Chapter VII: Part 7

Beebo gave a swift tug on Venus’s arm and brought her tumbling down on the bed, laughing. That laugh sprang the switch in Beebo. She stopped it with her mouth pressed on Venus’s. And at last Venus submitted, all the twisting and teasing melting out of her. She let herself be kissed all over.

Beebo looked at her, stripped of the tinseled make-believe and the wisecracks; her lips parted and her eyes shut and her fine dark hair spilling pins over the pillow, coming down almost deliberately to work its witchery. Beebo kissed handfuls of it.

She fell asleep a long time later, still murmuring to Venus, still holding her possessively close, still wondering what she had done—or would have to do—to deserve it.

* * * * *

They were shaken out of sleep by the shrill ringing of the blue phone by Venus’s bed. Venus answered sleepily, pulling the receiver onto the pillow by her ear where she lay across Beebo’s chest.

But she came awake fast.

It was Leo Bogardus, calling from Hollywood. Beebo opened her eyes and watched while Venus flushed with wrath and suddenly burst into furious tears, threatening to hitchhike for Reno if she had to.

When she had slammed the phone down she told Beebo angrily that Leo had signed her to a television special series called, “Million Dollar Baby.”

“I’m the Baby, but I’ll never see the million bucks,” she cried. “God, I hate TV! You get overexposed, underpaid, and worked to death. And all the lousy profit goes to the lousy sponsors.”

Beebo stroked her and tried to calm her. After a while Venus sat still, her head in her hands. “Will you really go to Reno?” Beebo asked.

“No,” she sighed. “He won’t give me a divorce. I’ve tried everything.... I’ll go to Hollywood. I have no choice, Beebo. That’s where they’re going to film this little horror.”

“Well, you were going anyway, for Toby.”

“But not _this_ soon! God damn that Leo! Well, at least I asked Toby first. I tried to do it right.”

“How soon is _this_ soon?” Beebo asked disconsolately.

“Tonight, if I can get reservations.”

Beebo sat up in a mood of defiance. “Venus, you can’t—”

“I have to, darling. Leo has ways of forcing me. Besides, I knew he’d been talking about this for months. But I didn’t think it would come so soon.” She glanced at Beebo and suddenly turned halfway around to kiss her mouth, startling Beebo.

“Is that goodby?” Beebo said, so coldly that Venus smiled at her.

“I told you I had a business proposition for you, you wicked child,” she said. “And it’s a damn good thing, or I could never explain to Toby why you spent the night. I’m going in right now and mess up the guest room. Bring your clothes.”

Beebo pulled some of them on en route to the guest room. “What proposition?” she demanded, full of new hopes.

“Would you like to work for me?” Venus said, turning down the covers of the extra bed. She had thrown her negligee around herself.

“As what?” Beebo said. “Your companion?”

“No. Toby’s. He says you know horses. Maybe you could work in the stables.” She spiraled the sheets around on the bed and dumped a pillow on the floor. “That should do it.... Well, don’t stand there, darling, go home and pack,” she said, glancing up at her astonished guest. “I want you back here before six tonight. There’s a flight at eight I can usually get seats on. What’s the matter, don’t you want to go?”

“I—yes—I do,” Beebo stammered.

“Well, go, darling. Go, go, go!” Venus said, clapping her hands under Beebo’s nose and laughing. “And don’t talk about it!” she hissed at Beebo’s retreating back. “To _anybody_!”

* * * * *

Beebo drove downtown in a fog of confusion. After the first shock of flattered pleasure died away, she found herself preoccupied with Paula; so concerned, so anxious, that there were tears in her eyes she had to keep squeezing away, just to see the traffic ahead of her.

She would stop at Paula’s apartment before she left. She had to. It was one thing to hurt somebody, but to do it like a snake, striking and slipping away before the victim knows what hit her—or who, or how—was beyond Beebo. She would tell Paula the truth herself, however much it cost them both in sorrow and resentment.

* * * * *

Beebo returned the Pasquinis’ truck, hoping to escape unnoticed. But Pete was lying in wait for her.

“So, you brought it back!” he said, grinning at her like a slick little fox. “We thought maybe you was taking a vacation in it.”

“It’s your truck,” she said, getting down. “I don’t want the damn thing.” She turned to look at him. “I—uh ... I’m quitting, Pete. I got another job.”

“No kidding.” He picked his teeth without disturbing the leer on his face. “Walking the dog for some swell lady?”

“I’ve had it with dogs,” Beebo shot back. “I’ve been working for one all summer.”

Pete left the pick in his teeth in order to fold his arms over his chest in imitation of Beebo when she was insulted. “So, Beebo,” he said softly. “You don’t like it here with us no more?”

“You tell Marie I’m sorry,” Beebo said. “I like her fine.”

“Sure you do, sweetheart. She wears a skirt,” he said, rocking back and forth on his heels, needling her skillfully.

Beebo felt her temper expanding in her like hot air. It would have relieved her hugely to have punched him where it would hurt the worst. But that was no way to solve any problems—especially not with this covert, twisted young man who was trying to provoke the punch out of her on purpose.

“Marie is a friend of mine,” Beebo said stiffly.

“Meaning I ain’t? Ain’t I been friendly to you, Beebo?” he said, sauntering toward her. “Well, I can fix that up right now.” And with one abrupt movement he reached her side and threw her hard against the door of the truck, pulling her left arm up high in the back in a wrenchingly painful hammer lock. Beebo gave a gasp of shock and tried to break free. But for all her size and strength, she was still a girl, and no match for an angry, jealous man who had been wanting her and wanting to hurt her since he first saw her.

He forced his mouth on hers and when she struggled he bit her. She tried to knee him, and he pulled her arm up so hard they both thought for a moment he had broken it. Beebo went white with the pain, and leaned weakly against the door. Pete kissed her again, taking his time and not trying to unhinge her arm any more. The rough scratch of his whiskers, and smell of his winy breath, the push of his hard hips, almost made her faint.

“Now why do you make me hurt you, Beebo? Why do you do that?” he said in a tense whisper, as if it were all her fault. “I don’t want to hurt you. I want to be friends.” He kissed her again. “Don’t that prove it?”

Beebo knew she was crying with pain and fury and sickness. “Let me go,” she said hoarsely. She would have screamed if she had had any strength, but her heart was pounding and she was clammy pale, very near to toppling over.

Pete released her suddenly, caught her as she stumbled, and seated her on the running board. He shoved her head down between her knees till the blood flow revived her. “You don’t got to put on a show,” he said irritably. “I know you don’t want it from a man. I know you’re gay, for chrissakes. That’s one thing I can spot a mile off. I like gay girls, Beebo, in case you ain’t noticed. I’m on your side. Jesus God, you’d think I hated you, or something.”

She looked at him sideways, when she thought she was strong enough to stomach him. “Get out of my sight, you rotten little creep,” she said. “Go find Mona. She plays both sides of the street.”

“Ah, Mona’s a drag,” he said. “She’s got this big thing about putting you down on account of Paula. And you standing her up that night. I’m sorry about that, Beebo, it was kind of my fault. It was me at her place that night.”

“Oh, God,” Beebo said, and let her head drop into her hands again. “I should have known.”

“Well, how am I supposed to know she’s bringing somebody home? I know this girl for years. I drop in on her when I feel like it.”

“If you’re so goddamn big with Mona, you call on _her_ when you feel like it, not me. Don’t you come tomcatting around to me, Pasquini.” She stood up, weaving slightly, and put a hand on the fender to steady herself.

He stood beside her, and she saw that her angry disgust with him was beginning to annoy him. He wanted a fight—that was part of the build-up for him. But he wanted an eventual surrender, on his terms. Beebo showed no signs of yielding and her revulsion for him was plain enough to anger him.

“Maybe Mona was right,” he said, his voice getting thin and mean. “Maybe you need a lesson before you learn what’s good for you.”

“I don’t need any from you,” Beebo spat at him. “I’m getting out of here right now, and you’ll never see me again.”

“I’ll catch up with you one of these days,” he said. “No matter where you go.”

“The hell you will. You’re not going to chase me all the way to California just to kick my can,” Beebo said hotly. But when Pete began to smile, she rethought her words in sudden panic.

“California?” Pete grinned. “Well, that’d almost be worth the trip. I think I’d like it out there. Maybe get another autograph from Venus. Huh, butch? You could work it for me.”

Beebo looked at him, her face a mask but her heart dismayed. “You believe it if you want to,” she said. “If you think I’d work anything for you, you’re more of a fool than a creep.”

She turned and ran out of the delivery yard while he watched her. He didn’t like to let her go. But at least she was leaving a trail behind her; one that shouldn’t be hard to follow. Pete smiled.

* * * * *

Beebo and Pat drank a few parting shots while Beebo packed her strap-fastened wicker bag and waited for Jack to get home. She was ready to go and a little tight when he rolled in at five.

“Having a party?” he asked.

“A goodby party. I’m getting off your back, Jackson,” Beebo said. “I’m going to Hollywood.”

“They were bound to call you sooner or later,” Jack said. “Anyone can see you’ve got talent.”

Beebo looked at the floor. “I’m going with Venus,” she said, humiliated by it. “I didn’t know what else to do, Jack,” she added vehemently. “I couldn’t live with Paula. I couldn’t live with you, not if I wanted to keep your friendship. I had to quit the Pasquini job—Pete’s been helling after me since I started. And besides—besides....” She stopped, throwing her arms out and letting them drop against her sides.

“And besides, Venus asked you to go?” Jack said. Beebo nodded. Jack made no comment, but she knew he thought it was asinine of her. “Did you ever write to tell your father where you are?”

“I thought about it, but I didn’t know what to say.”

“Have you told Paula?”

“Not yet. I was waiting till you got home.”

“Paula’s more important.”

“Jack, damn it, Paula doesn’t own me!” she cried, angry because she knew he was right. “My father doesn’t own me. I don’t have to tell them every move I make, just because they—”

“They love you,” he finished for her. “Listen to me, little pal. You came to this town to grow up and find yourself. You can do that without breaking hearts. And so help me, Beebo, the first one you’re going to break is your own.”

Beebo sat down on the bed. “Jack, I didn’t ask Paula Ash to love me,” she said. “I never said I loved _her_.”

“Well, that makes it all swell.”

“She’s a sweet, fine girl. I wouldn’t hurt her for anything. But what can I do?”

“Shall I give her that message?” Jack asked.

“I’ll tell her myself!” Beebo said, stung. But she wished, with all the force of shame and indecision, that she didn’t have to.

Jack lighted a cigarette thoughtfully. “I’ve gotten to know her a lot better the last few weeks. She was over last night, when you didn’t show again. There’s a new girl in her life, Beebo.” He tossed his match in an ash tray, scrutinizing Beebo’s startled face. “Miss Plaid Pajamas. You know her?”

Beebo was shaken. “I know about her,” she said. “Oh, Paula....” She recalled the sleeping pills, the tears. Paula’s red hair, her scent, her green eyes luminous with love. She pressed a hand over her mouth, half to control a sob, half in recollection of Paula’s first gesture of love.

“Regrets?” Jack said gently.

Beebo took a deep breath. “It’s Venus I love,” she said softly, but it was strangely hard to say.

“Well, that’s that,” Jack said. “Off you go to follow your star.”

“I can’t help myself,” Beebo said, and that, at least, was true. “I’d rather cut off my arm than hurt Paula, believe me.”

Jack smiled and lifted a hand to show he would not sermonize. “I wish you well, pal. I wish you love,” he said. “I only wish—”

The phone rang. They all looked at each other. Finally Pat answered it, while Jack and Beebo watched him. “It’s for you, Beebo,” Pat said, holding out the receiver. She took it, looking apprehensively at him, and he mouthed the word, “Paula.”

She shut her eyes. “Hello?” she said.

“Hello, Beebo.”

“Paula, I was just coming over. I—I wanted to tell you....” Her voice trailed off.

“I know. I called to wish you Godspeed.”

“You what?” Beebo wheeled around to look at the two men.

“Pete called me,” Paula said. “He likes to play town crier.”

“God damn him!” Beebo exploded. “Paula, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you myself, at least. I—what did he say?”

“He said you were going to California with Venus Bogardus,” Paula said simply.

“Is that all?”

“It doesn’t matter about the rest, Beebo. Pete always exaggerates. I just wanted to tell you, it’s all right. I think you should go. It’ll be a great experience.” Her voice faltered ever so slightly, and Beebo wanted desperately to hold her, to be able to say, “No, I’ll stay with you,” and somehow still be able to go with Venus. She felt as if she were being physically ripped in half.

“I’m not being melodramatic, honest!” Paula said and she managed a small laugh. “I’m a hopeless optimist. I think you’ll be back. Or I couldn’t be such a good sport. Mona says ‘good sport’ is just another word for ‘sucker’. She’s wrong, isn’t she? Beebo?”

“Yes, Paula. She’s wrong, honey.” Beebo felt her own voice break and Paula said quickly, “Don’t come over, there’s no need. It’s much easier on the phone. Write to me now and then.”

“Paula? Is that girl in the plaid pajamas pestering you again?” Beebo said anxiously. “Jack said—”

“Jack is my knight in shining armor. If things get bad, he’ll come rescue me. He has before.” There was a pause. Beebo glanced gratefully at Jack and then she heard Paula saying, “Goodby, Beebo. Good luck. No, _bad_ luck, and come home soon. I love you, you know. You worm.”

“I know.” Beebo swallowed. “Goodby, Paula.” She let the receiver drop into its cradle and stood with her head against the wall for a minute.

“You look like you’re set for a real pleasure cruise,” Jack said, noting her wan face and full eyes.

Beebo picked up her bag in a brusque motion and strode to the door. But she couldn’t turn the handle. “Thanks for everything, Jack,” she said, full of fears at cutting loose from her only friend in the new world.

“Come back when Venus shows you out,” he said kindly. “Our bunk is your bunk,” and he put an arm over Pat’s shoulder.

“She won’t show me out,” Beebo said with what pride she still had. “Jackson, take care of that Paula for me.” She caught his shoulders in a hard grip. “I don’t know if I can stand to do this to her.”

“You’re doing it,” Jack commented.

Beebo looked at her bag, then grabbed it and ran down the hall and front steps without daring to look back.

* * * * *

Jack shut the door softly and gazed at Pat. “You’re tanked,” he said indulgently. His thoughts were elsewhere.

“You didn’t tell her about Pete and Mona,” Pat said. “Why?”

“She’s going three thousand miles from here. Let’s hope she doesn’t need to worry about those two twerps any more.”

“I’ve heard some of their sickening stories about Beebo around the bars lately,” Pat brooded.

“Well, don’t give Pete and Mona all the credit,” Jack said shrewdly. “Not that they ever say anything nice about anybody. But it helps to have someone else feeding them information.... Somebody whose initials are Pat Kynaston.” It was as sharp a reproof as Jack had given him.

“I only say _good_ things about Beebo!” Pat protested, instantly wounded. “I adore that girl!”

“I know. Good things. That’s all they need. Somebody in the Cellar heard you carrying on Tuesday afternoon: Beebo’s father, her home town, even that thing at the livestock exhibition. You want Pete to hear that, Pat? Think what he could do with it, if he wanted to.”

Pat sank dismally to the living room floor. “Lord, I didn’t realize. I thought I was telling them how great she is. I thought Pete and Mona were inventing their stuff.”

“They are, but not all of it. The nearer the truth they can get, the louder they’ll shout it—screwed around just enough to make Beebo look like the type of witch decent citizens should spend their Sundays burning.”

Pat’s chin trembled. “I could strike myself dumb,” he said bitterly.

Jack sat down and put an arm around him. “Just watch it, lover. She’s put herself in a spot to be crucified, if Pete has anything against her ... and Mona already has, or thinks she has. All that girl needs is a whim, anyway.”

* * * * *

The Bogardus home was located in a lush and secluded area of Mandeville Canyon Road in Bel-Air. It was huge, elegant, well-staffed and maintained. The grounds were a glowing sweep of hand-tailored grass, tropical palms exploding against the sky like green rockets, swimming pools—two—and the noisy brilliance of equatorial blooms.

Toby showed Beebo around. They walked over the lawns in bare feet, and Beebo marveled at it. It dazzled her eyes enough to take her mind off her sore heart a while. “Every time you push a button, somebody runs up with a martini,” she said. “It’s fantastic, Toby.”

“I wish it weren’t,” Toby said. “I wish I had an ordinary house to live in.”

“Poor little rich boy,” she grinned. “Wants an ordinary mama and papa, too, no doubt. Maybe when you’re older you’ll be glad you’re different.”

“How would you know? You didn’t have to grow up this way.”

“No, but I had to grow up,” Beebo said. “I would have traded my problems for yours any day.”

“That’s what Leo says. His family didn’t have a dime,” Toby told her as they picked their way over the manufactured rustic rocks circling one of the pools.

“Where is that guy, anyway?” Beebo said. Leo worried her, like a family ghost: much was made of him, yet he was rarely seen.

“He’s in S.F.,” Toby said. “The servants expect him back the end of the week. He’s talking to a sponsor for Mom’s show.”

“What’s he like? How do you talk to him?” Beebo said.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry. He likes kids. Besides, he’s been talking about getting somebody to help with the horses for years.” Beebo felt a sudden wave of relief. She had not brought up the reason for her presence here, and it seemed odd to her that Toby hadn’t either—till she realized how Venus had explained it to him. “Besides,” Toby added, “it’ll be nice to have you around. You can help me with my homework. You ought to be good with the biology. For once, Mom didn’t get a square for me.”

Beebo wondered how many other young people had preceded her in this household; how many synthetic friendships with young tutors, horsemen, and valets Venus had tried to promote for Toby, hoping he would turn into the easy-mannered socialite she somehow pictured him when he was grown.

At least it was reassuring to have a job, something legitimate to do to explain her membership on the family staff.

Toby sat down at the pool’s edge and put his legs in the cool water. He was well-developed for his age, though still only five-feet-six. Beebo looked at his young male body, so carelessly normal, and she envied him painfully.

“Leo’s jealous, but he’s tolerant, too,” Toby said. “I mean, he’s put up with so damn many men tailing Mom, he knows how to outsmart or outlast all of them. He doesn’t like it much, but he knows she needs them. At least, that’s what _she_ says. I don’t know why a woman can’t be happy with one man ... especially if he’s a good one.”

“Some women can,” Beebo said. But she was thinking that a man of Leo’s knowledge and well-founded suspicions would doubtless take one look at Beebo and know good and damn well what his beautiful wife was up to. There was nothing to do but wait till he got home for the showdown.

* * * * *

She confronted Venus with her misgivings about Leo. “He won’t hurt you, darling,” Venus said. “Don’t offend him and don’t defy him. He’s nervous as hell with a girl around the house.”

“If he puts up with your men, why not with your women?” Beebo said gloomily.

“I never cared much for the other girls,” Venus said circuitously. “Only for you.”

“Well, that ought to ingratiate me with Leo for good,” Beebo said.

“Leo’s afraid for my career. I guess that’s the only thing we agree on. My ‘normal’ affairs have scandalized enough people as it is. A gay love—if it got out—would finish me, Beebo.” She looked at her apologetically. “It’s hard for me to fight Leo. He—sort of—owns me. Economically, I mean, like he owns this house.”

“Do you really hate him, Venus?”

Venus picked at a nonexistent thread on her skirt. “I guess he’s a kindly man at heart. I think I’ve ruined his temperament.” She put her arms around Beebo as they lounged on her private sun porch. “Beebo, are you sorry you’re gay? Are you bitter about it?”

“Yes,” Beebo said, and Venus frowned. “All day long, when you go off to the studio, I’m sorry as hell. At night, I get down on my knees and give thanks.”

“There must have been bad times before I came along.”

Beebo surfaced from a kiss on Venus’s golden shoulder. “When I was younger, I used to look out my bedroom window on summer nights,” she said, “and the brightest star in the sky was Venus. I wanted to reach out and take it in my hand. Put it in a box and make it mine forever.”

Venus chuckled. “I’m not in a box yet, thank God. And I’m a lot handier than that dreadful planet.”

Beebo settled closer to her and said with comfortable intimacy, “I want to share so many things with you, Venus. I want to see you sparkling at parties ... take you shopping ... watch you at rehearsals....”

“You can’t,” Venus said, putting a finger on Beebo’s nose. Beebo brushed it off, protesting. “There won’t be time, for one thing,” Venus explained. “Not while we’re filming. And besides, Leo won’t let you. You’re too young, you’re too noticeable, and you’re too—well, female. I’ll have all I can do to keep him from putting _you_ in a box.”

“Well, of all the goddamn nonsense!” Beebo said, clouding up. “I just want to drive you places and wait. Watch you from a distance. I’m willing to be a servant, Venus, but not a dog on a leash.”

“Darling, use your head. What if we were seen together, and it was common knowledge you lived here and went everywhere with me and—oh, Beebo, don’t look so crushed. I don’t like it either.”

“You don’t want me around where you have to look at me all the time,” Beebo sulked.

“Darling, I can’t look at you enough!” Venus said, half-amused and half-concerned at the outburst. “You’re the handsomest thing I ever saw.”

“Is that what I am? A thing?” Beebo said, swinging her legs to the ground. She was surprised at herself for being pettish. But the moment she questioned herself about it, her thoughts flew to Paula. _Paula would never talk to me this way._

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Venus said.

“You don’t want your _things_ following you around in public.”

“Beebo!” Venus cried, hurt. “I love you!” Her words made Beebo turn back and take Venus in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” she said, realizing all at once that Venus was crying.

“I adore you,” Venus wept. “I feel so free with you. Able to do the things that used to terrify me. Able to _think_ about them without shame. I never let go like this with anybody in my life, Beebo.” She clung to her. “Darling, don’t shout at me for the things we can’t have. Be glad with me for the things we _can_. I’m trying to look at the world more charitably, Beebo—for you and for Toby. You try to look at me that way. Don’t just love me, understand me. I need it so.” She wiped her tears on Beebo’s shirt and glanced up at her.

“You know something silly? I want to dress up for you. I want to sit and hear you talk. I don’t care whether I say a word. I want to be a real actress, not an obedient puppet. I even want to mother my son. When you tell me to do a thing, I fret for the chance to try.”

Beebo stared at her, amazed at this oddly touching admission. “I even got a bunch of pamphlets from the Department of Agriculture,” Venus said, “on how to raise chickens and wean calves.”

Beebo succumbed to laughter. “All you had to do was ask me,” she said.

“I’ll show them to you,” Venus offered, trying to get up, but Beebo pulled her down again, her fit of pique soothed away.

“I’ll take your word for it,” she said. “Besides, I’ve got you half undressed. What would the servants say?”

“They’d say Venus is in love,” Venus answered, letting Beebo hold her. “And they’d be right.”

Beebo made love to her with a new tenderness. And yet, again, when they fell asleep, she dreamed restlessly of Paula Ash.

* * * * *

Venus began to spend all the daylight hours, and some of the night, with the production staff of _Million Dollar Baby_. Leo returned from San Francisco, but Beebo would not have known it if Toby hadn’t pointed it out.

They had been all day riding Leo’s horses in the boulder meadow surrounding the Bogardus estate, and when they got in, Toby announced, “Leo’s back.”

“How do you know?” Beebo asked, suddenly on her guard.

“Orange-juice glass,” Toby said, pointing to a brandy snifter with an orange puddle at the bottom, sitting on an end table. “That’s all Leo ever drinks. He says we’ve got orange trees in the yard and the juice is free. He likes things that are free. Besides, he’s always on a health kick. Right now it’s citric acid. When he’s home there’s always a mess of sticky glasses around.”

“He’s not going to like seeing _me_ around,” Beebo said glumly.

“Why not?” Toby looked at her curiously. “The stables are cleaned up for the first time in a year. And Mom is getting so nice to be around.... Gee, Beebo, he’ll probably hang a medal on you.”

Beebo understood from his answer how little aware he was of his mother’s relationship with her. He had grown to trust Beebo, as well as like her, and as far as he knew, she was there only to help out with the horses during the day and look over his homework at night. The fact that she had been able to encourage Venus and Toby to try to know and respect each other at last was the frosting on the cake.

But after he went to bed, Beebo would go to Venus’s room. They were lovers at night, but during the day, if Venus was home, she had to be as breezy and casual with Beebo as she was with everybody else.

As for Leo, Beebo didn’t meet him for nearly a week. He got up at six A.M. and left the house by seven, before Beebo was stirring. He looked in on her with Venus once. Beebo was awakened early by the click of the bedroom door shutting behind him. But when she asked Venus about it, Venus only said, “I told him you were a farm kid. He likes that. It makes you a sort of walking health exhibit.”

“Does he like the fact that I’m a girl?”

“Not a bit,” Venus said with a grin, refusing to spoil the moment by elaborating.

Beebo dodged around squads of empty orange-juice glasses for several days with the eerie feeling that the ghost who emptied them would come cackling out of the rafters at her before long.

* * * * *

The night they finally met, Beebo had been living under Leo’s roof for over two weeks, using his hospitality without ever having seen or spoken to him.

She was sitting in the huge recreation room with Venus and Toby, watching TV and listening to Venus tell about the casting problems, wardrobe, scripts she had read.

Beebo commented quietly, “It takes up your whole life, doesn’t it?”

Venus looked at her anxiously. “You’re lonesome during the day, aren’t you, darling?” She threw a guarded glance at Toby, but he spoke without taking his eyes off the TV screen: “What do you mean, lonesome, Mom? She’s busy all day. Besides, I get home from school at four, and I’m better company than you are.”

Venus smiled and reached out to hug him. She startled herself as much as Toby, but he endured the embrace with less embarrassment than he would have felt the month before in New York.

“When is that PTA thing at school?” Venus said. “I want to go with you, Toby.” _Toby._ His name. The first time in memory she had called him that when she wasn’t in a rage. Beebo saw the smile in his eyes.

“You can go if you promise not to call anybody ‘darling’ or wear a knit dress,” he said.

Venus gasped and Beebo laughed at him, looking behind his back at Venus. “All right, darling, I promise,” Venus said wryly. “If _you_ promise not to ditch me this year, and tell lies to your friends about how I do the dishes every night, like all the other mothers.”

Toby smiled without looking at her, and it was a bargain. Beebo felt her own satisfaction at this bashful honesty between mother and son. And then Venus surprised her by saying, “Beebo, I’m going to get you a car. It isn’t fair to make you shovel manure all day.”

“What would I do with a car?” Beebo said, mystified at the sudden generosity.

“You could ferry Toby around. Pick up the groceries for Miss Pinch. Maybe we’ll get something to eat that isn’t poisonous for a change.”

“Miss Pinch doesn’t use poison,” said a gravelly voice. “Just too much paprika. It’s her Hungarian heritage.”

Beebo turned around with a start to see, at long last, Leo Bogardus coming down the wide steps to join them.

“Well, darling, you should know,” Venus said. “You and Miss Pinch have such a beautiful thing together.”

Leo strode across the room, a solid, rather squarely built man; gray hair and gray suit; neat and natty and silver-eyed behind his black French-framed glasses. He was about Beebo’s height and attractive without being handsome.

Beebo stood up to greet him, somewhat subdued. “Mr. Bogardus? I’m Beebo,” she said and held out her hand.

Leo put a just-drained orange-juice glass on a table. “I know,” he said. “I hope you’ll be comfortable with us, for as long as you stay, Beebo.” He shook her hand briefly.

Beebo wasn’t sure if he meant to be sarcastic or not. She let her hand drop awkwardly and sat down again as Bogardus settled in a chair, trying to size him up. His face was clean-lined and his manner decisive. She imagined him quick to anger, stubborn, and hard to handle when he was mad.

“You’re picking them younger every year, Venus,” Leo said five minutes later, without once having looked at Beebo in the meantime.

Venus grimaced a warning at him over Toby’s head to shut up. Leo nodded wearily.

“I don’t pick them, darling; they pick me,” she said in a pointed whisper.

To Beebo’s discomfiture, Leo gazed straight at her then and laughed with a honk of mirth. Moments later he got up and left as abruptly as he came, and Beebo spoke not another word to him for several more days. She had just begun to hope she wouldn’t have to at all. It would have suited her, not because she disliked him—she didn’t. Considering her position in his house, he was more than decent. But he scared her. He was no ghost, but he was still the unknown quantity.

Fortunately, the next few times they saw each other there was only time for small talk, and no more.

* * * * *

Venus got her the car before the end of the week—a silver sport coupé—and Beebo and Toby cruised around Hollywood and the coastal communities when he got home from school in the afternoons.

Toby kept on talking, confiding in her, and she began to see how much he respected and liked Leo; how strongly he sided with his step-father in any argument between Leo and Venus; what a source of strength Leo was to him. Here was no dirty dog like the rest of the boys. Here was a man to admire and emulate, and Toby did. Leo was good for him, and Beebo was glad they had each other.

Beebo felt conspicuous, even though they rarely stopped the car or got out. She was afraid somebody would recognize Toby, and she hated to be stared at, with her short hair and slacks and casual cotton shirts. Skirts looked wrong on her and men’s pants looked fake.

She looked the best in riding wear: a formal tight-waisted jacket and white stock, hard velvet cap, smooth leather boots, jodhpurs. The kind of clothes she used to wear at shows around Juniper Hill, when she won ribbons for jumping other people’s horses. She had a lithe elegance that the riding clothes dramatized.

But you can’t walk into Schwab’s drugstore in formal riding clothes. At least not if you have orders to make yourself invisible. Beebo began to feel hemmed in. The only safe place in the county of Los Angeles was the Bogardus estate, and even there she worried about guests and servants.

Miss Pinch disapproved sniffily of her, but she’d probably hold her tongue for Leo’s sake. Mrs. Sack was as plump and amiable as a currant bun, and about as perceptive. The others were a shadowy and obsequious crew whom Beebo rarely saw, yet she distrusted them all.

* * * * *

In the evenings, when she was alone, Beebo started writing to Paula and Jack. They were short letters at first, though the ones to Jack were longer and franker. To Paula, she described the flash of October across the southern California landscape; the whipped-cream weather, the purple hills, the flowers.

To Jack she said, “Venus is wonderful. She’s working so hard I hardly ever see her, though. But she says she’d spend every minute with me if she could. Nobody else exists but me. It’s funny—that looks so made-up on paper. But she really said it, and I believe her.

“I almost never see Leo, either. When I run into him, I ask about his diet and he asks me about the horses. I think he’s a good man—good for Toby—but I’d hate like hell to have him mad at me.

“I guess the one thing I don’t like about it here is being alone so much. Even Toby’s gone till late in the day. What a nice kid he is, underneath the shell. He wants to be somebody in his own right, and I’ll bet he makes it.

“How is that doll you room with? Please write and tell me _everything_ about Paula. Best—Beebo.”

* * * * *

There was no trouble between Leo and Beebo until the day she and Toby picked Venus up at the studio in Television City. They knew she was coming home early to prepare for a party, and they talked one another into it like a pair of school boys ditching class for a day to have a ball. It seemed quite innocuous, and yet rather worldly and exciting when they discussed it, tooling around in the silver car.

But when they actually arrived in that principality of a parking lot, they were rather abashed.

“What if she doesn’t see us?” Toby said.

“That’d probably be all for the best,” Beebo said.

But Venus saw them plain and clear when she emerged from the building, surrounded by aides and admirers. She walked briskly to the car, surprising the crowd which began to straggle after her, opened the door, and pulled Toby out by his collar.

“Darling,” she said smoothly, “I want you to meet Mr. Wilkins and Mr. Klein. Boys, will you introduce him around for me?” She smiled at one of the men who quickly obliged her.

Venus thrust her head into the car. “Beebo, what the hell!” she hissed.

“I’m sorry—we thought it would be fun,” Beebo faltered.

“You thought—” Venus shut her eyes a minute and swallowed her temper. “Oh, balls. I’m not going to get mad at you. I can’t, I’m too much in love with you. But oh! you fool, _Leo_ can. I hope to God he doesn’t hear about it.” She withdrew, collared Toby again, and popped him into the front seat, sitting down beside him to wave and smile at the group of people so charmingly that no one but herself was likely to be noticed as they pulled away.

* * * * *

The sponsors for _Million Dollar Baby_ were openhanded, despite long rehearsal hours and high rents and salaries, because they figured that with Venus in the show, it had to be a smash. So Leo, anxious to live up to their expectations, worked her unremittingly day and night throughout October.

Venus not only had to act, she had to dance and sing. The big number for the second show, then in production, was “I’m Putting My All On You.”

“I never sang before in my life!” Venus yelled at Leo.

“Marilyn Monroe can do it,” he said softly, infuriating her.

“Leo, _I can’t sing_!” she cried, trying to explain fundamentals to him as if he were retarded.

“Well, don’t,” Beebo said, surprising both of them. She was watching the scene in the Bogardus rec room. Leo threw her an irritated look, and Beebo explained quickly, “_Talk_ the song. Whisper and wiggle like Marlene Dietrich. Venus, Leo’s right. You have to live up to the title. _Million Dollar Baby._ God, you ought to be able to do anything for that price, including grand opera.”

Leo laughed, a clattering jangle of a sound, while Venus salved her wounds in prim silence, peeved at Beebo for backing up her husband.

“Now, you see?” Leo told her, waving at Beebo. “That’s it. Beebo can see it. Why can’t you? I tell you the same damn thing and you squawk at me like a fishwife. Okay, I’m not young and handsome, but I’m smart. That’s how you got where we are today. You do this right, and you’ll get more than that million.”

Beebo watched him with interest as he directed Venus. He was electrically alive, cunning in the way he teased and bullied and loved the song out of her. Beebo could almost feel the tune, the words, Venus herself, coming to life. Leo was a good seat-of-the-pants psychologist.

After several run-throughs he turned to Beebo. “You’re helping,” he said laconically. “She sings better for you than for me. I show her what to do. You make her feel it.” He scratched his head, then let his shirt-sleeved arms drop. “That’s okay, as long as she doesn’t lose it at the studio,” he decided. “Maybe we’ll let you watch some other scenes at home, Beebo.”

Beebo grinned. It was a relief to participate at last in the paramount sphere of Venus’s life.

“It helps to have her in love again,” Leo observed candidly. “Makes her much more responsive.”

“Don’t talk about me as if I were a machine,” Venus flashed at him. “And don’t laugh at me. I know how silly you think it is. I _know_ Beebo’s too young.”

Leo sat down on a leather-topped bar stool. “You’re happy, Beebo?” he asked.

Beebo nodded, wondering where he was going.

“It’s rough, isn’t it? Venus isn’t home much these days. And you have nothing to do but goof around in that car.”

“I get along,” Beebo said cautiously. “Are you against the car, Leo?”

“No, just the taxi service.” There was a deadly pause, and Leo’s face folded into a heavy frown. Beebo was lost for a moment, till Venus sighed and lighted a cigarette with angry movements. “Who squealed?” she said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Leo said crisply. “I don’t like the idea of you two ladies consorting in public.”

“Leo, don’t pull that solemn face on me,” Venus said. “She and Toby came together. They picked me up at work. Nobody saw her face—”

“Nobody had to,” Leo said, taking a drag on his cigarette.

“Look, Leo, let’s not fight over it,” Beebo said. “Be reasonable. Things are working out all right. I’m discreet and I swear I’ll never—”

“I know, you’ll never do anything to hurt darling Venus,” Leo said acidly. His eyes narrowed, and he began to pace the room. When either of the women tried to speak he silenced them with a gesture.

Finally Venus said, “That poor kid never goes anywhere. She deserves—”

“She deserves to torpedo your career, just to alleviate her ennui?”

“Well, damn it, Leo, if you turn her out, I’m going with her. I happen to be in love with Beebo and I don’t give a damn what you think of it.”

“Venus, go upstairs,” Leo said. He lighted a cigar—a concession to his mental distress. When Venus objected he said, “Will you please go?” as if she were a naughty child. He was almost fatherly with her. “I can’t talk to Beebo with such a distraction as you around.” He made her hope he and Beebo would understand each other. She left slowly, telling Beebo not to believe a word Leo said.

* * * * *

Leo stopped his pacing and sat down to face Beebo. “There’s too much at stake, Beebo,” he said at once. “I can’t tolerate even small slip-ups. Venus is silly, but that’s no excuse for you. You’re a sensible kid.”

“But Leo, such a little thing—”

“Nothing is little, Beebo,” he said. “Let’s be frank with each other. It worries me enough that you’re so young. At least her other lovers were nearer her own age. But to have you a girl....” He puffed rapidly on the cigar. “I won’t disguise the fact that I find you rather ... well, unsympathetic. I think most normal men would. Partly from masculine resentment, I guess. A natural revulsion for women who parade as poor imitations of men, but—”

“You liked me well enough when you got home and found Venus acting like a lovable human being,” Beebo interrupted him heatedly. “I’m the same person now as then. I just happened to pick her up in a parking lot and drive her home.”

“The guy who told me about it,” Leo said thoughtfully, “said Venus was picked up by a good-looking boy. A friend of Toby’s he supposed. Of course, you were hard to see inside the car. But Venus had told him, when she saw you pull up, that you were one of the servants. So he was a little surprised to see her jump in the front seat with you ... and you didn’t have a uniform on, either. He was giving me the old elbow-in-the-ribs treatment.” He blew cigar smoke at the ceiling without looking at her.

Beebo cleared her throat. “It was so innocent,” she said.

“Nothing is innocent,” Leo said flatly. “Especially a classy young butch on the make.”

“Damn it, Leo!” she said. “I’m clean, I’m healthy, I’ve worked hard all my life. And so help me God, I’m not ashamed of being what I can’t _help_ being. That’s the road to madness.” Her cheeks were crimson.

“Well said, Beebo,” he acknowledged calmly. “You’re right—but so am I. You might as well face up to the world’s opinion. I speak for the ordinary prejudiced guy, too busy to learn tolerance, too uninformed to give a damn. We are in the majority. I admire your guts but not your person. As for the intolerance, it’s mostly emotional and illogical. I can’t help it and neither can most men. I apologize. I warn you that it’s there. I add: it’s beside the point.

“What I think of you is less important than what the people in Venus’s world think. I don’t care what you say, somebody in this world besides the Bogardus family knows you’re living here and laying my wife. It’s no secret from the servants, you know.”

Beebo caught her breath and Leo looked at her piercingly. “I’ve heard them laughing about it,” he said. “And our servants bat the breeze with the other stars’ servants. They know more guff about us—what we eat, when we pee, who our lovers are—than all the gossip columnists rolled into one and stashed behind the keyhole. All I can say is, I pay them and most of them like me. Not Venus, not you. But _me_. I hope they respect my privacy, but I know human nature. Sooner or later they’ll blab.”

Beebo rubbed a hand over her eyes, angry and frightened. “Well, if it’s so bad, why the hell did Venus bring me out here? She must have known how it would be.”

“Venus isn’t very big for denying herself what she wants,” Leo said. “Besides, there’s a lot to be said in your favor. Venus is more stable. She means it when she says she loves you. I believe that, Beebo, and I hope you do. Her love is a unique gift, and I tell you honestly that I envy you it. It has transformed her.”

Beebo was flattered and surprised to hear this coming from Leo. She felt suddenly sorry for him. He seemed gray all over, from his damp shirt to his strained face.

“I struggled for years to win her love ... my God, just to win her attention. I finally decided there was no love in her, not even for poor Toby. You proved me wrong, and in a way I’m grateful to you. Venus will never be an easy woman to live with, but she’s improved measurably with you, and I think some of it will last long after you’ve left us.”

“Left you?” Beebo opened her mouth to protest but was bull-dozed by his rush of words.

“Her tantrums now are kid stuff compared to the blasts we used to get. Now, I get a sort of half-assed cooperation. Toby gets some affection. The servants get some peace. And that’s a lot when you’re starting from zero.”

Beebo was taken aback by it.

“I thank you for that, Beebo. I thank you for being discreet most of the time, when it’s boring and humiliating. But I have to look at the other side of the coin. Venus has survived some potentially filthy scandals because she has the smartest director and press agent in the world: me. But it took all I’ve got and more to keep them out of the papers. Sometimes the only way was to jump in front of her and take the crap meant for Venus on my own kisser, just to keep her clean. I’d do it again if I had to, but I don’t want to do it for you. If it gets out she’s sleeping with a girl, we’re dead. All of us.

“Venus makes a touching speech about walking out of here with you if anything goes wrong, but she won’t, Beebo. Don’t kid yourself. Don’t get hurt worse than you have to be when the end comes.”

Beebo was too mad at him and too proud to admit any such thing. “The end won’t come, Leo,” she flared. “She’s in love with me and that makes her a different woman from the one you’ve always known. You can’t make predictions about her.”

“I can predict anything about that woman, Beebo,” he said in a sad voice that mourned the passing of mystery in his love. “I wish there were something left in her for me to worship. You forget that there was a great love in her life before Beebo Brinker came along and that love will last to the end, long after Beebo falls by the wayside. That’s self-love. She loves herself more than she loves you.”

“You’re unjust, Leo. She’s told me—”

“Sure—that she only loves the money, the career. Why, Beebo? Because they glorify the _woman_. The woman she loves—herself.”

Beebo stared at him, silenced.

“You flatter her, you kid her, you make a good try at understanding her, despite your blind spots. And you’re also nuts about her, which she finds very ingratiating. Plus the fact of your femininity ... something I will never understand. You know, she’s tried this Lesbian stuff before.”

“She said you objected pretty violently.”

“Hell, yes. It’s much more dangerous than a normal affair. I’m no blue-stocking. I’m for falling in love and making it work, as long as it doesn’t hurt other people. It has nothing to do with my emotional prejudices. Intellectually, I’m damned fair. The only two people Venus hurts are me and Toby. I give her hell about Toby; I try to protect him. But letting Venus hurt me is the abiding condition of my life. The rock on which our marriage is built.”

Beebo listened, rooted with fascination, shock, pity, distaste. He was making an accomplice of her by revealing the secrets of his life with Venus; putting her in a spot where she would be virtually obligated to help him, if only to save all their skins.

“But when I see disaster coming,” Leo went on, “that will crush our son, destroy her career, ruin all our lives—I have to act. Beebo, you’re eighteen. You’re among the adults. I lay this on the line to you. I’d ask you to leave of your own free will, if I thought you had any left. But you’re too infatuated for that. All I’ll say now is, stay out of sight, watch the servants, and do as I say.”

“Look, Leo, I know you’re bending over backwards for me,” Beebo said. “I appreciate it. Since I’ve been here you’ve been just a face to me, but a kind enough face. Now I see you’re not just an operator—you’re an intelligent and honest man. And it’s too bad Venus won’t admit it. I think she could have loved you if she had.

“But if you’re working up to telling me that no matter how good a kid I am, I’m going to have to pack up one of these days and blow, I’m sorry. I can’t go.” _Unless_, she thought, _I go for Paula. I’ll never go because I’m pushed._

“No,” he said. “I’ll tell you precisely what the situation is. I should have talked to you about this before. You should know where I stand. It must never—under any circumstances—get out that you’re queer, much less involved with Venus.” He spoke without self-consciousness, his voice coming sharp and sure. Beebo wondered if his long experience with “artistic” types had made him a little wiser than other men.