Chapter IV: Part 4

It was nearly midnight before Beebo could bring herself to the McDonald Street address. She had debated it tempestuously throughout the evening, but without confiding in Jack. She could have gone to Mona’s apartment instead, or called her and demanded an explanation. But something told her Pete Pasquini had an interesting motive for sending her here. She might get hurt; but she might also learn the truth, whatever that was, about Mona. So she took the chance.

She was in a don’t-give-a-damn mood, expecting to find Mona with a man in the apartment, rented under an assumed name; or Mona making love to Paula Ash, whoever the hell she was; or even—best joke of all—Mona waiting for her alone, while Pete peeked through the keyhole.

She stood at 121 McDonald Street in a light drizzle, partially sheltered by an inset doorway, her hands shoved into the sleeves of her windbreaker, and tried to make up her mind to call the jest.

At last the chill drove her into the foyer to look at mailboxes. There was a Paula Ash, all right. Apartment 103. Beebo took a deep breath and pushed the buzzer.

The answer came after so long a wait that Beebo was just leaving in disgust, and had to turn back quickly to open the inner door. She had scarcely entered the hall when a door opened ahead and a girl looked out.

“Yes?” she said. She appeared very sleepy, as if she had been in bed for many hours already, even though it was not quite midnight.

“May I come in?” Beebo said. She walked down the hall looking Miss Ash over candidly. If Mona were going to stand her up, and Pete play jokes on her, the least she could do was fall into the pit with as much bravado as possible—and perhaps, a pretty girl in her arms.

“I don’t know,” the girl said doubtfully, opening her eyes very wide as if the stretch would keep the lids up a few minutes more. “Who are you?”

“I’m Beebo.” Beebo looked at her, standing about three feet away in the door, wondering if her name would register. The living room behind Paula looked inviting after the gray rain outside.

“Beebo Who?” The girl was beginning to wake up, staring at her visitor.

Beebo smiled. “Didn’t Mona tell you?”

The girl gasped and rubbed her eyes open earnestly. “Mona!” she said, her voice husky. “Did Mona send you here?”

“Not exactly,” Beebo said. “But I was made to think I’d find her here.” The girl was so distressed that Beebo began to think Paula was the victim of whatever joke was afoot, and not herself. She was moved to apologize. “I’m sorry, Miss Ash,” she said. “There must have been a mistake. I came expecting some sort of practical joke. I guess nobody let either one of us in on it.”

“Will you come in, please,” Paula Ash said unexpectedly. She was shy and looked at Beebo’s shoulder when she spoke.

“Thank you,” Beebo said, walking past her into the living room. “It’s pretty cold outside.” She took off her jacket and handed it to Paula, who hung it in her front closet.

“Will you have coffee?” Paula said.

“Thanks, that sounds good.” Beebo watched her curiously while the girl busied herself in a small doorless kitchen. She had a delicately pretty face, different from Mona’s slick good looks and more appealing to Beebo.

Paula ran an uneasy hand through her hair and bit her underlip as she stood by her stove, waiting for the water to boil. “Would you tell me,” she asked timidly, “just what Mona told you?”

“I haven’t seen Mona for a week,” Beebo said. “A mutual acquaintance told me she’d be here tonight.”

“Well, your mutual acquaintance has a queer sense of humor,” Paula said. “Mona and I were never good friends. And lately we’ve been pretty good enemies.”

“So that was it,” Beebo said. “That’s a hell of a note. I’m sorry, Miss Ash, I—”

“Paula, please. Oh, it wasn’t your fault,” Paula said. “Mona has done crazier things than meeting her new lovers in my living room. I’ve known her almost five years.” She came back with two cups of hot coffee. She still seemed half-conscious, and when she stumbled a bit, Beebo got up and rescued the coffee.

Paula made a hissing sound of pain, pulling air between her teeth and looking at her left thumb.

“Did you scald it? Here. Under the cold water, quick.” Beebo left the steaming cups on an end table and took Paula by the arm to the sink. She turned on the tap full force and held Paula’s burn under the healing stream. Paula tried to pull away after a few seconds but Beebo held her securely. “Give it a good minute,” she said.

And as they stood there, Beebo studied Paula at close range. She was a lovely looking girl, even though she seemed non compos at the moment. “Are you sick, Paula?” Beebo asked kindly.

“No, no. Really. I’m just terribly tired. And then I took some sleeping pills. Probably too many. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“If you’re so tired, why do you take sleeping pills?” Beebo asked.

Paula’s dainty face contracted around a private pain. “The doctor gave them to me. It’s harder to sleep when you’re too tired than when you’re just tired.” She weaved a little, and Beebo put an arm around her.

“Are you supposed to take so many they send you into a coma?”

“No. But one pill doesn’t work. Three or four don’t work any more. I just keep swallowing them till I drop off.”

“That’s dangerous,” Beebo said. “One of these days you’ll drop too damn far.” She turned the water off and reached for a paper towel, blotting the injured hand gently. Suddenly, to her dismay, Paula pulled her hands away and hid her face in them to cry. Beebo watched, frustrated with the wish to touch and comfort her.

Paula’s sobs were short and hard, and she pulled herself together with a stout effort of will. All Beebo could see for a moment was the top of her head, covered with marvelous rich red hair. And, when she looked up, a trail of pale freckles across her cheeks and nose. Beebo handed her a tissue from her shirt pocket, and Paula blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

She was a fragile, very feminine and small girl, wearing a pair of outsized, plaid-print men’s pajamas.

Beebo took a bit of sleeve between her fingers with a smile. “You always wear these?” she asked.

“Only lately. They aren’t mine. A former roommate left them behind when she moved.”

“Oh,” Beebo said. “I didn’t think they were your type.”

“They’re not. They’re hers. And she’s gone, and this is all I have left of her.” Paula shook out her smoldering curls and cleared her throat. “I’m better now. Shall we have the coffee?” she said. It was obvious that she had humiliated herself with the unplanned personal admissions, and Beebo did her the courtesy of dropping the subject and joining her in the living room.

They drank the coffee in preoccupied silence a while. Beebo lighted a cigarette and offered it to Paula, who refused. Finally she said lightly, hoping to cheer Paula up, “Seems to me those pajamas are the answer to your insomnia.”

“What? How?” Paula looked at her as if suddenly remembering her presence in a room where Paula had thought herself alone with a ghost.

“Switch to nighties—your own—and get some rest,” Beebo said. “If I had to wear a plaid like that, I’d have nightmares all night.”

Paula smiled wanly. “I know,” she said. “They’re silly. I just needed somebody else to say it, I guess. It’s hard to break away from a person you’ve been close to. You hang on to the stupidest things.”

“Well, her old sleep gear won’t bring her any closer,” Beebo said. She pulled a sleeve out full length. “Did she play basketball?” Beebo said, and they both laughed.

“She wasn’t a shorty,” Paula admitted. Her laughter made her wonderfully pretty. She stopped it suddenly to say, “That’s the first time I’ve laughed in a month.” She gazed at Beebo with grateful astonishment.

“Looks like I got here just in time,” Beebo said, not realizing till after she spoke what a hoary come-on that was. Paula’s pink blush clarified things for her.

“I suppose you want to be getting home,” Paula said shyly, rising from her chair. She was struck for the first time with Beebo’s size. Stretched across the sofa, with her long legs thrusting out from under the cocktail table, Beebo looked too big for a nine-by-twelve living room.

To her surprise, Beebo found she didn’t want to be getting home at all; not even to run interference between Jack and Pat. And thinking of Pat brought a flash of recognition to her mind. “You remind me of a friend,” she told Paula, sitting up to scrutinize her. “A boy named Pat. A lovable thing. Shy and just a little childish. In the nice way, I mean.”

“I remind you of a _boy_?” Paula stared.

“More of a child than a boy.”

Paula didn’t know quite how to take it. “In the nice way?”

“Yes. Trusting, affectionate. Still curious about people and life. It’s a very—endearing quality.”

“And you think _I’m_ like that?” Paula asked.

“You obviously don’t,” Beebo chuckled.

“I’ve been told I’m nasty and spoiled and selfish ... childish in the bad way.”

“Who told you that? Your friend with the plaid pajamas?”

“Yes.”

“If you were that way with her, she must have done something to deserve it. You look like a natural-born angel to me,” Beebo said, surprising them both with her frankness.

“That’s a very nice thing for a stranger to say,” Paula said. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Beebo said, blanketing her sudden confusion with an offhand nod.

There was a pensive pause while Beebo tried to remember the books she had read about Lesbian love. It wasn’t always a question of sweeping girls off their feet and carrying them away to bed, as Mona had made it seem at first. How did you approach a sensitive, well-bred girl like this one? Mow her down with kisses? Certainly not.

Beebo began to wonder how to make herself welcome for the night. It seemed far better than going back to Jack’s and stewing again until dawn about her future. She would be leaving Jack and Pat alone together all night for the first time, and yet it seemed less painful now than it had before. It would suffice Beebo if she and Paula did nothing but sit and talk all night.

“I suppose somebody’s waiting for you?” Paula said.

“Nobody.”

Paula frowned at her. “Your roommate?” she asked.

“My roommate is having an affair with a man,” Beebo said and shocked Paula, until Beebo smiled at her and made her think she was kidding.

“Well ... Mona?” she asked.

“Mona could be on the moon for all I know. I thought I’d find her here.”

“And now you’re disappointed,” Paula said diffidently.

“Not at all. I’m relieved.”

Paula drained her coffee cup and put it down with a nervous clink. “It must be—awkward—if your roommate is really in love with somebody else,” she said, in a voice so soft it was its own apology for speaking.

“It is,” Beebo said. “I hate to go home. I’m too long to sleep on the damn sofa.”

“I’m afraid you’re too long for mine, too,” Paula said. There was a pause. “But I could sleep on it and you could take my bed, if you will.”

It was such a completely disarming—almost quaint—invitation, that Beebo smiled at her, prickling with temptation. Paula’s bashfulness was enough to make Beebo self-assured.

“At least you’re not too long for the pajamas,” Paula said.

“I can’t put you out like that,” Beebo said.

Paula was flustered. She looked at her hands. “I don’t mind,” she said. “It’s long and I’m short. We’re used to each other.”

“You and the sofa?” Beebo said, and stood up. She went to the closet and found her jacket. You can’t take somebody’s bed away just because you told a lie about sleeping on your own sofa. She pulled the jacket on and zipped it.

“You’re a sweet girl, Paula,” she said, not looking at her. “Miss Plaid Pajamas must be nuts. Find somebody who deserves you, and she’ll never make you sleep alone on the sofa.”

She started for the door but Paula, recovering suddenly, jumped up and put a restraining hand on her arm. Beebo turned around, a shiver of sharp excitement radiating through her. She was not—she was _never_—as sure of herself as she seemed.

“Beebo,” Paula said, whispering so that Beebo had to bend her head to hear her. “I’d like you to stay. Make yourself welcome. Please.”

Beebo was afraid to believe her ears. It had seemed almost easy, in retrospect, to storm the Colophon. She was not unaware that Mona was something of a catch, and when she went over the events of that night, she was satisfied at the way she had acted. Nobody, not Mona herself, knew how inexperienced and uncertain Beebo was, and nothing she had done gave her away. Unless it was her exuberance when Mona kissed her.

But now it seemed incredible that this exquisite stranger should reach out for her from the middle of nowhere. “Paula,” she said, “I think we’re both just lonely. I think it would be best if I go. You don’t want to wake up tomorrow and hate yourself.” She was still hedging about the ultimate test with a girl.

“I _was_ lonely. I will be again if you go.”

“Maybe you’d be better off lonely than sorry.”

“Beebo, do I have to beg you?” Paula pleaded, her voice coming up stronger with her emotion.

Beebo reached for her in one instinctive motion, suddenly very warm inside her jacket. “No, Paula, you don’t have to beg me to do anything. Just ask me.”

“I did. And you didn’t want to stay.”

“I didn’t want to scare you. I didn’t understand.”

“I thought it was Mona. She can make herself so—so tempting.”

“I can’t even remember what she looks like.”

“Aren’t you in love with her?”

Beebo’s hands, with a will of their own, closed around Paula’s warm slim arms. “I met her last week for the first time. You can’t be in love with someone you just met.”

“You can’t?” Paula demurred cautiously, looking down at her big pajamas.

“I never was,” Beebo said, feeling sweat break out on her forehead. She pulled gently on Paula and was almost dismayed when Paula moved docilely toward her. Beebo became feverishly aware that the plaid pajamas did not conceal all of Paula Ash. The sweeping curve of her breasts held the cotton top out far enough to brush Beebo’s chest with a feather touch. Beebo felt it through the layers of her clothes with a tremor so hard and real it tumbled eighteen years of daydreams out of her head.

She held Paula at arm’s length a moment, looking at this lovely little redheaded princess with a mixture of misgivings and want too powerful to pretend away. Paula took her hands and held them with quivering strength, returning Beebo’s gaze. Beebo saw her own doubts reflected in Paula’s eyes. But she saw desire there, too; desire so big that it had to be brave: it hadn’t any place to hide.

Paula kissed Beebo’s hands with a quick press of her mouth that electrified Beebo. She stood there while Paula kissed them over and over again and a passionate frenzy mounted in them both. Paula’s lips, at first so chaste, almost reverent, warmed against Beebo’s palms ... and then her kitten-tongue slipped between Beebo’s fingers and over the backs of her broad hands until those hands trembled perceptibly and Paula stopped, clutching them to her face.

Beebo reclaimed them, but only to caress Paula’s face, bringing it close to her and seeing it with amazement.

“I never guessed I’d feel love for the first time through my hands,” she murmured. “Paula, Paula, I would have done this all wrong if you hadn’t had the guts to start it for me. I would have manhandled you, I—”

Paula stilled her with a finger over Beebo’s mouth. “Don’t talk now,” she said.

And Beebo, who had never done more than dream before, slipped her arms around Paula and pulled her tight. It was a marvel the way their bodies fitted together; the way Paula’s head tipped back naturally at so beckoning an angle, and rested on Beebo’s arm; the way her eyes closed and her lips parted and her hair scattered like garnet petals around her flower-face.

Beebo kissed her mouth and kissed her mouth again, holding her against the wall with the pressure of her body. Paula submitted with a sort of wistful abandonment. Everywhere Beebo touched this sweet girl, she found thrilling surprises. And Paula, coming to life beneath Beebo’s searching hands, found them with her.

It was no news to Beebo that she was tall and strong and male-inclined. But her voluptuous reaction to Paula shocked her speechless. Paula began to undress her and Beebo felt herself half-fainting backwards on the sofa into a whirlpool of sensual delight. The merest touch, the merest flutter of a finger, and Beebo went under, hearing her own moans like the whistle of a distant wind. Paula had only to undo a belt buckle or pull off a shoe, and Beebo responded with a beautiful helpless fury of desire.

It was no longer a question of proceeding with caution, of “learning how.” The whole night passed like an ecstatic dream, punctuated with a few dead-asleep time-outs, when they were both too exhausted to move, even to make themselves comfortable.

Beebo had only a vague idea of what she was doing, beyond the overwhelming fact that she was making ardent love to Paula. She seemed to have no mind at all, nor need of one. She was aware only that Paula was beautiful, she was gay, she was warmly loving, and she was there in Beebo’s arms: fragrant and soft and auburn-topped as a bouquet of tiger lilies.

Beebo couldn’t let her go. And when fatigue forced her to stop she would pull Paula close and stroke her, her heavy breath stirring Paula’s glowing hair, and think about all the girls she had wanted and been denied. She was making up, this night, for every last one of them.

Paula whispered, “Do you still believe you can’t love someone you just met?”

“I don’t know what I believe any more.”

And Paula said, “I love you, Beebo. Do you believe that?”

Beebo lifted Paula’s fine face and covered it with kisses while Paula kept repeating, “I love you, I love you,” until the words—the unadorned words—brought Beebo crashing to a climax, rolling over on Paula, embracing her with those long strong legs.

She felt Paula sobbing in the early dawn and raised up on an elbow to look at her. “Darling, did I hurt you?” she asked anxiously, not stopping to think that she had never called a girl “darling” before, either.

“No,” Paula said. “It’s just—I’ve been so unhappy, so confused. I thought the world had ended a month ago, and tonight it’s just beginning. It’s brand new. I’m so happy it scares me.”

Beebo held her tenderly and brushed the tears off her cheeks. Paula put her head in the crook of Beebo’s arm and gazed at her. “You must have been born making love, Beebo.”

“How do you know?” Beebo had no intention of setting the record straight just then.

“I don’t, really. It’s just that I never reacted to anybody the way I have to you. I never did this with anybody before.”

“Never made love?” Beebo said, surprised almost into laughter. _The blind leading the blind_, she thought.

“No, I’ve made love before,” Paula said thoughtfully. “With men, too. It’s just that I never.... You’ll think I’m making this up, but it’s the truth. I never—oh, God help me, I’m frigid. I mean, I was, till tonight.”

Beebo lay there in the dark, holding her, torn between the wish to accept it and the suspicion that she was fibbing.

“You don’t believe me,” Paula said resignedly. “I shouldn’t have told you. It’s enough that it happened.”

Beebo petted her, smoothing her hair and letting her hands glide over Paula’s silky body. “Okay, you never came before,” she said. “Now I’ll tell you a fish story. I never made love before.”

Paula laughed good-naturedly. “All right, we’re even,” she said. “That’s a real whopper. Mine was the truth.”

Beebo laughed with her, and it didn’t matter any more whether she had been lied to or not. It was the truth in spirit, and only Paula knew if it was the truth in fact. Her attraction to Beebo was so real that it took shape in the night, surrounding her like the aura of her perfume. Beebo kissed her while she was still laughing. “You have such a mouth, Paula. Such a mouth....”

“Does it please you?”

“You please me. All of you,” Beebo said, and she meant it. Paula was wholly feminine, soft and submissive. She was finely constructed, looking somehow as breakable, as valuable—and as durable—as Limoges china. Beebo wanted to protect her, accomplish things for her.

She kept touching her admiringly. “You’re so tiny,” she said. “I’m going to feed you lasagna and put some meat on your bones.”

“Will you buy me a new wardrobe when I get too fat for my old one?”

“I’ll buy you anything. Mink coats. Meals at the Ritz. New York City,” Beebo said.

“All of it?”

“Just the good parts.”

Paula clutched at her suddenly, first laughing, then trembling. “Beebo, don’t leave me,” she said. “I do love you.” She seemed dumbfounded. “It frightens me, it makes me believe all over again in my childhood dreams. Did you ever feel like that?”

“Only on the bad days. My childhood wasn’t that pretty,” Beebo said.

“When are the bad days?”

“Never any more. Not with Paula around.”

* * * * *

They got up at noon the next day, and it was some time before Beebo could think rationally about her job. She should call Marie, she should call Jack and tell him where she was. But it was impossible to get out of the bed while Paula was in it. And every time Paula sat up, Beebo pulled her down.

“Let me make breakfast,” Paula smiled, and after wrestling a moment, pulled free and scampered halfway across the bedroom, pulling a sheet after her. She stood with her dazzling naked back, delicately sugared with freckles, to Beebo, who admired it in infatuated silence.

Paula ruffled through her closet looking for a negligee until Beebo said, “Paula, are you in love with me or that sheet?”

“I don’t want you to see me,” Paula confessed. “You said I was too thin.”

“I said ‘tiny.’ And beautiful. Honey, I felt you all over; I know you with my hands. Would it be so awful if I know you with my eyes, too?” When Paula hesitated, Beebo threw the covers off and stood by the bed.

Paula studied her in silence. “You’re wonderful,” she breathed at last.

“I’m homely,” Beebo answered. “But I’m not ashamed of it.”

“You are many things, Beebo, but homely isn’t one of them,” Paula declared. She faced Beebo sheet-first, like a highborn Roman girl in her wedding chiton. “How many girls have admired you like this?”

“Never a one,” Beebo said. She crossed the room toward Paula and saw her flinch. “Are you afraid of me?” she said, surprised.

“A little.”

“No, Paula.” Beebo reached her, touching her with gentle hands. “I’d never hurt you. Don’t you know that?”

“Not with your hands, maybe,” Paula said, bending her graceful neck to kiss one. “But I’m so in love ... it would take so little. And scores of other girls must want you, Beebo. It would hurt me awfully if you ever wanted _them_.”

“What girls?” Beebo scoffed.

“Well, for a starter—Mona.”

“Paula, I kissed Mona twice. She stood me up twice. That’s the end of that,” Beebo said flatly. Abruptly, she pulled Paula’s sheet off and gazed delightedly on the fresh fair curves beneath. And before Paula had time to blush, Beebo picked her up, grateful at last for the uncomely strength in her arms, and placed her on the bed.

“Beebo,” Paula whispered, her arms locked tightly around Beebo’s neck. “How old are you?”

Beebo couldn’t blurt idiotically, “Eighteen.” Instead she asked, “How old do I look?”

“Like a college kid,” Paula sighed. “Which makes me older than you. I’m twenty-five, Beebo.”

“An ancient ruin.” Beebo kissed her nonchalantly, but she was secretly surprised. Nonetheless it pleased her to have won an older girl.

They made love again, lazily now. There was no wild rush, no fear on Beebo’s part that it would hurt and disillusion her. They rolled in caresses like millionaires in blue chips ... ran their fingers over each other, and kissed and tickled and laughed and blew in each other’s ears.

And all the while Paula kept repeating, with the transparent affection that is the crown of femininity, “I love you, Beebo. I love you so much.”

Beebo couldn’t answer. She couldn’t have been happier, or hotter, or more rapturously charmed with the girl. She could hardly believe she had found one so lovely, so generous, so responsive, so single.

But there was a lot of roaming restless curiosity in Beebo, and while she was willing and eager to make love to and romanticize Paula, she was not willing to fall in love with her.

It wasn’t Paula’s fault, though Paula, with a woman’s quick awareness of emotions, sensed the situation. It was just that Beebo wasn’t ready for it. Paula had come too early in Beebo’s life. And that fact alone made Paula realize how young Beebo must be.

Beebo had caught Paula in a vulnerable state, on the rebound from an unhappy love affair with the girl in the plaid pajamas. But it was the culmination of a lot of bad affairs with both sexes that had left Paula drained and skeptical; hopeless about her future and unable to cope with her present. She had nearly taken the whole bottle of sleeping pills the night before, instead of the four that knocked her out.

Beebo was too good to be true, too young to know herself, too masculine to be faithful. But how strong she was, how sensual and sure; in some ways, wise beyond her years with that hard-won maturity Jack had perceived months before.

Paula tried to tell herself, as she lay in Beebo’s embrace, that she had nothing more than a hot crush that would end as suddenly as it began, and make her laugh to think she had called it love. She wanted very much to believe it, because it would have spared her the pain of losing Beebo Brinker to another girl—a pain she was in no condition to take safely then.

* * * * *

They ate together in Paula’s kitchen, and Paula obligingly sat on Beebo’s lap and let Beebo feed her. They were enchanted with each other. It was the kind of day everybody ought to have once in a while; if you knew it was coming, you could bear the boredom and solitude in the interim.

Paula told Beebo about her young years in Washington, D.C., and the shock that accompanied her suspicions that she was a Lesbian. Because it was Paula speaking, and because Beebo had never talked heart-to-heart with another Lesbian, the story seemed remarkable. She held Paula on her knees, answering with sympathy and affection, troubled and touched by it ... and stirred by the warmth of Paula’s close, firm bottom.

* * * * *

They were startled when the phone cut in on them late in the afternoon.

Paula answered it over Beebo’s protests. “Hello?” she said, and as she listened her eyes went to Beebo in surprise. Finally she held out the receiver. “It’s for you,” she said. “Jack Mann.”

Beebo stood up, concerned. “How did he know I was here?”

“You’re his roommate, he says. Roommates ought to keep track of each other,” Paula said, teasing but with just a trace of chill in her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me you were straight, Beebo?”

Beebo took the phone with a comical grimace. “You would have guessed, anyway,” she said. “Hey—do you know Jack?”

“Everybody knows Jack,” said Paula.

Into the receiver Beebo said, “Jackson?”

“I hear you’ve been out stupefying the female population of Greenwich Village,” Jack said. “You must have something. Paula’s usually a deep freeze.”

“How did you know I was here?” Beebo said.

“My spies are everywhere. And a damn good thing, too. I would have given you up for dead. Listen, pal, I just got an s.o.s. from Marie. There’s a very large customer on Park Avenue who wants a very large pizza right now. Marie is whipping it up and Beebo will whip it over to said customer.”

“Park Avenue is Pete’s territory,” Beebo said. “He won’t like it.”

“He’s out somewhere, as usual. Marie can’t find him and besides, she’s afraid to look.”

“You want me to leave now?” Disappointment growled in her voice.

“I know Paula, honey; she’s a good girl. If she likes you enough to sleep with you, she likes you enough to wait for you.”

“You mean you knew this beautiful girl all along and didn’t tell me about her?” Beebo said, grinning at Paula.

“Well, hell, you waited two months to tell me you _wanted_ one. Come on, Marie’s in a hurry. Show her what you’re made of.”

“I’m made of sugar and spice, like the rest of the girls,” Beebo said sourly. “It doesn’t mix with cheese and anchovies.”

“Get your ass over there, Beebo,” Jack said. “This order goes to Venus Bogardus.”

The name rang in Beebo’s head. “The actress?” she said, frowning. “She’s not one of our customers.”

“She is now.”

“But Jack, my God. Venus Bogardus!”

“The original. The girl with the bosom that just won’t stop. Can you take it?”

“It’s worth it just for a look,” Beebo grinned. “Okay, call Marie and tell her I’m coming. And Jack—I know I should have called you. I’m sorry.”

Beebo hung up and walked to Paula, expecting to embrace her and explain. But Paula was quite pale. “What’s all this about Pete and Marie? Do you mean the Pasquinis?”

“Yes. I work for them. Marie wants me to deliver a pizza to—”

“—to Venus Bogardus. I heard. Beebo, why didn’t you tell me about Pete?”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Beebo said, mystified. “Honey, are you mad at me? Why?”

“Pete and Mona are thick as thieves. What Mona does, Pete does; what Mona thinks, Pete thinks—unless they’re quarreling. If they don’t like you, they’d as soon exterminate you. They wouldn’t cut you down if you were hanging.”

Beebo laughed a little at this explosion. “I know you don’t like Mona, honey. But Pete’s just a twerp. He’s the one who sent me over here last night. I’ll admit it wasn’t exactly ethical—”

“Then Mona knows you’re here. How charming,” Paula said sourly.

“So what’s Mona, the Wicked Witch?” Paula scowled and Beebo said, “Okay, Pete’s a slob; and my opinion of Mona is slipping fast. But I can’t be mad at anybody who sent me to you, Paula, no matter what their motives were.”

“Now they’ll do everything to take you away from me,” Paula said, looking fearfully at Beebo.

“There’s no way they could do that, sweetheart,” Beebo said, pulling Paula down beside her on the bed. “Paula, I’ll be back in an hour. I won’t do anything but deliver the pizza.”

Paula clung to her. “Promise,” she said. “And if Milady Bogardus walks into the room, you have to shut your eyes and run.”

“At the same time?”

“Yes.”

“You want me to break my neck?” Beebo laughed.

“Better your neck than my heart,” Paula whispered.

At the door Beebo took Paula’s hands and kissed them the way Paula had first kissed hers. “I never liked Venus Bogardus,” she said. “I read somewhere that her curves are built into her clothes. She’s about as sexy as a hatrack under the finery—and a cool forty-eight years old.”

“Come back,” Paula said seriously. “That’s all I ask.”

They parted and Beebo left the building with a soaring pride and satisfaction that seemed to lift her clear of the pavement.

* * * * *

Marie Pasquini was waiting in the shop when Beebo arrived. She had just argued with her mother-in-law and it made her visage long and dark.

“Thank God, a happy face,” she said when she saw Beebo.

“Maybe we ought to find Pete, Marie,” Beebo said. “He considers Park his street.”

“_His_ street!” Marie spat. “It’s too good for him. An alley full of donkey-do is too good for him.”

“Too bad for you there ain’t no such alleys handy,” said Pete’s voice from the front of the shop, approaching the kitchen. “You’d be right at home in one. Like the one where I found you in Bordeaux.” He appeared in the kitchen doorway, making Beebo wonder how long he had been lurking there. Unaccountably, he gave her a case of gooseflesh.

“Here he comes,” said Marie to Beebo. “Captain Marvel. Okay, Captain, here’s an order. You want to deliver?”

“That depends on Beebo,” Pete said, meandering unsteadily toward her. “Where were you today, butch? I had to make all the deliveries myself.” His grin made her want to hit him.

“I was indisposed,” she said.

“Indisposed,” he mimicked in a fussy voice. “Well, ain’t that a shame. I understand Paula Ash was indisposed today, too.” His breath smelled of zinfandel.

Beebo stared at him with cold-eyed loathing and then stalked toward the back door.

“Wait a minute!” Pete called.

“Not for you,” Beebo said.

“Beebo!” It was Marie’s voice this time. “He’s full of dry red. He can’t drive. Please, I don’t want to lose Venus Bogardus. Nor the truck, neither,” she added, with a significant glance at Pete.

At the sound of that famous name, Pete burst into winy laughter. “Go on, Beebo, go on. Maybe she’ll fall for you, too,” he said. “How you gonna keep two of ’em happy at the same time? You want a few lessons?”

Beebo took the wrapped pizza from Marie and stormed out of the kitchen. She could hear the opening blast of a real wingding behind her.

* * * * *

Beebo drove through a light rain that was quickly slicking down the city streets. It was Midwestern weather. Her father’s face crossed her mind, obscuring some of her revulsion against Pete. _I wonder where Dad thinks I am now?_ she mused despondently.

She punished herself by picturing her father: a tall solid man, with the lines of worry and weather on his face, delivering a foal to its snorting, laboring mother; stooping with the burdens of alcohol and anxiety over his strange young daughter.

Beebo felt a surge of guilty love for him as she neared the address Marie had given her. She almost drove past. It was a big chilly building that looked loftily down on the summer sprinkle.

Beebo went up on the service elevator, her head full of whirling images: Paula, of the glorious red hair and sweet mouth. The big kindly father whose love had made her strong and himself weak. The people who had lately come to matter in her life in the city.

She knocked on the back door, becoming aware as she did so of strident voices within: a woman’s, bright and soprano with anger; a boy’s breaking with resentment; another woman, refereeing timidly for the first two.

“All right, all right, answer the goddamn door!” cried the soprano.

“Mother, do you have to swear like a whore?” the boy cried. “In front of delivery boys?”

“What do you care what I do with delivery boys, darling?”

Beebo recognized the celebrated voice, just as the door opened. “Are you the pizza?” asked a gray dumpling of a woman.

“No, but I have one with me,” Beebo grinned. Her voice stilled the argument momentarily. “Five bucks,” Beebo told the Dumpling, who wore a white uniform like a nurse, or nanny. Beebo waited for the money, suddenly full of springy laughter that might go off any second like a string of firecrackers.

“Five bucks?” said Venus Bogardus. “I haven’t got a damn dime.”

With a thrill of recognition, Beebo suddenly saw her. She was wearing a scarlet, silk-jersey dress. When she moved, she proved there was nothing beneath it. The hatrack story lay down and died. But Beebo was still so full of Paula that the sight of Venus Bogardus was little more than an entertainment.

Toby, the boy, turned his pockets inside-out. “I gave you all my money yesterday,” he said, glum and embarrassed. To Beebo he said, “I’m sorry,” with the pathetic air of a child who is struggling to assume the responsibilities of dissipated parents. He was a good-looking boy; in his early teens, Beebo guessed, and finding life with a movie-star mother a stormy combination of high excitement and humiliation. He was not the type to take it lightly.

“Toby, don’t you have something in your piggy bank, dear?” Venus persisted, aware of Beebo now.

“You threw my piggy bank down the incinerator shaft,” he mumbled.

“I did?” She blinked at him with incredible blue eyes, encircled by long black lashes.

“A year ago,” Toby said wearily.

“God, that was careless. Was there anything in it?” Venus said.

“Two-fifty in pennies. I was saving up for a catcher’s mitt.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be enough anyway. For the pizza, I mean.”

“Excuse me—why don’t you charge it?” Beebo said. She was somewhat abashed to have walked in on a Love Queen in the midst of a common little argument.

“Do you think they’d let me?” Venus said, turning to Beebo at last, her voice melting off her tongue like buckwheat honey. Toby slammed out of the kitchen in utter disgust.

“I think so,” Beebo said, smiling.

Venus came to take the pizza from her, opening the container for a taste. “Somebody said it was ‘peerless pasta.’ Is it _that_ bad?”

“It’s good.”

Venus put it on the breakfast table and tore off a bite. “You’re right,” she said. “Want some?”

“No thanks,” Beebo said, staring at her. Perhaps now was the time to back out and run, as Paula suggested.

“Don’t be shy,” Venus said. “Toby, come back and eat, dear,” she called through the kitchen door. “We have a guest.” Toby shuffled in while Venus explained to Beebo, still hesitating at the back door, “No cook tonight. She just quit for the hundredth time. Bring some plates, Mrs. Sack. I’ll get the milk for these growing children.”

“Miss Bogardus, I can’t possibly stay; I—” Beebo said, but Venus interrupted her, as if she hadn’t heard her, with a stream of cordial inanities.

Toby’s face colored. “Mother, will you listen?” he said in an angry hiss. “She doesn’t _want_ to stay.”

“I know, darling. Now shut up and sit down, all of you.”

They did. It seemed to be the thing to do. But Beebo had a tingling feeling that the whole building would fold under her as soon as she touched down on the seat.

Venus opened the refrigerator and a loud smell came out. “God, look at the mess!” she cried. “I’ll bet that bitch hasn’t cleaned it for weeks.”

“If you’d come home long enough to look at it once in a while, she would have,” Toby said.

“Darling, I look at it every day, when I put the champagne in to cool.”

She joined them, passing the milk around, and badgered Beebo to eat more than Beebo wanted. Toby couldn’t stand it.

“Leave her alone, Mother!” he said, rising from his seat.

“Don’t behave like a nervous girl, Toby,” Venus reproved him breezily.

“I’m not a girl,” he said in real anguish.

“Of course not, dear. Boys wear pants and girls wear skirts. That’s how I’ve always known you were a boy.”

Beebo became abruptly conscious of her chino slacks and found it hard to keep eating naturally.

“I’m sorry,” Toby said again to Beebo. “My mother’s a little cracked. It comes from getting her own way all the time.”

“God, how dreadful to be fourteen,” Venus said, gazing at her son pityingly. “I don’t know how I lived through it myself.” She ate for a minute quietly while Beebo plotted an escape. “I’ll have to tell Leo about this; it’s really marvelous,” Venus said, cutting another bite.

“Leo’s her husband,” Toby said, making a face.

“You’d think they loathed each other,” Venus said, glancing at Beebo. “Actually, Toby gets along better with Leo than with any of the others.”

“It’s a good thing _I_ get along with him, because _you_ sure don’t,” Toby flared, to the accompaniment of horrified shushings from Mrs. Sack.

“One more crack like that and you can leave the table,” Venus said sharply. “God! What do you do with children that age?”

“I don’t know. What do they do with you?” Beebo said.

Toby turned to her with an amazed grin.

“And how old are _you_, darling?” Venus asked Beebo, her eyes shining through their black fringe like hard chips of sapphire.

“Fourteen,” Beebo said, and evoked a chuckle of relief from Toby. Beebo smiled at him, and suddenly they were in league; two friendly conspirators subverting Venus’s authority.

“I’d have said twelve, to judge from your table manners,” Venus cooed.

And unruffled, she continued eating, giving Beebo a chance to study her surreptitiously. Her face had been called the most perfect in the world when she was a starlet twenty years before. And still she was very lovely, even without make-up on her face. The lines about her eyes and mouth were faint and fine. You had to look for them, and somehow they made her beauty the more poignant, emphasizing as they did the perishability of human loveliness. She was probably in her late thirties, Beebo guessed.

“Tell me, darling,” Venus said unexpectedly, startling Beebo. “Do you live in town somewhere with your mommy and daddy? I mean, surely a fourteen-year-old child isn’t out delivering pizzas for a living.”

“I live in town,” Beebo said. “My father lives back in Wisconsin.”

“How primitive,” Venus said, with a smile that told Beebo she was aware of her own oversophisticated nonsense. She made it rather charming. “Just one father?” she said. “Toby has six.”

“That must be a record,” Beebo said quietly, trying to focus on her food.

“It’s Mother’s record, not mine,” Toby said. “As far as I’m concerned, you can throw all six in the East River. All but Leo, anyway.”

“Darling!” his mother cried, more amused this time than angry, perhaps because she shared his view. “After all the lovely presents they’ve given you, too.”

Beebo watched her curiously. Venus was not dense or callow. But her glamour and her fortune obviously hadn’t spared her the problems of raising a pubescent boy. Most mothers approached their kids with a mixture of love, common-sense, and frazzled tempers. Venus approached hers with all the gorgeous razzle-dazzle, passion, and impatience that made obedient slaves of the older men in her life.

Toby, at fourteen, was supposed to react with the fascination of an adult male three times his age for a beautiful and tempestuous woman.

_If he ever does, Venus will get the shock of her life_, Beebo thought with amusement.

Instead, of course, Toby lashed out at her in frightened confusion. He loved her very much, but he was afraid and overawed, and bitter about the life she made him lead.

He wanted a mother comfortably middle-aged and unpretentious, like other people’s mothers. Instead, he had what other people thought they wanted: a glittering courtesan who couldn’t kiss him at night for fear of smudging her mouth, who took him on vacation trips with her lovers while her husband—and Toby’s friend, Leo—stayed behind in Hollywood.

Beebo sensed much of this in the pointed wordplay between mother and son. Their mutual love stood aside, forlorn and unexpressed, while they took out their grievances against one another.

Beebo stood up to leave as soon as she decently could.

“Heavens, you’re not going!” Venus protested.

“I have a heavy date,” Beebo smiled. “Thanks very much, Miss Bogardus.”

“You’re welcome. Who’s the lucky boy?”

Beebo frowned uncomprehendingly at first, till she realized Venus meant her date. “Oh,” she said, humiliated to know she was blushing. “Just an old friend.”

“Bring him around.”

Beebo began to stammer excuses and Toby came to her rescue. “Let her go, Mom,” he said, ashamed of Venus, as usual. He liked Beebo for taking his side; for making him laugh and getting one up on his mother. And it galled him to see Venus tease her. He was not too young to see how uncomfortable Beebo was. When Venus turned to him with a dangerous smile, he said, “I just wish you’d act like a mother now and then.”

“Why, I act like a mother twenty-four hours a day,” she said innocently. “I _am_ a mother. There sits the proof, eating his pizza like an absolute boor.” She turned elegantly to Beebo, who had just noticed her dainty bare feet under the table. “All right, darling, go. But do come again some time,” Venus said.

Beebo smiled her thanks and got as far as the door before Venus called her again. Her voice, even though Beebo half expected it, sent a wave of shivers down her back.

“I forgot to ask,” Venus said. “What’s your name? I mean, so we’ll know when we order peerless pasta again.”

Toby had had it. Venus was practically flirting with Beebo. He clambered over Mrs. Sack and started out of the kitchen. Venus turned in her seat and said, “Damn it, Toby, you come back here!” Her eyes sparkled.

“What for?” he said blackly.

“To finish your dinner.”

“I’ve lost my appetite, Mother.” He glanced at Beebo and added, “I apologize for my mother. I hope you don’t have a rotten impression of us.”

“Not at all,” Beebo said, moved by his distress, his anxious efforts to protect her opinion of them. She wondered if he had any friends at all up here in his gilded cage. A Manhattan apartment isn’t the ideal place to raise a spirited boy.

Mrs. Sack rose to her feet clucking, but Venus waved her down. “Oh, the hell with him, Mrs. Sack,” she said. “He’ll be right back.... He’s a lovely boy,” she told Beebo. “He’ll outgrow this rebellious stuff in another year or so.” She spoke confidently but Beebo knew it was a cover-up for deep concern. “Now—what did you say your name was?”

Beebo answered in a low voice, “Beebo Brinker.”

“You’re kidding,” said Venus.

“No.” Beebo smiled.

“Lord, that’s even worse than mine. Did your press agent dream it up? Or don’t you delivery boys—excuse me, girls—have press agents?”

“I have dozens, but they’re all starving,” Beebo said.

“Mercy, we’ll have to find you a job,” Venus said. “Are you literate, by any chance?”

“No, I’m perfectly normal,” Beebo said. She had learned not to get mad at the wild assortment of jibes people tossed at her. It was better to catch and toss back than to fall and lie as if dead; make a sideshow of your strangeness.

Venus put her head back and laughed, and Beebo felt suddenly very warm and nervous, looking at her. From across the room her face looked flawless. “Poor Beebo,” Venus said, enjoying the name. “Came all the way up here in the rain to bring me a pizza, and I didn’t even pay her for it.”

“You fed me part of it,” Beebo said.

“Well, I’ll order spaghetti next time. When the sun is shining and I have a few nickels in my jeans,” Venus promised. “I suppose you’re in a mighty rush to get home to your heavy date?”

“If you don’t mind,” Beebo said politely.

“Of course I mind, but go anyway. I’ll see you on spaghetti day,” Venus smiled, and Beebo slipped out the back door with her spine still prickling.

* * * * *

Beebo wondered, all the way downtown in the truck, what sort of kicks Venus got out of inviting a strange delivery girl in for an unpaid-for dinner. _She had a bad day and I amused her_, Beebo thought. _The cook cut out, Toby bugged her, and all six husbands are out of town._

She approached Pasquini’s wishing she could leave the truck somewhere else for the night, just to avoid seeing Pete. But he was out of sight, if not off the premises, and she parked and left without incident.

Under a streetlight she looked at her watch. She had been away three hours instead of one and she was anxious about the trusting girl she had left behind. She ran most of the way to Paula’s place.

It surprised her when Paula left her waiting in the entry almost four minutes before she buzzed to open the door.

No one was in the living room when Beebo came in. She called, feeling her heart quicken with alarm.

“Paula, where are you? Are you all right?”

“In here.” Paula’s voice was faint and Beebo rushed into the bathroom to find her, standing quiet and sad in front of the mirror. A bottle full of pills, with the cap off, rested on the bowl. Paula had an empty glass in her hand.

Beebo looked at her face in the mirror and then saw the bottle.

“Sleeping pills?” she said, picking it up. Her eyes went dark and she grabbed Paula by the shoulders. “You didn’t!” she said. “Good God, Paula!”

“No, I didn’t,” Paula murmured. “The bottle’s still full.”

Beebo emptied it into the toilet and flushed the pills away. She turned to Paula, trying to comfort her, but Paula averted her face and broke into tears. She flung her arms around Beebo. “Where have you _been_? You’ve been gone for hours,” she wept.

“She wanted me to eat the damn pizza with them,” Beebo said clumsily. “Come on, honey, lie down on the bed.” She pulled a protesting and white-faced Paula toward the bedroom. “What’s the matter?” Beebo said as Paula’s resistance stiffened.

“I think she’s afraid of a scene,” came a cool, unexpected voice. Beebo whirled and saw Mona Petry sitting on Paula’s bed, smoking calmly. “But she needn’t worry. Will you please tell her I don’t plan to stay more than a minute? I tried to tell her myself, but we don’t seem to speak the same language.”

Beebo looked back at Paula, who had covered her mouth and cheeks with tight-pressed hands while tears spilled out of her eyes. Beebo stood between the two jealous girls; one frightened and hurt, the other pleased to have her so. It was up to Beebo to restore peace.

Beebo walked into the bedroom, leaving Paula in the hall behind her. “All right, Mona, I’m sorry,” she said briefly. “If you’re angry about it, remember you’re the one who stood me up.” Her voice was sharper than she intended. She wanted to get it over with.

“I didn’t stand you up at all, Beebo,” Mona said. “I told you to call in one hour. If you had, we could have spent the night together. Instead, you walked out and disappeared.”

“I called too soon,” Beebo said, recalling the man’s voice through Mona’s door.

“Not on the phone,” Mona said, and through her disdain, Beebo could see the flash of real anger. “Do you mean you eavesdropped?”

“I didn’t have to, Mona. I went in to use the phone in the front hall, and you were throwing things and arguing with some guy. So I left. I just figured you had a taste for men that night.”

“Did you really?” Mona said acidulously. “After the way I acted with you? Knowing that any man in my apartment must be an uninvited guest?”

“An uninvited guest doesn’t get in with his own key,” Beebo shot back. “I didn’t like the idea of sharing you with a man, Mona.”

“I fought with the man,” Mona said, standing up. “I wouldn’t have fought with you, ever. Now, it can’t be helped.” She crushed her cigarette on the floor under her shoe as a gesture of contempt for Paula’s tidy bedroom, and smiled. “Or did you think we could all be buddies? We three?”

Beebo colored up with anger. “Three’s a crowd, Mona. You make such a thing of it. Why didn’t you call _me_? I waited for days. I wanted you to call.”

“Wanted. Past tense,” Mona said, looking at Paula. “Besides, Beebo, I was wronged, not you. The least you could have done was let me explain. Now you don’t give a damn. Well, just know that I don’t either. I wouldn’t dream of taking you away from Paula. She needs somebody to count the sleeping pills for her.” She hooked her sweater on her index finger, and swung it over her shoulder with an air of satisfaction. Paula was distracted and Beebo was exasperated with her. This was Trouble and it exhilarated her.