Chapter Text
Jackie Cox owed everything to her job. At college, she majored in English Literature and minored in French despite her parents gunning for her to read medicine and do honour to her roots (especially her Persian ones). She knew that they just wanted the best for her, but in reality she fainted at the sight of blood and was far too romantic for clear cut facts and cutting open cadavers. She was sure they wouldn’t have minded her romanticism as much if it was inclined towards men, but all of the poetry Jackie had ever written was about strong thighs, soft curves and full lips.
When her mother found the scrawls that covered secret notebooks all hell had broken loose in their home. Jackie scrambled for excuses but the piles of illicit writings were found in her room buried deep underneath her underwear. She felt guilty for making her mother face something so unknown and unfamiliar to her, but Jackie was her daughter and she had known her all her life. Her daughter was a lesbian. She always had been, that much was certain.
The discovery of her poetry left behind a strain even though it was deftly swept under the rug. Jackie was quick to move out for her studies with the knowledge that it would only be a matter of time before said rug could be pulled from under her if she stuck around. She spent her university days devouring Rita Mae Brown, Pat Parker and Mary Oliver, proudly displaying the collections of poetry and novels on her bookshelf. She never asked her parents to visit, always insisting that she would go home for dinner or for weekends if they wanted to see her. The thought of dismantling her self-made sanctuary to protect herself made her feel sick and she refused to do it. This was also the sanctuary where she had turned the theory of her lesbianism into practice, and she absolutely refused to let her parents step into somewhere so sacrosanct to her.
After university, Jackie would never say that she ‘ran away’ to England, but that’s exactly what she did. She took advantage of the dual citizenship courtesy of her father because after three years of living so freely away from home, she refused to bind herself to her roots again. The winding vines of home would suffocate her. She was proud of her culture, and she wanted it to grow with who she was, but she quickly realised that this was something she could only make happen by herself.
She was jobless but happy when she moved in with her aunt in Richmond, endlessly assuring her that it was only until she got on her feet. Bob - the owner of the bookstore - took a chance on her. Category Is... was a queer bookstore that sat on a quaint street in the heart of Bloomsbury, London. After her interview with the charming and quick-witted owner, who had the loudest laugh she’d ever heard, Jackie had stood outside and admired the small rainbow window display with hope. Her cheeks stung in the cold but she couldn’t bring herself to leave, her face bathed in the apricot glow emanating from the shop. It was only four o’clock, but it got dark early in the Winter months.
“Jackie!” A yell came from the upstairs window above the store. It was Bob.
“Yes?”
“Stop staring at the rainbows and take your ass home! It’s freezing! Ya’ll can stare on Monday when you start at ten. Don’t be late!”
Jackie’s face had blossomed into a wide smile as she pulled her coat tighter around herself. She had always felt like her life was a cacophony of noise, specifically white noise that she couldn’t manage to speak over. This was the start to something just as fraught with fighting, but a little more peaceful.
****
When Jan was given the chance to get away from New Jersey and grab a scholarship to complete the final year of her literature degree in London, she studied hard, spending her days lost in library stacks. After attending an all-girls catholic school, it disappointed her when university wasn’t the tether to freedom she thought it would be. She had envisioned finding herself in a way that wasn’t sneaking kisses from straight girls in sleepover games of seven minutes in heaven that led to huge - and absolutely true - rumours. In all honesty, she was just surprised it hadn’t already happened from the fact she played on the soccer team over at the neighbouring boys’ school (of course, the girls’ school did not have a team).
Going to college, Jan expected to find her people, her circle, when instead she found judgemental girls who found her persistent bubbliness irritating, and the kind of guys who goaded her for fighting the corner of feminism no matter what they were reading in class. "Oh, here we go," they would groan and she would pleasantly beam right back at them with a "Well, actually gorg…" to kick off her rant. She loved to frustrate them, piping up to play devil’s advocate and flipping her voluminous, blonde hair over her shoulder as she argued her points. They didn’t get it, and neither did most of her tutors.
London began to feel like the ultimate escape. She dreamt that this scholarship would give her the new life she wanted, surrounded by people who were like her. In all honesty, she loved to sing, dance and dress up, but that didn’t seem like a viable career option according to her parents. They loved her, and encouraged her more towards her love for literature, something about the skills being more transferable for jobs in the future. Jan was adaptable by nature, and therefore became dedicated to writing about what she loved at all times, even if it was pop music. She still felt perturbed when she remembered the embarrassing office hour she’d spent being practically laughed at for pitching an essay idea about why Madonna’s Material Girl was actually a love letter to feminism.
When she finally arrived in London and things didn’t kickstart the way she wanted them to, Jan felt it like an electric shock, and the lingering current ached in her veins. In her first week, it poured every single day, and a double decker bus went straight through a deep puddle, soaking her through. She remembers this as a rather fitting manifestation of her first few months in the city. She had grimaced through her days, giving into evenings curled up while the rain hammered against her windows. Dreamin’ by Blondie played in the background, and for once, the music didn’t bring her comfort, it only made her resent her overactive hopes. Classic Jan. Maybe it was time to give up on relentless optimism.
It wasn’t that Jan found it difficult to make friends, she was bubbly and bright and easy to talk to. Some of the people from her course and living in her accommodation were very nice, but that was it. They were nice. They were also very straight, and Jan had all but convinced herself that London was going to be a lesbian paradise.
She had friendly acquaintances. She kept up her habits of sparring with self proclaimed posh boys who loved Hemingway, and realised that English boys could be even more up themselves than American ones. She became constantly frustrated with the inability some of her peers had to take her seriously. They took one look at the way she paired thick headbands with DIY crop tops in pinks and purples and wrote her off. Jan simply smacked her lips together to taste her grape flavoured lip gloss and happily laid her glittery pencil case on the desk in front of her, thrilled at the idea of it annoying someone.
However, Jan only really started to settle in after the Christmas break. She’d gone home and sobbed to her parents about not going back, but after some gentle coaxing, she knew that they hadn’t raised a quitter. Upon her return, she was assigned a new personal tutor who would oversee her studies, be there for pastoral care, help with essays, anything she needed really; when they clicked immediately, Jan was thrilled to have an ally and no longer felt so stranded.
The tutor insisted that Jan called her Peppermint. Apparently, everybody called her that. Nothing formal, she had said, anything even remotely close to ‘professor’ made her cringe. She was kind yet firm, with a sprinkling of boldness that worked to make Jan giggle. When they laughed together, people walking down the corridors would stop because of the raucous sounds within the walls. She was originally a New Yorker, and her brashness and harsh vowels made Jan feel a little more at home. Peppermint’s stories quickly became her favourite part of the week.
Jan would chirp a happy “Pep!” whenever she sat down in the chair opposite her desk, immediately stealing a mint from the glass bowl close by. She would use this chance to vent (well, talk shit about some of her peers), learn, laugh and get feedback on her work. It helped that Peppermint let Jan talk smack about some of her fellow students, winking and stating no comment, which of course meant that she agreed. They understood each other to a certain extent. Jan had heard about the way some students treated Peppermint because of the whispers that went through the halls, and she was always determined to stand up for her. Jan was proud to be taught by her, proud to know her, and proud to stand with her.
It was late February when Jan found out about the bookstore. The air was icy and snow threatened to ruin her freshly permed hair on a daily basis as she danced between the black ice on the pavement during her crisp walks to early morning lectures.
“Jan! One more thing.” Peppermint said at the end of their meeting as Jan began to pop her notebooks away into her bag, biting her lip as her mind whirred with the advice she had been given regarding her latest assignment. Peppermint’s voice was kind. “I think I know what might help you.”
“What is it?” Jan’s eyes were attentive, ready to take in whatever Peppermint had to say. She hadn’t failed her yet.
“My friend owns a bookstore not far from here. I go over there on Thursdays for a group sometimes. I think you’d like it.” Peppermint was writing on a small piece of paper, eyes shooting up to Jan every now and then as she spoke with a knowing smile. “It will help with your wider reading for your studies, but most of all, I just think you’ll appreciate it.”
“O-kay.” Jan spoke slowly and raised an eyebrow at her cryptic tone, but Peppermint looked very purposeful with whatever she was alluding to.
“Just trust me.” She remarked as Jan took the paper, looking down at Peppermint’s neat handwriting.
Category Is… - Marchmont St
Russell Sq - Piccadilly Line
“I’ll check it out! Thanks, Pep.” Jan smiled toothily at her, shrugging as she pulled her bomber jacket over her shoulders and adjusted her crop top (even in the colder months, she wasn’t about to sacrifice her aesthetic).
She neatly folded the piece of paper and zipped it into her pocket for safekeeping, pulling out her Walkman to accompany her on the walk home. Maybe she’d hit the bookstore later.
****
Nicky was a Parisienne with cropped blonde hair and a predilection for French post-structuralist feminism. She was also Jackie’s best friend.They had most of their shifts together and were pretty much the faces of the book store. While Bob was the owner, he snorted at the idea of doing what he called ‘front of house’, and preferred to deal with the business side of things as well as hosting any literary events they held. Nicky probed him on this, raising a perfectly arched brow in his direction.
“Okay, it’s like this. In my opinion, queer people are smarter than straight people and I also think that women are just smarter than men.” Bob gestured towards Nicky and Jackie who were unpacking a delivery with bemused smiles on their faces as they listened to their boss. “It’s true! Which essentially makes lesbians the smartest people on the planet. That’s why you guys run it from the front, it just makes sense. If I ran that side of things? We’d have burnt to the ground by now.”
“Is this your way of sweet talking us into the shitty jobs? By saying we’re the smartest people on the planet?” Jackie shot back, bending down to pop some poetry collections onto the shelves.
“To be fair, it’s working.” Nicky drawled, working at a substantially slower rate than Jackie and knowing she would get away with it.
“Look, I literally pay you and I’ll always stop you from getting bangs if you ever consider it. I don’t need to sweet talk you.” Bob grinned and pointed at Jackie who was still on the ground surrounded by boxes. “You’re closing tonight?”
“Yup!” Jackie quipped, retying the laces of her boots and brushing down her jeans when she stood up again to bid him goodbye for the day (Jackie swore his exits were becoming earlier and earlier with every shift).
“He’s an asshole.” Nicky said as soon as the door closed, and Jackie swatted her arm but chuckled anyway. “I love him for it though.”
The French woman chuckled as she cranked the radio up like they always did when Bob left. They liked having control over the store and Bob was easy going with how they laid everything out; it felt more theirs than his but he never seemed to mind. As always, Nicky insisted that they listened to the Top 40 and gave a sensational rendition of I Think We’re Alone Now by Tiffany. She sidled up to Jackie by the shelves and draped herself across the counter with the sultriest look she could muster, all the while Jackie just gave her a shove and told her to get back to work.
“You’ll give into me one day, ma chérie.” Nicky teased with a smirk and slowly began to help again, taking a couple of boxes to the section adorned with queer zines. “It’s only a matter of time.”
“Oh, really? And what about the girl from Widow’s group?” Jackie clicked her tongue, knowing she’d hit a nerve with that one.
Jackie could tell that Nicky had to refrain from throwing a book at her, settling on rolling her eyes so hard she might have sprained something. Widow came by every Thursday to run a Black Womens’ Group. Bob was happy for them to use the space for free as long as Jackie or Nicky stuck around to lock up at the end of the night. Nicky had treated the idea of staying late with disdain at first, unsurprisingly shoving the responsibility over to Jackie who didn’t really mind because the bookstore was her favourite place. She loved chatting to Widow while she set up, and then she could read whatever she wanted and put her feet up. It was pretty ideal as far as Jackie was concerned.
There was one night Jackie had the flu. Like a martyr, she had spluttered her way through the day, much to Bob’s chagrin, who told her to go and rest up. Nicky covered for her that evening. Ever since then, she has taken every single Thursday night without question or complaint because of the girl with braids who wore black turtlenecks paired with a sleek leather jacket.
“Her name is Jaida and she’s so hot, Jackie.” Nicky groaned, dramatically pretending to fall against the wall closest to her. “She looks at me and I’m wet-”
“Nicky!” Jackie shushed her, looking exasperated but trying to fight her amusement. To be honest, when she was around Nicky, this was her almost constant state. “We’re still open! A customer could walk in.”
“So what? If they saw her, they would agree!” Nicky retorted insistently, never having any shame over the way she talked about sex. That was the same for everyone Jackie surrounded herself with really, and you’d think she’d be used to it by now.
When she had first started at the store, Nicky had dragged her into her little circle of queers and Jackie never left. They became a chosen family to her, waifs and strays who clung to each other when their families were no longer there to hold onto. When Jackie had first arrived, she had never been confident in disclosing her proclivities despite fully exploring them during university. The group coaxed it out of her, gently and bit by bit, until she proclaimed it with the same pride that they did. They congregated in the space at the back of the store, cradling cups of coffee and oftentimes something stronger, laughing until one or two in the morning in the midst of dim lighting and jasmine candles. In complete honesty, the bookstore was like a safe house for all of them. The whispers of attacks were sometimes louder than the laughter that they shared, and every now and then someone needed cleaning up, but they had each other’s backs.
****
The rain was pounding hard against her lavender umbrella, but Jan found that she didn’t mind. The pathetic fallacy that had followed her during her time in London had become a comforting blanket of familiarity by this point, and she splashed her boots through puddles with a playful ferocity. She looked from Peppermint’s quick scrawl on the now crumpled up note and back up to the bookstore that was standing before her. Category Is… was quaint, compact and very obviously gay.
Jan took in the window display slowly and cautiously. She peeked around to see if anyone was watching her before she allowed her eyes to widen at the bold explosion full of colours and Pride flags. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen anything so welcoming before in her life. Of course, it was nothing special or extravagant. It looked ordinary enough with its slightly faded lettering over the door, but there was something about the way that amber lighting drenched it that made Jan feel warm.
Jan hadn’t come out to Peppermint, and yet clearly she knew. The way she had said I just think you’ll appreciate it now translated to I’m guessing you’re a lonely lesbian so here’s a gay bookshop. Jan flushed and grinned to herself, chuckling despite it all, and feeling a stirring in her gut at the thought that stories of the love that she wanted could even fill an entire bookstore.
She took down her umbrella, squealing as the rain began to hit her curls, making her rush through the door where the radio was playing quietly. It was a little too quiet underneath her squeaks, and she mouthed a sorry! at the woman behind the desk as the door slammed behind her. She jumped at the sharp sound it made when it closed, cringing inwardly and looking at the woman apologetically once again. She didn’t seem to care though, she just smiled and looked like she was trying not to laugh from behind her round rimmed glasses.
The brown eyed woman was sitting on a stool behind the counter, reading, with a steaming hot cup of tea beside her. The shirt she wore was definitely not from the women’s section and had an obnoxious pattern, baggy at the top where it hung off one of her shoulders and cinched at the waist where it was tucked into her belted blue mom jeans. Jan wandered slowly inside, trying to disguise the fact she was looking at her and not the books, finding herself fixated on the way her dark ringlets fell around her face and how her hands protectively cradled the book she was holding. Her nails were tidily kept and she wore a couple of silver rings to match the simple necklace that rested against her sternum.
“Can I help you?” She sounded bemused, questioning, and Jan felt as though she’d been caught. Her gaze was strong and clear, causing Jan to finger the bottom of her crop top, feeling fidgety under her scrutiny.
“Lesbian-” she blurted, immediately bringing her hand up to her mouth and giggling. God, Jan, get it together. “Fiction! Lesbian fiction. Please.”
The woman’s eyes seemed to brighten, wide with amusement and enthusiasm. She didn’t embarrass her though, but Jan was dying to know what she might have said in a situation where the customer wasn’t always right, because her own cheeks were burning and something about the sparkle in this woman’s eye said that she desperately wanted to comment on her Freudian slip.
“Lucky for you, that’s my specialty.” She merely said, popping her bookmark in between the pages of her novel and placing it down before gesturing for Jan to follow her. Something about her little quip made Jan’s eyes widen as she hoped this specialty extended to more than just literature. She worked in a queer bookstore, so surely it did.
Jan followed close on her heels, taking in her surroundings as they reached the right set of shelves. She tried not to look too dopey as she watched the bookseller purse her lips in thought, skimming her fingertips over the spines of the books as she muttered authors’ names and titles to herself.
“Try this.” She pulled one out, handing Jan a copy of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson. She flicked through the pages briefly while she listened. “It’s only a few years old and if religion isn’t too much of a sensitive topic for you then I’d say start there. Do you like poetry?”
“I love poetry! I do literature at UCL, I’m doing my final year over here.” Jan gushed as she chattered, eyes skating down to the woman’s cherry red Doc Marten boots that were scuffed at the toes. “I’m originally a Jersey girl.”
“So, we both crossed the Atlantic. Getting away from something?” Jackie quirked an eyebrow, wrinkling her nose as she searched the shelves once again.
“Something like that.” Jan made a non-committal sound, shrugging as she met her eye.
“I know I was...Ah! Here. Pat Parker. If you take anything from me today, make it this.” Another book was thrusted into Jan’s hands and she nodded eagerly, happily drinking up anything she was offered.
“Thank you so much for this, I never realised that so many people were out here writing about this kind of thing. These books certainly aren’t on my reading lists.”
“Of course they aren’t.”
Jan paid and watched as the woman slid the books into a small, pink bag, along with something else she couldn’t quite see. “I’m Jan, by the way. Just Jan.”
“My name is Jackie. It’s nice to meet you, ‘just Jan’.” She - Jackie - winked, and Jan could have sworn her legs could have given from under her. She knew this wouldn’t be the last time she came here, but inwardly chided herself for getting so carried away.
“I’ll be back to tell you what I think!” Jan beamed, nodding keenly as she took the bag and shook it playfully.
“I’ll be counting on it.”
****
By the time Jan left, the weather had taken that typical English turn of contrasting completely. The sun shone through the crisp air, breaking up the need to shiver with momentary bursts of welcome warmth. Jan practically skipped down the pavement when it struck her to look inside the bag Jackie had packed.
As well as her books, there was a store branded bookmark, but that wasn’t the best part. The part that made her heart flip was the set of pin badges Jackie had snuck in for her, emblazoned with slogans like out of the closet and into the street, encourage lesbianism and dyke! in a soft baby pink.
Jan had learned Jackie’s name not even ten minutes ago, but it already tasted fizzy and exciting on her tongue. Just as Jan thought the sun didn’t exist in London, apparently it did.