be a dandy night not to watch television.”
“How do you know Paula wants to see me?”
“Well, if she hadn’t called to say so, I’d still know. I’m telepathic.”
“You’re psychopathic. What am I supposed to do, go over there and beat
the daylights out of Miss Plaid Pajamas? You said they were living
together.”
“_Were_—past tense. I don’t know what the situation is now, with you
home. Anyway, pal, what’s the matter with you? Afraid of a little fight?
Or isn’t Paula worth it?”
“What are you promoting it for, Jackson? Taking bets?”
“If the Pajamas are still hanging around, you can take her with one hand
behind your back. Leo must have taught you _something_.”
“And after I kayo her, then what do I do?”
“You claim the fair damsel, stupe,” Jack said. “Jesus, you’re thick
sometimes, Beebo.” He chuckled at her.
Beebo sobered slightly. “Jack, I’m not so sure. I mean, I hurt Paula. I
was damned unfair and unfeeling with her.”
“Really? _Unfeeling?_”
“I ditched her for what must seem like the cheapest kind of affair, when
Paula needed me and Venus only wanted me.”
“You’re ashamed of yourself. Is that why you’re stalling? Beebo, don’t
you know a girl in love is always ready to forgive her lover?”
“Provided the lover’s in love with her,” Beebo said.
“Well, aren’t you? Not one letter did I get from California that you
didn’t fret and worry over Paula Ash.”
Beebo looked at him. “I’ve been thinking about just two people for the
past two weeks: Venus and Paula. And every day, it’s more Paula and less
Venus. And yet I think if Venus were to call and say, ‘Come back, I
can’t stand it without you’—I’d go.”
“No, you wouldn’t, pal. You’ve learned too much.” Jack nodded at the
phone. “Besides, she’ll never call. Venus Bogardus isn’t real any more.
She’s the doll millions of us will watch and covet tonight on TV. And
you’re just one of the millions now.”
Beebo felt momentarily swamped with frustration. Gradually she became
aware of Jack’s voice saying, “Paula doesn’t belong to the public or a
bank or a one-track husband. She doesn’t have any of those things. Paula
can get up when the show is over and turn the set off, and come back to
your side, ready for love. Venus will be gone forever with a turn of the
knob.”
Beebo lighted a cigarette to cover her emotion. “Maybe I should call
Paula. The least I can do is apologize. But I don’t want to see her till
I’m sure—”
“Sure of what?” Jack said. “Loving her? Beebo, you can wait a lifetime
trying to be sure of love. You didn’t wait to be sure of Venus. I didn’t
wait to be sure of Pat.”
“And look how those affairs turned out,” she said.
“If we had waited, we wouldn’t have known any happiness at all with
them. I still love Pat. We’re friends and I think we always will be.
Venus loves you, Beebo, and the things you gave her are the most
precious in her life. Because of her, you’re growing up a little, at
last. Would you rather it had never happened, just because it hurt?”
She glanced at him, puzzled. “No. But I don’t want to hurt Paula any
more. She doesn’t deserve anything but my love, and I don’t know if I
can give her that yet.”
“Well, she can give you hers. And right now, that makes her the strong
one. You need love and it’s her joy to give it. Maybe the gift will
transform the recipient. That’s what happened to Venus.”
“God, if I could make myself love her, I would,” Beebo said, but Jack
laughed at her.
“Hell, honey, that’s _her_ job,” he said. “Be honest with her and she’ll
take it from there. If she’s willing to risk a love affair with you now,
knowing all she knows, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
Beebo doused her cigarette. “Can you eat all that hamburger by
yourself?” she said, pointing at it.
“Without the slightest strain.” He smiled at her.
“Okay,” she said, answering the smile reluctantly. “I’m going calling.
But if I come back here tonight with two black eyes and a broken heart,
by God, Mann, you’re going to pay for it.”
“I can’t wait,” he said.
Beebo threw a plastic saucer at him, which he fielded deftly, and left
with his laughter in her ears.
* * * * *
She walked through the night air, crisp and cold enough to crack if you
just knew how to grasp it, all the way to McDonald Street. It was easy
enough to find Paula’s building. Not so easy to go in and ring her bell.
Beebo looked at the small black button for several minutes before she
pressed it. When the answer sounded at once, she wondered if Jack had
called to forewarn Paula. She opened the door and walked down the hall
with the feeling of reliving in life what she had once dreamed an eon
ago.
Paula’s door was open as it had been the night they met. A slice of
light lay across the hall. Beebo felt her heart beating higher in her
chest. Soon Paula would appear in a pair of plaid pajamas that weren’t
hers, and say sleepily, “Yes?”
But she didn’t. Beebo stopped at her door and waited. She could feel
Paula’s presence somewhere just inside the room. Finally she glanced in,
blinking at the light. Paula was leaning against the far wall, facing
the door. Her hair had grown quite long in the few months since they had
seen each other, and it washed over her pink silk shoulders in an auburn
tide.
Her eyes were enormous and there was a flush of love and fear in her
cheeks. She wasn’t just pretty. She was so lovely that Beebo’s breath
caught in her throat. Everything Paula felt and feared and hoped for
shone on her face.
Beebo stood in the doorway, her hands characteristically shoved into her
pockets, her bright blue eyes fixed on this gentle girl who, incredibly,
learned to love her in three days and loved her still after three
months.
“Paula,” Beebo said. “Are you still my Paula?”
“Still yours,” she answered.
“I don’t see any plaid pajamas around,” Beebo said, but it was no
wonder: she didn’t see anything around that room but Paula Ash.
“She left,” Paula said. “The day you came home. I told her to leave. Oh,
Beebo.” Paula shut her eyes, and when she opened them, Beebo was
standing beside her, hesitating, absorbing the mystery of their
attraction.
“Paula, I feel as if I’m seeing you for the first time,” Beebo said. “I
swear I do.”
“I’m no match for the goddess,” Paula said, smiling without any malice.
She was prompted by an innocent little-girl need to be admired and
loved, so transparent that it charmed Beebo completely.
“The goddess was no match for you.” Strangely, all at once, it was true.
“Jack was right—you’re the real woman.” She closed the small space
between them, taking Paula’s shoulders in her big hands and kissing her
suddenly on the mouth. Paula put her arms around her, so hard Beebo
could feel her quivering.
“Paula—darling—I want to know just one thing,” Beebo said. “Where are
your damn sleeping pills?”
“I gave them to Jack the day you left,” Paula said. “Kiss me again,
Beebo.” Beebo obeyed her gladly, over and over, rediscovering with her
all the things they had learned to need and love in each other months
before.
When Paula took Beebo’s hands and turned them palms up to kiss, Beebo
groaned with the delight she couldn’t hold back. “Paula,” she said, “oh,
Paula. I came here like the self-centered idiot I am, thinking I could
pay you off for what you’ve been through with a few silly kisses. Honey,
I’m the one who wants them. I’m the one who needs them. I just didn’t
have the sense to see it.”
She was full of crazy joy that was part nostalgia, part relief, and
mostly desire. The touch, the fragrance, the feel of this marvelous girl
were beyond anything Beebo had remembered.
Beebo picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, bending over her
on the bed, her hands supporting her weight on either side of Paula’s
face. “Oh, that hair, that mouth. Paula, I came so close to loving you
before. And then ... Jesus, she dazzled me. Honey, I was helpless with
her.”
“Don’t explain, Beebo. I got through it somehow, and it’s over. Jack
practically adopted me. We talked all night every night for a week after
you left. He told me you’d be back, and he was so sure of it that I
believed him. I knew you weren’t in love with me, but I knew you wanted
me. And because of Jack, I never despaired. I wasn’t even afraid of Mona
any more. She thought I was nuts, but—”
“Mona! Has she been after you, too?” Beebo flared. “Hasn’t she hurt me
enough? Does she have to take it out on you?”
“You stood her up for me, remember?”
“How could I forget?” Beebo leaned over to kiss her. “Unbutton me,
Paula,” she whispered.
Paula complied with a tremor. “Mona thought she owned me,” she said
softly. “She shucked me off months before, but I wasn’t supposed to love
anybody new for the rest of my life.”
“Paula ...” Beebo seized her hands and looked at her searchingly. “Are
you trying to tell me—oh my God!—was _Mona_ the girl in the plaid
pajamas?”
Paula nodded, still opening buttons until Beebo’s shirt slipped off.
“She came back this fall when you left. She wanted information about you
at first, but then she decided to live with me again. I let her do it. I
supposed I was looking for a way to hurt you both. Make you jealous, and
get even with Mona for the pain she gave me. She was astounded when I
told her to get lost two weeks ago. She’s still waiting for you to snub
me, and then she’ll come back to say, ‘I told you so.’”
“That’s one thing she’ll never say,” Beebo said emphatically. “She won’t
have the chance. How could you fall for a girl like that, darling? You
so sweet all the way through, and Mona so sour?”
“It’s you I love, Beebo. Let’s not talk about Mona.”
Beebo kicked her slacks off, lying down beside Paula. “Did you know Mona
was going to send that smear to the gossipists?” she asked.
“Yes,” Paula confessed and shocked Beebo. “I’ll be truthful. This is the
hardest thing I have to tell you, Beebo. I knew, and maybe I could have
stopped her, I’m not sure. But I didn’t even try. I knew it would
separate you and Venus. It would have come sooner or later, but I wanted
you so awfully and this was the fastest way to do it. I couldn’t have
done it to you myself. But when I found out what Mona and Pete were up
to, I didn’t have the guts to stop them.”
There was a long silence. “Beebo, I forgive you everything. Can you
forgive me this?” Paula’s voice, slight and sweet as herself, hung close
to tears. This was the test.
Beebo turned Paula’s face up to hers finally and kissed it. “You have
far more to forgive than I do,” she said. “If you can, so can I.”
Once again they held each other, immersed in the swell of love. Paula
lay beneath Beebo, letting her work a while; letting the ardor slowly
take fire inside her, until the urge to respond became irresistible.
Then, suddenly, her head went back in a beautiful arch, into a pool of
auburn hair. Her body heaved against Beebo’s, and one of her legs
slipped between her lover’s. Her hands began to wander through Beebo’s
close-cropped curls, over her broad back and trim hips, caressing her
everywhere. Beebo answered her with gratitude, amazement, and the first
warm thrill of real love. Not an infatuation that knocks the breath out
of you and dislocates your life for a while. But the slow sure kind,
strong and reassuring, that holds together. Honesty, trust, respect, all
were growing between them.
When they had slept a little, Beebo raised herself up on one elbow to
light a cigarette and talk. “You know something, Paula,” she said. “I
tried to tell you this our first night together, and you wouldn’t
believe it. But it’s true, and it has a lot to do with the way I feel
about you now.”
“What, darling?” Her look of love, so womanly and so complete, moved
Beebo warmly.
“You brought me out, Paula. You were the first. I spent my life back
home saying no to everything but my daydreams. There wasn’t a soul I
could have touched without the whole town finding out. It would have
killed my father. That’s one of the reasons I had to leave. Paula, you
precious girl. God, how lucky I was that it was you.”
“It might have been Venus,” Paula said.
“If it had, I’d have botched it. She would have laughed at me.”
“Her show is on,” Paula said, looking at the clock-radio by the bed.
“Want to watch it?”
“No thanks.”
“I think you should. Come on, I’ll watch it with you.” Paula got up
smiling and pulled her halfway out of bed.
“Paula, honey, I don’t give a damn—”
“No fibs!” Paula cautioned, throwing her pink silk wrapper around
herself. “Come with me, Beebo.” She stood at the bedroom door, waiting,
and Beebo couldn’t turn her down. She stood up, but not without
misgivings.
The show had already started and the commercial was in progress. Beebo
took Paula in her arms and together they settled back on the sofa.
“If you had refused to look, I would really have been scared,” Paula
admitted. “I would have thought you were still tied to Venus
emotionally—too much to bear to see her, even on the screen.” She
twisted around in Beebo’s arms to look at her face and kissed her
swiftly a dozen times till Beebo was suddenly embracing her tightly and
murmuring her name eagerly.
Paula was trembling with the immensity of her feeling, full of whirling
thoughts hard to word. “I know you don’t love me yet the way I love you,
Beebo,” she said at last. “But God, I hope you will. It’s kept me
going—that hope—all this time. You felt so right to me.”
Beebo stroked her hair and gazed at her, unaware that Venus, in black
satin, was singing, “I’m Putting My All On You.”
“You’ve only seen the rough side of gay love,” Paula told her. “People
can be so cruelly selfish. Even the people who try to be good to you,
and I guess Venus tried.
“Darling, Lesbian love doesn’t have to be brief or heartbreaking, just
because it’s a love between two women. I want to teach you that. I want
to live with you and do things for you and even let you do things for
me.
“Oh, Beebo, don’t you see it? Women have a special knack for loving.
Even Venus, in her way, found that knack. There’s a tenderness, an
instinctive sympathy, between two women when their love is right ...
it’s very rare in any kind of love. But it comes near perfection between
women.
“You haven’t known that tenderness yet. You’ve only known a hectic
affair with a fantastically difficult actress. I want to give you a
home. I want you to come back to me every night and know you’ll be loved
and cared for and spoiled. Beebo, darling, I want you to spoil me a
little, too.”
“Paula, it’ll be a pleasure,” Beebo smiled.
Paula relaxed in her lap and Beebo put her hand back on the cushions.
They watched the end of the song as the camera closed in on the face of
Venus Bogardus. She was talking the words the way Beebo had suggested,
her head tilted to one side and her eyes full, glittering with a
give-away brilliance of real tears.
At the end, she let her head drop so that her gleaming hair swung around
her face and hid her eyes. The tune—just a gimmicky little love song to
begin with—had become a torch. And for just one moment, Venus was living
flesh for Beebo again.
Beebo moved Paula off her lap and got up, going to the TV and turning it
off. “It’s not that I’m still close to her, Paula,” she said, coming
back to the sofa. “It’s just that that was goodby. From her to me.”
They looked at each other. “Did you really love her, Beebo?” Paula
whispered.
Beebo sat down and took both of Paula’s hands in hers and kissed them in
a gesture that had become special to them both. And then she pulled
Paula down on the couch in her arms and kissed her neck until she
squirmed and laughed. “I won’t know for sure what love is till I’ve
spoiled you for a while, sweetheart,” Beebo grinned.
THE END
of an Original Gold Medal Novel by
Ann Barron
Transcriber’s Notes
The original spelling was mostly preserved. A few obvious typographical
and punctuation errors as well as variations in hyphenation were
silently amended. All other changes are shown here (before/after):
[p. 25]:
... ravioli, and drew it out with a potholder, spooning in onto ...
... ravioli, and drew it out with a potholder, spooning it onto ...
[p. 34]:
... that run his wife’s errands and pocket all the money Marie ...
... than run his wife’s errands and pocket all the money Marie ...
[p. 49]:
... told me. He looks hungry, as if he needed to be cared for.” ...
... told me. He looks hungry, as if he needs to be cared for.” ...
[p. 50]:
... must be waiting to erupt someone so intense, so yearning, ...
... must be waiting to erupt from someone so intense, so
yearning, ...
[p. 80]:
... the cotton tops out far enough to brush Beebo’s chest with ...
... the cotton top out far enough to brush Beebo’s chest with ...
[p. 151]:
... “Oh, you don’t have to worry. He likes kids. Beside,
he’s ...
... “Oh, you don’t have to worry. He likes kids. Besides,
he’s ...