Yet Marie didn’t look embarrassed as she held her gaze across the table.
Neither of them spoke, but something passed in that shared look that Janet couldn’t have named. It buzzed through her with an energy she’d never known.
Unless that, too, was solely in Janet’s imagination.
The waiter came to take their empty glasses, inquiring if they needed anything else. His eyes were on Marie and she answered for them both, in a voice so grown-up Janet couldn’t believe she’d ever found cause to be nervous about anything. “No, thank you. I suppose it’s getting late.”
The waiter left, and Marie withdrew a few bills from her purse and tucked them under the glass. Her every movement was mesmerizing. “We ought to catch the streetcar. Your mother will be worried.”
“Oh, forget my mother.” Janet laughed and climbed awkwardly to her feet, holding the table to right herself.
Marie laughed, too, and followed. On the way out of the restaurant, she took a matchbook from the front desk and slipped it into her purse with a smile. Janet grabbed one, too, giggling.
The sidewalk was dark under the burned-out streetlight as the girls stumbled outside, the pavement grit caking under their heels. Up ahead, on Wisconsin, people were walking quickly along the sidewalk, but out here there was no one out but the two of them.
“I’m glad you didn’t have to work tonight after all.” Marie tucked her arm into Janet’s as they began to walk. “This afternoon, the very instant the man at State told me I’d gotten the job, I knew the only person I wanted to celebrate with in all the world was you.”
Janet closed her eyes, tasting the words.
If she were Sam, the main character from A Love So Strange—if she’d had Sam’s courage, her knowledge of girls, her understanding of the world—she would kiss Marie. Right where they stood.
Sam didn’t bother with waiting. She went after what she wanted.
Of course, even Sam wouldn’t dare kiss a girl out in the open darkness, where anyone might see them. But maybe they could move somewhere out of sight. Duck beneath the awning of the shuttered corner shop, perhaps.
Sam would’ve said a clever line, too. Something witty and alluring.
Janet opened her eyes.
She meant to think of something clever. Truly, she did. In the end, though, the words that came out were, “Um...let’s go over there.”
Marie didn’t seem to mind her abruptness. Her eyes were bright, her answer quick. “Yes, let’s.”
They hurried around the corner and stood, silent, their eyes locked on one another’s. Janet could no longer think about books or jobs. She couldn’t think about anything but Marie and that look they’d shared across the table.
She closed her eyes. And all at once, there in the darkness, it was happening. It was real.
Janet was kissing her.
It was madness. She knew it was madness, because in that moment Janet could not have prevented herself from kissing Marie if all the world had tried to stop her. And so it was some time before she began to understand that Marie was kissing her back.
She could scarcely breathe. In all the world, there existed nothing but Marie’s lips on hers. Marie’s hair, soft under her hand. Marie’s body, pressed so close Janet could feel the seams in her flannel suit.
“Hey!”
The girls sprang apart, four feet of space materializing between them in an instant. There was no way to tell where the shout had come from.
Who’d seen them? Would her parents find out? Already, before Janet had even truly found out for herself?
“Is it the police?” Marie whispered. Janet hadn’t even thought of that.
“Hey!” The shout came again. This time, it was punctuated by a round of laughter from high above. A girl’s laughter.
Whoever had shouted, it wasn’t the police.
Janet tilted her head back, looking for the source of the sound. Next to her, Marie did the same.
They both saw it at the same time. A girl, framed in an open window. An apartment two stories above the darkened store.
A man leaned toward her, and the girl ducked out of his way, still laughing, holding a bottle of beer. The girl’s eyes were locked on his.
She hadn’t seen Janet and Marie.
Only then did Janet feel the full weight of relief crashing down around her.
She lowered her gaze, locking eyes with Marie. Marie’s breathing was rapid, but a smile danced behind her glasses. The madness of their kiss had touched her, too.
The sound of the streetcar made Janet’s heart beat faster. It was late, and the next car may not come for some time. They’d have to dash for it.
She longed to take Marie’s hand—that was what Sam would’ve done—but she didn’t dare. Instead, they turned and ran in a single movement.
This time, Janet didn’t beat Marie to the curb. This time, they stayed together.
They climbed onto the sparsely populated car and took seats side by side. They didn’t dare to touch, but they watched each other carefully. After another moment, they began to laugh.
Janet waited for her heart to slow, for normalcy to retake her mind. Yet as long as she waited, it never came.
Monday, September 18, 2017
It was decided, then. Elaine would go to New York.
The prospect gave her a special pleasure. When she told others her plans, though, they gave her sympathetic looks.
“You know what they say.” Aunt Fay wagged her finger at Elaine. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder. The day after you get there, that fellow of yours will see what he’s been missing out on. We’ll be dancing at your wedding by spring.”
“I’m not going to New York so Wayne will propose,” Elaine tried to tell her. “I’m going to start a new life of my own.”
“Of course you are, honey.” Her aunt winked. Elaine didn’t bother arguing further.
Wayne was a nice enough boy, she supposed. He was polite to her parents, and he called Elaine “sugar.” When he drove her home after their dates, he kissed her quickly and pleasantly in the front seat of his car, and he didn’t try to fight her when she pushed his sweaty hands away from the front of her dress.
Even so, Elaine wasn’t disappointed that, after a year of going steady, he hadn’t yet offered her a ring. Elaine wanted more from her future than Wayne Ellis. She wanted more than her aunt or her parents or anyone in Hanover could ever understand.
Abby rolled her eyes and switched off her phone screen. So far, this Women of the Twilight Realm book was thoroughly predictable.
“You won’t believe how over-the-top these books are.” Her breath was coming out in pants. The fourteen-story escalator at the Tenleytown metro station had stopped running and Abby, Linh and their friends were climbing it with their rally posters over their heads. “This one is so corny.”
The health care protest they’d gone to downtown with the rest of the Genders & Sexualities Alliance had been awesome, with lots of quality chanting and creative homemade signs. It wasn’t actually over yet, but they’d had to leave early. Linh and Savannah