“It’s after midnight,” Laura said. “The diner stays open later than anything else around here.”
“Well, then, I guess I’ll just have to sleep on a park bench.”
“Really? By yourself? All night?”
“Got any better ideas?” I asked.
Laura thought for a moment, tapping her finger against her chin. “Hmm. You could come to my house.”
“Oh, no. I couldn’t impose.”
“You wouldn’t be. Honest. It’d be an honor to have Betsey Bur—um, you in my home.”
“Sure your parents would feel that way?”
“Remember my boss? The one that’s out of town? He’s also my father. I’ve got the house to myself. You won’t be bothering anybody. My house isn’t fancy or anything, but it sure beats walking around until dawn. What do you say?”
I grinned and shook my head. This girl was just so genuine. It wasn’t something I was used to. But I liked it.
“All right,” I said. “Thank you, Laura. Really.”
“Anytime,” she said. “Well, probably not anytime. Stuff like this doesn’t happen to me real often, as you might imagine. But I’m glad to help...Betsey.”
I smiled so hard my cheeks hurt. I didn’t know why, but it felt good to have her call me by my first name. Not Betsey Burns, the name of a washed-up movie star. Not Miss Burns, the name of a stranger. Just Betsey.
“So,” I said once we started walking again. “You’ve asked a bunch of questions about me. Now it’s your turn. What’s your story?”
“Oh. I don’t have one.”
“I find that hard to believe. Everyone’s got a story.”
“Not me,” Laura said. “I just graduated from high school a few months ago, and now I’m a waitress at my family’s diner. That’s about it.”
“Do you have any plans? Anything you wanna do or places you wanna go?”
She just shrugged. “Not really. I don’t think I’ll ever have a life quite as exciting as yours.”
I stopped walking. We were passing by a tiny movie theater. The lights were out, but under the glow of the streetlamps, you could still see the posters behind the glass. My eyes caught on one of them, an ad for a Western. A good-looking young man in a cowboy hat was positioned front and center.
Laura walked over and stood next to me. “Wally Landon,” she said, staring up at the poster. “I always liked the pictures you two made together. My folks would take my brother and I to the cinema every time you had a new movie out.”
“Which was your favorite?”
“Oh, definitely Timmy and Judy. My brother and I used to reenact all the scenes in our backyard as kids.”
“The tree-climbing scene?”
“Of course.”
“Wally nearly broke his neck that day. Boy was a damn show-off. Still is, actually.”
“All my friends at school thought he was so dreamy. Is he nice in real life?”
“Usually.”
“Is he a good kisser?” Even in the low light, I could tell she was blushing. “Not that it matters to me, really, but I know all my girlfriends will be curious.”
“Well, they’ll have to ask another girl, because I wouldn’t know.”
Laura looked confused. “I don’t understand. Weren’t you two going together for a while? That’s what all the magazines said.”
“That’s what the studio wanted everyone to think.” I turned away from Wally and pressed my back against the brick wall of the movie theater, sliding down to sit on the sidewalk. My feet were killing me. “I love Wally, I do, but truth is, we’ve never been anything more than friends.”
Laura sat down next to me, carefully arranging her skirt as she did so. “So Wally was never your boyfriend?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve never had a boyfriend.”
“Why not?” Laura asked. “I mean, it just seems crazy. I know I’ve only known you for a bit, but you seem so nice and you’re really pretty...” She looked down at her lap, cheeks red again. I loved how easily she blushed. It was just so honest.
“Thank you,” I said. “But that’s not the problem. I’ve just never been interested in anyone. Not like that. Everyone is bed-hopping out there. Costars, studio execs, producers—sex is a big deal in Hollywood. And I’m just not interested in it. For me, I can’t imagine sharing something more intimate than a kiss, and I’ve never even met someone I wanted to do that with.”
“Is that why you and Wally broke up?” Laura asked. “I saw Hedda Hopper wrote that he’s now going with... Oh, what’s her name?”
“Charlotte DuMont,” I said, sure to give her name the same exaggerated French pronunciation Wally always did. “My replacement.” I sighed. “We never broke up because we were never together. That was all the studio’s doing. We were supposed to be childhood sweethearts. But then childhood was over and Wally was still a viable star, and I became—what was the phrase they used? Oh, right. Box-office poison.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Laura insisted. “People love you.”
“People loved me as a cute little girl,” I told her. “But I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m also not the bombshell they hoped for. The studio was hoping I’d be another Elizabeth Taylor, and I’m far from that. So they found another girl, one that fit the image they wanted. And I’m off to New York to do a play no one will see.”
“You don’t know that,” she said. “And I’m not too familiar with this Charlotte DuMont, but I’m sure of one thing. She’s no Betsey Burns.”
“You’re right about that,” I said. “Because Charlotte DuMont has a bright future, and I—”
“Have lived more of a life than some of us could ever hope to.”
I looked over at her, but Laura was getting to her feet. She straightened out her dress then held out a hand to me.
“Come on,” she said. “We’ve still got a few blocks before we get to my house. And we’ve got to walk through the graveyard.” Her voice was tight as she said this last part.
I let her pull me to my feet. I dusted off the back of my capri pants before following her down the sidewalk once more.
“We have to go through a graveyard?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” she said. “I mean, we could go the long way. I do, sometimes, but I’m sure you’re tired.”
But I wasn’t. Not as tired as I should have been at this hour. My feet were killing me, though. And my suitcase, despite only having a couple of changes of clothes inside, was starting to feel heavy.
Apparently this showed and I was moving slower than before, because Laura stopped and glanced at my shoes.
“Why are you still wearing those?” she asked. “You don’t have to prove anything to me. Why don’t you just take them off?”
“Here? Outside?”
“What could it hurt?”
I took a quick look around. It was dark, but from what I could see, this town did seem pretty clean. And there wasn’t anyone around who might see. Slowly, I reached down and pulled off my shoes. The minute I did, a sigh of relief whooshed past my lips.
Laura laughed. “Do you feel better?”
“A bit.” I straightened and shuffled my bare feet for a second. The cool, smooth concrete felt strange—but soothing—against my skin. “All right,” I said. “Your turn.”
“Me? But I’m not wearing heels,” she said, extending a foot to show me her espadrilles. “My feet don’t hurt.”
I gave her a skeptical look. She’d just spent a whole shift on her feet at the diner, after all.
“Well, they don’t hurt that bad.”
“Come on,” I said. “Don’t let me be barefoot alone out here.”
Laura sighed, but smiled, and leaned down to pull off her own shoes. A second later we were both standing barefoot and giggling on the sidewalk.
“Is it odd that I kind
of want to dance right now?” Laura asked.
“Dance?” I repeated.
“Yes!” She did a twirl, the skirt of her waitress uniform flaring out around her. Then she began skipping along and waving her arms to a beat only she could hear.
“Don’t you need music to dance?” I asked.
“Then sing!”
“I don’t sing. If I did, I might be more successful.”
“Then I’ll sing.” She thought for a moment, then did another twirl as she did her best impression of Debbie Reynolds singing “Good Morning” from Singin’ in the Rain.
I laughed and, even though I’d just told her I didn’t sing, couldn’t help but join in. The film had only come to theaters early that year, but it was already one of my favorites. At first we sang in unison, then eventually split off into the duet.
I grabbed her hand, dropping my shoes and suitcase on the ground, and we started twirling down the street together, laughing as we sang about the joys of talking all night. This wasn’t the sort of clean, choreographed dancing you saw in the movies. It was loose and unplanned and silly. It’d been a long time since I’d been able to just be silly.
Our feet kept moving until we’d finished the song, then I gave Laura one last twirl before she came to a stop in front of me. We were both breathless and laughing, clutching each other’s hands. I was so overwhelmed by it all that, at first, I didn’t even notice how close we were standing to each other. Only a few inches between us.
I’d been this close to someone before, of course. But only as a character. In real life, this was new.
It may have been new for Laura, too, because I noticed her hesitate before slowly opening her mouth. “I...uh...”
“Who the hell is making all that racket?” a voice yelled from down the street.
Laura and I jumped apart. Honestly, I’d forgotten anyone in this town even existed besides the two of us.
“It’s the middle of the damn night!” the man screamed. “I have half a mind to call the police!”
“Run!” Laura whispered, half a giggle still on her breath.
We grabbed our things off the ground and took off down the street, the angry man still shouting from his front porch. “Hooligans! Rotten kids!” We ran as hard as we could until we reached the end of the block. We swerved around the corner onto a nearly pitch-black street and skidded to a stop next to each other. I’m not sure if we were out of breath from running or laughing, but we were both gasping.
“Whoops,” I said.
“I hope he didn’t recognize me,” Laura said, clutching her chest. “My father would be so mad if he heard.” But she was giggling so hard that she snorted. Then she looked down and covered her mouth. “Oh, no. Betsey, your shoes.”
I looked down. I was still barefoot, and so was she, only Laura was holding her shoes in hand. And I was only holding a suitcase. “I must’ve left them.”
“I’ll go back and get them.”
“Leave them. Tomorrow some lucky woman will walk outside and find a pair of expensive heels right outside her door. Hopefully they’ll make her happier than they made me.” I looped my arm through hers and began leading us down the dark street. “So where’s this graveyard we have to walk through?”
“Just up ahead,” Laura said, with that same tightness in her voice.
“You don’t like graveyards, do you?” I asked.
“Just this one.”
We walked for a few more minutes before reaching the cemetery. It was smaller than I’d expected, with dozens of gravestones speckled across a grassy hill. Two lanterns glowed at each side, lighting it just enough to navigate through the headstones, but still dark enough to be a bit eerie.
“Okay,” she said, sighing as she stepped off the sidewalk. “My house is just over this hill.”
I followed her in silence for a minute, watching her shaking silhouette weave between the graves as she stared straight ahead.
But I couldn’t find much to be scared of here. Now that I was seeing it up close, I thought there was something kind of calming about the place. There were fresh flowers and stuffed animals placed on many of the graves, and the headstones all seemed to be engraved with kind, warm sentiments. “Beloved Mother and Wife,” “Dearest Grandfather” and so on. It was clear the people here were loved.
“Laura,” I said, stopping near the top of the hill.
“Yeah?”
“You said you don’t like this graveyard. Is there a reason why?”
She stopped then, too, and turned to face me. “It’s just... Nothing. It’s nothing. Let’s just keep going.”
“Come on,” I said, reaching out and clasping her hand. “Tell me. Are you scared of dying?”
“No,” she said. “Not exactly. No more than anyone else is, I suppose. It’s just... I’m scared of dying here.”
“In this cemetery?”
“In this town.”
“What do you mean?”
She sighed and tugged on my hand. “Follow me.” We began walking back down the hill, the way we’d come before, but then veered off to the left, where several dusty headstones sat in a neat row.
“See that one right there?” she said, pointing to the one farthest from us. “That’s my grandmother. And the one next to it—that’s my grandfather. And there’s my great-grandmother and my great-grandfather and my great-great-aunt and, really, every member of my family for the past hundred and twenty years.”
“Laura,” I breathed, kneeling down to look more closely at the series of family stones. “That’s amazing.”
“It’s terrifying.”
I looked up at her. “What do you mean?”
“I’m gonna be just like them.” Her voice had become so small. This beautiful girl who’d been singing in the streets at the top of her lungs, waking up the neighbors, was speaking at barely above a whisper now. That unsettled me more than the graveyard did. “I’m gonna work at the diner, eventually get married and have kids because that’s what I’m supposed to do, and live in this town forever. I’m never gonna see the world or do anything people will remember.”
“Oh, sugar.” I stood up and took both of her hands in mine. “You’re being ridiculous.”
She scowled and tried to pull her hands away, but I kept my grip.
“Listen to me,” I said. “Your life hasn’t even begun yet. You’ve got time to do whatever you want.”
“But that’s just it,” Laura said. “I don’t know what I want. How can I ever leave if I don’t know what to chase after?”
“You got time to figure that out,” I told her. “Travel. Go to Paris or Rome. Or, gosh, just come visit me in the city. Just because you don’t know what you want now doesn’t mean you have to be stuck here forever. You’re still a kid. You can go anywhere from here.”
“You really think so?”
I squeezed her hands. “Trust me. Take it from a broad who’s already peaked. I’d much rather be in your shoes.”
“That’s the silliest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“I mean it,” I assured her. “Do you know how scary it is to be eighteen and know there’s no going up from here?” I dropped her hands and sat down on my suitcase, facing the graves of Laura’s family. “I was in a dozen pictures before I turned fourteen. My parents were proud. The studio was happy. And I thought I’d only get better. I thought I’d win an Academy Award someday.”
“You still could.”
“Not likely,” I said. “The only work I can get now is on the stage. That’s respectable, sure, but to most people it just...looks like I’ve failed. Even my parents didn’t want to move to New York with me. They said that when they signed up for me to be an actress it was supposed to be for pictures, not plays. Hollywood, not Manhattan.”
“That’s awful,” Laura said.
“My family doesn
’t have a place like this.” I gestured to the row of headstones. “We’re scattered all around. The only grandparents I even keep in touch with are the ones who live upstate, and this visit was the first time I’d seen them in in years.”
Laura sat down next to me and gently placed her hand on my arm.
“You’ve got time to figure out what you want to do, do it and still come back here to this place where people love you if you need to,” I told her. “You’re only at the beginning, Laura.”
“So are you, Betsey.”
I laughed. “Weren’t you listening?”
“At the beginning of something new,” she said, giving me a playful nudge. “New York could be a new adventure for you. Maybe you’ll love theater even more than movies. Maybe you’ll be the greatest actress the stage has ever seen.” She slid her hand down my arm and wrapped her fingers around mine again. “You’ve got so much more to offer the world, Betsey Burns. I may have only known you a few hours, but I know that much.”
I leaned over to rest my head on her shoulder. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” she said, tipping her head against mine.
I don’t know how long we sat there, our hands locked, our heads nestled together as we stared out at the dark cemetery. It didn’t feel eerie now. It felt safe. Like a home you could always come back to. I never thought I’d say it, but I wished I had a place like this tiny town. A place that felt like it would always be home, no matter how far away I got.
Hollywood had never felt that way to me. And I wasn’t sure if Manhattan would, either.
Laura let out a muffled yawn and I laughed, disentangling myself from her. “Come on. Weren’t we headed back to your house? You’ve gotta be tired.”
She stood and stretched her arms over her head. “Only a little. But it’s not that late, I don’t think.”
We both looked up at the sky. The first beams of sunlight were peeking over the horizon, and the stars were vanishing one by one.
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s not late. Seems like it’s pretty early.”
“Wow,” she said. “It must be about five in the morning.”
“We stayed up all night. Just like we sang about.” I hummed a few notes of “Good Morning,” unable to keep from smiling to myself.
All Out--The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages Page 21