Tris for having the effrontery to walk in on Laura and Beebo and cause
the bitter outburst that had separated them. She was brooding about this
when Tris suddenly dismissed her dancers.
The two went into her bedroom to change and Laura waited for Tris to
speak to her. But Tris only glared, performing a few indolent turns
until her students returned. Then she unexpectedly introduced them all.
She was curt, almost unpleasant about it.
The young man smiled at Laura and said, “Never mind her, she’s bad
company tonight. Thanks, Tris.” And he gave her a strange look and left,
following the girl.
Tris shut the door after them and turned to Laura. “The girl is
insufferable,” she said. “She can’t dance, and she is a vixen besides.”
“The boy can dance,” Laura said, not without a jealous twitch.
“Yes, he can. He can make love, too. And he does—when I don’t have
company.”
She said it pointedly and Laura felt her whole face go a hot red. She
stood up without speaking and made for the door, her head swimming, but
Tris stopped her there by embracing her. Laura was in no mood for Tris’s
sudden turnabouts.
“God damn you, let me go,” she exclaimed.
“Tonight, I am grateful for the company,” Tris said. “He bores me.”
“I’ve had all I can take from you, Tris. You split me and Beebo up
tonight—”
“Ah, then I did you a favor, no?” and she smiled.
“You damn near got me killed!”
“She is not gentle, is she?” Tris said, releasing Laura to touch her
bruised mouth, but she was still smiling a little.
“Gentle?” Laura exploded. “Beebo? Gentle like a tornado. Why did you do
it, Tris? _Why?_”
Tris shrugged, walking away from her. “I felt like it. I don’t know why.
I wanted to see you. I wanted to see—well, I wondered what she was like
... Beebo.”
“You’re incredible,” Laura breathed, furious, watching her saunter
suggestively toward her bedroom.
“Are you coming with me?” Tris asked.
And Laura felt her legs weaken and her heart jump, and she hated herself
for it. “No,” she said.
“Of course you are. That is why you are here. Come.”
And Laura, helpless, went to her. Tris took her hands and led her,
walking backwards herself, into the room and onto the low couch. She
began to kiss her and Laura felt her fury rise and change into passion.
Tris had never been so close to her, so tantalizing.
Somehow her anger made her passion sharper and wilder. She wanted to
hurt Tris with it. Beebo believed they had made love, did she? Well,
Laura would give truth to her fantasies.
Laura could feel Tris’s body begin to respond. A surging feeling of
triumph flashed through her. She felt the familiar, wonderful insanity
come over her and she relinquished herself wholly to feeling. It took
her a few moments to understand that Tris was fighting her. And suddenly
she came to herself with a shock and felt Tris slip away from her and
saw her standing a few feet from the bed.
Tris gave her a look—almost of pity—and then turned and raced from the
room. By the time Laura reached the door, it was locked. At first she
was stunned, motionless. And then she began to throw her weight against
it. “Tris! Tris, let me out!” she cried in a panic.
“Stay where you are till you cool off,” Tris said. Her voice was very
near, just on the other side of the door, and Laura was wild to join
her.
“Please, Tris!” she implored and her voice was low with coming tears.
“Tris, don’t do this to me!” Her whole body ached and after a moment
more of futile beating on the door she slumped to the floor, moaning.
A long time later she dragged herself off the floor and back to the bed
and lay there, sleepless, until early dawn. She was sick with the need
to hurt and the need for love all scrambled inside her; she was
imprisoned in her homosexuality and thinking ... thinking hard of Jack.
The first daylight was coming in the window when Laura heard the door
open and saw Tris glide across the floor toward her. Laura smothered a
first harsh impulse to jump at her. Tris came on tiptoe, thinking Laura
would be asleep, and when she saw Laura’s blue eyes staring at her, she
was startled.
Then she came and sat in silence on the edge of the bed and looked at
Laura for a while, until Laura, who was restraining herself tightly, saw
that Tris was crying. And the crying became suddenly audible and made
Tris cover her face with her hands. Laura lay beside her, refusing to
touch her, feeling her spite and misery soften a little, feeling even a
shade of pity. She wanted to beat the girl and at the same time stroke
her shaking shoulders.
Tris turned her back to Laura and finally spoke with considerable
effort. “I’m going out on the Island tomorrow,” she said. “For two
weeks, a vacation. Come with me.”
Laura stared at her back, frowning in disbelief. “What?” she said.
“I want you to come with me,” Tris whispered. Her voice sounded, as once
before, quite American.
“You must enjoy torturing me,” Laura said.
There was a long pause while Tris snatched a piece of face tissue from a
box by the bed and blew her nose. Finally she said, “It was torture for
me, too. But still, it was inexcusable, what I did to you. I was a
beast. I—I can’t talk about it,” and she gave a quick sob. “But I
promise it will never happen again—if you promise never to mention it.
Promise?” And she turned and looked at Laura.
“Why did you do it?” Laura asked.
“I had to! I _had_ to! I wanted to hurt you—last night—you made me
feel—” and her speech was clipped again and careful—“you made me want
you so much, Laura. And I hate it! I _hate_ it!” She was almost
shrieking.
“Why?” Laura asked.
“Because I’m not really a Lesbian. Not like you. It’s men I love, Laura.
Really,” she added desperately.
And Laura felt compassion for her. “You’re sick, Tris,” she said, but
she said it kindly.
“Sick?” And Tris went a strange ashy color that scared Laura. “How do
you mean?”
Laura realized then that she couldn’t destroy Tris’s illusion without
destroying Tris. She raised herself to one elbow and brushed away the
tears on Tris’s cheek. “Let’s put it this way,” she said. “If you feel
like this about me, we shouldn’t be together any more. In two weeks we’d
drive each other wild. I know you feel terrible about last night, Tris,
I can see it. I know I can’t forget you, or forgive what you did. If we
were living together, I’d want you and you’d hate me for it. And pretty
soon I’d hate you too, for denying me.”
“I won’t deny you, Laura,” Tris whispered, without looking at her. “I
promise you. If you’d just let me do it my way. Don’t let it be like
last night. When I feel as if I’m losing control, it’s as if I were
drowning, as if I were losing my sanity along with my will. It’s as
if—if I let it happen—I—I’ll lose my mind.” She spoke so painfully, with
such evident anxiety, that Laura was touched.
“Poor Tris,” she murmured, and smoothed her hair. “I thought I’d be
pulling your hair out this morning, not playing with it,” she said,
running her long fingers over the sleek black braid.
“Come with me,” Tris pleaded. “Let me make it up to you.”
“Where are you going? Fire Island?”
“God, no!” Tris flared. “_That_ place! It’s crawling with queers. I
wouldn’t go near it.”
“Tris ...,” Laura said, a little hesitantly. Her ear did not betray her.
Tris’s accent fluctuated strangely and roused her curiosity. She asked
cautiously, “What part of India do you come from?”
“Why do you ask?” And Tris’s eyes narrowed.
Laura lifted her shoulders casually. “You never told me.”
“I said New Delhi.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Besides, it has nothing to do with the vacation. I’m going to a place
on Long Island. Stone Harbor. It’s not far from Montauk, on the north
side. I have a cottage there for two weeks. It’s very secluded. No one
will bother us. I was there last year and it’s really lovely. You’d like
it, Laura, I know you would. You can swim every day—we’re only two
blocks from the beach and—”
“Tris?” Laura stopped the almost compulsive flow of speech and startled
the dancer.
“Yes?”
“Why won’t you tell me about India?”
“You wouldn’t be interested.”
“I’d be fascinated. Everything about you fascinates me. For instance,
what are you doing in this country?”
“Dancing.”
“Where are your parents?”
“Dead.”
“How did you get here?”
“Scholarship.”
“Are you a citizen?”
“Laura, stop it! Why do you ask me such things? What has this to do with
our vacation? I refuse to be quizzed like a criminal. We’ll leave
tomorrow at eight. Can you be packed by then? I’ve rented a car.”
“I can’t even get into my own apartment,” Laura admitted. “You fixed me
up just fine.”
“Of course you can. Call the police.” Her odd green eyes flashed.
“No. Maybe Jack could get my things. I’ll call him.”
“Who’s Jack?”
“Jack? He’s a—sort of—fiancé. A permanent fiancé.” She smiled slightly.
Tris snorted. “Does he know you are gay?”
“Of course.” She would tell her no more. If Tris were going to seal her
private life behind a wall of secrets, Laura could play it that way,
too. “Can I use your phone?” she asked.
“Yes. In the kitchen.” Tris followed her across the empty studio into
the sunny blue and yellow kitchen and while Laura was dialing she asked,
“You will come, of course?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” Laura said. “... Jack?”
“Good morning, Mother.”
“Jack, I wonder if you could—if you’d mind going over to the apartment
and getting my clothes. Do you think you could? I hate to ask you, but I
don’t dare go near her.”
“Sure,” he said. “Did you pass your test?”
“My test? Oh.” She glanced at Tris. “I—I flunked,” she said and felt a
tidal wave of pity and shame all at once. “Jack—I’m sorry. Oh, I’m so
sorry. Let me come over—”
“Come get your clothes at five,” he said. “I’ll leave the door open.”
And he hung up.
Laura surprised Tris by dropping into a chair and sobbing. Tris sat down
opposite her and waited in silence till she caught her breath, expecting
an explanation. But Laura only dried her eyes and asked for some coffee.
Jack wasn’t home when she went to pick up her clothes. She had known he
wouldn’t be there, and still it made her want to weep. She was in a blue
mood, and even the sight of Tris, waiting for her outside at the wheel
of a rented convertible, didn’t cheer her up. She made several trips
with the clothes, leaving most of her other possessions behind, and on
the last trip she wrote him a note. It said, in part:
_You’re the only man I would ever marry, Jack. Maybe it will still work
out. Tris wants me to spend two weeks with her on Long Island. I’ll call
you the minute I get back. I’m crazy about her, but she’s a sick girl
and I’ve had enough of wild scenes with sick lovers. I don’t know what
to expect so am leaving most of my things here. Hope they won’t be too
much in the way. I quit my job, by the way. Will find something else
when I get back. Thank you so much for everything, Jack darling. Hope
Beebo didn’t give you any trouble. Don’t start drinking, I’m not worth
it. I love you. Laura._
* * * * *
The cabin had two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room, and a bathroom.
It was furnished à la 1935, full of sand and ants, but comfortable. The
walk to the beach was short and just enough to get you pleasantly warm
before you soaked in the salt water.
There were a lot of other vacationers living all around them—young
couples with dozens of hollering kids, mostly. Laura watched them
romping on the sand, the little ones screaming and giggling and pouring
water on each other. She wondered if she could ever want a child.
She lay on the beach with Tris, the day after they arrived, and
luxuriated in the sun. Tris had lathered herself lovingly with rich sun
cream and was sitting under a huge beach umbrella that she had erected
with the help of a young man they discovered while they looked for a
place to lie down. He was not very subtle about his admiration, which he
confined to Tris. And Laura was not very pleased to see her prance for
him. But she said nothing.
“You’ll burn to a crisp, Laura,” Tris warned her.
“I put some stuff on,” Laura said lazily, wiggling a little and feeling
the hot rays toast the backs of her legs.
“Not enough for one so fair,” Tris maintained. “Such fair skin you
have.” And Laura heard the yearning in her voice. “If mine were that
light I would never expose it like you do. I’d do everything to keep it
as light as I could. Even bleach it. They say buttermilk works wonders.”
Laura looked up at her through eyes squinted against the sun. “Your skin
is beautiful, Tris.”
“Oh, not like yours,” Tris said, embarrassed.
“How can you say that? You’re the prettiest color I ever saw.”
“And you’re a dirty hypocrite!” Tris snapped.
Laura stared at her, dumbfounded, for some seconds, before she answered
softly, “No, I mean it.” She was afraid to say more. “You think I only
say it to flatter you, don’t you?” she asked finally. “I won’t say it,
then. I’d rather you turned your temper on yourself than on me.”
After an elaborately casual pause, full of much smoothing lotion and
gazing around, Tris said, “Do you really like my color?” The little-girl
pleading in her voice touched Laura.
“If I say yes, you call me a liar. If I say no you call me a bigot.”
“Say yes.”
“Yes.” And Laura smiled at her and Tris smiled back and gave Laura the
feeling of false but sweet security.
Tris said, “Did you ever notice, when we lie on the bed together, how we
look?”
Laura finished, “Yes, I noticed.” She looked at Tris in surprise. It
wasn’t like her to mention such things. “Me so white and you so brown.
It looks like poetry, Tris. Like music, if you could see music. Your
body looks so warm and mine looks so cool. And inside, we’re just the
other way around. Isn’t it funny? I’m the one who’s always on fire. And
you’re the iceberg.” She laughed a little. “Maybe I can melt you,” she
said.
“Better not. The brown comes off,” Tris said cynically, but her strange
thought excited Laura.
“God, what a queer idea!” Laura said. “You’d have to touch me everywhere
then, every corner of me, till we were both the same color. Then you’d
be almost white and I’d be almost tan—and yet we’d be the same.” She
looked at Tris with her squinty eyes that sparkled in the glancing sun.
And Tris, struck herself by the strangeness of it, murmured, “I never
thought of it that way.”
Laura hoped Tris would look at it that way for the rest of the vacation.
7
Jack walked into his apartment at five-thirty in the afternoon, tired
and thirsty but dolefully sober. He was a stubborn man and he had
dedicated all his resistance to fighting liquor. He meant to head for
the kitchen and consume a pint of cider and fix himself some dinner.
Since Laura had left five days ago he had not had much appetite. He did
not admit that she would ever come back or that he had lost a battle. It
was only a temporary setback. But it rocked him a little and it hurt him
a lot.
He came wearily down the hall, stuck his key belligerently into the lock
and kicked his front door open. He dumped a paper bag full of light
bulbs, cigarettes, and Scotch tape on a chair, switched on a light and
started toward his kitchen. It came as a distinct shock to find Laura
sitting on his sofa.
He stared at her. She had her legs up, crossed, on the cocktail table,
and her head back, gazing at the ceiling. She knew he was there, of
course; she heard him come in. She turned and looked at him finally, and
something in her face dispelled his melancholy. He felt elated. But he
checked it carefully. He slipped his coat off without a word, dropped it
on the chair with his package, and walked over to her, standing in front
of her with his hands in his pockets.
“Run out of suntan lotion?” he said.
“No. But you’re out of whiskey.”
“I gave it to Beebo. Traded it for your clothes.”
“Take the clothes back and get the whiskey.”
“Later,” he said, and smiled. Then he added, “Was it bad?”
“Very bad,” Laura said and for a moment they both feared she would start
crying. But she didn’t.
“Want to tell me?”
“Jack,” she said with an ironic little smile. “You’ll have to write a
book about me someday. I tell you everything.”
He grinned. “I’ll leave that to somebody else. But I’m saving my notes,
just in case.” He sat down beside her. “Well, it could only be one of
three things, seeing that she’s gay,” he said. “She’s a whore.”
“No.”
“A junkie.”
“No.”
“—or she’s married.”
“She’s married.”
He lighted a cigarette with a long sigh, his eyes bright on her.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“I didn’t. But it had to be something that would shock you. And you seem
pretty damn nervous about the idea of gay people being married.” He
paused and she had to drop her glance. “Does she hate him?” he asked
returning to Tris.
“Most of the time. God, Jack, I need a drink.”
“Steady, Mother. My neighbor always has a supply. I’ll fix you up.” He
came back in less than three minutes with a bottle of sparkling
burgundy.
“Ugh!” Laura said. But she took it gratefully.
“Now,” he said, settling down on the cocktail table with a cup of
instant coffee, “begin at the beginning.”
Laura rubbed her forehead and then sipped the prickly drink. “It started
... beautifully,” she said. “Like a dream. It was all hot sand and cool
water and kisses. We held hands in the movie, we sat up till all hours
in front of the fireplace with a bottle of Riesling and sang, and
danced. We traded secrets and we made plans. We made a boat trip to the
point—”
“Did you make love?”
“You just can’t wait, can you?” she said, half teasing, half irritated.
“My future may depend on it,” he said and shrugged.
There was a long reflective pause and finally Laura said, sadly, “Yes.
We made love. Only once.”
“And that was the end?”
“It wasn’t that simple. You see, she—well, she flirted. She flirted with
men until I thought I couldn’t stand it. Till I wanted to flirt myself
to get even, if only I weren’t so damn awkward with men. She’s not.
She’s a genius with them. She didn’t give a damn if they were married or
not. She had them all proposing to her.
“After the first couple of days it got intolerable. She had been making
me sleep on one bed and she took the other. And after she turned the
lights out she made a rule—no bed hopping.”
“And you obeyed her little rule?”
“I had to, Jack,” she defended herself. “We had a sort of agreement
before we left the Village.... It was supposed to be up to her to choose
the time and place.”
“That’s the lousiest agreement _you_ ever made, Mother,” he commented.
“No. She’s sick, you see. Really. She thinks she’s straight. And if you
hint she’s not, she gets terrified. Almost hysterical. She can’t accept
it.”
“Why do you always fall for these well adjusted ladies?” he asked.
“Beth was well adjusted.”
“Beth is dead. As far as you’re concerned.” Laura glared at him while he
smiled slightly, lighting another cigarette from the one he was
finishing. “So Tris is a queer queer,” he said. “And she flirts with the
opposite sex. Very subversive. So what came next?”
“Well, they followed us home—”
“Who?”
“Men!” she flashed peevishly. “They followed us at the beach, in the
bars, in the stores. They followed _Tris_, I should say. I was cold as
hell with them. I tried to keep quiet about it, but after three days of
it I blew up. We had a miserable quarrel, and I was ready to pack up and
leave right then. But she relented suddenly. I don’t know why. I think
she really likes me, Jack. Anyway, she got drunk. Just enough so that
she wouldn’t have to watch what I did to her ... or hear what I said to
her ... or care too much....”
“That’s pretty drunk,” Jack said. He knew from the way she spoke that it
had hurt her to make love like that, wanting so much herself, and
herself so unwanted. “I know, Laura honey, I know the feeling,” he said
and the words comforted her.
“Jack, I hope I always love you this much,” she said softly.
He looked up from his coffee cup with a little smile. “So do I,” he
said. And they looked at each other without speaking for a minute before
she went on.
“Well,” she said, “it was torture. I didn’t want it any more than she
did, if it had to be so cold and sad, and at the same time I _had_ to
have her. I was on fire for her. I have to give her credit, Jack, she
tried. But it didn’t mean anything to her.”
“It’s a lonesome job,” Jack said. “And it’s never worth it.”
“I cried all night,” Laura said. “Afterwards ... I just got in my own
bed and cried. And she was awake all night too, but she didn’t come to
me or try to comfort me. I think she was embarrassed. I think she just
wished she’d never gotten mixed up with me.
“The next night—around dinner time—her husband arrived. I don’t know
whether she got sick of me or just scared and called him, or if they got
their dates scrambled and he came too soon. You see, it turned out she
had planned to meet him out there all along, after I left. But maybe I
got to be too much for her and she told him to come and chase me out....
I don’t know. There wasn’t time to go into the fine points. But I think
myself she needed a man just then, to make herself feel normal. And
protected.”
“What was he like?”
“A nice guy. He really is. I know I sound—Tris would say—hypocritical.
But I liked him. I understood right away, the minute I saw him, an awful
lot of things about Tris.”
“How?”
Laura paused, gazing seriously at Jack. At last she explained, “He’s a
Negro. And so is she. Only he’s much darker than Tris. Very handsome,
but he’d never pass as an Indian. And right away he humiliated her,
without meaning to.” She smiled sadly. “She’s from New York, Jack. She
was born right here and her name is Patsy Robinson. She’s only seventeen
but they’ve been married two years. She makes him keep out of sight
because she thinks he’d be a drag on her career. That’s why she tells
everybody she’s Indian, too—because she wants to get ahead and she
thinks it makes it easier.”
Jack shook his head. “I feel for her,” he said.
“And I weep for her,” Laura said. “You should have seen her, Jack. She
was wild when Milo talked about her fake Indian past. I think it made
him pretty damn mad. That, and all the flirting, and having to live
apart. And her gay and him straight! Lord, what a mess. He’s in love
with her; she’s his wife. And she denies him, and hides him.”
Laura stopped talking then for a little while, sipping the burgundy and
staring at her feet. “I took the bus back,” she said at last. “She
screamed at me to leave. Milo apologized for her. That poor guy.”
“Do you still think you love her?” Jack asked.
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “She fascinates me. I feel sick about it,
about the way things happened. If I thought I could stand it I’d go back
to her. But I know I couldn’t. What is love, anyway, Jack?”
“‘If you have to ask you never get to know,’” he quoted. “More?” He
reached for her glass and she relinquished it with an unsteady hand. She
felt completely lost, completely frustrated.
“What’s Beebo doing?” she asked.
He picked up the bottle and poured some more wine into her glass. “All
kinds of things,” he said. “She got fired, of course. Hadn’t showed up
for weeks.”
“Of course,” Laura repeated, bowing her head.
“She’s shacking up with Lili at the moment.”
“Ohhh,” Laura groaned, and it made her feel dismal to think of it. She
felt a spasm of possessiveness for Beebo. “Lili is a terrible influence
on her,” she said irritably.
“So are you.” He handed her her drink. “The worst.”
“Not _that_ bad.”
“Life with you,” he reminded her, “damn near killed the girl.”
“And me,” Laura replied. “Did she leave the apartment?”
“No, she gets over there from time to time.”
“I wonder how she pays the rent.”
“It isn’t due yet,” he said. “Besides, I imagine Lili can help out.”
Laura shut her eyes suddenly, overwhelmed with a maddening tenderness
for Beebo. “I hate her!” she said emphatically to Jack. And he, with his
uncanny ear for emotion, didn’t like the emphasis.
After a slight pause he said, “I got her a dog. Another dachshund pup.”
“That was nice of you,” she said to him in the tone mothers use when
someone has done a kindly favor for their children.
“Beebo didn’t think so. She didn’t know whether to kiss it or throw it
at me,” he said. “She finally kissed it. But the poor thing died two
days later ... yesterday, it was.”
“It died?”
“Yes.” He looked at her sharply. “I think she ... shall we say—put it to
sleep?”
“Oh, Jack!” she breathed, shocked. “_Why?_ Did it remind her of Nix?”
“I don’t know. It didn’t cheer her up, that’s for damn sure.”
Laura sat there for a while, letting him fill her glass a couple of
times and listening to the FM radio and trying not to feel sorry for
Beebo. “She doesn’t really need me any more, Jack,” she told him.
“I do,” he said, and she smiled.
“You didn’t fall off the wagon,” she said. “I’m so glad. I was afraid
you might.”