Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante Read online

  Outstanding praise for Bobby Blanchard, Lesbian Gym Teacher!

  “Shamelessly campy!”

  —Instinct Magazine

  “Nolan’s pell-mell pastiche of varied genres is great fun.”

  —Pittsburgh’s Out

  “If you’re looking for silly, satiric fun, Bobby will show you a good time.”

  —Edge Magazine

  “A fun, fresh, and feminist satire on pulp fiction of the fifties and sixties.”

  —Orange County Blade

  Outstanding praise for Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary!

  “Unabashedly campy and titillating, Nolan’s debut novel is a tale of 1950s lesbian career girls loose in the big city. . . .”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Nolan squeezes her kicky premise for plenty of juice, leaving the pulp in Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary deliciously intact.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “Monica Nolan’s first novel, Lois Lenz, Lesbian Secretary, is a delicious contemporary homage to queer pulp novels. . . .”

  —Bay Times

  “In her second book, Monica Nolan gives us what we really want—a campy pulp filled with gratuitous lesbian sex, communism, reefer madness, and ruthless dictation. . . .”

  —Curve Magazine

  “The 1950s. Virginal young women. Small-town values. Repressed deviant desires. Big-city temptations. No, it’s not lurid new fiction from lesbian pulp pioneers like Ann Bannon or Paula Christian—though Nolan’s campy novel is an exhilarating homage to their lusty novels of yore. . . .”

  —Bookmarks

  Books by Monica Nolan

  THE BIG BOOK OF LESBIAN HORSE STORIES (with Alisa Surkis)

  LOIS LENZ, LESBIAN SECRETARY

  BOBBY BLANCHARD, LESBIAN GYM TEACHER

  MAXIE MAINWARING, LESBIAN DILETTANTE

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  Maxie Mainwaring, Lesbian Dilettante

  MONICA NOLAN

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Outstanding praise for Bobby Blanchard, Lesbian Gym Teacher!

  Also by

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - In the Powder Room

  Chapter 2 - A Date with Pamela

  Chapter 3 - Maxie Drowns Her Sorrows

  Chapter 4 - Miss Watkins Is Perplexed

  Chapter 5 - A Visit from the Police

  Chapter 6 - Advice from Mamie

  Chapter 7 - Raid on the Mainwaring Manse

  Chapter 8 - A Writing Assignment

  Chapter 9 - Blind Item

  Chapter 10 - A Job for Maxie

  Chapter 11 - Recreational Aide

  Chapter 12 - Table for One

  Chapter 13 - A Visit to the Pawnshop

  Chapter 14 - Polish

  Chapter 15 - House Party

  Chapter 16 - Breakfast in Bed

  Chapter 17 - Magazine Assistant

  Chapter 18 - Uplift with Pamela

  Chapter 19 - Loon Lake

  Chapter 20 - Fireworks

  Chapter 21 - Raid!

  Chapter 22 - Tail Job

  Chapter 23 - The G-Woman

  Chapter 24 - Lounge Lizard Lothario

  Chapter 25 - Breakup!

  Chapter 26 - An Old Friend

  Chapter 27 - Lon

  Chapter 28 - A Busy Day

  Chapter 29 - The Mysterious Phone Call

  Chapter 30 - Accident!

  Chapter 31 - The Knock Knock’s New Owner

  Chapter 32 - A New Job

  Chapter 33 - The Switch

  Chapter 34 - Unmasked!

  Chapter 35 - At Home in Bay City

  Author’s Note

  Copyright Page

  For Julie Ann

  and librarians everywhere

  Chapter 1

  In the Powder Room

  “Damn,” exclaimed the brunette with the bee-stung lips. “I have a run!”

  Maxie Mainwaring glanced over from her side of the mirror, where she was busy freshening her lipstick.

  “What a shame,” she began politely, then stopped, transfixed, as the girl hiked up her narrow skirt to mid-thigh to examine the state of her stockings. “A real shame,” Maxie breathed, her eyes riveted on the girl’s legs.

  She’d always been a sucker for a shapely pair of legs, ever since she’d fallen for the swim instructor at Camp Pottawatomi when she was twelve.

  “They’re ruined,” fretted the brunette. “What am I going to do now?”

  “Why don’t you just take them off?” Maxie suggested boldly. “No one will notice.”

  But the brunette shook her head. “Maybe if I’d gotten a tan this weekend at Loon Lake, but it rained, and I’m still as white as a fish belly—simply gruesome! Besides, those old biddies at the DAP tea would be scandalized!”

  “Oh, are you attending the DAP tea too?” Suddenly Maxie’s dishwater-dull afternoon was looking decidedly brighter.

  Madcap Maxie had only agreed to attend the 1964 Daughters of the American Pioneers Spring Tea under duress. Her mother had threatened to withhold her monthly allowance unless Maxie accompanied Mrs. Mainwaring to this annual inauguration of Bay City society’s summer whirl, the round of parties, fetes, and galas, whose sole purpose was to determine the social pecking order.

  And her attendance alone would not suffice, Maxie’s mother told her sternly. She was to behave in a manner befitting a girl of her position: no cocktails instead of darjeeling, no smoking in front of Mrs. Lund, Mrs. Thorwald, Mrs. Houck, or any of the other DAP officers, no wearing those outré styles she affected with her disreputable chums at that horrible boardinghouse in Bay City where she insisted on living for some ungodly reason, and no provocative comments on politics or shocking stories about her bohemian habits.

  “Am I allowed to breathe?” Maxie had inquired sarcastically.

  “And whatever you do, don’t talk about your—your job,” Mrs. Mainwaring had concluded, ignoring the interruption. Her tone of voice suggested that Maxie worked in the sewers instead of at a newspaper. “I’ve let everyone think you’re busy with volunteer work for the Junior League. Is there any young man in your life, not too embarrassing to mention?”

  Maxie had twisted the cord of the front desk phone impatiently. “No, Mother—you know I spend most of my evenings with my girlfriends.”

  “Well.” Her mother’s disapproval had vibrated over the line. “I’ll put it out that you’re choosy. But, Maxie, I warn you, I’m not going to tolerate this situation much longer—”

  It was a pity Pamela Prendergast wasn’t a fellow, Maxie had thought to herself as she hung up the phone, because Pamela was just the kind of rising young executive Mrs. Mainwaring was always introducing to Maxie, or seating next to her daughter at society functions. But on the other hand, if Pamela had been a fellow, Maxie would never have given the fetching redhead a second glance. There was simply no way she could please both herself and her mother when it came to dating!

  She’d resigned herself long ago to having as gay a time as a girl could, while making the occasional concession that kept Mabel Mainwaring signing the checks.

  For the hundredth time Maxie wondered if she should follow Pamela’s advice and try to make a real career in journalism. Her salary as a part-time assistant for columnist Mamie McArdle scarcely covered her bar bills. But who was she kidding? She was no Pamela. She could never have started at the hosiery counter in Grunemans department store and worked her way up to Junior Sportswear Buyer in such a short time, the way her dynamic girlfriend had.


  It was only on afternoons like this one, at the Bay City Women’s Club, listening to the droning of the DAP minutes and evading questions from her mother’s blue-haired cronies about her work with the Junior League, that Maxie felt like she’d do anything—dig ditches, drive a cab, even be a dental nurse—to get out from under her mother’s thumb!

  When she saw Mrs. Houck heading her way, undoubtedly in another attempt to fix Maxie up with her son Harvey, she’d escaped to the powder room. And there the girl with the bee-stung lips had driven her dilemma right out of her mind.

  “Oops!” The girl clapped a hand over her mouth in mock dismay. “I hope I haven’t spoken out of turn. I count my mother as one of the old biddies I mentioned. I’m Elaine Ellman.”

  Elaine Ellman, daughter of Eddie Ellman, granddaughter of Erwin Ellman, the bicycle heiress. Maxie placed her instantly. “Maxie Mainwaring.” She held out her hand. “And my mother’s another old biddy.” The two girls shared a laugh as they shook hands.

  Elaine must have been placing Maxie as well. “Didn’t you go to Miss Gratton’s?” she asked. “I think you know my cousin—Sookie Carmichael.”

  Maxie blushed faintly. Of course she knew Sookie Carmichael. Sookie had been at Miss Gratton’s the year Maxie was caught with Mingy Patterson, after lights-out, in the nurse’s office. She couldn’t help wondering if Sookie had told Elaine of the school scandal and Maxie’s own starring role in it.

  “She sounds familiar,” Maxie said cautiously, wondering whether Elaine was the type to be put off by such high jinks, or the kind who was intrigued. The second possibility made her pulse quicken. “But let’s solve your stocking situation before we start reminiscing. Maybe the maid has an extra pair.”

  But the powder-room maid, after looking through a basket of lotions, sewing notions, and sanitary napkin belts, came up with only one pair, sized large, dark tan.

  “Gruesome,” Elaine said again, wrinkling her pert, freckled nose. “I guess I’ll just have to hide in here for the rest of the afternoon.”

  Maxie was eager to help her new friend. “I’ll tell you what,” she suggested impulsively. “Why don’t you wear mine? I’ve got enough of a tan to get away with it. No, really,” she interrupted Elaine’s protests. “I often skip stockings—I guess I’m the bohemian type. And I’ve been shocking the old biddies since I was born.”

  Maxie’s friendly generosity won Elaine over. Retreating to the inner lounge, away from the curious eyes of the maid, the two girls made the switch. While Elaine was smoothing down her pastel printed skirt, Maxie wadded up Elaine’s ruined hose and threw them into the wastebasket. Her own legs felt agreeably bare under her brown linen two-piece with the white piping. She began to revive from the hour and a half she’d just spent repressing every natural instinct under her mother’s icy glare. Here, with Elaine, in the pink-and-green powder room, she felt sort of—free, like she was her own woman again.

  Maxie took a cigarette from her purse and lit it. “Don’t let’s go back yet,” she proposed, sitting on the pale green pouf at the powder-room dressing table.

  Elaine was turning this way and that in the mirror. “Much better,” she said, dropping to the pouf beside Maxie. “You’ve saved my life!” She took the cigarette Maxie offered her. “You must be the girl Sookie told me about. She said you were awfully generous.”

  Maxie leaned forward to light Elaine’s cigarette. As the two girls’ dark heads came together, she noticed the enormous diamond on Elaine’s left hand. “What else did Sookie tell you?” she asked huskily.

  “She said you were always getting into trouble with your crazy pranks.” Elaine’s voice was just a whisper and her big brown eyes made Maxie think of Bambi. The movie had made a strong impression on the tenderhearted girl as a child, and the thought of the orphaned deer could still bring tears to her eyes.

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I always said.” Maxie was mesmerized as she stared into those big Bambi-like eyes, feeling an overwhelming impulse to cuddle this fawn-like creature to her bosom.

  Elaine’s eyes never left Maxie’s as she put her cigarette in the ashtray. “I like your philosophy,” she said as she leaned forward.

  Maxie knew she shouldn’t, but Elaine’s bee-stung lips were simply begging to be kissed, and her engagement ring glittered like a kind of challenge in the periphery of Maxie’s vision. As their lips met, she slid her arms around the warm, silk-covered torso, and it seemed to Maxie that she felt the girl tremble, like a frightened fawn hiding from a hunter. But who was hunting who, or rather whom? she asked herself, as Elaine’s eager, experienced lips started a small forest fire in her loins. Then she didn’t care anymore, as the fire grew, burning up all thought of hunters, woods, and small, furry mammals with it. She tightened her arms around Elaine as the other girl’s head fell back, exposing the tender white throat. Not like a fish belly at all, Maxie thought hazily, as she nibbled the delicate flesh, while Elaine’s pink-polished fingernails dug almost painfully into her shoulders.

  She was about to suggest they go upstairs to one of the club’s guest rooms, when Elaine suddenly pushed her away. In the mirror behind Elaine Maxie noticed her mussed hair and smeared lipstick before spotting the shocked reflections of two doughty dowagers, Mrs. Ingeborg Lund, President of the Bay City Chapter of the DAP, and Mabel Mainwaring, Maxie’s own mother.

  Elaine cried, “What on earth are you doing?” in simulated horror. It took a confused second for Maxie to realize that the bicycle heiress had hurled the accusation not at the interrupting society matrons but at Maxie, the girl who had given her the very stockings off her legs.

  “Me!” said Maxie indignantly. She whirled to face the intruders. “She started it! She said she had a run in her stocking, and—”

  Mrs. Lund was patting Elaine soothingly, as the attractive brunette wept convincingly on her flowered shoulder. “I should have believed the shocking things Sookie told me!” she sobbed as Mrs. Lund led her from the powder room.

  Scarcely had the duplicitous debutante made her exit than Mrs. Mainwaring turned on Maxie with a tight-lipped fury that made her daughter quail.

  “This is the limit, Maxie! I’ve had it up to here shushing one scandal after another and putting up with your boorish behavior to boot! I was never so mortified in my life as when Inga and I came in and saw your shameless attack on the poor Ellman girl!”

  “I tell you, Mumsy, she started it!” Maxie protested. “She isn’t even my type!” It was that fawn-like quality, she thought to herself with fierce resentment. If Elaine hadn’t reminded her of Bambi, none of this would have happened.

  Her mother snorted. “Everyone knows Elaine Ellman is engaged to Ted Driscoll, of the dry-cleaning Driscolls,” she snapped. “The Lord knows your father and I have done our best for you—the best schools, the best society—we even paid for a psychiatrist after the embarrassing incident at Miss Gratton’s—”

  “He was loonier than I was,” Maxie muttered.

  “And how have you shown your gratitude? Broken engagements—disreputable friends—a preference for the gutter rather than the fine, decent people you were raised with. And then taking a job working for that unsavory columnist!”

  “Mamie McArdle is a well-respected newspaper woman,” Maxie protested. “And the girls at the Magdalena Arms are nice, hardworking kids, all of them!”

  “Well, you have a choice, Maxie.” Mrs. Mainwaring grew frighteningly calm. “You can come home with me now, or you can go back to the gutter and find someone else to support you—because you’re not getting another dime from your father or me until you’re back at the Manse under our supervision!” And with that parting bombshell she wheeled around on her well-shod heel and stalked from the powder room.

  Maxie’s mind was in a turmoil, like a washing machine that had been fed too many nickels. How could a simple visit to the powder room have gone so horribly wrong? How could a girl who kissed so well behave so badly? Did she have enough money in her purse for a cab back to the
Arms? If only she’d collected her allowance before her mother had issued her ultimatum! She was behind on the rent and she’d already overdrawn her account!

  And how on earth was she going to explain this to Pamela?

  Chapter 2

  A Date with Pamela

  Maxie let herself into Pamela’s place with her key. She bustled about the airless apartment, heels clicking on the parquet floor as she opened drapes and windows. Then she sat down on Pam’s new couch to wait for her girlfriend. She plucked the latest issue of The Step Stool, the homophile newsletter Pamela subscribed to, from the kidney-shaped coffee table.

  Maxie flipped through it, barely seeing the words on the page. Her mind was too full of the solution that had come to her on the way to Pamela’s: She would finally move in with her faithful girlfriend!

  Not only was it the ideal answer to her dilemma, but Pamela would be overjoyed—she’d been pestering Maxie to move in with her for years. Maybe Mumsy’s ultimatum was actually a blessing in disguise, Maxie mused.

  Tossing The Step Stool back on the coffee table, Maxie got to her feet and prowled around the picture-perfect apartment, looking at the familiar surroundings with a newly possessive eye. The little galley kitchen seemed even more charming than ever, chock-full of cunning conveniences, including a nickel-bright, built-in can opener. And penny-pinching Pamela had done herself proud, purchasing not only the new couch and the coffee table, but a French fondue set—all at Grunemans, naturally, using her employee discount.

  Maxie paused in the kitchen doorway, picturing herself in a frilly apron, dipping a chunk of crusty bread into a pot of melted cheese with one of those clever forks. Didn’t the Sentinel always print those articles on their Women’s Page, proving two could live as cheaply as one?