A small, slight woman was standing on a street corner, oblivious of the hum of the traffic whizzing past. She wasn't really here in time but travelling through the journey of her past wondering how she got here, how she had ever survived. It was Colins.
She could hardly remember any moment in her life when she didn't feel as if she wasn't crawling out of her skin. If she had had any feelings of happiness, they had been swallowed up later on. She'd always been a skinny, nervous, timid child at a disadvantage with her peers in every respect and profoundly unhappy with herself. Even her voice marked her out as vulnerable to the predatory minded. She went through all these traumas right from her first day school onwards. Her strong minded parents breezed confidently through life and never saw the frightened soul who was silently crying out for help. Jane was her only school friend whose house she also visited from time to time. Her parents let them play in the sandpit with her in the untidy back garden where they chattered to each other, played games, and confessed childhood secrets. This was one of her few happy memories
Going to a boarding school tore her away from this source of security as Jane carried on at the local day school in her home town while Colins was whisked off like left luggage.
She remembered being dressed in her new school uniform of short- sleeved white blouse and checked skirt trying to explain what was happening and feeling both miserable as sin and guilty as if she was responsible for abandoning her friend who was crying as well. That was the last she saw of her as she could never reconnect with her even during holiday breaks. She was suddenly plunged into this goldfish bowl existence amongst which swirled the unthinking, the callous and those who plain ignored her. She never forgave her parents for doing this to her. From her first days as a freshman at St Theresa's, she was easily bullied so that her habitual behaviour was to creep cautiously round school, watching out for any dangers lurking in the shadows round corners. Instead of picking out somewhere she could eat with a friend at mealtime, she ended up being pushed away into some corner or other. In class, she was never the one to put up her hand even if she knew the answer to the question the teacher asked the class.
As she started to develop into her teens, another fragile certainty she possessed started to twist and turn in her hands. She saw how more assured girls her age alluded to mysteries of boys they'd met, that the glow in their expression and expression showed how they were starting to blossom into women. Colins looked briefly at her own body and promptly pulled her favourite long-sleeved pullover over her head. She felt more comfortable that way.
It was only when she was wandering around the trees at the back of the school that she found a focus for her life when she found a baby porcupine lying helplessly in the undergrowth. Her heart went out to this fragile creature that was likely to die where she lay unless something was done, Without thinking about it, she somehow cradled the creature in her thick pullover and brought it into school in a completely centred fashion. Unusually for her, the thought of the consequences never entered her head until she suddenly saw Miss Bradley in front of her arms folded and her blue eyes looking down at her. She started stammering out her apologies when the warm-hearted woman indicated that she'd allow her to look after the creature so long as she came up with some practical ideas in looking after the animal. It sparked off ideas in her head that could be translated into reality without too much trouble and revealed practical qualities within her that she never knew existed. Though the poor creature gave off pungent odours, she quite surprised herself in standing up against Cat Pegrum's sarcastic opposition with a spirit she never knew she possessed.
When Annabelle Tillman came to St Theresa's, improvement in her self confidence started to take root in a more durable form. The first moment she spotted her as she carried her tea tray, her heightened sense of danger told her that Annabelle was friendly and she dared to chatter away briefly until Cat Pegrum elbowed her way out of the way with her aggressive glare. Deep in the darkness of night, she sunk into the pit of despair which caused her to resort to her only friend and the instrument of disfigurement, her knife. Only in the dawn of a brand new day when she knew that Prissy, her pet porcupine, needed her tender care were her spirits lifted and she began to realise that relapses into the depths of despair weren't going to last forever.
She remembered in particular to her flash of courage in descending the staircase to the dorm hangout where she heard Annabelle lazily playing the warm sequence of notes on her guitar where she was hanging out with Kristen and Cat. She was everlastingly grateful when Annabelle overrode Cat's cruel rejection of her and took her under her wing. They were about to play a game of 'I never' where the only way of declaring the opposite as a past deeds of badness was taking a swig of Jack Daniels whisky. Colins felt both nervous when she felt that she'd always been cursed throughout her life and goodness didn't remotely enter the picture or she wouldn't have kept on cutting herself. Mixed in with that was some crazy hope that she might be able to declare the one positive act in her life when she told Cat that she'd 'done stuff' without explaining what it was. She definitely wasn't believed but this confrontation was sidelined when Annabelle frankly confessed that she'd slept with another woman. It didn't matter anyway or so she told herself as she shrugged her shoulders and went back to her dorm as her year as a senior allowed her finally to dissolve away her cursed timidity. Having Annabelle as a friend made all the difference which she finally realised when Cat Pegrum spitefully faked her concern to the Mother Immaculata about Annabelle's and Miss Bradley's morals the morning after the end of year party. Somehow, even her naïvety grasped that the two women must be in love but, as she liked both of them, that was all right with her. When Miss Bradley was led off by the police. for once in her life, it was the hated Cat Pegrum who was the outcast and not her.
When she went back home to her mother's she surprised herself to find out that a mysterious change within her had grown up inside her mind, that she had developed a mind of her own and while her mother pronounced her plans in one direction, she had different ideas even though they might sometimes coincide. Since she'd got respectable grades, she had meekly submitted to her mother's determined campaign to make the best of her looks, cosmetic surgery on her right arm to remove the scars, her hair shortened and neatened up, a smart skirt just above her knee, her pullovers replaced by a smart shirt and a touch of makeup.
"You won't be a child forever. You've got to leave it all behind and make the most of your looks. You really look quite attractive you know and besides, you need to look your best for your graduation," her mother said with a faint trace of approval in her voice as she saw that her ugly duckling daughter had been transformed more than she had thought possible. She was quite surprised that, for once her daughter hadn't frozen up intro a panic driven refusal. Who knows, some boy might be interested in her and perhaps she could be married off. She could dream, after all when she'd spent all her years dreaming of a daughter who'd be the outgoing beauty that she'd once been..
When she caught sight of Annabelle and Miss Bradley at the supermarket, their brief friendly chat lifted her spirits so much that she could deal with being hauled off to follow after her mother's militaristic approach to a morning's shopping. This unexpected lifting in her mood prompted her to track down Miss Bradley's address and send Annabelle a birthday card. What really set her up onto a plateau of good feeling was hanging out with Annabelle and Miss Bradley during the graduation ceremony which she loved. She was absolutely sure that the two women looked right together, certainly better than her parents did. She wondered to herself what there was to get so hung up about the idea.
So it was that she found herself out on the street when she'd spotted a poster in her local store and her eyes opened wide with astonishment. This poster showed four women in the cramped confines of a garage, one of whom sat behind a drum kit denoting awesome power while the other three wielded guitars which were wired up to amplifiers. To her total surprise, one of them was Miss Bradley and the other Annabelle. The performance was at a bar called Chico's which she'd never heard of and it was the following night. Her mind was immediately made up. She would tell her mother that she was going to visit some old school friends which was nearly almost true. She nipped into the store to buy some lipstick and makeup.
When Colins came out and stood window shopping at the clothes shop next door, she was tapped on the shoulder from behind her. She spun round to see a fresh-faced blonde with flyaway hair who grinned in recognition at her. Colins was temporarily nonplussed and embarrassed in not being able to recognise the other woman. As her eyes focussed on the other woman's eyes, nose and lips while the rest of the externals became blurred, dawning feelings of recognition returned as she matched it with the image of the child she'd know,
"Hey Jane. Oh wow, how great to see you after all these years," she found herself saying. That shy smile on her face was exactly the same as the other woman remembered.
"Hey, you look great. Let's grab a coffee someplace," the other woman said, impulsively slipping her arm through her friends just like they always used to do but back in the present where she wanted to be. She couldn't believe that someone had switched the light on and good fortune was at last coming her way.
Half an hour later, Father Harris strolled down the street to buy a newspaper and spotted the same poster that Colins had seen. He chuckled with pleasure to himself that his old pupil had found a direction in her life and this chimed in with his desire to be part of a circus until his parents stopped him realising his dream. He was happy for her, knew she'd be a natural and, best of all the Mother Immaculata was in a state of blissful ignorance of this latest act of sinfulness. He was sure that God would see her right.
Sadie sighed with pure relief after getting in from with after a hard day's work at the bank. She'd had her fill of mouthing customer service cliches to awkward customers and wanted her normal life back. She kicked off her high-heeled shoes, ran her fingers along the buttons of her white shirt and ripped it off. She unzipped her skirt and flung it after her shirt and felt that she'd unpeeled a layer of tightly restricting skin. She was standing half-undressed in the living room when the key turned in the lock and a familiar fresh sounding voice hailed her from behind.
"Ah, that's the way I like to see my woman."
Sadie laughed as there was a comical side to her state of undress as all she'd intended to do was to rip off her professional facade. Her lover looked fresh-faced and all-American which was what had appealed to Sadie when they first met. It was a union of opposites and all the stronger for it.
"Thank God you're here. I need you right now," she blurted out, the first thoughts falling out of her mouth.
"Anytime," Jenny said seductively. All she'd intended to do when she'd got home was to chill out but she was versatile.
"You know, this weekend," Sadie murmured an hour later while their work clothes were strewn anyhow on the floor. Her cheek was resting against the inside of her lover's right thigh.
"Mmmm," answered the blond-haired woman in satisfied tones as the last tremors worked through her system. They were used to having conversations in unusual physical positions as it helped them think.
"I was on my lunch break and saw a poster of Simone and Annabelle's new band. They're playing at Chico's tomorrow night."
"Oh yeah. We must support our friends," the dark-haired woman said enthusiastically. She kissed the inside of her lover's thighs and moved up next to her, her hand brushing her hair back from her face, a wide smile on her face.
"So that's settled then," Jenny replied, knowing very well that her lover's urges were needing to be satisfied very soon. She was happy enough making love on the carpet.
"I'm really proud of the purpose our photographs have been put to," Vanessa said, pulling back her hair from her face."I didn't know Simone was an artist as well as everything else." They were about to close up when they looked at one of the photos she'd shot of their group that their friend had lovingly painted over to highlight the colours. It had become a natural centre setting for a white poster to be reproduced and displayed in a selection of stores in the area.
"We will take time out to go to Chico's," pleaded Alison."I know we need all the custom we can get buy workaholism is the American disease, hey."
"Don't worry, we'll go,"Vanessa reassured her partner. She knew she would have to get up that much earlier the next day and that was that.