Music From Another World: One of the most empowering books for women, bestselling author Robin Talley’s gripping new 2020 novel

by Robin Talley

  The morning passed faster than any of my summer babysitting jobs had yet. Penny and Chris adored Tammy, and she gave them her undivided attention. When it was time for lunch, I set out extra ham and cheese so she could fix herself a sandwich, but she shook her head as I was putting down the kids’ plates.

  “It wouldn’t be right,” Tammy said when I slid the bread package to her. “Anyway, I’m not hungry.”

  I eyed her dubiously. “When’s the last time you ate?”

  She shrugged, but the exhaustion was creeping back into her eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “Come on, you’ll be doing me a favor. Mrs. O’Sullivan always says I need to put meat on my bones. If there’s extra bread gone at the end of today, she might leave me alone for a while.”

  Tammy smiled, but she made herself half a sandwich and gobbled it down.

  I watched her while we ate, trying to reconcile the girl in front of me with the months of letters piled in the box under my bed. Tammy wasn’t at all how I’d pictured her. There were the expensive clothes and the Malibu-Barbie-blondness, for one thing, but there were also the sunny smiles she could turn on in a split second. She’d seemed to change her entire personality as soon as she met the O’Sullivans. As though she was slipping into new skin.

  From her letters, I’d been expecting a rebel. A girl who didn’t care what anyone thought of her. The Tammy sitting here now reminded me more of the popular girls at school, the ones the nuns always chose to deliver messages to the principal’s office or give tours to the new students. The girls who’d supposedly never dream of sneaking a cigarette in the bathroom or sitting in a parked car after dark with a guy.

  After the kids finished lunch, I took them upstairs, read Goodnight Moon again, and tucked them in for nap time. When I came back down, Tammy was lying on the couch with her arm thrown over her eyes.

  I stepped quietly into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. She’d need it when she woke up. Maybe it would help me think, too.

  Tammy’s parents would never have let her come to San Francisco. Which meant she was here without their permission…if they knew she was here at all.

  “Hey.” Her voice was low behind me as I switched on the coffeemaker.

  I spun around, startled. She was leaning against the counter behind me, smiling faintly. Her exhaustion made her slightly curled lips look soft and warm.

  “Hey,” I said. “You should take a nap, too.”

  “We might not get a chance to talk once the kids wake up.” She stretched both arms over her head. The movement made her thin white T-shirt ride up, showing a brief flash of tanned stomach.

  “We can talk tonight.” I turned back to fumble with the coffeemaker. “You can come home with me after Mr. O’Sullivan gets back.”

  “What about your mom and your brother?”

  “We don’t have to keep anything from my brother. He’ll want to help.”

  “Your whole family’s into helping people, huh?”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I reached into the cabinet where the O’Sullivans keep their mugs.

  It was strange—I’d imagined talking to Tammy in person so many times, but now that she was here, an awkward strain hovered between us. I was used to carefully thinking out what I wanted to tell her, crafting exactly the right sentences in my head before I picked up my pen, but now that we were talking, really talking, it felt like starting over from scratch.

  When I turned around again, Tammy’s eyes were closed.

  “If you want to tell me what happened, you could.” I kept my voice low, even though there was no one to hear. Mrs. O’Sullivan’s bedroom was at the back of the house, and I hadn’t seen her come out of it during the day yet that summer.

  Tammy opened her eyes slowly. “I don’t know where to start. Everything just suddenly turned to shit.”

  Hearing Tammy curse out loud was jarring. “What kind of, um, shit?”

  “It was all my fault. God.” She sighed and scrubbed her hand over her face. “I was stupid. So stupid.”

  I wanted to give her a hug, but I didn’t know if she’d want that. She was my best friend, sort of, but technically, we’d just met. And we’d never touched at all. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.”

  “Yeah, I do.” She rubbed her damp hands on her designer pants. “I’ve been going over it in my head nonstop. Talking about it would be a nice change.”

  She dropped her gaze to the linoleum floor and hopped onto the counter, tucking one of her long legs underneath her and dropping her chin into her hands. As upset as she clearly was, I still couldn’t stop thinking…

  Tammy’s here. Right now. That’s really, truly her.

  “It started yesterday, in Math,” she said after a long moment. “My teacher told me I had to go to the principal’s office. When I got there, Carolyn was inside with her mom. My mom was there, too, with Aunt Mandy.”

  I sucked in a breath. “They found out about you and Carolyn?”

  Tammy leaned her head back and stared up at the fluorescent lights. “I can’t believe I thought we wouldn’t get caught.”

  “What happened?”

  “They…” She shut her eyes again and rubbed her forehead. “They found it.”

  “It? Oh—your collage?”

  She nodded slowly. “They’d done a locker search. Apparently some seniors were stealing exams and they were looking for evidence, and…it doesn’t matter. What matters is, they found it.”

  “Oh, my gosh.”

  “I don’t think the principal spoke the whole time we were in that room.” She fixed her eyes on the coffeepot. “He let Aunt Mandy do the talking. She isn’t even on the school staff anymore, but they all still treat her as if she’s God incarnate. She said Carolyn’s mom had noticed her acting strangely the past few months, and—”

  Tammy cut herself off. “I hate to bother you, but do you think I could have some of that coffee?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. I was making it for you.” I hurried to get a mug, but Tammy lowered herself from the counter and beat me to it. She poured a cup, blew on the surface, and took a sip without putting in any milk or sugar first.

  Was that how she always drank her coffee? I had no idea. There was so much I didn’t know about her.

  “The teachers found the collage in her locker.” Tammy blinked twice, leaning back against the counter again and lifting her cup for another sip. “They saw the message I wrote. That was enough to make them call Carolyn into the office, and her mom, too. They thought a guy had given it to her at first, but they got the truth out of her somehow. Then they called in my mom, and my aunt. Then it was my turn.”

  Tammy closed her eyes. Her lower lip was trembling. I wondered if she was going to cry.

  “Oh, my gosh,” I said. “That’s—that’s not good.”

  Not good. What a stupid thing to say. This situation was clearly far beyond not good. I wanted to take the words back, but Tammy was already talking again.

  “My aunt dangled the collage from two fingers like a smelly piece of garbage, and she said…” Tammy lifted her head and put on a fake snooty voice. “‘Could you tell us what this means, Tammy? We can see plainly it’s your handwriting, so don’t try to deny it. There’s no hiding your sin from the Lord.’”

  “What did your mom say?”

  “Nothing. She spent the whole time crying in the corner.”

  I wanted to cry myself just listening to this, but Tammy only sipped her coffee. “What happened then?”

  “Well, I was trying to think up some explanation to make it sound innocent. Say it was a joke, or something. But before I could think it through Carolyn shouted, ‘I didn’t want to do it! She’s the one who’s sick!’”

  “What?”

  Tammy’s lip trembled again. “She told them it was me who had a crush on her, and she obviously
would never have felt that way, because she’s a good little Christian. She gave this whole speech about how she’d been trying to save me before it got to be too late.” Tammy set her coffee cup on the counter and slumped down on the linoleum floor, her long hair cascading into her face.

  “They couldn’t have believed that!”

  “Oh, they did. Aunt Mandy would’ve bought it anyway—she’s been waiting for me to screw up for years—but Carolyn laid it on thick, too. Said she was scared I was going to hurt her.”

  “What, physically?”

  “Yeah. She told them about me punching Tim at prom, and she said last week I followed her into the stairwell and tried to—God, she made it sound as if she was lucky to escape with her life. She said I was a…” Tammy pressed her knuckles into her forehead again and winced. “An unrepentant dyke.”

  “I’m so sorry. That’s horrible. But it’s her word against yours, isn’t it?”

  “Well, they’d already talked to Tim before I got there, and they had the stupid collage with my handwriting on it. Carolyn told them I’d slipped it into her locker when she wasn’t looking. She said she’d kept it secret because she wanted to help me without getting me in trouble. She said she’d thought that would be the Christian thing to do.”

  “Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe her!”

  “Yeah, well, all I could think through all those hours on the bus was how I should’ve seen it coming.” Tammy stretched up to retrieve her coffee cup from the counter and took a slow sip. As if she wanted to make it last. “Anyway, by then Carolyn was crying, and her mom was crying, and, of course, my mom was still crying. Aunt Mandy and I were the only ones with dry eyes.”

  “What did they do? Suspend you?”

  She shook her head. “Not on the last day of school. Besides, Aunt Mandy said the important thing wasn’t that I get punished, it was that I get healed.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She called my dad and my uncle and told them to come to school right away.” Tammy fixed her gaze on her mug and barked out a humorless laugh. “She told Carolyn and her mom to let them know if Carolyn needed any pastoral counseling to help her ‘recover.’ I knew when Dad and Uncle Russell got there, I’d be trapped, so I waited until Carolyn and her mother were gone, and when Aunt Mandy went over to talk to my mom, I ran.”

  “What, you just made a break for it?”

  “They weren’t looking at me, so I knew it was the only chance I’d get. Mom was bawling so loud they didn’t even notice I’d slipped out the door at first.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “That was the easy part. I just walked down the hall and went out the first exit I saw. The problem was, I hardly had anything with me. Just that.” Tammy lifted her chin toward the counter, where her designer purse was tucked behind the O’Sullivans’ cookie jar.

  I tried to put the pieces together. The bags under her eyes. The rumpled clothes—she must’ve been wearing them since yesterday. “You left school and…what, came straight here?”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry, I would’ve called, but there was no time to find a pay phone. I had to get as far away as I could before they came looking. Plus, I thought here… I don’t know. I thought maybe San Francisco could be a place where I belonged. Finally.”

  I nodded. I understood that much. “So you took a bus?”

  “Yeah. I thought about driving, since I had my car in the school parking lot, but I didn’t know the way. Besides, my dad would’ve called the police and reported the car stolen. It’s not as if I paid for it with my own money or anything. I drove to the bus station, left the car in the parking lot, and bought a ticket to L.A. Then when I got there, I switched to another bus leaving for San Francisco. By the time I got in, it was after midnight.”

  “After midnight, last night… Wait. How long were you sitting on my front steps?”

  “Not long. First I had to figure out how to get to your house from the bus station. It turned out to be a long way.”

  My mouth dropped open. “You walked all the way across the city? In the middle of the night?”

  “Yeah. I had some money with me, but after the bus tickets, there wasn’t enough left for a taxi.” Her eyelids were starting to droop again.

  I shook my head. “Tammy, I—”

  “I awake!” a tiny voice called. “Sharon, where are you? I awake!”

  “Guess nap time’s over.” Tammy climbed slowly to her feet.

  “What about you? Did you sleep on the bus?”

  “Nah. It was my first time taking a Greyhound. I was afraid if I shut my eyes, I’d wake up with no purse at all.”

  “You should rest. There’s a couch in the back den. I’ll keep the kids upstairs.”

  “There’s no way I’m sleeping now.” Tammy took another sip of coffee. “I’m way too worried about what I’m going to do next.”

  I knew that feeling, too.

  “Sharon!” Penny called. “Sharon, where you? SHARON!”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out.” I did my best to sound reassuring. “Is it okay if I call my brother? He’ll get off work soon, and he might have some ideas about what to do.”

  “Sure. I’d love to meet him.”

  “Also…” I drew in an uncertain breath. “I probably shouldn’t say this right now, but…well, I’m glad you’re here. I mean, I’m so sorry about everything that happened, but it’s good to finally get to meet you.”

  Tammy rested her temple on her fist. She wasn’t smiling, but then, I wasn’t, either. “Me, too.”

  I called the store and left a message asking for Peter to come over as soon as he got off work. Tammy got Penny up from her nap while I changed Chris’s diaper again. Penny recounted the dream she’d had, which seemed to have been mostly about cheese.

  The doorbell rang while the kids were finishing their snack (also mostly cheese). I’d tried to convince Tammy to eat with us, but she refused to take any more of the O’Sullivans’ food, so she went to answer the door instead.

  “Oh—hello, ma’am.” My brother’s voice, the overly polite tone he saves for new customers, drifted into the kitchen. He must’ve been trying to figure out who Tammy was and why she’d answered the O’Sullivans’ door.

  Tammy said something back to him. I couldn’t make out her words, but seconds later, he was shouting in delight.

  “No way! The one from Orange County? What are you doing here?”

  I parked the kids on the floor with a couple of Barbies—Penny loved showing Chris how to take their clothes off and on, and Chris loved drooling on their feet—and Peter joined Tammy and me at the kitchen table. He had no compunction about eating the kids’ snacks, and he gobbled down the leftover crackers while Tammy and I told him an abbreviated version of her story.

  “Okay.” Peter started ticking off things on his fingers, talking around a mouthful of food. “You need money, which means you need a job.”

  Tammy shook her head. “I need a place to stay first.”

  “Well, that’s easy,” Peter said, and I nodded. “You stay with us.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “Are you kidding?” I asked her. “What else will you do, sleep on the street?”

  “We’ll have to come up with a story for Mom,” Peter added. “But it won’t be hard. She’s a softie at heart.”

  “Besides, you’re my school-sanctioned pen pal,” I reminded her. “Mom knows I’ve been writing to you. She’s bound to think you’re moral and Christian and everything.”

  “Hey, I know—we can tell her your parents are getting divorced.” Peter leaned back in his seat, folding his hands behind his head, pleased with his own ingenuity. “Mom’s always worrying that her and Dad getting divorced screwed us up, so she’ll feel bad for you. All you have to do is say you didn’t want to be in the middle of your pa
rents fighting and she’ll fall for it.”

  “That doesn’t seem right.” Tammy frowned.

  I didn’t like the idea of lying to Mom, either, but…I’ve been lying to her ever since I found out about Peter. Sometimes, lying is what has to be done. “We’ll say you just wanted to get away for the summer. That’ll give us time to figure something else out.”

  “In that case, I definitely have to pay my own way.” Tammy nodded. “You’re right. I need a job.”

  “That’s even easier.” Peter grinned. “The stock guy at Javi’s quit last night. Said he was sick of sweeping floors and tossed his dirty apron on the counter right next to the bananas. Rosa looked ready to murder him. All day she’s been grumbling about having to find someone new. If I tell her I’ve got someone, she’ll be so happy, she’ll probably give us both a raise.”

  Tammy looked uncertain. “I’d be the new…stock guy?”

  “Javi and Rosa are great,” I told her. “You’d be fine.”

  “Okay…”

  “Chris!” Penny shouted in the next room. “You have to share with Penny!”

  Chris immediately started wailing.

  I went over to separate them while Peter leaned in to tell Tammy something I couldn’t hear. She laughed.

  It was strange to hear her laughing after everything that had happened. But that’s who Tammy is, I guess. She’s been hiding how she feels for years, and she’s gotten good at it by now.

  I sat down while Penny told me a detailed story about what Chris had been doing with her Barbies. Behind us, Peter and Tammy went on talking in low voices.

  I was nervous about how this was all going to work, but more than that, I was happy she was here. Happier than I’d ever thought I’d be.

  There’s more to write about what happened after we left the O’Sullivans’, a lot more, but I’m about to fall asleep on the sofa, and I think it’s finally safe for me to go upstairs. More later.

  Yours, Sharon

  Friday, June 2, 1978

  Dear Harvey,

  It’s close to midnight. I’m so tired I could fall over, but I’m writing this instead, because I need something to help me stay awake until Sharon gets up here.