Twilight Girl

“You remember that girl, right here at this bar?”

“Oh, yes.”

“You bet me a quarter I couldn’t make her.”

“You didn’t.”

“Oh, didn’t I?”

“I’ll be damned.”

“I’ve got a witness.” The first of them turned to the silent one. “Did I make her, Chuck?”

“If you don’t know, I’m not gonna tell you,”

They roared at this and then the loser paid her bill. “Here’s your goddam quarter. Just tell me one thing. Was she butch or fern?”

“Smorgasbord. By the time she went home I wasn’t sure which I was!” Eyebrows wriggled up and down, implying secrets that could not be unveiled. Regular guys, remembering a girl and laughing it up. Regular guys, flicking kitchen matches with their thumbnails for a light, burrowing hands in the front-zipped pants for a crushed cigarette pack and belting each other in the back to punctuate a bellylaugh. Regular guys, and less than twenty years before, unknowing nurses had checked the wrong box on the hospital form that offered only Male and Female. For perhaps the choice was incomplete …

Della Martin

www.spice-books.co.uk

Cover

The In-Between Sex

Title Page

Part One

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Part Two

8

9

10

Part Three

11

12

13

14

15

Endpages

Copyright

Kid Stuff

IT WAS on the day Lon Harris decided to spare the mutt that she met the girl with the violet hair. In the psychiatrically charted years to come, Lon might occasionally pause to reflect upon this fact, searching the seemingly fortuitous occurences for some suggestion of ironic pattern—speculating, perhaps, on the alternate courses her life might have taken if:

(1) Miss Chamberlin’s dog had eaten the greasy mound of hamburger, liberally loaded with the pulverized remains of a 7-Up bottle, and

(2) If Lon had not made the acquaintance of a shapely car-hop whose name, translated from Czech, meant Violet Soup.

But throughout that day in mid-June—the last day of school—Lon Harris lacked the composure for musing on the vagaries of fate. She did, as she had always done, the things it occurred to her to do.

English III was Lon’s final period. Today it amounted to no more than a tension-charged killing of time for the Wellington High junior class. Books had been turned in on the previous morning and Miss Chamberlin staved off the mounting restlessness by inviting the students to discuss their plans for the summer. Listening to this recital, Lon was tremulous, her eyes chained to the wall clock. She was longing for and yet dreading the electric bell that would eject her, perhaps forever, from the warm presence of Netta Chamberlin. Waiting, Lon listened impatiently to the self-conscious voices.

HELEN LANG: I’m going to Oregon with my folks for three weeks. We’ve got this darling aqua trailer that just matches our car and it’ll be my first time out of California.

And, waiting, Lon wondered. Had Miss Chamberlin read the note? Read the revealing words? Yes, she had read it, she must have read it. But what would she say? When this hour was ended, what would she say?

RALPH ALVAREZ: My uncle got a body shop in San Fernando. I’ll be workin’ there if he don’t can me.

I held it in the palm of my hand all during class yesterday, Lon thought. Held it so tight that maybe the paper soaked up sweat—maybe the ink ran. And I held back to let everyone out of the room before me, so I could drop it unseen on her desk. But, oh, God, what if it was too blurry to read?

MARGIE McCANN: Oh, just horse around, I guess. Go to the beach. I don’t know.

Waiting and remembering, that’s what Lon was doing. Seeing the words as she hoped Netta Chamberlin had seen them: Iam putting my innermost thoughts down because I know you feel the same way. (The last six words scratched out for a more impressive phrase.) I am cognizant of the fact that we share the same deep emotions and I have a plan whereby we can be together that I must tell you about. (The tiny slip of paper running out then, with still so much unsaid!) Iwould die if this was the last time I saw you. With all my love, Lon Harris. (Squeezing the last words uphill into the margin.)

DAN OSTERMAIER: Summer school. No comment!

Scattered applause, laughter. Then the switch-blade shrillness of the bell, the casual goodbyes, the cries of “This is it!” and, “Ye-ay-y!” The world that was not her world stampeded for the door and Lon lingered, paralyzed with the fearful hope.

“Lorraine?”

Eyes magnetized to the asphalt tile floor. “Yes, Miss Chamberlin?”

“I know you’re anxious to go, but you can spare a minute, can’t you?”

“It’s all right. Sure.”

“I’m a bit puzzled, Lorraine.”

“You are?”

“By your note.”

“Oh, that.”

“Of course, they’re quite common. Crushes on teachers. Or can we call it that, Lorraine?”

All the wrong words. Lon had rehearsed the dialogue carefully, ready with impassioned responses to cue lines that failed in this moment to come. Shame and regret bore down from the ecru walls, weighing her with an uncomprehended guilt. “I don’t know.”