Godmother Night

by Rachel Pollack

Genres: Fantasy; Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure

Synopsis

Almost a set of short stories, this novel breaks into discrete episodes, centered on identity, love, and death. Jaqe has no identity until she meets Laurie, introduced and named by Mother Night; in that moment, she knows herself, and that she loves Laurie. But once Mother Night has become part of their lives, Laurie and Jaqe and their daughter Kate cannot live as other people do. Knowing Death, inevitably each of them seeks to use the knowledge, to bargain with Death, and to change the terms in the balance of life and death in the world. Pollack's characters, major and supporting, living, dead, and divine, are memorably human. As she transplants myths and folklore into a modern setting, she gives new life to old tales and a deeper meaning to a seemingly simple world. Winner of the World Fantasy Award for best novel, 1997

Release date: June 30, 2014

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 349

Sample

There were once two women who lived on the back of a turtle. Their home lay on the edge of a city at the end of a river, where saltwater surged in from the sea. Far away, by other towns and rivers, the rocks and trees and black roads of the land ended by a second sea, so that the country where the women lived rose up out of the water like a turtle drawn to memories of the sun. A great variety of people had come to live in this land. Most of them thought of the country as somehow the same as the laws and committees pasted like artificial mushrooms on the surface of the Earth. But the people who had lived there first, who may have come across a bridge from somewhere else, or may have woken up in darkness and emerged through holes into the light, or may have followed a lizard or a fish or a bird or even a turtle through tunnels up to the sun, these people who had lived there so long understood that the land is nothing else but itself. And they understood the way it lay between waters, with its hard shell hiding a soft, slow belly and a mind dull and tender and patient.

The women who lived on the turtle were named by their separate parents Lauren and Jacqueline. As a child Lauren allowed common agreement to change her name to Laurie. At the age of thirteen, however, she gathered up her childhood coloring books, her diary, and several other bits of paper with the name “Laurie” on them and burned them all in her parents’ backyard. For several years she allowed only her grandmother to call her Laurie, a curious exception, since it was this grandmother who’d originally named her Lauren. Lauren, formerly Laurie, née Lauren, insisted that “diminutives diminish” and that “Lauren” sounded like an ancient bird, whereas “Laur-ie” sounded like some small animal poked with a stick.

Late one spring evening several years later, she once again abandoned “Lauren” and returned to the “-ie” of her childhood. She did not do this casually, or simply to annoy people, or to demonstrate she could train and retrain them “like dogs in the circus,” as her father said. She made the change because of a special event that happened that night in the last half of her senior year of college.

Jacqueline bore the same name for eighteen years, including brief periods in which she thought of variations, such as Jac-qué-line, or Jacque-lien, or even Jack, none of which she mentioned to anyone, even to those people she thought of as her best friends. She never believed in the name Jacqueline. Sometimes, in school or at family parties, people would have to call her two or three times before she realized that “Jacqueline” meant her. People accused her of dreaminess, or arrogance, or stupidity, despite her high marks and carefully written compositions. Jacqueline accepted whatever version they created of her, never explaining that the name was wrong, that it could never refer to her.

It sometimes seemed to her that her real name lay just out of reach, just past memory. She tried playing tricks on herself, like writing down everything that happened in her dreams, thinking she would automatically catch some dream person calling her Helen or Sophie or Rachel or Gretel. But nothing ever came. She tried studying lists from books, such as Lives of the Great Storytellers, or What to Name Your New Baby. She would say each name aloud and slowly, waiting for some flash of recognition. Or she would read the names very fast, hoping to stumble over one in particular. Again, nothing. She began to think her real name didn’t exist, that God, or the angel in charge of such things, had forgotten to give it to her.

Throughout her childhood she cohabited with this name that had nothing to do with her, thankful at least that only doctors insisted on calling her Jackie. On her sixteenth birthday, when her parents insisted on a party, and ordered a cake with “Jacqueline” written in pink across it, and even gave her a gold bracelet with a name tag attached to it, the birthday girl decided to accept the emptiness created by a body and mind without a name. For another two years and four months, she tried not to think of this emptiness, until a single event changed both her name and her life forever.

The event that broke open the names of Lauren and Jacqueline began as a dance on the campus of their college, in that city in the eastern part of the turtle, not far from the sea. The school announced the dance to celebrate a victory in a yearly contest among a league of colleges. The contest was a quest sponsored by a foundation that had been created by an archaeologist who had won a government lottery. The goal of the quest was the same each year, a large porcelain toad, with black stones for eyes and a dark red circle on the top of its head.

In recent years, as the quest gained more and more status for the school that found the toad, more and more resources went into it, with plans and analyses coming from the departments of computer science, physics, psychology, cultural anthropology, and even comparative literature. Lauren and Jacqueline’s school, however, won that year by the efforts of an unusual champion, a woman who washed dormitory sheets and lab coats in the school laundry.

Fed up by all the shouting and the demonstrations (for the different departments had taken to attacking each other), the laundress, Gertrude, was sitting by her washing machines when the sheets spinning round and round reminded her of something. That night, she dreamed about a time when she was very little and her mother had taken her to hear a storyteller at a shopping mall near their home. The storyteller had sat outside, before a giant lottery wheel, which appeared in Gertrude’s dream as a rack of wet sheets turning and flapping in the wind. On her next day off, Gertrude took the bus back to her hometown and the shopping mall. The wheel was still there, and at the back of it she found a small door with a brass ring. Gertrude pulled, and pulled again, while a group of teenage girls in leather jackets and tight skirts stood around laughing. The door jerked open; inside, Gertrude found something cool and smooth. The dark eyes of the toad stared at her as she held it up to the sun.

So the toad came to Jacqueline’s college. In the week of the dance—with banners going up around the gym, and posters appearing on walls, and flags flying from dormitory windows, and men and women in toad masks and overalls building a giant replica of the trophy out of balsa wood and papier-mâché—in this week of spectacles, Jacqueline thought over and over of attending the dance, and every time, she decided it was not for her, not for a woman without a name.

In high school she had never participated much in teenage culture. Her friendships always seemed apart from the various groups that clustered around sports or honor societies or gangs or intellectual pretension. And the people she considered friends always seemed to put the group first, spending time with her mostly at her invitation, when nothing of greater interest summoned them. Jacqueline did not think of herself as very interesting. Without a name, even her body seemed half out of existence, a little like the holograms displayed at science fairs. She went to a few dances but didn’t stay long. The other girls always seemed to know what to do—how to stand, or make jokes, or dance with each other if there were no boys available. Jacqueline would sip punch, or try dancing or talking to people, but after a while her legs and shoulders would hurt from the strain of trying to appear relaxed, and she’d leave.

Sometimes boys asked her to dance, just as boys sometimes asked her for a date. Usually she agreed. She’d move around the floor, or she’d go to whatever horror movie the boy had chosen, and do her best to work out the correct responses of a girl with a name to anchor her in the world. Her parents never understood why their daughter wasn’t more popular. She was certainly pretty, they reassured her. And smart, they added, as if they’d forgotten. Maybe she should join more clubs. Her mother suggested different hairstyles or brighter makeup. Her father gave her money for clothes. Their daughter never paid much attention. They kept saying that name that had nothing to do with her. “Jacqueline, would you like a party?” or “Jacqueline, do you need a new dress?”

For a while in high school Jacqueline went out regularly with a boy named Dan Reynolds. Dan was a science student who frequently angered his teachers by demonstrating ways to cheat on lab experiments. Dan planned to open a computer business after college. At other times he talked of gathering a squad of renegade hackers and sabotaging the armed forces of several nations. He was handsome, or could be in a few years, when his face cleared and his body filled out. He never seemed to know how to behave in groups of people, sometimes talking too loudly, other times saying nothing at all. A couple of times Jacqueline overheard girls talking about Dan, calling him “weird” or “slimy.” Jacqueline guessed they knew she was listening.

Dan’s mother drank, Dan told Jacqueline one night after he himself had drunk several beers stolen from home. Because his mother was drunk so often, he and his father had to do all the cleaning and shopping. Dan and Jacqueline were sitting in Dan’s car, in the parking lot of a golf course. He kept his hands on the steering wheel while he talked, and though he didn’t look at her he clearly expected some reaction. Jacqueline said, “There’s nothing wrong with men doing the cleaning.”

Dan said, “Shit,” and started the engine. To both their surprise Jacqueline insisted on driving, even grabbing the keys from the ignition. For a moment it looked like Dan might hit her, but she just sat there, with the keys closed in her fist, saying, “You’re drunk, you can’t drive,” until at last he got out and came around to the passenger side.

As Jacqueline drove onto the highway a red sports car passed her. Inside, a woman with long hair and shiny teeth waved at her. “Did you see that?” Jacqueline started to say, but Dan was staring at the trees along the road. When Jacqueline looked again, the red car was gone.

That night, Jacqueline lay in bed, thinking not of Dan but of the woman in the car. The woman had waved to her, she was sure of it. Jacqueline thought she knew her, but couldn’t think from where. A long time ago: Very young. Her mother had left her in the stroller, outside a store. There was a park or something—she remembered trees and a group of people, women with short red hair, running or dancing. With her eyes and fists shut, she tried to bring it back. Someone came up to the stroller, a woman, bending over her, long hair … No use. If it actually had happened she’d been too young to remember it. Except—she remembered a sound, which when she thought about it now might have been sirens. And people crying, and her mother wheeling her away very fast. She sighed. Maybe Dan could hypnotize her. The idea made her laugh. Jacqueline did her best to relax; after a while she fell asleep.

The next morning, Dan called while she was having breakfast. Very calmly, he told her his mother had died during the night. An accident, he said. She’d fallen asleep at the wheel of her car and smashed it into a tree. Would Jacqueline please tell his homeroom teacher what had happened, and explain that Dan would be out of school for a few days? Perhaps she could bring him his assignments.

At the funeral, Dan stood very stiffly in a gray suit, thanking everyone for coming, including Jacqueline and his own relatives. For a week afterward, Jacqueline attempted to persuade Dan to talk about what had happened, to tell her the details of the accident, to describe how he felt. “I’m okay,” he told her, and “Life goes on, with or without us,” and “There’s no sense crying over spilt milk.” He then went on to describe his project for the science fair, a method of decoding cosmic radio signals for signs of UFOs.

Jacqueline’s relationship with Dan ended one evening on the floor of her parents’ house. She and Dan were alone, her parents having gone to a party. “Fate’s sending us a message,” Dan told her, kissing and rubbing her. Lately he’d been pressing for an “affirmation” of their love, saying that virginity was old-fashioned even in their parents’ time, or else describing ancient rituals to celebrate nature. Just as it looked like she might give in—they were half undressed, and Dan had his hand somewhere inside her panties—he breathed to her, “Jacqueline, I love you, Jacqueline. Oh, Jacqueline.” Suddenly he stopped. She wasn’t looking at him. When she turned she said, “What?” in a confused sort of way, as if he’d been talking to someone else. Dan yanked out his hand from her crotch. He slammed the door as he left.

In her first year of college now, in the week of the toad, Jacqueline couldn’t see much point in going to another dance. It would be just like high school. And it was a costume dance, too, which meant trying to think of something, spending money, feeling dumb.

Her roommate, Louise, was going. She’d already gotten a black shirt and tight black pants, a black polyester cape with a plastic sword, and a mask to cover her eyes. Sometimes Louise would wave the sword and leap onto her bed, until she fell over laughing. Louise had recently joined the Lesbian Student Union. She was “in love with all womankind,” Louise told her roommate. Jacqueline thought how wonderful it must be to belong somewhere.

On the night of the dance Louise tried once more to convince Jacqueline to come with her. “Everybody’s going,” she said. “This is really special. It’ll probably never happen again.”

“I don’t have a costume.”

“We can make you one.” She began searching through Jacqueline’s clothes.

“Stop it,” Jacqueline said. “I’m just not going. I won’t have anyone to dance with.”

“Dance with me.” Louise grabbed Jacqueline and whirled her around. “You can toad-hop with the LSU. We’d love to have you.”

Jacqueline laughed but pulled loose. “I can’t do that.”

“Why? Because people will think you’re a dyke?”

“I don’t care what people will think. I just wouldn’t belong. I’d feel like a fake.”

At nine o’clock Louise tied on her mask, gave her sword one last twirl at the air, and leaped out the door. Jacqueline listened to the thump of her boots as she strode to the elevator. At nine-thirty Jacqueline decided it was too hot to study and went down to the lounge to see what she could find on television. Two boys sat there, slumped on the couch watching a baseball game. Jacqueline walked outside.

She could hear the music before she even saw the gym. When she rounded the corner of the library, she saw that the gym was hung with banners and a huge drawing of a toad lit by a floodlamp. Inside, the band played “The Toad Hop,” a record from a few years back. Over the music sounded the thump of people squatting down and then leaping into the air. Jacqueline stood about fifty yards from the building, watching the people who were hanging around outside, some kissing, some taking quick drinks or puffs of officially forbidden substances.

Just as Jacqueline was about to leave, a black limousine rolled up on the narrow road in front of the gym. A woman stepped out wearing a long patchwork dress made of scraps of velvet and hung with beads, pearls, feathers, and ordinary rocks. A wide-brimmed hat with a soft crown was tilted back on her head. Her red hair hung in three long braids down her back. Five more women came out of the car; they all had short hair, and long white scarves, silk probably, fluttered down their backs. Despite the heat, all five wore red leather jackets, tight red pants, and black sandals. Gold stitching on the backs of their jackets formed a small labyrinth, and below it, in graceful script, the words “Mother Night.” When they turned slightly to glance about the building, Jacqueline saw sharp lines running across their cheeks.

The limousine moved softly away. At the door of the gym the woman in the patchwork dress turned and raised her head slightly. It was the smile Jacqueline recognized. The clothes were different, and the woman had given up her red sports car, but Jacqueline knew that smile. She ran forward as the woman and her gang disappeared into the crowd and noise.

A skinny boy in a cowboy suit and a cardboard toad mask blocked Jacqueline from going inside. “Gotta have a costume,” he said.

“I just want to speak to someone,” Jacqueline said, and tried to shove him aside. A few people laughed as the boy pushed her back. Half running, Jacqueline rushed out the campus gates and down to the local shopping street where an all-purpose store stayed open late. She found a bunch of colored ribbons and a dark red lipstick.

Back in her room Jacqueline put on a green sleeveless top—she’d decided not to wear a bra—and a long black skirt, and no shoes. She taped the ribbons all up and down her arms, then tied one around her neck so that the ends hung down over her breasts. With Louise’s kohl eyeliner she drew a mask around her eyes, with lines drawn back to her ears for the strings. She used her own mascara to create dark streaks in her blond hair, then put on the lipstick in thick strokes, laughing at the way it lit up her face. She was about to leave when she ran back to the mirror and used an indigo eye pencil to draw a crude labyrinth on her chest, just above the cleavage revealed by the green top.

The cowboy let her in without comment. Inside, she pushed her way through the thick crowd, ignoring the loud music and the dancers banging into her. Near the front of the room, not far from the giant toad on its platform, a group of women were dancing together. For a moment Jacqueline thought she saw one of the red leather people, but when she came closer it was only one of Louise’s friends in a devil suit. Standing on tiptoe to see over the crowd, Louise herself waved excitedly at Jacqueline, who waved back and went on searching.

It was so confusing. Everyone had become a knight or a princess or a witch or a toad—there were lots of toads, some with whole costumes, including elaborate helmetlike heads, others with nothing more than the same cardboard face worn by the bouncer at the door. Jacqueline didn’t know who had manufactured the toad masks, but she remembered seeing stacks of them for sale around the campus during the past week. People had worn them at rallies, or working on the dance preparations—she remembered a crew of bare-chested toads hammering the platform together in the unusual spring heat—or even while just walking along campus or sitting in the dorm lounge or cafeteria. As Jacqueline looked through the crowd, the band started playing “The Toad Hop” again and people rushed to grab each other’s hips, hopping up and down in long lines until the building shook. Jacqueline did her best to shove past them or look over them when they fell laughing to the floor.

She found the redhaired woman standing by someone near a makeshift table with bowls of peanuts, potato chips, and some sort of creamy salad. The other person wore a top hat and tails, and black patent-leather shoes, like an old-fashioned tap dancer. She stood with her back to Jacqueline, with her weight resting on her left leg and her hands in the pockets of her striped pants. Jacqueline knew it was a she, despite the short hair, the wide shoulders (exaggerated by the cut of the jacket) and narrow hips.

Next to her, the woman in the velvet dress looked very small, much smaller than she’d seemed standing by her limousine. She smiled at Jacqueline. Very fine sparkles dotted her face, and when she smiled the sparkles danced in the light like fireflies. She looked up at the woman in the top hat. “Laurie,” she said, “I want you to meet someone.” Her voice had a curious accent, or rather lilt, that gave it a half-foreign quality, like someone who’s lived for years in another country and now has returned to her home.

When the tall woman turned her head, Jacqueline stepped back. The woman had whitened her face, then darkened her eyes and mouth to make a skull. When she took her hands from her pockets she was wearing black gloves, with skeleton bones painted down the backs and fingers. She looked like an old drawing—Death in a top hat and tails. Ignoring Jacqueline, the tall woman said to the other woman, “How do you know my name? Anyway, you’re wrong. It’s not Laurie, it’s Lauren.”

The red-haired woman said nothing, only sipped from a plastic cup she held in both hands. “Laurie,” the tall woman repeated. “Lauren. Laurie.” She laughed loudly, drowning out the music, at least in that corner of the room. “Well, why not?” she said. “Let’s make it Laurie again.” She clapped her hands. Now she turned and looked at Jacqueline. There was something predatory in that look; not malicious, just a hunter sizing up a prey. But then she softened, and became a little confused. Jacqueline just stood there. She’d come looking for the woman with the red hair, but there was something about the other one. She had flat cheekbones, a sharp chin, and a thin straight nose. Her large eyes shone with excitement, ruining the skull effect.

Looking at the tall woman, Jacqueline became conscious of her own body as a kind of awkward assemblage. Her breasts were too large and floppy in her too-thin green top. How could she ever have been so stupid as to go without a bra? She felt sweaty as well. She was standing awkwardly. When she tried to correct her posture, she realized—too late—that the gesture pushed her breasts forward. The tall woman grinned, and grinned wider when Jacqueline caved in her chest again.

“Laurie,” the woman in the velvet dress said, “I want you to meet an old friend of mine.” She took Jacqueline’s hand and drew her closer. “This is Jaqe,” she said.

She pronounced it “Jake,” but Jacqueline—Jaqe—knew how to spell it from that first moment. She stood shaking, unaware of the tears surging from her eyes. It’s so simple, she thought. It was there, it was always there, all those years. Jaqe! Her name was Jaqe! She grabbed the tall woman—Laurie—and spun around with her. “Congratulate me,” she said. “Don’t ask why. Just congratulate me.” When Jaqe let her go, Laurie bowed. “Congratulations,” she said, and made a swooping gesture with her top hat. Jaqe curtsied. Standing up, she felt a little dizzy, and wondered if that’s what books meant when they said the heroine felt faint.

Laurie smiled, and Jaqe couldn’t help but laugh. It looked so incongruous, Death smiling at her just when she felt so alive, so in focus, as if she’d clicked into place. She had a name, she’d stepped into the world. Laurie said, “What’s your costume, Jaqe?”

Jaqe laughed again. “I don’t know.”

Laurie moved her fingers through the ribbons. She said, “I thought you might be a spider.” One gloved finger lightly traced the pattern Jaqe had drawn on her chest. Jaqe imagined that finger moving down, grazing the sides of her breasts. Jaqe shook her head. “It’s so hot in here,” she said.

The woman in the velvet dress held out a plastic cup. “Drink some punch,” she said. “It’ll cool you off.”

The first swallow sent a shiver through Jaqe, but after that she felt a relaxation spread through her muscles. Everything in the room became softer, the music not so aggressive, the lights on the gym walls less glaring. She looked again at the red-haired woman. The face was small, almost delicate under the wide hat. The eyes were black, large, without makeup. They shone like the sparkles dusting her skin. Jaqe said, “Who are you?”

The woman waved a hand. It seemed to move on its own, like a bird. “I have so many names,” the woman said, “I can hardly remember them myself.”

Jaqe turned to Laurie. “Is she a friend of yours?”

Death shrugged. “I just met her. I thought she was your friend.”

Jaqe looked again at the woman, who slowly raised her head so that a red spotlight, previously blocked by the edge of the hat, fell upon her face. The woman said, “Call me Mother Night.” When she smiled, her teeth gleamed within the red of her skin.

Without thinking, Jaqe grabbed Laurie’s hand. At that moment, she heard a whistle and turned just in time to see Louise’s arms coming around her for a hug. “Wow,” Louise said. “You’ve really been keeping a secret, haven’t you?”

“A secret?”

Louise struck a pose, one hand on her hip next to the dangling sword, the other flinging back her hair. “You don’t just join the DCC like the rest of us. You go right to the boss.”

Laurie said, “For Goddess’s sake, Louise.”

“DCC?” Jaqe asked. “Boss? What is she talking about?”

“DCC is kind of a joke,” Laurie explained. “It’s what we call the Lesbian Student Union. It means Dyke Central Committee.”

Jaqe looked at Louise again, then grinned at Laurie. “Are you the boss?”

Laurie stared at the floor. “Well, I’m the president. But it’s just a title. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Louise said, “You’ve always been a great roomie, Jacqueline, but you really should have—”

Jaqe stopped her with a hand held up like a traffic cop. “Not Jacqueline,” she said. “Jaqe. Don’t forget.”

Louise laughed and hugged her again. “Wow,” she said. “When you come out, you go all the way.”

Before Jaqe could answer, the band struck up a loud and slightly off-key fanfare. A moment later a whistle of feedback accompanied a man’s voice in the loudspeakers. “May I have your attention!” he said. When Jaqe turned to the front she saw a group of men in various costumes, each with a toad mask over his head. The one who spoke into the microphone wore a bird outfit, a one-piece suit hung all over with polyester feathers. From inside his toad face he announced that a great moment had come, when the committee would choose the Toad Queen to officially present the trophy to the university. The committee, he said, had studied all the lovely women in their beautiful costumes, and had chosen the one “whose radiant costume lights up our glorious Toad Castle.” Three men walked into the crowd.

As they came near her, Jaqe looked around for some woman in a shiny bikini or diaphanous gown. As they came closer, she looked in surprise at Laurie, then Mother Night. When they took her hands she pulled away in amazement. Mother Night said, “They want you to go with them.” Jaqe looked at her friends. Laurie tipped her top hat and kissed her on the cheek. Louise waved her sword.

“But this is nothing,” Jaqe said. “It’s not even a costume.” Yet when she looked at the indigo labyrinth it seemed to glow where Laurie’s finger had touched the skin. And when she moved her arms, the ribbons flowed like streams of light. She walked through applause and whistles to stand on the platform before the wood-and-papier-mâché toad with its glass eyes, and the school insignia painted on its puffed chest. Next to her a man in a black dinner jacket with a cardboard toad mask over his face stuck out his hand. Jaqe shook it. Only when he began to speak did she realize he was Samuel Benson, the school’s president.

Jaqe paid little attention to the speeches and the cheering. When they gave her the trophy she passed it right to President Benson, who had to give it back so she could hold it for everyone to see. “And now,” the man in the bird suit said, “the Queen will choose her king.” The band began an old-fashioned slow song. The spotlights made it hard for her to see, but she still knew just where to point her open arms. From out of the crowd Laurie strode forth, Death emerging from the mob.

Like sounds across a lake, the noise drifted past Jaqe and Laurie as they swirled about the floor. There was talk of going too far, and a few stamps and boos, along with scattered cheers from the DCC, and above it all one amazed voice proclaiming, as if no one else had noticed, “Hey, that’s another girl!”

Jaqe laid her head on Laurie’s shoulder. She felt the soft weight of her own body in the spiral of Laurie’s arms. A moment later other couples began to emerge onto the dance floor.

“Come back to my apartment,” Laurie whispered. Jaqe nodded, then remembered all the questions she’d wanted to ask Mother Night. She glanced back to where she’d seen her, but all she spotted was Louise leading a march of women to congratulate the royal couple. Jaqe grabbed Laurie’s hand and rushed her to the door.

In the street, Jaqe wondered what in God’s—Goddess’s—name she was doing. She wasn’t Louise, after all; she’d never thought of herself as … as gay, if that was even the right word. She’d just found out her name; shouldn’t she find out more about herself? But then she looked at Laurie, who was grinning under her Death’s-head makeup like a small child on her birthday, and Jaqe’s nervousness softened.

Laurie’s apartment was the messiest place Jaqe had ever seen. Plates and glasses and even frying pans perched on piles of books. Papers, crumpled or flat, covered the floors, even in the bathroom. Jeans and tank tops and T-shirts and underwear obscured the bed, the chairs, the desk. Jaqe thought about the flow of chaos in Louise’s half of their dorm room and wondered if being gay made you sloppy.

When Jaqe laughed, Laurie blushed—Jaqe could see it through the makeup—and began shoving things tog