Music from Another World

by Robin Talley

  “Hi,” I said, as I stepped toward the girl at the cash register. “I’m, um, I’m looking for—”

  “LOOK OUT!” a voice shrieked behind me.

  I whipped around and barely managed to jump back before the dolly laden with a six-foot-high stack of boxes could careen straight into me.

  “SHIT, I’M SO SORRY!” the same voice yelled as the girl behind the cash register leaped out to grab the top box before it crashed to the floor. The box below it was tottering, too, and I instinctively jumped forward and wrapped my arms around it. It was heavy, and I staggered backward, but I managed to hang on.

  “I told you not to stack them so high!” the girl who’d come out from behind the register admonished. “Christ, Becky!”

  “I know, I know, I know!” Becky ran out from behind the dolly and up to me. She was about my height, with pale skin, red hair, and freckles across her nose. “Are you all right? I’m so sorry!”

  “She’s fine.” The other girl set down her box next to the cash register with a grunt, then took the box out of my hands and set it next to hers. When they were both secure, she wiped her hands off on her jeans and held one out to me to shake. She was tall and dark-skinned, with short curly hair and big hoop earrings, and she grinned at me before she rolled her eyes at Becky. “I’m Lisa. Tell Becky you’re fine. You’re fine, right?”

  “I’m fine.” I smiled back and shook Lisa’s hand. Her denim jacket had at least a dozen buttons pinned on. I read SAVE THE WHALES, TRUST IN GOD—SHE WILL PROVIDE, and ABOLISH APARTHEID before I realized I was being rude and lifted my eyes back to her face. “I’m Sharon.”

  “Rad to meet you. Sorry my roommate almost killed you. Want a beer? It’s the least we can do.”

  I thought she was joking until I noticed the six-pack behind the cash register. “No, thanks. I only came in to see if Evelyn was around.”

  Lisa didn’t miss a beat. “Evie!” she shouted, without turning her head. “A woman’s here to see you!”

  “You sure you’re okay?” Becky grabbed my elbow and looked me up and down as if checking for wounds. “I’m so sorry. The right wheel’s quirky on that thing.”

  “The wheel is fine.” Lisa waved a dismissive hand. “Becky’s just trying to get out of loading-dock duty next time, but it’s not gonna work.”

  “Sharon! You came!” Evelyn was striding toward us from a door behind the cash register. “That’s great. Did you already introduce yourselves?”

  “Yeah,” Lisa said. “Becky nearly killed her, but Sharon saved your box of Camera Obscuras.”

  “I try to be useful,” I said, hoping it sounded funny. I guess I succeeded, because Evelyn laughed. She was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, and she looked different, more relaxed, than she had when I’d seen her at the club. Her knee collar was nowhere in sight.

  The bookstore was smaller than I’d expected, and except for a single narrow aisle and a nook to one side that held a paper-strewn table and a few chairs, every inch of space was crammed with bookshelves. A couple of girls with long, loose hair were studying the shelves to my right, and low voices murmured behind the door Evelyn had emerged from.

  I doubted Becky was much older than me, and the others might’ve been in their early twenties. None of them looked like real adults. They were all a lot younger than my teachers.

  Becky finished lifting the boxes off the dolly and steered it toward the room at the back. Evelyn stepped forward, still beaming. “I’ll show you around. You want a drink?”

  “Already offered.” Lisa hopped up onto the counter next to the register and ripped open a box. “She said no. Whoa—did someone mean to order an entire box of Adrienne Rich?”

  “We can send them back if they don’t sell, but they will.” Evelyn nodded confidently.

  “Okay, well, I’m ordering a box of Audre Lorde on Monday, then.” Lisa reached for the next box.

  “Your timing is great, Sharon.” Evelyn waved for me to follow her toward the table and chairs. “We’ve got a volunteer meeting starting in a few minutes. Want to help us fold some flyers on Prop 6?”

  “Heck, yes.”

  I blushed as soon as I’d said it, highly conscious of how young I must’ve sounded, and Evelyn laughed. It was another friendly laugh, though. Everything about this place was friendly.

  “I should start setting up.” Evelyn reached for a jar of pens on the counter. “Could you help me bring things out from the back?”

  “Sure.”

  I followed her into what turned out to be a tiny storeroom full of boxes and supplies. Two other girls were somehow crammed into the back, going through an inventory list, when Evelyn and I squeezed inside. At first I could barely breathe in the tight space, but soon I was carting boxes of envelopes and Xeroxed flyers and rolls of stamps out to the table. More girls had arrived, and they were gathering around it. There weren’t enough chairs, so some wound up sitting on the floor, tucking their sneakered feet under them on the industrial gray carpet and sipping from bottles of beer and soda. The store had looked minuscule at first, but now that so many people were inside, it felt bigger.

  Evelyn introduced me to the others as we passed out the supplies, making a big point to tell them all that I was going to help the store “connect with more young women.” The way she kept saying it reminded me of how Peter loves to tell people I’m his “kid” sister, but the girls at the store were cool about it.

  Lisa came out from behind the cash register and waved for me to sit beside her on the floor next to a stack of letters. I sat, grabbing a few and copying her movements as she neatly folded each page into thirds.

  “Are you and Becky roommates?” I asked Lisa. Everyone else seemed to be talking in low murmurs while we worked, except Evelyn. She was still bustling around getting things organized.

  “Yeah. Evie lives with us, too. And three other women, but they had to work today. We’ve all got other jobs, since we’re not making any money from the store yet.”

  “You mean you don’t get paid to work here?”

  “Nope. We own it, as a collective. Someday we hope to turn a profit so we can put it toward some of our causes, but for now we’re just trying to keep up with the rent and the light bill.”

  “Oh, wow. That’s so cool. I thought you were all in college.”

  “We are.” Lisa laughed. “That’s why we need the extra jobs. Got to pay those tuition bills. And eat, too.”

  “Wow. Do you go to SF State?”

  “Evie does, for grad school. Becky and I are at SFAI. Susanna over there goes to SFCM.” She pointed to a Chinese girl on the other side of the table with long, black hair and a T-shirt that read THE FUTURE IS FEMALE.

  By the way, Tammy, have you heard of SFCM and SFAI? They’re the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Art Institute.

  I was surprised that there were so many feminist artists. Then I realized I shouldn’t make assumptions.

  “So are you all...um, feminists?” I asked, then immediately blushed. I sounded ridiculous.

  Lisa laughed. “Well, it’s a feminist bookstore, so I sure as Hell hope so. And to answer your next question, no, we’re not all lesbians. But some of us are.”

  She winked. I laughed, because I could tell she wanted me to laugh, but now I was wondering exactly how many lesbians were in that store.

  Another Black girl Evelyn had introduced me to, Alex, squatted down next to Lisa. “Hey, is it cool if I bring a date to your poetry reading next week?”

  “Depends.” Lisa grinned. “Who’ve you got in mind?”

  “Well, since you asked...” Alex dropped down to sit on the floor, and soon the two of them were off and running, talking about friends of theirs. I relaxed, since I knew I wouldn’t be called on for this conversation. Besides, I definitely wasn’t cool enough to get invited to a poetry reading, with or without a date.
/>   I couldn’t believe how many girls had come to this volunteer meeting. No—not girls. Women. That’s what people here seemed to say. Most of them were in jeans and T-shirts with boots or loafers, and most were wearing their hair short and loose in no particular style. No one seemed preoccupied with how they looked, or with what anyone else thought of them.

  I was starting to think I might actually fit in there someday. Maybe I even already did.

  When I climbed up to grab another roll of stamps off the table, Becky and Evelyn were sitting at the far end, talking about how depressing it was that Senator Briggs had gotten enough signatures in Orange County to put Prop 6 on the ballot. Which made me think of you, of course.

  “It shows how crucial it is that we beat them at the ballot box,” Evelyn said. “Sharon, get your friends to come here after school. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

  “With more mailings?”

  “Yeah, it’s not exactly glamorous work.” Evelyn swept out her hand over the pile of stamps and envelopes on the table. Behind her was a bookshelf with a Lesbian Poetry sign across the top. I wondered what makes poetry lesbian. “We’ll need to start prepping for Gay Freedom Day before long, too. All the campaigns against Prop 6 are about marching.”

  “You think women are going to turn out for that?” Alex tilted her head skeptically from her seat on the floor. “Last time it was all gay white men as far as the eye could see.”

  “Yeah, but more of us have been coming every year,” Lisa said. “The first year I was in the city I was the only woman in sight, but it’s gotten a lot better.”

  Evelyn nodded fervently. “Harvey’s going out of his way to invite the lesbian groups.”

  “Sure, because we need a man to invite us.” Alex didn’t look any less skeptical.

  Evelyn turned my way with another vigorous nod, as if she was anxious for me to believe her. I nodded back, as though I had conversations about Gay Freedom Day and invitations from Harvey Milk all the time.

  “It’s the media who always forgets lesbians exist.” Lisa chuckled. “If enough of us show up, they can’t ignore us.”

  Did that mean Lisa was a lesbian? I could barely keep up.

  “Anyway, we’ve got bigger actions planned, too,” Evelyn added. “When the election gets closer, we’ll start going door to door. It’ll be the first statewide vote on gay rights, so donors should pony up to help.”

  “They’d better.” Becky licked a stamp with a flourish. “Or we’re shit out of luck.”

  Everyone laughed except me. I was still puzzling out the first part of the conversation, and wondering how many of them read lesbian poetry.

  “Hey.” Lisa waved at me. “You okay, Sharon? You upset Becky said ‘shit’?”

  I blushed. Did I come off like that much of a goody-goody? “Nah, it’s cool. I don’t give a shit about ‘shit.’”

  That brought up a big laugh from the group, and I relaxed a little more. They didn’t need to know that was the first time I’d said the word “shit” out loud.

  I’m not sure if I’ve ever been around people I liked as much as I was starting to like these girls women. I didn’t have to pretend to be someone I wasn’t here. They didn’t know I was just some naive Irish-Catholic kid from Dan White’s district, but maybe they wouldn’t care if they did.

  There was no tension. No expectations. They were treating me as if I was already one of them.

  I want to go back to that store, Tammy. I want to do more folding and stapling. Maybe I can even knock on some doors.

  That would mean more lying to Mom, though. Besides, could I seriously talk to strangers about Prop 6? What if someone slammed the door in my face? And what if I knocked on a door that turned out to belong to someone from our church—could that be dangerous for my brother?

  All I know for sure is, I loved being in that place. When Evelyn finally told us we could stop for the day, the paper cuts on my knuckles barely even stung.

  I only wish you could’ve come there with me. You would’ve loved every second.

  Yours truly, Sharon

  Wednesday, November 30, 1977

  Dear Sharon,

  Wow. I want to go to that bookstore with you. I want to go so much.

  Reading about it made me think of what you said in your other letter, about how accidents define everything. Reading about the women at that store, all I could think was how much I wish I’d been accidentally born in San Francisco. Your city’s a completely different world.

  Do you remember what we said back in the summer, about not going back and rereading our letters, or crossing things out? I want to start doing that again. After this horrible pep rally my aunt made me put on at school, I started reading over all my letters to you really carefully to make sure I didn’t give anything away, and I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to be straight-up honest.

  Like about Carolyn. There’s no one else I can talk to about her. We kissed again yesterday, for the first time since that night on the golf course. It happened in the girls’ locker room before math class, but it was really quick and we both ran away afterward and I don’t know what it means, and...

  Actually, maybe I should tell you about Thanksgiving instead. That’s simpler.

  My dad’s parents came out from Ohio for the weekend. That’s a big deal, because they hate flying, and they hate California even more. I’ve only seen them a handful of times since I was born, and I’m not entirely sure they can tell me and my sisters apart, but they’re obsessed with my little brother and my baby nephew.

  My aunt and uncle came over to our house for Thanksgiving dinner with my little cousin Eddie, the way they do every year (my aunt hates to cook). That made things awkward. My mom’s family and my dad’s family have never been close, and my grandparents clearly resented Aunt Mandy and Uncle Russell being at the dinner. When my grandparents started drinking—they only drink on holidays, so they tend to get drunk fast—things got worse.

  “I thought you’d have more children by now, Amanda,” Grandpa said before Dad had even carved the turkey. “How old are you?”

  My aunt tried to cough politely. “Now, now, we never discuss a woman’s age, do we?”

  “She’s thirty-five,” Eddie said. He was pouting, because he’d tried to read a comic book under the table and Uncle Russell had smacked him and taken it away.

  “Is that so?” My grandmother sipped her wine and eyed Uncle Russell. Then she turned back to my aunt. “I always think of you as that tiny girl at Henry’s wedding, but you’re not so tiny now, I suppose.”

  “No, no, she’s got that whole legion of followers,” my grandfather said. “Donna sent us that article she cut out from the newspaper, remember? Something about Anita Bryant?”

  “Now there’s a godly woman,” Grandma said. Then she started singing, in that overwrought, trembly voiced, Anita-Bryant-on-her-Christian-music-albums way. “‘Mine eyes have seen the GLO-ry of the COM-ing of the LORD...’”

  Singing aside, I was enjoying watching them give Aunt Mandy a hard time, but then my mother messed it all up. “Irene, did we tell you Ricky’s going to be the lead in the school Christmas pageant?”

  “I’m Joseph!” my brother yelled, and of course Grandma and Grandpa immediately started cooing over him and arguing with my dad about who’d pay for them to fly out for Christmas so they could see Ricky stumble around with a stuffed donkey and some unfortunate junior-high girl dressed as Mary.

  They left my aunt alone after that, but she seethed all through dinner. I’ve been around her when she’s angry enough times that I know her fakest, most wooden smile when I see it.

  Seeing her suffer really does make me happy. Maybe that makes me a terrible person, but to be honest, I’m not sure I care.

  Anyway, tell me if you go back to that bookstore, please. I want to hear every detail.

  Yours tr
uly, Tammy

  Friday, December 2, 1977

  Dear Tammy,

  Your grandparents sound hilarious. I bet you wish they came over all the time, even if your grandmother’s an Anita Bryant fan.

  But... I’m sorry, Tammy. I have to admit something, and it’s bad.

  I’ll just tell you what happened. Then you can decide what you think.

  I went to the bookstore again after school today. I’d gone on Tuesday and Wednesday, too, since there was always work to do. The afternoons were quiet. I’d helped with some mailings, talked to the women there, and made it home in time for dinner.

  Today was different.

  “Sharon?” a voice behind me said when I was halfway through a stack of envelopes. “What are you doing?”

  “Uh...” I looked up from the stamp I was licking. Evelyn was standing over me, one hand on her hip. I’d been at the store for more than an hour, working on a mailing while the others stocked books. “Volunteering?”

  “Now tell me, how’s the weather?” She folded her arms across her chest.

  “Uh...” I glanced at the window. “It finally stopped raining, and it’s actually kind of warm?”

  “That’s right.” Evelyn tapped her watch. “It’s a gorgeous December afternoon, and you’re inside a bookstore?”

  “So are you.” I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair. I’d come straight to the store from school without stopping home to change first, but I’d ditched my starched white blouse and was currently dressed in the Ramones T-shirt I’d worn under it, plus my school kilt and saddle shoes. I figured in this outfit I could get away with teasing Evelyn a little. “Is that a leather jacket you’re wearing? Who said you got to lecture me about the weather?”

  She laughed and waved for me to get up. “Come on. That mailing doesn’t need to go out until Monday. We’re hitting the park before the sun goes down.”