P.S. Is everything all right? Your last letter made me wonder. If there’s anything going on, you can tell me. Don’t forget our pledge.
Saturday, September 24, 1977
Dear Sharon,
Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, there’s just been a lot going on.
I asked the guy at the record store today if they had anything by the Avengers or the Prudes, but he said no. I’ve seen him there a bunch of times—there’s only one decent record store in town, so I go there a lot, and he’s usually there in the afternoons—and today he was wearing a shirt that said Eat the Rich with a skull on it next to a picture of a knife and fork, which is a gutsy shirt to wear in Orange County. He asked where I’d heard about the Prudes and the Avengers, and I said my friend had seen the Prudes live in San Francisco—and Sharon, I have to tell you, this guy was impressed. I could tell he was trying to hide it, but he’d never heard of them.
It’s funny… I couldn’t care less whether anyone at school thinks of me, but I like the idea that this guy thinks I’m cool.
They did have that single by X-Ray Spex, so he played it for me over the store’s speakers. We got some annoyed looks from people in the disco section, but the song doesn’t have any curse words, so they need to relax. It’s weird, sure, but no weirder than Patti Smith singing about humping a parking meter.
Did you ever find that Iggy Pop record? What did you think?
Yours truly, Tammy
Wednesday, November 9, 1977
Dear Diary,
In History today I was minding my own business, writing a letter to Tammy.
It’s getting harder now to figure out what to say in those. All she ever wants to talk about anymore is music. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about music—sometimes, talking to Tammy about shows is more fun than actually going to shows—but for a while we were writing to each other about real things, personal things, and I don’t know why we stopped. I must’ve said something wrong.
Our reports are due soon, but we’ve already finished all the stupid questions we were supposed to answer. I hope we’ll keep writing after the project is over. We’ve already written way more than the ten letters we were supposed to.
I wish we could meet in person. I wish I knew what she looks like.
But I’m getting distracted. I sat down to write about what happened in History.
Yesterday was the election. I watched the results come in with Mom and Peter last night, and it was as if our whole city had changed in an instant. I wanted to write to Tammy about all of it, but this was all I’d managed to get down:
Dear Tammy,
I’m exhausted. I’m sitting in History class and the teacher’s droning on about Charlemagne again. I stayed up way too late watching the news, and now I can’t stop thinking about—
“What’s this, Sharon?” Sister Catherine’s voice was way too sharp and way too close. I slammed my hand down over my notebook, but it was too late. “Taking notes, I see? You can read them aloud to the class. Up front, please.”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Yes, Sister.”
There was a time when my face would’ve burned as I walked to the front of the classroom, but this was too ridiculous to get embarrassed over. If I’d had to read the letter I wrote Tammy a couple of weeks ago, the one where I told her about going parking with Kevin after a movie, and how all of a sudden he opened his glove compartment and showed me he had a box of condoms in there, and how I felt so awkward I pretended to have a coughing fit and asked him to drive me home, that would’ve been another story.
Rhonda and Jennifer grinned as I reached the front of the room, happy to have Sister Catherine’s lecture interrupted. Rhonda checked to make sure Sister