by Mike Ashley
We are still talking, our fingertips brushing on the scarred wooden tabletop, when the bartender announces last call. “Oh, bloody hell,” she says. “I’ve been having such a lovely time I’ve gone and missed the last ferry. I hope I have enough for the cab fare. My Chevy’s over in the car park at Berkeley.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I hear myself say. “I’ve got a room at the hotel. Come back with me and catch the ferry in the morning.” It’s the wine talking. I don’t know what I’ll do if she says yes. I want her to say yes so much.
“No, I couldn’t impose. I’ll simply—” she protests, and then stops. “Oh, yes, then. Thank you. It’s very generous.”
So here we are. At 2:00 a.m. the hotel lobby is plush and utterly empty. We ride up in the elevator in a sleepy silence that becomes awkward as soon as we are alone in the room. I nervously gather my new clothes off the only bed and gesture to her to sit down. I pull a T-shirt out of its crinkly cellophane wrapper. “Here,” I hand it to her. “It’s not elegant, but it’ll have to do as a nightgown.”
She looks at the T-shirt in her lap, and at the dungarees and black sneakers in my arms, an odd expression on her face. Then she sighs, a deep, achy sounding sigh. It’s the oddest reaction to a T-shirt I’ve ever heard.
“The Paper Doll would have been all right, wouldn’t it?” she asks softly.
Puzzled, I stop crinkling the other cellophane wrapper and lean against the dresser. “I guess so. I’ve never been there.” She looks worried, so I keep talking. “But there are a lot of places I haven’t been. I’m new in town. Just got here. Don’t know anybody yet, haven’t really gotten around. What kind of place is it?”
She freezes for a moment, then says, almost in a whisper, “It’s a bar for women.”
“Oh,” I nod. “Well, that’s okay.” Why would Jimmy suggest a gay bar? It’s an odd thing to tell your fiancée. Did he guess about me somehow? Or maybe he just thought we’d be safer there late at night, since—
My musings – and any other rational thoughts – come to a dead stop when Sara Baxter Clarke stands up, cups my face in both her hands and kisses me gently on the lips. She pulls away, just a few inches, and looks at me.
I can’t believe this is happening. “Aren’t you . . . isn’t Jimmy . . .?”
“He’s my dearest chum, and my partner in the lab. But romantically? No. Protective camouflage. For both of us,” she answers, stroking my face.
I don’t know what to do. Every dream I’ve ever had is coming true tonight. But how can I kiss her? How can I begin something I know is doomed? She must see the indecision in my face, because she looks scared, and starts to take a step backwards. And I can’t let her go. Not yet. I put my hand on the back of her neck and pull her into a second, longer kiss.
We move to the bed after a few minutes. I feel shy, not wanting to make a wrong move. But she kisses my face, my neck, and pulls me down on to her. We begin slowly, cautiously undressing each other. I fumble at the unfamiliar garter belts and stockings, and she smiles, undoing the rubber clasps for me. Her slender body is pale and freckled, her breasts small with dusty pink nipples.
Her fingers gently stroke my arms, my thighs. When I hesitantly put my mouth on her breast, she moans, deep in her throat, and laces her fingers through my hair. After a minute her hands ease my head down her body. The hair between her legs is ginger, the ends dark and wet. I taste the salty musk of her when I part her lips with my tongue. She moans again, almost a growl. When she comes it is a single, fierce explosion.
We finally fall into an exhausted sleep, spooned around each other, both T-shirts still crumpled on the floor.
Saturday, February 18, 1956. 7:00 a.m.
Light comes through a crack in the curtains. I’m alone in a strange bed. I’m sure last night was a dream, but then I hear the shower come on in the bathroom. Sara emerges a few minutes later, toweling her hair. She smiles and leans over me – warm and wet and smelling of soap.
“I have to go,” she whispers, and kisses me.
I want to ask if I’ll see her again, want to pull her down next to me and hold her for hours. But I just stroke her hair and say nothing.
She sits on the edge of the bed. “I’ve got an eleven o’clock lab, and there’s another dreadful cocktail thing at Stanford this evening. I’d give it a miss, but Shockley’s going to be there, and he’s front runner for the next Nobel, so I have to make an appearance. Meet me after?”
“Yes,” I say, breathing again. “Where?”
“Why don’t you take the train down. I’ll pick you up at the Palo Alto station at half-past seven and we can drive to the coast for dinner. Wear those nice black trousers. If it’s not too dreary, we’ll walk on the beach.”
She picks up her wrinkled suit from the floor where it landed last night, and gets dressed. “Half past seven, then?” she says, and kisses my cheek. The door clicks shut and she’s gone.
I lie tangled in the sheets, and curl up into the pillow like a contented cat. I am almost asleep again when an image intrudes – a crumpled Chevy on the rocks below Devil’s Slide. It’s like a fragment of a nightmare, not quite real in the morning light. But which dream is real now?
Until last night, part of what had made Sara Baxter Clarke so compelling was her enigmatic death. Like Amelia Earhart or James Dean, she had been a brilliant star that ended so abruptly she became legendary. Larger than life. But I can still feel where her lips brushed my cheek. Now she’s very much life-size, and despite Chambers’s warnings, I will do anything to keep her that way.
Saturday, February 18, 1956. 7:20 p.m.
The platform at the Palo Alto train station is cold and windy. I’m glad I’ve got a sweater, but it makes my suit jacket uncomfortably tight across my shoulders. I’ve finished the newspaper and am reading the train schedule when Sara comes up behind me.
“Hullo there,” she says. She’s wearing a nubby beige dress under a dark wool coat and looks quite elegant.
“Hi.” I reach to give her a hug, but she steps back.
“Have you gone mad?” she says, scowling. She crosses her arms over her chest. “What on earth were you thinking?”
“Sorry.” I’m not sure what I’ve done. “It’s nice to see you,” I say hesitantly.
“Yes, well, me too. But you can’t just . . . oh, you know,” she says, waving her hand.
I don’t, so I shrug. She gives me an annoyed look, then turns and opens the car door. I stand on the pavement for a minute, bewildered, then get in.
Her Chevy feels huge compared to the Toyota I drive at home, and there are no seat belts. We drive in uncomfortable silence all through Palo Alto and on to the winding, two-lane road that leads to the coast. Our second date isn’t going well.
After about ten minutes, I can’t stand it any more. “I’m sorry about the hug. I guess it’s still a big deal here, huh?”
She turns her head slightly, still keeping her eyes on the road. “Here?” she asks. “What utopia are you from, then?”
I spent the day wandering the city in a kind of haze, alternately giddy in love and worrying about this moment. How can I tell her where – when – I’m from? And how much should I tell her about why? I count to three, and then count again before I answer. “From the future.”
“Very funny,” she says. I can hear in her voice that she’s hurt. She stares straight ahead again.
“Sara, I’m serious. Your work on time travel isn’t just theory. I’m a post-doc at Cal. In 1995. The head of the physics department, Dr Chambers, sent me back here to talk to you. He says he worked with you and Jimmy, back before he won the Nobel Prize.”
She doesn’t say anything for a minute, then pulls over on to a wide place at the side of the road. She switches off the engine and turns towards me.
“Ray Chambers? The Nobel Prize? Jimmy says he can barely do his own lab work.” She shakes her head, then lights a cigarette, flicking the match out the window into the darkness. “Ray set you up for this, didn’
t he? To get back at Jimmy for last term’s grade? Well it’s a terrible joke,” she says turning away, “and you are one of the cruelest people I have ever met.”
“Sara, it’s not a joke. Please believe me.” I reach across the seat to take her hand, but she jerks it away.
I take a deep breath, trying desperately to think of something that will convince her. “Look, I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out. In September, Modern Physics is going to publish an article about you and your work. When I was ten years old – in 1975 – I read it sitting on the back porch of my father’s quarters at Fort Ord. That article inspired me to go into science. I read about you, and I knew when I grew up I wanted to travel through time.”
She stubs out her cigarette. “Go on.”
So I tell her all about my academic career, and my “assignment” from Chambers. She listens without interrupting me. I can’t see her expression in the darkened car.
After I finish, she says nothing, then sighs. “This is rather a lot to digest, you know. But I can’t very well believe in my work without giving your story some credence, can I?” She lights another cigarette, then asks the question I’ve been dreading. “So if you’ve come all this way to offer me an enormous sum for my paper, does that mean something happened to it – or to me?” I still can’t see her face, but her voice is shaking.
I can’t do it. I can’t tell her. I grope for a convincing lie. “There was a fire. A lot of papers were lost. Yours is the one they want.”
“I’m not a faculty member at your Cal, am I?”
“No.”
She takes a long drag on her cigarette, then asks, so softly I can barely hear her, “Am I . . .?” She lets her question trail off and is silent for a minute, then sighs again. “No, I won’t ask. I think I prefer to bumble about like other mortals. You’re a dangerous woman, Carol McCullough. I’m afraid you can tell me too many things I have no right to know.” She reaches for the ignition key, then stops. “There is one thing I must know, though. Was last night as carefully planned as everything else?”
“Jesus, no.” I reach over and touch her hand. She lets me hold it this time. “No, I had no idea. Other than finding you at the reception, last night had nothing to do with science.”
To my great relief, she chuckles. “Well, perhaps chemistry, don’t you think?” She glances in the rearview mirror then pulls me across the wide front seat and into her arms. We hold each other in the darkness for a long time, and kiss for even longer. Her lips taste faintly of gin.
We have a leisurely dinner at a restaurant overlooking the beach in Half Moon Bay. Fresh fish and a dry white wine. I have the urge to tell her about the picture, about how important she’s been to me. But as I start to speak, I realize she’s more important to me now, so I just tell her that. We finish the meal gazing at each other as if we were ordinary lovers.
Outside the restaurant, the sky is cloudy and cold, the breeze tangy with salt and kelp. Sara pulls off her high heels and we walk down a sandy path, holding hands in the darkness. Within minutes we are both freezing. I pull her to me and lean down to kiss her on the deserted beach. “You know what I’d like,” I say, over the roar of the surf.
“What?” she murmurs into my neck.
“I’d like to take you dancing.”
She shakes her head. “We can’t. Not here. Not now. It’s against the law, you know. Or perhaps you don’t. But it is, I’m afraid. And the police have been on a rampage in the city lately. One bar lost its license just because two men were holding hands. They arrested both as sexual vagrants and for being – oh, what was the phrase – lewd and dissolute persons.”
“Sexual vagrants? That’s outrageous!”
“Exactly what the newspapers said. An outrage to public decency. Jimmy knew one of the poor chaps. He was in Engineering at Stanford, but after his name and address were published in the paper, he lost his job. Does that still go on where you’re from?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe in some places. I don’t really know. I’m afraid I don’t pay any attention to politics. I’ve never needed to.”
Sara sighs. “What a wonderful luxury that must be, not having to be so careful all the time.”
“I guess so.” I feel a little guilty that it’s not something I worry about. But I was four years old when Stonewall happened. By the time I came out, in college, being gay was more of a lifestyle than a perversion. At least in San Francisco.
“It’s sure a lot more public,” I say after a minute. “Last year there were a quarter of a million people at the Gay Pride parade. Dancing down Market Street and carrying signs about how great it is to be queer.”
“You’re pulling my leg now. Aren’t you?” When I shake my head she smiles. “Well, I’m glad. I’m glad that this witch hunt ends. And in a few months, when I get my equipment up and running, perhaps I shall travel to dance at your parade. But for tonight, why don’t we just go to my house? At least I’ve got a new hi-fi.”
So we head back up the coast. One advantage to these old cars, the front seat is as big as a couch; we drive up Highway 1 sitting next to each other, my arm resting on her thigh. The ocean is a flat, black void on our left, until the road begins to climb and the water disappears behind jagged cliffs. On the driver’s side the road drops off steeply as we approach Devil’s Slide.
I feel like I’m coming to the scary part of a movie I’ve seen before. I’m afraid I know what happens next. My right hand grips the upholstery and I brace myself for the oncoming car or the loose patch of gravel or whatever it is that will send us skidding off the road and on to the rocks.
But nothing happens. Sara hums as she drives, and I realize that although this is the spot I dread, it means nothing to her. At least not tonight.
As the road levels out again, it is desolate, with few signs of civilization. Just beyond a sign that says “Sharp Park” is a trailer camp with a string of bare light bulbs outlining its perimeter. Across the road is a seedy looking roadhouse with a neon sign that blinks “Hazel’s.” The parking lot is jammed with cars. Saturday night in the middle of nowhere.
We drive another hundred yards when Sara suddenly snaps her fingers and does a U-turn.
Please don’t go back to the cliffs, I beg silently. “What’s up?” I ask out loud.
“Hazel’s. Jimmy was telling me about it last week. It’s become a rather gay club, and since it’s over the county line, out here in the boondocks, he says anything goes. Including dancing. Besides, I thought I spotted his car.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, but there aren’t that many ’39 Packards still on the road. If it isn’t, we’ll just continue on.” She pulls into the parking lot and finds a space at the back, between the trash cans and the ocean.
Hazel’s is a noisy, smoky place – a small, single room with a bar along one side – jammed wall-to-wall with people. Hundreds of them: mostly men, but more than a few women. When I look closer, I realize that some of the “men” are actually women with slicked-back hair, ties, and sportcoats.
We manage to get two beers, and find Jimmy on the edge of the dance floor – a minuscule square of linoleum, not more than 10 x 10, where dozens of people are dancing to Bill Haley & the Comets blasting from the jukebox. Jimmy’s in a tweed jacket and chinos, his arm around the waist of a young Latino man in a tight white T-shirt and even tighter blue jeans. We elbow our way through to them and Sara gives Jimmy a kiss on the cheek. “Hullo, love,” she says.
He’s obviously surprised – shocked – to see Sara, but when he sees me behind her, he grins. “I told you so.”
“James, you don’t know the half of it,” Sara says, smiling, and puts her arm around me.
We dance for a few songs in the hot, crowded bar. I take off my jacket, then my sweater, draping them over the railing next to the bottles of beer. After the next song I roll up the sleeves of my button-down shirt. When Jimmy offers to buy another round of beers, I look at my watch and shake my head. It’s midnight, and a
s much as I wanted to dance with Sara, I want to sleep with her even more.
“One last dance, then let’s go, okay?” I ask, shouting to be heard over the noise of the crowd and the jukebox. “I’m bushed.”
She nods. Johnny Mathis starts to sing, and we slow dance, our arms around each other. My eyes are closed and Sara’s head is resting on my shoulder when the first of the cops bursts through the front door.
Sunday, February 19, 1956. 12:05 a.m.
A small army of uniformed men storms into the bar. Everywhere around us people are screaming in panic, and I’m buffeted by the bodies running in all directions. People near the back race for the rear door. A red-faced, heavy-set man in khaki, a gold star on his chest, climbs on to the bar. “This is a raid,” he shouts. He has brought reporters with him, and flashbulbs suddenly illuminate the stunned, terrified faces of people who had been sipping their drinks moments before.
Khaki-shirted deputies, nightsticks in hand, block the front door. There are so many uniforms. At least forty men – highway patrol, sheriff’s department, and even some army MPs – begin to form a gauntlet leading to the back door, now the only exit.
Jimmy grabs my shoulders. “Dance with Antonio,” he says urgently. “I’ve just met him, but it’s our best chance of getting out of here. I’ll take Sara.”
I nod and the Latino man’s muscular arms are around my waist. He smiles shyly just as someone pulls the plug on the jukebox and Johnny Mathis stops in mid-croon. The room is quiet for a moment, then the cops begin barking orders. We stand against the railing, Jimmy’s arm curled protectively around Sara’s shoulders, Antonio’s around mine. Other people have done the same thing, but there are not enough women, and men who had been dancing now stand apart from each other, looking scared.
