Passage 5
Three weeks, Laura wrote in her diary, sitting in the living room while Beebo slept. Three weeks of this, and if it goes on much longer I’ll end up hating her. I felt so sorry for her at first. It was such a cruel thing and it hurt her terribly. But she’s well now—I know she is. She’s lying around getting fat and drinking like a fish and not working. If she doesn’t get back to work soon I’ll lose my mind. And she’ll lose her job for sure. They’ve been calling all week.
Laura hadn’t minded being a nurse at first. She tended Beebo gently and made her rest and, being unsure herself and hounded by her patient to forget it, she never did call a doctor. But Beebo seemed to come out of it fast. Physically the scars healed quickly. At the end of a week she was up and around. She hadn’t had a drink since the day it happened, and she talked about going back to work the next Monday.
But then Laura came home late one evening and she found Beebo drunk.
“Where the hell have you been?” Beebo shouted at her when Laura came in and found her in the kitchen. “I’m sick and miserable, I’ve just been through hell, and you can’t even come home from work to make my dinner for me.”
Confronted with such a bombardment of nonsense, Laura wouldn’t even answer her. She undressed and took a shower, but Beebo followed her into the bathroom and went right on yelling. Laura had pulled the shower curtain but Beebo opened it and watched her bathe.
“Laura,” she said, “where were you?” No answer. “Tell me. Tell me, damn it!” It was an order.
“Ask me like a civilized human being, then,” Laura said, turning around to rinse her soapy back.
“I’ll ask you any way I goddam please. I have a right to know.”
Laura turned the water off and eyed her coldly. “I had dinner with Jack,” she said. “He dropped in after work.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Call him.” She stepped out of her bath, cool and dripping and haughty as a princess, and Beebo burned for her.
“I don’t believe a word he says. He always lies for you. No matter what I ask him he’s always got an answer. I used to like the guy, but Jesus, it’s gotten so I can’t trust him any more. He’s always on your side.”
Laura wrapped herself in a towel and began to rub herself, but Beebo suddenly put her whiskey down and clasped her in a bear hug.
“Laura, darling, I felt so rotten today. And I looked forward so much to having you home. It’s so quiet and lonesome around here all day without Nix. I nearly go mad. Baby, I know I’ve taken up a lot of your time, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t ask those bastards to rape me.”
Laura relaxed slightly in the embrace, since she couldn’t squirm out of it. “You felt better today, not worse, Beebo. You told me so this morning.”
“That was this morning. I got worse this afternoon,” she said petulantly.
“You got worse at exactly five-thirty when I was fifteen minutes late.”
“Where were you?”
“With Jack. Beebo, you’ve been drinking. You promised me you wouldn’t.”
“If you’d been home I wouldn’t have to!” Beebo released her abruptly, picked up the whiskey glass with a swoop of her hand, and defiantly finished what was in it.
Laura cinched the towel around herself and approached Beebo. “Do you know what you’re saying, you nut?” she said. “You big fool? Beebo, answer me!” But Beebo turned her back and watched Laura with glittering eyes in the mirror on the medicine chest.
“You’re saying that you can’t stay sober without me, Beebo. Do you realize that?”
“I can’t stay sober if you don’t love me, Laura.”
“Oh, damn you, Beebo!” Laura almost wept with frustration. “You’re only saying that to make me feel guilty. To put the blame on me instead of on yourself where it belongs! I didn’t give you your first drink, God knows. I don’t ply you with liquor. You’ve fixed it with your conscience so no matter when you get drunk it’s my fault. No matter how much you drink, you’re only drinking because Laura is such a bitch. Well, I won’t buy it! It’s a damn plot to make a prisoner of me!”
“A prisoner! Now where did little Bo-peep get that fancy idea?” Beebo’s eyes were narrow and sharp in spite of the whiskey. Her anger brought clarity with it. “That sounds like the kind of propaganda Jack would spout.”
“No—” Laura began, but Beebo silenced her with a menacing wave of her hand. Laura found herself trapped against the bathroom door.
Beebo put a hand up on the door on either side of Laura and looked down at her. “Now, suppose you just tell me what Jack said,” she said.
“What makes you think Jack said it? I can think for myself and you know it. And I am a prisoner here!”
“You can’t think for yourself when Jack’s around. That bastard is the Pied Piper of Greenwich Village. He opens his yap and all the little fairies listen pop-eyed to whatever he has to say. Including you.”
Laura looked at her and found herself caught by Beebo’s spell again. Beebo was born to lose her temper. She looked wonderful when she did. It exasperated Laura to feel a bare animal desire for her at times like this.
“Jack said it. Come on. Jack said it, didn’t he?” Beebo insisted.
“All right!” Laura almost screamed. “Jack said it!”
She looked up at Beebo with embarrassed desire and to make her shame complete, Beebo saw it. And she knew she was in command again, even if only for an hour or so. Beebo was learning to live for those hours. The rest of the time nothing much mattered.
Beebo shifted support of her leaning body from her arms to Laura, lifted up Laura’s angry helpless face and kissed it. “Why aren’t you like this all the time?” she asked. And Laura startled her when she echoed, “Why aren’t you like this all the time?”
“Like what, baby? Drunk?”
“No ...,” Laura hesitated. She didn’t quite understand what she meant herself.
“Mad?” Beebo asked.
“I don’t know.”
Beebo laughed. “If it’ll help I’ll get mad and stay mad, Bo-peep. I’ll get drunk and stay drunk. Would you like that?” She interspersed her words with kisses.
“No. I just—I hate it when you act like a spoiled brat, Beebo.”
“I never act like a spoiled brat.” Her voice was little more than a whisper now.
They sank to the floor where they were and made love then.
And even after Laura had finally fallen asleep, in her arms, Beebo felt a tide of renewed passion. She caressed Laura’s hair and back with her hands and thought, If it can be this good it’s not over.
* * *
Laura had left work meaning to go straight home. But as before she hadn’t gone far when she knew she was headed for Tris’s little studio.
Tris opened the door herself. She had evidently been practicing for she was dressed in tights and breathing hard. Her black hair was smoothed over her head, caught in back with a clasp and braided. The braid, heavy and shining, hung halfway down her back and swung like a whip when she whirled.
Tris paused for a moment when she saw Laura on her threshold and for an awful second Laura thought she might turn her away. But Tris smiled suddenly and said, “Laura. How nice. Please come in.”
“I just dropped by to say hello,” Laura apologized.
“That is not all, I hope?” Tris said, looking at her.
Laura felt an odd little twist of excitement. “Well ... I shouldn’t stay. I don’t want to interrupt your work.”
“Of course you do. That’s why you came,” Tris said, spinning reflectively in place, her weight shifting delicately to pull her around and around.
Laura didn’t know if she was being scolded or teased, if she should leave or stay. Tris stopped twirling and said, “I’m glad you came. I didn’t want to work any more anyway.”
Laura hesitated, wondering whether to believe her. But when Tris walked across the room to her and kissed her cheek she melted suddenly with pleasure. She stood quietly and let herself be kissed, afraid to return the compliment. She was very unsure of herself with Tris. Even the gentlest gesture seemed to irritate the dancer sometimes. Laura could only let her take the lead.
Tris turned away abruptly, her mood shifting. “Well, now you are here,” she said in her careful English. “What would you like to do?” It was a sort of challenge.
“I—I’d like to see you dance, Tris. Would you dance for me?”
“No.” She was pouting. “You are my excuse for not dancing any more today, Laura.”
“Maybe we could just talk for a little while, then.”
“We could ... but we won’t.”
Laura was at a loss for words. She stammered a little and finally she blurted, “I think you’d rather have me go home.”
“I think Beebo would like you home more than I would. She doesn’t let you out very often, does she?”
Laura colored. “She’s not my jailkeeper,” she said.
“I don’t like this—this interference you force me to make in your love affair, Laura,” Tris said and surprised her guest. “I don’t know your Beebo, but I have nothing against her. Still, I do not imagine she will like me very well if she finds out you are my guest now and then.”
“What do you care whether Beebo likes you or not?” Laura demanded, startled.
Tris broke into a charming smile then, as if to placate her visitor. “I want everybody to like me,” she said. “I suppose it is a compulsion left from my childhood.” And, as if she had made a guilty admission, she turned away abruptly saying, “Let’s go into the kitchen. If I stand in here I will feel obliged to dance.”
Laura followed her and sat down self-consciously. Tris fixed a plate of cookies and gave her a glass of milk. She smiled.
“I am hard to know, Laura. I am not very gracious. But I like your company.” Her smile was as warm and luscious as ripe fruit in the sun.
They finished the food over small talk about men. Laura was lost, silent. She just nodded agreement and listened with dismay. She’s trying to tell me she doesn’t like girls, she thought. But it’s a lie!
Tris rinsed the plates, watching herself all the while in one mirror or another. It was as if she felt herself on exhibition all the time, as if all those mirrors were scattered around to remind her of her own beauty.
Tris dried her hands and turned to face Laura. There was an awkward pause and Laura realized suddenly that she was supposed to get up and leave. They had had their small talk. She had been served food. That was all she could reasonably expect from her hostess, especially since she was an uninvited guest. She felt her heart contract a little in disappointment, and she thought with a flash of yearning of the intimacies of her last visit.
But she was too proud to overstay her welcome, especially after the way Tris had shown her the door last time. So she got up and said, “Thanks Tris. I have to go.”
“Oh?” It was merely polite.
“Beebo’s expecting me.”
“I see.” No protest. Tris followed her toward the front door. “Ask me over to your apartment sometime, Laura. You would make a much nicer hostess than I. Besides, I should like to see how your big roommate looks in pants. She does wear pants?”
“Yes, she does.” Laura turned to look at her curiously. “But she’s a jealous hellion.”
Tris leaned on the wall by the door, crossing her feet at the ankles.
“Does she know you have been here to visit me?” Her smile was sly, interested.
“No. I don’t think she even remembers you,” Laura said shortly.
“Ah! Flattering. Do you think it’s wise to make a secret of our friendship, Laura?”
“It’s either that or get my neck broken,” Laura said.
Tris laughed a little, as if the idea of such hard play amused her. “Laura ... would you like to stay a little longer?” she said. Her voice made it sound very inviting.
“I can’t.” Laura was upset by all the talk of Beebo.
“As long as you leave by eight it would be all right,” Tris said. “I have a date at eight.”
“With a man?”
“Certainly with a man. I have no secrets, Laura. I do not like to cheat, like you. You cheat with your Beebo by seeing me. But still—” she hunched her shoulders and smiled—“I like you. You like me. Perhaps it is worth the risk. You are the one who will get your neck broken, not me. I have no right to deny you your pain.”
Laura frowned at her. It was an odd thing to say. Tris put her hands on Laura’s arms and they stood that way, silent, for a moment.
At last Tris said, “Dance with me.”
“I don’t know how,” Laura said shyly.
“I am a teacher. I teach you. Come on.”
“I’m so clumsy, Tris.”
But Tris pulled her to the middle of the studio and put a record on. She stood for a minute in front of Laura as if trying to make up her mind where to grasp her, how to start. Laura felt impossibly awkward. But Tris made up her mind quickly and slipped her arms around Laura’s neck. Laura was two inches taller than she and Tris was obliged to look up at her when she spoke.
“We will just do it like the teen-agers!” she said. “There is nothing to it really. Stand in one place and shift your weight from one foot to the other, with the beat. That’s it. You’ve got it. That’s a good beginning.”
Laura couldn’t help laughing. “Even I can do that much,” she said.
“Ah. Then there is hope. Next year at this time you will do the tour jeté.”
Laura had her arms around Tris at the waist and they swayed gently to the music, and suddenly all her suspicion and embarrassment faded. She became conscious of the tantalizing jasmine that emanated from Tris—from her throat and her hair and her breasts, barely covered by the bandeau. The black braid moved softly against Laura’s bare arms in back and Tris put her cheek against Laura’s, tilting her face up. Her lips were near Laura’s ear and she whispered, “You know, Laura, I must tell you something. You are a homosexual. Yes?”
Laura swallowed. “Yes,” she said.
“You should know then ... I am not. Not like you. I like the company of girls, yes. My dance pupils. Friends. But I love men. I love them. Do you understand?”
“No.” Laura shut her eyes and pulled Tris a little tighter.
“Well, then, I will explain. Men excite me. All men, I mean. The idea of men.... It is hard to say. But I would rather be with a man than with a woman. But now and then I meet a woman who interests me. And sometimes the interest goes beyond just talk. You see?”
“No.”
“Sometimes I want to kiss her. Or be close to her. But that is all. Now do you see?”
“No.”
Tris gave an impatient little sigh. “I am telling you I am not queer like you!” she said sharply and Laura winced with sudden pain. Tris felt it and she amended quickly, “That is an unkind word. You people call it gay. All right. I am not gay. I like you, I like to talk to you and watch you move and sometimes I am moved myself to kiss you or be close to you, like this. Our bodies like this, all up and down. You see? But I don’t like to go any farther. Not with a girl. You are only the third girl I have felt this for. It will not happen again for a long time. Perhaps I will marry soon, and then it will never happen again.”
“Marry! Who? An Indian?”
“No!” she exclaimed almost contemptuously. “Another. He is white.”
“You’re full of contradictions, Tris,” Laura said, looking down at her in bewilderment. “You said you were gay and you married a gay boy.”
“Oh, yes. I did, didn’t I?” She looked trapped. “Well, I thought I was then. But I know now—positively—I am not.”
“But you said—”
“Such wonderful blond hair you have, Laura. I would give anything for such hair. Why do you always wear it wound up like that?” And she began to slip pins out of the bun, letting them drop to the polished floor, until the coil of gold came loose and Tris gave a delighted, “Ah!”
Laura felt the thrill go through her hard. She forgot her protests about Tris’s sex drive and pulled the dancer very close to kiss her full on the mouth. Tris yielded. With one accord they stopped dancing and just clung and kissed, swaying slightly. It lasted for long minutes—just kisses, soft and exploratory, but careful. Laura wondered vaguely, through the fog of lovely sensations, what miserable devil prompted this delectable girl to deny her Lesbian impulses. For Laura could tell that Tris enjoyed this love play as much as she. She encouraged it, even when Laura tried to stop, and pulled her back for more.
By eight o’clock they were lying on the big red silk couch in the bedroom, murmuring inanities to each other, discovering one another’s bodies and emotions through twin shields of clothes and caution.
“Will you come and see me again?” Tris asked.
“Are you inviting me?”
“Of course.”
“When would it be convenient?” She said it in clipped English, like the English Tris spoke, to tease her.
“It is never convenient. But come anyway.”
Laura laughed. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“No date tomorrow?”
“Yes. Every night.”
“Save a night for me, Tris.”
Tris gazed at her for a moment before she answered, “No.”
“Why not?”
“We do too much in these few short hours. What would we do with a whole night? I do not like to think.”
“I think of it all the time. I can’t think of anything else.”
“Ah, that is a very bad sign. I am sorry to hear you say that. You must not fall in love with me, Laura.”
“I’ll try to remember,” she said sarcastically.
“I am serious,” Tris said.
Laura didn’t answer her. She lay on her back and looked up at the small skylight directly over the bed. It was a square of violet—the last shade of fading day.
“I do not want you to fall in love with me, Laura,” Tris persisted.
“I hear you,” Laura said quietly.
“Well, why don’t you answer?”
“I don’t know how to answer, Tris,” she said, turning to look at her in the semi-gloom of the bedroom.
“What are your feelings for me?”
“Do you want a blue print?” Laura said, hurt. “I can’t spell them out for you. I don’t understand them myself.” But she understood them all too well. She had felt these pangs before for other girls—only two or three, including Beebo, but enough to make them familiar and unwelcome. But still exciting and irresistible.
Tris lay beside her, quiet for a while, and finally she said, “Do you know why I was not very glad to see you at first today?”
“No.” Laura reached across the bed to put a hand on Tris’s breasts, to feel what she could not see in the gathering darkness.
“I was afraid,” Tris whispered. “Of my own feelings. I do not like to become involved with women. It has always been unpleasant for me.”
“Do you still want me to come back and see you?”
“Yes.” She paused and Laura sensed a smile. “As long as I ask you to come back, Laura, you will know you are safe with me.”
“Safe?”
“I will put it another way. If a day comes when I do not want to see you, it will be because I am in love with you. And that will be the end. From that day on we will never meet again, until I am cured.”
Laura had to smile. Who could take such a charming speech seriously? “All right,” she murmured and embraced the lovely dancer.
“Now you must go,” Tris told her. “My date will be here soon. He is always prompt.”
Laura got up without protest. But it was sweet to take the time to wind up her hair and know she was welcome. “Did you kick me out for the same boy last time?” she asked.
Tris had turned a light on and they watched each other in the mirror before which Laura was combing her hair.
“No. Another.”
“I hate him,” Laura said with a little smile. “And the rest of them.”
Tris gazed at her coolly. “How very foolish,” she said. And made Laura laugh.
They parted with a chaste kiss, and for the first time since they had met Laura felt as if she had a slim chance with this odd and irresistible girl who was still so much a stranger to her. She went home to her angry Beebo, her body tense with need. And later, when Beebo demanded her body, Laura surrendered promptly and helplessly.
* * *
Beebo, since the night of her attack, had become unbearably suspicious. Everything Laura did, everywhere she went, had to be reported in detail. She called Tris once or twice from work and Tris had bawled her out for not showing up. Laura was more pleased than sorry when Tris sounded jealous—while she bridled angrily at Beebo’s jealousy, she was thrilled with Tris’s.
Laura had strong doubts about Beebo’s illness now. She could have gone to work weeks ago. The bruises were nearly invisible; only a pale yellow shadow stained the spot where the worst had been. Beebo was using it as an excuse to sit around another week and take it easy and drink and bitch over the phone to Lili about her problems.
“I always hated that damn elevator,” she declared with her feet up on the coffee table in the living room and a drink in her hand.
“You make me sick!” Laura told her. “You’re well. Get up and go to work.”
Beebo looked at her watch. “At six-thirty in the evening?” she said, and laughed.
“I’m not going to support us both, Beebo,” Laura said. “And I’m sick and tired of playing nursemaid.”
To her diary Laura confided, I am in love. I’m sure of it. The more I’m with Beebo the more I want Tris. Oh, God, how much I want her!
* * *
Laura was desperate after two more weeks of Beebo. Beebo drove her frantic when they were cooped up together in the small apartment, as they were every night. And Beebo was wild for the love Laura denied her. The attack she had endured seemed to have touched off a burning core of violence in her that never went out.
When Beebo found the small steel strongbox on the closet floor with Laura’s diary inside, she pounded it with a stone to get it open but the lock didn’t break. When Laura got home from work and found the battered box on the coffee table in the living room she went pale with alarm, and Beebo, who was lying in wait for her reaction, exclaimed, “Damn it, I knew it. You sure as hell look guilty, Laura. What’s in it?” She kicked the box.
“Nothing.” Laura walked across the room but her legs felt weak.
“Open it, then.”
“No.”
“Where’s the key?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s your box, goddam it. You know where the key is! Why did you hide it from me? What are you ashamed of?”
“I’m under no obligation to show you everything I own!” Laura said frostily. “I’ll hide what I please.”
“You tell me what’s in it,” Beebo threatened, “or I’ll choke you. I swear I’ll choke you, you bitch.” She slammed Laura against the wall with one hand to her throat.
Laura gasped in panic. There was only one thing to do with Beebo in these moods and that was go along with her, stall, anything but resist her. That was too painful and Laura even feared that one of these days, with Beebo as crazy as she was, it might be fatal.
“All right,” Laura said through a tight throat. “Let me go.”
She rummaged for the key for ten minutes, knowing all the while that it was in the wallet in her purse.
“Don’t tell me you can’t find it,” Beebo said, watching her through narrowed eyes.
“I almost never use the thing,” Laura said as calmly as she could.
“You find it,” Beebo said. And something in the tone of her voice made Laura very frightened. I’m getting out of here, she thought to herself suddenly. If I can just get out of this somehow I’ll leave her tonight and I won’t come back. I’ll go to Jack’s.
She turned and faced Beebo, desperate. “Beebo, it’s just some personal papers. It’s nothing you’d be interested in.”
“It’s exactly what I’d be interested in. I’d be even more interested in why you went white as a sheet when you saw I had it. Explain that to me, Bo-peep.”
Laura pressed her teeth together in a small grimace of exasperation. “It’s my birth certificate and my baptism certificate and two insurance policies and some old love letters,” she said.
“Love letters from who?” Beebo demanded.
“Beth.”
Beebo put her head back and laughed. “Oh!” she said. “Beth! Good old Beth. Your college flame. I’m getting so I know that goddam girl.”
“She was a lot more—” Laura began, her cheeks hot. She couldn’t bear to hear Beth laughed at, to hear that perfect love ridiculed.
“I know what she was,” Beebo said acidly. “She was beautiful. She was bright. She was a queen on the campus and a devil in bed. She was a success. She even liked men, the traitorous bitch. She was so gorgeous and so intelligent and so everything that she could do whatever she damn well pleased—even dump you like a sack of bricks. She loved you so much she got you kicked out of school and got married. To a man.” Beebo grinned at her, waiting for Laura to explode. But Laura only glared, too proud to spoil that memory with an ugly spat.
“Queen Beth was everything Beebo is not,” Beebo said. “You’ll never learn, will you? Love isn’t pure roses and romance, Laura. You can’t live with a girl, however much you love her, and still faint with joy every time she looks your way. It’s a shame you never lived with Beth like you have with me. You’d find out fast enough she is a human being, not a goddess.... Now, show me the letters.”
“Why do you want to read a bunch of miserable old letters?” Laura said, angry that she had to beg. “That’s all over, Beebo. It can’t do anything but hurt you.”
“I’m used to that, Laura. Anybody who lives with you has to be.”
“You lie!” Laura flared suddenly. They gazed at each other in electric silence for a minute. Then Laura said quietly, in a move to restore her safety, “Let me fill your glass.” She came to take it from her but Beebo held it away. “What are you trying to do, baby, get me drunk? Let’s see the letters.”
Laura sat down on the bed beside her. Maybe she could sweet-talk her out of the box. “Beebo,” she said. “There’s nothing in there you could possibly want to see or be interested in. Will you believe me?”
Beebo looked at her coldly and didn’t move. “The letters,” she said and held out a hand.
Laura sighed. “After dinner,” she begged. “Let’s at least eat in peace.” And before Beebo could answer she leaned over and kissed her lips. “I love you, Beebo,” she said, very softly and hopefully. And there were still times when she wondered if she might not speak the truth. But this wasn’t one of them. She spoke out of the need to save her skin.
Beebo swallowed the last of the drink. “Yeah,” she said. “The letters.”
Laura kissed her again. Beebo submitted to it without returning the kiss. “You’re not very subtle, Bo-peep,” she said.
“I just want a stay of execution,” Laura said with a wry smile. “If we have to yell at each other, let’s save it till after dinner. Please, darling. The box won’t walk away.” And Beebo, in spite of the obviousness of it, in spite of her own better sense and Laura’s flagrant flattery, weakened.
“Are they that bad?” she asked. “The goddam letters from Beth the Beautiful?”
“They’re just love letters. They’re old and stale and the affair is old and stale. It’s over and done with.”
“Like our affair?” And Beebo said it so simply, without the histrionics and the swearing and the noisy misery she usually showered on Laura, that Laura was touched. She put her forehead down on Beebo’s shoulder and whispered, “I don’t know, Beebo. You scare me so sometimes I swear I’ll move out of here and run like hell and never come back. Sometimes I really think you mean to kill me.”
“Sometimes I really do,” Beebo said and her voice was rough. “If I did, I’d kill myself right afterwards, darling.”
“A lot of good that would do me!” Laura exploded. But she softened when Beebo’s face went dark. “You don’t mean that, Beebo. You’d never really do it ... would you?”
“I don’t know,” Beebo said, staring at her. “I’ve come close to it, baby. I’ve come close....”
“If you really love me, you couldn’t.”
“I really love you. But there are times when I don’t think I could stop myself.” Her eyes filled suddenly with tears and she looked away, at the wall. “Things that would hurt too much.”
“Like what?”
“Like finding out you were cheating on me.”
Laura shut her eyes and felt the sweat break out on her face. But I haven’t really cheated with Tris, she told herself. We never went all the way. I don’t think we ever will. “Don’t be silly,” she told Beebo. “Who is there for me to cheat on you with? Nobody.”
“Jack.”
“Jack?” Laura straightened up, astonished. “He’s a man!”
“Sure he’s a man. I know what he is.”
Laura took Beebo’s face in her hands and said, “I promise you I have never cheated with Jack or anybody else. I swear, Beebo. You think I have but I haven’t. You just make it up.”
“Do I just make it up that I love you more than you love me?”
Laura hung her head. “Let’s shout about it after dinner,” she said.
“Okay.” Unexpectedly Beebo surrendered and Laura escaped to the kitchen with an audible sigh of relief.
They ate in near-silence, Laura concentrating on her plate and Beebo concentrating on Laura. They were almost finished with the gloomy little meal when there came a ring of the doorbell and Laura, without knowing why, felt a sudden start of fear.
“Who’s that?” Beebo demanded.
“I don’t know.” Laura didn’t even want to look at her. “Probably Jack. Or your darling Lili.”
“Oh, Christ, I couldn’t stand to see either of them right now. Lili would love to hear us quarrel.”
“Let’s disappoint her, then,” Laura said and they smiled a little at each other. Laura was surprised at the strength of her relief. But when Beebo got up to ring the buzzer that opened the door below, the strange fear returned.
Far away downstairs she heard the front door open. Laura sat in uneasy silence in the kitchen, listening to the steps coming up the stairs out in the hall. She could picture Beebo leaning against the door jamb, waiting for the knock. More than once she had begged Beebo to be cautious opening that door. She had nightmares about the hoodlums that raped Beebo coming back to try it again—and getting Laura too this time. But Beebo shrugged it off.
“They won’t be back,” she had said.
“How do you know?”
“I know,” was the cryptic answer, and that was all Laura could get out of her.
Laura found herself staring into her milk glass and whispering a prayer: Let it be Jack. Please, dear God. I need him.
The knock came. Beebo opened the door. There was a moment of silence and then the sound of a sweet feminine voice using a very dainty English. It was Tris!
Laura froze in a panic. For one frightened second she thought of climbing down the fire escape. And then she put her glass down with trembling hands and poised herself, tense with the near-hysterical force piling up inside her.
Suddenly Beebo said, “Well, I’ll be goddamned. Hey, Laura! It’s our little Indian buddy. From Peck and Peck. Come on in, sweetheart.”
“Thank you,” Tris said.
Laura held her breath. Beebo’s friendliness would last just as long as it took her to start wondering what Tris was doing there and how she found the place. Laura could have slapped Tris. She hardly dared go in the living room and face them both.
Beebo called her. “Get in here, baby. Make like a hostess, for God’s sake. How’d you find us?” she said, her voice lowering as she turned to Tris.
“I ran into Laura at the Hobby Shop,” Tris said. “I was looking for a gift.”
“Find one?” Beebo settled down on the couch, appraising Tris’s slim smooth body with a cool and practiced eye. Laura saw the glance as she stood in the kitchen doorway. She disliked the way Tris let herself be admired.
“Hello, Laura,” Tris said, almost shyly.
“Hello, Tris.” Laura wanted Beebo to stop looking at that warm brown body, lightly sheathed in silk. Her eyes snapped angrily at Tris, and Tris saw it. “Sit down,” Laura said.
“So ...,” Beebo mused, her eyes half-closed and calculating. “You discovered Laura in the Hobby Shop and got chummy, hm?”
“She told me where you live,” Tris said, turning to her with an ingratiating smile. “It’s not far from me. She said to come over sometime, so here I am. Perhaps I come at a bad time?” She looked from one to the other.
“Any time is a bad time in this little love nest,” Beebo said. She thumbed at Laura. “We hate each other,” she explained. “We only live together so we can fight.”
“Oh.” Tris looked uncomfortable.
Beebo grinned at the two girls, pleased to have embarrassed them both, her mind simmering with suspicions. Laura, stony-faced, refused to say anything to Tris to put her at ease. She was furious with her for coming in the first place.
“What’s your name, honey?” Beebo said to Tris. “I’ve forgotten.”
“Tris Robischon.”
“Didn’t you say you were Indian or something?”
“Yes.”
Beebo laughed and shook her head. “Yeah ...,” she said. “Indian.”
Tris began to squirm under her gaze. She was no longer so pleased to be looked at as she had been when she entered. Beebo stared so hard, in fact, that Tris finally said coldly, “Perhaps you object to dark skins.”
“So what if I do?” Beebo said casually, grinning.
Tris gasped. “Some people,” she said sharply, “think all non-whites are inferior. Perhaps you are one of those?”
“Now what gives you a dumb idea like that?” Beebo said. “Do I look unfriendly?”
“You stare at me as if I were not welcome.”
“I stare at you as if you were a damn pretty girl. Which you are. You’re also too sensitive, but you’re welcome. I like that color.” She waved at Tris’s shapely legs, crossed at the knees and poised on high-heeled shoes. “On you it looks good.” And she grinned. There was an awkward pause and Laura saw, with great irritation, that Tris was simply returning Beebo’s gaze now, bashfully but rather eagerly.
“Have some coffee, Tris?” Laura said.
“Yes, please.” Tris looked at her swiftly, as if she knew Laura didn’t like her interest in Beebo.
“What do you do with yourself all day, Tris?” Beebo said. Laura was afraid of the way her voice sounded now.
“I dance.”
“Where?”
“My studio. I teach.”
“That all?”
“I—I have done professional work.”
They talked for a few minutes until Laura brought the coffee in. She gave Tris a cup and placed one in front of Beebo. But Beebo reached out and collared her with one long arm and pulled her down on the couch beside her.
“Let go!” Laura snapped, but Beebo only held her harder.
“So you ... just ran into Laura in the Hobby Shop,” Beebo said to Tris. “Fancy that.” She smiled a dangerous smile.
“Yes. It’s not so surprising. I mean I—I live so close by.”
Laura felt her fear rising in her throat and sweat bursting from her and she was desperately impatient to get rid of Tris.
“You know something, little Indian girl?” Beebo said.
“What?”
“I don’t believe you.”
The atmosphere became tense and ominous. “I apologize for her, Tris,” Laura said with a show of casualness. “She doesn’t believe anything.”
“Now tell me, Tris,” Beebo said, ignoring her, “how did you and Laura really meet?”
Tris looked squarely at her and said, “You know how. I have told the truth.” She lied very gracefully. Laura wondered how many lies she had been fed herself. “But I see I am not welcome here,” Tris went on. She stood up and replaced her coffee cup carefully in the saucer on the table. “Thank you for the coffee,” she said regally and headed for the front door.
Beebo sprang up from the couch suddenly and Laura, frightened, followed her with almost the same movement. Beebo caught Tris at the door and turned her around and without even a pause for breath kissed her harshly on the mouth. It was a long and physically painful kiss, and Laura’s furious exclamations did nothing to help. She pounded ineffectually on Beebo’s back. “Beebo, stop it!” she cried.
But Beebo stopped in her own good time, and that was not until she had bruised Tris’s mouth enough to make her cry. She cried softly, without a sound, her eyes shut and her head back against the door, still lifted toward Beebo.
Laura was shaken. “Tris—Tris—” she said, trying to get near her, but Beebo shouldered her out of the way.
“That’s for being such a good friend of Laura’s,” Beebo said. “And that’s all you get, too, my little Indian. Now get the hell out and don’t come back.”
“Beebo, please!” Laura felt her own angry tears start up, and it was unbearable to have Tris turn and leave so quickly, so quietly, without giving her a gesture of comfort or apology. “Tris, I’m so sorry!” she called after her, but it sounded trite and insincere.
Beebo shut the door and stood for a moment with her back to Laura. Laura, shaking, moved away from her.
“Where did you meet her?” Beebo asked, still not looking at her. “Tell the truth, Laura.”
“At work.”
Beebo whirled around. “How long are you going to lie to me!” she said.
“This is the last time!” Laura exploded, throwing her caution out with her patience. “I’m leaving you, Beebo. I’ve had it. You make me sick. You’re ruining my life. I’m so damn scared and so damn miserable that nothing is any fun, nothing helps. Life isn’t worth living, not like this!”
“Where did you meet her?” Beebo said, with single-minded jealous fury.
“I went to her apartment!” Laura blazed at her. “I went back for her card and I went to her apartment.”
“And made love to her.”
“No!” She shouted it angrily at first, but then she repeated it, frightened, “No, Beebo! I swear!”
But Beebo came across the room in one sudden leap of rage and threw her down hard on the floor, her big hands on Laura’s slim shoulders, holding her cruelly and banging her head down again and again until Laura screamed with pain and terror. And then Beebo dropped her and slapped her and all the time she kept repeating like a mad woman, “You made love to her, love to her. Where’s that key? The key, damn it!”
“I’ll give it to you,” Laura sobbed at last. “Oh, God, Beebo, don’t kill me! I’ll give it to you.”
Beebo let her up then, or rather, dragged her to her feet. Laura stood beside her, swaying and dizzy, her eyes blurred by tears and her head aching. She went into the bedroom, shoving Beebo’s hands away from her with sharp gestures of hatred, her teeth clenched. And she opened her purse and pulled out her wallet and gave Beebo the key.
Beebo snatched it from her and picked up the box like a miser going after a cache of gold. And Laura, seeing her chance, grabbed the purse and a sweater that hung on the back of a chair and backed silently out of the bedroom. She fled, on feet made feather-light with fear, to the front door. She ran down the stairs with all the speed her fear could muster and ran all the way—two blocks—to Seventh Avenue.
After a few frantic moments of scanning the street and looking back over her shoulder she hailed a cab and climbed in, crying audibly. “Drive uptown,” she told the man. “Just drive uptown for a few minutes.”
“Okay,” he said, giving her a quick, cynical onceover.
Laura looked up and saw Beebo rush into Fourth Street as the cab turned around and headed north, and she sank down in the back seat, her hands over her face. She let him drive her almost to Times Square before she could control her sobs and give him Jack’s address.
What if Beebo’s already there? she wondered suddenly. Oh, God! She would be, of course. But Jack would save her somehow. Better to be with him, even if it meant facing Beebo again.