you up for dead. Listen, pal, I just got an s.o.s. from Marie. There’s a
very large customer on Park Avenue who wants a very large pizza right
now. Marie is whipping it up and Beebo will whip it over to said
customer.”
“Park Avenue is Pete’s territory,” Beebo said. “He won’t like it.”
“He’s out somewhere, as usual. Marie can’t find him and besides, she’s
afraid to look.”
“You want me to leave now?” Disappointment growled in her voice.
“I know Paula, honey; she’s a good girl. If she likes you enough to
sleep with you, she likes you enough to wait for you.”
“You mean you knew this beautiful girl all along and didn’t tell me
about her?” Beebo said, grinning at Paula.
“Well, hell, you waited two months to tell me you _wanted_ one. Come on,
Marie’s in a hurry. Show her what you’re made of.”
“I’m made of sugar and spice, like the rest of the girls,” Beebo said
sourly. “It doesn’t mix with cheese and anchovies.”
“Get your ass over there, Beebo,” Jack said. “This order goes to Venus
Bogardus.”
The name rang in Beebo’s head. “The actress?” she said, frowning. “She’s
not one of our customers.”
“She is now.”
“But Jack, my God. Venus Bogardus!”
“The original. The girl with the bosom that just won’t stop. Can you
take it?”
“It’s worth it just for a look,” Beebo grinned. “Okay, call Marie and
tell her I’m coming. And Jack—I know I should have called you. I’m
sorry.”
Beebo hung up and walked to Paula, expecting to embrace her and explain.
But Paula was quite pale. “What’s all this about Pete and Marie? Do you
mean the Pasquinis?”
“Yes. I work for them. Marie wants me to deliver a pizza to—”
“—to Venus Bogardus. I heard. Beebo, why didn’t you tell me about Pete?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Beebo said, mystified. “Honey, are you mad at
me? Why?”
“Pete and Mona are thick as thieves. What Mona does, Pete does; what
Mona thinks, Pete thinks—unless they’re quarreling. If they don’t like
you, they’d as soon exterminate you. They wouldn’t cut you down if you
were hanging.”
Beebo laughed a little at this explosion. “I know you don’t like Mona,
honey. But Pete’s just a twerp. He’s the one who sent me over here last
night. I’ll admit it wasn’t exactly ethical—”
“Then Mona knows you’re here. How charming,” Paula said sourly.
“So what’s Mona, the Wicked Witch?” Paula scowled and Beebo said, “Okay,
Pete’s a slob; and my opinion of Mona is slipping fast. But I can’t be
mad at anybody who sent me to you, Paula, no matter what their motives
were.”
“Now they’ll do everything to take you away from me,” Paula said,
looking fearfully at Beebo.
“There’s no way they could do that, sweetheart,” Beebo said, pulling
Paula down beside her on the bed. “Paula, I’ll be back in an hour. I
won’t do anything but deliver the pizza.”
Paula clung to her. “Promise,” she said. “And if Milady Bogardus walks
into the room, you have to shut your eyes and run.”
“At the same time?”
“Yes.”
“You want me to break my neck?” Beebo laughed.
“Better your neck than my heart,” Paula whispered.
At the door Beebo took Paula’s hands and kissed them the way Paula had
first kissed hers. “I never liked Venus Bogardus,” she said. “I read
somewhere that her curves are built into her clothes. She’s about as
sexy as a hatrack under the finery—and a cool forty-eight years old.”
“Come back,” Paula said seriously. “That’s all I ask.”
They parted and Beebo left the building with a soaring pride and
satisfaction that seemed to lift her clear of the pavement.
* * * * *
Marie Pasquini was waiting in the shop when Beebo arrived. She had just
argued with her mother-in-law and it made her visage long and dark.
“Thank God, a happy face,” she said when she saw Beebo.
“Maybe we ought to find Pete, Marie,” Beebo said. “He considers Park his
street.”
“_His_ street!” Marie spat. “It’s too good for him. An alley full of
donkey-do is too good for him.”
“Too bad for you there ain’t no such alleys handy,” said Pete’s voice
from the front of the shop, approaching the kitchen. “You’d be right at
home in one. Like the one where I found you in Bordeaux.” He appeared in
the kitchen doorway, making Beebo wonder how long he had been lurking
there. Unaccountably, he gave her a case of gooseflesh.
“Here he comes,” said Marie to Beebo. “Captain Marvel. Okay, Captain,
here’s an order. You want to deliver?”
“That depends on Beebo,” Pete said, meandering unsteadily toward her.
“Where were you today, butch? I had to make all the deliveries myself.”
His grin made her want to hit him.
“I was indisposed,” she said.
“Indisposed,” he mimicked in a fussy voice. “Well, ain’t that a shame. I
understand Paula Ash was indisposed today, too.” His breath smelled of
zinfandel.
Beebo stared at him with cold-eyed loathing and then stalked toward the
back door.
“Wait a minute!” Pete called.
“Not for you,” Beebo said.
“Beebo!” It was Marie’s voice this time. “He’s full of dry red. He can’t
drive. Please, I don’t want to lose Venus Bogardus. Nor the truck,
neither,” she added, with a significant glance at Pete.
At the sound of that famous name, Pete burst into winy laughter. “Go on,
Beebo, go on. Maybe she’ll fall for you, too,” he said. “How you gonna
keep two of ’em happy at the same time? You want a few lessons?”
Beebo took the wrapped pizza from Marie and stormed out of the kitchen.
She could hear the opening blast of a real wingding behind her.
* * * * *
Beebo drove through a light rain that was quickly slicking down the city
streets. It was Midwestern weather. Her father’s face crossed her mind,
obscuring some of her revulsion against Pete. _I wonder where Dad thinks
I am now?_ she mused despondently.
She punished herself by picturing her father: a tall solid man, with the
lines of worry and weather on his face, delivering a foal to its
snorting, laboring mother; stooping with the burdens of alcohol and
anxiety over his strange young daughter.
Beebo felt a surge of guilty love for him as she neared the address
Marie had given her. She almost drove past. It was a big chilly building
that looked loftily down on the summer sprinkle.
Beebo went up on the service elevator, her head full of whirling images:
Paula, of the glorious red hair and sweet mouth. The big kindly father
whose love had made her strong and himself weak. The people who had
lately come to matter in her life in the city.
She knocked on the back door, becoming aware as she did so of strident
voices within: a woman’s, bright and soprano with anger; a boy’s
breaking with resentment; another woman, refereeing timidly for the
first two.
“All right, all right, answer the goddamn door!” cried the soprano.
“Mother, do you have to swear like a whore?” the boy cried. “In front of
delivery boys?”
“What do you care what I do with delivery boys, darling?”
Beebo recognized the celebrated voice, just as the door opened. “Are you
the pizza?” asked a gray dumpling of a woman.
“No, but I have one with me,” Beebo grinned. Her voice stilled the
argument momentarily. “Five bucks,” Beebo told the Dumpling, who wore a
white uniform like a nurse, or nanny. Beebo waited for the money,
suddenly full of springy laughter that might go off any second like a
string of firecrackers.
“Five bucks?” said Venus Bogardus. “I haven’t got a damn dime.”
With a thrill of recognition, Beebo suddenly saw her. She was wearing a
scarlet, silk-jersey dress. When she moved, she proved there was nothing
beneath it. The hatrack story lay down and died. But Beebo was still so
full of Paula that the sight of Venus Bogardus was little more than an
entertainment.
Toby, the boy, turned his pockets inside-out. “I gave you all my money
yesterday,” he said, glum and embarrassed. To Beebo he said, “I’m
sorry,” with the pathetic air of a child who is struggling to assume the
responsibilities of dissipated parents. He was a good-looking boy; in
his early teens, Beebo guessed, and finding life with a movie-star
mother a stormy combination of high excitement and humiliation. He was
not the type to take it lightly.
“Toby, don’t you have something in your piggy bank, dear?” Venus
persisted, aware of Beebo now.
“You threw my piggy bank down the incinerator shaft,” he mumbled.
“I did?” She blinked at him with incredible blue eyes, encircled by long
black lashes.
“A year ago,” Toby said wearily.
“God, that was careless. Was there anything in it?” Venus said.
“Two-fifty in pennies. I was saving up for a catcher’s mitt.”
“Well, that wouldn’t be enough anyway. For the pizza, I mean.”
“Excuse me—why don’t you charge it?” Beebo said. She was somewhat
abashed to have walked in on a Love Queen in the midst of a common
little argument.
“Do you think they’d let me?” Venus said, turning to Beebo at last, her
voice melting off her tongue like buckwheat honey. Toby slammed out of
the kitchen in utter disgust.
“I think so,” Beebo said, smiling.
Venus came to take the pizza from her, opening the container for a
taste. “Somebody said it was ‘peerless pasta.’ Is it _that_ bad?”
“It’s good.”
Venus put it on the breakfast table and tore off a bite. “You’re right,”
she said. “Want some?”
“No thanks,” Beebo said, staring at her. Perhaps now was the time to
back out and run, as Paula suggested.
“Don’t be shy,” Venus said. “Toby, come back and eat, dear,” she called
through the kitchen door. “We have a guest.” Toby shuffled in while
Venus explained to Beebo, still hesitating at the back door, “No cook
tonight. She just quit for the hundredth time. Bring some plates, Mrs.
Sack. I’ll get the milk for these growing children.”
“Miss Bogardus, I can’t possibly stay; I—” Beebo said, but Venus
interrupted her, as if she hadn’t heard her, with a stream of cordial
inanities.
Toby’s face colored. “Mother, will you listen?” he said in an angry
hiss. “She doesn’t _want_ to stay.”
“I know, darling. Now shut up and sit down, all of you.”
They did. It seemed to be the thing to do. But Beebo had a tingling
feeling that the whole building would fold under her as soon as she
touched down on the seat.
Venus opened the refrigerator and a loud smell came out. “God, look at
the mess!” she cried. “I’ll bet that bitch hasn’t cleaned it for weeks.”
“If you’d come home long enough to look at it once in a while, she would
have,” Toby said.
“Darling, I look at it every day, when I put the champagne in to cool.”
She joined them, passing the milk around, and badgered Beebo to eat more
than Beebo wanted. Toby couldn’t stand it.
“Leave her alone, Mother!” he said, rising from his seat.
“Don’t behave like a nervous girl, Toby,” Venus reproved him breezily.
“I’m not a girl,” he said in real anguish.
“Of course not, dear. Boys wear pants and girls wear skirts. That’s how
I’ve always known you were a boy.”
Beebo became abruptly conscious of her chino slacks and found it hard to
keep eating naturally.
“I’m sorry,” Toby said again to Beebo. “My mother’s a little cracked. It
comes from getting her own way all the time.”
“God, how dreadful to be fourteen,” Venus said, gazing at her son
pityingly. “I don’t know how I lived through it myself.” She ate for a
minute quietly while Beebo plotted an escape. “I’ll have to tell Leo
about this; it’s really marvelous,” Venus said, cutting another bite.
“Leo’s her husband,” Toby said, making a face.
“You’d think they loathed each other,” Venus said, glancing at Beebo.
“Actually, Toby gets along better with Leo than with any of the others.”
“It’s a good thing _I_ get along with him, because _you_ sure don’t,”
Toby flared, to the accompaniment of horrified shushings from Mrs. Sack.
“One more crack like that and you can leave the table,” Venus said
sharply. “God! What do you do with children that age?”
“I don’t know. What do they do with you?” Beebo said.
Toby turned to her with an amazed grin.
“And how old are _you_, darling?” Venus asked Beebo, her eyes shining
through their black fringe like hard chips of sapphire.
“Fourteen,” Beebo said, and evoked a chuckle of relief from Toby. Beebo
smiled at him, and suddenly they were in league; two friendly
conspirators subverting Venus’s authority.
“I’d have said twelve, to judge from your table manners,” Venus cooed.
And unruffled, she continued eating, giving Beebo a chance to study her
surreptitiously. Her face had been called the most perfect in the world
when she was a starlet twenty years before. And still she was very
lovely, even without make-up on her face. The lines about her eyes and
mouth were faint and fine. You had to look for them, and somehow they
made her beauty the more poignant, emphasizing as they did the
perishability of human loveliness. She was probably in her late
thirties, Beebo guessed.
“Tell me, darling,” Venus said unexpectedly, startling Beebo. “Do you
live in town somewhere with your mommy and daddy? I mean, surely a
fourteen-year-old child isn’t out delivering pizzas for a living.”
“I live in town,” Beebo said. “My father lives back in Wisconsin.”
“How primitive,” Venus said, with a smile that told Beebo she was aware
of her own oversophisticated nonsense. She made it rather charming.
“Just one father?” she said. “Toby has six.”
“That must be a record,” Beebo said quietly, trying to focus on her
food.
“It’s Mother’s record, not mine,” Toby said. “As far as I’m concerned,
you can throw all six in the East River. All but Leo, anyway.”
“Darling!” his mother cried, more amused this time than angry, perhaps
because she shared his view. “After all the lovely presents they’ve
given you, too.”
Beebo watched her curiously. Venus was not dense or callow. But her
glamour and her fortune obviously hadn’t spared her the problems of
raising a pubescent boy. Most mothers approached their kids with a
mixture of love, common-sense, and frazzled tempers. Venus approached
hers with all the gorgeous razzle-dazzle, passion, and impatience that
made obedient slaves of the older men in her life.
Toby, at fourteen, was supposed to react with the fascination of an
adult male three times his age for a beautiful and tempestuous woman.
_If he ever does, Venus will get the shock of her life_, Beebo thought
with amusement.
Instead, of course, Toby lashed out at her in frightened confusion. He
loved her very much, but he was afraid and overawed, and bitter about
the life she made him lead.
He wanted a mother comfortably middle-aged and unpretentious, like other
people’s mothers. Instead, he had what other people thought they wanted:
a glittering courtesan who couldn’t kiss him at night for fear of
smudging her mouth, who took him on vacation trips with her lovers while
her husband—and Toby’s friend, Leo—stayed behind in Hollywood.
Beebo sensed much of this in the pointed wordplay between mother and
son. Their mutual love stood aside, forlorn and unexpressed, while they
took out their grievances against one another.
Beebo stood up to leave as soon as she decently could.
“Heavens, you’re not going!” Venus protested.
“I have a heavy date,” Beebo smiled. “Thanks very much, Miss Bogardus.”
“You’re welcome. Who’s the lucky boy?”
Beebo frowned uncomprehendingly at first, till she realized Venus meant
her date. “Oh,” she said, humiliated to know she was blushing. “Just an
old friend.”
“Bring him around.”
Beebo began to stammer excuses and Toby came to her rescue. “Let her go,
Mom,” he said, ashamed of Venus, as usual. He liked Beebo for taking his
side; for making him laugh and getting one up on his mother. And it
galled him to see Venus tease her. He was not too young to see how
uncomfortable Beebo was. When Venus turned to him with a dangerous
smile, he said, “I just wish you’d act like a mother now and then.”
“Why, I act like a mother twenty-four hours a day,” she said innocently.
“I _am_ a mother. There sits the proof, eating his pizza like an
absolute boor.” She turned elegantly to Beebo, who had just noticed her
dainty bare feet under the table. “All right, darling, go. But do come
again some time,” Venus said.
Beebo smiled her thanks and got as far as the door before Venus called
her again. Her voice, even though Beebo half expected it, sent a wave of
shivers down her back.
“I forgot to ask,” Venus said. “What’s your name? I mean, so we’ll know
when we order peerless pasta again.”
Toby had had it. Venus was practically flirting with Beebo. He clambered
over Mrs. Sack and started out of the kitchen. Venus turned in her seat
and said, “Damn it, Toby, you come back here!” Her eyes sparkled.
“What for?” he said blackly.
“To finish your dinner.”
“I’ve lost my appetite, Mother.” He glanced at Beebo and added, “I
apologize for my mother. I hope you don’t have a rotten impression of
us.”
“Not at all,” Beebo said, moved by his distress, his anxious efforts to
protect her opinion of them. She wondered if he had any friends at all
up here in his gilded cage. A Manhattan apartment isn’t the ideal place
to raise a spirited boy.
Mrs. Sack rose to her feet clucking, but Venus waved her down. “Oh, the
hell with him, Mrs. Sack,” she said. “He’ll be right back.... He’s a
lovely boy,” she told Beebo. “He’ll outgrow this rebellious stuff in
another year or so.” She spoke confidently but Beebo knew it was a
cover-up for deep concern. “Now—what did you say your name was?”
Beebo answered in a low voice, “Beebo Brinker.”
“You’re kidding,” said Venus.
“No.” Beebo smiled.
“Lord, that’s even worse than mine. Did your press agent dream it up? Or
don’t you delivery boys—excuse me, girls—have press agents?”
“I have dozens, but they’re all starving,” Beebo said.
“Mercy, we’ll have to find you a job,” Venus said. “Are you literate, by
any chance?”
“No, I’m perfectly normal,” Beebo said. She had learned not to get mad
at the wild assortment of jibes people tossed at her. It was better to
catch and toss back than to fall and lie as if dead; make a sideshow of
your strangeness.
Venus put her head back and laughed, and Beebo felt suddenly very warm
and nervous, looking at her. From across the room her face looked
flawless. “Poor Beebo,” Venus said, enjoying the name. “Came all the way
up here in the rain to bring me a pizza, and I didn’t even pay her for
it.”
“You fed me part of it,” Beebo said.
“Well, I’ll order spaghetti next time. When the sun is shining and I
have a few nickels in my jeans,” Venus promised. “I suppose you’re in a
mighty rush to get home to your heavy date?”
“If you don’t mind,” Beebo said politely.
“Of course I mind, but go anyway. I’ll see you on spaghetti day,” Venus
smiled, and Beebo slipped out the back door with her spine still
prickling.
* * * * *
Beebo wondered, all the way downtown in the truck, what sort of kicks
Venus got out of inviting a strange delivery girl in for an unpaid-for
dinner. _She had a bad day and I amused her_, Beebo thought. _The cook
cut out, Toby bugged her, and all six husbands are out of town._
She approached Pasquini’s wishing she could leave the truck somewhere
else for the night, just to avoid seeing Pete. But he was out of sight,
if not off the premises, and she parked and left without incident.
Under a streetlight she looked at her watch. She had been away three
hours instead of one and she was anxious about the trusting girl she had
left behind. She ran most of the way to Paula’s place.
It surprised her when Paula left her waiting in the entry almost four
minutes before she buzzed to open the door.
No one was in the living room when Beebo came in. She called, feeling
her heart quicken with alarm.
“Paula, where are you? Are you all right?”
“In here.” Paula’s voice was faint and Beebo rushed into the bathroom to
find her, standing quiet and sad in front of the mirror. A bottle full
of pills, with the cap off, rested on the bowl. Paula had an empty glass
in her hand.
Beebo looked at her face in the mirror and then saw the bottle.
“Sleeping pills?” she said, picking it up. Her eyes went dark and she
grabbed Paula by the shoulders. “You didn’t!” she said. “Good God,
Paula!”
“No, I didn’t,” Paula murmured. “The bottle’s still full.”
Beebo emptied it into the toilet and flushed the pills away. She turned
to Paula, trying to comfort her, but Paula averted her face and broke
into tears. She flung her arms around Beebo. “Where have you _been_?
You’ve been gone for hours,” she wept.
“She wanted me to eat the damn pizza with them,” Beebo said clumsily.
“Come on, honey, lie down on the bed.” She pulled a protesting and
white-faced Paula toward the bedroom. “What’s the matter?” Beebo said as
Paula’s resistance stiffened.
“I think she’s afraid of a scene,” came a cool, unexpected voice. Beebo
whirled and saw Mona Petry sitting on Paula’s bed, smoking calmly. “But
she needn’t worry. Will you please tell her I don’t plan to stay more
than a minute? I tried to tell her myself, but we don’t seem to speak
the same language.”
Beebo looked back at Paula, who had covered her mouth and cheeks with
tight-pressed hands while tears spilled out of her eyes. Beebo stood
between the two jealous girls; one frightened and hurt, the other
pleased to have her so. It was up to Beebo to restore peace.
Beebo walked into the bedroom, leaving Paula in the hall behind her.
“All right, Mona, I’m sorry,” she said briefly. “If you’re angry about
it, remember you’re the one who stood me up.” Her voice was sharper than
she intended. She wanted to get it over with.
“I didn’t stand you up at all, Beebo,” Mona said. “I told you to call in
one hour. If you had, we could have spent the night together. Instead,
you walked out and disappeared.”
“I called too soon,” Beebo said, recalling the man’s voice through
Mona’s door.
“Not on the phone,” Mona said, and through her disdain, Beebo could see
the flash of real anger. “Do you mean you eavesdropped?”
“I didn’t have to, Mona. I went in to use the phone in the front hall,
and you were throwing things and arguing with some guy. So I left. I
just figured you had a taste for men that night.”
“Did you really?” Mona said acidulously. “After the way I acted with
you? Knowing that any man in my apartment must be an uninvited guest?”
“An uninvited guest doesn’t get in with his own key,” Beebo shot back.
“I didn’t like the idea of sharing you with a man, Mona.”
“I fought with the man,” Mona said, standing up. “I wouldn’t have fought
with you, ever. Now, it can’t be helped.” She crushed her cigarette on
the floor under her shoe as a gesture of contempt for Paula’s tidy
bedroom, and smiled. “Or did you think we could all be buddies? We
three?”
Beebo colored up with anger. “Three’s a crowd, Mona. You make such a
thing of it. Why didn’t you call _me_? I waited for days. I wanted you
to call.”
“Wanted. Past tense,” Mona said, looking at Paula. “Besides, Beebo, I
was wronged, not you. The least you could have done was let me explain.
Now you don’t give a damn. Well, just know that I don’t either. I
wouldn’t dream of taking you away from Paula. She needs somebody to
count the sleeping pills for her.” She hooked her sweater on her index
finger, and swung it over her shoulder with an air of satisfaction.
Paula was distracted and Beebo was exasperated with her. This was
Trouble and it exhilarated her.
“Is that what you came here to say?” Beebo demanded.
“That’s most of it,” Mona said. “It’s only fair to warn you, though ...
I may drop some more bricks before I’m through. You turn such a nice
color when you’re burned, Beebo.” She sauntered deliberately through the
hall, past Paula, who shrank from her, and to the front door, where she
turned for one last shot.
Beebo had followed her and stood in the middle of the living room with
her arms folded over her chest, the way she faced Pete when he crowded
her.
Mona looked her over and then blew a poisonous kiss toward Paula. “I
hope you two will be happy,” she said. “It’s obviously one of those
marriages made in hell.” She pulled the door shut very slowly till Beebo
reached over and gave it a hard shove to.
Mona thumped against it on the outside, laughing at the show of temper.
* * * * *
Beebo turned to Paula, mystified. “What in hell was all that about?” she
said.
Paula was leaning against the wall, still pale and quite exhausted.
“You’ve heard of jealousy,” she said tiredly.
“She had something more than that on her mind,” Beebo said. “She looked
like she wanted blood. You can be jealous without being plain mean.”
“Mona can’t. That’s how she makes her life interesting. It’s funny. You
think of a _man_ being sadistic, coldhearted, capable of evil just for
kicks. But when a woman’s that way, it shocks you. Mona just—enjoys it,
I guess.”