Chapter Text
It was the fall of 1969, and Pearl Bisera was in deep shit. She knew that the day of her missed period, and she knew who the culprit was, too. Bill Dewey. God help her.
She'd only gotten into this situation because Bill had accused her of being a queer while they were doing some second-base level shit at one of his father's charity dinners and there was no way she could admit to such a shameful secret of hers. They had been going steady for a few months now, and truthfully there was nothing she hated more than the sound of his pick up truck pulling up outside her house, and the way she could feel his sweat through his clothes and smell the cigars on his breath. He was already in his mid-twenties, and she knew the only reason her parents were allowing her to see him was due to her, quote, 'questionable homosexual tendencies', end quote, and the fact that he was studying law and always bragging about one day running for office.
She should have just told them he was already married in the hopes that it would let her off the hook (he was engaged to another neighbourhood girl, too, so there was a grain of truth to it) but now it appeared her life depended on whether or not he would accept her announcement.
She felt sick as she pulled on her favourite pearl necklace and smoothed down her skirt. He was blasting out some old crackly song that he claimed reminded him of her, and the window was rolled down.
“Hello, Pearl to my oyster,” he greeted, cracking a grin, and she could feel her stomach turn. At this point she honestly couldn't tell whether it was the morning sickness reacting to the mention of oysters or just the idea that she might have to spend the rest of her life with this fool, but she felt such a strong urge to vomit right now.
“Bill, I have to tell you something,” she spluttered out instead of a half-baked greeting, and he raised an eyebrow.
“Well, sure, my ivory queen,” he said with a shrug. He unlocked the passenger door and she climbed in, before ordering him to roll up the windows. He obliged, grumbling as he put back the cigar he was ready to light. “What's eating you?”
“There's, um. Something I have to, uh. Tell you.” She gripped the tail of her shirt, already agonising over how she was creasing it, and bowed her head.
“Sure, vanilla swirl.” Another thing that sickened her, the pet names he gave her so patronisingly. She wondered if he gave Barb the same kind of repulsive nicknames. “Hey, what's wrong? Is it about your senior prom? Because I already told you, I can't go, but I can meet you afterwards and-”
“This isn't about prom.” She swallowed, instead turning to her promise ring. What a lie. She should switch it out for a teenage mother ring instead. “It's about... us. Our future.”
“Don't tell me you're trying to leave the state for college,” drawled Bill. “Because there's no point. How would I reach you that far away?”
“Bill, I'm pregnant,” Pearl blurted out. It felt a little good to shock him into sweet silence. She was grateful the windows were rolled up, since otherwise her parents probably would have heard it from their home. “I... I don't really know what I'm going to do about it.”
Bill stared at her, his eyes glued wide open in fear. Slowly, his gaze travelled down from her face to her stomach, and he swallowed.
“What?”
She could almost see the gears turning in his head. A baby. Marriage. Spending the rest of his life with a girl who was probably a lesbian, or at the very least a massive prude. Having to say goodbye with his engagement to Barb and living through a loveless marriage with a girl who thought The Beatles were cool.
But there was a responsibility, and as much as he was beginning to dread the thought, he supposed Pearl was cut out for motherhood, if she really did like cooking and cleaning as much as she bragged about.
“I'm pregnant. Only a few weeks, thankfully,” she repeated.
“Wow. Well.” Bill cleared his throat. “I, hrm, I suppose we should get married at once, then. Better to do it now than when you're too big to fit into a wedding dress, hmm?”
Well, when he put it like that, she really didn't want to get married to him at all.
“I don't know about that,” Pearl managed to choke out. “I, um. I don't know about marrying, Bill.”
He shook his head in disbelief.
“Well, what else?! If you become an unwed mother, word will spread. I could lose my internship at the law firm, Barb could find out...”
Maybe you shouldn't be cheating on her in the first place then, thought Pearl to herself.
“O-Or, there are places you could go, aren't there?” His face brightened. “Th-They have houses, where you could go for a few months, and – why, there's one in Ocean Town-”
“No, I am not going to one of those places,” Pearl said firmly, folding her arms. “I-I'm not going to have people calling me a, a slut. If you go there, people know, they do. And if my mother ever found out about my predicament, she would never forgive me. I need to go to college, Bill.”
He frowned. “What other choice do you have? I can't marry you, Pearl. Please don't beg me to.”
Like she would beg for such a punishment.
“W-Well, there's always the alternative.” She fiddled with a strand of hair falling over her face. “An abortion.”
The thought of it scared her, frankly; one of the other seniors, Jasper, allegedly once gave herself a coat hanger, and she didn't show up to class for weeks. But it was honestly a better idea than incubating the spawn of Bill Dewey for nine months, enduring the horror of childbirth and either living with Bill for all eternity or becoming the type of mother that her own frowned upon whenever they passed by in the Saturday markets.
“An abortion?!” Bill was incredulous. “But Pearl, that – that's illegal.”
“Don't worry, it won't diminish your chances of running for office,” Pearl spat, a little more aggressively than she intended. She put a hand to her still thankfully flat stomach and exhaled. “I know Amethyst knows people. There are people in the commune she lives in, they can set me up, I just... I can't let my parents know about it.”
“You can't expect me to agree with this,” Bill said sternly, though his eyes gave away his relief. “It's irresponsible.”
“Getting an underaged girl in trouble is also pretty irresponsible, don't you agree?” snapped Pearl.
Well, he couldn't deny that.
“Right. Well, if it means I can keep this a secret...”
“I need the money,” Pearl said dully, already feeling bored of his presence. “I can't have my parents finding out about this, and I don't have nearly enough to pay for this myself.”
“Fine. I can make arrangements. Give me the details once you secure an appointment and I can give you the correct amount.” He reached a hand over and stroked the side of her cheek, and she wrenched herself away from his touch.
“I don't think we should see each other after this,” Pearl muttered, arms hugging herself protectively. He scoffed.
“What? If we make it through this, we'll just be more careful. I promise, I'll use protection and everything. I'll pull out every time-”
“That's what you should have done the first time! God, Bill, you're a grown man who got a child in trouble! Doesn't that mean anything to you?! There is a baby in me currently because of you, I never wanted to...”
His grimace curled down into a proper frown and he sat upright.
“I knew it. I knew you were a queer. No girl right in the head would say something like that to me. You should be grateful I thought you were beautiful.”
Pearl had had enough. She opened the car door and let herself out.
“I'll let you know how much to send over.”
“Fine. Screw you.”
He rolled up the window and drove off without so much as wishing her goodnight. Huffing a little, she turned back and headed up to her bedroom. When she was certain he was gone she buried her head in her pillow and cried, gripping her belly through her clothes.
…
“So what's this all about, P?” Amethyst asked with a yawn. “It's not like you to skip.”
They were holed up in the old bathroom block that nobody had used since a fire had damaged most of it in the 40s, so were thankfully alone during fifth period. Amethyst always skipped home ec and Pearl's mother had called her in sick since she'd been caught throwing up that morning, so she had crept out to meet Amethyst once her mother had gone to start her nursing shift. This was Amethyst's regular spot in school to smoke since the smell couldn't be distinguished, so Pearl knew immediately where to go.
“I need your help.”
That had Amethyst's attention, and her freshly lit cigarette froze midway to her lips. The two were thick as thieves despite the obvious differences (race, social cultures, likes and dislikes, etc) but it was rare that Pearl ever needed Amethyst to bail her out.
“You need my help? What did you do?”
“I... got into trouble, Amethyst,” Pearl sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose tiredly. Amethyst stared expectantly.
“...Care to elaborate on that? It's kind of a general statement.”
“I don't mean I got into trouble, Amethyst, I mean I got in trouble.” She emphasised it with a rather flippant gesture towards her abdomen, and the moment it clicked, Amethyst's jaw dropped. Her cigarette nearly dropped from her fingers, and she swore as hot ash hit her purple bell-bottoms.
“Shit! No way?!”
“Amethyst, keep your voice down!” Pearl hissed, glancing out of the frosted window pane nervously. “If we get caught we're going to get into so much trouble!”
“See, that's the kind of trouble I thought you were tangled up in,” Amethyst spluttered. “Holy shit. Seriously, I didn't think you and Deweykins were even, you know, doing it. When exactly did this little blip in your eternal abstinence happen?”
“It was his idea,” Pearl muttered. “I just wanted to enjoy the party, but no, instead we... fornicated.” She shuddered at the memory of his panting sweaty body bearing down on hers, effectively trapping her. “Amethyst, I need an abortion, as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, no shit,” snorted Amethyst. “Like Dewey wants to marry you when he has dear old Barb.”
“I don't want to marry him either,” protested Pearl. “You know how my parents are.”
“Yeah, I know. Hey, why don't you just run away from home and join my commune? We have like, six queers there, and three of them are lesbians! You'd fit right in!”
“Not with a baby,” pointed out Pearl, folding her arms across her chest.
“True. Yeah, don't worry about it. I know this lady, Rose – she volunteers for this organisation, they run abortions underground. I could totally get you in for a discount. Typically you pay $100, but I could probably get you down to $75. She's a groovy lady, dating the leader, Greg. She feels sorry for the younger girls passing through, so she'd probably give you the discount.”
“That'd be great, Amethyst,” Pearl exclaimed, immensely relieved. “Bill's paying for it. If he just leaves me the money I can cut ties with him altogether.”
“What, you mean you aren't going to keep him around to prove to your parents you're a practising heterosexual?” Amethyst teased, and Pearl felt a flare of anger well up in her gut.
“Would you? He impregnated me and didn't even feel guilty about it, Amethyst.”
Amethyst cringed and took a drag.
“Oh come on, we can't joke about it yet?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Okay, okay, it's too soon to joke about it yet. Sorry, P. Really. I'll sort it out with Rose tonight and let you know when they can fit you in.”
Pearl hugged herself as a sudden breeze swept through the cracked windows of the old block and sent a chill through her, thankful she'd slipped on her favourite thick white cardigan before leaving the house.
“Thank you, Amethyst.”
Amethyst reached over and put a hand on her shoulder.
“It's gonna be okay, P. They've helped like, nearly fifty people so far, and it's only been running six months. They have a way higher success rate than the other providers, Rose told me herself.”
“Glad to hear it,” muttered Pearl. “Anyway, fifth is going to end soon, so I should really get going.”
“Later, Pierogi,” grinned Amethyst, waving cheerfully before stamping out the ashy remains of her cigarette.
…
The next day, Pearl was finishing a diary entry, still cooped up sick in bed with her father's old record player blaring out some Four Tops song, when Amethyst stopped by to deliver study notes (poorly taken and riddled with spelling mistakes, but still readable and would have to suffice for now). Pearl appreciated that she had waited until her mother had left the house to let herself in, since she highly doubted her mother would tolerate her befriending a hippie given the way she always complained about them causing trouble.
“How are you feeling, sacred vessel?” she piped up with a grin, and Pearl rolled her eyes.
“Terrible. I can't wait until this is over with. Did you actually take notes in English or am I going to have to analyse act 3 by myself?”
Amethyst shrugged.
“Um. Probably the latter. I can't remember what happened, maybe someone died? Or something about a handkerchief? I can't remember. Othello can wait, this was just a cover up for my true motive for coming over here.”
Paperclipped to the top of the wad of notes was a torn piece of paper with a phone number on it.
“This is the number for Jane, the service my friend Rose is with. You need to call asking for Jane so that they can call you back. It's gotta stay anonymous, so promise me you won't go running your mouth about abortions and other shit that could get people prosecuted?”
Pearl stared.
“Y-You mean you can't book the appointment for me? I thought you said you could sort it out.”
Amethyst shrugged and perched down on the bed.
“Patient confidentiality, P. I can't change how Jane's run. I already tried to talk Rose into letting me set you up with the details, but she was adamant. So yeah, just leave the call, and expect a volunteer to call you back some time tomorrow and they'll run through the time and place.”
After saying her goodbyes to Amethyst, Pearl shyly left the call and focused on studying to distract herself from her racing thoughts.
To her surprise, she only had to wait two hours before the phone rang, and she hesitantly rushed to answer it before her mother could.
“Hello?”
A smooth, accented voice that sounded almost British met her.
“Pearl?”
“That's me. Um, I called earlier, about a... um, an appointment.”
“Right, I understand. You don't need to mention the cause for concern, I already know the details. How far gone are you?”
“A few weeks... seven, maybe eight?”
“We should arrange for the procedure as soon as possible. We do most of our appointments early in the morning or late at night, to lessen the risk of being intruded upon.”
“I could do this Saturday, but... I don't know if I can get the money in time,” Pearl admitted, hoping this wouldn't null the deal.
The voice on the other end hummed.
“That's okay. Try and bring as much as you can, and anything else can be paid off in a loan. We can send a car out to meet you at 6AM. We already have your address from another volunteer. The car will meet you at the end of the road.”
“All right. I guess we have an appointment then,” declared Pearl.
The voice sounded almost amused as she replied back, “I suppose we do.”
…
Pearl knew she wasn't supposed to swing by Bill's workplace, but it was a matter of urgency. She needed that money, and it wasn't like he'd drove by her street in days.
She'd never visited his office before, just passed by it a few times, and stayed in the truck the one time he'd needed to grab something he'd left at work accidentally. Working for Diamond Authorities, it left a lot to the imagination, so Pearl was a little surprised to see Bill standing at the photocopier, balancing two cups of coffee against his chest.
“Bill?”
Bill nearly jumped out of his skin, and the coffee very almost leapt out of the cups.
“P-Pearl, what are you doing here?” he hissed. “Do you realise-”
“I realise you're an errand boy, rather than actually working in your field like you told me,” Pearl cut in, raising an eyebrow, and he shut up, instead stuttering and turning an odd sweaty shade of red as he tried to muster the words to correct her. “I sorted out an appointment, but I need the money.”
“Now listen here,” he said sternly, a little too loudly, “I cannot simply allow a minor to waltz in here uninvited. Allow me to escort you from the premises, madam.”
“Is that my new nickname?” muttered Pearl, as he tugged on her arm and guided her to the outside steps.
“Pearl, what are you thinking, coming here?” Bill spluttered once they were well out of earshot. “Do you have any idea what might happen if my boss found out about this? Or the kind of trouble you're mixed up in?”
“I didn't have a choice, you haven't come by my house in days,” protested Pearl. “I need the money soon, my appointment is this Saturday and the fee is $75.”
“That much?”
“Beats having to save up for our baby's college funds, doesn't it?” she retorted. He scowled.
“...I'll see what I can do. But after I give you that money, never drop by my workplace ever again, understand me? I can't have my boss seeing me with a schoolgirl.”
“Maybe you should stick to girls your own age, then,” Pearl said with a shrug. “Promise me you'll get the money?”
He nodded. “I'll leave it in the mailbox. But after this, consider our relationship over.”
A wave of relief washed over her, and her knees nearly buckled at the thought. Some annoying voice in the back of her mind told her she shouldn't be so excited to be dumped by the only man who would probably ever love her, but she pushed it away.
“Fine,” she managed. “Have a happy life.”
She turned and left without looking back.
…
The morning of the appointment, Pearl hardly slept. She was up before her earlier alarm, and stood shivering on the street corner in a pale cardigan and her favourite pearl necklace, her knees knocking together weakly. All she wanted to do was turn back and forget about all this, but she was not going to assign herself to a life of having to care for this Pearl-Bill hybrid growing inside her while he got to run off and live his life. Like hell she was going to let that happen.
She began humming The End of The World since it felt pretty fitting, and she needed something to keep her distracted. She had already bitten her nails down to the quick.
At 7am to the point, a sleek brown Mercury Montego with tinted windows turned the corner into Pearl's street, and the drivers window rolled down.
“Pearl?” a smooth voice asked, just loud enough for Pearl to hear over the engine. She nodded, and moments later a shorter figure darted out and suddenly, she was blindfolded. Pearl squeaked in surprise and was firmly ushered into the back seat of the car. She heard the engines come to life and they took off.
“So you're Amethyst's friend,” the warmer, female voice stated to break the silence.
“Rose?” Pearl guessed.
“Oh, so you know who I am? Amethyst really shouldn't be giving out these details.”
“Sorry. She was just trying to reassure me, that's all,” Pearl said with a frown.
“Amethyst told us you were Bill Dewey's squeeze,” the gravelly male voice beside her piped up. She could hear the grin in his voice. “That must've been gross.”
“Greg, don't say that,” scolded Rose, without too much feeling behind it. “Don't listen to him, Pearl.”
“No, you're right. It was gross. I'll be glad to never let him near me again,” she muttered.
Another ten minutes passed with only idle small talk, before they stopped and Pearl was pulled out of the car and guided up a small flight of steps. A door opened and once she heard the secure slam of the door shutting, the blindfold was removed from her eyes. She was stood in the main room of a simple apartment building, where two loveseats sat facing each other. There was a radio in the corner, and the curtains were drawn shut. The only other figure in the room was a tall black woman wearing shades and a tan jacket, standing beside the radio with her arms folded while some Joe Cocker song played quietly in the background.
“Welcome to the monkey house,” the woman greeted with a deadpan voice and expression to match. The woman from the phone call. Her heartbeat picked up a little. Pearl must have looked startled, because she spoke again. “That was a joke. Welcome to Delmarva Jane Collective's reception area.”
“The reception area...?”
“We won't be taking you to the surgery right away,” Rose spoke up, and Pearl glanced back at her – oh, she was beautiful, but quite a few years older than her, by the look of it, “we have to talk you through the procedure first. You get assigned a counsellor, which in this case will be yours truly, and I'll call you up tomorrow as well to make sure you're recovering well. Now, should we take a seat?”
She motioned to the love seats, while Greg took off his jacket and slung it over the coat rack, before heading into what appeared to be the kitchen.
The tall woman refused to move even as Rose began explaining the abortion procedure to Pearl, though she didn't speak either, instead simply staring into the space ahead of her, though her eyes were so obscured by her shades it was impossible to tell where exactly she was staring. The walls felt like they were closing around her, the room felt much too warm. Pearl was sweating, jiggling her legs, fidgeting with her hands, just trying to distract herself from the awful fears running through her mind.
“So they'll give you caudal anaesthesia, which basically numbs the areas they'll be working on, but you'll still be conscious. Doctor Mahaeswaran carries out D&Cs using a curettage instead of the cannula method because it's got a higher success rate. You'll have to empty your bladder first, and then...”
All these words were going in one ear and out the other. Pearl was normally fascinated about medical procedures, always asking her mother to talk her through the procedures she carried out on her nursing shifts, but all she could hear right now was they're going to cut your lower half open and you're probably going to bleed out and die and all because you let Bill Dewey put his tip in you. Stupid, stupid, stupid...
“Pearl?”
She glanced up to see the large woman sat before her peering down at her worriedly. It took her another few seconds to realise she'd started crying.
“Oh... oh, I-I-”
Rose reached over to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“Oh, honey, I know it's difficult. You're so brave to go through this so young, Pearl, and I am so proud of you...”
Next thing she knew, Pearl was crying on a beautiful hippie's shoulder, and she felt so stupid, so idiotic for getting herself into such a mess. She didn't deserve the sympathy of this kind stranger, she deserved contempt, disgust, pity at how pathetic she was. Getting knocked up by Bill Dewey of all the pricks in this town...
“You matter, Pearl. You are not worth the men you date, you are worth more than what you do with them. And you're going to be all right in the end. It might hurt emotionally for a while, but you'll be glad for it in the end. Believe me. Honey, I was in your shoes a few years ago, and it was a bad situation. But now I can help girls such as yourself make the choice that's right for them. There is always a way out of this.”
The whole time Rose was holding her hand, and she gave a comforting squeeze as Pearl's tears began to slow down. She dabbed at her eyes and gave Pearl a hug.
“You're going to be okay. I know it's scary, I do. But this procedure is so safe, please believe me. You could not be in better hands than Priyanka. She's a doctor.”
“A real doctor?” Pearl whispered. Rose nodded, and at that moment, the kitchen door opened.
“Pearl?”
A tall Indian woman in her mid-thirties wearing a white coat stood in the doorway, moving slightly to allow Greg to pass her.
“Give us a moment, Pri. It's been a little... overwhelming,” explained Rose, and Priyanka nodded in understanding. Rose gave Pearl another few minutes to compose herself, and then sent her to the small bathroom to empty her bladder ready for the procedure. When she returned, the tall woman with the shades was sat beside Rose, talking to her and winding an auburn ringlet around her index finger.
“Are you ready?” Priyanka asked, and Pearl swallowed. Her heart was still racing, and she still felt a compelling urge to run right out of the apartment, but the thought of having to marry Bill Dewey or reside in a home for unwed mothers was enough to make her nod hurriedly. Like hell she was going to live out either of those alternatives.
“I promise it will be a fast and almost painless procedure,” Priyanka promised, squeezing her shoulder, and the last thing Pearl saw was the woman glance up in her direction and offer an encouraging nod before the kitchen door shut behind her.
…
Pearl had lost track of the time she'd sat in the cramped apartment following the procedure, just waiting for the anaesthesia to wear off. Once Priyanka was certain she'd managed to scrape every last piece of Bill Dewey's spawn out of her uterus, she'd been moved as gently as possible to the love seats, where she had sat with her feet up on the couch arm for the better part of half an hour. To her immense disappointment, Rose had been called away suddenly during the procedure, leaving her alone in the apartment with only Greg and the mysterious tall woman. As more time passed she felt the feeling return to her, and her stomach was beginning to cramp.
“It's normal,” the tall woman assured her, upon seeing her wince and put a hand to her lower stomach. “Unless it's intense and accompanied by heavy bleeding or a fever, it's nothing to worry about.”
“You'll be a bit sensitive for a couple days, and your cycle will be messed up at first, but it'll all pass,” Greg chimed in. “Trust me, I've seen this enough times now.”
Admittedly, it did make her feel a little calmer.
“Oh. Um, the money,” Pearl murmured. She reached for her purse, which the tall woman picked up and handed to her. She rummaged around and presented the wad of cash Bill had oh so generously presented to her as a final parting gift. The woman flicked through it, inspecting it for a moment, before nodding and handing it to Greg, who busied himself with putting it in a large safe at the back of the bedroom area.
“Do you want to talk about how you feel?” The woman asked her coolly, sitting down on the seat opposite her. “It's a standard procedure, to counsel first timers.”
Pearl stared up at the grey ceiling, wondering how she actually did feel. Bill Dewey was now one hundred percent out of her life, which was good news. She knew now that she was definitely through with men, which also felt oddly freeing, even if it meant she was finally shoving herself into an unspeakable lifestyle category. She wondered if she was meant to feel sad about getting rid of her child, but... she didn't. She had no real emotion towards it at all.
“I... I don't feel anything,” Pearl admitted. She glanced over at the woman, who was watching her intently. The attention felt rather nice, from such a pretty woman. “I don't think I'm even sad, or sorry that it happened. Is that weird?”
The woman shrugged.
“People respond in different ways. You could just be in shock, or maybe it hasn't yet registered what took place. Or, you're perfectly fine, and that's just how you feel. It's your experience, so nobody can tell you there's a right or wrong way to feel. Do you think having an abortion was the right thing?”
Pearl nodded automatically. Of course it was, if the alternative was living with Bill Dewey or owning up about her pregnancy to her extremely religious mother.
“Well then, that's what counts. If you believe you did the right thing, there's no correct way to respond to it. It's subjective.”
After having a few more questions answered, Pearl was slowly helped to her feet and moved with tenderness out of the apartment building, where the same Mercury Montego was waiting for them. Only a couple hours had passed, but Pearl felt as if years had gone by since the time she was last in this car. This time, she sat in the front passenger seat.
The woman climbed in next to her and tuned into the radio, which was blaring out Love is All Around. She sang along to it under her breath to fill the silence as they turned the corner.
“H-How long have you been working with Jane?” Pearl asked, flexing her fingers nervously.
“A month or so. I only graduated high school a few months ago, so I didn't have the time before,” the woman answered honestly. The idea that they were only a year apart made Pearl oddly happy.
“I-I'm a senior,” Pearl announced, then felt rather stupid since the woman hadn't asked for that information in the first place. She bit her lip. “I'll be eighteen in a few months.”
The woman hummed in acknowledgement.
“Maybe I'll take you out for a drink when that happens,” she said casually, eyes never leaving the road. “Providing you don't get pregnant a second time.”
“Trust me, I'm not going near any boys ever again,” muttered Pearl. For the first time, she saw the woman crack a smile.
“That so? I guess that's good news for me, then.”
“Why?” Pearl asked. She clutched her purse close to her, fiddling with the tassels. The woman shrugged.
“It's easier for me to pretend you feel the same as me.”
Now what did that mean? Did she really give off a homo vibe like her parents always suggested? Or was she referring to something else? It certainly sounded like the woman was owning up to being... not sound of mind. Even though Pearl didn't understand, because she seemed absolutely sound of mind. She'd never met anyone who appeared so composed, so mediating, and still so... queer.
Pearl didn't know how to answer, so she stared down at the footwell instead.
“D-Did you find out about Jane by, um. Having one?” Pearl stuttered, aware that her voice was rising in pitch due to nerves. The woman nodded.
“Most volunteers start working at Jane through that method, yes. The occasional ones are reached through other means. Take Greg for instance, he only started doing it because he wanted to impress Rose. But whatever, each volunteer we have makes a difference, even if they're doing it for their own selfish reasons.”
“Wh-Who was your man?”
“Who was yours?”
Pearl blushed, feeling slightly caught off guard that the woman had managed to turn the conversation back to her.
“His name's Bill. He's studying law at Delmarva State.”
The woman whistled.
“The Bill Dewey that Amethyst has been talking about.”
“That's right. Wait, you know Amethyst?”
The woman smiled and said nothing. Pearl folded her arms.
“Well, what about you? Who was your man?” she repeated, hoping she'd actually get an answer. The woman chuckled at Pearl's forwardness.
“The paper boy, Jamie. It was a one time thing, and he was a year younger than myself. If his parents had found out, he probably would have been sent to live in Keystone with his grandparents, so my mothers offered to find me a number for Jane.”
Pearl stared.
“You told your – wait, did, did you say mothers?”
The woman grinned.
“Yes. I have two of them.”
Pearl must have looked absolutely horrified at the idea of such a social suicide, and the woman barked out a laugh.
“You look terrified. It's not contagious, don't worry. Although, I suppose I'm in that way inclined too, so I'm not the best person for that confirmation.” She looked thoughtful. “That said, I thought you were the same as me, so...”
“It's not that,” babbled Pearl, mortified. “I-It's just, that's so, um. Brave. That you told them, and that they can live like that... or do you live in the commune with Amethyst?”
“Nope. Maybe my neighbourhood is a little more accepting than yours.”
They pulled up on the bottom of the street corner, and Pearl wished the car would just keep going and going.
“We're here, Pearl.”
A thought suddenly occurred to Pearl, and she turned to stare at the woman beside her.
“You didn't blindfold me. I was supposed to be blindfolded for anonymity, and you didn't do it.”
The woman shrugged.
“Maybe I want you to come back.”
She helped Pearl out of the car.
“Will you be okay to walk back by yourself? It doesn't hurt too much?”
“No, I'll be all right. I promise I will.”
Pearl hesitated as the woman climbed back into the car.
“Um. What's your name? I, uh, I never caught it.”
The woman grinned.
“Garnet. Ask Amethyst for more details.”
She rolled up the window again and drove away, a free spirit in the quiet imprisoning streets of Pearl's road.