d told Ms. Sloane about, but as she was waiting for the blank document to open, the beginning of a new story crept into her mind. A new character, too—a girl named Hannah Love.
Abby let her fingers wander over the keys, waiting to see what came.
Hannah used to think she knew exactly what she wanted.
She used to lie in bed at night, dreaming of the day she’d fall in love. She’d been sure that once she really, truly loved someone, everything else in her life would fall into place. Love meant never being unhappy again.
She knew better now. Love was great, but it wasn’t everything.
Flowers and flirting and kisses—they were fun, but they weren’t what made the world go around. Sex didn’t, either. Not by itself.
You didn’t have to be in love for your life to matter. Maybe all you needed was to care about someone. Or even something. Caring might not make the world go around, either, but
maybe it was enough to at least give it a push in the right direction.
Hannah hoped it was. Because she was done with the endless waiting to find that elusive, perfect love...but she knew she would always care.
* * * * *
Who’s Who and What’s What
The fictional authors writing within the world of Pulp are:
Janet Jones, later to be known as Janet Smith, better known to history by the pen name Marian Love.
Claire Singer, also known by the pen name Dolores Wood.
Kimberly Paul, a pen name shared by several authors.
Abby Zimet (no pen name yet, but give her time!).
These are their books and characters (all of which are equally imaginary):
Women of the Twilight Realm, by Marian Love (working title: Alone No Longer), starring Paula and Elaine.
A Love So Strange, by Dolores Wood, starring Sam and Betty.
A Deviant Woman and Voluptuous Vixens, by Kimberly Paul, starring an array of forgettable characters.
Totally Normal Women in the Daytime, by Abby Zimet (working title: The Erotic Adventures of Gladys and Henrietta), starring Gladys and Henrietta.
But the other books mentioned in Pulp really DO exist.
The following books were real lesbian paperback novels published in the 1950s and 1960s, and they’re still available in print and ebook form in the US and many other countries today. Check your library!
The Beebo Brinker Chronicles (1957-1962) by Ann Bannon (five-book series); later adapted into a play by Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman.
The Price of Salt (1952) by Patricia Highsmith, originally published under the pen name Claire Morgan; later adapted into the film Carol.
Spring Fire (1952) by Vin Packer, pen name for Marijane Meaker (who also writes as M. E. Kerr).
Women’s Barracks (1950) by Tereska Torrès.
The Girls in 3-B (1959) by Valerie Taylor.
The Third Sex (1959) by Artemis Smith.
Twilight Girl (1961) by Della Martin.