“Laura!” Beth cried, walking by the train, and Laura looked up again.
“But I wouldn’t have the strength to face it if I didn’t.”
Beth reached for her and pulled her head down and kissed her, there on the train platform in the late afternoon sun with the train inching away from her and all Champlain free to watch.
“Laura, I love you,” she said, letting Laura slide from her arms as the train pulled her away. And she meant it, for the first time. She loved her; not as Laura would have wanted her to, but sincerely, honestly, the best love she could offer.
She leaned exhausted against a post and watched the train pull out and her eyes never left Laura’s. She stood with quiet tears stinging her cheeks and watched till the train wound its way out of sight.
Then she turned and walked slowly back down the steps and over to the station. She picked up her bag where Laura had left it and walked outside into the sunshine, set it down, and looked at her watch. There was a sudden flutter of new joy in her heart.
She had to hurry; it was almost five-thirty.
I Am a Woman
I Am a Woman
by Ann Bannon
Copyright © 1959 by Ann Bannon
Introduction © 2002 by Ann Bannon
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by Cleis Press Inc.,
P.O. Box 14684, San Francisco, California 94114.
Printed in the United States.
Cover design: Scott Idleman
Text design: Karen Quigg
Cleis Press logo art: Juana Alicia
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Introduction
Many years ago, when this book was in its final creative stages, I had a lucky invitation to come to New York and finish it in the home of friends of friends. They were young career women, living in a very small apartment in a very old building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, near Columbia University. Luckier still, they were on the top floor, and in the hallway outside their front door stood a dubious flight of stairs that took one to the roof. There I repaired when I got stuck, or the typewriter fought back, or the coffee ran out, and gazed out at marvelous Manhattan. I especially liked going up there after dark, when the great city was spread out like a carpet of sparklers, brilliant with promise. I had just invented Beebo Brinker for this book, and with the intensity of youth, I imagined her real-life counterpart out there somewhere, down in the Village going about her business, while I, on my roof, was trying to capture her story. I spent a fair amount of time leaning on the crumbly old parapets, staring deep into the lights and wondering if there were a real Beebo on this planet. If there were, would I ever meet her? Would she be like the woman I had contrived out of sheer need so she would at least exist somewhere in the world, even if only in the pages of my book? Was there anybody like her anywhere? Big, bold, handsome, the quintessential 1950s buccaneer butch, she was a heller and I adored her.
Not once did it occur to me to wonder if other people would ever know or care about Beebo Brinker. Not once did I ask myself if other women would fall under her spell, if readers would be amused and engaged by her, if she would develop a life of her own that would carry her across the decades until I would find myself sharing her with the rest of the world. What I wanted to know was, Would she be there for me, more real than reality? Would she rescue me from the frustration and isolation of a difficult marriage, from the impatience to be my own person before circumstances made it possible, from all the personal needs deferred in the interests of cherishing my children and finding my way in this life? It was a lot to dump on a fictional character. But she was my creature, my fantasy—and once conceived, she stood up and, with her broad shoulders, helped me lift my burdens.
Up there on that long-ago rooftop, I didn’t foresee Beebo’s future, but I did try to glimpse my own. Looking out at all those bright electric blooms spread at my feet, I pondered, If each one were a reader, how many would remember the name of Ann Bannon? Would I ever come back to Manhattan some day to acclaim? Reluctantly I acknowledged the realities: I was writing paperback pulp fiction. The Beatles had yet to glamorize the “Paperback Writer.” The stories were ephemeral; even the physical material of the books was so fragile that it hardly survived a single reading. The glue dried and cracked, the pages fell out, the paper yellowed after mere months, and the ink ate right through it anyway. The covers shouted “Sleaze!” The critics ignored the books in droves, and “serious” writers were going to the hardback publishers. Of course, we did have readers. People were grabbing the pulps off drugstore shelves and bus station kiosks, and reading them almost in a gulp. But then they tossed them in trash cans and forgot them. Given this precarious bit of fleeting notoriety, I had
