Venus was at the farthest corner. Beebo simply looked for the heaviest
concentration of men. In the center, slim and straight in her
coruscating sequins, stood Venus Bogardus: a silver exclamation point in
the purple dark.
Too much shivaree had followed Beebo out of the house for Venus to be
unaware of it. Leo alerted her at almost the exact moment her eyes fell
on her lover. There was a half-second of undressed fury visible in her
eyes, flashing brighter than her dazzling gown. And then she pulled her
pride across her face like a veil.
Beebo walked toward her, her mission making her impossibly sure of
herself. The two women eyed each other as Beebo approached down an aisle
of staring men, like an infernal bridegroom passing through an honor
guard of devils. Luckily, neither Beebo nor Venus were people to
collapse in the face of public shock.
Silence fell, except from Leo who said clearly, “I’ll tell you just
once, Beebo. _Leave._ You’re fired, and I never want to see you again.”
He spoke softly but in the hushed garden his voice carried to the
audience of Hollywood topnotchers.
“Fired? I never worked for you, Leo,” Beebo said.
“Venus, tell her to go,” Leo ordered his wife.
But Venus, watching Beebo, loved her enough to feel instinctively that
Beebo would not come to humiliate her in public without a drastic
reason. With her characteristic public calm, so different from the
histrionics she indulged in private, she walked boldly to Beebo and
said, “All right, what is it?”
Beebo hadn’t even time to take a breath before she heard Leo say, “By
God, you get that kid out of here or I will.”
Venus ignored him, walking toward the house with Beebo coming close in
her wake. But this was once that Leo would not let himself be flouted in
front of his friends. He had to bring Venus to heel as a matter of
pride, and not only because he considered her action self-destructive.
It seemed as if Venus were making a donkey of him before God and the
world as payment for the years of tolerance and love and patience he had
spent on her. It was too much for him. He caught up with her, spun her
around, and brushed Beebo aside.
“Tell her to get out of our lives, or I’ll take her apart,” he said. He
so rarely threatened Venus that he scared her. But Beebo faced him.
“Leo, why in hell do you think I’m here? I came—”
He didn’t let her finish. “You cocky little bitch, you want it all,
don’t you? Even her ruination! After all I told you.”
“Let me explain!” Beebo said, alarmed now like Venus. But Leo reached
out with icy rage and slapped her face. A red storm swirled up suddenly
in Beebo, and she lit into him so hard that for several amazed seconds,
he let himself be punched. But when he got his bearings he was after her
with all the tornado fury of a cuckolded husband. Every man who had ever
shared a bed with Venus Bogardus got a souvenir sock that night—and
every girl. Only it was Beebo who took the blows.
She fought well enough, but Leo came on with a wild single-minded lust
for vengeance that had her back in the grass before long, heaving for
breath, cut and bruised. She would never surrender, and Leo, possessed
by years of bitter grievances and pent-up vengeance, was in no mood to
be merciful.
Beebo, sinking beneath his punishment, became aware at last that the
blows had ceased. She heard Leo give a cry and opened her eyes to see
Venus, shoe in hand, glaring at him. She turned to Beebo and her face
softened. “Can you get up?” she asked. “I’ll take you home.”
Leo put a hand to the back of his head where the sharp heel had cut his
scalp. He brought his fingers away, wet and red, and turned to look at
his wife. But Venus, taking advantage of his brief confusion, had pulled
Beebo to her feet and rushed her through the house toward the car.
The crowd surging after them deterred Leo’s chase just enough to prevent
him from catching them as they drove away. An uneasy silence settled on
the party as the silver coupé sped off. Nobody knew what to say to Leo.
But he left almost at once, making brusque apologies to his host.
“Well,” said the smug voice of a Hollywood observer, who wrote for one
of the trades, “I guess it’s true, after all. I wasn’t going to print
it.”
“Print what? What?” the crowd chorused eagerly.
“The tip I got from New York last week.”
“I got it, too,” a woman reporter piped up. “I thought it was sour
grapes, but I have my people checking it.”
The guests began to rumble for enlightenment, but the first gossipist
said, “Read it in the morning paper, friends.” And he left with several
other members of the movie press, all chattering as they walked down the
drive.
* * * * *
Beebo slumped in the front seat, her head against the window, mute with
pain for several moments.
“We’ll take you home and clean up those cuts, darling,” Venus said,
wincing at the sight of them when she stopped for a light.
Beebo shook her head. “Dr. Pitman has Toby at the hospital,” she said.
“That’s what I came about.”
“_What?_” Venus was so shaken she almost lost control of the car. Beebo
had to grab the wheel from her. “It’s okay, honey, he’s going to be all
right,” she said quickly. “He had a seizure, that’s all.”
“God, I knew it was something awful the minute I saw your face,” Venus
cried as the car moved erratically down the street. “And that
sonofabitch husband of mine had to pound you to pieces—”
“Don’t blame Leo,” Beebo said, her voice soft and drained. “I don’t. It
wasn’t me he was hitting so much as all the people who came before me.”
Venus was crying and Beebo tried to make her stop the car. “Toby’s had
dozens of seizures in his life, but they didn’t put him in the hospital.
What aren’t you telling me?” Venus said.
“He fell,” Beebo said. “We were walking in the garden after the show. He
had a seizure and fell, and his head struck a rock. He has a cut on the
forehead, but—”
“Oh, dear God!” Venus gasped, and Beebo said, “Stop the car. Damn it,
Venus!”
“But we have to get to the hospital—”
“In one piece,” Beebo said. “I’ll drive.”
“You’re in no shape—” Venus began, but Beebo broke in, “I’m in better
shape than you are.” She made Venus slide over on the front seat while
Beebo walked painfully around the car. Her wounds were the sharp residue
of Leo’s wrath—but her head was clear. She started the motor, and told
Venus firmly, “Toby’s going to live, and so am I.”
Venus looked down at her sparkling knees, trying to control her weeping.
“Look, honey, if you have any ideas about running to Toby with tears
streaming down your face, and carrying on as if the end were near, so
help me, I’m going to join Mrs. Sack’s team. She said that’s exactly
what you’d do.”
“She’s wrong,” Venus said. It was just enough to prick her conscience
into action, and she wiped her eyes while they were still flowing.
Neither of them said anything more about Toby or the coming storm with
Leo and the papers till they reached the hospital. Venus insisted that
Beebo accompany her inside, and Beebo acceded to keep her from getting
frantic.
Toby had a concussion all right. They were making a spinal tap to
determine the extent of pressure, if any, on the brain, and to relieve
it surgically if necessary. It was urgent to do this as promptly as
possible, to avoid brain damage.
“The blow was pretty hard,” Dr. Pitman told them while a nurse dressed
Beebo’s wounds in Toby’s room, at Venus’s request. No one dared to
question Beebo about them. Venus said imperiously, “She’s hurt. Can you
help her?” But her eyes were wild and her thoughts all with Toby.
“Fortunately,” the doctor went on, while Venus bent over her son, peaked
and scarcely conscious on the hospital bed, “the skull is thick and
tough in the front, with heavier bone than in the back. A blow to the
back, of the same force as the one Toby sustained, might have done
serious damage. As it is, I’m as concerned about the blood loss as the
concussion. We’re preparing a transfusion. He’ll feel a good deal
stronger after that than he does now.”
Dr. Pitman looked curiously at Venus. “I must say, Miss Bogardus, you’re
taking this better than I expected.”
“Mama?” Toby whispered, and Venus clutched one of his hands in both of
hers.
“Yes, Toby,” she said.
“Am I going to be all right?” He looked at her. “I feel so punk.”
“Yes, darling, you are,” she said.
He shut his eyes, reassured, and Venus turned away to cover a sob. The
doctor gave her an “I-should-have-known” look and helped her to the
door.
“You’re very tired,” he said. “Do you still have some of those yellow
pills I gave you at home? All right, I want you to take one and try to
rest. You can do Toby more good in the morning, when both of you are
feeling better.”
Venus tried to object, but Pitman pulled Beebo aside and said hastily,
“I’ve been treating her for years. I know how she can be. If she doesn’t
sleep tonight, we’ll see real fireworks, and that will set Toby back if
she gets at him.”
Beebo looked at the boy, resting now as the nurses prepared his arm for
the blood transfusion, his head neatly bandaged. “Is he really going to
be okay, doctor?” she said. “You convince me, and I’ll convince Venus.”
“I think so,” Dr. Pitman said, but his concern was still plain on his
face. “To be honest, there is always some risk with any head
injury—especially with an epilepsy patient. He needs absolute peace and
quiet and as little movement as possible, until the danger of internal
hemorrhage is past ... but he’s young and sturdy, and we’ll have a
twenty-four-hour watch on him. I do believe, Miss Brinker, that his
mother will only be in our way tonight. We’ll call immediately if
there’s any change for the worse, but I don’t anticipate one now.”
* * * * *
Beebo took Venus out of the hospital in stages, letting her fold up and
rest on chairs in the hall on their way, till she had her in the car and
could drive her home.
Venus was forced to expend her frustrated maternal impulses on her hurt
lover instead of her hurt child. She investigated and re-dressed all of
Beebo’s bruises, making small noises of reproof and pity.
“Thanks for braving that party, darling,” Venus told her. “I’d have died
of self-contempt if you hadn’t let me know.”
“Toby would have been all right.”
“Maybe. But I wouldn’t. It would have killed me to let Mrs. Sack do it
all again. Especially now when Toby and I are getting so close.”
“Where do you suppose Leo is?” Beebo said, touching a cut with careful
fingers.
“I’ll be damned if I know. Or care,” Venus said harshly. “I thought for
sure he’d be here, waiting to skin both of us alive. He’ll be around
sooner or later, you can bet on that.” She sighed, leaving Beebo to turn
on the radio by her bed. “I wish they had let me stay with Toby,” she
said. “I’m ashamed that they couldn’t.”
“You can see him first thing in the morning,” Beebo comforted her.
Venus unzipped her sequins and dropped them in a starry heap on a chair.
Fifteen-hundred dollars’ worth of dress and she treated it like a
dishcloth. There was nothing underneath it but her shoes, which she
kicked off.
Beebo put a hand gently on Venus’s neck, massaging it a little. “Maybe
this is a poor time to bring it up,” she said softly. “But we have to
talk, Venus. I—I love you, but I can’t stand living this way, honey. I
realized something in front of those people at the party: I was on
trial. My life, my love for you, my self. I can never love you openly,
like a human being. They don’t give me credit for being human.”
“Beebo!” Venus said, looking at her with a shocked face. “Don’t say such
ugly things. You’re talking about the girl I adore.”
Beebo looked away. “I’m not the kind of person I want to be, Venus. Not
the kind I want you to love. I’d rather die than hurt you, but I feel as
if I’m dying, anyway ... of shame and ... well, doubt about us. I want
to love you somehow without it torturing us both. And I can’t.”
“I know,” Venus said, and Beebo sensed their mutual hopelessness. She
embraced her and Venus began to cry. “When I saw him beating you
tonight, I could have killed him,” she said, her voice rusty with tears.
“It took all the meanness out of me. I just wanted to console you.
Beebo, whatever happens to us, always believe that I loved you—I _love_
you.”
“I promise,” Beebo said, but the past tense gave her a premonition of
what was coming. “What do you mean, whatever happens?”
“I mean, the papers, and the rest of it. I have to deny everything,
Beebo. I have to pretend you’re nothing to me. Oh, darling, understand
why!” It was a declaration of love that struck Beebo’s heart.
“I understand,” Beebo said, and thought she did. But she didn’t get
quite all of it. For Venus was saying goodby to her. Beebo didn’t know
that this loveliest night they would spend together would be the last.
She had thought all along that when the end came, she would pick her own
time and day to go; not that the whole thing would be out of her
control.
Venus said nothing, did nothing, to spoil the night. She was silent
about Toby, even though her heart contracted at the thought of him, and
she ached to be beside him. She spoke only words of love to Beebo.
Beebo, surprised at Venus’s ardor, gave in at first to humor her, and
finally found herself forgetting even the bruises and cuts on her body.
The night was mild and the stars were sprinkled thick as spilled
soapflakes across the sky. Venus pushed aside the sliding door to her
patio, and they danced out there a while on a rug of cool grass, moving
with the music and the air and the three o’clock mocking bird, arch-deep
in the tickling soft grass.
Beebo felt as if she could have held and loved her fabulous lady
forever. When she leaned down to kiss Venus’s face, her cheek was wet.
“Oh, it’s nothing, darling,” Venus assured her. “I’m just a sentimental
idiot. Say you love me and I’ll recover.”
“I love you,” Beebo said. “I love you, Venus.” And to her surprise, her
mind was with Paula Ash for a moment. It staggered her a little. Venus
stopped dancing and looked up at her in the moonlight. “Do you? Really?”
she asked. It wasn’t just a woman’s endless need to be told over and
over. It was the knowledge that she wouldn’t hear it again after this
night had passed.
Venus loved her enough to hope that when she sent her away in the
morning—for she would have to—Beebo’s wounds would heal and she would be
able to think back on their love without the regret that rots so many
sweet memories.
“Beebo, promise me one last thing, darling, and then I’ll shut up.”
Beebo squeezed her, turning her tenderly to the rhythm of a waltz. “I’ll
promise you that moon on a platter if you want it.”
“Promise me you’ll remember this night as long as you live. Everything
about it. The stars inches over our heads, and the music, and the grass,
and....” The famous voice broke and she cried again.
Beebo picked her up and sat with her on a bamboo garden chair. “Darling,
what’s the matter?” she demanded.
“Oh, Toby and—the damn gossipists. I don’t know. It’ll never be the same
for us, Beebo.”
Beebo, full of apprehensions, had no comfort to offer her now, except to
hold her tight. Then Venus slipped from her arms to the feathery grass
and Beebo followed her down, and there were no more questions or tears
or promises. Nothing but beautiful oblivion till the trespassing sun
announced the morning.
* * * * *
Beebo awoke, a head-to-toe bouquet of blue bruises from the jolting Leo
had given her. But it hardly bothered her. Venus had loved her so warmly
all night that she was half-ready to hope they could work out some sort
of compromise; half-ready to give in to more months of demoralizing
secrecy, if it could be like that every night.
Venus called the hospital the moment she awakened, and they reassured
her that Toby was no worse; in fact, seemed better.
She hung up, looking as blue as before her call. “Now we have to face
Leo,” she said.
“He won’t eat you alive, honey,” Beebo said.
Venus paled suddenly. “Look!” she said, pointing at her dresser. Beebo
saw the telltale glass, still coated with orange juice. “He’s already
been in looking for trouble.” Venus stole a glance at Beebo, so young
and handsome, so vulnerable to the worst ostracism society could offer;
and her heart swelled. _I can’t hurt her_, she thought in anguish.
_I’ve had twenty years of adulation and I’ve got more money than I’ll
ever use._ She began to wonder if she had the guts to go with Beebo
after all. _What the hell, I’ve never loved anybody like this before. Am
I afraid to stick to the one person who knows how to make me happy?_
It gave her the courage to try, at least, to defend Beebo against her
formidable and stubborn husband.
While she was preoccupied with these thoughts the bedroom door opened.
Beebo was just pulling her shoes on, sitting on the edge of the bed in
her clothes of the night before. She stiffened, expecting Leo, but it
was the corresponding secretary again. “Another telegram,” he said to
her. “For you.”
“Thanks, Rod.” Beebo got up to take it and was about to open it when she
heard him say, “Good morning, Mr. Bogardus,” and there was Leo. He
dismissed Rod with a wave of his hand and Beebo stepped aside wordlessly
to let him enter the bedroom. He had a lighted cigar—a bad sign—and
another glass of orange juice in his hand. Beebo thrust the telegram in
her pocket and followed him in, shutting the door.
“All right,” Leo said. “We’re adults, and we aren’t going to scream at
each other. Let me talk first if you please. Beebo, are you all right?”
His board-meeting tone, typical though it was of him, offended her more
than an explosion of fury would have. “Relax, Leo, you won’t have to pay
any more doctor bills,” she said. She was pleased to see that she had
given him a shiner.
“I’ve been to the hospital. I was there all night. I can understand your
concern at the party, Beebo. But let me remind you that this house is
full of telephones, anyone of which would have got a call through to
Venus.”
“Leo, Mrs. Sack told me Venus would—”
“But you preferred to repay my kindness to you by shaming me in public.”
“The doctor said it, too: Venus would get hysterical if she heard over
the phone that Toby was hurt and had to be hospitalized.”
“You know it’s true, Leo,” Venus said softly.
“I didn’t go there to shame you, Leo,” Beebo said. “It’s bad enough
being holed up in this fort like a prisoner of war, but not so bad I’d
do that to you. I just want you to believe one thing: I was really
scared about Toby, and I never thought of anything but getting you and
Venus to him as fast as I could.”
Leo finished his glass of juice while she talked. “I believe you,” he
said. “I also believe you could have sent somebody else and spared us
what we’re about to go through—all of us. I’ve been tolerant about
Venus’s lovers in the past because they were vital to her existence. But
none of them ever treated me like a sucker.”
“Beebo has always treated you respectfully, Leo,” Venus interrupted
heatedly. “It isn’t you she’s rebelling against; it’s the way we’ve made
her live.”
“What other way is there? Did she think she’d be your escort at parties?
Meet all your friends? I think I’ve had to put up with a hell of a lot
more than Beebo has. All the worry of this queer situation has been on
my shoulders. Christ, I never could understand why a woman would want
anything to do with another woman that way, anyway. And if she did, why
love a woman who does everything possible to make herself look like a
boy? Why not love a real woman? Or a real man? If you want a lover in
pants, Venus, I’m available. I have been for years, and I still love
you, though God alone knows why.
“If you want to love a female, don’t run after a mistake of Nature like
Beebo Brinker.”
“Leo, that’s brutal!” Venus cried. “Beebo can’t help how she was born.
Good God, do you think any human being would deliberately choose to live
with a problem like this? Leo, there are homosexuals in this world—I’m
one myself—emotional strays of one kind or another, who at least have
the comfort and privacy of an inconspicuous body to live in. The shelter
of a normal sex on one side of the fence or the other.”
“Are you trying to stir my pity for her?” Leo said.
“I don’t want your lousy pity!” Beebo said.
“I’m trying to make you see how it feels,” Venus said urgently. “Leo,
what if you’d been raised as a boy and learned to be a man, and had to
do it all inside a female body? What if you had all your masculine
feelings incarcerated under a pair of breasts? What would you do with
yourself? How could you live? Who would be your lover?”
Leo nodded, answering slowly. “That’s what I’m saying: it’s not an easy
life, nor a desirable one, no matter where Beebo lives it. And I know
she didn’t pick it out. But whether you two like it or not, she is a
freak. And I am sorry for her. Now, Venus—do you want me to sit by and
watch that kid wreck the career I’ve spent twenty years of my life to
build? Yours, my dear—all yours!”
“I don’t want it!” Venus shouted stridently, wanting to hurt and
frighten Leo.
But Beebo was recalling Leo’s words: “If you ever mean more to her than
her career, I’ll lose her. I won’t let that happen. I’ll fight you—I’m
warning you, Beebo.” When she thought of leaving Venus, she meant to
leave a path open behind her for an occasional meeting, a
correspondence, a night together now and then when Venus was in New
York. But Leo was about to sabotage even that small hope. She looked at
him and caught her own thoughts in his eyes.
“That shellacking I gave you was only the opening round, Beebo. Unless
you’re ready and willing right now to walk out of here and never come
back. Never call, never write, never speak to Venus or see her again.
_Never._”
“Leo, I love this girl!” Venus said. “If you insist on kicking her out
of my home, you can kick me out with her.” It was not what she had
thought she would say when the time came. She felt a sort of amazed
pride in her foolish bravery.
Beebo, too, was overcome with gratitude; yet wondering at the same time
what recriminations Venus would vent on her as the weeks and months went
by, if they did leave together. Where would they go, with Venus as
notorious as she was? The thought of running away with her—of being tied
to her for life—alarmed Beebo in spite of herself.
Leo walked to his wife and spoke straight in her face. “Fine,” he said.
“Go with her, Venus. Never mind losing your money, your name ... and
your son. Not to mention me. The things that have sustained you all
these years. Ditch them all.
“What for? For your bargain, here: Beebo. She’ll love and protect you
better than I can, no doubt. You’re thirty-eight years old and you won’t
have that face of yours so damn much longer. If you quit now, it’ll go
to hell in a hurry. By the time Beebo’s twenty-eight, you’ll be nudging
fifty. Probably a grandmother with a face full of charming crow’s feet.
Every night you and Beebo will sit by the TV and watch old Bogardus
movies on the late late show.”
Beebo and Venus stared at him.
“You won’t have your face or your fortune or your home, or me to fight
your battles, or Toby to love and respect you at last. You won’t have
Toby at all, for that matter. Do this, Venus, and you’ve lost him
forever. No state board in its right mind would give custody of a child
to an infamous Lesbian who’d surround him with scandal and expose him to
homosexual obscenities—even if the child himself wanted to be with her,
which he damn well would not.
“And what do you trade Toby for? A big, overgrown, penniless butch with
no job and no prospects for one, who’ll dump you the minute that face
and body begin to sag.”
“You bastard!” Beebo shot at him, appalled.
“Shut up, Beebo,” he said coolly. “Do you have a job?”
“No, but—”
“Do you deny you’re gay?”
“No, but—”
“Do you deny Venus would lose everything if she went with you? Do you
love her so much you can’t wait to destroy her?”
“Leo, for the love of God—”
“For the love of my wife I say these hard things!” he shouted at Beebo.
“You were warned. You have no business standing there now with a slack
jaw. What will you do, take a cold-water flat in Greenwich Village and
live on love till you get hungry and cold? Do you think Venus Bogardus
can go anywhere in the world right now with the papers headlining her
lewd romance with another woman? ‘Venus Bogardus, queen of hearts, has
found a queen of her own.’” He was quoting, unknown to the two women,
the morning’s gossip columns.
Venus, thinking he had made it up, turned all her famous fury on him.
“Get out of this house, you stinking dog!” she cried. “I never want to
see you or hear your filth again!”
“I’ll be over at Sam’s when you’re ready to call me,” Leo said,
referring to the friend who took him in whenever Venus turned him out.