Robin Talley - Pulp

She swung around a corner into the huge, vacant main stairwell, listening out for footsteps in the hall behind her. Nothing came.

Abby climbed up one floor, and then another. The third floor looked empty. Surely Dad wouldn’t think to look for her up here. When they got out of their meeting he’d assume she’d already gone home, and he’d take Ethan somewhere to give him a talking-to.

She opened her laptop with shaky hands, though she wasn’t sure why—it wasn’t as if she could focus enough to do homework right now.

That was when Abby noticed the ebook sitting on her desktop, staring at her. Women of the Twilight Realm. Without pausing to think, she clicked it open. She was still on the third chapter, and the point of view had switched from Elaine to another character.

The new girl was magnificent.

She was young, certainly—no more than twenty or so. Her hand-stitched clothes marked her as a stranger to New York. She was a stranger to bars like Mitch’s Corner, too, Paula was sure of it. She’d seen enough first-timers to know the mix of apprehension and anticipation they always carried, even when they were doing their best to look tough. Before tonight, the pretty, little blond girl hovering by the jukebox with an unlit cigarette clamped between her fingers had never set foot in a queer bar.

She’d thought about it, though—Paula was certain of that much, too. There was something about the steely set of the new girl’s hips, and the way every so often she cast her eyes from side to side, watching the bar’s patrons as they danced and drank and talked. Yes, the girl might be new, but she wasn’t a total innocent.

Paula ordered a beer and a martini, and then, holding the drinks tight, sauntered over beside the new girl to peer down at the jukebox. The blond didn’t look up.

“The songs in that thing are no good,” Paula said, lifting the martini glass. “Old Max is so stingy he probably hasn’t bought a new record since the Hoover years.”

The blond met Paula’s eyes for a moment, then shifted her gaze back to her own white schoolgirl blouse.

Paula smiled. The new girl’s nerves only made her look prettier.

“I suppose I wasn’t really looking for a good song.” The girl took the offered martini and drained half of it in one gulp. “I only hoped that if I waited long enough, someone interesting might come over and talk to me.”

Paula didn’t bother trying to conceal her reaction. She laughed, long and loud, and let herself relax a little. “I hope I fit the bill.”

The girl appraised Paula, taking in her height, her faded brown slacks, the full glass of beer sweating in her hand.

“Interesting, yes.” The girl nodded. “So far. But if I’m going to make a full assessment, I think we’ll need to dance.”

Paula smiled. If she was going to keep up with this one, she’d need to be quick. She took both drinks and set them on the little table next to the jukebox, then looped her arm around the girl’s back and steered her toward the dance floor.

“You got a name, new girl?” she asked, teasing, as they started to dance.

“Elaine.”

“It’s a pleasure, Elaine. I’m Paula.”

“Well, Paula, what do the girls do for fun in this city when they’re not sipping martinis and dancing to old records here in Mitch’s Corner?”

Paula smiled again, winding her arm around Elaine’s back to pull her in close. “I can only speak for myself, Elaine, but I like to hit the movies.”

“Alone?”

“If I have to. But I’ve found everything looks better when there’s a pretty girl by your side.”

Abby tilted her chin to the ceiling. In spite of herself, a grin crept onto her face.

Meet-cutes were overdone, but Abby had always loved those old-fashioned romance novels the library had on spinner racks. The formulaic romantic comedies you could get on Netflix, too. They were all so predictable. Maybe that was why it was so delightful to lose herself in them.

She could recite the plot template by heart. A woman and (usually) a man met, traded witty banter and fell in love. There was always some stupid obstacle to them living happily ever after—one of them was a cattle rancher and the other one was a vegetarian, or one was a workaholic and the other was a manic pixie dream girl, or whatever—but they figured out how to overcome it and learned important lessons along the way. Then they did live happily ever after, without ever encountering a single problem for the rest of their lives.

It was all ridiculous and silly and unrealistic. Abby knew that. She’d only ever been in love with one person, but she still knew fantasy when she saw it.

Love didn’t conquer all. Whatever else was going on in the lives of Paula and Elaine outside that smoky bar in 1956 wasn’t going to stop just because the two of them had danced and bantered.

But God, it would be fucking wonderful if it did.

Abby settled down with her back against the wall and clicked through to the next page. She put in her headphones so she wouldn’t hear anything from downstairs and focused on the screen in front of her.

It wouldn’t be so bad to lose herself again.

“Welcome to the Soda Shoppe, your top spot for a refreshing drink and a bite to eat. I’ll be your carhop this afternoon.”

“Hi there, honey. Could I get a cheese sandwich and a Summer Freeze?”

“Righty-o.” Janet suppressed a yawn as she scribbled down the order from the bald man in the station wagon.

Someone whispered loudly over her shoulder. “Janet? Janet! Over here!”

Janet didn’t let her smile slip as she delivered the next line in her script—“Back in a jiff!”—and trotted away from the station wagon to see Shirley, one of her fellow carhops, looking anxious.

“Could you cover car nine for me?” Shirley shifted from one foot to the other. “I haven’t had my break yet and I’m about to burst.”

Janet glanced over her shoulder. “Sure. You’d better hurry or Mr. Pritchard will see.”

“Thanks, Janet. You’re a star.”

Janet waved her on and trotted to space nine. Carhops were permitted to trot across the parking lot, but never to run. Mr. Pritchard, who watched over the staff with an unyielding expression and a blue vinyl apron tied snugly around his middle, was even stricter about running on shift than he was about break schedules.

Janet took down car nine’s order and trotted inside to the food counter. The Soda Shoppe had started out as a regular restaurant, with tables inside and waitresses to serve them, before Mr. Pritchard realized he could make a lot more money sending high school girls out to the parking lot while the customers sat in their Oldsmobiles and Chevrolets. Now the shiny lunch counter inside sat empty while Janet, Shirley and the other girls wore out their saddle shoes trotting from car to car in their too-hot-for-summer-in-Washington cotton uniforms.

As she lifted her tray, Janet gazed at the empty phone booth that sat at the edge of the parking lot, the cars on M Street whizzing past.

Soon. Janet’s shift would end soon, and then she could call her. That prospect was the only thing getting her through the afternoon’s endless script recitations and grease drips.

So an hour later, when the last car of her long lunch shift finally pulled away, Janet rushed to finish her side work, folding napkins and marrying ketchup bottles faster than she ever had before. She tapped her fingers on her apron while Mr. Pritchard inspected her station, and when he finally cleared her to go Janet trotted as fast as she could to the phone booth and shoved a dime into the slot.