always her parting shot. Later in the day she would pick up the phone
and tell him that even though he was a sonofabitch, she guessed he’d
better come home. Miss Pinch had just squeezed a batch of fresh orange
juice.
At the door Leo picked up a stack of newspaper columns, torn from the
morning papers, and held them out to Venus. “These will pass the time
while Beebo is packing,” he said, but Venus refused to glance at them.
Beebo, in the grip of a spiraling alarm, took them instead.
Leo looked at her. “I’m sorry I had to hurt you,” he said. “If you
weren’t so young you might have handled things better. I got hurt too,
Beebo. The most I can hope for now is to save Venus and Toby. It’ll take
all my ingenuity—and maybe all my money. And I have to start at once.
Just like you have to get gone.”
She didn’t answer him, but she felt moved, realizing slowly that he
needed her pity as much as she needed his. She could never forgive him
for calling her a freak, and yet it had been a valuable lesson in the
prevailing attitude toward mannish women.
Jack had been sympathetic and patient with her. Pat, himself quite
feminine, had responded to her much the way that the Lesbians who liked
her did. Even the people back in Juniper Hill had been pretty used to
her most of her life. They watched her grow up and while they laughed
unkindly and sometimes lied about her, still they had never said to her
face the things Leo Bogardus had said. Beebo damned well had to stand up
and fight back, or lose her self-respect forever.
Her gaze fell on the pile of columns in her hand, as Leo left them
alone. Venus tried to throw them all in the wastebasket, till she saw
the spreading shock on Beebo’s face. She read over Beebo’s shoulder,
holding her breath:
“Venus Bogardus, ruler of the hearts of men the world over, is ruled
herself it seems: by a WOMAN! Is this true, or just vicious gossip?
Readers of my column know I never use any but the most carefully
validated tips from reliable sources. This one has been double-checked
and we can say positively: the handsome youngster sharing the Bogardus
manse as companion to Venus’s son, is really the apple of the movie
star’s eye. Is Venus Bogardus really one of those unfortunate misfits, a
LESBIAN? Leo, do you know about this? Does your stepson know it? Our
hearts are with you in this difficult situation.
“Readers who doubt me may ask themselves if I would dare to print such
an accusation under the threat of legal action from Miss Bogardus, if it
were false. No! I would never, etc., etc....”
Beebo shuffled through the others quickly. It was the top story in all
the trades and made full columns in the big L.A. dailies. She looked at
Venus and saw such a pallor on her face that she was afraid Venus would
drop where she stood. Beebo helped her to her satin-draped bed where
Venus deflated in a heap.
Beebo stood beside her, her hands crammed into her pockets, afraid to
touch her. At last she asked, “Does this mean I have to go right now?
Alone?” She knew it did; she had known all along it was coming. Yet here
they were, and the time was upon them, and it was abysmally hard to do.
Strangely, she found herself picturing Paula again. It comforted her.
Not that she had any illusions about a warm welcome from Paula. But even
the thought of a fight with the little redhead was better than the
thought of not seeing her at all.
Beebo touched Venus’s long hair gently. “A few minutes ago you were
telling Leo he’d have to kick you out, too, if he wanted me to go.” It
wasn’t kind to remind Venus, and yet it was a relief in a way.
“Oh, darling, I’m such a coward,” Venus said brokenly. “I can’t bear it.
Where in hell did they find out? Miss Pinch would never tell. The others
don’t like me, but they wouldn’t do anything to ruin Leo. Besides, I was
never around during the day and at night we were so careful. How in
hell—?”
Beebo knew perfectly well how it got out. She touched the telegram in
her pocket fearfully, and Venus saw her face change and guessed. “Your
friends in New York?” she asked.
Beebo pulled out the wire. Jack had written: “Hope this catches you
before the sky falls, pal. If not, chin up. We love you. I found out too
late from Pat that Mona wired the Hollywood press. Come home and ride
out the storm. This is a time for friends to help you, not lovers.
Jack.”
Beebo folded it with the meticulous care you give to the oddments of
life that happen to be in your hands when pain strikes; each fold
careful, straight, and neat—as tidy as her life was not. There is an
obscure comfort in smoothing a small piece of paper to its ultimate
neatness. It seems a symbol of order and reason that must somehow rescue
you from the chaos of suffering. It eases the misery that wants to pour
out of your eyes and wail from your throat.
“My friends in New York,” Beebo said huskily, “are still my friends. My
enemies in New York did this to me. Venus, Venus....” She shook her
head. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve been trying to tell you, but I
didn’t know how. I thought we could part lovers and come together again,
still lovers, some day.”
Venus reached up for her, both of them admitting tacitly that it could
never have lasted; neither willing to say the words outright.
But Beebo rejected her arms. “I have to confess something terrible to
you,” she said. “I—I brought on Toby’s attack. I was telling him I
thought I would have to leave here, so you wouldn’t be hurt by the
papers. He got more and more upset and strange ... he tried to answer me
... and then suddenly he shot up and fell over.”
Venus looked away. “It might have happened anyway,” she said. “We know
so little.... I’m going to lose him, Beebo. He’ll never get over this.”
“You’re wrong. You’ve got to be! You can’t lose all you worked for with
him in one stroke like that,” Beebo said.
“Maybe Leo can help me,” Venus said, the dimmest spark of hope in her
eye. “He always seems to put me back together. Maybe he can do it for
Toby.”
Beebo could see that she was floundering at the prospect of losing the
props that had supported her for so long: Leo, Toby, her money, mass
love.
“One thing you have I’ll never have, darling,” Venus told her quietly.
“Courage. I’ll bet you didn’t know how much till now. Maybe you’ve got
it because without it you’d have been destroyed long ago. Well ... I
hate to admit it, but Leo is my courage. I can’t run away with you, even
though my heart breaks to let you go.” She stopped talking for a minute
till her voice steadied a little. “I thought you’d given Toby to me at
last, but I’m afraid you’ve lost him for me forever.”
“I hope to God he has better sense than that,” Beebo said, kneeling by
the bed with her face near Venus’s. “I hope he loves both of us more
than that, and I think he does. He’s brighter and steadier than you are,
Venus. Besides, he’s lived all his life with a condition that makes him
different from ordinary people. Maybe that will help him understand me a
little now.”
Venus stopped crying and embraced Beebo. “Forgive me,” she whispered.
“All I want to say to you is, thank you. For the time I had with Toby,
for the love you gave me.”
For a moment Beebo wanted to stay so badly she was ready to sacrifice
her life again—but only for a moment. It was easy to get carried away
when you had your arms full of Venus.
“I love you, Beebo,” Venus said seriously. “Some day you’ll know how it
feels when you’re my age, and the girl you’ll adore forever is yours.
And you know it’s going to end before long and you’ll have to go on
living somehow.”
Beebo caressed her shoulders without looking at her face. “You’ll never
say you love me again, will you?” she murmured. “Will you say it to
another girl?”
Venus’s arms tightened around her. “Will you?” she countered.
“You’ll say it to men as long as you live, won’t you?” Suddenly it
seemed unbearable to Beebo; bad enough to know that other girls would
follow her, even if Venus never loved any of them. But intolerable that
she would keep on climbing into bed with men, too. Her hands hardened on
Venus’s shoulders. “God, how I wish I could make you choose!” she said.
“Be gay or be straight. Don’t be both. The only other girl I know who’s
both is contemptible.”
Venus answered quietly. “Beebo, you knew what you were early in life.
Some of us don’t find out till after we’ve committed ourselves to a man
and children. You’re one hundred per cent gay. You never doubt it. You
breathe such easy contempt for me. But darling, believe me, you’re the
lucky one. You knew yourself in time to save yourself from housewifery
and husbands—things the rest of us have to live with.
“But I didn’t know till it was too late. It wasn’t just all the men I’ve
known that confused me. It was the way I was raised, too, and the girls
I knew. It was having a man and a child and a career in my life to
defend before I knew I wanted anything else. It was a paralyzing fear of
the truth. I didn’t have a body like yours that threw the truth at me
whether I wanted to see it or not. I could pretend. I pretended with men
and men and more men.
“And the more clearly I realized I was gay, the more terrified I was to
admit it to myself, and the more I had to lose. Do you have to loathe me
for it, Beebo? Am I sort of second-class Lesbian, is my love a
second-class love, because I live with a man and I’ve borne a child?”
Beebo shut her eyes. “I’m your lover, not your judge,” she said, pulling
Venus’s head down on her shoulder. “All I know is, I hate it—sharing
you. If it were another girl, I could fight back on my own ground. But
Leo confronts me with marriage and motherhood and morality and ... God,
what can I say? Tell all of society to go to hell?” She kissed Venus
disconsolately. “If you’d known what you were when you were young, would
you really have given up all this for the life of a Lesbian? The kind of
life I’ll lead?”
“If I’d known I could be as happy with a girl as I’ve been with you,
Beebo ... and I didn’t have my son or a name to worry about ... I could
have given up anything to be with you.”
Beebo couldn’t hate her, in spite of the distressing knowledge that she
had been used. Venus was no Mona Petry. Venus proved her love and did
her utmost to go beyond her limitations for the sake of that love. But
she had lived too long in the world of safety and social acceptance that
is the normal woman’s—a world Beebo would never know—to leave it now.
She was imprisoned in the only security she knew, just as Beebo was
imprisoned in her body and her strong emotional needs.
“You despise me a little for hiding behind my husband and child,” Venus
said, seeing it in Beebo’s face. “What do you want me to do with them,
darling? I love Toby and I need Leo. I can’t wish them out of existence.
They existed for me long before you did.”
“Venus, I don’t know what’s right or wrong,” Beebo said. “I only know I
love you and it’s made me miserable. God spare either of us another
affair like this one.” She caught Venus in an impassioned embrace,
holding her hard enough to hurt her and crying soundlessly against her
cheek.
Then she released her, walking swiftly to the door. Venus gave a small
scream and rushed after her. “Oh, not like this! Wait, stay with me a
while. There’s no need to go just yet. I need you more than I ever did.
Beebo!”
“Don’t make it hurt any worse, Venus,” she said. “Let’s not cut it off
an inch at a time.” Beebo was the strongest and it was up to her to make
the break physical and final.
“Say it one last time, then,” Venus pleaded wildly. “I’ll never see you
again! Beebo, darling—say it!”
“I love you,” Beebo said huskily. “Goodby, lover.” She reached out and
put her hands on Venus’s shoulders to draw her near; kissed her ardently
on the lips and then chastely on the brow.
Venus gazed at her, afraid to believe it for a minute, and then dropped
her face into her hands with a sob. Beebo left her, running down the
curving stairs to the front door. If she were to move at all, it had to
be at top speed.
* * * * *
It was raining in New York when Beebo landed at Idlewild, a standard,
sharp November rain: liquid ice tumbling out of a dirty sky. She reached
Jack’s familiar door early in the evening and rang his bell. The answer
was immediate, as reassuring as a personal word.
She dashed up the stairs and saw him leaning in the open doorway,
waiting for her. Neither of them said a word. Beebo went up and hugged
him against her damp jacket. He fit neatly under her chin, letting
himself be squashed in the name of friendship.
“Come in, pal,” he said.
“I should have wired you. I left in such a damn hurry,” she said.
“Jack—you aren’t even surprised to see me!”
“I read the garbage in this morning’s paper,” he said. “I didn’t think
Venus would keep you around long after that. But I have to admit I
wasn’t prepared for her phone call.”
Beebo’s mouth fell open. “Venus called _you_?” she said.
“About four hours ago. Said you were flying back. She remembered my name
and had her secretary try every Jack, John, and J. Mann in the Manhattan
directory,” he chuckled. “She sounded very sweet and sad. I was
impressed with her—I really was. She said to tell you she loves you.”
Beebo leaned forward on the sofa. “Poor Venus,” she said, too tired even
to feel surprise at her compassion. “She’s so afraid I won’t believe
her. You know something, Jackson? She does love me. That’s the craziest
part of it. She just isn’t strong enough to snap her fingers at the
world. And God knows she had more at stake than I had—mostly a son she’s
just beginning to know and love. I have no business condemning her. But
oh my God, it hurts so much. She was so lovely.”
Jack sat down beside her. “I know the feeling,” he said. “I guess it’s
the one pain on earth you can always remember perfectly, down to the
last mean twinge.”
Beebo smiled a bit, putting her head back on the sofa and accepting
gratefully a lighted cigarette from Jack.
“How about a peppermint schnapps?” he said. “Or would you prefer Scotch
and water?”
“That’s more like it.”
“It’ll warm you up a bit. What a rotten day for a homecoming.” The rain
pelted the roof and windows with an endless muted rattle. He handed her
the drink, making one for himself.
“Thanks, Jack,” she said. “You know, it was sunny in California.
Eighty-two degrees and not a cloud in the sky.”
“I was stationed there a while during World War II. I remember that
weather.”
The small talk comforted Beebo and the drink relaxed her. They had
another, and it wasn’t till Beebo had been there several hours and told
Jack all the highlights of her life with Venus, that she became aware at
last of a void in the room. She sat up. “Where’s Pat?” she said.
Jack glanced down into his drink. “Pat left,” he said simply.
“Left?” Beebo looked at him incredulously. “Jack, he couldn’t just
leave, he was so fond of you!” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
“So am I. But it’s winter, after all. Spring will bring somebody new. It
always does.”
Beebo’s heart turned over for him. “But you ... really loved him. Oh,
Jackson,” she sighed. “And you let me deluge you with my problems.”
“Yours are worse than mine, pal,” Jack said kindly. “And newer. Pat left
me about four weeks after you did. First of October.”
Beebo shook her head, still half-disbelieving. “Why?” she said.
“He found somebody else,” Jack said, and when Beebo exclaimed in
protest, he added, “A woman.” Beebo stared at him. “I guess you put that
bug in his ear,” Jack said wryly. “He began to brood about being gay. He
thought if he could be so attracted to you, maybe it would work with
another aggressive girl. And he was a bit lost when you left, anyway.
Then he met Sandra and got quite a crush on her. She took him on. It all
happened in a few weeks’ time. They’re living upstate, running an
antique shop. She’s teaching him the business. And I guess he’s
exterminating her termites. Now and then he comes down to see me. We get
along fine.”
“And I thought he was so happy here,” Beebo mourned.
“I think you meant more to him than we realized. He moped around after
you left and wanted to follow you to L.A. I talked him out of it, but it
seemed to relieve him to talk about you. Frankly, he talked too much. I
warned him, and he really tried to stop, but he’d have a drink or two
and open up. And he always got around to you. It was complimentary—what
he said—but there was too much of it. Mona or Pete managed to get most
of the dope.
“And when Pat realized he was hurting you, he began to blame himself for
all your troubles. He felt guilty about living with me—‘off me’—when he
couldn’t give me his whole love. He’s a damn nice kid, Beebo. It’s best
for him that he look around a bit more.”
“What’s best for you, Jackson?” Beebo asked fondly.
“Somebody new, I guess.”
“I hope you don’t have to wait till the spring.”
“I’d rather. It’ll give me time to get over Pat. Besides, I’d rather
fall in love in the sunshine than the rain.”
He fixed another round while Beebo mused, “I hope Venus’s son gets
through this all right. It’s tough enough on Leo and Venus ... but Toby.
I was his best friend. He thought if I ever left he’d lose his mother
again.”
“He didn’t lose her,” Jack said. “Venus said Leo explained things to him
at the hospital. It shook him up pretty badly, but he came out of it on
Venus’s side. That Bogardus must be a wise man. Venus said he didn’t say
one bitter word about you. Anyway, Toby ended up wanting to comfort her.
She said it saved her life. She couldn’t have stood to lose you both in
one day.
“Toby doesn’t know what to think about you, and maybe he never will.”
“That will draw him closer to Venus, at least,” Beebo said. “I don’t
like to think he’d ever hate me. But there’s some comfort in knowing I
brought him and his mother together. It’s a funny thing ... all of a
sudden she seems as remote and inaccessible as—as the California
sunshine. The end of the rainbow. Jack, I hate to give up the pot of
gold.”
She bent her head and shut her eyes a moment. When she looked up she
asked, “How’s Pasquini doing?”
“Got a new driver—a boy,” Jack shrugged. “Marie can still cook. I don’t
know about Pete. He’s a scared little man. I guess that’s what makes him
so vindictive. He feels brave hurting somebody who can’t hurt back.”
“He and Mona sent the scoop to Hollywood, didn’t they?”
“They did. They called me about it later. They were that sure of
themselves.” He studied her face. “Venus told me about the boxing match
with Leo. He must have given you those bruises.”
“It’s all right,” Beebo said, touching her face. “I gave him some, too.”
Jack lighted a cigarette. “There’s one more thing, honey,” he said.
“Your brother.” He spoke carefully in an effort to keep from alarming
her.
“Jim?” Beebo said, grimacing. “God, I suppose he read about all this,
too. Did he tell Dad?”
“No,” Jack said. “Somebody sent your father the news, but he never saw
it. I suppose it was Mona.”
“Damn it, why does that girl enjoy persecuting me? All I ever did was
get my wires crossed on a date with her once. I can’t understand—”
“You will,” Jack promised her. “Beebo, listen to me. Your father ...
never knew.”
She looked at him, suddenly white-faced, and whispered, “Oh, Jesus. Oh,
God. Jack? He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“I guess I shouldn’t have told you tonight,” Jack said. “Coming on top
of the rest, maybe it’s too much.”
“No,” she said, breaking down and crying a little. “Do you know, Jack,
I’m almost glad. I’m sick that I wasn’t with him at the end—if I’d known
it was so close I’d have come back. But that poor unhappy man went
through too much over me as it was. I think—I hope—that he knew why I
left him. Maybe he seized the chance to lay his burdens down.
“Oh, I don’t mean he’d kill himself. But he kept himself alive through
sheer will power, to help me out of my scrapes. After I left, he was
free to surrender. For all he ever knew, I ended up the doctor he hoped
I’d be.” She shook her head. “Such a good man. So kind, so humanly
frail. I loved him, Jack.”
“I got quite a biography of him from Jim,” Jack said. “His drinking, his
poverty, his tantrums. Jim’s bitter as hell.”
“I was the cause of most of it,” Beebo said. “What happened to Jim?”
“He sent me a letter from the University of Wisconsin. He said your
father didn’t have any money, but you could have any of his belongings
you wanted. If he doesn’t hear from you before the end of this month
he’s going to sell what he can and throw out the rest.”
“Is that all?”
“He said he was sorry for you but he never wants to lay eyes on you
again.”
She laughed sourly. “I’ll bet,” she said. “That’s the nicest he’s ever
put it, too. I never loved him, Jack, but he’s all the family I have,
and he’s no family at all. It’s too bad ... but he’s right. We’re poison
together. I guess I’ll let him sell Dad’s things. I have his picture and
my memories. They’re worth more to me than some worn-out furniture.”
She fell into bed soon after, lying in the familiar warmth and watching
Jack move around the room. She envied the fullness and strength of his
arms and chest.
When the lights were out she asked him softly, “Jack? How’s Paula Ash?”
“Pretty lonesome.”
“Do you see her at all?”
“All the time. We shore each other up.”
“What do you do together?”
“Talk about Pat and Beebo.”
Beebo smiled faintly in the dark. “Is that all? Does she hate me?”
“No, little pal.”
“Does she ... love me?”
“You’ll have to ask Paula that one.”
“Jack, is she living with anybody?”
“She was. The girl with the Plaid Pajamas moved in for a while.”
Beebo felt an odd melancholy that had nothing to do with her father or
Venus. “Have you met her? Plaid Pajamas?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
“Nobody you’d go for. Didn’t Paula tell you about her?”
“Not much.”
“Well, you’ll meet her one of these days,” he said.
That was all she could get out of him.
* * * * *
Beebo spent the next week resting and living quietly out of sight. She
had no plans for wild revenge against Pete and Mona; only the wish to
forget, to learn to live with herself again.
Venus was often in her thoughts and would be for a long time. But more
and more, as the hurt faded, she found herself preoccupied with Paula.
Paula, so real and so faithful; so unlike the fairy-tale princess,
Venus, who had vanished inevitably into Never-Never Land. Beebo had
crashed back to earth, and she wanted a real girl in her arms.
The cackling in the papers about the Bogardus-Brinker affair made life
awkward for her for a while, with reporters trying to scout her down and
people whispering about her wherever she went. But the talk was slowly
yielding at the other end of the country to Venus’s surprising dignity.
She appeared in public at Leo’s side emphasizing the duration of their
life together. Both of them swore that their marriage had never been
stronger, and in a way, it was true. They needed each other extremely
then.
The official story was that Beebo was a young woman who had taken a job
on the household staff and subsequently became a close friend of Toby’s.
Nobody was aware that she was harboring a feverish crush on Venus. When
the situation blew up in their faces, Venus and Leo were as startled and
shocked as the rest of the movie colony. They expressed their sympathy
for their unfortunate young friend and hoped she could find a happier
life somewhere else.
“No one who knows me will believe that there was anything between this
poor girl and myself except a friendly relationship based on her
closeness to my son,” Venus was quoted. And Beebo, reading the
statement, could picture Leo writing and rewriting it at the desk in his
library, with a cigar fuming in his mouth and a glass of orange juice
nearby.
Somehow, Leo brought it off—partly by expending huge sums on public
relations and partly by exploiting Toby’s illness: he hinted broadly
that unless the furor died down, the boy’s health was in danger of
permanent damage.
Beebo shed a few tears over it in private. But it was, after all, as
merciful towards her as Leo and Venus dared to make it. Her picture was
kept out of the papers. She still had some anonymity in this biggest of
all big cities.
* * * * *
It had been two weeks since she returned to New York; weeks spent
resting and job-hunting. Beebo was tense throughout the day, for that
night the second segment of _Million Dollar Baby_ was scheduled for
showing. It was the one in which Venus sang, “I’m Putting My All On
You”—the song Leo and Beebo had coaxed out of her that night in the
recreation room.
Beebo tried all day to forget about it. But when she came home again
that night without a job, Jack had to cheer her up with a cold martini.
“When are you going to call Paula?” he said casually.
“Paula who?” she said with a little smile.