older women at the branch library, a file clerk in the building with whom she sometimes shared coffee breaks, the handsome young intern who took care of her the winter she had pneumonia. It was like belonging to a secret society.
Friends introduced you to friends, and sooner or later you learned to recognize your own people. It wasn't easy, because Lesbians, contrary to popular belief, have no physical characteristics that set them apart. Sometimes it was easier with men; not always. She'd known Richard for more than a year before she found out, and then she thought the boy who told her must be mistaken. A good thing he wasn't. Richard was the best and truest friend she'd ever had.
There were ways to find out, once your curiosity was aroused. You watched for conversational clues. You carried a book like We Walk Alone or The Lonely Path to the lunchroom, and waited for the other person to make an opening. That didn't always work, because recently there was a tremendous interest in gay books on the part of straight people, but sometimes you picked up a friend that way. Or you could read one of the special magazines, Different or Spiral, but that was dangerous because only people who belonged to the club would be likely to have a copy of those. Books were safer.
There were the bars, of course. But they changed all the time, and it cost money to go to them, and Jo wasn't much of a drinker. Too, there was the danger of being picked up by the police. She had never heard of a gay girl being entrapped by a policewoman as men often were by detectives. I'd know a lady cop in any disguise, she thought, grinning at the idea. But women were sometimes taken in when a place was raided.
So it was best to meet people here and there, moving carefully and not taking off your mask unless you were sure. Dirty hypocrites they make of us, she thought. Love ought to be open and honest for everybody. Whose business is it so long as we're not hurting anyone?"
Knowing the percentages, you never betrayed anyone. If you had straight friends who knew what you were and accepted you just the same, without any reservations—she never had, but some of the boys claimed it was possible—you never gave anyone away to them. It was a little world within a world, at least ten million women in the United States according to some sociologist's estimate, and God knew how many men; assorted people walking the streets and working in stores and offices, eating in restaurants and riding on trains like everybody else, but set apart in their private lives. Sometimes she thought it was rather like being a freedom fighter or an early Christian. She wished she could go around leaving a token mark on the walls of Chicago's glass and steel catacombs, so those who came after would know that one of their own kind had passed that way.
She didn't think that Betsy was a member of that secret society. Would she ever be? Richard said it was impossible to convert anybody. A man or woman who came over from the straight world had been potentially gay all the time; it was an act of recognition, not a change. She wasn't sure she agreed with him. And she didn't know about Betsy. I'm stuck, she thought. I don't know what to do next. Gayle came in. Jo could hear her moving around the little reception room, going through all her morning beauty rituals. And in a few minutes Stan came in. He came back and sat down in her guest chair, a thing he seldom did. "Hi. How you getting along?"
"Almost ready to paste up. I have a few questions for you when you're not busy."
"Did you use all that extra wedding linage?"
"Sure, there's more fools getting married all the time."
He started to say something, and stopped. She looked at him. He was fidgeting even more than usual. She asked, "How's your mother?"
"She didn't feel very well Saturday night, but she's all right now." He moved uneasily. "The wet weather's hard on her. You haven't talked to Betsy, have you?"
She considered and discarded
Friends introduced you to friends, and sooner or later you learned to recognize your own people. It wasn't easy, because Lesbians, contrary to popular belief, have no physical characteristics that set them apart. Sometimes it was easier with men; not always. She'd known Richard for more than a year before she found out, and then she thought the boy who told her must be mistaken. A good thing he wasn't. Richard was the best and truest friend she'd ever had.
There were ways to find out, once your curiosity was aroused. You watched for conversational clues. You carried a book like We Walk Alone or The Lonely Path to the lunchroom, and waited for the other person to make an opening. That didn't always work, because recently there was a tremendous interest in gay books on the part of straight people, but sometimes you picked up a friend that way. Or you could read one of the special magazines, Different or Spiral, but that was dangerous because only people who belonged to the club would be likely to have a copy of those. Books were safer.
There were the bars, of course. But they changed all the time, and it cost money to go to them, and Jo wasn't much of a drinker. Too, there was the danger of being picked up by the police. She had never heard of a gay girl being entrapped by a policewoman as men often were by detectives. I'd know a lady cop in any disguise, she thought, grinning at the idea. But women were sometimes taken in when a place was raided.
So it was best to meet people here and there, moving carefully and not taking off your mask unless you were sure. Dirty hypocrites they make of us, she thought. Love ought to be open and honest for everybody. Whose business is it so long as we're not hurting anyone?"
Knowing the percentages, you never betrayed anyone. If you had straight friends who knew what you were and accepted you just the same, without any reservations—she never had, but some of the boys claimed it was possible—you never gave anyone away to them. It was a little world within a world, at least ten million women in the United States according to some sociologist's estimate, and God knew how many men; assorted people walking the streets and working in stores and offices, eating in restaurants and riding on trains like everybody else, but set apart in their private lives. Sometimes she thought it was rather like being a freedom fighter or an early Christian. She wished she could go around leaving a token mark on the walls of Chicago's glass and steel catacombs, so those who came after would know that one of their own kind had passed that way.
She didn't think that Betsy was a member of that secret society. Would she ever be? Richard said it was impossible to convert anybody. A man or woman who came over from the straight world had been potentially gay all the time; it was an act of recognition, not a change. She wasn't sure she agreed with him. And she didn't know about Betsy. I'm stuck, she thought. I don't know what to do next. Gayle came in. Jo could hear her moving around the little reception room, going through all her morning beauty rituals. And in a few minutes Stan came in. He came back and sat down in her guest chair, a thing he seldom did. "Hi. How you getting along?"
"Almost ready to paste up. I have a few questions for you when you're not busy."
"Did you use all that extra wedding linage?"
"Sure, there's more fools getting married all the time."
He started to say something, and stopped. She looked at him. He was fidgeting even more than usual. She asked, "How's your mother?"
"She didn't feel very well Saturday night, but she's all right now." He moved uneasily. "The wet weather's hard on her. You haven't talked to Betsy, have you?"
She considered and discarded
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