police officer from our neighborhood is running,” Mom told her in the same voice she uses with students who are particularly slow at algebra. “The one who saved the family during that awful fire—Mr. White. He says he’ll clean up the city.”
“Oh, good. Someone needs to clear out all that revolting nonsense.” Mrs. Upton tilted her head meaningfully, and Mom tilted hers back in agreement.
I glanced around for Peter so we could roll our eyes. He’d been right behind us on the steps, but suddenly there was no sign of him. Mom and Mrs. Upton kept walking, still talking about politics, but I hung back, and a minute later I got a glimpse of my brother’s jacket behind a column off to the far side of the steps.
“What are you doing?” I asked when I reached him. He was alone in the narrow space between the column and a stained-glass window, his shoulders hunched.
“Nothing.” He glanced my way and sagged back against the column. “Just needed to get away.”
“I know what you mean. I can’t stand Mrs. Upton, either.”
“It’s not Mrs. Upton. It’s Mom.” He peered around the column, then added in a whisper, “I can’t believe she wants to vote for Dan White.”
“I’ve never heard of that guy. Aren’t there a ton of people running?”
“Yeah, but he’s the only one promising to get rid of social deviants.” Peter said the last two words in a high-pitched whisper. “He’d carpet-bomb the Castro if he could.”
“Wait, what?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Can you believe what Mom said? About ‘cleaning up the city’?”
“What about it?”
“Come on, you know that’s code for getting rid of all those ‘disgusting homosexuals’ up in Eureka Valley.”
“How do you know? She could have meant anything. Most of the city is literally just dirty.”
“It doesn’t mean just anything. It never does.” Peter rolled his eyes. At me, though, not Mom or Mrs. Upton. “But you don’t get it, because it isn’t about you.”
I sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry.”
“You never even wanted to go back there with me after that one time. I asked you to come stuff envelopes for Harvey, but all you ever want to do is listen to those bands with the stupid names.”
That hurt, but he wasn’t wrong. Twice he’d invited me to join him at Harvey Milk’s camera shop to put together mailings with the other campaign volunteers, but I’d said no. I didn’t like being the only girl around a bunch of gay men.
But I hated the way Peter was looking at me. As if I’d failed him.
“I already knew Mom thought that way.” He tilted his head back, talking to the sky now instead of me. “It just sucks that she’s supporting this jackass.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got to go.” He pushed off the wall and turned his back to me. “Tell Mom I’m over at a friend’s for lunch.”
“Where are you really going?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He left, stalking up the street in his church suit, heading north. Toward the bus stop.
I could’ve chased after him. Instead I went back to catch up with Mom, said goodbye to Mrs. Upton, and walked the rest of the way home, nodding along while Mom told me not to take off my cardigan until we’d left church grounds next time.
When we got home, I came straight upstairs to my room and got my diary out from under my pillow. I thought if I wrote this down I’d be able to sort it all out in my head, but I don’t feel any better now than I did when my brother first walked away from me.
Yours, Sharon
Tuesday, August 2, 1977
Dear Harvey,
I am so mad right now. I can barely write, I’m shaking so hard.
Aunt Mandy called a special youth group meeting for tonight. I didn’t think anything of it at first. We have a lot of meetings, and if they’re called in the middle of the week it’s usually because someone