by Robin Talley
At some point my eyes must’ve fallen shut, because I remember everything was black when I heard her voice. It sounded soft and far away.
“Things have been strange lately,” she murmured.
I opened my eyes. Carolyn was propped up on one elbow, leaning over me, only inches away. I was so surprised I almost jumped back up again, but I forced a laugh. “What things?”
“You know.” She shrugged without moving away. “This whole school year. Ever since that pep rally. It was so awkward, wasn’t it?”
This was a dangerous conversation. I kept my face blank. “Awkward, how?”
“You know. I could tell you thought so. Your face was so red when your aunt called you up to give that prayer.”
“It was?”
She nodded.
I scrambled for an innocent explanation. “I, um. I don’t like getting up in front of people.”
“Also, your aunt’s a bitch.”
That time I laughed for real. I’d never heard anyone talk that way about Aunt Mandy. “You think so, too?”
“For sure. I bet she’s shitting bricks now that San Francisco elected that queer.”
I didn’t like hearing her call you that, Harvey, but I was still glad she’d called my aunt a bitch. “Probably.”
“Do you remember when we used to do that crap at sleepovers?” Carolyn hadn’t budged. If anything, her face might’ve moved closer to mine. “God, we were stupid little kids.”
She laughed, but her laughter sounded forced, the way mine had before.
“Um…” I tried to laugh, too. “Yeah.”
“I guess that’s how desperate girls can get when there aren’t any guys around.” She laughed again. “I could tell you had fun watching Annette and me. You were staring with your mouth hanging open like a fish.” She puckered her lips, fish-style. She looked ridiculous, but she still didn’t move away. I had no idea what was happening, but I wanted to put more space between us. I was getting scared.
“I wasn’t having fun.” I was talking so fast now she had to know I was lying. “I made that face because I was grossed out.”
“You didn’t look grossed out. You looked jealous.”
“What?” My heart was pounding so hard, Harvey. I don’t know how I managed not to get up and run. “I wasn’t jealous, that’s not—”
And then, before I could say anything more, she fucking lunged at me, Harvey.
She kissed me.
A real kiss. Her lips on my lips. Her tongue in my mouth, Harvey.
There was a horrible second at first when I thought she was just being mean, and that our friends were about to jump out from behind a tree and start laughing, and my life would instantly be over.
But no one jumped out. All that happened was that she kept kissing me.
She even started kissing me harder, Harvey. She—she leaned over me, sort of pressing me back into the grass, and she put her hand on the back of my neck, and…
I was sure it had to be a dream. I’d gotten drunk and passed out, or something.
But that wasn’t it at all. This was real.
I’ve been getting crushes on girls since before I was old enough to know what the word “crush” meant, but it was only tonight that I realized there could be another girl like me right here in Ocean Valley, California.
My thoughts in that moment were racing so fast I couldn’t keep track of them, but I knew one thing for sure:
This was the best day of my life. Finally, things were getting better instead of worse.
Is that what falling in love is like, Harvey? Sorry, I know that’s a cheesy question, but I saw a picture of you with your arm around a man. You’re in love with him, right? Was this how you felt the first time you kissed him? As if your life would never be the same?
Because after Carolyn and I started kissing, for the first time in months, I didn’t feel tired or lonely at all. I was floating in space, with the real world nowhere in sight.
I would’ve kept kissing her forever, but after another minute Carolyn pulled back and sort of hovered over me and whispered, “Well, I guess now we know exactly how stupid girls can get when there aren’t any guys around.”
I laughed, and she did, too. At first I didn’t understand why she’d said that, but now I see that she was being nice. She was giving me a way to back out, if I wanted to.
I didn’t want to. So I propped myself up on my elbows and put my hand on the back of her neck and kissed her again.
She kissed me back, and that was how I knew she didn’t want to back out, either.
I’ve kissed boys before, but that was never real. This was.
I’m not alone anymore, Harvey.
Maybe Carolyn and I can leave here someday. We could go to L.A., or all the way to San Francisco.
We could meet other lesbians. Make friends with them. We could be normal, Harvey.
Up until tonight, getting Sharon’s letters was all I had to look forward to, but now I’ve got something more. Someone here. Someone I can touch.
First, you got elected, Harvey, and now this.
God, I’m falling over at my desk, I’m so tired. I need to go to bed. I have school tomorrow…and Carolyn will be there.
It’s the first time in so long that I’m not going to bed angry. Nothing could ever wipe this grin off my face.
Peace & love, Tammy
Saturday, November 12, 1977
Dear Diary,
Um.
Something’s strange. Really, really strange.
At first I thought it was a prank, but that doesn’t make sense. There’s only one explanation that does.
It’s that the letter I got today is…real.
I went to the mailbox first this afternoon, the way I do every day I’m expecting a letter from Tammy, and I got one. I opened the envelope—it was thicker than usual, so I was hoping for a long letter, the kind she used to send—but it was…different.
The pages were wrinkled and stained, as if they’d gotten wet and then dried off. The first page was a short pen pal letter, where she said she wouldn’t be writing to me again.
I was disappointed, and a little hurt. Except there were extra pages behind the letter—regular notebook paper, so I knew it wasn’t another collage or anything. It looked like all the pages, the short letter and the others behind it, had been ripped out of the same notebook.
Maybe she wrote the other letter after mine, and she meant to put them in different envelopes. Except the second letter was addressed to Harvey.
Was Tammy writing to Harvey Milk? That made even less sense.
But it’s what she wrote that was strangest of all.
She wrote about kissing another girl.
It was a long letter, about her kissing a girl, and being really, really, really happy about it.
She wrote about me, too. She said my letters were all she had to look forward to…until now.
I think—oh, my gosh…
I think Tammy might be gay.
If it’s true, it means she’s been lying to me all along. Though I guess I’ve been lying to her, too.
How can she be? Her family’s so into church. She lives in Orange County. She goes to a Christian school!
Though I guess my brother goes to church and to Catholic school, too, and he’s gay.
All this time that we’ve been writing to each other, I thought she was normal. It’s normal to be straight, isn’t it?
Maybe I’ve been wrong about that, too.
Oh, my gosh. I’m so freaked out right now.
Am I supposed to write back? Does she even know she sent this to me? It’s addressed to Harvey.
Maybe she did send it on purpose. Maybe she wanted to freak me out, but…why? She wouldn’t want me to know, not unless this really is some kind of trick.
Peter could help me figure this out. Or Kevin. Well, but I couldn’t tell Kevin about Tammy, not about this…
I do want to see him, though.
Yeah. That’s what I’ll do.
He’s working tonight, but I’ll go meet him when he gets off. Then I won’t have to feel this way. When I’m with Kevin, things feel normal and safe, and that’s what I need right now.
Okay. I’ve got a plan, at least.
More later.
Yours, Sharon
Saturday, November 12, 1977
Oh, shit, Harvey.
Wait. Let me rephrase that.
OH, SHIT, HARVEY!!!!
I can’t find the last letter I wrote you.
The one about that night at the golf course and Carolyn and—
OH, SHIT, OH, SHIT, OH, SHIT!
It was here on my desk, and I went to bed because it was the middle of the night and I was drunk and I left it there and—
Did someone find it? Did my mother find it????
Okay. Okay. I have to figure this out. I can’t lose it until I’ve figured out what happened. I need a plan. Some kind of plan.
What the fuck is wrong with me????
Okay, no. Breathe. Breathe. Think.
It was on the desk. What else did I do on that desk?
I wrote a letter to you before I left for the party. I tore the pages out of my notebook and put them in my purse, where I keep all the things I can’t risk anyone finding.
I went through every scrap of paper in my purse, Harvey. The letter I wrote after I came back that night is most definitely not there. It isn’t anywhere.
Okay. Okay. Thinking. Thinking. What else did I do? I wrote a letter to Sharon, a short one, right before I left. I wrote it in the same notebook as usual, and I tore it out and put it in an envelope and addressed it, and—
Wait. Shit. No. I didn’t.
I was running late and I had to do my makeup. I left Sharon’s letter in my notebook to deal with after I got back.
Then when I got home, I was so excited I sat straight down and turned to a new page and started writing. About Carolyn, and kissing, and everything else that was in my head. When I was done, I was so exhausted I fell straight into bed.
The next morning, I remembered the letter to Sharon, and I went over to tear it out of the notebook, and—
No, wait, no. I still felt half drunk, so I slept through my alarm and I was going to be late for school. I was trying to drink orange juice and eat a donut and get my books together all at the same time, and I spilled my juice and—
SHIT. SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT.
Harvey. HARVEY.
I spilled my orange juice and it got all over me and I had to change my skirt. I didn’t have time to clean up, but it got all over my notebook, too, and—
OH, MY FUCKING GOD. ORANGE JUICE. I KNEW THIS WAS ALL ANITA FUCKING BRYANT’S FAULT.
Harvey. I remember now.
Oh, my God.
I was in such a panic to get out the door without anyone figuring out what I’d been doing. I just tore out the pages out of the notebook without paying attention and put them in the envelope.
I remember now. It was a thick envelope, the way they always used to be back when I wrote her longer letters. I thought that was because it was wet, but—
Oh, holy fuck. HOLY FUCK, FUCK, FUCK—
Sharon knows. She knows.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, what if she tells someone????
She won’t. She won’t, she won’t, she won’t.
But what if she does??????
I got a letter from her today, but it’s obvious she wrote it before she got mine. She said she wanted to keep writing, but—
That’s because she didn’t know the truth, Harvey.
We swore we wouldn’t tell anyone what we wrote, but what if she thinks she needs to save my soul, or something??
Harvey! What the fuck am I supposed to do now??
Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
I’m going back to bed.
Tammy
Saturday, November 19, 1977
Dear Diary,
Well…I went out with Kevin again last night.
We’ve been spending more time together than usual this past week, ever since I got that bizarre letter from Tammy. Mom hasn’t really noticed that I’ve been staying out late, even on school nights. She’s going to bed earlier and earlier lately. Peter’s been teasing me for suddenly starting to act like the girls at school who spend all their time hanging on their boyfriends, but it’s still been fun, mostly.
Last night was kind of strange, though. Kevin was off work, and I brought him with me to a show for the first time. He doesn’t know much about punk—he mostly listens to Journey and the Dead—but he agreed to come up to North Beach to see the Dils and DV8 with me. I could tell he wanted to give it a chance, for my sake, but it wasn’t really his scene.
“IT’S LOUD IN HERE!” he shouted at me for the third time, after we’d only been inside two minutes. From the way he kept balling up his fists in front of his shoulders, I could tell he wanted to clap his hands over his ears. He kept darting his eyes around, especially at the guy in front of us with his hair spiked straight up and the girl next to him with the leather choker and the safety pin stuck through her ear. I was wearing one of my boring schoolgirl sweaters, but I’d paired it with a new short bright blue vinyl skirt I’d bought a couple of weeks ago with my babysitting money, and that seemed to make him nervous, too. I kept catching him glancing down at it and then back up at my face, as if he wasn’t sure it was me.
“JUST LISTEN!” I shouted back, but Kevin shook his head and pointed to his ear, uncomprehending.
I tried to demonstrate instead. I closed my eyes and let my body start thrumming to the music. I’d never heard DV8 before, and they weren’t my favorite—the Dils were better, and their set wouldn’t be until later—but the beat was as mesmerizing as ever.
As the rhythm rose inside me, I forgot all about introducing Kevin to punk. All I could focus on was how this felt.
“HEY, SHARON?” His voice was shouting into my ear. I opened my eyes reluctantly. “DO YOU KNOW THOSE GIRLS?”
“WHO?” I shouted back, but I saw them before he could point.
I recognized the first girl he was looking at instantly—Midge Spelling. It was jarring to see her in the middle of the crowd again, like she was anyone else. Midge Spelling wasn’t like anyone else.
A lot of the girls tonight were dressed up, in thrift-store fur or brightly colored ripped tights or puffy wigs, but Midge stood out as much as always. Her hair was slicked back, with a single short lock curling over her forehead, and she had on impossibly shiny red lipstick and cat-eye liner. She was wearing a bright red trench coat, the exact same shade as her lips, buttoned all the way up to her neck but open from the waist down, with tight red pants and knee-high black leather boots underneath.
For an instant I wondered how Midge Spelling looked when she wasn’t at a punk show, but I dismissed the thought. I’d rather not know.
She was with another girl I couldn’t place at first. The girl looked understated compared to Midge, but she still fit in perfectly. She was dressed in a black leather jacket, ripped jeans with a leather collar tied under the right knee, and ancient-looking Converse sneakers, and she was looking right at me.
Right. Evelyn, the girl I’d first seen on Castro Street ages ago.
“HEY! SHARON, RIGHT?” Evelyn pushed through the crowd toward us first. Midge followed her, but she was dancing as she walked, her trench coat flapping open.
I nodded at them, because the band had launched into an earsplitting drumroll and it was impossible to talk. Evelyn gestured for us to follow her toward the bar. I took Ke
vin’s elbow and led him after them.
He was visibly relieved at the slightly less dramatic volume on that side. As soon as we could speak again, he offered to get drinks for all of us and waded through the sea of people toward the bartender.
Evelyn smiled at me, and I smiled back, even though smiling in a punk club seems as out of place as swimming down Market Street. Next to us, Midge kept dancing.
“Cool skirt.” Evelyn had to lean in close so I could understand her. “I’ve been hoping you’d come by the bookstore.”
“I’ve been really busy with school.”
“Oh yeah? I thought I saw you at a show here last week.” She raised her eyebrows, and I blushed. Then she laughed. “Relax, it’s cool. You should come by if you get a chance, though. We’re launching a big new campaign. Have you heard about Prop 6?”
“Yeah, the one banning gay teachers?”
“That’s it. We’re teaming up with some other groups to canvass the whole city, and other places, too, if we can, and we’re raising money so we can rent buses and—”
“HERE!” Kevin shouted, thrusting out three cans of Coke. His forehead had a thin sheen of sweat, as though he’d run a marathon. The crowd around the bar had gotten thicker since Evelyn and I had been talking. “SORRY, THAT WAS ALL I COULD GET. DIDN’T THINK THEY’D CHECK ID.”
Evelyn took a can and smiled at him. “Thanks.”
I didn’t want Kevin to hear us talking about Prop 6. Ever since I got Tammy’s letter, thinking about gay stuff makes me uncomfortable. And kind of lost.
Midge stopped dancing long enough to take one of the Cokes. “Thanks, man.”
“Hey, Midge.” Evelyn pointed toward the door. “Is that Johnny coming in?”
Midge cracked open the Coke can and glanced up. Her skinny guitar player was strolling through the door, a cigarette burning in his hand. He looked paler than last time I saw him. “Yeah. Guess I should go over.”
“Make him come to you.” Evelyn took a swig of Coke. “Why should women always be at the beck and call of men?”
Kevin coughed, as if he was choking on his soda. Midge chuckled and turned back to glance at Johnny by the door.