Chapter V: Part 5

“Is that what you came here to say?” Beebo demanded.

“That’s most of it,” Mona said. “It’s only fair to warn you, though ... I may drop some more bricks before I’m through. You turn such a nice color when you’re burned, Beebo.” She sauntered deliberately through the hall, past Paula, who shrank from her, and to the front door, where she turned for one last shot.

Beebo had followed her and stood in the middle of the living room with her arms folded over her chest, the way she faced Pete when he crowded her.

Mona looked her over and then blew a poisonous kiss toward Paula. “I hope you two will be happy,” she said. “It’s obviously one of those marriages made in hell.” She pulled the door shut very slowly till Beebo reached over and gave it a hard shove to.

Mona thumped against it on the outside, laughing at the show of temper.

* * * * *

Beebo turned to Paula, mystified. “What in hell was all that about?” she said.

Paula was leaning against the wall, still pale and quite exhausted. “You’ve heard of jealousy,” she said tiredly.

“She had something more than that on her mind,” Beebo said. “She looked like she wanted blood. You can be jealous without being plain mean.”

“Mona can’t. That’s how she makes her life interesting. It’s funny. You think of a _man_ being sadistic, coldhearted, capable of evil just for kicks. But when a woman’s that way, it shocks you. Mona just—enjoys it, I guess.”

“Enjoys tormenting people?” Beebo said. She had known people like that back in Juniper Hill, but it was hard to believe about someone you had so recently admired.

Paula nodded. “I think she came here tonight because she’s mad at Pete and she can’t find him to give him hell. Pete sent you over to bug Mona, and it worked. And you and I went right along with his game and fell for each other. Mona likes to think she’s a femme fatale, and I guess to Pete, she is. She jilted him once and he never got over it. She’s always telling me I’m a ‘goddamn milkmaid’ and nobody wants a milkmaid these days. She must have really wanted you, Beebo, or she wouldn’t have been so hurt to lose you.”

“Pete told me he dumped Mona when he found out she was a Lesbian,” Beebo frowned.

“He’s lying, as usual. He only falls for gay girls,” Paula said. She had gone to Beebo’s side and put her arms around her for consolation. Beebo, reviewing Pete’s behavior toward her in a new light, felt faintly nauseated. “And I thought he was just trying to get my goat,” she said, returning Paula’s embrace.

“Darling,” Paula said, and Beebo thought how much warmer and truer the word was when Paula spoke it than when it bloomed on Venus’s perfect lips like a gaudy rose.

“Beebo, I want to explain—about myself—” Paula said haltingly.

“You don’t have to, I understand.”

“No, you don’t. I didn’t myself. Beebo, I’ve always been such a steady, sensible girl. Even when I discovered I was gay. I didn’t go all to pieces like so many kids. It shook me up, yes, but I did the reasonable thing. I went out and learned all I could about it. I’d never had special prejudices against other people’s problems, and I hadn’t any against my own.

“I tried to accept the fact, and after a while I got used to it. But all the time I was waiting for somebody wonderful to come along; for a beautiful love affair to make it all right. We’d live quietly together, we’d cherish each other, and life would be rosy.

“I didn’t think it would be simple, but I thought it would be satisfying—and permanent. That’s the kind of girl I am, Beebo.

“I found other girls while I was waiting so trustingly for this perfect love,” she said, speaking with the disillusioned realism of hindsight. “And they taught me a lot. I thought this was necessary. You have to know the different kinds of love before you can recognize the kind you need. I met Mona during this period. She’s mean as an old crow, but she’s sharp and I learned a lot from her.

“And then the girl in the plaid pajamas came along. It wasn’t beautiful, Beebo. Nothing I had learned before prepared me for what I went through.

“I lost my self-respect ... my ideals. My efforts to please her rubbed her the wrong way. I did everything I thought would draw us close, even when it seemed like madness. I moved to the Village, I went with her fast crowd, I quit my job. I drank too much and played too hard, for fear if I didn’t she’d think I was square. I did things that were downright degrading.”

Beebo embraced her tightly. “Honey, you’re the sweetest girl I ever knew,” she said. “I won’t believe anything bad about you.” She guided her back to the bedroom.

“What I want you to know is,” Paula whispered, lying down on the bed, “that I’m not a kook. I don’t usually fly off the handle emotionally. I never did it before my affair with the girl in the pajamas. I live an orderly life, I work hard, I care about people. Only, Beebo, you just couldn’t have happened. You walked in here asking for Mona last night—was it only last night!—and I realized that all I’d suffered before was the dark before the dawn. Maybe it was a sort of price I had to pay for being gay. I paid it, and Heaven dropped you in my lap. I want to deserve you, Beebo.”

Beebo was nonplused. She kissed Paula’s white throat, holding her and frowning into the dim light where Paula couldn’t see her face. It was disturbing to have such a strong emotion centered on her. She desired Paula passionately. Every endearment Beebo had spoken to her, she had spoken truthfully, but without once repeating, “I love you.”

Paula had brought her out; something Paula herself couldn’t believe. And no matter what other women might figure in Beebo’s life, Paula would always be dear to her for that alone.

But Beebo was afraid of hurting her. There was more than a humble excuse in Paula’s explanations; there was also that weapon of amorous women, a plea for sympathy. It was a hint to Beebo: _Don’t hurt me like the girl in the plaid pajamas did, or you’ll destroy me._ Beebo caught it and fretted over it in silence.

Paula began to worry that she had said too much. She raised up on one elbow, pressed her mouth against Beebo’s cheek, and said, “I want you to know I’m as surprised as you are by this love-at-first-sight thing. I thought it was all rot till I met you. Darling, I’m well aware it didn’t hit you as hard as it did me. I promise I won’t be a nuisance. I’ll love you very quietly like a good sensible girl. I won’t shriek and weep in public, or chase you, or take pills. I’ll just love you. So much and so well you’ll have to love me back ... someday. You will, won’t you?”

Beebo felt suddenly cornered and couldn’t answer. But when she finally glanced at Paula, Paula had found the courage to smile at her, to tuck her dismay out of sight. It gave Beebo an odd sort of pride in her, as if a child of hers had performed bravely in the face of a hard disappointment. It made Paula still sweeter and more attractive.

“Doesn’t everybody love you, little Paula?”

“Almost everybody ... except Miss Plaid Pajamas and Beebo Brinker.” Paula gave her a wry grin that let Beebo relax. “But they don’t count. All the intelligent, rich, beautiful people are insanely in love with me.”

Beebo laughed and pulled her down on the bed. “Not hard to see why,” she said. “You’re adorable.” She was still full of wonderment and fascination over the new role she was playing with Paula: lover, friend, protector. It felt so good, it fit so well, it rather astounded her. It was like picking up a violin for the first time and finding you could play a lilting tune with no practice at all.

Beebo’s good humor rescued Paula from the dumps. She began to feel affectionate again. For Beebo, it was a delirious pleasure to act out on a real girl in a real bed all the intense love play that had filled her solitude. She fell asleep very late, very tired, with Paula in her arms.

* * * * *

Beebo got up early the next morning. She was in no hurry to face Pete Pasquini, knowing what she now knew about him, but she didn’t want to lose her job till she could scout down another. She was not in a financial position to get hard-nosed with him yet, and besides she was confident that she could handle whatever he could dish out. They were nearly of a size, and he had never shown himself more than a brash nuisance. And anyway, a man who could fall in love with the likes of Mona Petry was not likely to find himself erotically interested in Beebo Brinker.

Paula was pensive throughout breakfast and when Beebo demanded to know why, she admitted, “It’s Mona.”

Beebo laughed, but Paula was serious. “She’s one of those people with nothing to do. She has to make trouble to keep from going mad with the ‘Flats’—that’s what she calls it. She doesn’t work—her men give her enough money to live on. She doesn’t do a thing but amuse herself. If you know her at all, you have to be a lover or a hater. There’s no middle ground with her.”

“Shall I hire a bodyguard?” Beebo kidded.

“She’ll try to punish you somehow. She’s been stood up by you and tricked by Pete. She’s not the kind who can tolerate being made a fool of. Pete doesn’t count, he’s only a man, and she can twist him around her finger if she’s in the mood. But _you_....”

“What can Mona do to me?” Beebo said, still smiling.

“Mona is very inventive. She’ll think of something,” Paula said.

“Do you mean she’d hurt _you_?” Beebo’s smile faded.

“Oh, I doubt it,” Paula said. “It wouldn’t be half as much fun as making an effigy of Beebo and sticking pins in it. If she does, you’ll squirm, too. For heaven’s sake, darling, don’t do anything she could blackmail you for.”

Beebo laughed and reassured her. Mona’s jealousy seemed more silly to her than dangerous.

* * * * *

Beebo didn’t see Pete Pasquini at work all day, and Marie had no idea where he was. “Out making babies with the _filles_,” she said with offhand contempt.

Beebo had no wish to confront him and she finished out the day’s work in relief. But when she got home that night, there was a new surprise for her.

Jack let her in, taking the bags of groceries from her. “Haven’t seen you for two nights,” he said. “Paula must have attractions I can’t match.”

“Oh, you’re not bad,” Beebo smiled. “For a man.”

He started stowing things in the refrigerator, and Beebo became aware of Pat, who had followed them into the kitchen. “Good news,” Jack said. “Celebration tonight.” He pulled a bottle of sparkling burgundy from the shelf.

Beebo glanced from one to the other. “Did you boys finally tie the knot?” she said, trying to make it sound light.

“Nothing formal yet,” Jack grinned. “I believe in long engagements. No, little pal, we are festive tonight because Pat is no longer with the Sanitary Department.”

“It was too unsanitary,” Pat chuckled.

“I thought you were taking your vacation,” Beebo said. Suddenly, her precarious place in this still-new city was menaced. The time to move out was coming fast.

“Vacation, hell. He quit,” Jack said. “I asked him to.”

“How come?”

“I don’t want my betrothed to work,” Jack said, pouring the champagne. It exploded into tiny fountains of fizz, and they each took a glass.

Jack lifted his. “Long life and health,” he said, and added significantly, “and love all around.”

They drank. Beebo nodded to Pat. “All I can say, Pat, is what they said to me when I left Juniper Hill: good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“Beebo, you should have been a poet,” Jack said.

She finished her drink and stood up. “I guess you two want to celebrate by yourselves,” she said.

“Not at all. Have dinner with us,” Jack said.

“I think Paula’s waiting for me,” Beebo said. After an awkward pause she added, “She asked me to move in with her.”

“She doesn’t waste time, does she?” said Jack. “Do you want to?”

“I don’t know. It would give her the right to expect me to be faithful. I can’t imagine a lovelier girl. But I hardly know her. And there are so damn many girls in the world.”

“Which reminds me. How was La Bogardus?”

“If you mean the bosom, it’s authentic.”

Jack laughed. “You must have been a big hit, if you got that far.”

“No. I just have good eyes. And she’s allergic to underwear, which makes it pretty obvious.” She sat down heavily for a moment on a kitchen chair across the table from Pat.

“You look tired, honey,” Jack said concernedly.

“I haven’t had much sleep the last two nights,” she said and let them chortle at her, smiling a little.

“She’s a doll, that Paula,” Jack said. “If I were you, I’d keep a close eye on her.” He waited a moment. “You don’t have to go as far as moving in with her, though. Not if you’re not ready.”

Beebo looked up at him and reached out to squeeze his arm. “You’re too damn good to me, Jack,” she said. “I know it’s getting crowded here.”

“Nobody’s complaining!” Jack said. “Besides, if you move out, Pat will probably go, too. You’re still my biggest asset.”

Pat smiled and Beebo laughed, but there was just enough truth in it to make them all a little uncomfortable.

“If only you could get your elbow in your ear,” Pat said to her wistfully, making Jack hilarious. But despite the bantering tone, Pat had found a serious new interest in himself. He was staring and wondering at the many handsome, mannish, and somewhat authoritative girls around Greenwich Village. His crush on Beebo had the effect of opening his eyes to a new and quite fascinating possibility. But so far it was nothing to threaten his affection for Jack, and he said nothing.

Beebo lighted a cigarette, watching as Jack refilled her wine glass. “If I ask a hard question, will you boys tell me the truth?” she said at last. They nodded at her curiously in silent assent.

“When you want me to move out, will you, for God’s sake, please say so? I feel bad enough about mooching from Jack as it is.”

“Forget it,” Jack said. “Stay as long as you want to, pal.”

She sipped the drink. “It’s not that I don’t want Paula,” she said. “I just don’t want her enough to cut loose from all the rest of the women in the world yet. And I’m not earning enough to live alone.”

“You should have met her five years from now,” Jack said sagely. “You would have been ready then.”

“Maybe we can make it together after a few months,” Beebo said. She was musing guiltily about somebody else; someone who had nothing to do with Paula, and yet who affected Beebo’s decision not to go live with the pretty little redhead. Beebo had been eager to stay with Paula, eager to be asked, throughout the first night and day of their acquaintance. It would have solved so many problems, economic and emotional.

Then she got away from Paula for a few hours. She met a woman of provocative beauty who stuck in her imagination, almost without her realizing it at first, and who roused her desire for variety: Venus. When she got back to Paula, she was made to see that Paula was urgently in love with her, and it scared her. She was flattered but afraid of the responsibility. And not at all sure she could return the love in full measure.

So she dodged the decision temporarily by volunteering to take Jack’s sofa and leave the bed to the men. And for a while it worked out. Beebo spent most of her evenings with Paula—and sometimes the entire night—and Paula wisely refrained from pushing her any more on moving in.

There was a complete—and, Paula thought, ominous—silence from Mona. And another odd development was the disappearance of Pete Pasquini. For almost two weeks, nobody saw him. Marie kept saying she hoped to God he had deserted her at last. She was massively uninterested in finding him.

When he finally made a startling appearance, he touched off a howling family feud, with Marie vowing to drown him in spaghetti sauce and his mother promising to throw Marie in after him. The children lined up on the narrow stairs leading up from the kitchen and shrieked approval of the melee.

Beebo walked in on it at eight-thirty in the morning and brought a sudden stillness to the room. She stood there uncertainly with all eyes on her and finally said, “Don’t let me stop you.” Pete smiled at her.

Marie came to life, striding toward Beebo to plead her case with feminine ardor. “We find out this morning. He gets back last night, without telling nobody,” she said, waving a steaming red spoon at her husband. The coating of sauce underlined her threats to drown him.

“We’re all asleep, it’s late. The phone rings twice and stops. We go back to sleep—they must’ve hung up. What we don’t know,” she hollered in a rising voice, “this piece of dung is in the shop and _he_ answers it. Why is he in the shop in the middle of the night? It’s dark, no customers, nothing to do. Nothing but tin cans and dry pasta. Is he making love to the tomato paste? Who knows what a crazy dago goes for?”

Pete laughed, and all the while his brilliant black eyes were fixed on Beebo, who refused to meet them, concentrating instead on Marie’s theatrics.

“So who’s on the phone? _Bogardus_,” Marie said.

Beebo gasped.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Marie said, hands on her hips, spoon dripping bloody sauce. “She wants spaghetti this time. It’s the middle of the night—never mind. She got a taste for spaghetti. ‘Send me that one with the funny name,’ she says. And she don’t mean Pasquini.” She threw Pete a look of ferocious scorn. “So Hot Pants here, he says sure, he bring it right up, the stupid sonofabitch. No spaghetti, never mind, he makes up a leftover pizza.” She rolled her eyes to Heaven for vengeance.

“What happened?” Beebo said, her mind suddenly full of the star’s vivid face and sensual body.

“So I make the delivery,” Pete said languidly, seating himself on a table amid the crunchy bread crumbs. “Bogardus opens the door herself and says, ‘Where’s Beebo?’ Well, I’m surprised, I don’t realize how popular you are with these actress types.” He grinned and picked his teeth with neat nonchalance, while Beebo began to sweat nervously.

“So I tell her, you’re sick, you can’t make it, but it’s okay, I got her spaghetti. She says, ‘Thank you, darling—’” He rolled the endearment interminably off his tongue, always smiling directly at Beebo. “—and opens it. I’m waiting for her to hand me some money, minding my own business—”

“For the first time in two weeks!” Marie interpolated. “Where was your hands all this time, Pete?”

“In my pockets,” he replied coolly. “She wasn’t in a mood for no man last night.”

Beebo’s whole face flushed a high red. She wanted to turn and rush out of the place, but the thought of his raucous laughter alone prevented her.

“So instead of the money,” he went on leisurely, “she hands me back the pizza. In the face.”

“I begin to respect this woman,” Marie commented.

Pete continued, “She says, ‘What do you mean spaghetti? This ain’t spaghetti. And _you_ ain’t no Beebo Brinker, neither.’ How do you like that, butch? You can write your own ticket with that one. Only you better make it a round trip. I understand you got a good reason for visiting back on McDonald Street these days.”

“She got a good reason to spit in your face, you damn wop!” Marie declared, siding with Beebo.

Pete ignored her. “That Paula, she’s a looker, hm? I wouldn’t mind cracking that little nut myself,” he said to Beebo, folding his arms and enjoying her alarm.

“I’ll crack yours one of these days,” Beebo said in a sudden fury. “Don’t talk about Paula, you dirty her name.”

“Don’t mind him, Beebo,” Marie said, sensing trouble. “It ain’t just Paula, anyway. It ain’t enough he runs after skirts all the time. He wants the girls who want other girls. Figure _that_ one out. After all his big talk about fags.”

“Fags go for other fags. I go for girls,” Pete said, but Marie had finally rattled him. Any challenge to his manhood threw him into a panic. It was clear he drew a fine distinction between his own sexual preferences—“normal”—and everybody else’s.

“You go for Lesbians,” Marie said, silencing him with a wave of her gory spoon. She did him further insult by describing his desires to Beebo, as if Pete were not even in the room. “He’s three-fourths fag and the rest sadist,” she said. “That’s why he don’t chase real women. He has to hurt a girl—a girl who don’t _want_ it—before he can get it up.” She glared at him like a cannibal.

Pete looked back with cold wrath. “I got five kids on those stairs says you’re a liar,” he said. “Or are you saying _you_ ain’t a real woman?”

“Don’t fake with me, Pasquini. I know what you pretend in bed,” Marie shouted. “You married me to prove you was a man, and once we left the church, you figure you proved it. Well, it ain’t that simple.”

Pete walked toward her and Marie paled and stiffened, ready for a blow. But he passed her and went to Beebo, who could only stand her ground like Marie and hope he’d go on by. But he stopped, putting a hand on her shoulder, and pulled her aside.

“Don’t listen to her, she’s cracked,” he said softly. “I told Bogardus you’d be up with the spaghetti this afternoon. Does that make me your friend?”

“After your cracks about Paula?” she said, shaking his hand off roughly.

“I told you where to find Paula, too,” he reminded her, and his eyes glittered. “I always say nice things about that one. She’s a nice girl.”

Beebo looked at him with revulsion. “You sent me there to even some secret score of yours with Mona. Don’t act noble about it.”

He chuckled. “Still, I sent you, butch. And you went. You tell me if you’re sorry. You tell me if I ever done one thing you want to complain about.”

“We’d be here all day,” Beebo snapped. She turned to start working on the morning’s orders, but he followed her into the store, leaving Marie and the others to understand he was through fighting. Beebo heard Marie say wearily to Mrs. Pasquini, “So how come your son looks so good in Bordeaux and so lousy in New York? Okay, don’t yell, go see about the kids.”

Pete and Beebo worked in silence but whenever she glanced at him he seemed to have glanced at her first and was waiting for her eyes with a smile. He got his orders packed ahead of her and loped out the back door at a jaunty pace. Beebo watched his retreating back with relief. Before he drove away he leaned in and called to her.

“Don’t forget—Bogardus wants her pasta at five-thirty,” he said. She straightened up and glowered at him till he laughed and withdrew.

Beebo finished the orders quickly, her mind teeming with ideas for another job. Anything would be preferable to Pete’s endless leering. It was one thing for him to chase pretty Lesbians like Mona. But that he might desire Beebo—big and rangy, almost more boy than girl—seemed as utterly perverse and unnatural to her as that she might desire him.

She was surprised when the front bell rang and Pat Kynaston walked in. She was just ready to leave.

“What are you doing here!” she exclaimed.

“I brought Marie some goodies for her cockroaches,” he said, shaking a colored cylinder full of powder. “The Last Supper. Going to make some deliveries?”

Beebo nodded.

“Take me along,” he said pleasantly. “I haven’t anything to do, and the heat in that apartment is godawful.”

She relented after a moment’s indecision, and gave him a smile. “Okay, bring those boxes and follow me,” she said. “You can take my mind off things.”

* * * * *

Late in the afternoon they arrived at Venus Bogardus’s apartment on Park Avenue. Beebo parked in the service entrance, letting her hands drop between her knees with a sigh. Pat lighted her cigarette and they sat and smoked a minute.

“Kind of a stuck-up looking dump, isn’t it?” she said, squinting up at the glistening windows, stacked with parallel nicety clear to the clouds. “Well, let’s go do it.”

She got the hot spaghetti and on a sudden inspiration, included a jar of kosher dills intended for a different customer.

“Who are we going to see this time?” Pat yawned on the way up.

“Probably another maid,” Beebo said.

“Whose?”

“Venus Bogardus’s.”

Pat straightened up and stared at her.

* * * * *

But it was Toby, Venus’s problem child, who let them in. “Hi, Beebo,” he said, pleased to see her.

“Hi, buddy. Where’s your mama?” She was sorry at once she had asked. There was a cook by the stove this time—apparently the one who ditched Venus periodically, but always came back. She was thin and sticky with butter, and she looked inhospitable.

“I hear Venus threw some food around last night,” Beebo smiled at Toby. “I brought her a peace offering. Sweets to the sweet,” and she handed Toby the pickles. “This is a friend of mine, Toby—Pat Kynaston.” They shook hands and a silence ensued. All Beebo had to do now was wait for her money and leave. But she heard herself asking again, “Is Venus here?”

“Come on in. I’ll go see,” Toby said unwillingly.

He left the kitchen briefly and returned, his hands jammed nervously in his pockets. “She’s in her room,” he reported. “In a goddamn peignoir. She only wants to see you, Beebo. I told her about Pat and she said she didn’t want any peace offerings. She wouldn’t even listen about the pickles.”

“Oh, God,” Pat whispered to Beebo. “I suppose I go to the cook as a consolation prize.”

Toby walked over to them. “I have a good collection of records,” he said diffidently. “And guns. That’s one thing all those fathers are good for. I didn’t go for the guns at first, but I’ve gotten kind of interested. If you’d like to see them ... I mean, I think Mom is busy for a few minutes.”

Beebo was touched by his loneliness, his eagerness for company. She had the feeling that he was choosy about his friends, and living a life where he could hardly meet any anyway. It made her seem quite important to him.

He grinned at her. “You’re still on my side, aren’t you?” he said.

“All the way,” she laughed. “I just want to apologize to your mother for our delivery boy. I guess he got fresh.”

“No,” Toby said, his face lengthening. “She did.”

The cook absorbed all this with silent disapproval. She was the type who disapproved of everything—even food.

“I wish you wouldn’t see my mother,” Toby confessed unexpectedly.

Beebo’s mouth dropped open a little. “I thought somebody ought to ask her pardon for last night,” she said, embarrassed. “The Pasquinis don’t want to lose her.”

“They don’t need her,” he said, looking at the floor.

“Hmp,” said the cook to the spinach during the shocked pause that followed.

“That’s no way to talk about your mother, Toby,” Beebo said.

“You heard how she talks about me,” he countered. “What am I supposed to do? Pretend I’m deaf?”

Beebo listened, full of compassion, but afraid of the big-eared cook. Toby spoke as if she were no more than another kitchen appliance, like her stove.

But he saw Beebo’s glance, and pushed the kitchen door wide. “Come on in my room,” he said. “We can talk there.”

Beebo put the spaghetti on the counter and followed him, with Pat behind her. The apartment was richly decorated and unkempt.

In his room, Toby sat on the bed, and Beebo and Pat found places on chairs. He had his guns in two glass cases hung on the wall, and the rest of the room was a jumble of phonograph records, books, and school mementos.

Toby wanted to talk frankly to Beebo, and yet they were more strangers than friends. But he needed to talk, to melt the strangeness away and find the friend. At last he began, rather abruptly, “I just don’t want my mother to turn you against me. I mean, you’re a good kid and I want you to know me the way I am. Then you won’t think I’m such a dumb baby when she starts talking about what a ‘lovely child’ I am, but she can hardly wait till I outgrow it.”

Beebo heard this awkward speech with an ache of recognition. How it hurt to be so young, so at the mercy of your elders, and, often, lessers. So full of rainbows and music and romantic love ... yet always cracking your head against the walls of reality.

“I know she says some silly things, Toby,” she said seriously. “But you love her anyway, don’t you?”

“I guess so. But I’ve seen her with so many guys it just about makes me sick,” he said tiredly. “Until this year. Now, she says they all bore her and she’s sworn off men forever. I hope she means it. It’s been three months since she had a date. She’s terrible to men. They make such fools of themselves for her. I don’t know what she does to them, honest. And I’m not stupid!” he added quickly. “I mean, I know what she does—_technically_.” It was a toss-up whether his contempt was greater for his mother or her men.

Pat cleared his throat to camouflage a smile. Toby was conversant with sophisticated sex beyond his years; yet it was difficult and embarrassing for him to talk with friends his own age. Venus could take the blame for it, and Beebo felt a swell of righteous anger at her.

“You know what I think?” Toby said thoughtfully. “I think she’s bored with me, too. Well, after all, I’m a male.” He said it with pride and resentment, as if it were a fact not always respected in his family. “She needs somebody new to hurt and tease. If you make yourself available, I’ll bet she picks on you. It’s no fun, either.”

“Me?” Beebo said incredulously.

“You see her today and _you’ll_ find out,” he warned.

Beebo, conditioned by Venus’s flirting and by the mood of her night with Paula, said incautiously, “You mean—she’s interested in me? I mean....” Her voice trailed off, giving her meaning away, and Toby’s cheeks turned crimson. She realized she had shocked him, but he thought it was his fault for making the wrong implication.

“Not _that_ way,” he explained hastily. “She’s not _sick_.”

“Oh,” Beebo said. “Excuse me.”

Pat frowned at her, and she looked at her knees.

“She wants somebody around to admire her and say yes to her,” Toby said. “Somebody whose feelings she can hurt. You have to be tough as Leo to get along with her. Leo doesn’t have any feelings ... at least, they never show.”

“Leo—her husband?”

“Yes. He’s the only man in her life who won’t get down on his knees to her. But I think he’s the only one who really loves her, too. The others love the glamour, but Leo knows her through and through, and he loves her.” He shook his head as if it were incomprehensible.

“You love her too, Toby,” Beebo said.

He hunched his shoulders. “She’s my mother. What can you do?” he said with heartbreaking, youthful cynicism. “Even if the old bag did raise me.”

“Who’s the old bag?”

“Mrs. Sack. She’s my—well, you might say, my nurse ... she’s been around so long, she’s part of the family, even if I am too old for her now.” The blush on his face deepened, but he needed terribly to share his burdens, and he felt safe with Beebo. She was a girl, so she couldn’t fall in love with his mother. And she had spirit and humor, which she had used to defend him. Besides, his solitude weighed desperately on him.

“Mrs. Sack was there when Mom brought me home from the hospital, and she’s done everything for me since then. Mom just sat around and blew kisses at me between lovers.”

“She must have done more than that or you’d hate her,” Beebo said.

“I do hate her!” he flared. “Leo hates her, too. That doesn’t mean we don’t love her, but she makes it awful hard.” In a knowing voice he added, “There are two things in this world my mother really loves, and one of them is not _men_.” Pat and Beebo stared at him. “She loves herself and money. Mostly herself. She’ll tell you that if you ask her. She’ll tell the whole damn world. That’s how full of shit she is.”

“Toby,” Beebo said gently. “Maybe you just see all the bad things now. Maybe when you grow up and get away from her, you’ll see her good side.”

“If she _has_ one,” he said. “She calls me ‘darling’ all the time, and five minutes later she’s calling a complete stranger ‘darling.’ I mean about as much to her as the stranger.”

“I think it’s just a habit with her,” Beebo guessed. “Like some people calling everybody ‘honey.’”

“And secretly hating them all,” Toby said. “I wish just once in my life she’d call me Toby—when she wasn’t mad at me, I mean. That _is_ my name. She gave it to me.”

Beebo wanted to pat him on the back, wanted to smile and say, “She will—I guarantee it.” He was a perceptive boy and very appealing. But she had nothing to comfort him with. “Well, if it’s any consolation, _I’ll_ call you Toby,” she grinned, and was pleased to see him answer her smile.

There was a difficult silence until Pat said, getting to his feet, “That’s quite a bunch of guns. Who gave you the Japanese bayonet?”

Toby followed him to the case and began an animated conversation. Beebo sat pensively listening. Evidently it never occurred to Toby that Beebo could be sexually attracted to his mother. All his precocious knowledge of sex was confined strictly to his mother’s—admittedly free-wheeling—activities. And while Venus had done many things with many people, she had not, to Toby’s knowledge, done everything.

Beebo was surprised to feel so concerned about the boy. She was better acquainted with him now. His descriptions of his mother’s character were so youthfully lopsided they revealed more about him than they did about her. But it seemed certain that one thing he said was true: he did honestly both hate and love her very much.

The three of them were startled when Toby’s bedroom door swung open and Venus stood in the hallway. “Well, darling, why didn’t you send my visitor to me?” she demanded of her son.

Toby turned around, his chin jutting forward, ready for a tilt with her. But she merely inclined graciously all around, her smile flitting over Pat as though he were just another gun and settling on Beebo.

“Come in and talk with me,” she told Beebo. “I had a dreadful experience last night and it’s all your fault.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Bogardus,” Beebo said, standing up and feeling like a bumpkin dripping hayseeds in front of her.

“Don’t go, Beebo, it’s a trap,” Toby said sardonically.

“Darling, what a lyrical sentiment,” Venus fired at him. “Come on, Beebo.” She turned and sailed down the hall, and Beebo felt angrily like a toy dog, expected to jump when Venus snapped her fingers.

Pat went to her and whispered, “If you feel yourself getting friendly, scream for help.”

“Big help you’d be,” Beebo said.

“Well, at least I won’t be tempted to sin,” he said. “I don’t go for peignoirs.”

“I hope you don’t go for guns, either,” she warned him in a whisper. And aloud, she said to Toby, “Don’t worry, I won’t turn traitor.”

Then, with a sense of exasperation, shame and excitement, she followed Venus to her room.

* * * * *

It was a real boudoir; a luxurious old-fashioned bower, a glamorous retreat where a coveted woman makes herself irresistible in perfumed privacy; receives the gifts of rich and handsome men, and strikes them helpless with adoration. At least, that was the general idea.

The rug was white, the walls pale blue, and the dressing table wore six silk chiffon petticoats.

“Well, darling?” Venus said. “Do you like my little nest?”

Beebo began to laugh in spite of herself. “If you’ll forgive me, Miss Bogardus,” she said. “It’s one great big gorgeous cliché.”

“Of course it is,” Venus smiled. “I planned it that way to offend Leo.... You know, you sound like you’ve made it in more boudoirs than Errol Flynn.”

“Oh, no,” Beebo said, taken aback. “I’ve just read more bad novels. The sirens always have a boudoir like this.”

Venus turned around and studied her with amusement in the oval mirror above her dressing table. “Come over here and tell me why they sent that ghastly man over with the pizza, when I asked for you with spaghetti.”

Beebo stood her ground, suddenly aware that there was nothing under the “goddamn peignoir” but naked Venus. “That ghastly man owns the place,” she said. “He sent himself.”

You couldn’t look at Venus Bogardus without admiring her form. Even in her late thirties, it was fine: the kind men hope and dream all women will have, especially their wives. She was small-waisted, full-breasted, with a firmly swelling hipline and long shapely legs; the whole package wrapped up in mathematically right proportions that hadn’t changed since Venus was a bouncing daisy of sixteen.

Venus scratched something on a piece of paper and swept across the room with it in a cloud of cologne and blue silk. “Here you are, darling,” she said. It was her autograph. “Take this to your boss and tell him I hope he gets the sauce out of his ears.”

“He’ll be overcome, I’m sure,” Beebo said, tucking it in her shirt pocket.

Venus stood a few feet from her, watching her and making up her mind to open a difficult subject. “You know, poor Toby is absolutely terrified we’re going to like each other,” she said restrainedly. “He’s quite ashamed of me.”

Beebo was far more embarrassed by Venus’s admissions than by Toby’s. Toby was still a child you could pity and help. But who could pity someone with the blinding assets of his mother? Who had enough crust to offer her any help?

“Miss Bogardus, I’m sorry about the pizza thing. I—” She hesitated, wanting only to duck out and avoid facing the new feelings taking shape inside her.

“I only threw it at him because he wasn’t you,” Venus said, and Beebo allowed herself one quick startled look at That Face. She felt perspiration under her arms and knew her face was damp, too.

“Sit down, darling, you look feverish,” Venus said. And when Beebo stuttered something about going home, Venus laughed. “Why Beebo, I think I’ve got you going,” she said. “I’ll bet I’m not the first girl who ever did that to you.” It was said in a light friendly tone intended to tease, but it made Beebo so intensely uncomfortable that she began to tremble. It became acutely clear to her that she desired that remote and laughing goddess very much; so much she suddenly lost her voice.

“You were full of beans the last time you were here,” Venus said. “Don’t be a square now. Tell me all the nice things you know about me. I promise not to take any of them seriously.”

Beebo got her voice out finally by blasting on it like an auto horn. “I only know what everybody knows,” she blurted.

“The gossip columns?” Venus said. “You can’t be so naive that you believe that crap, darling. I’ll bet Toby’s been talking to you. Telling you stories about his wicked mama.” From the look on Beebo’s face, she concluded he had.

Beebo didn’t want to insult her. “Why should he?” she said, wishing all the while that she could open a window somewhere for fresh air.

“Oh, he thinks I’m dreadful. And of course I am. But I’m kind of sorry he realizes it already.”

Beebo saw a real regret shadow her face, and all at once it seemed possible—almost—to feel sorry for her.

“If you don’t want him to know it, you’ll have to put blinkers on him,” Beebo said quietly. “I was fourteen a few years ago. You don’t miss seeing much at that age.”

“When he was born,” Venus said, “I was much too young and ambitious to give a damn about him. Now, when he matters, I find I’ve done everything wrong ... everything I’ve bothered to do for him, that is. I haven’t bothered to do very much.”

“You don’t need to tell me these things, Miss Bogardus,” Beebo said, amazed to hear Venus speak such damaging truths about herself, to see the steel surface of her go-to-hell gaiety buckle and crack.

“He likes you,” Venus said, somewhat self-conscious now. She lighted a cigarette and shrugged. “He’s such a baby. I love him awfully, but he makes me so damn mad.”

“He’s a nice kid, Miss Bogardus,” Beebo said. “Maybe if you could see his side now and then.... It’s so easy to ruin a kid that age.”

“I’m a nice kid, too, darling,” Venus flashed, and Beebo realized from her anger that she had spoken too bluntly. “And I’ll do whatever I damn please with Toby. That includes ruining him if I feel like it.” She sat down suddenly on a satin-topped stool, tired. “I—I ruined him anyway, and I never felt like it at all,” she said, as if too weary to repress the truth.

“I don’t want to bore you, Beebo. But I do want to know what he’s been saying about me. I know he’s been talking to you the last half hour.” She looked across the room at Beebo. “Please,” she said. Her voice was rough with fatigue.

Beebo shifted her weight and her legs felt almost boneless. “Well,” she said uneasily. “I don’t suppose it’s anything he hasn’t already said to you.” Venus looked directly at her, and Beebo wondered if it might not impress her more to hear these things from somebody other than Toby. “He loves you very much, Miss Bogardus,” she said. “But I don’t think he likes you.”

Venus merely nodded. “That’s no news,” she said. “He’s like all the other men I know.” She looked disgusted.

“He said you didn’t like men,” Beebo said.

“I beg your pardon!” Venus exclaimed. “I absolutely _adore_ men. All but Leo, anyway.” She stood up and walked briskly back and forth for a moment, as if she intended to hear no more—at least not till her feathers settled.

“Tell me about yourself, Beebo,” she said, and again Beebo was miffed by the offhand order.

“I’d bore you to tears,” she said. “You don’t want to hear about my daddy’s cows and chickens down on the farm.”

“I think I do,” Venus said sincerely. “I never had a daddy. Or a chicken.” Beebo began to protest about leaving again and Venus waved at her impatiently. “All right, all right, but before you go, tell me the rest about Toby.”

Beebo didn’t know what to make of her. Hadn’t she heard it all from him herself? Venus glanced at her. “He’s been chattering about you since you brought that pizza over,” she explained. “He _likes_ you. That means he’ll talk to you. He only shouts at me.... Sit down, Beebo.”

Beebo obeyed her out of growing curiosity. It seemed clear to her now that she had inadvertently become a line of communication between mother and son; that perhaps Toby did say things to Beebo he refused to mention to Venus—or at least, said them more candidly.

“There isn’t much to tell,” Beebo said, trying to squirm out of it. Venus looked very worried. “He just seems lonesome. I think it was a relief to him to spout off at me.” She smiled.

Venus sighed. “He’s a bewildering little devil,” she said, “but I guess he’s the only human being I’ve ever loved. Or ever will love. I loathed him when I was carrying him. I thought he’d ruin my waist. I scarcely looked at him till he was nine or ten. Mrs. Sack brought him up. He grumbles about her, but there are times when I’d give anything if he’d grumble about me the same way ... times when I actually hate that woman!” Beebo watched her blow her nose on a tissue on the dressing table and realized with a twinge that she was crying.

“He calls her ‘the old bag,’” Beebo said kindly.

“And I’m ‘the old bitch,’” Venus said. Her voice was unsteady. “I should never have let him slip away from me. But he scared me, to tell the truth. Not just that he was a baby, and I resented him and didn’t know where to begin caring for him. But he ... he had convulsions and things. Terrifying things that absolutely paralyzed me. And Mrs. Sack was so efficient and reassuring. Oh, hell, it’s no excuse. But it seemed like one then.”

“Convulsions?” Beebo repeated, surprised.

“Yes. He has epilepsy. The _grand mal_ kind. Big stuff.” There was a shocked silence and Venus added sharply, “Well, it’s not a oneway pass to the bughouse.”

“No, no, I know,” Beebo replied. “I—I’m just so sorry.”

“Well, I’m sorry, too,” Venus said, and she had control of herself now. The tears had stopped. “Most of the time he’s perfectly normal—whatever _that_ is for boys of fourteen. But every so often, when he’s especially tired or nervous, he gets these ... seizures. He gets rigid as a post.” She faced Beebo. “Have you ever seen it?” she said.

Beebo shook her head. “But I’ve heard about such things. It’s like a muscle spasm, isn’t it?”

Venus’s eyes drifted away, seeing it in her mind. “He shoots up from a chair like a jack-in-the-box, and falls straight and stiff as a pole. His saliva foams. We have to be careful that he doesn’t swallow his tongue.” She took a breath. “It’s frightening to see your own child like that.... Well, then he goes to sleep, a stone-dead sleep, and when he wakes up he usually can’t even remember it. He just wants to be quiet for a while, by himself. Read books and stare out the window, sometimes for a couple of days.”

“What do you do for it?” Beebo said. “Is there anything?”

“There are treatments,” Venus said. “Shock therapy, chemotherapy. He hates it but it helps. He hates to talk to me about it. Mrs. Sack always rescued him while I ran screaming from the room. He thinks it makes him repulsive to me. I’ve tried and tried to explain—I’m just a coward!—but he’s so jittery about it now, I don’t dare bring it up.”

Beebo sat looking at her linked fingers, young enough to wonder why the fair and fortunate of this world are afflicted with sorrows as humbling and frustrating as those of the poor. Venus, whom men feared and worshipped, women feared and disliked, and children simply feared; Venus, herself afraid.

“Toby said some hard things about you, Miss Bogardus,” she said at last, “but he also said he loved you, and you don’t get that kind of mush out of fourteen-year-old boys unless they mean it.”

“I wish he’d say it to me!” Venus cried. “I love him so terribly, but all I do is drive him nuts. I can’t talk to him and he clams up with me.” She came and put a perfumed hand on Beebo’s shoulder. “He hasn’t made a new friend in years,” she said. Her hand was tight and warm and busy, twisting Beebo’s cotton shirt. “I haven’t made much sense, I’m afraid,” she said. “I’m trying to be honest and I’m not used to it.” She gave a clumsy little laugh. “He seems so impressed with you. That was half the reason I wanted you to come back. I thought if you could draw him out somehow.... Did he say anything else?”

Beebo was worried about that expensive and beautiful hand on her shoulder. About that “half the reason I wanted you back”—what was the other half? About Toby’s opinion of his mother’s beaux?

Venus guessed the last part. “My admirers?” she said. “I know he can’t stand them. Neither can I.”

“He thinks you’re too fond of....” Beebo stopped and cleared her throat.

“Don’t get scared off all of a sudden,” Venus pleaded. “I couldn’t take it. I’m too fond of _what_?”

“Money. And yourself.”

“He’s wrong,” Venus said, frowning. “I know it looks that way. And I do like money. But myself I hate. I hate, hate, hate!” Her voice broke and her hand held tight to Beebo’s shoulder, steadying her. “Money and my career. That’s all I have in the world. That’s why I hang on so hard to them both.”

“You have Toby,” Beebo ventured, wishing she dared to look up at Venus’s face, knowing it was kinder not to.

“Toby isn’t mine,” Venus whispered bitterly. “He just lives here. He won’t let himself be loved. I gave birth to him, but Mrs. Sack is his mother.” She was weeping again.

Beebo reached up and touched her hand, her eyes still down. The whole mess was so sad and ugly; sadder still for having been preventable. Beebo was moved and hurt by Venus’s words because she was moved by Toby: his loneliness, his hopeful trust in her, and now the revelation of his illness.

“You’ve reached him, Beebo,” Venus said. “He wants to be friends with you. You could help me.” She came around the divan and sat down next to Beebo. The swift drum-bump of her heart was visible under the gauzy blue silk and it made Beebo want to touch her there; hold her and say something wise and therapeutic. But she hadn’t the wisdom to manage her own life yet, let alone someone else’s.

“I don’t know much about love, Miss Bogardus,” she said shyly. “I just know if you love somebody, he can’t stop you. All you have to do is keep loving him till he believes in it, I guess.”

“That’s not enough, or he’d be happy,” Venus said.

“Maybe if you did things with him,” Beebo said. “My dad used to spend a lot of time with me. We walked, we talked things over, we played chess.”

“I don’t know the black from the white,” Venus said miserably.

“Toby’s pretty big on guns right now.”

“I don’t even know which end the bullet’s supposed to come out,” Venus said. But after a pause full of self-examination she added, “But I guess I could learn ... guns. God.”

“It might make all the difference,” Beebo said.

“Will you come back and see him?” Venus said. “That would help.”

“Sure,” Beebo said, but she looked away. Venus had touched her arm again. “He could drive around with me while I make the deliveries tomorrow. Would he like that?”

“He’d probably die of joy. Anything with a motor in it sends him into rhapsodies.”

Beebo stood up, her own heart beating so fast now that she felt near suffocating. “It’s getting late,” she said. Venus followed her to the door.

“He might resent it if I start sticking my nose into his guns all of a sudden,” she mused.

“Not if you’re really interested,” Beebo said. “He won’t hold it against you, Venus ... beautiful Venus.” It was an unpremeditated explosion of admiration. Beebo clamped her mouth shut suddenly, mortified.

But Venus was restored by the slip to good humor. She laughed, and this time it was a pretty sound, a charming answer to a compliment.

“Maybe Toby will turn out all right,” Venus said. “You’re bound to be a good influence.”

Beebo smiled in embarrassment. “He’ll probably disgrace you by turning into a model citizen,” she said.