The Ada Decades

by Paula Martinac

  Mimi was in the kitchen, checking the oven. A whiff of an unfamiliar dish met Ada’s nostrils, and she hoped it wasn’t something exotic that she’d have to push around her plate and pretend to eat. But Harry didn’t seem like a man of unusual tastes, and they were feeding him, too, so Ada took heart. “I hope you like fish,” Mimi said, and Ada replied she did. Which was mostly true, although she probably hadn’t eaten real fish, something other than fish sticks, since she and Cam had last been to Folly Beach. With any luck, it would be a fish she recognized and that didn’t still have its head on.

  Despite the heat of the day, their back yard was a cool oasis, overflowing with more colors than Ada had ever seen outside of a nursery. Differently shaped flowerbeds ringed a swimming pool with a cool turquoise floor, and a pool house was a miniature

  version of the main building. “Oh!” Ada exclaimed. “What a delightful yard!”

  “I love to fuss with it,” Lisbeth said, pouring something fizzy into a wine glass and dropping two fresh raspberries into it. “If Mimi were in charge, the yard would be a jungle.”

  “My . . . Cam was the same way,” Ada said, taking the drink. “She always said her thumbs were black, not green.” The bubbles in the drink were subtle and not as tickly as champagne. “I have a couple of small flowerbeds. It’s harder on my back than it used to be to keep them up, but that’s how I stay fit.” Her free hand went automatically to her belly. Most of the ladies at the senior center had paunches like old men, but Ada prided herself on her trim physique.

  “Were you together a long time? You and your partner?”

  Partner was a more familiar word to Ada than wife, but she had never used either in talking about Cam. In their rather small gay circle, she said lover. In mixed company, it was always just friend. Cam had passed before couples started getting married in Massachusetts, but she lived long enough to be excited by the prospect.

  “I wish I could hold on just a little longer, darlin’,” she had said, close to the end. “I’d make an honest woman of you.”

  Cam’s face came into clear view as Ada answered Lisbeth’s question, but she didn’t need a prompt to call it up. It shadowed her night and day. “Forty-five years. Her name was Camellia Mae Lively, but everyone just called her Cam.”

  “What a great Southern name!” Mimi commented as she passed by, carrying plates to the redwood table. “Was she from here, too?”

  “No, Davidson,” Ada said. Images from that traumatic Christmas visit to Davidson surfaced—Ada’s one and only time in the Lively house—and she pushed them quickly aside.

  “I would love to see pictures of the two of you,” Mimi continued. “I bet you have some good ones.”

  “I could run home and get my album.”

  “Oh, no need to trouble yourself. Let’s save that for next time.” The phrase next time sent chills up both of Ada’s arms. She very much wanted there to be a next time, and a time after that, a new pattern of having “dinner” in this cool, elegant yard. Just sitting on their deck, admiring the garden with a glass of something fizzy in her hand, made her feel like an adult again, someone who socialized with educated people. Too many other folks these days raised their voices and enunciated more clearly when she was around, even though her hearing was fine, her mind as sharp as a fish hook. “I’m old, not deaf,” she’d snapped at the pharmacist just last week.

  Mimi served the flakiest white fish she’d ever tasted—sheepshead, she called it, from the coast. Harry’s version was plain with a side of buttered broccoli and a baked potato, but Ada’s helping came on a bed of something smooth and creamy, almost like puréed grits, with a mound of tangy greens on the side. Lisbeth poured more wine with the meal. Ada didn’t drink it, but she scooped out the raspberries with her spoon and let them melt on her tongue.

  She never drank, and her head soon felt like fluffy cotton. In between bites she talked, more than she remembered doing in years. These new friends actually asked her questions about herself, especially Mimi; must be the reporter in her. If Ada hadn’t had a bubbly drink, she might have thought the questions nosy, or rude, even; but in her slightly giddy state, she took them as welcome interest.

  Tea and a custardy dessert followed dinner, but Harry turned up his nose and went back inside. “I’ll get you some ice cream, Harry,” Lisbeth offered, following him in, and Mimi and Ada found themselves alone on the deck.

  “You know, Ada, I had an ulterior motive in asking you here,” Mimi said with a grin. “I mentioned to you that I’m a feature writer for Charlotte Magazine.”

  “I’ve seen it at the library,” Ada said, although she had only recently shown interest in the slick magazine, especially the byline “M.M. Finn.”

  “So here’s the thing. I pitched a story to my editor about you.”

  Ada stopped in mid-sip so she wouldn’t spit tea on her dress. Magazine stories were about famous people and criminals. She had done nothing to make herself famous, and she knew for a fact that sodomy was no longer a crime in North Carolina. Cam had lived to see the Supreme Court ruling and had read the story aloud to Ada. “Darlin’,” she said with a catch in her voice, “looks like we’re no longer outlaws.” They exchanged a quick kiss and as they pulled apart, shared a look that said they were both thinking about Auggie, even though neither of them mentioned his name.

  “Why ever would you want to write about me?” Ada asked Mimi as she regained her composure. It sounded too clipped, especially after she’d just been a guest at Mimi’s table, so she added, “I mean, I’m nobody.”

  “Don’t say that! I know I’m a bit biased, but you are a genuine hero. You found my father after he was missing for almost a full day!”

  “Oh,” Ada said, “there’s no story there.”

  “Well, the story wouldn’t be that, of course. You’re a hero in so many other ways! It would be about your life growing up right here in an old Charlotte mill community. You could tell some of the stories you told us tonight, like when NoDa was North Charlotte, or about working at a local school during integration and busing, being gay before Stonewall, your friend Auggie’s ordeal, caring for your father and then your partner . . . I can’t believe how much you’ve experienced. You’re like a time capsule of the twentieth century!” Mimi’s hands waved wildly as she became more and more animated. “We could run it next August, to coincide with the Pride Festival. I know folks involved with that—maybe you could be honored somehow, or maybe Lisbeth could get you an appearance at the university. What do you think?”

  Had she really told Mimi all those personal details? She guessed she had been a bit too chatty as she tried to keep up her end of the conversation.

  “I think . . . I’d . . . rather not,” Ada said, dragging out the words so she wouldn’t tread on Mimi’s pride.

  Mimi’s eyes registered surprise. Ada wondered if she’d be embarrassed, or worse, by having to tell her editor the story wasn’t a done deal.

  “I live alone,” Ada added. “I don’t want to advertise.”

  Lisbeth walked back onto the deck with a pitcher of ice water and refilled everyone’s glasses.

  “You know, I could be discreet about you and Miss Lively . . . if you want,” Mimi continued, like she was handing back a fifty-dollar bill she had found on the sidewalk. “Or better yet, I could obscure the neighborhood you’re in.”

  “I don’t want to be any bother.”

  Mimi took a deep breath, still not giving up. “It wouldn’t take too much of your time, if that’s what concerns you. A few hours for the interview, tops, including the photo shoot. We could do the whole thing right here in the garden. Maybe you would do me the honor of letting me buy you a new dress for the occasion.”

  Ada fidgeted in her chair, her best dress suddenly feeling like a hand-me-down.

  “Honey, it doesn’t sound like Ada wants to,” Lisbeth said. A look passed between the two women that Ada recognized. She’d given Cam many looks just like that in their decades together, taken the same firm
tone even while softening the rebuke with “honey.”

  “Well, I don’t see why not,” Mimi said, sounding bossy and annoyed for the first time since Ada had met her. It was a peek into her personality that Ada hadn’t counted on. She thought again of Cam, how she could rile Ada up quicker than anybody. “Please, at least say you’ll consider it. Sleep on it. Maybe give me your final answer next time you pick up Dad.”

  Final answer echoed in her mind, like she was a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? But there was no prize that Ada could see for anyone but Mimi herself. The taste of fish rose in her throat.

  “I need to use the ladies’,” she said.

  “Oh, Ada, you look terrible! Let me help you,” Lisbeth offered.

  Lisbeth’s hand supported her arm as they made their way down a long corridor, much too long to belong to one of the old mill houses. It was like they’d added another full house onto the original. Ada wondered if she would make it to the bathroom in time.

  “I’ll be fine,” she insisted, closing the door on Lisbeth’s panic. Ada lifted the toilet lid, bent over the cool porcelain, and heaved, but nothing came out.

  “Ada? Do you need help?”

  “I do not! Just leave me . . . please.” Ada closed the lid and sat down heavily, hot tears rolling down her cheeks. She wasn’t sure what made her sadder, the idea that Mimi was just trying to use her, or the fact that the flicker of hope she’d felt all evening had been so rudely extinguished.

  When she opened the door finally, Lisbeth was gone and Mimi was standing in her place. Her face looked like someone had opened a tap and drained the color out of it. “Ada,” she said in a small, cracked voice, “I am so, so sorry. I didn’t realize how . . .”

  “I’m not fragile, if that’s what you think,” Ada interrupted. “I’m not a scared old lady. I’ve been through more than you can imagine and lived to tell the tale. I just . . . we were friends, I thought. I was wrong. I feel a bit foolish.”

  “No, no, you weren’t wrong! Lisbeth and I are very fond of you.”

  “How could you be? You don’t know me.”

  “I would like to know you better.”

  “Why, so you can write about me?” Ada snapped. “Show me off to your editor, or at Lisbeth’s school, like some prize pig?”

  “I wasn’t thinking . . .”

  “I know you weren’t. All that crazy talk about me being a hero! It’s not heroic just to live!” Some spittle escaped her lips. Do you have to be so goddamn dramatic, Ada Jane? The woman’s trying to pay you a compliment, Cam’s voice said in her head. Ada rummaged in her bag for a tissue to blot her mouth.

  Mimi’s eyes looked even bluer than before and watery, like her own tears were fixing to spill out. “No disrespect, Ada, but I have to contradict you. It is heroic to live as yourself when it’s 1960 and the whole culture is saying you shouldn’t be who you are. You’re right—I can’t imagine all you’ve endured that I never had to. In my mind, a woman like you ought to be celebrated and held up as a beacon. I apologize for being so pushy about the article, but I don’t regret asking.”

  Something shifted inside her just then, and Ada held Mimi’s gaze. She had never thought about her life, or Cam’s, in that way, that what they had been through might be of value to another generation. They had just gotten by as best they could and been thankful for the years they had together.

  She reached out and took Mimi’s arm, and they walked back to the garden together in silence. Lisbeth had turned on strings of white lights whose reflection danced in the pool like stars. Over a second cup of tea, Ada allowed herself to wonder how it would be to have her picture in a magazine, or to talk to students again—this time not as a spinster librarian, but as someone with a real story to tell.

  She reckoned she could find a new dress on sale at Belk’s.

  About the Author

  Paula Martinac is the author of three other published novels—the Lambda Literary Award-winning Out of Time (1990; 2012 e-book); the Lammy-nominated Home Movies (1993); and Chicken (1997; 2001 reprint). She also co-authored a short story collection, Voyages Out (1989), with Carla Tomaso.

  Paula’s other publications include three nonfiction books—notably, The Queerest Places: A National Guide to Gay and Lesbian Historic Sites (1997)—and numerous articles, essays and short stories on LGBT themes. She wrote the biweekly column “Lesbian Notions” on LGBT politics and culture from 1997 to 2005, which was syndicated in the LBGT press.

  Also a playwright, Paula’s plays have had productions with Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater Company, Manhattan Theatre Source, the Pittsburgh New Works Festival, the Ganymede Festival, No Name Players, and others. Her full-length screenplay, Foreign Affairs, about the love affair between journalist Dorothy Thompson and novelist Christa Winsloe, finished second place in the 2003 POWER UP screenwriting contest.

  Originally from Pittsburgh, Paula spent most of her adult life in New York City before boomeranging back to Pittsburgh for eleven years. In 2014, she and her wife, writer and professor Katie Hogan, moved to Charlotte, N.C., where Paula teaches creative writing to undergraduates at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

  For more, please visit http://www.paulamartinac.com

  Acknowledgments

  My neighborhood started as a cotton mill community in Charlotte, N.C. in the early 1900s. Transplants like me abound, but there are also native Charlotteans who have been here for decades, holding on to their tiny mill houses and plots of land. One day after I’d taken a walk and spotted an older woman tending her azaleas, a funny thing happened: A character named Ada Jane Shook, whom I imagined growing up a mill worker’s daughter, appeared in a story I was writing about an old man from Pittsburgh. I pictured her living in the house she’d grown up in, just a few streets over from mine. At first I mistook her for a heterosexual widow, but she quickly set me straight. I am grateful for the opportunity to tell her story.

  Two different writing groups read these stories over the course of many months. I’ve been with East End Writers since 2003, although it’s now a Skype group because of geographic distance. Thank you, Selene dePackh, Kristie Linden, and Lucy Turner for your friendship and your spot-on recommendations that have made this a stronger book . . . and for always saying, “Yay, another Ada story!”

  To be told “You’d never know you were from the North” is the highest praise I could have gotten for this particular book. Thank you to my Charlotte-based writers’ group—Ana Couch, Debra Efird, Wendy Oglesby, and Shari Tate—for your astute comments. Not to mention all the perks that come with a face-to-face group, like the most delicious king cake I’ve ever tasted.

  For help with earlier versions of two of these chapters, thanks to the editors at Raleigh Review and Minerva Rising, for their insightful edits for “Comfort Zone” and “Raised That Way,” respectively.

  My own work has benefited enormously from teaching creative writing to undergraduates at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Many thanks to the English Department for making me feel at home.

  For help at different stages in my research, I’d like to acknowledge Reed Williams, who offered insight into a typical workday for a school librarian. Larry Nix of LibraryHistoryBuff.org pointed me toward information about educational requirements and certification for school librarians in the 1950s.

  My experience working with Bywater Books on the e-book reprint of my first novel, Out of Time, was so positive that I knew Ada and Cam would feel right at home there. Warmest thanks to Marianne K. Martin, Kelly Smith, and Salem West for taking on this book; Ann McMan for the best cover ever; Rachel Spangler for her social media insights; and Caroline Curtis and Nancy Squires for careful copy editing and proofreading. And thank you, Michele Karlsberg, for inviting me to Bywater in 2012.

  Finally, this book is for Katie Hogan, my partner in crime since 1992 and lawfully wedded wife since 2014, who gave me the incredible gift of a sabbatical from working multiple jobs so that I could write fiction a
gain. But she did even more than that: If I so much as hinted I was having trouble with an Ada story, she took time out of her own demanding work and academic writing schedule to help me sort it out. I love you, and I love what we’ve built together.

  At Bywater Books we love good books about lesbians just like you do, and we’re committed to bringing the best of contemporary lesbian writing to our avid readers. Our editorial team is dedicated to finding and developing outstanding writers who create books you won’t want to put down.

  We sponsor the Bywater Prize for Fiction to help with this quest. Each prize winner receives $1,000 and publication of their novel. We have already discovered amazing writers like Jill Malone, Sally Bellerose, and Hilary Sloin through the Bywater Prize. Which exciting new writer will we find next?

  For more information about Bywater Books and the annual Bywater Prize for Fiction, please visit our website.

  www.bywaterbooks.com