The Year They Burned the Books

After supper, Jamie went up to her room to tackle her math homework, but found her mind drifting to Tessa and then to Terry and Ernie. “A Maybe Probably,” she muttered, twisting her pencil between her thumb and forefinger. “No, a Probably Probably. So what am I?” She gazed out her window at the working harbor, watching the lights and trying to keep her mind blank. But soon she gave up and tried again to work. After a few unsuccessful minutes, her eyes strayed to the corner of her desk and her copy of the press release announcing the new health education curriculum:

Homosexuality is to be integrated into lifestyle discussions at all grade levels. Books dealing with gay families should be available in primary and elementary libraries, along with books dealing with mixed-race and other minority families. English and social studies teachers in middle school and high school should acknowledge the sexual orientation, if relevant, of authors, political figures, athletes, etc., just as they acknowledge the gender and the racial and ethnic backgrounds of such people. Gay relationships should be acknowledged in sex education classes in a nonjudgmental way at all levels when relationships are discussed. The purpose of this curriculum is not to encourage any particular lifestyle or behavior but rather to reflect the world as it is, so our students can better understand it.

“I wish them luck” is what Jamie’s father had said when her mother had brought that statement home from a committee meeting during the summer.

“Gross!” was Ronnie’s comment; Mrs. Crawford had shushed him promptly.

And Jamie had sat there silently at the dinner table, a sudden lump in her throat, fighting tears, for where had that curriculum been back when she and Terry were in elementary school, being teased, or in middle school, and wondering?

“Too little, too late,” she muttered now, going to her closet and rooting in its back corner for the small locked strongbox she’d kept there for several years in which she filed newspaper clippings about gay people and issues, state laws and city ordinances, photos of events like Gay Pride Day parades, plus a list of books and an old yellow notebook—a diary she’d kept sporadically since eighth grade. She closed the door to her room, unlocked the strongbox, and flipped through some of the diary’s entries:

Who am I? What am I? How can I go on not knowing?…

I feel like I’m going to burst; Sally Lawrence smiled at me!…

Terry says he dreamed a boy was kissing him. God, if I could only dream that Sally was kissing me!…

Sally’s got a boyfriend. I think I’m going to die …

I feel so weird. I feel so alone. If it weren’t for Terry, I think I’d want to kill myself. Everyone assumes everyone is straight. WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE LIKE US who aren’t sure, who might not be straight? I know they’re somewhere; sometimes gay people are in books or on TV or in the movies—but there sure don’t seem to be any in Wilson …

I wish I could meet a girl who isn’t boy crazy. Then maybe I could know. (But maybe I really do know?) I wish some gorgeous girl would move to Wilson and like me. No—she doesn’t have to be gorgeous, just nice. My arms feel like they want to hug someone, and I hug Terry and my parents and sometimes even my brother, and Nomi, too, and that’s nice, but it’s not the same. Terry’s body’s so hard when I hug him; his chest is stiff and hard. So’s Dad’s. I know I’d rather hug a girl; heck, I’d rather hug Mom or Nomi; they’re more—comfortable, I guess would be the word, maybe. Well, more than that, too; sometimes I wonder what I want when I hug Nomi, but anyway, we don’t hug much. But it’s not only that. I want someone who’s more than a friend, someone who’s always there for me, someone who I can tell anything to, someone who I can hold and who’ll hold me, who … I’d better stop …

I saw a girl today on the beach who must have come off one of the yachts or something. She was golden; her bathing suit was yellow and she had this neat tan and her hair was long and blond and she smiled at me! I smiled back, and I was going to try to go over and talk to her, but then this boy came along and she smiled at him, more like she meant it than when she’d smiled at me, and he sat down next to her. Lucky guy!…

I feel like I’m floating, waiting for my real life to happen, waiting to meet myself. Sometimes I don’t care if I’m straight or gay; I just want to know. Sometimes—a lot of the time—I’m scared of being gay. What will happen to me? What will Mom and Dad and Ronnie say? Will newspapers hire me? Can I be fired if they find out? Will I get AIDS? Is it evil to be gay? Does God really hate gay people? I want to find someone to live with, like we were married, but is that possible? The books I’ve read seem to say it is, but they’re books; maybe they’re not true. And I know there are laws against gay people marrying. But I read a newspaper article about two lesbians adopting a baby; is that really possible? A baby would be nice …

Maybe there’s something terribly wrong with me, something that doesn’t have anything to do with being gay …

Jamie closed her yellow notebook. Then she opened it again and, hesitantly, wrote:

I’ve met someone. I’ve met someone I think I could really like. Terry’s met someone, too, so maybe I’m just saying I could really like the girl I’ve met because I’m jealous. I don’t think so, though. I know I’m scared. Suppose I really like this girl and she’s straight? I mean, she must be straight; most everyone is. I should ignore her. But I think she’s going to be photo editor, so I can’t ignore her. God, I wish I’d never met her! I wish she hadn’t come to Wilson …

But that’s not true, Jamie thought, locking the notebook in the box again and returning it to her closet. She’d never been sure if her mother had found the box or not, cleaning; if she had, she hadn’t said anything. Sometimes Jamie almost wished her mother would find it, so they could talk about it, but most of the time she was glad she probably hadn’t.

What will happen, Jamie wondered, when Terry tells his parents?

What would happen if I told mine?

Early Thursday morning, deadline time, there was a manila envelope of photos but no op-ed piece in the newspaper’s mailbox, so Jamie waited for Nomi on the school steps before first period, forcing herself not to open the envelope. There was no indication on it of who’d submitted it, but Jamie was pretty sure it was from Tessa.

Brandon Tomkins and Al Checkers sauntered across the student parking lot. Sam Mills, a sophomore who had gravitated to Brandon the way iron gravitates to a magnet, followed in their wake.

Brandon’s head was almost devoid of hair, Jamie noticed, the word “skinhead” popping into her mind; he must have had it shaved during the summer. As usual, his slack lips gave his face a sullen, hungry look, and his biceps, showing below the sleeves of his T-shirt, bulged and rippled even more than they had last year. Brandon was captain of the wrestling team; he and Al worked out as religiously as kids like Ernie studied.

Al, shorter and thicker than Brandon, didn’t seem to have changed at all over the summer. He still dressed neatly in chinos instead of jeans, and his usual light-blue Oxford shirt was stiffly pressed. He was handsome in a rugged, angular way, and his posture was as erect and military as Brandon’s was slouched and indolent.

As Jamie watched Brandon and Sam stub out cigarettes as they crossed the driveway to the steps just ahead of a group of nervous-looking freshmen, it was clearer than ever to her that Sam was modeling himself after the other two. He dressed like Al, although he was chubby instead of stocky, and his head was shaved like Brandon’s. He walked like Brandon, too, Jamie realized as he sauntered up to his girlfriend, Karen Hodges, a pretty sophomore with light brown braids, and put his arm possessively around her.

“Hey, butch,” Brandon called to Jamie, “getting any?”

Karen giggled.

Jamie ignored the comment, as she always did now, though as usual she felt it stab inside.

Senior class beauty Vicky Chase met Brandon and his friends at the school door with a kiss and a toss of her pale blond hair. Then she looked beyond him and smiled, giving a little finger wave; Jamie, suddenly realizing the wave was meant for her, waved back.

She had always liked Vicky, though some girls didn’t almost on principle, since boys flocked to Vicky whether she wanted them to or not. Mostly, it was clear, she did want them to, but despite expectations to the contrary, Jamie knew Vicky’d never stolen another girl’s boyfriend and probably never would. “Poor Vicky,” Jamie’s mother had commented when, hours after a junior high dance, several older boys had gone to Vicky’s house and shouted her name repeatedly, waking her parents and mortifying her. “It’s not always wonderful to be beautiful,” Mrs. Crawford had said. Even though now it was obvious that Vicky could take care of herself with men, Jamie had never forgotten that.

Now, as Cindy and Jack came up to Jamie, Vicky called out, “I’m really looking forward to the paper this year, you guys!”

“Thanks,” Jamie called back, and Cindy and Jack waved.

“Is Nomi doing that op-ed?” Cindy asked, turning to Jamie, and when Jamie said, “I sure hope so,” Cindy answered, “I almost wish I could write it, but it’d be quite a stretch. I’m glad about the condoms—we both are, right, Jack?”

“Right,” Jack said emphatically. “Trouble with getting that op-ed is that most kids are for it, the condoms, I mean. I’ll ask around, though, in case Nomi doesn’t come through. Okay?”

“Sure,” Jamie answered as Cindy pulled Jack to the door. “Thanks.”

Terry ran up the steps soon after Cindy and Jack went in, stopped for a second, and quipped, “Waiting for the bus?” As he ducked inside, Jamie spotted Nomi’s boyfriend’s car rounding the corner, heading for the student parking lot. Jamie had always liked Clark Alman, who occasionally wrote for the paper. Last year he’d contributed several profiles of teachers who’d done interesting things, like the math teacher who’d written a novel and the French teacher who’d spent a summer sailing along the Eastern U.S. coast. Clark was head of the youth group at Lord’s Assembly Church; Nomi had started dating him soon after she’d joined the group last year. Al Checkers had joined then, too, much to everyone’s surprise—even, apparently, Brandon’s, for Brandon had made some heavy-handed jokes about “getting religion” that rumor had it had almost cost him Al’s friendship. Not quite, though, Jamie had observed with disappointment, feeling that Brandon and Al would lose some of their power if they were no longer able to egg each other on.

In a few minutes, Nomi and Clark came toward her, Clark with his arm lightly across Nomi’s shoulders and Nomi snuggled under it. They walked together fluidly, as if they shared the same body.

Could I walk like that with a girl—with Tessa—Jamie caught herself wondering as she ran down the steps to meet them.

“Hey, guys,” she called as casually as she could. “Deadline day, Nom’. Got an op-ed for me?”

Nomi glanced at Clark, then brushed back her soft red hair with her free hand. “No, Jamie, I—no, I don’t. I’m sorry. I thought about it, but I’m no good at writing. And anyway,” she went on, as if embarrassed, “Mom’s had me listening to her campaign speech for school committee, and I’m working on this really big painting, and I’m way behind in the social studies reading, and I just …”

“What Nomi’s saying,” Clark explained, his brown eyes twinkling, “is that she doesn’t have an op-ed.”

Jamie tried to disguise her disappointment. “If you keep it short, Nom’, I can wait till lunchtime.”

“No, no, Jamie, thanks.”

Jamie put her hand on Nomi’s arm. “I’ll help you if you want. I could look it over when you’ve done it, or we could talk it through.” She paused; Nomi looked very uncomfortable. “Matt was right, Nomi,” she said gently. “We should represent both sides.”

“I know, Jamie, but … I even asked Clark if he’d write it.”

“But I’ve got this killer of a chem assignment, and I just didn’t have time. If I’d known earlier …”

Jamie turned to him, giving up on Nomi. “It’d be perfect for you, Clark. Look, how about I let you have till first thing tomorrow? We’re having to hold space for a piece about the school committee meeting tonight anyway; maybe the print shop people will be willing to wait till tomorrow for the op-ed, too.”

“No good,” said Clark.

“Oh, come on, guys; maybe you could even write the op-ed together, at lunch or something. Please? Please with sugar? Whipped cream? Strawberries?”

Clark laughed and Nomi smiled, but they both shook their heads.

And then the bell rang, sending them all inside.

During the day, Jamie asked several other people if they’d write an op-ed against the nurse’s handing out condoms, but just about everyone she spoke to was on the pro side. The others said they didn’t have time or didn’t want to air their views in public. Right before last period, Jack told her he’d had the same experience.

After school in the newspaper office, Jamie handed Matt her editorial; he scanned it, nodding as he read. “Good piece,” he said, giving it back to her. “Now you’ve got an op-ed, right, Nomi?”

Nomi looked up from the layout table where she was working on the last of Cindy’s ads. “No, I didn’t do it.”

“How come?”

“I—I can’t write, Matt. I’m an artist, not a writer. And I didn’t really say I’d do it.” She turned to Jamie. “Did I?”

“No,” Jamie said. “I guess you didn’t. But …”

Matt glanced at Jamie, then said, “You don’t have to be all that eloquent to write an op-ed. We really do need something to balance Jamie’s point of view.”

“I’ve already tried unsuccessfully to get someone else,” Jamie said. “And so has Jack. But maybe I could add a request at the end of the editorial, inviting kids to submit op-eds for next week’s paper. I guess since this is the first issue, we could reprint the welcome page from the school handbook to fill the space we’ve been saving for the op-ed.”

“Good idea.” Matt handed her editorial back to her as Terry came in and sat down quietly next to Nomi. “Do it. Just put a line or two in italics at the end of your editorial asking for other opinions; don’t weaken your ending. Now—is there anything else I haven’t seen yet? Stories from staff reporters? Ads?”

“Nope,” said Jamie. “You’ve seen it all. We just have to leave space for my report of the school committee candidates’ night tonight. We can go ahead and take everything else to the print shop and drop off the school committee piece early tomorrow morning. Let me just write that op-ed request.” She scrawled a couple of lines at the bottom of her editorial and handed it to Matt.

“Nice,” Matt said, after reading it, so Jamie added the lines on her computer, printed out the final piece, and handed it to Nomi. “That’ll do the trick, I think,” Matt went on. “At least it’ll show we want to represent the other side. Okay—let’s have a look at the photo applications. We’re going to need a picture of the school committee candidates, and we might as well ask whoever gets the job to go tonight and take it.”

Jamie reached for the three blank manila envelopes on the back of her desk; she’d purposely shuffled them around so she couldn’t tell anymore which one was Tessa’s. Terry and Nomi moved a little aside as Jamie spread the photos out in three rows on the layout table.

Matt gave a low whistle. “There’s no doubt. No doubt at all.” He pointed to the middle row of pictures. “These are absolutely the best. At least in my opinion. Jamie?”

Please let them be Tessa’s, Jamie prayed silently. Aloud, while Nomi and Terry murmured agreement, she said, “Yeah, you’re right.”

The photos in the middle were the sharpest and clearest, but more than that, they showed a fine sense of composition, and something potentially newsworthy was happening in each one. There was Lord’s Assembly Church, but not just the church: a small girl was sitting tearfully on the steps, clutching a broken doll. Next was the working harbor, as background to a close-up of a lobster boat, unloading. The last photo showed the souvenir shop in the center of town, with a huge RV in front of it. A middle-aged male tourist was bending down beside it, examining a tire.

Matt turned over the RV photo. “I guess you can go find that new girl, Jamie. Tessa—what’s her last name?”

“Gillespie.”

“Right. Tell her she’s got the job and ask her if she can go tonight.”

Terry gave Jamie a shamelessly obvious wink, which Jamie did her best to ignore.

“I think I saw her up in the art room,” said Nomi. “Want me to tell her? It’s my mom she’s going to be photographing tonight.”

“I thought you didn’t like her,” Jamie said. “Tessa, I mean. You weren’t overly friendly when she came in.”

“She’s a good photographer. I didn’t not like her. She just seemed sort of stuck-up. And it takes a bit to get used to her looking so flamboyant.”

“She’s not stuck-up,” Jamie said angrily. Almost immediately, she felt her face redden. “I’ll go with you.”

“Which leaves me,” said Terry with a long-suffering sigh, “to take the paper to the print shop. You owe me, guys.”

Tessa was sitting near a window in a far corner of the art room, her hair backlit by the fading afternoon sun. She seemed very absorbed in what she was doing—cutting, Jamie saw as she and Nomi approached, parts of photos from larger ones and positioning them carefully on a piece of white oak-tag.

“Hi, Tessa,” Nomi said, sounding perfectly friendly. She peered over Tessa’s shoulder. “What’re you making?”

Tessa glanced from Nomi to Jamie and back again. “Just a photo collage. I put bits of old pictures together and then photograph them so they become one picture. This one’s old family photos, for my great-grandmother. What’s up?”

“You got the job,” Jamie told her. “Congratulations. You’re the new photo editor of the Wilson High Telegraph.” She studied the collage, an artfully arranged collection of pictures of men, women, babies, children, pets, and houses, spanning, Jamie could tell from the clothes, several generations and eras. Some of the photos were black-and-white faded to brown, some were clear black-and-white, and the most recent were in color, but somehow Tessa had made them all fit together, using the color to offset the black-and-white and brown ones, and vice versa. “That’s really great,” Jamie said, then thought how dumb that sounded—inadequate.

“Thanks. And”—Tessa chuckled, her eyes shining—“thanks for the job.”

“Don’t thank us,” Nomi said politely. “You earned it. Your photos were the best. And this is even better.” She pointed to the collage.

“Yeah,” Tessa said, “it is, or it’s going to be, but will my great-grandma like it? That’s the real question. She’s kind of hard to please, and it’s her ninety-eighth birthday present …”

“Wow!” Jamie eased herself onto a stool next to Tessa’s drawing board. “I never knew anyone that old.”

“Neither did I.” Tessa smiled. “Each year that’s what I tell her. ‘Great-grandma, I never knew anyone as old as you,’ and each year she tells me she never did either, and we both laugh. She’s my favorite lady.”

“I never even knew my grandmothers,” Jamie said enviously, “let alone my great-grandmothers. One of my grandmothers died when I was seven and the other one died before I was born. So did both my grandfathers.”

Tessa flashed Jamie a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. It’s good to have old people around. Some kids don’t like them, but I think they’re special. Lots of them are, anyway.”

Nomi shuffled her feet, and Jamie suddenly realized she was still there. “Yeah,” Nomi said awkwardly. “My grandfather? He’s in a nursing home, but he’s really sharp. Lots of the people there aren’t, though, you know what I mean? It’s like they’re not in their bodies anymore, and their minds don’t work. Some of them can’t think beyond the moment and others can’t seem to catch up to the moment. It’s sad. Hey,” she went on, “I hate to break this up, but I’ve got to go.” She poked Jamie as if she expected Jamie to say something, but Jamie had no idea what. “Tonight?” Nomi prompted her. “School committee?”

“Oh, right! I forgot.” She explained to Tessa about the special election. “So tonight the two candidates,” she went on, “get to make speeches to anyone who wants to listen. I’m doing the story and we’ll need a photo to go with it.”

“And,” said Tessa, putting down her scissors, “you’d like your new photo editor to take it. Sure. What time?”