Helen's Concerto

Helen Nordstrom was a gifted all-round musician. She was also an athlete, an actress, and a wonderful teacher. Unfortunately, she was also bisexual, and utterly passionate and romantic, and found it difficult to resist any pretty girl. After numerous amorous adventures, Helen was struck by a sequence of tragedies: her reputation was destroyed by homophobic elements, her adopted girls were taken away, she was shunned by the religious right, she had a terrible accident that killed the baby she was carrying, and she retired from the stage in acute depression. And as she was beginning to recover, a large brain tumor was removed, and Helen lost her memory.

Much of the Helen saga is concerned with her episodic love affairs with a sequence of women. But on one occasion, Helen decided to masquerade as an actress called Sharon Vuehl, and acted in a movie, just as a prank; then she returned to her life as a college professor. But the movie was a hit, and Helen slipped out to make a second movie, which was also a hit. Then she decided to make an epic movie in which the theme was a lesbian romance set in the bronze age, where Helen played the heroine, Merit, who was a fighting, love machine of a woman, who falls in love with the princess, and runs off with her. The problem was, the actress who plays the role of the princess actually falls in love with Sharon. Of course, Sharon disappears into thin air between movies, but the actress, Sita, who plays the princess can't forget her.

Then, Sharon and Sita are both nominated for Oscars, and Helen can't resist attending the ceremony. The actresses meet at the home of a friend, and have an intense encounter, and both women are left feeling hopeless and guilt-ridden, respectively.

Meanwhile, as described above, Helen has her reversals, but a core of staunch friends keep Helen on an even keel, not least of whom are Lalitha, and Sita, her sister, two wonderful Indian women. Sita does not initially know that Helen is in fact Sharon. But after Sharon's accident and the miscarriage, inevitably, Sita finds out. Then, to top everything, Helen is diagnosed with yet another massive tumor, and loses her memory.

This story is the record of whether, and to what extent, Helen regains her memory, and how Helen relates to her various friends as they anxiously watch the process.