Girls will be girls : a novella and short stories

Eleven short stories and a novella make up this collection of fiction. In stories alternately tragic and comic, but always told with heart and wit, lesbian life takes a wide range of forms. “Family is Family” is narrated by a distraught Jewish mother at a PFLAG meeting; “Eggs McMenopause” is told in the voice of a butch in the throes of a mid-life crisis.” Whatever Happened to Baby Fane” explores the friendship of a lesbian and a gay man living with AIDS; “Homo Alone” concerns itself with a lesbian visiting her parents for the first time after her girlfriend leaves her for a man. “Girls Will Be Girls” is a novella told in three voices: Gwen, a therapist; Didi, Gwen’s girlfriend; and Nicki, Gwen’s client and the woman Didi is having an affair with.

The Babka Sisters

Sit down, shah, you ready? You got your tin can going there, you want to make a test, make sure my voice is good, everything is working all right? OK, so now I'm gonna tell you a story, a story I never told nobody. Why I'm telling you, a stranger, I don't even know, but all right, eppes, it's time.

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, around the Stone Age it was, takeh, I was a young maidl, and quite a looker I was too. I know what you're thinking, you look at me now and what do you see? A fat old lady wrinkled like a prune danish with hair like cotton candy. But, nu, I had quite a shape in those days, my hair I wore in a braid down my back thick as a man's arm, my skin was smooth as a baby's tuchus. You don't believe me, but you wait, mamela. Gravity ain't got no favorites; it catches up to everyone, eppes, someday even you.

So my childhood ain't nothing to talk about. An ordinary girl I was, I went to school, I came home, I helped my mother with the housework. Sure, five children she had, four boys and me, so who else is gonna help her? I had friends, too, boys and girls, no one special, there was a group of us that stuck together, to the movies we went, and to get a nosh at the diner, dancing once in a while, you know we did all the things young people do.

And then, when I was 16, a new girl moved into the neighborhood, and that girl, I had such a feeling for, I just couldn't take my eyes from her. You know the expression "love at first sight," sure, who doesn't, well of course that's what it was, but what did I know, we was two girls; girls don't fall in love with girls,who ever heard of such a thing? I just knew I wanted to be her friend, help her out, you know, show her around. It could be overwhelming, such a place, to a person who first walks in and don't know from it, eppes, it takes a while to get used to, it was a very big school.

Look, here's a picture of her, my Evie. You see, here we are both in the last row. That's our class picture from 11th grade, we was both tall girls; now I'm all stooped over like an old turtle, but back then my spine was straight as a Shabbos candle, from my (MORE ....)

The Babka Sisters Sit down, shah , you ready? You got your tin can going there, you want to make a test, make sure my voice is good, everything is working all right? OK, so now I'm gonna tell you a story, a story I never told nobody. Why I'm telling you, a stranger, I don't even know, but all right, eppes , it's time. Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, around the Stone Age it was, takeh , I was a young maidl , and quite a looker I was too. I know what you're thinking, you look at me now and what do you see? A fat old lady wrinkled like a prune danish with hair like cotton candy. But, nu , I had quite a shape in those days, my hair I wore in a braid down my back thick as a man's arm, my skin was smooth as a baby's tuchus . You don't believe me, but you wait, mamela . Gravity ain't got no favorites; it catches up to everyone, eppes , someday even you. So my childhood ain't nothing to talk about. An ordinary girl I was, I went to school, I came home, I helped my mother with the housework. Sure, five children she had, four boys and me, so who else is gonna help her? I had friends, too, boys and girls, no one special, there was a group of us that stuck together, to the movies we went, and to get a nosh at the diner, dancing once in a while, you know we did all the things young people do. And then, when I was 16, a new girl moved into the neighborhood, and that girl, I had such a feeling for, I just couldn't take my eyes from her. You know the expression "love at first sight," sure, who doesn't, well of course that's what it was, but what did I know, we was two girls; girls don't fall in love with girls, who ever heard of such a thing? I just knew I wanted to be her friend, help her out, you know, show her around. It could be overwhelming, such a place, to a person who first walks in and don't know from it, eppes, it takes a while to get used to, it was a very big school. Look, here's a picture of her, my Evie. You see, here we are both in the last row. That's our class picture from 11th grade, we was both tall girls; now I'm all stooped over like an old turtle, but back then my spine was straight as a Shabbos candle, from my A collection of stories on lesbians. The title novella is on a romantic triangle, another story deals with the break-up of a lesbian couple who are parents to a boy, and in a third a woman celebrates her menopause. By the author of Heather Has Two Mommies