back in Juniper Hill, but it was hard to believe about someone you had
so recently admired.
Paula nodded. “I think she came here tonight because she’s mad at Pete
and she can’t find him to give him hell. Pete sent you over to bug Mona,
and it worked. And you and I went right along with his game and fell for
each other. Mona likes to think she’s a femme fatale, and I guess to
Pete, she is. She jilted him once and he never got over it. She’s always
telling me I’m a ‘goddamn milkmaid’ and nobody wants a milkmaid these
days. She must have really wanted you, Beebo, or she wouldn’t have been
so hurt to lose you.”
“Pete told me he dumped Mona when he found out she was a Lesbian,” Beebo
frowned.
“He’s lying, as usual. He only falls for gay girls,” Paula said. She had
gone to Beebo’s side and put her arms around her for consolation. Beebo,
reviewing Pete’s behavior toward her in a new light, felt faintly
nauseated. “And I thought he was just trying to get my goat,” she said,
returning Paula’s embrace.
“Darling,” Paula said, and Beebo thought how much warmer and truer the
word was when Paula spoke it than when it bloomed on Venus’s perfect
lips like a gaudy rose.
“Beebo, I want to explain—about myself—” Paula said haltingly.
“You don’t have to, I understand.”
“No, you don’t. I didn’t myself. Beebo, I’ve always been such a steady,
sensible girl. Even when I discovered I was gay. I didn’t go all to
pieces like so many kids. It shook me up, yes, but I did the reasonable
thing. I went out and learned all I could about it. I’d never had
special prejudices against other people’s problems, and I hadn’t any
against my own.
“I tried to accept the fact, and after a while I got used to it. But all
the time I was waiting for somebody wonderful to come along; for a
beautiful love affair to make it all right. We’d live quietly together,
we’d cherish each other, and life would be rosy.
“I didn’t think it would be simple, but I thought it would be
satisfying—and permanent. That’s the kind of girl I am, Beebo.
“I found other girls while I was waiting so trustingly for this perfect
love,” she said, speaking with the disillusioned realism of hindsight.
“And they taught me a lot. I thought this was necessary. You have to
know the different kinds of love before you can recognize the kind you
need. I met Mona during this period. She’s mean as an old crow, but
she’s sharp and I learned a lot from her.
“And then the girl in the plaid pajamas came along. It wasn’t beautiful,
Beebo. Nothing I had learned before prepared me for what I went through.
“I lost my self-respect ... my ideals. My efforts to please her rubbed
her the wrong way. I did everything I thought would draw us close, even
when it seemed like madness. I moved to the Village, I went with her
fast crowd, I quit my job. I drank too much and played too hard, for
fear if I didn’t she’d think I was square. I did things that were
downright degrading.”
Beebo embraced her tightly. “Honey, you’re the sweetest girl I ever
knew,” she said. “I won’t believe anything bad about you.” She guided
her back to the bedroom.
“What I want you to know is,” Paula whispered, lying down on the bed,
“that I’m not a kook. I don’t usually fly off the handle emotionally. I
never did it before my affair with the girl in the pajamas. I live an
orderly life, I work hard, I care about people. Only, Beebo, you just
couldn’t have happened. You walked in here asking for Mona last
night—was it only last night!—and I realized that all I’d suffered
before was the dark before the dawn. Maybe it was a sort of price I had
to pay for being gay. I paid it, and Heaven dropped you in my lap. I
want to deserve you, Beebo.”
Beebo was nonplused. She kissed Paula’s white throat, holding her and
frowning into the dim light where Paula couldn’t see her face. It was
disturbing to have such a strong emotion centered on her. She desired
Paula passionately. Every endearment Beebo had spoken to her, she had
spoken truthfully, but without once repeating, “I love you.”
Paula had brought her out; something Paula herself couldn’t believe. And
no matter what other women might figure in Beebo’s life, Paula would
always be dear to her for that alone.
But Beebo was afraid of hurting her. There was more than a humble excuse
in Paula’s explanations; there was also that weapon of amorous women, a
plea for sympathy. It was a hint to Beebo: _Don’t hurt me like the girl
in the plaid pajamas did, or you’ll destroy me._ Beebo caught it and
fretted over it in silence.
Paula began to worry that she had said too much. She raised up on one
elbow, pressed her mouth against Beebo’s cheek, and said, “I want you to
know I’m as surprised as you are by this love-at-first-sight thing. I
thought it was all rot till I met you. Darling, I’m well aware it didn’t
hit you as hard as it did me. I promise I won’t be a nuisance. I’ll love
you very quietly like a good sensible girl. I won’t shriek and weep in
public, or chase you, or take pills. I’ll just love you. So much and so
well you’ll have to love me back ... someday. You will, won’t you?”
Beebo felt suddenly cornered and couldn’t answer. But when she finally
glanced at Paula, Paula had found the courage to smile at her, to tuck
her dismay out of sight. It gave Beebo an odd sort of pride in her, as
if a child of hers had performed bravely in the face of a hard
disappointment. It made Paula still sweeter and more attractive.
“Doesn’t everybody love you, little Paula?”
“Almost everybody ... except Miss Plaid Pajamas and Beebo Brinker.”
Paula gave her a wry grin that let Beebo relax. “But they don’t count.
All the intelligent, rich, beautiful people are insanely in love with
me.”
Beebo laughed and pulled her down on the bed. “Not hard to see why,” she
said. “You’re adorable.” She was still full of wonderment and
fascination over the new role she was playing with Paula: lover, friend,
protector. It felt so good, it fit so well, it rather astounded her. It
was like picking up a violin for the first time and finding you could
play a lilting tune with no practice at all.
Beebo’s good humor rescued Paula from the dumps. She began to feel
affectionate again. For Beebo, it was a delirious pleasure to act out on
a real girl in a real bed all the intense love play that had filled her
solitude. She fell asleep very late, very tired, with Paula in her arms.
* * * * *
Beebo got up early the next morning. She was in no hurry to face Pete
Pasquini, knowing what she now knew about him, but she didn’t want to
lose her job till she could scout down another. She was not in a
financial position to get hard-nosed with him yet, and besides she was
confident that she could handle whatever he could dish out. They were
nearly of a size, and he had never shown himself more than a brash
nuisance. And anyway, a man who could fall in love with the likes of
Mona Petry was not likely to find himself erotically interested in Beebo
Brinker.
Paula was pensive throughout breakfast and when Beebo demanded to know
why, she admitted, “It’s Mona.”
Beebo laughed, but Paula was serious. “She’s one of those people with
nothing to do. She has to make trouble to keep from going mad with the
‘Flats’—that’s what she calls it. She doesn’t work—her men give her
enough money to live on. She doesn’t do a thing but amuse herself. If
you know her at all, you have to be a lover or a hater. There’s no
middle ground with her.”
“Shall I hire a bodyguard?” Beebo kidded.
“She’ll try to punish you somehow. She’s been stood up by you and
tricked by Pete. She’s not the kind who can tolerate being made a fool
of. Pete doesn’t count, he’s only a man, and she can twist him around
her finger if she’s in the mood. But _you_....”
“What can Mona do to me?” Beebo said, still smiling.
“Mona is very inventive. She’ll think of something,” Paula said.
“Do you mean she’d hurt _you_?” Beebo’s smile faded.
“Oh, I doubt it,” Paula said. “It wouldn’t be half as much fun as making
an effigy of Beebo and sticking pins in it. If she does, you’ll squirm,
too. For heaven’s sake, darling, don’t do anything she could blackmail
you for.”
Beebo laughed and reassured her. Mona’s jealousy seemed more silly to
her than dangerous.
* * * * *
Beebo didn’t see Pete Pasquini at work all day, and Marie had no idea
where he was. “Out making babies with the _filles_,” she said with
offhand contempt.
Beebo had no wish to confront him and she finished out the day’s work in
relief. But when she got home that night, there was a new surprise for
her.
Jack let her in, taking the bags of groceries from her. “Haven’t seen
you for two nights,” he said. “Paula must have attractions I can’t
match.”
“Oh, you’re not bad,” Beebo smiled. “For a man.”
He started stowing things in the refrigerator, and Beebo became aware of
Pat, who had followed them into the kitchen. “Good news,” Jack said.
“Celebration tonight.” He pulled a bottle of sparkling burgundy from the
shelf.
Beebo glanced from one to the other. “Did you boys finally tie the
knot?” she said, trying to make it sound light.
“Nothing formal yet,” Jack grinned. “I believe in long engagements. No,
little pal, we are festive tonight because Pat is no longer with the
Sanitary Department.”
“It was too unsanitary,” Pat chuckled.
“I thought you were taking your vacation,” Beebo said. Suddenly, her
precarious place in this still-new city was menaced. The time to move
out was coming fast.
“Vacation, hell. He quit,” Jack said. “I asked him to.”
“How come?”
“I don’t want my betrothed to work,” Jack said, pouring the champagne.
It exploded into tiny fountains of fizz, and they each took a glass.
Jack lifted his. “Long life and health,” he said, and added
significantly, “and love all around.”
They drank. Beebo nodded to Pat. “All I can say, Pat, is what they said
to me when I left Juniper Hill: good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“Beebo, you should have been a poet,” Jack said.
She finished her drink and stood up. “I guess you two want to celebrate
by yourselves,” she said.
“Not at all. Have dinner with us,” Jack said.
“I think Paula’s waiting for me,” Beebo said. After an awkward pause she
added, “She asked me to move in with her.”
“She doesn’t waste time, does she?” said Jack. “Do you want to?”
“I don’t know. It would give her the right to expect me to be faithful.
I can’t imagine a lovelier girl. But I hardly know her. And there are so
damn many girls in the world.”
“Which reminds me. How was La Bogardus?”
“If you mean the bosom, it’s authentic.”
Jack laughed. “You must have been a big hit, if you got that far.”
“No. I just have good eyes. And she’s allergic to underwear, which makes
it pretty obvious.” She sat down heavily for a moment on a kitchen chair
across the table from Pat.
“You look tired, honey,” Jack said concernedly.
“I haven’t had much sleep the last two nights,” she said and let them
chortle at her, smiling a little.
“She’s a doll, that Paula,” Jack said. “If I were you, I’d keep a close
eye on her.” He waited a moment. “You don’t have to go as far as moving
in with her, though. Not if you’re not ready.”
Beebo looked up at him and reached out to squeeze his arm. “You’re too
damn good to me, Jack,” she said. “I know it’s getting crowded here.”
“Nobody’s complaining!” Jack said. “Besides, if you move out, Pat will
probably go, too. You’re still my biggest asset.”
Pat smiled and Beebo laughed, but there was just enough truth in it to
make them all a little uncomfortable.
“If only you could get your elbow in your ear,” Pat said to her
wistfully, making Jack hilarious. But despite the bantering tone, Pat
had found a serious new interest in himself. He was staring and
wondering at the many handsome, mannish, and somewhat authoritative
girls around Greenwich Village. His crush on Beebo had the effect of
opening his eyes to a new and quite fascinating possibility. But so far
it was nothing to threaten his affection for Jack, and he said nothing.
Beebo lighted a cigarette, watching as Jack refilled her wine glass. “If
I ask a hard question, will you boys tell me the truth?” she said at
last. They nodded at her curiously in silent assent.
“When you want me to move out, will you, for God’s sake, please say so?
I feel bad enough about mooching from Jack as it is.”
“Forget it,” Jack said. “Stay as long as you want to, pal.”
She sipped the drink. “It’s not that I don’t want Paula,” she said. “I
just don’t want her enough to cut loose from all the rest of the women
in the world yet. And I’m not earning enough to live alone.”
“You should have met her five years from now,” Jack said sagely. “You
would have been ready then.”
“Maybe we can make it together after a few months,” Beebo said. She was
musing guiltily about somebody else; someone who had nothing to do with
Paula, and yet who affected Beebo’s decision not to go live with the
pretty little redhead. Beebo had been eager to stay with Paula, eager to
be asked, throughout the first night and day of their acquaintance. It
would have solved so many problems, economic and emotional.
Then she got away from Paula for a few hours. She met a woman of
provocative beauty who stuck in her imagination, almost without her
realizing it at first, and who roused her desire for variety: Venus.
When she got back to Paula, she was made to see that Paula was urgently
in love with her, and it scared her. She was flattered but afraid of the
responsibility. And not at all sure she could return the love in full
measure.
So she dodged the decision temporarily by volunteering to take Jack’s
sofa and leave the bed to the men. And for a while it worked out. Beebo
spent most of her evenings with Paula—and sometimes the entire night—and
Paula wisely refrained from pushing her any more on moving in.
There was a complete—and, Paula thought, ominous—silence from Mona. And
another odd development was the disappearance of Pete Pasquini. For
almost two weeks, nobody saw him. Marie kept saying she hoped to God he
had deserted her at last. She was massively uninterested in finding him.
When he finally made a startling appearance, he touched off a howling
family feud, with Marie vowing to drown him in spaghetti sauce and his
mother promising to throw Marie in after him. The children lined up on
the narrow stairs leading up from the kitchen and shrieked approval of
the melee.
Beebo walked in on it at eight-thirty in the morning and brought a
sudden stillness to the room. She stood there uncertainly with all eyes
on her and finally said, “Don’t let me stop you.” Pete smiled at her.
Marie came to life, striding toward Beebo to plead her case with
feminine ardor. “We find out this morning. He gets back last night,
without telling nobody,” she said, waving a steaming red spoon at her
husband. The coating of sauce underlined her threats to drown him.
“We’re all asleep, it’s late. The phone rings twice and stops. We go
back to sleep—they must’ve hung up. What we don’t know,” she hollered in
a rising voice, “this piece of dung is in the shop and _he_ answers it.
Why is he in the shop in the middle of the night? It’s dark, no
customers, nothing to do. Nothing but tin cans and dry pasta. Is he
making love to the tomato paste? Who knows what a crazy dago goes for?”
Pete laughed, and all the while his brilliant black eyes were fixed on
Beebo, who refused to meet them, concentrating instead on Marie’s
theatrics.
“So who’s on the phone? _Bogardus_,” Marie said.
Beebo gasped.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Marie said, hands on her hips, spoon dripping
bloody sauce. “She wants spaghetti this time. It’s the middle of the
night—never mind. She got a taste for spaghetti. ‘Send me that one with
the funny name,’ she says. And she don’t mean Pasquini.” She threw Pete
a look of ferocious scorn. “So Hot Pants here, he says sure, he bring it
right up, the stupid sonofabitch. No spaghetti, never mind, he makes up
a leftover pizza.” She rolled her eyes to Heaven for vengeance.
“What happened?” Beebo said, her mind suddenly full of the star’s vivid
face and sensual body.
“So I make the delivery,” Pete said languidly, seating himself on a
table amid the crunchy bread crumbs. “Bogardus opens the door herself
and says, ‘Where’s Beebo?’ Well, I’m surprised, I don’t realize how
popular you are with these actress types.” He grinned and picked his
teeth with neat nonchalance, while Beebo began to sweat nervously.
“So I tell her, you’re sick, you can’t make it, but it’s okay, I got her
spaghetti. She says, ‘Thank you, darling—’” He rolled the endearment
interminably off his tongue, always smiling directly at Beebo. “—and
opens it. I’m waiting for her to hand me some money, minding my own
business—”
“For the first time in two weeks!” Marie interpolated. “Where was your
hands all this time, Pete?”
“In my pockets,” he replied coolly. “She wasn’t in a mood for no man
last night.”
Beebo’s whole face flushed a high red. She wanted to turn and rush out
of the place, but the thought of his raucous laughter alone prevented
her.
“So instead of the money,” he went on leisurely, “she hands me back the
pizza. In the face.”
“I begin to respect this woman,” Marie commented.
Pete continued, “She says, ‘What do you mean spaghetti? This ain’t
spaghetti. And _you_ ain’t no Beebo Brinker, neither.’ How do you like
that, butch? You can write your own ticket with that one. Only you
better make it a round trip. I understand you got a good reason for
visiting back on McDonald Street these days.”
“She got a good reason to spit in your face, you damn wop!” Marie
declared, siding with Beebo.
Pete ignored her. “That Paula, she’s a looker, hm? I wouldn’t mind
cracking that little nut myself,” he said to Beebo, folding his arms and
enjoying her alarm.
“I’ll crack yours one of these days,” Beebo said in a sudden fury.
“Don’t talk about Paula, you dirty her name.”
“Don’t mind him, Beebo,” Marie said, sensing trouble. “It ain’t just
Paula, anyway. It ain’t enough he runs after skirts all the time. He
wants the girls who want other girls. Figure _that_ one out. After all
his big talk about fags.”
“Fags go for other fags. I go for girls,” Pete said, but Marie had
finally rattled him. Any challenge to his manhood threw him into a
panic. It was clear he drew a fine distinction between his own sexual
preferences—“normal”—and everybody else’s.
“You go for Lesbians,” Marie said, silencing him with a wave of her gory
spoon. She did him further insult by describing his desires to Beebo, as
if Pete were not even in the room. “He’s three-fourths fag and the rest
sadist,” she said. “That’s why he don’t chase real women. He has to hurt
a girl—a girl who don’t _want_ it—before he can get it up.” She glared
at him like a cannibal.
Pete looked back with cold wrath. “I got five kids on those stairs says
you’re a liar,” he said. “Or are you saying _you_ ain’t a real woman?”
“Don’t fake with me, Pasquini. I know what you pretend in bed,” Marie
shouted. “You married me to prove you was a man, and once we left the
church, you figure you proved it. Well, it ain’t that simple.”
Pete walked toward her and Marie paled and stiffened, ready for a blow.
But he passed her and went to Beebo, who could only stand her ground
like Marie and hope he’d go on by. But he stopped, putting a hand on her
shoulder, and pulled her aside.
“Don’t listen to her, she’s cracked,” he said softly. “I told Bogardus
you’d be up with the spaghetti this afternoon. Does that make me your
friend?”
“After your cracks about Paula?” she said, shaking his hand off roughly.
“I told you where to find Paula, too,” he reminded her, and his eyes
glittered. “I always say nice things about that one. She’s a nice girl.”
Beebo looked at him with revulsion. “You sent me there to even some
secret score of yours with Mona. Don’t act noble about it.”
He chuckled. “Still, I sent you, butch. And you went. You tell me if
you’re sorry. You tell me if I ever done one thing you want to complain
about.”
“We’d be here all day,” Beebo snapped. She turned to start working on
the morning’s orders, but he followed her into the store, leaving Marie
and the others to understand he was through fighting. Beebo heard Marie
say wearily to Mrs. Pasquini, “So how come your son looks so good in
Bordeaux and so lousy in New York? Okay, don’t yell, go see about the
kids.”
Pete and Beebo worked in silence but whenever she glanced at him he
seemed to have glanced at her first and was waiting for her eyes with a
smile. He got his orders packed ahead of her and loped out the back door
at a jaunty pace. Beebo watched his retreating back with relief. Before
he drove away he leaned in and called to her.
“Don’t forget—Bogardus wants her pasta at five-thirty,” he said. She
straightened up and glowered at him till he laughed and withdrew.
Beebo finished the orders quickly, her mind teeming with ideas for
another job. Anything would be preferable to Pete’s endless leering. It
was one thing for him to chase pretty Lesbians like Mona. But that he
might desire Beebo—big and rangy, almost more boy than girl—seemed as
utterly perverse and unnatural to her as that she might desire him.
She was surprised when the front bell rang and Pat Kynaston walked in.
She was just ready to leave.
“What are you doing here!” she exclaimed.
“I brought Marie some goodies for her cockroaches,” he said, shaking a
colored cylinder full of powder. “The Last Supper. Going to make some
deliveries?”
Beebo nodded.
“Take me along,” he said pleasantly. “I haven’t anything to do, and the
heat in that apartment is godawful.”
She relented after a moment’s indecision, and gave him a smile. “Okay,
bring those boxes and follow me,” she said. “You can take my mind off
things.”
* * * * *
Late in the afternoon they arrived at Venus Bogardus’s apartment on Park
Avenue. Beebo parked in the service entrance, letting her hands drop
between her knees with a sigh. Pat lighted her cigarette and they sat
and smoked a minute.
“Kind of a stuck-up looking dump, isn’t it?” she said, squinting up at
the glistening windows, stacked with parallel nicety clear to the
clouds. “Well, let’s go do it.”
She got the hot spaghetti and on a sudden inspiration, included a jar of
kosher dills intended for a different customer.
“Who are we going to see this time?” Pat yawned on the way up.
“Probably another maid,” Beebo said.
“Whose?”
“Venus Bogardus’s.”
Pat straightened up and stared at her.
* * * * *
But it was Toby, Venus’s problem child, who let them in. “Hi, Beebo,” he
said, pleased to see her.
“Hi, buddy. Where’s your mama?” She was sorry at once she had asked.
There was a cook by the stove this time—apparently the one who ditched
Venus periodically, but always came back. She was thin and sticky with
butter, and she looked inhospitable.
“I hear Venus threw some food around last night,” Beebo smiled at Toby.
“I brought her a peace offering. Sweets to the sweet,” and she handed
Toby the pickles. “This is a friend of mine, Toby—Pat Kynaston.” They
shook hands and a silence ensued. All Beebo had to do now was wait for
her money and leave. But she heard herself asking again, “Is Venus
here?”
“Come on in. I’ll go see,” Toby said unwillingly.
He left the kitchen briefly and returned, his hands jammed nervously in
his pockets. “She’s in her room,” he reported. “In a goddamn peignoir.
She only wants to see you, Beebo. I told her about Pat and she said she
didn’t want any peace offerings. She wouldn’t even listen about the
pickles.”
“Oh, God,” Pat whispered to Beebo. “I suppose I go to the cook as a
consolation prize.”
Toby walked over to them. “I have a good collection of records,” he said
diffidently. “And guns. That’s one thing all those fathers are good for.
I didn’t go for the guns at first, but I’ve gotten kind of interested.
If you’d like to see them ... I mean, I think Mom is busy for a few
minutes.”
Beebo was touched by his loneliness, his eagerness for company. She had
the feeling that he was choosy about his friends, and living a life
where he could hardly meet any anyway. It made her seem quite important
to him.
He grinned at her. “You’re still on my side, aren’t you?” he said.
“All the way,” she laughed. “I just want to apologize to your mother for
our delivery boy. I guess he got fresh.”
“No,” Toby said, his face lengthening. “She did.”
The cook absorbed all this with silent disapproval. She was the type who
disapproved of everything—even food.
“I wish you wouldn’t see my mother,” Toby confessed unexpectedly.