It’s summer 1977 and closeted lesbian Tammy Larson can’t be herself anywhere. Not at her strict Christian high school, not at her conservative Orange County church and certainly not at home, where her ultrareligious aunt relentlessly organizes antigay political campaigns. Tammy’s only outlet is writing secret letters in her diary to gay civil rights activist Harvey Milk…until she’s matched with a real-life pen pal who changes everything.

Sharon Hawkins bonds with Tammy over punk music and carefully shared secrets, and soon their letters become the one place she can be honest. The rest of her life in San Francisco is full of lies. The kind she tells for others—like helping her gay brother hide the truth from their mom—and the kind she tells herself. But as antigay fervor in America reaches a frightening new pitch, Sharon and Tammy must rely on their long-distance friendship to discover their deeply personal truths, what they’ll stand for…and who they’ll rise against.

A master of award-winning queer historical fiction, New York Times bestselling author Robin Talley once again brings to life with heart and vivid detail an emotionally captivating story about the lives of two teen girls living in an age when just being yourself was an incredible act of bravery.

ROBIN TALLEY is the New York Times bestselling author of the highly acclaimed novels Pulp, Our Own Private Universe, As I Descended, What We Left Behind and Lies We Tell Ourselves. Her books have won accolades including the Amnesty CILIP Honour and have also been shortlisted for the CILIP Carnegie Medal.

She worked in digital communications for LGBTQ rights, women’s rights, educational equity, and other progressive causes for fifteen years before she turned to writing full-time. Robin lives in Washington, DC with her wife and their daughter. You can find her online at www.robintalley.com or on Twitter @robin_talley.

Also by Robin Talley:

Lies We Tell Ourselves

What We Left Behind

As I Descended

Our Own Private Universe

Pulp

Music from Another World

Robin Talley

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © Robin Talley 2020

Robin Talley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © March 2020 ISBN: 9781474073196

Note to Readers

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Praise for Robin Talley:

‘The main characters are terrific in what is a moving novel. And an important one’

The Telegraph

‘Absolutely loved it – romantic and funny and gripping and just generally excellent!’

Tom Ellen, author of Freshers and All About Us

‘Touching, clever and absolutely hilarious’

The Herald

‘I really loved the book… it was just a lovely, refreshing read for me, and I’m so glad there are authors like Robin Talley out there’

Bookseller

‘One of the most interesting and informative LGBT books I’ve read recently!’

Reader

‘I read it in one sitting!’

NetGalley reviewer

‘A must-read for anyone interested in LGBTQ+ history’

NetGalley reviewer

‘A very timely novel’

NetGalley reviewer

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Praise

Summer, 1977

Wednesday, June 1, 1977

Tuesday, June 7, 1977

Tuesday, June 7, 1977

Tuesday, June 7, 1977

Wednesday, June 8, 1977

Wednesday, June 8, 1977

Wednesday, June 8, 1977

Wednesday, June 8, 1977

Thursday, June 16, 1977

Wednesday, June 22, 1977

Wednesday, June 29, 1977

Saturday, July 2, 1977

Sunday, July 3, 1977

Wednesday, July 6, 1977

Wednesday, July 13, 1977

Wednesday, July 20, 1977

Wednesday, July 27, 1977

Sunday, July 31, 1977

Tuesday, August 2, 1977

Wednesday, August 3, 1977

Friday, August 5, 1977

Friday, August 5, 1977

Monday, August 8, 1977

Friday, August 12, 1977

Fall, 1977

Monday, September 5, 1977

Tuesday, September 6, 1977

Wednesday, September 14, 1977

Saturday, September 17, 1977

Saturday, September 24, 1977

Wednesday, November 9, 1977

Wednesday, November 9, 1977

Wednesday, November 9, 1977

Thursday, November 10, 1977

Thursday, November 10, 1977

Saturday, November 12, 1977

Saturday, November 12, 1977

Saturday, November 19, 1977

Saturday, November 19, 1977

Tuesday, November 22, 1977

Friday, November 25, 1977

Friday, November 25, 1977

Monday, November 28, 1977

Wednesday, November 30, 1977

Friday, December 2, 1977

Monday, December 5, 1977

Wednesday, December 7, 1977

Summer, 1978

Saturday, May 20, 1978

Tuesday, May 23, 1978

Tuesday, May 23, 1978

Friday, May 26, 1978

Tuesday, May 30, 1978

Thursday, June 1, 1978

Friday, June 2, 1978

Friday, June 2, 1978

Saturday, June 17, 1978

Sunday, June 18, 1978

Sunday, June 18, 1978

Monday, June 19, 1978

Monday, June 19, 1978

Tuesday, June 20, 1978

Wednesday, June 21, 1978

Thursday, June 22, 1978

Friday, June 23, 1978

Friday, June 23, 1978

Saturday, June 24, 1978

Saturday, June 24, 1978

Saturday, June 24, 1978

Sunday, June 25, 1978

Sunday, June 25, 1978

Sunday, June 25, 1978

Tuesday, June 27, 1978

Tuesday, June 27, 1978

Tuesday, June 27, 1978

Tuesday, June 27, 1978

Wednesday, June 28, 1978

Wednesday, June 28, 1978

Wednesday, June 28, 1978

Wednesday, June 28, 1978

Wednesday, June 28, 1978

Wednesday, June 28, 1978

Wednesday, June 28, 1978

Thursday, June 29, 1978

Fall, 1978

Friday, September 22, 1978

Friday, September 22, 1978

Friday, September 22, 1978

Friday, September 22, 1978

Friday, September 22, 1978

Election Night, 1978

Tuesday, November 7, 1978

Acknowledgments

Extract

About the Publisher

Summer, 1977

Wednesday, June 1, 1977

Introducing the California Pen Pal Project

Dear girls,

Welcome to our first annual California pen pal project! Over the next five months, this project will foster exciting new friendships and strengthen the faith of the incoming junior girls at New Way Christian Academy and Holy Angels Catholic School.

At the bottom of this letter are the names of one girl from each school. To earn credit for this assignment, you must write at least two letters each month to your assigned pen pal and complete a final report by the end of first term in November.

You should answer at least one of the following questions in each letter, and include summaries of your pen pal’s responses in your final report.

Pen Pal Questions

1 Describe yourself using three adjectives.

2 Who are the members of your family?

3 What are your favorite hobbies?

4 What is your favorite television program?

5 How do you plan to maintain your strong Christian morality this summer despite the temptations of modern society?

6 What is your favorite Bible story, and why?

7 Do you have any interesting activities planned for this summer?

8 What is it like living in your part of California?

9 What is your favorite subject in school, and why?

10 How can you and your new pen pal support each other in your spiritual challenges as you transition into your final years of high school and the new lives that await you after graduation?

Pen pal pairing:

—Tammy Larson (New Way Christian Academy, Ocean Valley, CA)

—Sharon Hawkins (Holy Angels Catholic School, San Francisco, CA)

Tuesday, June 7, 1977

Dear Harvey,

I hope it’s okay for me to call you Harvey. In school, when they taught us to write letters, they said adults should always be addressed as “Mr.” or “Mrs.,” but from what I’ve read in the newspaper, you don’t seem much like the adults I know. I’d feel wrong calling you “Mr. Milk.”

Besides, it’s not as if I’m ever going to send you this letter. I’ve never kept a diary before, but things have been getting harder lately, and tonight might be the hardest night of all. I need someone I can talk to. Even if you can’t answer back.

Plus, I told Aunt Mandy I couldn’t join the prayer circle because I had too much homework. Tomorrow’s the last day of school, so I don’t have any homework, but she doesn’t know that. If I keep writing in this notebook, maybe she’ll think homework is really what I’m doing.

I guess I could write to my new “pen pal” instead. That might count as homework. It would be closer than writing a fake letter to a famous San Francisco homosexual, anyway, but I can’t handle the thought of writing to some stranger right now.

Technically you’re a stranger, too, Harvey, but you don’t feel like one. That’s why I wanted to write to you, instead of “Dear Diary” or something.

It’s ironic, though, that my pen pal lives in San Francisco, too. I wonder if she’s ever met you. How big is the city, anyway? I read a magazine article that said gay people could hold hands walking down the street there, and no one minds. Is that true?

Ugh. The prayer circle’s starting over. Brett and Carolyn are leading the Lord’s Prayer again. It’s probably the only prayer they know.

We’ve been cooped up in the church basement for five hours now—my whole family, plus the youth group, plus a bunch of the other Protect Our Children volunteers. Along with Aunt Mandy and Uncle Russell, of course. The results from Miami should come in any minute.

You probably already know this—wait, who am I kidding? Of course you know, Harvey—but there was a vote today in Florida. They were voting on homosexuality, so our church, New Way Baptist, was heavily involved, even though we’re on the opposite side of the country. Everyone in our youth group was required to volunteer. I worked in the office Aunt Mandy and Uncle Russell set up in their den, answering phones and putting together mailings and counting donations to the New Way Protect Our Children Fund. We had bake sales and car washes to raise money to send to Anita Bryant, too.

You know all about Anita Bryant, obviously. You’re probably just as scared of her as I am. Although, come to think of it, whenever I see you in the newspaper, you look the opposite of afraid. In pictures, you’re always smiling.

Don’t you get anxious, having everyone know? I’m terrified all the time, and no one even knows about me yet. I hope they never find out.

Maybe I should pray for that. Ha.

Okay, the Lord’s Prayer is over and now Uncle Russell’s making everyone silently call on God to save the good Christians of Florida from sin. I hope I can keep writing without getting in trouble.

Ugh, look at them all, showing off how devout they are. The only two people in this room who aren’t clasping their hands in front of them and moving their lips dramatically are me and Aunt Mandy, but that’s because I’m a grievous sinner—obviously—and Aunt Mandy keeps peeking out from her shut eyes at the phone next to her.

I’m not sure how much you can concentrate on God when you’re solely focused on being ready to snatch up the receiver the second it starts to shake. Maybe she’ll grab it so hard, it’ll crush to a pulp in her fist like one of Anita Bryant’s fucking Florida oranges.

I wonder what you’re doing tonight, Harvey. Probably waiting by your phone, too. Only you’re in San Francisco, and if you’re praying, you’re praying for the opposite of what Aunt Mandy and everyone else in our church basement is praying for.

It seems pointless to pray now, though. The votes have already been cast, so we’re just waiting to hear the results. There’s a reporter from my aunt and uncle’s favorite radio station in L.A. sitting at the back of the room, ready to interview Uncle Russell once we know what happened. Even though we basically already do.

My mom showed up at church tonight with a box of balloons from the supermarket, but Aunt Mandy wouldn’t let anyone touch them until the announcement, so at the moment the box is sitting in the closet under a stack of old communion trays. The second that phone starts to ring, though, I just bet Aunt Mandy’s going to haul out that box and make us all start blowing up those crappy balloons.

I wonder if you’ve heard of my aunt. She wants you to. She knows exactly who you are, of course—you’re her enemy.

Which makes me your enemy, too, I guess. I’m not eighteen, and it’s not as if I could’ve voted in an election in Miami even if I were, but I’ve still spent the past two months folding up comic books about the destruction of Sodom to mail out to churches in Florida.

I’m a soldier for Christ. That’s what Aunt Mandy calls me, anyway. And since I do everything she says, she must be right.

Writing to you instead of praying with the others is the closest I’ve ever come to rebelling. That’s how much of a coward I am, Harvey.

I wish I had the nerve to tell my aunt to go shove it. That’s what I’d really pray for—the nerve, I mean. If I thought prayer ever helped anything.

Shit, the phone’s ringing. More later.

Tammy

Tuesday, June 7, 1977

Dear Diary,

I’ve never seen anything like what I saw tonight. Or felt anything like it, either.

I need to write about what happened. It’s almost midnight and I don’t know if I can fit this all in one entry before I fall asleep, but I’ve got to get down as much as I can.

It all started when my brother didn’t come home.

He said he’d be back from work in time to watch the network news with us. Instead it was just me and Mom watching static creep in from the edges of the screen as the reporter in Miami adjusted his wide, striped tie. I waited one minute, then two, to see if he’d correct himself—maybe he’d made a mistake, or someone had given him the wrong information—but he kept droning on about Anita Bryant winning by a landslide as more and more of his face got scrambled.

The sound came through strong as ever, though, and his story never changed. The vote was two to one against homosexuality. Anita Bryant and her cronies had done what they’d sworn to do. The gay rights ordinance in Miami was getting repealed.

“Sharon, see if you can get the rabbit ears to work,” Mom said, but she wasn’t looking at the screen. Her eyes were fixed on the clock.

I climbed to my feet and fiddled with the antenna. By the time the static cleared, Anita Bryant herself was on the screen. She was standing on a stage in some hotel ballroom, talking proudly about how the “normal majority” had won and the militant homosexuals had lost. She was wearing at least fifty pounds’ worth of lipstick and eye shadow, and I wanted to throw a glass of orange juice straight at her painted-on face.

Anita Bryant’s the person my brother hates most in the world, and since my brother’s the person I love most in the world, I hate Anita Bryant, too.

She’s got this inexplicable obsession with gay people. I don’t really understand why some men want to be with other men, either, but I also don’t understand why she seems to spend so much time thinking about it. There are probably a lot more homosexuals here in San Francisco than there are in Florida, but it’s not as if they bother anyone. I’d never even met a homosexual until I found out my brother was gay.

I’m the only one who knows that about him, though. I’m the only one who can. If Mom ever found out… I don’t want to think about what she’d do.

“I shouldn’t stay up much later, I’m afraid.” Mom’s eyes were still on the clock. “Neither should you. Have you already done your homework?”

“Tomorrow’s the last day.” I messed with the rabbit ears some more until the static was mostly gone. “No homework tonight. All I have to do from now until September is write to that new pen pal the school gave me down in Orange County.”

“Oh, that’s right. I suppose after nine months of teaching, my brain’s gotten as foggy as those seventh-graders’. Well, all the same, we have to be at school on time.” Mom bounced her foot on the lumpy carpet. The Miami report was over, and now the network anchor was talking about Queen Elizabeth. “Your brother’s never been this late before.”

I wished Mom wouldn’t talk about Peter. I was already worried enough about him without having to worry about how worried she was.

The Miami vote was all he’d talked about for the past week, whenever Mom wasn’t around to hear us. His shift at Javier’s Groceries had ended more than an hour ago. Mom had called the store to check on him, but no one answered. I’d snuck into the kitchen when Mom wasn’t paying attention and tried calling the pay phone at the back of Javi’s, the one next to the walk-in cooler that no one but Peter and I ever use, but no one picked up that line, either.

“Should I call Kevin?” I asked. Kevin’s my boyfriend, and he goes to Javi’s for a Coke almost every night after he gets off work. “I can find out if he saw Peter.”

“No, no. I’m sure your brother’s fine. Besides, it’s too late for phone calls.” Mom stood up and switched off the TV, stretching her arms over her head. She was trying to pretend things were normal, but I’d learned how to see through that act by the second grade. “Up to bed with both of us.”

I followed her silently up the stairs, but I couldn’t imagine going to sleep.

Peter may not talk to Mom about everything, but it isn’t like him to stay out late without telling me.

If he’d heard about the vote, he would’ve been upset. Maybe he heard the news on the radio and was too depressed to come home. If he was at the store, though, why hadn’t he answered when we called?

I paced across my bedroom. Forward, backward, and again. Then a third time.

My brother and I used to share this room, and it still feels too big for just me. My twin bed is shoved up against one wall, with my dresser across from it. There isn’t much in between except a desk I never use and a laundry basket that’s always overflowing, because Mom says I’m old enough to do my own laundry, but I always forget.

My walls have posters tacked on them, but they’re old posters I barely notice anymore—Fonzie and Charlie’s Angels and the Jackson 5. I should take them down, but I don’t know what I’d put up instead. When I was younger, it was easier to know what I liked. Lately, I keep changing my mind about everything.

I waited until I heard Mom come out of the bathroom, her footsteps fading down the hall, before I cracked open my door. Peter’s room is right next to mine, but his door was firmly shut—no hint of light shining around the cracks. I checked to make sure Mom was definitely gone before I twisted the knob.

The tiny lamp perched on his windowsill was dark. The room’s only illumination was a pale yellow stream coming from the streetlight in the alley, filtered through the old yarwood tree that bumps up against our house. The echo of light crept across Peter’s floor as the wind shifted the branches.

His bed took up three quarters of the floor space. Peter’s room is so tiny we used to use it as a storage closet, until one afternoon when I was in third grade and he was in fourth, and I came home from Girl Scouts to find his half of our shared room empty. He’d hauled all the musty old boxes of baby clothes that had filled the storage room up to our tiny attic, then hung his 49ers pennant on the wall and jammed his bed in across from the window.

Mom tried to argue with him about it, but she didn’t try very hard. That night when I got up to get a glass of water, I overheard her on the downstairs phone, telling Dad to come visit.

“Peter needs a man in his life,” she was saying in a low, shaky voice.

Her words sounded strange then, and they seem utterly absurd now. Peter needed a lot of things as a kid—we both did—but our dad wasn’t one of them. He never did come visit after her call, but he sent his check on time for once.

I turned around in the tight space, then shut Peter’s door and perched on the corner of his bed, my eyes adjusting to the dim light. The pit that had formed in my stomach when the anchor first announced the vote results was growing.

I couldn’t just sit there, waiting. I couldn’t shake the fear that Peter had done something dangerous after he heard the news. He’s never been great at being careful.

We’re opposites in a lot of ways, my brother and me. When our dad’s parents took us to Disneyland, I stuck to Dumbo and Peter Pan, but Peter went on the Matterhorn Bobsleds so many times, he threw up in the bushes outside It’s a Small World. If that had happened to me I’d have hidden under a palm tree and refused to show my face for the rest of the day, but Peter just got in line for the roller coaster all over again.

He’s never seemed to care if he stands out. I asked him once if it bothered him when the boys teased him at school, and he just shrugged and pointed to all the Xs on the calendar hanging on his wall. He crosses off every day, he told me, counting down until he gets out of high school and can start his real life.

I wish I knew when my real life would start. There’s never been a single place where I really fit. I try to act as if I do, of course, but it always feels like exactly that—acting. Even with my friends.

It’s that way with Kevin sometimes, too. We’ve been together long enough now that being with him is easier than being with anyone else—well, except my brother—but sometimes, I can’t help noticing that the way Kevin thinks seems so different from the way I do. As if we might as well be living on two different planets. I told Peter that once, and said it was because Kevin lived on Planet Pretentious.

I sat on Peter’s bed, wringing my hands, trying to think. Mom was probably already out cold. When I get anxious I can’t sleep, but when Mom’s worried, she does nothing but sleep.

It wasn’t as if she’d have agreed to let me go out looking for Peter regardless. Our neighborhood is friendly and quiet—relatively—but it’s still the city, and it’s dangerous for a girl to be out at night. Last year a bum grabbed my butt when I was walking past the old firehouse on Brazil Avenue in my school kilt, and that was in the middle of the day.

The wind picked up, the yarwood leaves brushing Peter’s window. A twig got stuck in the frame. I reached across the narrow space, unlatched the window, and pushed it up, snaking an arm out to dislodge the branch. It was chilly outside, and I shivered in my thin blouse.

I wondered if Peter had ever thought about climbing out this window and into the yarwood tree. If my room had a window on this side of the house, would I have thought about it?

I glanced down at the alley two stories below. It was probably full of rats and garbage and who knew what else.

Still, though…

The twig tapped against the windowpane again.

I stood up. My heart was already pounding, but I didn’t give myself time to worry. No matter what happened, I couldn’t just sit there, waiting.

I grabbed a sweatshirt off Peter’s bed, pulled it over my head, and hoisted myself onto the windowsill without looking down. My hands jittered as I stretched out to press the tips of my fingers against the branches, testing their weight.

Peter and I used to climb the trees in Golden Gate Park when we were kids. I didn’t break my neck back then. There was no reason to think I would tonight.

Maybe if I told myself that enough times, I’d start to believe it.

The third branch I checked seemed strong enough to support my weight, and I didn’t pause, not even to take a breath, before I swung out the window.

The momentum carried me too far. I was going to fall—I was certain of it—but then I swung back the other way and wrapped both arms around the branch as tightly as I could. My dangling legs felt like sodden weights threatening to pull me down, but I kicked forward blindly until I made contact with the trunk.

There was no turning back now.

I forced myself to look down, to study the angles of the branches below me. There was a thick one just below my right foot.

I inched the toe of my sneaker toward it, sending up silent, fervent prayers without taking my eyes off the branch. God must’ve heard me, because the next thing I knew the branch was solid beneath my shoe.

I told myself I wasn’t afraid.

I wasn’t. I couldn’t let myself be.

I lowered myself branch by branch, trying to take deep, steady breaths, but I was starting to panic. Only when my sneakers finally met asphalt did I genuinely think I might be capable of this.

When I looked up, the tree towered over me. I couldn’t believe I’d climbed down that thing on my own. Finding my brother before something else went wrong couldn’t possibly be harder than that.

I headed quickly for the store, sticking to the darkest parts of the alley so our neighbors wouldn’t see me. There was no sign of anyone outside, but the alley air smelled distinctly like pee, and there were enough broken beer bottles and cigarette butts that it was clear people did go there sometimes. Which people, I didn’t want to know. I tugged the sleeves of Peter’s sweatshirt down over my hands and moved fast, trying not to peer too deeply into the shadows I passed along the way.

When I reached the store it was dark, and the grate was pulled down and locked securely. Javi owns the store and his wife, Rosa, helps him run it, but there was no sign of either of them. Peter’s beat-up old car was out front, but it was empty.

I peered through the store window, but it was impossible to tell if anyone was inside. I knocked on the grate, feeling ridiculous. “Peter? Are you there?”

No answer.

I stepped back, trying to think. The store had a back door, but all the shops and restaurants on this block were connected. I’d have to go all the way to the next street over and behind the commercial strip, along the narrow row of Dumpsters. I was lucky I hadn’t spotted any rats yet tonight, but God only knew what was crawling around back there.

Besides…it was deserted in this part of town at night. At least back by our house, someone would probably hear me if I screamed.

My hands had just started to shake all over again when I heard the hissing.

I whipped around. That had definitely sounded like a person, but I didn’t see anyone. Maybe I’d imagined it.

Another muffled hiss came, closer than the first.

I should run. I knew I should run, but my feet were frozen to the sidewalk, my limbs shut down by panic.

Then the hissing turned to laughter, and I almost cried in relief. I knew that laugh. “What the heck, Peter?”

I clenched my hands into fists as my brother stepped out from the shadows with a grin on his face. I shoved him hard in the shoulder, and he reached up to block my hand before I could push him again.

“Lay off.” He chuckled. “It’s not my fault you’re such a ’fraidy cat.”

“Oh, thanks.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “That’s what I get for sneaking out to find you in the middle of the night?”

“You snuck out?” Peter raised his eyebrows. “I’m impressed. This isn’t the middle of the night, though—it’s barely nine. Our boring neighborhood shuts down early.”

“Well, you were supposed to come straight home as soon as you closed up. What are you doing out here by yourself? Did you…did you hear about Miami?”

Peter nodded slowly. “It was on the radio. I already knew it would happen, though.”

“What do you mean, you already knew?”

“It was obvious.” He shrugged, then stepped in front of the store and slid down with his back against the grate until he was sitting in a patch of darkness on the sidewalk. “Anita won by a landslide. It was the only thing that was ever going to happen.”

“How’d you know?” I lowered myself next to him.

“As soon as she got them to hold that vote, it was done.” He ran his free hand over his curly dark hair. “She got tired of singing about orange juice on TV and heard there was a law that gave gay people permission to exist, so she rallied all the other Stepford wives into an army, and now we’re all screwed. There was no chance the straight people would’ve voted any other way.”

I flinched, the way I always did when someone cursed. Usually Peter teased me about that, too, but not tonight. “Well, I’m straight, and I would’ve.”

He didn’t answer. It wasn’t like him to be this quiet.

“Are you…?” I didn’t know what to say. “You know…sad?”

“No.” Peter gazed at a car turning at the end of the block. One of its headlights was busted out, and the other drew a faint, slow circle across the empty street. “I’m not sad.”

“Oh. Okay.” For the first time in our lives, I had no idea what to say to my brother. I knew he was lying, but I couldn’t think of a single way to make him feel any better. “Well, let’s go home.”

“Mom’ll come down. She always does when I get home.” Peter kept refusing to meet my eyes. “She’ll see you, and she’ll ground you for sneaking out.”

“Maybe not,” I said, but he was probably right. Mom would be delighted to see that Peter was safe, but I’d be in trouble for sure. She says she doesn’t play favorites, but somehow I’m always the one she decides is wrong. Plus, she still does Peter’s laundry.

“Either way—” he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket “—I’m not going home.”

“What, you want to sit here in the dark all night?”

“No. I want…” He trailed off, one hand holding tight to the cigarette pack, the other scrunching into his curly dark hair. He’s done that since we were kids. On the day he started fifth grade, when he told me how Gary Knopp had shouted “Sissy!” at him on the way into the cafeteria, he squeezed his hair so tight, strands broke off in his fist. Any time he’s overwhelmed, any time he wants to disappear, my brother scrunches up his hair. “I just want this to be over.”

“Well, it is. Miami’s thousands of miles away. They won’t be talking about it on the news after tomorrow.”

He exhaled heavily, as if I was the stupidest person he’d ever encountered. “Shar. This isn’t over. Anita Bryant and her cronies aren’t going to stop while they’re winning.”

“It’s only one city.”

“So far.” Peter tightened his fingers in his hair and let out another long breath. “I’ve got to get out of this shitty neighborhood.”

“Well…you’ll graduate next year, and in college you can—”

“Screw college.” He tugged on his hair again. It had to be hurting him. “I’m talking about right now. Tonight.”

“What do you mean?” I was getting nervous. “You’re not talking about…running away from home or something?”

“I just want to not be here.” He swept his arm out toward the darkened street. “Our fucking Catholic neighborhood. Our fucking Catholic school.”

“Did…something else happen today? Besides Miami, I mean?”

He didn’t answer.

Peter gets beat up less often than he used to, but Gary Knopp and his friends still corner him outside the library every now and then. They don’t know he’s gay, but they know he’s skinny, and that he doesn’t have many friends, and that he’s obsessed with movies but thinks basketball is boring, and that’s enough. He doesn’t talk about it much, but I always worry one day he’ll come home with a broken bone, or worse.

“You could tell Mom,” I offered. “She could speak to Father Murphy and maybe—”

“I can’t talk to Mom. How many times do I have to tell you—”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” I didn’t try to argue any more. Peter might be Mom’s favorite child now, but we’ve both heard the stories about what happens to Catholic kids whose parents find out they’re gay. If Mom kicked him out, he’d have nowhere to go.

“So what do you want to do?” I asked.

“Get out of here.” He nodded again, quickly. He was serious, which meant I couldn’t stop him. I’ve never been able to make my brother do anything he didn’t want to do, even before he got to be a full foot taller than me. “Come on, the car’s right here.”

He got to his feet, holding out a hand to help me up. I didn’t take it. “Come where, exactly?”

“Please, Sis. I don’t ask for much, but…I’m not ready to do this by myself.”

My heart started to thud again, but it was an entirely different kind of thudding than I got from climbing down the tree. He used to call me Sis all the time when we were kids, but now he only used it when something was important. “Do what?”

“I need to go where there are people who’ll get it.” Peter jingled his keys and bounced nervously from foot to foot. He wasn’t scrunching his hair anymore, though. “Castro Street.”

Shoot—it’s late. If I don’t go to sleep I’ll be useless at school. I’ll tell you the rest of what happened tomorrow.

Yours, Sharon

Tuesday, June 7, 1977

Dear Harvey,

Sorry to write you twice in one night. I didn’t plan it this way. When I wrote that first entry, I was just killing time until we got the results, but now I’m shaking so hard I have to focus on something if I don’t want to lose it.

They’re blowing up the fucking balloons, Harvey.

Everyone’s whooping and cheering and running over to that reporter, begging him to put them on the radio. I told them I have a paper due tomorrow, so I have to keep writing. Three of my teachers are here right now, celebrating with the others, but no one’s noticed I’m lying.

I’m stupid for being so upset. I knew this would probably happen.

You knew, too, right, Harvey? You expected this.

Anita Bryant on television, crowing as if she just saved humanity from the Communists all by herself. My aunt, calling all the reporters she knows, so happy she’s crying.

I thought Miami was far away. I thought if this happened, at least then it would be over and life could go back to normal. Everyone could finally stop talking about the “homosexual menace.” I wouldn’t need to spend every day walking on eggshells, using all my concentration not to give myself away. I—

Ugh, ugh, ugh. Sorry, I had to stop writing, but now I’m back. My mother brought over that Stanford guy again, the one she has this fantasy about me getting pinned to, and I had to play nice.

Mom’s been getting worse now that my sister’s pregnant. That little bump under her frilly apron right next to that shiny gold ring on her finger reminded my parents yet again that I’m sixteen and don’t have a boyfriend. Clearly, I’m going to shrivel up into a useless, flat-stomached prune if I don’t have a pin on my lapel next week and a diamond on my finger within approximately five seconds of graduation, and—

Ugh, ugh, ugh. Now Stanford guy is trying to make eye contact. I’ve got to keep writing. I can’t look at him. Can’t look at Mom. And for sure I can’t look at Aunt Mandy.

Okay, here’s what I’ll do instead. I’ll tell you about the mailers we sent out to Florida for all of last month. That will keep my pencil moving since I’ve got plenty to say about those.

Most of our mailings have three pieces tucked inside. They start with a letter from Aunt Mandy and Uncle Russell (except, let’s be honest, Aunt Mandy wrote the whole thing—Uncle Russell is only the one who signs them because his name has the word “Reverend” in front of it). The letter’s all about how gays are evil, and how if they aren’t going to molest your kids, then at the very least they’re going to turn them gay, and that’s why you should recruit everyone you’ve ever met to vote against gay rights.

(Along with most subtleties, the irony of using the word “recruit” this way is completely lost on Aunt Mandy.)

The second piece is a set of pledge forms. That’s for when you go door to door, or host parties at your house, or flag people down outside the grocery store, or whatever. The more people you can get to pledge to vote yes on repeal, the faster you get into Heaven.

The third piece is the comic book. We’re supposed to call a “tract,” because calling it a “comic book” makes it sound funny and this is deadly serious business, but whatever you want to call it, it’s very clearly a comic strip some guy drew. It’s all about how gay people are going to Hell and it’s the responsibility of good Christians to tell them so. There’s one panel that shows a lesbian who’s trying to get a straight girl to sleep with her, but the straight girl’s a good Christian, so she rejects her and runs away. The gist of it is that the world is going to Hell because some gay people aren’t afraid to be gay anymore.

It’s all so ridiculous, Harvey. I’m not sure I even believe in Hell. I don’t believe in God, so I guess there’s no point buying in to the rest of it.

Wow—I just wrote those words. Here, in a church. With my whole family and everyone else I know sitting a few feet away. I’m covering the paper with my arm, of course, but I’m still shaking so hard.

I’m terrified, Harvey. It’s not that I’m scared about someone finding these letters to you…although if that happened, it would be the end of my life as I know it. More than that, though, I’m afraid they’ll see what’s inside my head.

I think Aunt Mandy already has. You probably think I’m joking, but I’m not. She can see right through people.

But I bet she couldn’t see through you. How could she? You don’t hide anything. You are who you are, and you don’t care if other people don’t like it.

I don’t know how you do that, Harvey.

I’ve read every article I could get my hands on about you. Well, I read anything I can find about homosexuals, but I love it when they quote you most of all. You’re always talking about how everyone deserves to have hope. I’ve never heard anyone say that before.

Do you have a volunteer campaign office full of people working against Anita Bryant? Do you and your friends put together mailings, too?

Maybe I can pretend that’s what I’m doing next time I’m folding up the letters from my aunt. Maybe that way I can keep going without feeling like I’m about to puke.

Sometimes I can’t believe you’re real, Harvey. You’re like something out of a fairy tale. A gay man, reviled by most of society, managing to rise above. When everyone I know hates your guts.

I despise living in Orange County, Harvey. So much. If Aunt Mandy knew I was writing to you, she’d probably tie me to a chair and bring in my whole family to pray the gay out of me.

Fuck, I’m about to cry. Maybe if I hide this notebook and go blow up some balloons that’ll keep my tear ducts occupied.

More later.

Peace, Tammy

Wednesday, June 8, 1977

Dear Diary,

Well, it’s still Tuesday night—technically Wednesday morning, I guess—but I can’t sleep, so here I am, writing again. As long as I’m awake, I might as well tell you what happened tonight after my brother and I left our neighborhood.

We parked on Liberty Street, a few blocks from Castro. It was dark out, but the streets up there were far from deserted. Our neighborhood might as well have been a million miles away instead of a twenty-minute drive.

“Is something going on?” I tugged my sleeves down over my hands as Peter and I climbed out of the car. The sidewalk was crowded with people, most of them youngish men, talking and moving fast. Everyone was heading north, and as we got closer to Castro, we could hear shouting ahead. Car horns kept honking, too. In the din, I couldn’t understand what all the voices were saying. “I mean, besides this Miami vote?”

“Nah, I bet this is all Anita.” Peter stretched up onto his toes, the leather in his boots flexing as he tried to see up to the next block. The area around Castro Street used to be just another Irish-Catholic neighborhood, but according to the news, it’s been completely taken over by gay people. The nuns at school are always saying the city’s on the brink of moral ruin, and it all starts with Castro Street.

“How do you know?” I asked, but I got my answer before my brother could say any more.

“GAY RIGHTS NOW!” A guy in a flannel shirt jogged past us, pumping his fist and shouting. Another guy next to him joined in.

Neither of the guys looked much older than Peter and me, and one of them had kind of long hair. I wondered if they were both gay, or if one of them was only there to support his friend, the way I was there to support Peter.

Then I saw the cardboard sign the shorter-haired guy was holding. The thick black letters were crooked and haphazard, as though he’d just made the sign minutes before with a marker he’d found lying in a drawer. It said WE ARE YOUR CHILDREN.

Peter tugged my sleeve, silently motioning for us to follow them. I sped up to a trot, turning the words over in my head.

We are your children. Of all the things to write on a sign, he picked that.

The year before last, down by the St. Francis Hotel, a man knocked a gun out of a woman’s hand when she was trying to shoot the president. When the newspapers printed that the big hero who’d stopped the assassination attempt was gay, his parents disowned him. He sued the papers for ruining his life.

Did the people here seriously think someone like Anita Bryant would do anything differently from that man’s parents if one of her kids turned out to be gay?

“Come on, Shar.” Peter tugged my sleeve again. He was actually smiling. I hadn’t thought there was any chance I’d see my brother smile tonight. “We don’t want to miss it.”

“Miss what?”

“Whatever it is!”

He started moving faster, into the crowd of men. A bunch of them were carrying signs now.

I followed, my heart pounding. I’d thought we were only coming to look around. I didn’t know something would be happening here, much less something involving signs and running and chanting.

It reminded me of the peace protests, when the hippies were on TV every night singing about the war. Our teachers always warned us to stay away from demonstrations, because you never knew when rocks or bullets would start flying. I’ve never heard of gay people protesting, though.

I only found out about Peter the summer before last. He’d gone away to some wilderness camp in Nevada, a present from our dad’s parents, who have this tendency to go radio-silent for months at a time, then pop up to insist on paying for things we weren’t planning on buying in the first place. Peter came back from that camp smiling bigger than I’d ever seen him smile, but he wouldn’t say why. I pestered him about it for weeks, until one night when Mom was at a church meeting and he finally said he’d tell me. We hid in my room under a blanket fort the way we used to in kindergarten, and he quietly said that over the summer, he’d fallen in love.

I didn’t see how that was possible. As far as I knew, “falling in love” wasn’t any different from the made-up stories we learned in nursery school about Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

Our mom and dad certainly never fell in love. Or if they did, it didn’t do them any good.

Besides, Kevin’s camp was all boys. Had he gotten a crush on a counselor’s sister or something?

Finally, his smile wavering a little, Peter told me he was in love with a boy named Curtis. He said he hoped I could accept that.

Well, to be honest, I couldn’t.

I’d known homosexuals existed. You can’t live in San Francisco without knowing that. But it had never occurred to me my own brother could be one of them.

The brother I’d shared a room with for nine years. The brother who’d taught me how to roller-skate and cheat at Candyland. Who made fart noises at the dinner table and hugged me when Dad forgot to send a birthday card.

I didn’t speak to Peter for a week. He’d begged me not to say anything to Mom, but I kept thinking I ought to tell someone. At school, they’d told us homosexuality was a curse, so I thought maybe Mom or Father Murphy could help him be normal again.

In the end, I didn’t say anything. I wanted to help Peter, but I was scared of hurting him, too. The longer I thought about it, the more confused I got about how to tell the difference.

Then one day, I came home from school and found him at the kitchen table, still in his St. John’s blazer. He was bent over a sheet of paper, so intent on what he was writing that he hadn’t heard me come in. He had a smile on his face, a wide, open grin that made his eyes light up as his pen flew across the page. I couldn’t remember ever seeing my brother look that happy.

Then I noticed the envelope on the table next to him. It was addressed to Curtis. Peter was writing to the boy from camp.

I’d always thought being gay was wrong, when I thought about it at all. But if this Curtis boy could make my brother smile that way…well, I didn’t see how that could be a bad thing, whether or not it matched up with what my teachers said.

“Okay,” I’d said. He looked up with wide eyes to see me standing there. “I’ll keep your secret. You know, about the, um…that. And… I think I might be able to get used to the idea.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Thanks, sister dear. I wasn’t exactly asking for your permission, but it’s nice of you to say so all the same.”

He got up from the table, crossed the kitchen, and gave me a hug. Even though we aren’t the kind of family that hugs much.

Tonight, though, I couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Having a homosexual brother was one thing, but being surrounded by homosexuals in the middle of the street was something else. I’d thought gay people usually didn’t want anyone to know they were gay, but the men around me didn’t look as if they were hiding anything. Weren’t they worried about who might see them carrying these signs? And why were so many of them even there?

“Why are they protesting something that happened in Miami?” I asked. “How many thousands of miles away is that?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Peter kept swiveling his head around, as though he was trying to see everything at once. The chants were getting louder, and he had to raise his voice so I could hear him. “It’s only a matter of time before it happens here.”

“Wait, you mean Anita Bryant’s coming to California?”

“Probably. She and her friends aren’t going to stop now that they’ve won.”

“You think so? Oh, my gosh.” When I turned to him, though, instead of looking worried, my brother was laughing. At me.

I groaned. “What’s so funny?”

“You always sound about nine years old when you say that. ‘Oh, my gosh.’” He did a high-pitched trill on the words.

“Shut up. That’s not what I sound like at all.”

“Hey, do you hear that?” Peter cocked his head.

The crowd was getting louder, the sounds of the protest drifting over the stores and houses in front of us. Whistles, and shouts, and a faint rhythmic sound that might’ve been drumming poured in from the next block.

“How many people are up there?” I asked.

“Hundreds?” Peter shrugged. “Thousands?”

Thousands? Of gay people?

He practically dragged me past the restaurants and bars that lined the block. People were spilling out onto the sidewalk, thickening the crowd around us even more. The street was full of honking horns. Drivers leaned out the windows, shouting for everyone to stop clogging the street.

We turned another corner, past an intersection jammed with traffic, and suddenly we were in the middle of a sea of people like nothing I’d ever seen. A wall of fast-moving bodies, all marching north, a fierce energy thrumming through the group.

Before I understood what was happening, Peter and I were swept up in it. We didn’t have a choice—it was march or be trampled.

My brother had already started shouting along with everybody else. “TWO, FOUR, SIX, EIGHT! SEPARATE THE CHURCH AND STATE!”

“FUCK YOU, ANITA!” a man shouted up ahead. Others shouted in agreement, a few of them banging on drums that hung around their necks. One of the men held up a sign with painted letters that read SAVE OUR HUMAN RIGHTS. Behind him, a cop on a motorcycle was trying to cut into the crowd, but the marchers kept going while the cop just watched, revving his engine. A few of the men glanced warily at the officer. As far as I know it’s still illegal to be gay, but he didn’t seem to be arresting anyone.

A lot of the men in the crowd had long hair, and some of them were wearing earrings or leather jackets. I didn’t see anyone who looked quite as young as Peter and me, but there were a few who didn’t look that much older. College students, maybe.

It was dizzying. Everywhere I turned, there were more men, and when I twisted around to look behind us, I even saw a couple of girls. Lesbians, maybe, but I didn’t know how to tell. The news reporters only ever talk about gay men, but the girls I saw in the crowd tonight were chanting along with everyone else. Most of them had short hair, and two of them were riding along the edges of the crowd on motorcycles, gunning their engines even louder than the cops. I would’ve thought the sight of a girl on a motorcycle would be strange, but it was actually kind of cool.

“GAY RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS!” the girls chanted along with the rest of the crowd. “GAY RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS!”

When I glanced back at my brother, his eyes were alight, his smile wide. I wondered how it felt to be surrounded by people like him. Even for me, it was exhilarating. There were so many of us gathered, it felt like we could do anything. And the chanting crowd, the anger in the air… It was cool to be so surrounded by all that energy. All that ferocity and strength.

“It’s him!” Peter was grinning, jumping up on his toes to look over the crowd. “It’s Harvey!”

I strained to see until the guy in front of me stepped aside and I could glimpse the cluster of men at the front of the march. One man, taller than the others, was carrying a bullhorn, and as the crowd parted, he turned around.

Peter was right—I recognized him right away. Harvey Milk. His picture’s always in the newspaper about something or other.

“CIVIL RIGHTS OR CIVIL WAR!” Mr. Milk called into his bullhorn.

The crowd picked up the chant immediately. “GAY RIGHTS NOW!”

When I glanced at my brother again, he was absolutely beaming.

An hour earlier, he’d been sitting alone in the shadows outside a darkened grocery store. Now he was surrounded by people, grinning wider than he ever had.

I’ve never fit. Not at school. Not at church. Not anywhere, really.

But my brother fit here. Maybe I did, too.

The charge in the air, the power in all these voices… Maybe I’d finally found my place.

Up ahead, Mr. Milk changed the chant and this time, I joined in.

“WE’VE GOT THE POWER TO…FIGHT BACK!” I shouted, my voice ringing out into the crowd. “WE’VE GOT THE POWER TO…FIGHT BACK!”

An engine revved behind me, and I twisted around. A motorcycle zoomed past us with two girls sharing the seat. The girl in back had her arms wrapped around the other one’s waist. I couldn’t tell if it was because she was afraid of falling off or because they were lesbians. I guess it could’ve been both.

The chant changed again. “ANITA! YOU LIAR! WE’LL SET YOUR HAIR ON FIRE!”

Anita Bryant’s been on TV since I was a kid, selling orange juice and tissues and macaroni and cheese, singing and smiling and filling up the otherwise-silent living room while Mom and Peter and I sat on the couch waiting for M*A*S*H to come back on.

But now, her followers want to hurt my brother. They want to hurt those girls on the motorcycle, too, and Mr. Milk with his bullhorn, and all the people here chanting with us.

And I want to hurt them back.

“CIVIL RIGHTS OR CIVIL WAR! GAY RIGHTS NOW!”

I pumped my fist with Peter and the others, shutting my eyes and relishing the motion.

We marched for hours, past City Hall and up to Nob Hill. We wound up at Union Square, miles north of where we’d left Peter’s car, surrounded by thousands of people, all of us chanting on long after our voices had started to give out. Mr. Milk gave a speech about seizing our power and standing up to Anita and all the people like her, and even though it was the middle of the night, I felt more awake than I could ever remember feeling.

We had to make it home before Mom noticed we were gone, so with the chants echoing in our ears, Peter and I walked down to Market and hitched a ride back to the car. Mom was asleep when we slunk in—there was no movement from behind her door, anyway—and Peter and I crept straight to our rooms, our clothes smelling of smoke and exhaust and all the other smells you bring home from downtown in the middle of the night.

It’s strange. I never noticed how quiet it is here. There’s the occasional siren from a faraway street, some birds chirping, the sound of that tree scraping against Peter’s window through the wall.

Still, I can almost hear my heart beating. And I can hear the shouts ringing in my ears, too.

I don’t want to fall asleep. I’m scared I’ll forget this feeling, and I want to remember it forever.

Yours, Sharon

Wednesday, June 8, 1977

Dear Harvey,

Have you ever tried blowing up a dozen balloons in a row?

It’s terrible. I don’t think there’s any breath left in my body.

Either way, I’m home now. It’s the middle of the night, but I can’t sleep. Whenever I close my eyes I’m back in that fucking basement, blowing up balloons with the rest of the youth group while our parents sit on the couches behind us drinking Dixie cups full of grape juice from the communion stash. My cousin Eddie and the other little kids kept trying to grab the balloons out of our hands so they’d fly around the room making fart noises.

Through it all, Uncle Russell was praying at the top of his lungs while Aunt Mandy called more reporters. She sounded so happy, I’m surprised she wasn’t fucking floating.

There are few things that terrify me more than my aunt being happy, Harvey.

I was sitting on that floor, feeling like my head was trapped in a vise, when it occurred to me. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen from blowing up all those balloons, but the thought popped into my head and now I can’t shake it:

Why am I the one who has to be so terrified all the time?

Why do I sit around worrying about whether someone will figure out my secret, while everybody else gets to have a fucking party because Anita fucking Bryant convinced a bunch of people thousands of miles away that she’s right and I’m going to Hell?

You probably figured this out years ago, but to me, sitting there on that basement floor, it was a brand-new, mind-blowing idea:

This is fucking BULLSHIT.

Look. I’m not saying I want to skywrite the words “I’m queer!!!!!” outside the house when my parents wake up tomorrow or anything. They’d just haul me straight to Uncle Russell, and if he couldn’t fix me, it’d be electroshock therapy time.

And it’s not as if running away is an option. There’s nowhere to go. Sure, I’ve had fantasies about getting an apartment in L.A., but I’d need money for that, and I don’t know how I’d ever get a job. All I can do is recite Bible verses, and they don’t pay you to do that unless you’re Uncle Russell.

But tonight, sitting there on that basement floor, I wasn’t thinking about running away. I was thinking about Patti Smith.

Do you know her music, Harvey? I’ve never heard her playing on the radio here, but maybe it’s different in San Francisco.

I had no idea who Patti even was before last Easter. I was at a slumber party with the girls from the youth group, and we snuck downstairs to watch Saturday Night Live. We aren’t supposed to watch that show, since our parents say it’s sinful. We didn’t see what was so sinful about it, but it was funny. Then, halfway through the episode, Patti Smith came on with her band, and when I saw her, my heart stopped.

Patti Smith looks… I don’t know how to describe it. She almost looks like a man—she was wearing a shirt and tie, even—and she sounds like a man, too. Her voice is low and gravelly, and the first words she sang were…well, I can’t write them down, but they were the bravest words I’ve ever heard anyone say.

All I wanted was to be Patti Smith. She’s obviously never been scared of anyone. There’s this anger in her voice, this soul, that’s like nothing I’ve ever heard.

I never knew I could be angry. I’ve always been too busy being scared. I’ve been keeping this inside so long it feels like I’m about to burst open and leave nothing but a puddle on the carpet where I used to be.

But that’s bullshit, too.

My aunt and uncle and Anita Bryant and all the rest of them—they want people like me to be scared.

Well, I’m through giving them what they want. Tomorrow, I’m going to the record store and buying every Patti Smith album they have.

I’m getting out of this place, Harvey. Even if I only manage to do it in my head.

Peace, Tammy

Wednesday, June 8, 1977

Dear Diary,

I should’ve known today would be terrible.

I’m writing this in study hall. I barely managed three hours of sleep last night, but it’s the last day of school, so classes are a joke. Mom always says teachers run out of energy the first week of May.

I still have to keep up with my friends, though, and I didn’t realize how tricky that would be without sleep.

“Guess where I went last night?” I asked Rhonda on our way out of English as we wound through a hall full of kilted, giggly girls.

“You’ll never believe where I went,” she said, instead of guessing. We cut through a contingent of freshmen and looped across the small chapel to the bathroom, the one hardly anyone goes to. It’s the best place to talk without the whole school hearing your every word. “After we closed, Craig took me to this dive bar down on Naples. I thought I’d get chlamydia just from walking in the door, but it turned out he knew all the guys there, and they were great. They bought me drinks all night and I got so wasted.”

By the time she was finished telling me all that, I was in a stall, halfway through peeing. I always have to charge to the bathroom after English or I’ll burst.

“That sounds fun,” I called through the stall door. Rhonda and I used to hang out all the time, but now that she’s going out with her boss, I only see her at school.

“It was, but I still feel kind of drunk. That’s okay, though. No one will notice on the last day of school.”

I stepped out of the stall and went over to wash my hands. The bathroom door swung open. Rhonda and I both went silent, but it was only Diane and Jennifer. They’d been in English with us, too.

“Did you say you’re still drunk from last night?” Diane asked Rhonda as she pulled a cigarette and a matchbook out of her purse.

“Yeah. Craig and I stayed out until really late.”

“You and Craig.” Diane laughed. “Do your parents still not know?”

“Hell no. They’d only ground me for the rest of my life.”

“They need to relax.” Diane struck the match over the sink. “He’s not that much older than you.”

“I know! My dad’s seven years older than my mom. Craig’s only five years older than me, but you know they’d never listen if I pointed that out. They’re total hypocrites.”

“Our parents think it’s still the fifties or something,” Jennifer called from over the door of the stall I’d just come out of. “We’re all supposed to stay virgins ’til our wedding nights.”

Diane and Rhonda laughed. I laughed, too, a second too late, but I don’t think anyone noticed. I’m a virgin, and as far as I know so are all my friends, but things are changing faster than they used to.

“What our parents don’t know won’t hurt them.” Rhonda fluffed her hair. She’d asked the hairdresser for bouncy Farrah Fawcett-Majors curls, but she’d wound up looking more like Janet from Three’s Company. “They can think I’m a virgin when Craig’s walking me down the aisle if they want.”

We all laughed again, but I can’t picture Rhonda marrying Craig. Or really, I can’t picture Craig marrying Rhonda. Whenever I see them together at the pizza place where they work, he’s always trying to look down her shirt. If there’s any truth to the lectures Sister Catherine gives us, that’s not how men act around girls they want to marry.

Besides, are we really supposed to be thinking about marriage already? We’re sophomores in high school. I can’t imagine getting married ever.

“So what did you do last night?” Rhonda asked me. “Were you out with Kevin?”

“No. I…” I shut my mouth. I’d been about to tell her all about going to Castro Street and the march and seeing Harvey Milk…and then I remembered Peter.

I couldn’t tell anyone where I’d been, even Rhonda.

“I just watched the news with my mom,” I said instead. “Did you hear about this vote in Florida? It sounds as if it’s a really big deal.”

Rhonda had already turned to the mirror and started touching up her lipstick. “What about Florida?”

“You mean about homosexuality?” Jennifer called over the sound of the toilet flushing.

I blushed, which was ridiculous, since I was the one who’d brought this up. But I blush very, very easily. Rhonda knows that—everyone does—so hopefully she didn’t read much into it.

“What about homosexuality?” Diane asked.

Rhonda laughed. “Leave it to Sharon and Mrs. Hawkins to watch a report about homosexuality in Florida the night before the last day of school. Hey, you got another one of those?”

Diane rolled her eyes, but she held out her pack of cigarettes to Rhonda.

“You know how Anita Bryant’s on the news all the time lately?” Jennifer came out of the stall, and I slid over to make room for her at the sink. “She got them to pass a new law in Miami because homosexuals were trying to get teaching jobs.”

“Anita Bryant? Really?” Rhonda laughed and tried to sing Anita Bryant’s jingle from the orange juice commercials, the one about the Florida sunshine tree.

“Now let’s talk about homosexual-i-ty!” Diane sang back to the same tune, making us all laugh.

“Oh, man, do you remember when she came back and sang on Miss America when we were kids?” Jennifer shook her head. “It’s not fair she only came in third.”

“We weren’t even born when that happened,” I said. Rhonda and Diane were still singing jingles, but I kept talking anyway. “Look, Miami had a law that said it was illegal to discriminate against gay people, but Anita Bryant got them to vote to overturn it. So now it’ll be legal to discriminate again.”

Rhonda and Diane stopped singing, and now all three of them were looking at me. Rhonda put her lipstick back in her purse and tilted her head. “What do you mean, ‘discriminate’?”

“You know.” I tried to remember what Peter had said. “It’ll be legal now if someone wants to kick a gay person out of his apartment, or fire him from his job.”

“That wasn’t legal before?” Jennifer turned back to the mirror. “Is it legal here?”

“I…” I didn’t know.

“I don’t think it’s right for people to be that way.” Diane blew smoke out at the ceiling and started fishing around in her purse. “They know what the Bible says. Besides, it’s disgusting.”

“Can you imagine?” Rhonda started laughing again. “If you met one of those guys? He’d probably have on more makeup than you did!”

Jennifer and Diane laughed, too.

“My dad says gay guys all have pet poodles, and they wear high heels everywhere,” Diane said. “And when they drink they stick their pinky finger out to the side.”

“Hey, um…” I started to interrupt them, but I didn’t know what to say. How could I tell them to stop making fun of gay guys when I couldn’t say my own brother was gay?

And how did I never notice until today that my friends were just as boring and conventional as our stuck-in-the-fifties parents?

That was when the bell rang, and the door opened again.

“Do I smell smoke?” The voice was my mom’s. She’s the only teacher at our school who does that—calls out a warning before she comes in. It gives you enough time to put away whatever you were doing so she doesn’t have to officially catch you.

(My mom is everyone’s favorite teacher.)

Diane and Rhonda dropped their cigarettes and stamped them out with their saddle shoes. It meant they couldn’t move their feet once my mom came through the door, but she pretended not to notice.

“Hello, girls.” Mom looked at each of us, her eyes widening a little when she saw me before her face slipped back into her usual unaffected-teacher expression. If she was exhausted after worrying about Peter all night, she didn’t give any sign of it. “The bell rang. Why aren’t you in class?”

“We’re sorry, Mrs. Hawkins.” Rhonda bobbed into a tiny curtsy, which looked especially ridiculous since she couldn’t move her feet.

“Well, get a move on.” Mom glanced at me, but looked away just as fast. “You don’t want Sister Catherine to catch you out here.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hawkins,” the others chorused as Mom stepped outside.

We moved fast after that, Diane and Rhonda flushing their cigarette butts before we headed to study hall. It took me almost the whole period to write this down, but there are ten minutes left in the period so I guess I might as well get this pen pal letter out of the way now. More later.

Yours, Sharon

Wednesday, June 8, 1977

Dear Tammy,

I guess I’m your new pen pal. Hi, it’s nice to meet you. I’m sorry we’re about to be juniors in high school and we’re stuck doing a project more appropriate for eight-year-olds.

Here’s my first answer from the question list:

Describe yourself in three adjectives.

Today? I’d say tired, overwhelmed, and ready for school to be over.

But if I’m supposed to be making a big statement, I guess I’d go with confused, lonely, and out of place. (Is out of place an adjective? Maybe it is if I put in hyphens? Out-of-place, then.)

I guess that’s it for now. Sorry I couldn’t come up with a better answer. I’ll try to be more interesting next time.

Yours truly, Sharon Hawkins

Thursday, June 16, 1977

Dear Sharon,

Your letter made me laugh. I totally agree, this is a ridiculous project, but I guess we’re stuck with it.

Here are my three adjectives: Tall (or, well, tall-ish). Blond. And overwhelmed, the same as you. I’m glad this school year’s over, too.

Sorry if that doesn’t give you much to write about in your report. I’ll try to do better in my next letter.

Yours truly, Tammy Larson

P.S. This isn’t in the list of questions, but I was wondering—have you ever listened to Patti Smith? I just got her album Horses and I’m obsessed. No one I know listens to that kind of music, but I thought things might be different in San Francisco.

Wednesday, June 22, 1977

Dear Tammy,

No, I don’t think I’ve heard of Patti Smith. What kind of music does she play?

Here’s my answer to the next question:

Who are the members of your family?

It’s just me, my mom, and my brother. My mom’s a teacher at my school, and my brother, Peter, is one year older than me. I have a father, too, but he left when I was a baby and I haven’t seen him much since.

What’s your family like?

Yours truly, Sharon Hawkins

Wednesday, June 29, 1977

Dear Sharon,

I’m really sorry about your dad.

My family will take longer to explain, since there are a lot of us.

First, there’s my parents. They met in Ohio. My dad had gone out to buy some toothpaste and my mom was working at the drugstore. When he went up to the register to pay, he thought my mom was pretty and asked for her number. My dad was a big shot then, a college football player, and Mom says it was as if a famous movie star had asked her on a date. She was still in high school, taking care of her little sister since their parents had died a few years before, and she and my dad got married right after she graduated. He got a job with a development company in Ocean Valley, so they all moved out here, including my mom’s sister—my Aunt Mandy—since she was just a kid herself then.

Not long after that, my oldest sister, Laura, was born. She’s twenty-one now, and she’s married with a baby. Now she’s pregnant again. My next-oldest sister, Barbara, is nineteen and just got married in the spring, and guess what—she just told us she’s pregnant, too.

No one ever asks me when I’m getting pregnant, which I guess is a good thing. Once I made a joke about that at a barbecue and got grounded for a week. (Er…please don’t mention that in your report for the teachers.)

My little sister, Elizabeth, is fourteen, and my bratty brother, Ricky, is a year younger. Look up “spoiled rotten” in a dictionary, and odds are, it’ll have a picture of Ricky right next to it.

In case you couldn’t tell, my parents really wanted a boy.

Anyway, sorry for the long letter. I’ll try to keep my next answer more concise.

Yours truly, Tammy Larson

P.S. Was it awkward for me to say I’m sorry about your dad, since we don’t really know each other? If it was, then I’m sorry, again. Sorry for saying sorry, I mean.

Saturday, July 2, 1977

Dear Diary,

I’m not sure how to talk about what happened tonight. It wasn’t at all what I expected. I went back and reread what I wrote last time, about the night Peter and I went to that march, and… I just don’t know what to think now.

Maybe it will make sense after I write it all out. That’s why I’ve got this diary, anyway. Ever since I was a kid, there have always been things that only make sense once I write them down and read them over later.

We went to Castro Street again tonight, but it wasn’t anything like before.

“Tell me again why you wanted to come here?” Peter kept giving me curious looks as he parked the car. It’s an old junker with a mismatched paint job, and it’s got more dents in the bumper than I have fingers on either hand, but it’s all Peter can afford, and it’s our only way to get around the city if we don’t want to wait ages for the bus.

“I want to… I don’t know.” I shrugged and glanced in the rearview mirror. I should’ve worn lipstick. When we’d come up for the march I didn’t have any makeup on, but now it was Saturday night and I didn’t want to look like some little schoolgirl. “Get involved. Do something about gay rights.”

“Do what, exactly?”

“That’s what we’re here to figure out.” I swung open the door, trying to act bolder than I felt.

“Since when are you into gay rights, anyway?” Peter climbed out after me.

“I… I don’t know.” I blushed. The night of the march, I thought I’d finally found somewhere I belonged. I’d been wanting to come back for weeks, but I didn’t have the nerve to tell him that. “It’s no big deal.”

“Relax.” He tugged on the sleeve of my T-shirt. “I’m glad you had this idea. I’ve been wanting to come back.”

“Oh. Okay, then good. So, um…do you think that march we went to actually changed anything?”

“Nope,” Peter said. We climbed past pizzerias and coffee shops and stoned hippies on our way to Castro. “The Miami law’s still overturned. Anita and the fundamentalists are still claiming it as a victory.”

“The other night the news said other gay rights laws will probably get overturned now, too.” I sighed. “The way you expected.”

“Yeah. Sometimes I wish I weren’t quite so smart.”

I elbowed him. “They wouldn’t really do it here, would they?”

“They will if they can.”

“It would never pass. There must have been thousands of people out marching that night.”

“Sure, but there are millions of people in California, and gay people only make up a tiny fraction. If there were a statewide campaign, even if we all voted no, Orange County alone would probably have enough fundamentalist assholes to pass it. That whole place is basically one gigantic fundamentalist asshole.”

“Right.” I didn’t mention that Orange County was also where my new pen pal was from. Tammy Larson of Ocean Valley, located smack in the middle of the land of sunshine and hatred. It’s kind of strange, since Tammy seems nice from her letters—the last one was fun to read, all about her big family—but if she knew I had a gay brother, she’d probably report it straight to one of her teachers. Then her school would call my school, and Peter’s secret would be out for the whole world to know.

It’s too bad. I could see us being friends if things were different.

“Look.” Peter nudged me, angling his chin up ahead. We had a few blocks to go, but there were already two men in front of us, walking with their arms slung around each other’s shoulders.

“Come on, Shar.” Peter sped up.

“I’m coming. I’m coming.”

By the time we’d made it two more blocks, we’d seen at least a dozen other men, and when we reached Castro Street itself, the crowd swelled. Tall men, short men, white men, Black men, Latino men, young men, slightly less young men—the sidewalks were teeming with them, and the one thing they all seemed to have in common was the way they touched each other. Right out in the open, where anyone could see.

Some of these men must’ve been the same ones who’d marched with us, but the mood on the street tonight was the opposite of what it had been then. Tonight felt relaxed, simple, fun. Not at all angry.

Plus, it really did seem to be all men. Almost. I did spot one girl hovering in a doorway, talking to a man in a flannel shirt. She looked like she was in her twenties, and she was wearing a leather jacket and dark glasses, even though the sun had already set. She had shoulder-length, jagged blond hair, and she was much, much cooler than I could ever hope to be.

I shrank a little in my boring gray T-shirt and tugged my two thick braids back over my shoulders. Maybe I didn’t fit on Castro Street after all.

“Hey, that’s the place we saw on the news.” Peter pointed to a liquor store across the street. “Remember? On Gay Freedom Day?”

“Right.” Last week Mom, Peter, and I had all sat together and watched silently as the local news started its Gay Freedom Day report. Apparently, this year’s parade had been the biggest one yet. Mom made us change the channel before the report was over, since Gay Freedom Day reports always show pictures of naked men running around.

“It would be cool to go to that someday, but…” Peter shook his head. “It’s always on the news.”

“That’s true.” I tried to hide my relief. I don’t want my brother anywhere near Gay Freedom Day. If someone saw him on TV, they might try to hurt him for real. Someone worse than Gary Knopp.

“Hey, are you two registered to vote?”

I jumped, startled to hear how close the new voice was, but Peter turned and grinned. Behind us was a guy holding a clipboard and a folder. He looked a little older than us, and he was dark-skinned, with a puffy Afro. He was wearing a red flannel shirt unbuttoned over a tight white T-shirt, Levi’s, and hiking boots.

“I’m afraid we’re underage,” Peter told the guy in a stage whisper.

He laughed. “That’s all right. Want to sign up for our volunteer list? We need all the help we can get. There are ways kids can help, too.” He smiled at me, and I blushed again. I’m shorter than Peter, but did I look that much younger? I knew I shouldn’t have worn my hair in braids. “Have you heard about Harvey’s campaign?”

Peter nodded. “He’s running for supervisor again?”

“He is, and he could win it this time, but only if we can turn out enough voters.”

“What do you need volunteers to do, exactly?” I asked. “Are you having more marches? We came to the one after the Miami vote.”

The guy tilted his head and smiled me. “Yeah, and we need people to canvass, too. Do you two live in the city?”

Peter grimaced. “Yeah. With our mom, in the Excelsior.”

The guy grimaced, too, then laughed. “District Eight? My condolences. Is it really all conservative Irish-Catholic down there?”

“Just about.”

“And I mean, we are Irish-Catholic,” I added, “but we aren’t—”

“Conservative. I get it.” The guy smiled knowingly. “That just means we need to get you registered as soon as you’re legal so you can change your district from the inside out.”

Peter nodded vigorously. “My name’s Peter, by the way. This is my sister, Sharon.” At least he didn’t call me his kid sister, the way he used to in junior high.

“Leonard. Nice to meet you both.” From the way he shook our hands, I was starting to wonder if Leonard was a politician himself.

He showed Peter a flyer, and I scanned the sidewalks around us. The girl in the leather jacket was gone. All I could see in any direction were men. I shifted, conscious of exactly how much I stuck out on Castro Street.

“Can I get you to sign up?” Leonard held out his folder with a volunteer form on top. I took it from him, but when I glanced down, I hesitated.

The very first line asked for a phone number. What if someone called our house, and Mom answered?

Peter was peering down at the form, too. He met my gaze and frowned slightly.

“Oh, and by the way, Sharon…” Leonard didn’t seem to notice our uncertainty. He took back the folder and flipped through a few pages, pulling out a mimeographed sheet of paper. “I promised a friend of mine I’d hang this up in the Elephant Walk, but you can check it out first if you want. I know they’re always looking for more women to join them.”

The mimeographed text was hard to read, but I made out the words “Women’s Bookstore” and an address on the opposite side of the park. The logo at the top read VALENCIA STREET BOOKS.

A whole bookstore, just for women? Did they have a rule about not letting men inside or something?

Maybe that was where all the girls I saw the other night were. Maybe Castro Street was just for gay men when they weren’t having marches, and the lesbians hung out in this bookstore.

But if that were true, I wouldn’t fit there, either.

A man in a cowboy hat strode toward us, waving to Leonard. I tucked the flyer inside the folder and gave it back. The man asked Leonard for a light, and while they were talking, I told Peter I was ready to go home.

“We just got here.” He furrowed his eyebrows. “Why don’t you go check out that bookstore? It’s only a few blocks away, and there’d be other girls. I could meet you there later and drive you home.”

“That’s okay. You stay, though. I’ll get the bus.”

“Are you sure?”

He was trying to argue with me, but he wasn’t trying very hard. I’m sure he’d rather have been on his own, anyway. He and Curtis stopped writing to each other last year, and he probably wanted to make new gay friends.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

“Okay, well, don’t get home too late. You know how Mom gets.”

“All right.”

I dragged my feet as I walked away. I was annoyed with myself for not doing what I came out to do, and I wasn’t in any hurry to get home and have to lie to Mom about where I’d been.

I gazed into the windows of stores and bars as I headed south. Everywhere I looked, there were more men. Most of them were smiling.

I could see why. Here, they had a place where they could all be together, without worrying about what anyone else thought.

There was a phone booth outside a drugstore, and I slowed down. I thought about calling Kevin and having him come pick me up, but he was working tonight.

That’s when a poster taped to the glass booth wall caught my eye. It was handwritten on top of being mimeographed, so the words were barely legible, but the photo in the middle was clear. A girl was wearing a leather miniskirt with a man’s shirt and tie. Her hair was slicked back and she was leering at the camera, half-smiling, as though she had a secret she couldn’t wait to tell everyone. Dotted around the edges of the poster were more photos, showing men with long hair, sunglasses, and zippered jackets, smoking cigarettes and flipping off the camera.

It took me a minute to decipher the text below the photo:

THE PRUDES! With CREEPS IN TOYLAND and DAMNED REVERENDS. Saturday, July 2. $3. No age limit, kiddies!

The address was on Valencia Street.

I glanced back over my shoulder. Peter was nowhere in sight, but the crowd of men on Castro Street had only gotten deeper. Everyone was milling around, going in and out of restaurants and bars, talking and laughing.

I turned back to the poster. That girl, in the center. There was something about the way she sneered at the camera. I could’ve stood there staring at her for the rest of the night.

Or… I could go to the show. It was only a few blocks over.

It was a ridiculous idea. Except, the longer I stood there, the less ridiculous it seemed.

I could just walk over and check it out. I didn’t have to go inside.

I pulled the rubber bands off the bottoms of my braids and combed out my long hair with my fingers as I walked. When I’d made it two blocks east, I realized I hadn’t seen any obviously gay guys in a while. There were more girls on the street now, too, and soon I spotted a straight couple coming out of a corner store, laughing as they tried to hold hands and juggle an armful of brown paper bags at the same time. I guess I’d left the gay area of the city behind.

Before long, I found the address from the poster. There was a line outside the door of the club—if club is the right word for an old industrial building with blacked-out windows and run-down bars on either side.

Before I could lose my nerve, I slid in the back of the line. A pair of girls in purple lipstick, short skirts, and stiletto boots were waiting in front of me. I felt underdressed in my T-shirt and jeans, but at least I didn’t have my little-girl hair anymore.

No one seemed to notice how I looked, though. In fact, no one glanced at me twice, not even the bouncer who took my three dollars and silently jammed his thumb toward the loud music spilling out from the dark, humid hallway behind him.

“I can’t believe this city finally has a punk scene!” a guy shouted as I followed the short-skirted girls inside.

So that’s what this was. A punk show. All I knew about this kind of music was that there was a punk band named the Sex Pistols. A guy at St. John’s got suspended for two weeks because he wore a T-shirt with their name on it under his uniform, and the gym teacher saw him changing out of it in the locker room. Peter said they were a band in England, and that people liked them because they cursed a lot.

I doubted the Sex Pistols were in this grimy club tonight, but maybe there’d be other bands who cursed a lot. That idea was surprisingly appealing.

By the time I’d made it halfway down the narrow hall, music was already pumping out from the main room up ahead. I couldn’t make out any of the words well enough to tell if the band was cursing, but I did know it was completely different from any music I’d ever heard. The radio stations I listened to played Donna Summer or the Bee Gees or KC and the Sunshine Band—disco love songs, mostly. But the music tonight wasn’t anything like disco. It might as well have been piped in from outer space.

There were no smooth, Donna Summer-style voices. In fact, no one was singing at all—just yelling. And whatever they were yelling about, it wasn’t love.

It didn’t flow, either, the way I always thought music was supposed to. Instead, as I stepped out of the hall and into the big, dark room, the music shrieked and banged and pounded. There was no way to dance to it—not in the way I knew how to dance, at least. The most you could do was shake in tune to all the pounding.

But best of all, this music was angry.

There was a tall, skinny guy in leather pants and spiky black hair bent over the microphone on the little stage at the end of the room, his words incomprehensible under the feedback and squealing guitars and nonstop drumming. Still, the anger came through loud and clear.

It was there in the crowd, too. Everyone I saw—girls in tight jeans and boots, men in wrinkled T-shirts with safety pins stuck through their sleeves, all of them jumping up and down and waving their hands over their heads as the music thumped—they all had that same ferocity on their faces.

It was the same energy I’d felt the night of the march. The sounds and smells and sensations of the club crawled inside my veins, exactly the way the chants had from the crowd that night.

I stepped into the thickest part of the crowd, until I was out of the path of people still pouring in through the door. I shut my eyes, my body thrumming as the fury in the music filled me up.

It felt good to let myself get mad. My shoulders started moving first, and before I’d realized I was doing it, I was shaking along to the music along with everyone else.

“He-e-y-y-y,” a winking voice drawled from the stage. At the sound of decipherable words, I opened my eyes. The guys in front of me were bent over a joint, and through the momentary gap in the crowd, I got a good look at the band.

The guy with the spiky hair had picked up a guitar, and a girl had stepped to the front. She had dark hair and wore a trench coat over a short, tight black dress, with bright red lipstick and platform heels, and she was squeezing the microphone so tightly I was afraid she’d crush it.

“SHIT!” the guy in front of me bellowed to his friend, straightening up and waving the joint over his head. “It’s that chick you like! It’s Midge fucking Spelling!”

The drummer started pounding out a new, sharp rhythm, and a moment later the girl onstage—Midge fucking Spelling, I guess—shut her eyes and growled into the microphone. I couldn’t make out her words, but I knew exactly who she was. The girl from the poster.

She stepped backward, tilting her head up so her hair fell loose behind her, her eyes still shut tight. Her dress stretched and shifted and clung to her skin as she lifted the microphone to her lips and shouted at the ceiling. “WOOOO!”

A hundred voices shouted “WOOOO!” back.

“That’s right, Midge!” the guy in front of me called, sloshing his drink all over his T-shirt. “Shake it, baby!”

Midge ignored him. I could only make out a few syllables from all her growling—the most frequently used one seemed to be “fuck”—but the lyrics clearly didn’t matter as much as the volume and the noise and the life in this room.

The unquestioned rebellion. The complete lack of giving a shit.

Midge didn’t look as if she was “shaking it” to me. What she was doing was bigger than that. As long as she was up on that stage, growling into the mic, the rest of us were at her mercy. No one had the option of standing still.

I shut my eyes again and lost track of how long my body rocked to the music. It was easy, almost too easy, to shut off my brain while Midge Spelling was on the stage.

At some point her growls faded out, and when I opened my eyes again, there was a blond girl in a leather jacket in front of me. Her eyes were locked on my face.

I blinked and dropped my head, startled, but when I looked up again, she hadn’t moved. She looked familiar, and after another minute I realized she was the girl I’d seen on Castro Street earlier that night. Her look was understated compared to Midge’s—she wasn’t wearing any makeup at all, and she had on ancient Converse sneakers instead of platform heels—but she fit in perfectly, with her Ramones T-shirt and a leather collar tied below the knee of her ripped jeans. I didn’t remember her wearing that on Castro Street.

The girl leaned forward to shout in my ear. I couldn’t understand her at first, and I shook my head, so she shouted it again. “DID I SEE YOU ON CASTRO WITH LEONARD TONIGHT?”

I nodded and waved, since shouting over the music seemed impossible.

“I’M EVELYN,” the girl shouted. “WANT TO GET A DRINK?”

Half of me wanted to stay where I was, thrumming to the music, but the bar was on the far side of the room, and it looked slightly less jammed with people. Plus, I didn’t mind the idea of getting away from the guy in front of me, since his grip on his joint was so loose I was surprised it hadn’t already fallen onto my shoe. I nodded again.

The noise near the bar was slightly less deafening than the rest of the club. Evelyn left me standing against a wall and came back a minute later with two glasses.

“I don’t usually see women from the Castro at these shows.” She still had to lean in and raise her voice so I could understand her, but at least we didn’t have to shout.

“I’ve never been to one of these shows before,” I told her, “but I saw the poster and thought I’d check it out.”

“Cool. What do you think so far?”

I glanced back toward the stage. Midge was dancing wildly while the band behind her banged on their instruments. The spiky-haired guy had stepped forward to join her at the edge of the stage, jangling his guitar and pounding his head wildly in time with Midge’s movements. As if they were dancing together, but in the most inharmonious way possible. “I like the band.”

“Yeah, Midge is great.” Evelyn pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and held it out to me. I shook my head, and she popped one into her mouth. “We were supposed to hang out after their set, but it looks like she’s already gone the way of Johnny. Once those two are sharing space, the rest of the world turns invisible.”

On stage, Midge and the spiky-haired guitar player were rapidly closing the distance between them. She looped the microphone cord around his neck, still growling lyrics I couldn’t make out.

I started to tell Evelyn that was how it was with Kevin and me, too, but I stopped when I realized that wasn’t quite true.

“How do you know her?” I asked instead.

“Just from being around the scene.” Evelyn pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and released a puff of smoke. “She’s incredible onstage, isn’t she? I’m more into the Dils when it comes to their actual music, though. Don’t tell her I said that, okay?”

I couldn’t imagine ever speaking to Midge Spelling. “Sure thing.”

“So, what brought you to the Castro?”

Evelyn looked really interested in hearing my answer, and it suddenly occurred to me that she might be gay. In fact…maybe she thought I was gay.

Oh, my gosh.

“I’m straight,” I blurted.

Evelyn stared at me for a long moment. Then she burst out laughing. “Good for you. Me, too, so good for us, I mean.”

“Oh, um, I mean—” I felt so stupid. Blood rushed to my cheeks as I desperately fumbled to erase the past ten seconds. “Oh, my gosh. Oh, gosh. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…it isn’t as if I thought—Oh, shoot.”

“It’s all right.” Evelyn was still laughing. “Thank you for sharing. How old are you, anyway?”

“Uh…” Should I lie? There was probably no point. Braids or no braids, I’d given myself away. “Still in high school?”

She laughed, not seeming surprised at all. “So you’re what, sixteen?”

“Er… I will be soon. Really soon.”

“Uh-huh. What’s your name?”

I’d told her I was straight before I told her my name? Could this night get any more embarrassing? “Sharon.”

“Okay, you’re Sharon, you’re fifteen, and you’re straight. Wow, we already know each other so well.” Evelyn’s grin was friendly, though. Behind us, the sound of the instruments onstage had been replaced by a roar of cheers and shouts from the crowd. The Prudes’ set must have ended. “To get back to my question, what brought you to the Castro?”

“My brother, um, well, he’s…” I cut myself off when I realized I probably shouldn’t tell this stranger about Peter.

“Don’t worry, I get it.” She grinned. “Wow. When I was fifteen, I was spending my Saturday nights in a field tipping cows. Listen, Sharon, if you ever get back up into this part of town, you should come by Valencia Street Books. We want to reach out to more young women here in the city. Especially women your age who might not have a safe space where they can go. It’s a couple of blocks up, and we have volunteer meetings every week.”

“Oh, yeah. I think I’ve heard of it.”

“Eee-vieeee.” The growling voice was so familiar, I knew it was Midge Spelling before I turned my head. Her arm was around that guitar player’s—Johnny’s—shoulders, and they were both covered in sweat. Johnny had tied Midge’s trench coat around his waist, leaving her in just her black lace corset dress. Her shoulders and most of her chest were bare. “We’re gonna be in the back for a while if you want to come.”

“Cool, I will.” Evelyn took another puff on her cigarette. “This is Sharon.”

“Hey,” I said. I couldn’t stop staring at Midge. Wasn’t she cold?

“Hey.” Midge peered down. In her heels, she towered a good six inches over me. “I saw you from the stage.”

“You did?” My heart pounded in my chest.

“Yeah. When you walked in you looked like a deer stuck in the headlights.” She laughed, but it was a friendly laugh, like Evelyn’s.

“That sounds about right,” I said, and now all three of them were laughing.

I can’t believe Midge Spelling laughed at something I said. I can’t believe I even existed in the same space as Midge Spelling.

“It was fun watching you dance once you got into it, though,” she went on. It must’ve been another joke, but before I could laugh she’d already turned back to Johnny. “See you around.”

They walked off with their arms wrapped around each other’s waists.

“I’d better go.” Evelyn lifted her chin toward the stage, where another band was setting up. Two of the guys were pointing drumsticks at each other and shouting words I couldn’t make out. “You watching the next set?”

“Um. I should probably head out.”

“Cool. Anyway, come by the store if you can.”

“Cool.” I nodded. Suddenly that sounded worth considering. “I will, thanks.”

And as I turned my back, pushed my way through the thrumming crowd and walked out into the nighttime chill, there was a buzz of pleasant, unfamiliar hope thrumming under my skin, too.

Yours, Sharon

Sunday, July 3, 1977

Dear Harvey,

I HAVE PROOF.

Ha! I always knew my aunt and uncle were hypocrites, but now I have physical evidence.

Since the Miami vote, I’ve been trying to keep my head down. I got that Patti Smith album, Horses. I bought a couple of other punk albums while I was at it, but none of them can beat Patti. I listen to Horses every night before bed with my headphones plastered over my ears.

During the day, though, I can’t escape the noise of Aunt Mandy crowing about her victory. She and my uncle have been all over the news, and seeing herself on TV and hearing her own voice on the radio will always put a mammoth fucking skip in my aunt’s step.

At church this morning, half the service was about how wonderful she and Uncle Russell are, the way it’s been every week since the vote. One of the board members, Mr. Murdoch, got up and gave a speech about how lucky we are to have the two of them as our spiritual leaders. Then they took up yet another special offering for the New Way Protect Our Children Fund.

I sat there in the pew and watched as my parents and everyone else wrote out checks. The envelopes were stacked so high in the offering plates, it reminded me of those wobbly block towers my brother used to build in kindergarten. I don’t know about you, Harvey, but for me, the most satisfying part of building those towers was knocking them to smithereens afterward.

After church, all I wanted was to go home and lie on my bed and write to you, but my aunt and uncle were hosting a pre-Fourth of July barbecue, so dozens of us wound up stuffed onto their back porch. It was more of the same—everyone talking about how amazing they are, and how they’re single-handedly saving the country from sin, and how Anita Bryant must be thrilled to have such talented partners on the West Coast. I was close to puking by the end, so I told my mom I was going to the “office” in my aunt and uncle’s den to see if there was any work that needed to be done.

There wasn’t much. The phone was quiet, since it was a Sunday afternoon, and we’d just sent out a big mailing, so there were no envelopes to stuff. The offering plates were sitting on the bed, though, the envelopes already spilling out of their tower into a messy pile, so I sat down and started ripping them open and stacking up the checks for Aunt Mandy to take to the bank on Tuesday.

Every week we get envelopes in the mail with the same kind of checks. A lot of people want to make sure everyone knows they hate the gays, so they show it with their wallets. That’s a lot easier than doing the actual grunt work.

So there I was, sitting on the bed, ripping open envelopes and sorting the checks into piles—tall stacks for the $25s and $50s and $100s, a smaller one for $200s and $250s, and a tiny one for $300s and over—but I needed paper clips, so I opened the desk drawer and fished around.

Well, Harvey, guess what I just happened to find?

An old check register for the New Way Protect Our Children Fund. With all the money Aunt Mandy and Uncle Russell have spent out of those generous donations.

You’d think they’d be spending it on stamps for the mailings, or advertisements, or getting brochures printed. You’d be wrong.

Harvey, that check register was absolutely full of payments to places that have nothing to do with anybody’s children.

One check was made out to a hairdresser. Two were to a golf pro shop, and most of the others were to some radio station in L.A.

I looked up the station in the phone book, and it isn’t one where the campaign is supposed to be advertising—but it is the station that reporter came from the night of the Miami vote.

It’s also the station my aunt and uncle have spent the past three years begging to give them an hour-long show so they can, and I quote, “spread the Gospel to the ungodly.”

Aunt Mandy and Uncle Russell are stealing people’s money, Harvey. It was all right there in that fucking check register.

Once I figured out what it meant, I wasn’t even all that surprised. This is completely the kind of thing they’d do.

They don’t really give a shit about gay people. I never heard either of them say a single word about “militant homosexuality” until Anita Bryant came along. All they care about is how many people know their names. Now they’ve learned they can bring in cash if they preach about how important it is to protect all us poor innocent kids from the evil gays.

So I took it. I put that fucking check register right in my purse, Harvey. Then I found the paper clips, closed the drawer, and went right back to sorting those checks as though nothing had changed, except I was doing it all with a shit-eating grin on my face.

My aunt and uncle will probably never notice it’s gone. The dates on the register were from a few months ago, so I doubt they’re using it anymore. They must think they’re beyond the laws of earth and man that they can just leave something like that lying around and not have it come back to bite them in the end.

You know what’s funny, Harvey—I used to think every word they said was true. When I was a little kid, I’d sit there in the pew on Sundays listening to my uncle preach about how our culture was a hotbed of sin. I’d cry on my way home from church, I was so scared of going to Hell and seeing the devil up close.

Then, when I was six, one of my sister’s friends told me the truth about Santa Claus—how it was all a story our parents made up to get us to behave. I didn’t believe her, so she showed me in the dictionary where it said Santa was a “mythical figure.” By then I was old enough to know that if the dictionary said it, it was true—which meant everyone had lied to me my whole life, even my mom.

Back then, I’d trusted my mom.

That’s when I first got suspicious about God. As far as I could tell, the way adults talked about God wasn’t all that different from the way they talked about Santa. Every week in Sunday school, it was always the same: you had to be good, because God was watching.

For years, every time I thought about that—and I thought about it every Sunday, and during Bible classes at school, too—I felt horribly guilty. I was sure someone would be able to tell and I’d get in trouble, so I started being extra careful. I did everything exactly the way I was supposed to. I followed along with every word of every hymn. I never passed notes in church, even when my friends were doing it. I never ate dessert during Lent, even on my birthday when my mom said it was okay to make an exception.

But I always thought Aunt Mandy knew I was hiding something. The way she looked at me made me nervous, even then. She and Uncle Russell didn’t have any children yet, and I suspected she didn’t like kids much. She’d refused to let any of us into her living room since my sister once finger-painted her drapes, and that was before I was born.

Then, in fourth grade, we had to make a diorama for Science about an animal that was mentioned in the Bible, and I went over to my aunt and uncle’s house to look up antelopes in their encyclopedias. Back then, our house was down the street from theirs, and we were allowed to go over without calling first. No one answered when I knocked, but since everyone in our neighborhood left their doors unlocked, I’d gone into my uncle’s office and found the encyclopedias. I took some notes, and I was packing up my stuff to head home when I realized I needed to use the bathroom.

I should’ve just waited until I got back to my house. If I’d only held my fucking pee and gone out the side door…

But I didn’t. I walked down the hall to the bathroom, past the spare bedroom at the back of the house. I heard some strange squeaking noises coming from behind the door, and I got scared. As far as I knew, Uncle Russell was at church, and Aunt Mandy was out shopping.

I don’t know what made me push that door open. Did I think there was a burglar? Did I think the house was haunted? Either way, what good did I think it would do if I walked in? It doesn’t matter now, I guess.

I pushed open the door and stood there, blinking. The room was dark, the shades drawn, the overhead light off. The squeaking went on for another second, then stopped.

I don’t know how long I stood there before I understood what I was looking at. I know I peed my pants, though. Then Aunt Mandy and the man on the bed with her—he was actually closer to a boy than a man, not that much older than I am now, but back then, he seemed like a grown-up—disentangled themselves and pulled their clothes back on. Aunt Mandy stalked up to me, standing so tall and lifting her chin so high it was clear I was the one who was in trouble.

It’s only because I’ve replayed this moment in my head so many times that I remember how disheveled she looked. Her pantyhose were on the floor by the bed, her hair was matted and sticking up in the back, and her blouse was half-unbuttoned.

And me? I was standing there in wet green corduroys, shaking so hard I couldn’t move or speak. I could only wait for her to tell me what to do, the way I always did.

“No one will believe you if you tell,” she said, without the slightest hint of a waver in her voice. “And if you do, I’ll make sure your parents find out exactly what kind of child you really are.”

I couldn’t move. It had never occurred to me to tell anyone else about what I’d seen. I didn’t even understand what I had seen.

“I know you’re not a good girl, Tammy.” Aunt Mandy’s eyes were locked on my face. It hurt to look back, so I flicked my eyes to the man behind her. He was getting dressed, and I realized then that I’d seen his naked butt before. Ew.

Aunt Mandy grabbed my chin and jerked it upward until I had no choice but to meet her gaze. I froze.

“I know your heart,” she said, “and God knows it, too. We know all your little secrets.”

I unfroze and sucked in a breath. She knew? How?

See, now I know Aunt Mandy isn’t superhuman, for all that she’d used the word “we.” As if she was God and the queen and some two-timing preacher’s wife from Ohio all at the same time.

Then, though, I was nine, and I was scared, and I’d just seen a guy’s naked butt in the middle of the afternoon. I believed her when she said she knew all my secrets.

It wasn’t just some guy, either. I know that now, too. It took me until the next Sunday at church before I placed him—he was George Tinley. His father was a board member, one of the church’s cofounders who’d worked with Aunt Mandy on the school-board elections years before. George went to UCLA, but he came back to town during his school breaks. After I caught them, though, he stopped coming around, and before long, his parents moved to Nevada.

I have no idea when George and my aunt first started sleeping together—whether it went on for months or years, or whether it was only that one afternoon. But knowing wouldn’t erase the memory of pissing myself, or the sight of my aunt’s legs around his waist.

Sorry if that was too graphic, Harvey. My heart’s pounding writing all this down. I haven’t thought about it, not this clearly, for years. I’ve been trying not to think about it.

I should’ve realized then what a fucking hypocrite she was. All I could think about was what she’d said, about knowing all my secrets.

I believed her, Harvey. For years. Part of me still does.

She can’t know the whole truth—I’ve kept this secret so well, for so long, it’s all I think about most of the time—but I can’t shake the feeling that in some bizarre, impossible way, she does. Sometimes I’ll talk myself out of it, but then I’ll catch her giving me a cold, dark look across the sanctuary, and a shiver will run through me as it all comes back.

She was right, too. No one would’ve believed me if I’d told.

Besides, who would I tell? My mother? Aunt Mandy’s big sister, the one who took care of her after their parents died? The one who brought her out to California, then watched without bothering to get involved as her 18-year-old sister married the 33-year-old Reverend Russell Dale and slowly took over the entire family?

For all I know, my cousin Eddie isn’t actually Uncle Russell’s kid. He was born not that long after I caught my aunt with George. Maybe my aunt’s been lying to everyone for even longer than me.

Or maybe she really is the Old Testament God in earthly form, and she’ll rain down her punishments on anyone who doesn’t do her bidding.

Which do you think is more likely, Harvey?

The check register’s still in my purse. Maybe I’ll keep it there for good. I bring my purse everywhere, so I won’t have to worry about anyone finding it.

Maybe I’ll start carrying this diary in there, too. That way I’ll know my secrets are always safe.

From now on, whenever I’m listening to someone talk about how my aunt is God’s gift to humanity, I can reach in my purse, feel that fucking check register with my fingers, and remember I have solid evidence that she’s anything but.

It doesn’t matter what she thinks of me. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks. I’ve wasted so much time being scared of her, Harvey. She’s the one who should be afraid of me.

Peace, Tammy

Wednesday, July 6, 1977

Dear Tammy,

I hope you had a good Fourth of July. Do you have a summer job? I’ve been babysitting for a few families in the neighborhood. There’s one on our block that has eight kids, and I spent the Fourth with them. They have a five-year-old named Jack who’s terrified of blue fireworks, but not any other color, so every time a blue one came, I covered his eyes with my hands. We were both laughing by the end.

I really liked reading about your big family in your last letter. Mine is so small, I forget sometimes that it’s not that way for everyone. It must be nice having all those sisters and aunts and uncles around.

Here’s my answer to the next question on the list:

What are your favorite hobbies?

I play softball in my church league. Or I did, up until last year, when our coach moved to Michigan and our team disbanded.

Also, I don’t know if this counts as a hobby, but have you ever listened to punk music? Last weekend I went to a punk show for the first time and I loved it. Have you ever felt as if you didn’t belong? I do, a lot of the time—well, most of the time—but that night the music was so intense, it was as if I didn’t have to worry about any of it anymore.

I haven’t told my friends. They mostly listen to Peter Frampton and Ted Nugent. But I wondered if maybe things were different in southern California.

Yours truly, Sharon Hawkins

P.S. Sorry, I know I just asked you questions that aren’t on the official list for the pen pal project. It’s okay if you don’t have time to answer. Going to that show the other night reminded me of how lonely I get sometimes. You know what, never mind, this probably sounds stupid.

Wednesday, July 13, 1977

Dear Sharon,

Are you kidding me?

You like punk? I don’t know anyone who listens to punk!

When you said you didn’t know Patti Smith, I assumed that meant you weren’t a fan, but this changes everything.

What bands did you see? Tell me every detail! I’ve never been to a show—punk bands don’t come to Orange County—but I want to see one so bad.

I only have a few albums so far, the ones the guy at the record store said were good, but after Patti, my favorites are the Ramones and the Dictators. Have you heard the Dictators’ version of “I Got You Babe”? It’s so funny. I like Cher—her show’s my favorite one on TV—but some of her music is kind of cheesy.

If you ever got to see Patti live, I think I might literally die. Her Horses album changed my life. Or maybe it’s in the process of changing it right now. I’m still a work in progress. Just knowing Patti exists makes me feel a little less strange sometimes.

Wow, I wonder what the odds are that we got matched up as pen pals when we seem to be the only two people either of us knows who likes punk. (Why don’t your friends listen to it, though? I thought it’d be huge in San Francisco.)

Anyway, speaking of works in progress, my main hobby is art. I make collages. My art teacher says collages aren’t real art, so I can’t turn them in for credit, which I guess makes it a hobby. It’s fun, though. Messing around with pencils and glue and magazines is a great way to tune out whenever I start worrying too much.

I don’t know if I have any other hobbies, unless you count volunteering with my church. Everything around here is kind of about church, one way or another. You’re Catholic, right? My uncle started New Way Baptist, the biggest church in our part of Orange County. People come from towns all around here every week to hear him preach and to sign up for whatever campaign my aunt’s working on. I work on the campaigns, too, sometimes with my youth group and sometimes on my own. For the past few months, I’ve been stuffing a lot of envelopes in my aunt and uncle’s den.

Sorry, this turned into another long letter! I promise I’ll try to keep it short next time.

Yours truly, Tammy

P.S. I forgot you asked about having a summer job. I just started training as a lifeguard at the country-club pool. I got incredibly sunburned on my first day and now I have to sit under an umbrella, which is embarrassing.

Also, I saw where you crossed something out in your last letter. Don’t worry, I didn’t try to read it. I looked back and saw that I crossed something out here, too, but I wanted to say that if there’s anything you want to tell me, you can. We’re never going to meet and we don’t know any of the same people, so we could talk about stuff we might not want to tell other people. If you wanted to, I mean.

Wednesday, July 20, 1977

Dear Tammy,

How did Patti Smith change your life? Does your life need changing? It seems really cool already.

The day after I got your letter I got paid from one of my babysitting jobs, so I went straight to the record store and bought that Patti Smith album, Horses. I don’t know that much about punk yet, but I want to go to more shows. I think there’s a bigger club in North Beach, and I can take the bus there. If I ever find out Patti Smith is coming, I’ll write and tell you first thing.

Her album—wow, you weren’t kidding. Just looking at the picture on the cover was kind of shocking. I’ve never seen a girl who looked like her. I had to hide it from my mom before I’d even played it.

But the songs—wow all over again. Her words are almost poetry, only it’s really creepy poetry.

I’ve listened to the whole album all the way through I don’t know how many times, but I always hear words I didn’t catch before. Plus, her voice sounds strange, too. Almost like a man’s.

It’s as though Patti Smith lives in a different world, and it’s a scary world, but it’s also real in a way that this world isn’t. Do you know what I mean? It’s as if everyone else is so busy being fake all the time, but Patti Smith’s actually being honest, and it’s the first time anyone ever has been. She isn’t trying to pretend the world’s perfect and happy and shiny all the time.

Do you ever think there might be this huge worldwide conspiracy to convince us that our lives will be perfect if we just do what we’re supposed to do? I don’t know if this happens at your school, but here we get lectures about how important it is to tuck in your shirt to honor the Lord, and at dances, the teachers walk around with balloons that they slide in between couples while they’re dancing to make sure they “leave space for the holy ghost.” Once, in fifth grade, my friend Rhonda got her hand slapped with a ruler because a teacher heard her say “dang it” at recess.

The way they all seem to see it, if we follow the rules—don’t drink or smoke or have sex until we’re married, don’t wear skirts that show our knees, always go to church on Sundays—we’ll be rewarded with a house and a dog and a husband and children and a picket fence and all the other things we’re supposed to want. Except I don’t know if that is what I want. I’m allergic to dogs, for one thing. Plus, I’m sure my mother wanted all those things when she was my age, but she followed all the rules and my dad left anyway. What’s the point?

Wow. Okay, I’m sorry. I know you said we could be honest in these letters, but I’m still tempted to cross out some of what I just wrote.

It’s only that…it was kind of nice, putting all that down. I have a diary, but that’s mostly for writing about what I’ve been doing lately. This feels different.

So I’ll leave it. I should probably ask you not to put it in your report, but you don’t seem like someone who’d tell your teachers on me.

Shoot, it’s getting late and I haven’t even looked at the question list. Oh—favorite TV show. This one’s easy, because it’s the same as yours—Sonny & Cher. Or, well, I can’t stand Sonny, but Cher is hilarious. Even if her music is basically the opposite of Patti Smith’s.

My boyfriend says Sonny and Cher represent middle America’s response to the hippie movement. I haven’t told him I’ve started listening to punk yet, but he’ll probably have an opinion on that, too. He wants to be a psychiatrist, but he can’t afford med school, so he’s majoring in business at SF State.

Yikes, sorry, I’d better stop and go to bed or this will be our longest letter yet!

Yours truly, Sharon

Wednesday, July 27, 1977

Dear Sharon,

I really enjoy getting these letters from you. It’s interesting hearing about your life in San Francisco. I never would’ve thought teachers there would slap kids with rulers. Maybe your city isn’t as different from here as I thought.

Also, I liked what you said—about picket fences and all that. I know exactly what you mean. Exactly.

My school sounds a lot more similar to yours than I expected. Plus, it’s kind of hilarious that we’re both into Cher and punk music.

Would it be okay if I asked you another question that isn’t on the list? I want to know what it’s like having a boyfriend. I’ve never had a real one, I’ve only gone to parties and stuff with guys. My sister says the best thing about having a boyfriend is that you don’t have to worry about whether anyone will ask you to dances, but I hope she was joking.

Yours truly, Tammy

Sunday, July 31, 1977

Dear Diary,

I think my brother’s mad at me.

We were leaving church this morning, and it was gorgeous out. The fog had burned away while we were inside, and I peeled off my cardigan and slung it over my purse. I was wearing a new tunic dress, a yellow one with cap sleeves, and Mom frowned down at my bare arms.

I tried to come up with a strategy in case she ordered me to put my cardigan back on. I could tell her we were outside, and that I’d bought the dress myself, with my own money. Or that I was almost sixteen and what I wore was my decision, and besides, there was nothing inappropriate about wearing a cap-sleeve dress outside, even on the church steps.

But before Mom could comment on my arms, Mrs. Upton started talking about local politics.

“It’s these strange supervisor elections they’re having now,” Mrs. Upton said, fanning herself with a bulletin. She was my Sunday school teacher when I was in fourth-through-sixth grades, and somehow she looks twenty years older now than she did then. And she looked awfully old then. “District elections. I can’t keep track of the candidates anymore.”

“That police officer from our neighborhood is running,” Mom told her in the same voice she uses with students who are particularly slow at algebra. “The one who saved the family during that awful fire—Mr. White. He says he’ll clean up the city.”

“Oh, good. Someone needs to clear out all that revolting nonsense.” Mrs. Upton tilted her head meaningfully, and Mom tilted hers back in agreement.

I glanced around for Peter so we could roll our eyes. He’d been right behind us on the steps, but suddenly there was no sign of him. Mom and Mrs. Upton kept walking, still talking about politics, but I hung back, and a minute later I got a glimpse of my brother’s jacket behind a column off to the far side of the steps.

“What are you doing?” I asked when I reached him. He was alone in the narrow space between the column and a stained-glass window, his shoulders hunched.

“Nothing.” He glanced my way and sagged back against the column. “Just needed to get away.”

“I know what you mean. I can’t stand Mrs. Upton, either.”

“It’s not Mrs. Upton. It’s Mom.” He peered around the column, then added in a whisper, “I can’t believe she wants to vote for Dan White.”

“I’ve never heard of that guy. Aren’t there a ton of people running?”

“Yeah, but he’s the only one promising to get rid of social deviants.” Peter said the last two words in a high-pitched whisper. “He’d carpet-bomb the Castro if he could.”

“Wait, what?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Can you believe what Mom said? About ‘cleaning up the city’?”

“What about it?”

“Come on, you know that’s code for getting rid of all those ‘disgusting homosexuals’ up in Eureka Valley.”

“How do you know? She could have meant anything. Most of the city is literally just dirty.”

“It doesn’t mean just anything. It never does.” Peter rolled his eyes. At me, though, not Mom or Mrs. Upton. “But you don’t get it, because it isn’t about you.”

I sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry.”

“You never even wanted to go back there with me after that one time. I asked you to come stuff envelopes for Harvey, but all you ever want to do is listen to those bands with the stupid names.”

That hurt, but he wasn’t wrong. Twice he’d invited me to join him at Harvey Milk’s camera shop to put together mailings with the other campaign volunteers, but I’d said no. I didn’t like being the only girl around a bunch of gay men.

But I hated the way Peter was looking at me. As if I’d failed him.

“I already knew Mom thought that way.” He tilted his head back, talking to the sky now instead of me. “It just sucks that she’s supporting this jackass.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve got to go.” He pushed off the wall and turned his back to me. “Tell Mom I’m over at a friend’s for lunch.”

“Where are you really going?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He left, stalking up the street in his church suit, heading north. Toward the bus stop.

I could’ve chased after him. Instead I went back to catch up with Mom, said goodbye to Mrs. Upton, and walked the rest of the way home, nodding along while Mom told me not to take off my cardigan until we’d left church grounds next time.

When we got home, I came straight upstairs to my room and got my diary out from under my pillow. I thought if I wrote this down I’d be able to sort it all out in my head, but I don’t feel any better now than I did when my brother first walked away from me.

Yours, Sharon

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