and ripped open the envelope. She made the sign of the cross, praying she wouldn’t be interrupted again before she’d read what the envelope contained.
Her hands were shaking so hard it took her a moment to realize four pieces of paper had fluttered out onto the pink bedspread. One was covered in neat black handwriting. Janet scooped up that one first.
It was a letter from Dolores Wood.
Dear Miss Jones,
(First, allow me to congratulate you on selecting such a cleverly simple pseudonym! “Janet Jones.” Much more appropriate than something long and strange, like “Dolores Woo d.” )
Miss Jones, as you can imagine, I receive a great many letters from readers. I wish I had time to reply to them all, but it wouldn’t be possible or I’d never have time left to write books. However, your letter stood out to me when I received it from my publisher, as you sound not unlike myself when I was a younger girl. In fact, I will admit that your letter affected me a great deal. At such a young age, to have the nerves required to obtain a book like mine must have taken a great deal of fortitude. Your courage bodes well for your future.
You requested my advice on how to become a writer yourself. My advice is simple: the only way to become a writer is to write. Every young writer has a story inside, usually countless stories. You must put yours onto paper.
Your letter didn’t specify what kind of writing you mean to undertake, but should you have an interest in paperback fiction, I’ve taken the liberty of asking my editor to include his specifications alongside my letter.
Should you wish, I would also be happy to read your writing and offer my thoughts on it. When I first began to write, the perspective of older writers on my work was invaluable to me.
Finally, because I remember, too, being young, and having no money to call my own, I’ve enclosed bus tickets so that you may visit when your manuscript is ready. You can find me most evenings at the Sheldon Lounge on West Fourth and Charles Streets.
Wishing you well,
Dolores Wood
Janet had to read the letter twice, then three times, before she was certain she understood its contents.
Dolores Wood had written to her.
Dolores Wood wanted Janet to visit her in New York. At a place called the Sheldon Lounge.
Was the Sheldon Lounge like the places she’d written about in A Love So Strange? Was it a—a lesbian bar?
Janet couldn’t wait to show this letter to Marie. She’d be astonished.
She reached for the other slips of paper. Sure enough, two of them were bus tickets, from Washington to New York and back again.
Janet had never taken a bus by herself. She and a few friends had traveled to Ocean City after graduation, but that had simply been for a day at the beach, and with one of the girls’ older sisters as a chaperone. Janet’s parents would never allow her to travel so far as New York on her own.
She tucked the tickets away in the drawer of her dressing table. The fourth piece of paper in the envelope was typewritten, from the Bannon Press office.
Dear Miss Jones,
Per the suggestion of Miss Wood, you are hereby invited to submit a manuscript for consideration by Nathan Levy, editor of Bannon Press. We have found success in publishing the novels of Miss Wood and similar works of Lesbiana by other authors, as interest in this topic has recently increased among paperback readers.
Our books, both fiction and otherwise, must speak honestly and candidly about the true nature of this topic, revealing its dangers and immoral associations (such as with other forms of criminality, witchcraft, et cetera). Our stories must end with appropriate resolutions for characters who engage in these practices. All manuscripts must be typewritten with one–inch margins.
Please send a whole or partial (100 pages or more) manuscript to the address below for review. Be sure to preserve a carbon copy of your original manuscript. Should your manuscript be accepted for publication, you would be granted an advance payment of $2,000. Bannon Press maintains all control regarding book titles, covers, advertising and the like.
Yours truly,
Sally Johnson,
assistant to Nathan Levy, editor–in–chief
Bannon Press
54 W 23rd St., 17th floor
New York, NY 10011
This letter was even harder for Janet to understand than Dolores Wood’s. Her eyes kept skipping from word to word.
Lesbiana.
$2,000.
Witchcraft.
Witchcraft? Did it really say witchcraft?
Janet checked again. It did.
Her eyes drifted back to Dolores Wood’s letter, and the drawer that held her bus tickets. Miss Wood must have thought Janet was older than she was. Eighteen-year-old girls didn’t accept bus tickets from people they’d never met, or venture off by themselves to faraway cities.
Besides, it was beyond her wildest imaginings that she might actually go to New York and meet Dolores Wood herself. That she might enter a bar and see other girls like Janet and Marie. Girls who “engaged” in “practices” like the ones the Bannon Press letter had mentioned.
Janet’s mind spun. She closed her eyes, and all at once she saw a story unfolding.
A nondescript bar with no windows on a quiet Greenwich Village street. The type of place workingmen hurried past without looking up. Those men wouldn’t notice the girls who walked in and out of the bar with their eyes trained down, their hands tucked discreetly into their coat pockets.
Janet could see it all perfectly. As though she’d visited this bar already, where girls danced with other girls, as though that were a perfectly normal thing to do.
Behind her closed eyelids, Janet pictured two girls sitting at a small, grimy table, slightly removed from the other patrons. One of the girls had dark, curly hair and glasses. The other had blond hair and reminded Janet of a girl she’d once seen on television—the daughter of a contestant on some quiz show. The girl on the program had worn bright lipstick and a lovely dress, and as she’d smiled and twirled before the cheering audience her skirt had billowed out, offering the briefest glimpse of her knees.
Something about that girl had captivated Janet in a way she hadn’t quite understood, but now she saw that she was exactly right for the story forming in her mind.
The blond girl in the bar had met the brunette that very night, Janet decided. It was the first time either of them had dared to enter the place.
