Julep and Judy are teenagers in a charmless seaside town who sneak away to spy on their chemistry teacher each night. An innocent enough premise that, in the hands of a lesser writer, might turn into a saccharine coming-of-age tale about the girls’ budding sexuality. And it is a coming-of-age tale, in the sense that coming of age as a woman means confronting the dangers that lurk in the dark corners of daily existence. Williams is an expert at subtext and withholding. Woven throughout the story are hints of blood and menace that foreshadow the final, violent scene. I first read this story on a trash-strewn beach in July, marveling at the deliberate way Williams crafts each crystalline sentence, chilled despite the summer heat.
First published in The Paris Review, Spring1974, as ‘A Story about Friends’, and available to subscribers to read here. Collected in Taking Care, Random House, 1985, and also in The Visiting Privilege, Vintage, 2015
A Personal Anthology 