Chapter VIII: Part 8

“I found Venus when she was about your age: just plain Jeanie Jacoby from Fostoria, Ohio,” Leo said. “She wrote me a letter saying she was beautiful, available, and hated her family, and would I please make her a star. She enclosed a snapshot. And she added that she was writing me because I was the biggest agent in Hollywood. It was pure guff, but her picture got me.

“Later I found out she wrote the same letter to twenty other guys. But I was the one who fell for it and sent her a ticket for L.A. I figured if only half of what I saw in the pic was for real, I could still sell her and make a fortune. Well, she came. I saw. She conquered. I named her Venus for the obvious reason, and Bogardus because I guessed I’d never have the chance to give her my own name any other way. I never thought we’d marry.

“I loved her the day we met, for all the wrong reasons, and I love her still. My reasons haven’t improved any.

“I was just an agent, but I went out and worked my ass off and got her going. I launched her. She would have sunk after a couple of the flops she made if they hadn’t let me direct her finally. I made an actress out of her and saved her career.

“When her star rose, so did mine. Her success was the only thing we loved together and cried over and cherished—together. I watched her run through five lousy marriages in ten years. And when she was weary and demoralized, I stepped in like Sir Galahad, thinking I could make her happy. I was delirious when she said yes, and I think even Venus was pleased. Till the honeymoon was over.

“I suppose she’s told you what it was like. Things have been more peaceful with you around. But we’ve driven each other to mayhem in years past. She thinks she wants her freedom. But she’d come back to me, Beebo, even if she got it. She needs me as much as I need her. (Don’t tell her that, she won’t believe it.) I’ll never divorce her. I love her enough to prefer the torment of living with her to the torment of living without her.”

He stopped a moment, fixing Beebo with his silver eyes to impress his next words on her. “That is one hell of a terrible lot of love, Beebo,” he said slowly. “I doubt if you could top it. There’s one thing Venus and I agree on: I made her and I’m keeping her on top. If she didn’t care about that, she wouldn’t care about me, either.

“Listen, Beebo. I don’t want her ever to love you more than herself. And if I see it coming, I’ll fight you. I’ll bring out every drop of self-love and self-pity and money-lust in her system—and she’s got more of it than she has blood. Because if she drops her career, she’ll drop me with it.” He paused and they looked at each other.

“That’s it, Beebo,” Leo said at last. “I’m sorry if it sounds egotistic to you. You just mind me, and maybe we’ll make it for a while. I don’t know what you can do about Toby. He doesn’t get the picture about you and his mother yet, but he will. He’s a bright kid. But don’t go out of your way to tell him. It’s going to stagger him. I’ll try to explain when he catches on.

“If anything comes up, deny it. I give you this chance because of what you’ve done for Venus. Don’t make me regret it.”

“I don’t know whether to thank you or kick you in the slats,” Beebo said sourly. “You make it sound like a great life.”

“Did anyone tell you to expect something else?” Leo said. “You’ve been living it the last two months. You should be used to it.”

“Used to it but not fond of it,” she said.

“But fond of Venus ... enough to put up with it? Because if you aren’t, say so. I’ve been honest enough with you to hurt myself, Beebo. You be that honest with me.”

Beebo’s gaze fell. “I’ll put up with it,” she said, but her voice was rough with resentment.

“I’m sorry, Beebo,” Leo said, and though his masculine aversion to her was as real as he declared, he was still capable of a restrained sympathy for her. “The world wasn’t made for dykes, you know.”

“No,” she flashed. “It was made for movie queens and their tyrannical husbands.”

Leo hunched his shoulders, unoffended. “The world was made for normal people,” he said. “The abnormal in this world have a tough go. If they keep their abnormality secret, they’re damnably lonely. If they broadcast it, they’re damnably hurt. You were born with that, and you’ll have to live with it, the way I have to live with Venus’s faults.”

Beebo was impressed with his sensitivity. But she answered moodily, “I don’t feel so damned abnormal, thanks. I feel as normal as you do. I eat three meals a day, I pay my bills, I respect the other guy.”

“Well, I can tell you, society doesn’t give a hoot in hell how normal you _feel_, Beebo. You _look_ queer, and that’s enough. People are waiting around to throw some crap your way.”

“What about the queers who look normal?” Beebo demanded.

“They have a chance,” he said. “They can hide. You can’t. And when the stuff hits the fan, I don’t want Venus anywhere near you. You can have it all to yourself.”

“You’re a pretty goddamn infuriating individual, Leo,” Beebo said.

“Sure,” he agreed, getting up and stamping the cigar butt into the tile floor. “An honest man always is. I’ve said some harsh things to you, but they were true. And I’ve permitted you to stay on—conditionally. You know the conditions, my friend, and if you feel like ignoring them, you’d better feel like saying goodby, too. You dig?”

“I dig,” Beebo said, glowering at him from the sofa.

* * * * *

She wrote to Jack that night, sitting in one of the unused spare rooms, where she was shunted when Venus was out. She recounted a little of what Leo had said.

“God, Jack, it makes you want to go out and convert the whole damn world to homosexuality,” she told him. “Just so you can walk down the street with your head up.

“Maybe I grew up too fast, maybe that’s my trouble. I feel so lost out here ... hung up between two worlds; half-kid and half-adult, half-boy and half-girl. And sometimes it seems like I get the dirty side of both. Leo’s whole life is one long compromise ... maybe that’s what he was trying to tell me about mine.

“I wanted Venus and I got her, but I’m not sure having her is worth the shame and secrecy of it. I’m strong and tall as a boy, but I’m not free as a man. I wanted to be gentle and loving with women, but I can’t be feminine.

“Venus tries to make it better for me. She argues with Leo to let me out more. She gives me things all the time—money, clothes, anything—and it makes me realize how much she thinks about me when she’s working. She’s even been going to Toby’s PTA meetings.

“And damn it, Jack, I know she loves me. She proves it to me whenever she’s home. But that’s the catch—that whenever. It gets later every day, and she’s so tired. She never says no, but I feel like a dog.

“You know something? I wish all this had happened to me ten years from now. You said that about Paula, but you were wrong. Paula was just what I needed. I miss that girl, Jack. I sit here on these long empty days and dream about her. My letters to her are awful, I don’t know what to say. Say I love her for me, will you?

“No—better not. Because I don’t know how I can leave Venus, and I’m still not sure I want to. God, what a mess!”

* * * * *

Leo confronted her one morning two days later and said, “Lay off Venus a little, Beebo. She has circles under her eyes.”

Beebo, still half-asleep by herself in Venus’s bed, mumbled at him and sat up.

“Her eyes don’t photograph well. She looks her age and that’s no good,” Leo said. “She gets home at midnight, pooped, and you light into her for another couple of hours. She’s too crazy about you to say no, but she has to get up at six-thirty next day, while you lie around till noon.”

Beebo rubbed her eyes. “Leo, I don’t force her to make love to me,” she said, trying to clear her head. “She _wants_ to.”

“Well, she can’t. Not till next Tuesday. That’s the première showing and we’re all under a hell of a strain till then.”

“My God,” Beebo whispered, almost to herself. “I have to give that up, too? Leo, what else is there?” She turned to him, scowling.

“After Tuesday night, whether we sink or swim, the whole cast and crew get a week off, and you can make up for lost time,” he said, gazing at her long form with curiosity; wondering how it could appeal to anybody, yet respecting his wife’s intense admiration. “I’m sorry, Beebo. It’s either continence, or I take her to a hotel. You choose.”

“I have so little of her, Leo. You’re asking me to do without even the little I have.” She put her head down on her knees.

“Just for a few days.”

She lay down on the bed, turning her back to him, and Leo watched her a moment before he shut the door.

* * * * *

In the half week before _Million Dollar Baby_ bowed, a oneliner appeared in a trade gossip column. It said, “Who’s been picking Venus Bogardus up at TV City in a silver sport coupé these days?”

Leo spotted it, underlined it in red, and left it on Venus’s dresser, where Beebo picked it up the next morning and read it with round-eyed shock.

The next day, another columnist asked, “What’s this about Venus Bogardus taking a personal interest in her son’s friends? Especially one near and dear to the family?” Leo underlined that one, too. Beebo read it while she was sitting alone in the spare room again. She was sleeping there till Tuesday night.

Leo made no comments in the margins. He didn’t have to. Beebo was scared enough at the unembellished print. She hadn’t seen Venus for a couple of days. Venus was too busy and after the hints in the papers, she and Leo removed to a hotel. Beebo was afraid for Venus, afraid for their love affair, and afraid for herself. If only Jack were there to help her. If only it had been possible to tell all to her father long ago and run to him now.

Toby saw how blue she was later in the day and tried to cheer her up. “Hey, don’t look so gloomy,” he said. “What’s got you down?”

Beebo looked at him. “Toby,” she said, almost hoping he wouldn’t hear. “Did you read the newspapers today?”

Toby’s face reddened and she wished immediately that she hadn’t brought it up. “I don’t read them,” he said. “I heard about it at school. Everybody wants to know which friend of mine they’re talking about. But they all think it’s a boy, naturally. I—I mean....” He paused, flustered, unwilling to hurt her. “There was a thing like this once before, Beebo, and it just wasn’t true. Leo proved it. He’ll get Mom out of this, he always does. There’s always some jerk waiting around to throw a scandal at the movie stars.” He sneaked a look at her to see if he was helping any.

“_I_ know it’s not true, Beebo, so don’t worry,” he said putting his hand on her arm. “You know I don’t believe that junk. You kid around, but you wouldn’t do anything like that.”

Beebo looked away from him. “I wouldn’t hurt your mother—” she began.

“I know,” he said, with surprising warmth and sympathy. “She’ll be okay, don’t worry. The thing that scares me is ... well, I don’t want you to leave us, Beebo. You’ve done so much for us. Besides, who’d help me with my biology? Honest—these gossipers—they’ll say anything about anybody.”

Beebo was touched by his anxiety. “I’m not going anywhere, Buddy,” she said. But she meant, _Not right now. Tomorrow, I may have no choice._ And Toby realized it.

Beebo was a thin line away from despair. All the charmingly confessed selfishness, that had seemed adorable in Venus at first, had become Beebo’s prison.

And having nothing else to do, Beebo studied Venus’s faults as never before. The self-love, the endless clichés. Venus might laugh at them, but she couldn’t abandon them. People said there was only one great glamour queen left in Hollywood: Venus Bogardus. And Venus thought they meant her trimmings—her velvet-paved boudoirs and flashy conceits; not her Self.

Beebo loved her with excited fascination still. And Venus loved Beebo as well and truly as she knew how. More, certainly, than anyone but Toby. And yet ... was that enough?

Beebo stood looking out the window of her room at twilight, taking in the grounds of the estate and the evening star. Venus. So high and bright and beautiful. And as far out of reach at that moment as ever it was when she was growing up back in Juniper Hill.

That night, when she tried to write to Jack again, she spoiled her page twice with tears and gave it up. She was trying not to admit that Venus had no room in her life for a gay lover; that theirs was a time-bomb romance, set to explode in their faces. The papers had lighted the fuse. And Beebo, looking at that perfect point of light in the black sky, knew in her heart that her days with Venus were numbered.

* * * * *

The morning of that crucial Tuesday, a nationally syndicated columnist who wielded huge power in Hollywood, said she was checking a New York source for verification of a shocking news item about one of the town’s greatest stars ... a woman, currently headlining a TV series.

Two other columnists pretended special information on the same subject, but all refused to reveal their information or describe the scandal till it was authenticated.

Venus was on trial that night. One columnist had snickered, “If Leo doesn’t mind, I don’t know why I should. After all, he’s been through this a dozen times.”

Even at that they had let her off pretty easily. But the atmosphere around her crackled. Fortunately, advance notices on _Baby_ were good. They had had a good schedule and an extravagant budget. And Leo, with bench-coaching from Beebo, had wheedled a radiant performance out of his wife.

Venus and Leo watched the broadcast on monitors at Television City with the whole _Baby_ company, and went on afterwards to a baroque party on the famous Restaurant Row of LaCienega Boulevard. They hit most of the eateries, picking up celebrities en route, and capping the bash at the home of a popular singer who had guest-starred on the opener.

The party was noisy and crazy, and Venus, a show-stopper in silver sequins, took Hollywood under her thumb, with the subtly effective aid of her husband. She had her arms around every man present at least once, as graceful and captivating as any lovely woman aware of her success. When she was twitted about the dark secrets mentioned in the papers, she laughed and told everyone she was screwing her cat, and the whole subject was swept away in the laughter that followed. Only Leo remained grave, smiling slightly and talking, but inwardly seething.

And Venus, if the truth were known, was even more disturbed than he.

* * * * *

Beebo saw the show in the Bogardus rec room with Toby. The house was eerily quiet. All the servants had been given the night off, except Venus’s correspondence secretary, a fussily officious young man; and Mrs. Sack, who never went anywhere anyway.

The show had hardly started before the phone began to ring: telegrams, roses at the front gate, long distance rhapsodies. The secretary took the calls, but Beebo and Toby picked up the red wall-phone and listened in to some.

At the station break, the secretary put his head in and said, “Beebo? Telegram for you.” He handed her the yellow envelope.

Beebo felt the bottom of her stomach sink southward. She was sure it couldn’t be good news. Not when she had left so much angry confusion behind in New York.

The wire was from Jack: “Get home, pal. N.Y. safer than L.A. Couple of people want your scalp. Jack.”

_What does he want me to do, go back and give it to them?_ she wondered, taking her worry out on Jack.

“Was it bad news?” Toby said, looking at her face. Beebo pursed her lips and nodded.

“A friend in New York. He says my enemies want me dead.”

Toby paled, started to ask about it, and suddenly turned back to the TV screen as if afraid to know the truth.

When the show was over, Toby and Beebo went for a walk on the lawn, meandering side by side and speaking little. Beebo was full of the shadow-image of Venus on the screen; glittering, gorgeous, inaccessible. Finally Toby stopped in a garden path, standing stiff-legged and staring back at the lighted windows of the empty living room. “Beebo,” he said. “You’re not going to leave, are you?” It was not just Beebo he feared to lose. It was his mother as well.

Beebo’s hands curled into fists. “I don’t know,” she said, so softly it was hard to hear her. She knew she was going to have to, that she was way beyond herself here. And yet not even the discouragements of boredom, shame, and abstinence had completely crushed her. She kept thinking of how it might have been.

“I feel so bad about it all,” Toby said. “They have no right to say those things about you. It makes me sick. Stay with us, Beebo. Leo will take care of you.”

His faith in Leo moved her. She wished she could risk the truth with him, without destroying him. She wished he could know somehow what she was, and that the knowledge would not make him loathe her.

Beebo stood beside him, silent in the night, letting him rant against the cruel accusations in the papers with youthful outrage, protesting his trust and affection, and she felt a terrible sob coming up in her throat.

Leo had forbidden her to tell him she was his mother’s lover. But it was the meanest sort of cowardice to let him stand there and thank her, and beg her to stay on, when all the while she was betraying his gratitude.

“Nobody in this world ever did so much for Mom and me,” he was saying. “Honest, Beebo. If you go now, it would ruin everything. I don’t see—”

“Toby, stop it! Please! Oh, God,” Beebo cried. The sob broke and her voice went hoarse. “Stop it, stop it, stop it!” She covered her face with her hands for a few agonized moments. Toby stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses, very much distressed at her sudden explosion. He tried clumsily to calm her.

“Did I say something wrong?” he asked apologetically.

“It’s no use, Toby,” Beebo cried, so brokenhearted that he was stunned. “I have to go.”

“Go where?”

“New York.”

“You said there were people back there who want to hurt you,” he objected, turning white again. “Beebo, if that’s true, you _can’t_ go. I won’t let you.”

“Anything would be better than here,” she said, looking at him in torment. “They’ll flay me alive out here—if not tomorrow, then the next day. Oh, Toby, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” The sobs silenced her for a minute. “Please believe me. I wouldn’t do this to you for the world, only—”

Toby turned and walked away.

She pursued him, calling anxiously, “Toby! Toby, wait!” She caught up as he was letting himself down gingerly on a stone bench, moving for all the world like an old man with bursitis. Beebo joined him, reaching out to touch him, then pulling back when he turned away.

“I don’t understand,” she heard him murmur. “I told you—Leo—don’t you believe me? He can help—if it were true, but it’s not—”

He frightened her. The words were so breathless and disjointed, the voice so small and hurt. He was rocking back and forth, as if shaken with sobs, but there was not the slightest sound audible now from his throat. “Toby? Are you all right?” Beebo said.

He moved around, again with that strange parody of crippled age, and seemed about to answer her, when all of a sudden he startled her by springing straight into the air with a weird howl. In the elapsed time of less than a second, Beebo realized he hadn’t sprung at all; he had been thrown upright by the abruptly powerful tensing of his entire muscular system. He was having an epileptic seizure.

And before she could move to help, he had fallen forward, rigid as a cigar store Indian. He struck his head on a decorative rock across the path when he hit the ground. Beebo cried out, horrified, and then dashed to his side, lifting him carefully off the gravel and onto the soft grass.

Her years of experience with sick animals and illness steadied her a little. She knew he mustn’t swallow his tongue but it was too late to put anything between his teeth. His jaws were locked shut. She rolled him gently on his side, thinking that he could breathe better and would be less likely to choke on his own saliva, which came foaming out of his clenched jaws. He was quivering like a vibrator machine and groaning uncontrollably while the white suds oozed from his mouth. It was a ghostly wail that made Beebo shiver. And yet she knew that a seizure—even one as alarming to see as this one—shouldn’t be a cause for panic. Aside from his contortions, it was the blow on his head that worried her, but she couldn’t get a look at it.

Toby’s feet were pointed downward, tight and hard as a toe dancer’s, and his arms were glued to his sides. Beebo was relieved when finally she felt him go limp. But it was then that she saw his forehead and gasped. There was a gash in it, deep and ragged. She began to tremble with alarm. Now that Toby was relaxed, the wound opened like a fountain. Such quantities of blood flowed over his face and onto Beebo and the ground beneath them that she felt almost sick.

She tried to pick him up, but her legs failed her momentarily and she collapsed beside him, sweating frantically.

“This won’t help him, idiot!” she berated herself. “Get up!” She tried again and made it, desperate to get him in the house and clean the wound. She wanted help, anybody, a doctor—Mrs. Sack. “Mrs. Sack!” she shouted suddenly, but there was no sound from the house. Mrs. Sack’s room was on the other side on the top floor and she would never hear Beebo calling from the lawn below.

Beebo lifted Toby and carried him into the house. She put him down on a satin-upholstered sofa, watching with pity and fear as the red blood soaked into the pink silk. She pressed her bare hand down hard on the wound and the flow abated slightly. Nearby was one of the house intercom phones, and Beebo reached it with her free hand.

“Mrs. Sack,” she said breathlessly. “I’m in the living room with Toby. He had an attack and hit his head. Call the doctor and then get down here—fast!”

Mrs. Sack rushed into the living room moments later, armed with rolls of gauze and tape and disinfectants. She stopped at the sight of Toby, so limp and colorless, except for the scarlet stains on his face and the sofa.

“I’ve been waiting for something like this all my life,” she said grimly. Beebo was astonished to see how firm and fearless she was; not at all the comfortable muffin she seemed when all was well with her boy. “We’ve had some bad falls before, but not like this.”

“Is the doctor coming?” Beebo asked.

“Yes, in ten minutes.” She knelt by Toby, washing the wound while Beebo watched.

“Shall I call Venus?” Beebo said.

“No,” said Mrs. Sack emphatically. “She’s worse than nothing in a crisis. She goes all to pieces. It doesn’t help Toby and it certainly doesn’t help the doctor.”

Beebo thought, _I should be grateful she’s here—she knows just what to do_. And yet she was distressed to think that Venus should be playing goddess at a party while her son lay hurt and bleeding—and no one was making a move to tell her.

“She has to be told, Mrs. Sack,” Beebo said.

“Go and tell her, if you must,” Mrs. Sack said. “She can meet us at the hospital. At least over there they can give her a sedative.”

Beebo stood uncertainly by the phone, trying to picture herself walking in on the fancy party in her bloody slacks; infinitely preferring to call.

Mrs. Sack looked around. “Beebo, this boy is more my child than hers—she says so herself,” she said unexpectedly. “All his life he’s come to me when he was hurt, and I’m the one who knows how to care for him. Not her. It’s my job. My life.” She was as proud and strong in her words as a soldier bristling with defense.

To Beebo, staring at her, it became clear that Venus didn’t just give Toby up. Toby was deftly taken from her by this plump, kindhearted woman who never had a child of her own, but was obviously made to mother one. She believed Toby was truly her child because Venus had forfeited her right to him, even the right to be there to comfort him and patch his wounds.

“Mrs. Bogardus could have had him when he was born,” Mrs. Sack went on, ministering to Toby. “But she practically threw him at me. And I was overjoyed to have a little son to raise and love. She can’t walk in here like a queen and demand him back, just because he cuts himself and scares her.”

Beebo went over and patted Mrs. Sack’s shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “Nobody’s criticizing you, Mrs. Sack. But Venus is his mother, no matter how much you’ve done for him or how much you love him.”

“If you call that woman,” Mrs. Sack said, turning around and standing up to italicize her words, “_I will not be responsible_ for the condition of this boy. Beebo, you’re a nice youngster and you’re his friend. It’ll be bad enough for Venus to see him at the hospital, but if she comes racing in here shrieking bloody murder, she’s likely to make Toby believe it. Do you want a sick boy or a dead one on your conscience?”

Beebo ran a distraught hand through her hair. “But Mrs. Sack, I _can’t_ go get her.”

“Nonsense. Just change your clothes and drive over. It should take you about half an hour, and by that time the doctor will be with us and Toby will be at the hospital.”

“But the papers ...” Beebo muttered.

“I don’t read the papers, Beebo, but I’m quite sure they’ll forgive you for getting the mother of a sick boy from a party.” She had turned back to Toby. “It’s an emergency and there’s no one else to go.”

“What about Rod—her secretary?”

“He doesn’t drive. And besides, he overdramatizes everything. He’d really fix Mrs. Bogardus.” Mrs. Sack didn’t seem to care whether Beebo ever got there. But Beebo knew Venus had to be told at once. Venus herself had admitted to hysterical behavior in the face of Toby’s attacks. Perhaps the only way then was to pick her up and drive her to the hospital, as Mrs. Sack suggested.

Beebo put on some clean clothes in her room, and as she ran down the stairs again, headed for her car, she heard the newly-arrived doctor saying on the phone, “Yes, a concussion. Get an ambulance over here.” He looked up and saw Beebo.

“Are you Miss Brinker? Get his mother, will you? Tell her not to worry—I don’t want two patients on my hands tonight. Better not say much about the wound. Just tell her it’s a bump. We’re hospitalizing him till the risk of hemorrhage is passed.”

“Yes, sir,” Beebo said, and ran out to the garage.

* * * * *

She left her car directly in front of the main entrance to the house where the party was, and went in.

“Excuse me, this is a private party—” said a doorman, but Beebo, with that peculiar air of authority that came to rescue her from various crises, interrupted him calmly.

“Where’s Miss Bogardus?” she said, scanning the living room. “It’s an emergency.”

The butler, who read the gossip columns like everyone else, gazed at her with new interest. “I believe she’s occupied,” he said with a venal smile. Beebo gave him a twenty-dollar bill, too worried even to begrudge it.

“You’ll find her in the back gardens. Out the French doors,” he said, gesturing toward them.

Beebo strode through the champagne-stained living room. Many a famous face glanced at her, and a columnist whispered to his scribe to take notes.

She slipped through the heavy shadows bordering the spotlighted garden. Venus was at the farthest corner. Beebo simply looked for the heaviest concentration of men. In the center, slim and straight in her coruscating sequins, stood Venus Bogardus: a silver exclamation point in the purple dark.

Too much shivaree had followed Beebo out of the house for Venus to be unaware of it. Leo alerted her at almost the exact moment her eyes fell on her lover. There was a half-second of undressed fury visible in her eyes, flashing brighter than her dazzling gown. And then she pulled her pride across her face like a veil.

Beebo walked toward her, her mission making her impossibly sure of herself. The two women eyed each other as Beebo approached down an aisle of staring men, like an infernal bridegroom passing through an honor guard of devils. Luckily, neither Beebo nor Venus were people to collapse in the face of public shock.

Silence fell, except from Leo who said clearly, “I’ll tell you just once, Beebo. _Leave._ You’re fired, and I never want to see you again.” He spoke softly but in the hushed garden his voice carried to the audience of Hollywood topnotchers.

“Fired? I never worked for you, Leo,” Beebo said.

“Venus, tell her to go,” Leo ordered his wife.

But Venus, watching Beebo, loved her enough to feel instinctively that Beebo would not come to humiliate her in public without a drastic reason. With her characteristic public calm, so different from the histrionics she indulged in private, she walked boldly to Beebo and said, “All right, what is it?”

Beebo hadn’t even time to take a breath before she heard Leo say, “By God, you get that kid out of here or I will.”

Venus ignored him, walking toward the house with Beebo coming close in her wake. But this was once that Leo would not let himself be flouted in front of his friends. He had to bring Venus to heel as a matter of pride, and not only because he considered her action self-destructive. It seemed as if Venus were making a donkey of him before God and the world as payment for the years of tolerance and love and patience he had spent on her. It was too much for him. He caught up with her, spun her around, and brushed Beebo aside.

“Tell her to get out of our lives, or I’ll take her apart,” he said. He so rarely threatened Venus that he scared her. But Beebo faced him. “Leo, why in hell do you think I’m here? I came—”

He didn’t let her finish. “You cocky little bitch, you want it all, don’t you? Even her ruination! After all I told you.”

“Let me explain!” Beebo said, alarmed now like Venus. But Leo reached out with icy rage and slapped her face. A red storm swirled up suddenly in Beebo, and she lit into him so hard that for several amazed seconds, he let himself be punched. But when he got his bearings he was after her with all the tornado fury of a cuckolded husband. Every man who had ever shared a bed with Venus Bogardus got a souvenir sock that night—and every girl. Only it was Beebo who took the blows.

She fought well enough, but Leo came on with a wild single-minded lust for vengeance that had her back in the grass before long, heaving for breath, cut and bruised. She would never surrender, and Leo, possessed by years of bitter grievances and pent-up vengeance, was in no mood to be merciful.

Beebo, sinking beneath his punishment, became aware at last that the blows had ceased. She heard Leo give a cry and opened her eyes to see Venus, shoe in hand, glaring at him. She turned to Beebo and her face softened. “Can you get up?” she asked. “I’ll take you home.”

Leo put a hand to the back of his head where the sharp heel had cut his scalp. He brought his fingers away, wet and red, and turned to look at his wife. But Venus, taking advantage of his brief confusion, had pulled Beebo to her feet and rushed her through the house toward the car.

The crowd surging after them deterred Leo’s chase just enough to prevent him from catching them as they drove away. An uneasy silence settled on the party as the silver coupé sped off. Nobody knew what to say to Leo. But he left almost at once, making brusque apologies to his host.

“Well,” said the smug voice of a Hollywood observer, who wrote for one of the trades, “I guess it’s true, after all. I wasn’t going to print it.”

“Print what? What?” the crowd chorused eagerly.

“The tip I got from New York last week.”

“I got it, too,” a woman reporter piped up. “I thought it was sour grapes, but I have my people checking it.”

The guests began to rumble for enlightenment, but the first gossipist said, “Read it in the morning paper, friends.” And he left with several other members of the movie press, all chattering as they walked down the drive.

* * * * *

Beebo slumped in the front seat, her head against the window, mute with pain for several moments.

“We’ll take you home and clean up those cuts, darling,” Venus said, wincing at the sight of them when she stopped for a light.

Beebo shook her head. “Dr. Pitman has Toby at the hospital,” she said. “That’s what I came about.”

“_What?_” Venus was so shaken she almost lost control of the car. Beebo had to grab the wheel from her. “It’s okay, honey, he’s going to be all right,” she said quickly. “He had a seizure, that’s all.”

“God, I knew it was something awful the minute I saw your face,” Venus cried as the car moved erratically down the street. “And that sonofabitch husband of mine had to pound you to pieces—”

“Don’t blame Leo,” Beebo said, her voice soft and drained. “I don’t. It wasn’t me he was hitting so much as all the people who came before me.”

Venus was crying and Beebo tried to make her stop the car. “Toby’s had dozens of seizures in his life, but they didn’t put him in the hospital. What aren’t you telling me?” Venus said.

“He fell,” Beebo said. “We were walking in the garden after the show. He had a seizure and fell, and his head struck a rock. He has a cut on the forehead, but—”

“Oh, dear God!” Venus gasped, and Beebo said, “Stop the car. Damn it, Venus!”

“But we have to get to the hospital—”

“In one piece,” Beebo said. “I’ll drive.”

“You’re in no shape—” Venus began, but Beebo broke in, “I’m in better shape than you are.” She made Venus slide over on the front seat while Beebo walked painfully around the car. Her wounds were the sharp residue of Leo’s wrath—but her head was clear. She started the motor, and told Venus firmly, “Toby’s going to live, and so am I.”

Venus looked down at her sparkling knees, trying to control her weeping.

“Look, honey, if you have any ideas about running to Toby with tears streaming down your face, and carrying on as if the end were near, so help me, I’m going to join Mrs. Sack’s team. She said that’s exactly what you’d do.”

“She’s wrong,” Venus said. It was just enough to prick her conscience into action, and she wiped her eyes while they were still flowing.

Neither of them said anything more about Toby or the coming storm with Leo and the papers till they reached the hospital. Venus insisted that Beebo accompany her inside, and Beebo acceded to keep her from getting frantic.

Toby had a concussion all right. They were making a spinal tap to determine the extent of pressure, if any, on the brain, and to relieve it surgically if necessary. It was urgent to do this as promptly as possible, to avoid brain damage.

“The blow was pretty hard,” Dr. Pitman told them while a nurse dressed Beebo’s wounds in Toby’s room, at Venus’s request. No one dared to question Beebo about them. Venus said imperiously, “She’s hurt. Can you help her?” But her eyes were wild and her thoughts all with Toby.

“Fortunately,” the doctor went on, while Venus bent over her son, peaked and scarcely conscious on the hospital bed, “the skull is thick and tough in the front, with heavier bone than in the back. A blow to the back, of the same force as the one Toby sustained, might have done serious damage. As it is, I’m as concerned about the blood loss as the concussion. We’re preparing a transfusion. He’ll feel a good deal stronger after that than he does now.”

Dr. Pitman looked curiously at Venus. “I must say, Miss Bogardus, you’re taking this better than I expected.”

“Mama?” Toby whispered, and Venus clutched one of his hands in both of hers.

“Yes, Toby,” she said.

“Am I going to be all right?” He looked at her. “I feel so punk.”

“Yes, darling, you are,” she said.

He shut his eyes, reassured, and Venus turned away to cover a sob. The doctor gave her an “I-should-have-known” look and helped her to the door.

“You’re very tired,” he said. “Do you still have some of those yellow pills I gave you at home? All right, I want you to take one and try to rest. You can do Toby more good in the morning, when both of you are feeling better.”

Venus tried to object, but Pitman pulled Beebo aside and said hastily, “I’ve been treating her for years. I know how she can be. If she doesn’t sleep tonight, we’ll see real fireworks, and that will set Toby back if she gets at him.”

Beebo looked at the boy, resting now as the nurses prepared his arm for the blood transfusion, his head neatly bandaged. “Is he really going to be okay, doctor?” she said. “You convince me, and I’ll convince Venus.”

“I think so,” Dr. Pitman said, but his concern was still plain on his face. “To be honest, there is always some risk with any head injury—especially with an epilepsy patient. He needs absolute peace and quiet and as little movement as possible, until the danger of internal hemorrhage is past ... but he’s young and sturdy, and we’ll have a twenty-four-hour watch on him. I do believe, Miss Brinker, that his mother will only be in our way tonight. We’ll call immediately if there’s any change for the worse, but I don’t anticipate one now.”

* * * * *

Beebo took Venus out of the hospital in stages, letting her fold up and rest on chairs in the hall on their way, till she had her in the car and could drive her home.

Venus was forced to expend her frustrated maternal impulses on her hurt lover instead of her hurt child. She investigated and re-dressed all of Beebo’s bruises, making small noises of reproof and pity.

“Thanks for braving that party, darling,” Venus told her. “I’d have died of self-contempt if you hadn’t let me know.”

“Toby would have been all right.”

“Maybe. But I wouldn’t. It would have killed me to let Mrs. Sack do it all again. Especially now when Toby and I are getting so close.”

“Where do you suppose Leo is?” Beebo said, touching a cut with careful fingers.

“I’ll be damned if I know. Or care,” Venus said harshly. “I thought for sure he’d be here, waiting to skin both of us alive. He’ll be around sooner or later, you can bet on that.” She sighed, leaving Beebo to turn on the radio by her bed. “I wish they had let me stay with Toby,” she said. “I’m ashamed that they couldn’t.”

“You can see him first thing in the morning,” Beebo comforted her.

Venus unzipped her sequins and dropped them in a starry heap on a chair. Fifteen-hundred dollars’ worth of dress and she treated it like a dishcloth. There was nothing underneath it but her shoes, which she kicked off.

Beebo put a hand gently on Venus’s neck, massaging it a little. “Maybe this is a poor time to bring it up,” she said softly. “But we have to talk, Venus. I—I love you, but I can’t stand living this way, honey. I realized something in front of those people at the party: I was on trial. My life, my love for you, my self. I can never love you openly, like a human being. They don’t give me credit for being human.”

“Beebo!” Venus said, looking at her with a shocked face. “Don’t say such ugly things. You’re talking about the girl I adore.”

Beebo looked away. “I’m not the kind of person I want to be, Venus. Not the kind I want you to love. I’d rather die than hurt you, but I feel as if I’m dying, anyway ... of shame and ... well, doubt about us. I want to love you somehow without it torturing us both. And I can’t.”

“I know,” Venus said, and Beebo sensed their mutual hopelessness. She embraced her and Venus began to cry. “When I saw him beating you tonight, I could have killed him,” she said, her voice rusty with tears. “It took all the meanness out of me. I just wanted to console you. Beebo, whatever happens to us, always believe that I loved you—I _love_ you.”

“I promise,” Beebo said, but the past tense gave her a premonition of what was coming. “What do you mean, whatever happens?”

“I mean, the papers, and the rest of it. I have to deny everything, Beebo. I have to pretend you’re nothing to me. Oh, darling, understand why!” It was a declaration of love that struck Beebo’s heart.

“I understand,” Beebo said, and thought she did. But she didn’t get quite all of it. For Venus was saying goodby to her. Beebo didn’t know that this loveliest night they would spend together would be the last. She had thought all along that when the end came, she would pick her own time and day to go; not that the whole thing would be out of her control.

Venus said nothing, did nothing, to spoil the night. She was silent about Toby, even though her heart contracted at the thought of him, and she ached to be beside him. She spoke only words of love to Beebo.

Beebo, surprised at Venus’s ardor, gave in at first to humor her, and finally found herself forgetting even the bruises and cuts on her body.

The night was mild and the stars were sprinkled thick as spilled soapflakes across the sky. Venus pushed aside the sliding door to her patio, and they danced out there a while on a rug of cool grass, moving with the music and the air and the three o’clock mocking bird, arch-deep in the tickling soft grass.

Beebo felt as if she could have held and loved her fabulous lady forever. When she leaned down to kiss Venus’s face, her cheek was wet.

“Oh, it’s nothing, darling,” Venus assured her. “I’m just a sentimental idiot. Say you love me and I’ll recover.”

“I love you,” Beebo said. “I love you, Venus.” And to her surprise, her mind was with Paula Ash for a moment. It staggered her a little. Venus stopped dancing and looked up at her in the moonlight. “Do you? Really?” she asked. It wasn’t just a woman’s endless need to be told over and over. It was the knowledge that she wouldn’t hear it again after this night had passed.

Venus loved her enough to hope that when she sent her away in the morning—for she would have to—Beebo’s wounds would heal and she would be able to think back on their love without the regret that rots so many sweet memories.

“Beebo, promise me one last thing, darling, and then I’ll shut up.”

Beebo squeezed her, turning her tenderly to the rhythm of a waltz. “I’ll promise you that moon on a platter if you want it.”

“Promise me you’ll remember this night as long as you live. Everything about it. The stars inches over our heads, and the music, and the grass, and....” The famous voice broke and she cried again.

Beebo picked her up and sat with her on a bamboo garden chair. “Darling, what’s the matter?” she demanded.

“Oh, Toby and—the damn gossipists. I don’t know. It’ll never be the same for us, Beebo.”

Beebo, full of apprehensions, had no comfort to offer her now, except to hold her tight. Then Venus slipped from her arms to the feathery grass and Beebo followed her down, and there were no more questions or tears or promises. Nothing but beautiful oblivion till the trespassing sun announced the morning.

* * * * *

Beebo awoke, a head-to-toe bouquet of blue bruises from the jolting Leo had given her. But it hardly bothered her. Venus had loved her so warmly all night that she was half-ready to hope they could work out some sort of compromise; half-ready to give in to more months of demoralizing secrecy, if it could be like that every night.

Venus called the hospital the moment she awakened, and they reassured her that Toby was no worse; in fact, seemed better.

She hung up, looking as blue as before her call. “Now we have to face Leo,” she said.

“He won’t eat you alive, honey,” Beebo said.

Venus paled suddenly. “Look!” she said, pointing at her dresser. Beebo saw the telltale glass, still coated with orange juice. “He’s already been in looking for trouble.” Venus stole a glance at Beebo, so young and handsome, so vulnerable to the worst ostracism society could offer; and her heart swelled. _I can’t hurt her_, she thought in anguish.

_I’ve had twenty years of adulation and I’ve got more money than I’ll ever use._ She began to wonder if she had the guts to go with Beebo after all. _What the hell, I’ve never loved anybody like this before. Am I afraid to stick to the one person who knows how to make me happy?_

It gave her the courage to try, at least, to defend Beebo against her formidable and stubborn husband.

While she was preoccupied with these thoughts the bedroom door opened. Beebo was just pulling her shoes on, sitting on the edge of the bed in her clothes of the night before. She stiffened, expecting Leo, but it was the corresponding secretary again. “Another telegram,” he said to her. “For you.”

“Thanks, Rod.” Beebo got up to take it and was about to open it when she heard him say, “Good morning, Mr. Bogardus,” and there was Leo. He dismissed Rod with a wave of his hand and Beebo stepped aside wordlessly to let him enter the bedroom. He had a lighted cigar—a bad sign—and another glass of orange juice in his hand. Beebo thrust the telegram in her pocket and followed him in, shutting the door.

“All right,” Leo said. “We’re adults, and we aren’t going to scream at each other. Let me talk first if you please. Beebo, are you all right?”

His board-meeting tone, typical though it was of him, offended her more than an explosion of fury would have. “Relax, Leo, you won’t have to pay any more doctor bills,” she said. She was pleased to see that she had given him a shiner.

“I’ve been to the hospital. I was there all night. I can understand your concern at the party, Beebo. But let me remind you that this house is full of telephones, anyone of which would have got a call through to Venus.”

“Leo, Mrs. Sack told me Venus would—”

“But you preferred to repay my kindness to you by shaming me in public.”

“The doctor said it, too: Venus would get hysterical if she heard over the phone that Toby was hurt and had to be hospitalized.”

“You know it’s true, Leo,” Venus said softly.

“I didn’t go there to shame you, Leo,” Beebo said. “It’s bad enough being holed up in this fort like a prisoner of war, but not so bad I’d do that to you. I just want you to believe one thing: I was really scared about Toby, and I never thought of anything but getting you and Venus to him as fast as I could.”

Leo finished his glass of juice while she talked. “I believe you,” he said. “I also believe you could have sent somebody else and spared us what we’re about to go through—all of us. I’ve been tolerant about Venus’s lovers in the past because they were vital to her existence. But none of them ever treated me like a sucker.”

“Beebo has always treated you respectfully, Leo,” Venus interrupted heatedly. “It isn’t you she’s rebelling against; it’s the way we’ve made her live.”

“What other way is there? Did she think she’d be your escort at parties? Meet all your friends? I think I’ve had to put up with a hell of a lot more than Beebo has. All the worry of this queer situation has been on my shoulders. Christ, I never could understand why a woman would want anything to do with another woman that way, anyway. And if she did, why love a woman who does everything possible to make herself look like a boy? Why not love a real woman? Or a real man? If you want a lover in pants, Venus, I’m available. I have been for years, and I still love you, though God alone knows why.

“If you want to love a female, don’t run after a mistake of Nature like Beebo Brinker.”

“Leo, that’s brutal!” Venus cried. “Beebo can’t help how she was born. Good God, do you think any human being would deliberately choose to live with a problem like this? Leo, there are homosexuals in this world—I’m one myself—emotional strays of one kind or another, who at least have the comfort and privacy of an inconspicuous body to live in. The shelter of a normal sex on one side of the fence or the other.”

“Are you trying to stir my pity for her?” Leo said.

“I don’t want your lousy pity!” Beebo said.

“I’m trying to make you see how it feels,” Venus said urgently. “Leo, what if you’d been raised as a boy and learned to be a man, and had to do it all inside a female body? What if you had all your masculine feelings incarcerated under a pair of breasts? What would you do with yourself? How could you live? Who would be your lover?”

Leo nodded, answering slowly. “That’s what I’m saying: it’s not an easy life, nor a desirable one, no matter where Beebo lives it. And I know she didn’t pick it out. But whether you two like it or not, she is a freak. And I am sorry for her. Now, Venus—do you want me to sit by and watch that kid wreck the career I’ve spent twenty years of my life to build? Yours, my dear—all yours!”

“I don’t want it!” Venus shouted stridently, wanting to hurt and frighten Leo.