The Queering

THE QUEERING BROOKE SKIPSTONE Copyright © 2022 by Brooke Skipstone All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. ISBN (ebook): 978-1-7370064-5-9 ISBN (print): 978-1-7370064-6-6 Cover design by Cherie Chapman © ccbookdesign First edition CONTENTS 1. B&T 2. The One-Off 3. The Sound of Falling Water 4. The Gay Scene 5. The Queer Agenda 6. My Brother’s Keeper 7. Drag Queen 8. Take It or Leave It 9. Sex Now, Wine Later 10. Sorry for the Disturbance 11. Looking at Nothing 12. Crying on Shoulders 13. The Truth Shall Set You Free 14. It’s All a Lie 15. The Girl You Used To Be 16. Awful Strange Noises 17. Ace in the Hole 18. Arrested the Wrong People 19. A Contagion Worse Than Covid 20. Caravan of Queers Epilogue Acknowledgments About the Author “If you read this, you may understand that two women can truly love each other. And those who hate queers are a threat to everyone.” — Taylor Baird 1 B&T NO ONE in the world is actually named Brooke Skipstone. Not for almost fifty years. Taylor Baird MacKenzie, a long-term substitute teacher in Clear, Alaska, knew her secret had already begun to unravel. Brooke wrote novels about lesbian liberation, fierce coming-of-age stories full of high family drama. Her readers probably pictured an author in her thirties with tattoos and a gender-fluid appearance. Certainly not a seventy-year-old grandmother with long, thick hair—still more brown than gray—wearing lined leggings and an oversized hoodie that covered her butt. And unhappily married to the same man for over forty years. Much too old and too obviously straight to be writing such novels. Soon, everyone would know the truth—she was the author Brooke Skipstone. How big would the shockwave be? Taylor had long feared the repercussions and kept her pen name secret. What would her kids say? And her grandkids, who hardly knew her because she lived so far from them. And saw them even less than usual because of Covid. At times the thought of discovery had seared her guts, but the liberation of writing what she wanted, revealing the characters living in her mind and the love and pain in her heart, had become her main reason for existence. While at her keyboard, Taylor lost herself in her secret world—vibrant, passionate, full of laughter and turmoil and utter joy. Not like her real world of silence and numbing isolation, where she couldn’t talk about what mattered most to her. Keeping the source of her greatest happiness a secret had suffocated her life. Taylor stood at her classroom door before her last class of the day, while students thumbed phones and talked as they sat at a picnic table in the center of the Commons area. The same kind of table she and Brooke sat at in the spring of 1973. Soon after Taylor’s college roommate and fellow theatre major, Brooke Tobolovsky turned twenty-one, Brooke changed her last name. Though she didn’t have the internet to check, she said she had never heard of anyone named Skipstone, so claimed it for herself. She thought it sounded cool. Much better for the stage and screen. Besides, she’d always hated the sound of Tobolovsky. Regardless of her name, no one could ever forget her. Long, thick, cinnamon-colored hair; high forehead; deep-set blue eyes; and the biggest smile Taylor had ever seen. She could play Lady Macbeth just as easily as Juliet and belt out a song like a combination of Cher and Stevie Nicks. She was the natural lead, while Taylor was the utility player—competent actress, writer, composer, and organizational queen. Once all the legal papers were complete, they celebrated with a pitcher of beer at The Hangout a few blocks from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. They sat at a picnic table under canvas stretched between oak trees, blocking the March sun. Brooke carved her new name on the bench as they pushed flip-flops through pea gravel and peanut shells. “Does this mean I can’t call you Tobo anymore?” Taylor laughed and snorted beer. Brooke scoffed with a quick flash of her eyes, “I’ve put a curse on that name, as you can see. Say it at your peril.” She cocked an eyebrow. Taylor coughed this time, spewing beer on her shirt. “I always knew you couldn’t hold your liquor.” Brooke wiped Taylor’s chin with a napkin. “That word will never cross my lips again.” “Which word?” Brooke teased. Her tongue peeked out the side of her mouth as she dabbed the snot from Taylor’s upper lip. “Hmm?” Flashing a smile, Taylor said, “From now on, you’ll be BS to me. Nothing but BS.” Brooke narrowed her eyes and tightened her mouth. “You’d better be referring to Brooke Skipstone.” Taylor raised her hands and cocked her head in a perfect expression of amused innocence. “Certainly.” She tried to swallow the guffaw rising from her gut. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.” They stared at each other for three seconds, each holding her pose until Brooke broke into a smile. “That’s BS and you know it.” Taylor’s guffaw erupted, and in their laughter-filled haze, they both knocked their glasses to the ground. No matter. They drank from the pitcher and later started a burping contest. Taylor conceded when Brooke burped the chorus of “I Am Woman,” earning a standing ovation from the crowd of hippie students and locals that had gathered around them. The girls walked home, Taylor’s arm around her friend’s neck; Brooke’s around the other’s waist. They were known as B&T because they were inseparable. They’d shared the