Juliana Read online

  Juliana

  Book One of the Juliana Series

  Vanda Writer

  Studio Sands Press

  Contents

  Subtitle Page

  Ger Your Free Excerpt

  An Apology

  Acknowledgments

  I. Before the War

  Chapter One

  1. June, 1941

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  8. August, 1941

  9. September, 1941

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  12. October, 1941

  13. November, 1941

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  19. December, 1941

  Chapter 20

  II. The War Years

  21. May, 1942

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  24. June, 1942

  25. July–August, 1942

  26. The New Year, 1943

  27. March, 1943

  28. June, 1943

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  31. July, 1943

  32. August, 1943

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  42. September–November, 1943

  43. December, 1943

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  50. Christmas Eve, 1943

  51. New Year’s Eve, 1943

  Chapter 52

  53. January–February, 1944

  54. March, 1944

  55. March–April, 1944

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  59. Twelve Days before D-Day

  Do you want to know what happens next?

  A Word From the Author- The Juliana Project

  Notes

  References

  Book Club Discussion Guide

  How to Buy Book 2

  Copyright 2016 VANDA

  Cover Design by Lori Wark

  Cover Model: Annie-Sage Whitehurst

  Photographer: Chelsea Culverwell

  Edited by Vicki Sly

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

  ISBN-9780692727669

  Library of Congress Number: 2015914779

  J U L I A N A -

  An LGBT HISTORICAL FICTION:

  Book 1

  (1941-1944)

  by

  Vanda

  The Sands Studio Press

  Get Your Free Excerpt

  of

  Olympus Nights on the Square

  (Book 2: 1945-1955)

  See back page.

  When I was fourteen, I wrote my first novel. This novel had two enthusiastic fans: an especially inspiring English teacher and my nine-year-old sister. It was seventy-eight typewritten pages and my little sister read every one of them. Quite an impressive feat for a little kid. To this day, she still remembers scenes from that novel.

  Long ago, I decided it was time to start my life in the world. My little sister gave me twenty dollars from her grueling first job to help me carve out my place. She was the only one to give me any financial support for my new venture. She’s been supportive of my writing and me ever since.

  This one’s for you, Lori

  An Apology

  I wrote this novel to be accurate for its time. That means there may be occasional words used to refer to certain groups of people that we would consider inappropriate today; therefore, I wish to formally apologize to Roman Catholics, African Americans, Jews, the Japanese, and the disabled.

  Acknowledgments

  To quote Obama, “You didn’t build it alone.” Whatever we make out of the raw material that we are is a culmination of a lot of input from others, not always positive. But today I want to thank those who deserve thanking for helping me do what I’ve wanted to do since I was quite young. First, there are two teachers whose encouragement made me think, “Yeah, maybe, I could be a writer, too” when I was surrounded by forces that said, “What, are you kidding?” Mr. Evers, my eighth-grade English teacher and Mrs. Van Loen, my twelfth-grade English teacher, both respected me as a writer long before I could do that for myself. What would the world do without enlightened English teachers?

  To get a book right a writer needs other writers. Other writers tell you when you’re on the right track and when to dump that draft and start again. I spent a good part of my writing life as a playwright. Therefore, I was a member of two playwriting groups that gave me feedback about my plays. But now I was writing a novel. Where to get feedback from writers I respected? I approached one of my playwriting groups, The Oracles, and told them that since I was a playwright, my novel contained a great deal of dialogue. I asked them if I could cast chapters from it with actors, just as we do with plays, and have it read to the group for their feedback. They said yes, and it has been fantastic! The Oracles is a group of extremely talented writers, and I am proud to be a part of it. Thank you Liz Amberly, Bill Cosgriff, Stuart D’Vers, Elana Gartner, Nicole Greevy, Marc Goldsmith, Nancy Hamada, Olga Humphrey, Penny Jackson, Robin Rice Littig, Donna Spector, and Mike Vogel.

  As the actors read chapters of Juliana (1941-1944) at The Oracles, it was often suggested that I bring these readings to a public venue and perform them with actors like a miniseries. This led me to Thomas Honeck at the Duplex Nightclub and Piano Bar in NYC. Thank you, Thomas and cast, Molly Collier (Al), Annie-Sage Whitehurst (Juliana), Conor Wright (Danny), Colleen Lis (Aggie), Andrew Albigese (Dickie), Matt Biagini (Maxwell Harlington the Third), Lucy McMichaels (Virginia Sales), Matt Antar (Tommie), and Jess Miller (Shirl). And thank you Carol Mennie (Mrs. Minton and Al’s mom) for all the support since the beginning when she appeared in my first play. And a special thank you goes to Ray Fritz. Once a month, Ray, with insight and great care, turns my novel into a magnificent piece of cabaret entertainment. Also, thank you, audience, for coming month after month to find out what was going to happen next.

  While I was doing the research for this novel, I met a fascinating woman online. Arlene Freedman lived through the time period slightly past the one I write about in this novel. She has been an amazing help with her e-mail communications and her own writings. Through her, I have gained a greater insight into this era. (See “Research” earlier in this chapter).

  I also wish to thank my editors, Cherri Randall and Vicki Sly, for helping to make this novel stronger along with Pam Elise Harris, my proofreader, who did a marvelous job at fact checking, Melissa Flickinger, my book manager, for her patience with all my questions (even while she was on vacation), my cover designer, Lori Wark, for the beautiful cover design, and Annie-Sage Whitehurst for being the face of Juliana on the cover

  And there are no words deep enough to say what should be said to Toby, the woman who encouraged me and loved me throughout this process.

  Part One

  Before the War

  Chapter One

  She was all pink skin and red lipstick; something out of an ad for a noir film. And we, her adoring fans, stood in line, breathless, waiting for her to sign our programs. At the time, I didn’t know I’d be spending the rest of my life standing in her line.

&
nbsp; But wait; I’m getting ahead of myself. All that came much later.

  Chapter One

  June, 1941

  Aggie and I were on a train bound for New York City. We were kids, just graduated from high school, and our lives spread out before us as wide as the potato farms we’d just come from. We knew what we wanted and were absolutely certain we’d get it. Well, at least, Aggie was.

  “But, Dad, I should stay a while and help you with Mom,” I heard myself saying as the train rolled under the East River, and my ears began to pop. Staying wasn’t what I wanted at all. I’d waited my whole life for this.

  My father had whispered in my ear, “You get out of here. You get out of here now, or you’ll never get out.” Relief. He’d said the right thing.

  The train squealed into Penn Station. Aggie shook my shoulder with her gloved hand, and I dropped the book I’d been reading. “Al, we’re here! Can you see anything?”

  Aggie wore a pleated green jumper with a white blouse and saddle shoes. Her shoulder-length, blonde hair peeked out from beneath a green bonnet. Aggie and I had been best friends since first grade when her family moved into the house a couple doors away.

  I gripped my copy of O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra and looked out the window, cigarette smoke blurring my view.

  “I can’t see a thing,” I told her, but that was a lie. I could see my reflection in the window. And in the cigarette smoke, I saw Mom running after me with a carving knife, and my stomach jumped. I looked away. She only did that once, so I shouldn’t….

  New York City was a foreign country to Aggie and me. Hardly anyone left Huntington back then, even though the train ride was only an hour with one change in Jamaica, Queens from diesel to electric. Nobody did it ’cause the city was another world .

  “There!” Aggie shouted as the train screeched to a stop. “Get ya head outta that book and look. Dickie! Isn’t he a dreamboat in his striped jacket?”

  Dickie Dunn wore a red and white striped jacket with a red tie. He held his straw hat in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I thought he looked silly in that jacket, but Aggie saw dreamboat, and she was my best friend, so….

  “Look! He’s waving. Wave back!” Aggie waved her fool head off.

  Dickie stood by a pole making funny faces at us. He had bristly brown hair, and never seemed able to get a good haircut. A few stalks always sprouted out of odd places over his head. It’d been like that ever since first grade.

  I couldn’t see Danny anywhere.

  Aggie lowered the window and stuck her head out. “Dickie!” He rushed over and they touched hands.

  “Ah, doll,” Dickie said. “You’re here.”

  “Where’s Danny?” I asked.

  “Went to get a paper. You know Danny. Always gotta have a paper.”

  Then Danny popped into view. Tall, skinny Danny with the dark wavy hair and that one curl that always flopped onto his forehead; he was forever pushing it away with his hand. He wore his best suit: the gray graduation one. There he stood with his hat in one hand and the newspaper in the other. My buddy, my pal. We’d known each other since we were babies. I hadn’t seen him in a year. I was practically out of my skin with excitement even though it didn’t show. I couldn’t act excited like Aggie, so sometimes people thought I didn’t care about things. But I did. I cared about lots of things. Especially Danny. And Aggie and Dickie, too. They were my family. Danny knew that. Danny knew me better than anybody.

  Danny and Dickie had taken off for New York City as soon as they graduated last June. Aggie and I had to finish twelfth grade before we could come too. We were all gonna be actors on the Broadway stage, except Danny. He changed his mind in his junior year after he read Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms in Miss Haggarty’s English class. He wanted to write novels after that.

  Aggie pulled our suitcases down from the overhead luggage rack, and we joined the line of passengers waiting to get off.

  Dickie jumped onto the train, pushing past a couple of men exiting with briefcases. He grabbed Aggie’s suitcase. “Ah, doll,” he said. “Ah, doll.” Dickie never was very good with words. Never got more than a C in English.

  I lumbered behind them with my heavy load and stepped off the train where Danny stood smoking a cigarette. “Al, hi. You look pretty.”

  “Hi, Danny.” I didn’t feel pretty at all. I felt more like an old workhorse wrapped in a burlap bag. My mother had made the ugly dress I wore, and she wasn’t so good at sewing. It had huge shoulder pads that were sposed to make me look like Joan Crawford. The hat was this old-fashioned, sequined horror that used to belong to my mother in the twenties. My hair hung down to my shoulders with only a couple of curls that hadn’t wilted yet. The only thing that made me feel a little pretty were my brand new saddle shoes that my father bought me to start my new life. I knew they cost him a lot, and he didn’t have so much, so I loved them.

  Danny rolled up his newspaper and stuck it in his back pocket. He put his hat on, picked up my suitcase, and wrapped his free hand around mine. We were together again. The team. We knew we’d be married someday. When I was a Broadway star, and he was a famous writer. But for now, it was enough to be with him, holding his hand. Safe.

  I looked up to see the sky through the glass ceiling of Pennsylvania Station and breathed in this new city. As we walked toward the stairs, a few men in army uniforms passed us. Danny scowled, “Darn, European war.”

  Roosevelt had signed the first peacetime draft in US history the year before, and they were registering every man between twenty-one and thirty-six. A lot of us didn’t think getting involved with the European war was such a good idea.

  Danny and Dickie led the way up the stairs into the Grand Concourse. Well, actually, Dickie danced up the stairs. Dickie was always dancing. His parents spent all kinds of money they didn’t have keeping him in dance classes after Miss Kornblow, the first-grade Sunday school teacher, told them that Dickie had lots of natural talent and could be another Fred Astaire. Miss Kornblow taught kids to dance in the church basement on Saturday afternoons. Aggie, Dickie, and I took lessons, but Danny didn’t ’cause his mother said dancing lessons made a boy into a pansy. And there was nothing worse than a pansy boy.

  When I got to the top of the steps, I stopped. People shoved me, grumbling, but I didn’t care. I was surrounded by tall, marble columns and arches, and a rounded ceiling that so very high up, so very far from us and yet right there—like a sky. Stone sculptures of giant eagles and tall wrought iron lanterns with globes lined the inner walls. It was like stepping into a cathedral. The kind you see in picture books about the churches of Italy. That was Penn Station—a cathedral.

  Danny guided me through the crowds and out onto the street. New York City. I stood on 34th Street, and the buildings were just as tall as they were sposed to be, and I couldn’t help looking up.

  The late-June sun was hot, and sweat gathered around my neck. How did the boys stand it in those jackets and ties? Car horns beeped, and cab drivers yelled words my father told me never to say. I’d never seen so many people, all in one place at the same time, in my life. But I loved the sounds and the smells. I even loved the smell of the gas fumes coming off the congestion of honking cars and buses. I was here. I was finally here. We’d all been talking about this since third grade. I pretended I was a camera looking at us standing there, breathing. Breathing in this New York City. I took a picture in my mind, so I’d never forget us on our first day.

  My mother said it wouldn’t be long till I came running home to her. “And you can expect to find a locked door, buster,” she said. Then she slammed the door, and I heard her lock it. No one ever locked their doors in Huntington, but I knew she meant it. She’d locked me out many times before.

  The Christian Ladies of Hope House, where we were headed, was located on St. Mark’s Place between the Bowery and Third Avenues . Aggie’s mom, Mrs. Wright, had lived there just after the Great War when she had a job as a typist in a big office building. After a fe
w months, she got scared and went running home to marry Aggie’s dad. She was really frightened about Aggie living in New York City.

  We got off the Third Avenue El at Houston Street. The heat rose up from the cement sidewalk and burned hot through our shoes. Shadows from the El hid the men with ragged clothes sitting in doorways, smoking cigarettes clutched between grimy fingers. The bells on the trolley that hurried by us dinged as we passed men sleeping in makeshift cardboard box houses. One guy, who’d been curled into a ball in a doorway, dashed after a cigarette butt that someone had ground into the curb; he almost burnt his fingers trying to light it. Another guy rummaged through a garbage pail, discovered a half-eaten chicken leg, and made it his lunch. The smell of horse manure, gas, and unwashed bodies drifted through the air, and fear seeped into my stomach.

  We passed torn posters hanging crookedly from lampposts, used clothing stores, a bar, a Salvation Army thrift shop, and a doorway with a handwritten sign that said, Rooms 20c. Despite the sounds of the elevated train, and the trolley, and the buses and cars, there was a kind of silence that had settled over the street; it was like walking through a bad dream filled with horrible visions but no sound.

  As I walked down the block, all the joy inside me melted away. It reminded me that the Depression wasn’t over. It reminded me of what had almost happened to my family. I remembered my father sitting on our porch when he thought no one was around; I saw him crying ’cause he lost another job, and the bank was threatening to take our house.

  We didn’t talk to each other while we walked down that street. It would’ve been unholy to disturb the silence there.

  We turned and went a little ways down St. Mark’s Place where the brick buildings were dusty and broken. We stopped in front of a brownstone. In the window, there was a small wooden sign that read Christian Ladies of Hope House.

  “This looks like the place,” Dickie said, as the boys lugged our suitcases up the steps. The door was open slightly, so we pushed through. In front of us was a wooden stairway covered with a blood-red carpet. From the hallway, I could see the parlor. It had a large cushioned couch and two chairs covered in dark paisley. The rug was the same color as the hallway carpet, except it had big fade spots. In the corner stood a heavy desk made of oak.